People of Sundarbans | Stories of Tiger Attack and Survival

Sundarban is one of the beautiful tourist spot of our country, Every year, people of our country and also foreigners come to visit Sundarban to experience the closest feel of nature. But did we ever notice how people live there? Their story with Tiger, Belief, And their trade system, Including all this topic I'll show you guys the unseen sundarban. I woke up the morning, As we have only one day, We’ll try our best to cover everything today. That’s why we wake up before the sun rises. Now we’ll s

tart our day, And today we’ll explore the non-tourist part, Also we’ll see how Sundarban people live their life. They caught fish in the morning, They are putting them here. They went for catching fish around 5 to 5.30 AM, The fish are so fresh, People here tell me that they don’t use anything on fish. We had dinner with fish, which was so fresh. If you get this much tasty fish, you have fish everyday, The time we came here.. Today they caught less fish than the other day. Today night is the new

moon, So tomorrow morning they can catch a lot of fish. I mean what they think is, The day before new moon, fish hides in the deep water, Then after new moon they can catch a lot of fish, Is it from morning? Yes. How much? 5 Tk. Found my favorite snack. It’s called cream bun here. I was asking people if they had butter bun, They were telling me no. As here’s it has a different name, I always have this whenever I go to the village. Only 5Tk, After so many days, Till 10am, a lot of fish will come

. Different people bring different fish. They are selling it instantly from here. Some people are buying it to sell. From here the fish goes to a lot of places in Bangladesh. So they keep bringing fish till 12pm. Then the whole place is crowded. There is a lots of type fish, So many people are standing here just to see a variety of fish. Lots of variety… They are buying it from here by bargaining. The fish is so fresh that they don't use preservatives in it. That’s why the taste of fish here is

too good. Here, we’ll see how the soft shell crab is born. It's a crabs farm. I mean, “Gher” is actually a farm. This crab is actually born from this shell. This is so soft. They can’t bite. But if it is hard, it can hurt someone. This is a soft shell crab. They send it for processing. This is a soft sell, you can eat it all. It’s meat. But Hard shell crab had less meat. Here, meat is less than bone. Touch it. Does this box have crab in it? Yes, all the boxes are full with crabs. Sometimes we ha

ve to feed it. You can understand if you saw this. Let’s open the box. Look at the shell and the crab size. The shell gets bigger and it looks like this. They are giving them food here. We keep water and mud in a specific measurement. That’s how the shell is created. If it’s not done like that then the crabs are dead. For crab farming you have to balance the water and food in a specific measurement. Otherwise the crab will die. The soft shell crab we get in other places in Bangladesh are from he

re. Brother showed us that if it was a hard shell then it can hurt us. You can eat everything in soft shell crab, can't it, brother? Whole crab can be eaten. The meat of the soft shell is really tasty. I had it before. We’re going to a shrimp farm now. There are a lot of shrimp farms. They cultivate shrimp here. They send it to so many places. And they also sell here. White gold.. White gold?? I mean white gold. Shrimp is called White gold here. We call it Shrimp. They call it White Gold Oh my g

od! I was going to the white gold somehow.. Crabs are also here. yes . There are a lot of crabs. See how many crabs are here?? Uncle, where will you go now with this? On the market. How much can you sell it for? 600-550 Tk. This Tiger prawns is pricy, It costs 1000-1200 Tk per KG. 1000-1200 Tk kg? Yes. Its size is bigger. Too big. You can sell it all today? Yes, I can. Do you farm all day? All I do is farm work, Sometimes I went to give fertilizer to the field, That side has a big pond. And othe

rwise I do garden works, Potato farming, planting vegetables… You do a lot of work. Vegetable plantation and so on… That's good, I’ll sell that all then go to my home, I'll go home from market Do you keep anything for yourself? We eat a few We don’t eat some fish, We eat those as they are cheap Then this is a low price. Sometimes we have this shrimp. We have Tiger shrimp when we have less buyers. This isn’t that fresh the time it is sent to dhaka. The fishes are wet going Dhaka Because ice is gi

