A heart-wrenching poem by Moinak about missing tigers, raising awareness against illegal poaching of the wild cats.

Every year, they are going missing,
From Parks, Sanctuaries,
From registers as they are christened
By T, symbolic of their species,
How are the wild cats going missing?
From woods, dark and silent, where ruined
Everything that nature offers,
Where had they all gone?
To which poaching den? Which heaven?
How are they going missing every day?
From parks, forests, and Sanctuaries,
River tributaries,
They are all going missing
Where they had all gone,
The twelve beautiful things?
Which den? Which heaven?

*Note: Based on a report of the missing tigers from the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, at least twelve tigers are found to be missing within a span of a few years. Between 2010 and 2014, five tigers, denoted by numbers such as T-31, went missing. The poem is written as an awareness campaign against illegal poaching and the killing of wild animals.

Picture design Anumita Roy

Moinak Dutta

Born in September 1977 to an immigrant family, Moinak Dutta has been writing poems and stories from school days. His first published poem appeared in The Statesman, in 1999. Since then many of his poems and stories have been published in national and international anthologies and magazines. He wrote book reviews, including one on Upanishads. His two fictions are ‘Pestilence’ (2009) and "Online@offline" (2014). He blogs regularly and is interested in photography, films and music.

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