Fearless and free, Solo was no ordinary tiger. This is the story of her glorious reign.
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00:00Suddenly, something comes out from the left, and I'm like, tiger, tiger, tiger.
00:14But then when she came, she came with a bang.
00:17Every day she was being sighted, and when she walked in front of the vehicles, the vehicles
00:21pushed back.
00:22She walked with an attitude, she walked with confidence, ah, Solo.
00:31And as Bermuda approached, she started crouching down, and started snarling like that.
00:36Bermuda takes his right paw and rips open Solo's chest.
00:43At that moment, I thought she was going to die.
00:46That's where the story unfolds, which we don't know.
00:57This is Suyash Keshri.
00:59He's a wildlife filmmaker and presenter, and has spent over a decade in the forests of
01:04Bandhavgarh.
01:05He's been tracking the tiger, Solo, for years, and has given brute access to some of the
01:10intimate moments in her life.
01:13This is a land of myths and legends.
01:15In Hindu mythology, it's believed that Ram gifted it to Lakshman during his Vanvyaas.
01:22A land where royalty reigned supreme.
01:25Earlier, it used to be a fort, or rather it used to be a hunting ground for the Maharajas.
01:31A land walked by mighty beasts.
01:35And we were driving, driving, and suddenly the guide in the front was like, Sir, tiger!
01:44This is the Bandhavgarh National Park.
01:51Deep in the heart of the national park, the 2000-year-old fort was the seat of power for
01:55many dynasties.
01:58In 1968, it was declared as a tiger reserve and a national park, and since then hunting
02:03has been banned.
02:07As the region shifted hands through the centuries, yet another dynasty started claiming the land.
02:13The Royal Bengal Tigers.
02:15That is where our story begins, with the Tiger Queen, Raj Behra.
02:25Raj Behra was a very, very bold tigress.
02:29She was never scared to fight another tiger, and she was a very dedicated mother.
02:36Born in 2007, Raj Behra was the daughter of Jhurchhara.
02:40She had inherited her mother's territory and reigned over the area around the fort
02:44in the heart of Bandhavgarh.
02:46They're full of grasslands, they're full of water bodies, there are few hills in the middle,
02:52and all of them have beautiful deep caves.
02:56She gave birth to a litter of one male and three female cubs.
03:01Her daughter, Solo, was next in line.
03:09I saw Solo first time when she was about four and a half, five months old, and I clearly
03:15remember it even to this day.
03:17Solo would go under the log, and the other cub would climb on top of the log, and they
03:22would fight, and then they would switch positions.
03:24Then they would fight, then they would switch positions.
03:26And the mom looking at a distance, this proud mom, like, those are my kids.
03:32And here she is, the crown princess.
03:36Meet Solo.
03:37Ah, Solo.
03:38You know, sometimes it's very difficult, I don't know where to begin and where to end.
03:44I think I can talk about her my entire life.
03:46But among the Raj Bhairav litter, Solo was the one that always used to be out there independently.
03:53So people are like, you know, she's the Solo female.
03:57She's always alone.
03:59So they gave her the name Solo.
04:03Solo, she had a very slender face, and she had two fish-like patterns above her eye,
04:09and then one on this side as well.
04:12As soon as Solo came of age, she wanted to claim her kingdom.
04:16She had grown up here.
04:17She knew the best spots to hunt, eat, drink, hide.
04:21Why would she ever want to leave?
04:23There was one problem.
04:25Her mother was still queen.
04:29Between mothers and daughters, or even between siblings, fights look really bad, but they
04:35aren't that bad.
04:36They're not fatal.
04:37The first to go down and submit loses.
04:40So she took over her mother's territory.
04:42A lot of people say that, you know, Solo fought with her mother so much that her mother died.
04:48That's not true.
04:50The prodigal daughter had arrived.
04:53And she had big plans.
04:59And then this Solo Tigress suddenly kind of disappeared.
05:04People weren't seeing her enough, and people were a little concerned, what is going on?
05:08That's where the story unfolds, which we don't know.
05:11But then when she came, she came with a bang.
05:14Every day she was being sighted.
05:16And when she walked in front of the vehicles, the vehicles pushed back.
05:19She walked with an attitude.
05:20She walked with confidence.
05:22So she made it with three males, and then she gave birth.
05:26But that litter did not survive.
05:29Her first litter did not survive at all.
05:31And they were killed by an intruding mare.
05:37Male tigers will kill the cubs they haven't fathered to push their own gene forward.
05:41And soon enough, there was another king in Solo's life.
05:45Mangu's a huge tiger, enormous tiger.
05:49And I've seen him only a couple times, and he is massive.
05:57Solo's second litter of cubs was born in late 2018.
06:02She wasn't getting them out at all.
06:05This is perhaps because Solo had already lost her first litter of cubs, and she was being
06:09extra careful in making sure that once they come out, they're big enough, they're strong
06:14enough.
06:17Call it mother's intuition, call it what you will, but Solo was right.
06:21On 4th January 2019, Keshri was out trying to find her cubs.
