As the sun sets on Karwa, the lone bicycle rider on the road from Shivni, a marketplace 15 km away, pedals furiously. In Karwa, a village near Vidarbha’s Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve, the fear of the beast is real—as real as the night that closes in stealthily.

“Tigers have been killing people in neighbouring villages. Fortunately, we have been spared so far. But if the tiger strikes, we will have to face it. What else can we do,” said Kashinath Mankar, a villager.

While Mankar was talking, a tiger was mauling 45-year old Kalidas Gulab Meshram, a leprosy patient at Baba Amte’s Somnath project, 15 km away. His body was recovered on Friday morning. Meshram, a shepherd, had returned to the forest to look for his missing goat when he became the 27th victim of a tiger attack since January 2006. Tigers have killed nine people in the forests near the reserve in the last three months.

Karwa has a typical problem. “We have no state transport bus to the market at Shivni, where we go to fetch our groceries. We have to travel on bicycles or on foot—that takes us anything between 90 minutes and 3 hours. All this while, we pray to god to get us back safely,” said sarpanch Bhaurao Wadhai.

Thick forests flank the road to Shivni, which is often closed during the rainy season. Karwa got its first state transport bus—to Chandrapur-only in December 2006. “But that doesn’t take us to Shivni. Chandrapur is 65 km away and we don’t need to go there often,” said Wadhai. Karwa has only a primary school and children who want to study beyond that will have to stay in ashram schools—the nearest is 13 km away. The primary health centre is at Wasera, 15 km away.

... contd.