ven here. They put ice in it. Yesterday when we had fish here it was so fresh. It tasted amazing. Now we are finally going to the fishermen. We’ll listen to a song there. The song is called “Munda song” They pray with that song before going to the Jungle. So that they safely went there and went back also. There was river bed before, right? The tree was here. Tiger was here that time. In that place. Tiger can swim also. Yes they can. A large part of the Sundarbans are fishermen. After going to fi

shermen village, We got to know from them, how they are depending on Sundarbans for their livelihood for years. Their trust, believe everything was around this place. Are you catching fish now? My eyesight is not so good now. When was the last time you saw a tiger? First time I saw tiger in “Khamuti Ghat”. How far was it from you? This far. About 10 feet away Then? I was catching fish, then I saw it was coming to attack me. He can't control himself no? If he sees a human, he wants to attack them

. Whenever it sees a human it attacks and bites on the neck. I have my mother and sister’s support. Whenever we went to caught fish, I visit my sister and mother, They pray so that we stay safe And told them to pray for me so that we don’t get in the danger. You’ll protect me if there is any problem. This uncle really told us a story in an interesting way. Still he has the mental strength that, If a tiger comes in front of him, it will go away after seeing him. He has a great mental strength, Al

hamdulillah. He had heart attack for two times, Still he has the mental strength that we don’t. Ask him his age. I don’t know. Yes, it can be forgettable. It might be something near 57 or something It’s called a story… It’s called story drama,, Including people from here and also foreign people come here to Experience this story drama. Yess yess, I was thinking the same who directs it We direct it, they perform. Thank you. You expressed it beautifully. There are so many dramas I have made. Also

made drama for foreigners, You have to say “Allah” Whoever goes there, goes by the name of god. My brother doesn’t go to the jungle, so we have to. Do you go to the jungle? Yes. When did you last go there? We keep going We have to go there often. Often... to fed ourselves We are from Dhaka, we see tigers from a different perspective. Do you think watching tigers from up close is good? Who wants to go in front of a Tiger? No one.. Some people can, who know tigers well. There are different types o

f songs.. My father showed a tiger.. The tiger attacked him. I’ve fought with a tiger like 2 or 3 times. You? Yes. And my younger brother went to fishing, That time the tiger attacked him. The tiger attacked him with the paw, And then the other people beat the tiger but he was between his legs. He ran away from the tiger's hand I have a scar here. We cannot leave Sundaraban being scared of tiger We are professionals, we are fisherman, But everything is in that Jungle.. I’ll go now and come back

after 3 days, So that we can live our life properly. You take risks to go there, don’t you guys get scared? What's the point of being scared? But there’s nothing to do, We don’t have anything on our own, Our relationship is with Fish and crabs. What’s your name? My name is Gopal sena. It was nice to talk with you. This is a special song.. You can sing? Everyone can actually. I know a little. Women and men, everyone knows these songs. Can you sing for us? Everyone is going, it’s fun right? They’l

l sing us a song, You can’t interact with people if you don’t know how to.. Cause you don’t know when, what to say, People that live here don’t know about interaction.. I’ve traveled a lot so I know how to talk with people. She is smart.. Where are we going now? We’re going where they always do their prayers. Now this is winter, so the tiger always stays on the bank of the river For sunbathing.. All the time… It’s not safe to come here on cold weather, But still we came.. You know why? Because i

t’s cold so tiger always come here near the river, To feel the sun. It stays closer in winter. It always lies down here, Because he gets the sun here.. It always lies down here, When their body gets warmer, they go back to the jungle. So you guys don't come here this time?? No, never.. Because this is the time when the tiger comes closer. But in summer the water gets higher, So tigers don’t come near.. Now that it’s winter, the water comes down.. So the tigers come here to feel the sun. Their bo

dies get warmer. Tigers cross the river from there,, Sometimes from here.. But it mostly crosses from that corner. Then we shouldn’t stay here anymore. On winter days it gets closer. Tigers come on the bank for sunbathing It doesn't matter, we come here often. We eat rice from the same stall.. Sweets that we eat, you have the same.. The betel leaf we eat, you have the same.. That means we are the same, no? We eat the fish you guys caught. Yes yes.. It was nice to spend time with them. They narra

