Author: Ranjit Lal
Publisher: IndiaInk
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 343
ISBN/UPC (if available): 8186939288
Description
Orphaned in a car accident, fourteen-year-old Shikha and five-year-old Sunny reach Shergarh House, on the edge of the Shergarh Tiger Reserve, to live with their uncle Binoy, an eccentric painter. In the company of Aslambhai (a retired forest guard) and his mischievous grandson Ali, the children enter a new world: that of the sights and sounds of the jungle. Encouraged by Field Director Mr Rana’s daughter, Dipti, and watched over by her family, the children begin to enjoy their forays into the reserve. And get inexorably drawn in the lives of the reserve’s magnificent tigers: macho doofus Shahenshah, ferocious Sheba and even terrifying Shaitan.
But then, Veena aunty A K A Snail Snot turns up, a social worker who is set to inveigle herself into Binoy chacha’s life and who wants to discredit the reserve in what ever way she can as part of her Good Work. Accompanied by her unpleasant cousin, the slimeball Randhir, and his equally dubious friends, she is determined to send the children to separate boarding schools by whatever means possible. As the two hatch their diabolical plans, the children’s lives seem ready to fall apart, again.
But will the doughty Shikha allow that to happen? Will Sunny, struck dumb by the shock of the car crash, stop clinging to his sister and speak again? Will the two children, who run away into the reserve pursued by Veena, Randhir and his cronies, survive the perils of the forest? Can the small tigers of Shergarh turn the tables on the villains and live up to their name?