06:27That day, I saw Solo, and she crossed the road and went to the left.
06:34And all the way in the grassland, I saw another tiger.
06:39When he came closer, we realized it's not Mangu, it's Bermera Jr., another mare who
06:45traverses Solo's territory but has not fathered the cubs.
06:48And as Bermera approached, she started crouching down and started snarling like that.
06:53And suddenly, they both got up on their hind legs and literally started fighting.
06:59And then Solo decided that if she does not stop him, he's going to kill her cubs.
07:04And it was a very heartbreaking moment to see this mother like that.
07:10She gets up, Bermera gets up as well, and they start fighting again.
07:14Bermera takes his right paw and rips open Solo's chest.
07:20At that moment, I thought she was going to die.
07:23But she comes back and she fights Bermera.
07:27So he submits and starts walking away.
07:30And Solo, like kicking, screaming, she drives this male away.
07:41After the incident with Bermera Jr., things started looking up for Solo.
07:46Her cubs were big enough to venture out with her, and she hadn't had any other encounters
07:50with rogue males.
07:52Life was good.
07:55May 2019, I started filming her.
07:59The first time I saw her was with Akhil.
08:07And suddenly, out of nowhere, it was kind of anticlimactic, because we were waiting,
08:11waiting, waiting, and she comes, and behind her, three cubs.
08:17And the fourth one pops out.
08:19And it was amazing.
08:20They came, they crossed the road, they ran towards the carcass, and they completely demolished
08:26it.
08:27They fought with each other.
08:28So one of the cubs, he actually jumped onto the carcass and made sure that his sisters
08:33could not eat, and wanted all of the carcass to himself.
08:41Then next day, in the morning, we found them playing.
08:45In the evening, we found them climbing trees, which is very rare.
08:49Tigers never climb trees, but Solo used to climb trees as a cub, and her cubs climbed
08:53trees as a cub as well.
08:54And that's when we fall in love with those tigers.
08:59Solo was a happy queen in her thriving kingdom.
09:02But in January 2020, there was news that one of the cubs went missing.
09:06Then Solo went missing.
09:08The forest department sent out search and rescue parties, and Keshri and his team joined in.
09:14After about half an hour, first cheetal call came.
09:17It means a tiger.
09:18You know, when cheetal deer see tiger, or langur see tiger, they make alarm calls.
09:22Langur typically go like, ah, ah, ah, like that.
09:26So we finally found Solo.
09:29Where are the cubs?
09:30Waiting, waiting, waiting.
09:31No alarm calls.
09:32Suddenly, something comes out from the left.
09:33And I'm like, tiger, tiger, tiger.
09:34And my naturalist and the guide just wake up, and they're like, wow.
09:43Second cubs.
09:44Second cubs.
09:45Guide goes, tiger, tiger, tiger.
09:47Third tiger comes.
09:48Then the naturalist goes, tiger, tiger, tiger.
09:51And unbelievably, we see the fourth one coming through.
09:56From the outside, everything was well.
09:59But unknown to Keshri and his team, there was something dark conspiring in the shadows.
10:05In March 2020, the novel coronavirus had spread across the world, and India went into lockdown.
10:11The national park was closed to the public.
10:14On June 17th, I was there in Bandhukar, and the next day I saw Solo.
10:22She looked a little frail, and I observed some wounds on Solo's paw.
10:28She was licking the wounds and constantly kept looking back, either for the cubs or
10:32either because she felt threatened.
10:35I was supposed to go late October, but news within the first week said coming through
10:41that Solo had moved from her territory into a territory near the buffer area.
10:51Solo did not want to go back into her territory because there were too many males in her territory.
10:57Another female is trying to encroach on her territory.
11:01There's no space left for her.
11:03Little did he know that June would be the last time he saw Solo ever again.
11:10The queen had fallen.
11:13On October 17th, I got a very tragic news.
11:17The unfortunate incident happened.
11:21Solo was found dead, and her carcass was already decayed, which means she had been dead for
11:27quite some time.
11:30She was a fighter.
11:31She was an absolute fighter.
11:33What happened?
11:36Some people were saying that another male killed her.
11:39Some people were saying she was poisoned.
11:42Some people were saying she died of natural causes.
11:45But the fact of the matter is she died.
11:49This is one tiger which is highly endangered.
11:53It's a breeding female in a national park, and we've lost her.
12:00Solo along with one of her cubs was found dead under the Dhamoker range in the buffer
12:04area of Bandhavkar.
12:06While the forest department had yet to release the official report on her death, national
12:10media reported that it was likely a case of retribution killing by the villagers.
12:16The other three cubs, one male and two females, have been missing since.
12:21And there's no closure.
12:24What happened?
12:25Why did it happen?
12:27What was she doing there?
12:30Ten years down the line, we don't want to be in a situation where we're telling our
12:33kids that, listen, we knew how to protect tigers, we knew that we needed to connect
12:40different habitats, we knew we needed to relocate more villages, we knew we needed to educate
12:46more people and train more people, we knew how to save the tigers.
12:53We let them go.
13:03We let them go.