A tiger’s life

As the tiger of the story wonders why stripes and not spots (like a leopard), or expresses irritation when birds and monkeys remain too high, we find ourselves asking whether this tiger can speak for all tigers? In R. K. Narayan’s A Tiger for Malgudi, Raja knows sadness (his family killed and carried off by hunters) and rage (whipping, starvation, and electric shocks as prep for circus and filming). When a sage mysteriously accepts him as a fellow soul – a tiger only in appearance – we are caught off-guard by magnificence.