te the story beautifully. And they are so brave that We got so much inspiration from them. So many people come to Sundarbans, If you don’t come here, you won’t understand the story behind the people of sundarban. You can see a lot of things at tourist spots. But I’m here because Tourist or visitors won’t come this place, Or you can’t if you want to. So I think you can understand even a little. We’re going to Mundapara by bike. Sadi is riding a bike after a long time. I used to go to university b

y bike. They make crabs with a soft shell here. Then they process it and sell it on food network app They also make ready to eat crabs.. Then if you want to.. They also sell it in restaurants. I ate their crabs on a video. So today I'll buy ready to eat crabs from them. Now we are going to Mundapara, Here, we’ll learn about their daily life, How they live, and what they do.. We’ll try to understand their beautiful life and their story. How are you,uncle? Where do you live? We came from Dhaka. Ou

r old Mundas are actually farmers.. I mean that time there was nothing other than rice cultivation. Like I don’t have any field of my own. I couldn't build my own land even as lender Everything went on my body Imagine if me and my wife cultivate rice in 10 bigha, for like 3 months. Bhadra, Ashin, Karthik The loans we will have in these 3 months the rice we will get after this cultivation It would have been tough for us to give anything to our owner Yet we couldn't eat anything That’s why we used

to work on other things. Now everything has changed. Wages increased.. Because the work segments are increasing. Now there is improvement in many ways, I don’t go to the Jungle.. Sometimes Nepalese would go. We people don’t go there often. I’m asking a lot of people if they saw a tiger. This…. I don’t know what to say.. I pray that this does not happen again. What happened? It was a small lake.. I was riding a boat there to catch crabs.. Tiger was hiding in the Jungle. I heard a sound… I was th

inking what the sound was.. So I was looking around.. And saw that it was preparing for attack behind the hetal tree.. Then I and my brother were shouting for help. It was like 20min.. We had our protections and tools but there was no time. I mean he could’ve attacked us on the boat. Oh my god! -We were in such a situation Allah! It was big, no? Yes..adult tiger. When we stand up, it attacks us. When we beat him, he technically avoided it. Our Mundapara tour is done. It’s a tribal area. The plac

e they are living.. This is their pond.. The government gave them the place. Government will it for them to live, There are a total of six families here. And there are 23 families here. I mean they live like a group. They don’t catch fish but they are mostly farmers. Their stories are totally different. I mean, people that live here, They all have their own different stories. Some people met tigers, some didn’t. Some fought with tigers. These types of stories make me surprised. We live in a plac

e where we work and sleep. But the way they struggle to bring their life to this point you can understand by their stories that in many places of Bangladesh there's many beautiful stories hidden. We showed you the first day like this that if you come visit Sundarbans as tourist what scopes you have except ships. The reason to come here sis people don't visit here regularly. Those who can't come can get to know how the aboriginal people live here. There's only "Bagh-bidhoba" in our artinary, righ

t? So what happened is, we saw in news that there's a locality called "Bagh-Bidhoba." We were really excited about it. that people will have different stories here. As many people with different stories live here. Well, before that, let's talk about who the tiger-widow is Those whose husbands died by tigers are called tiger-widows But as we have been hearing that there is a village here, where tiger widows all live together It's not like that Maybe when they made the video with a lot of people,

a message was conveyed to the audience in such a place they all live together Actually it is not like that at all. So as we talked to many people, While we didn't exactly find tiger-widows, we did find many whose fathers had died. Killed by the tiger whose father-in-law is dead, whose uncle is dead I mean we got stories like that We could have heard the same story from the widow But why is it a little difficult to hear the story from the tiger widow... That most of them.... I watched a documenta

ry When girls are 11-12 or 13 years old they get married Then it turns out that… it happened that within a year her husband died after being attacked by a tiger Since many religions live here, not all religions permit remarriage after the death of a husband. So the girl. . . whose age is 15-20 maybe 25 His life passes like that. I watched those stories from different channels. The saddest thing is when you hear from them how their lives have gone. It is more difficult if she has two or three chi

ldren Not her own expense alone, The expense of her children's education or raising them alone is too much trouble for her. Because the man who died after being attacked by a tiger was not sitting at home. He went to that place for some work purpose That means their life was already difficult. They went for wage -Yes, they went there for wage It's not like they went for fund We can say jokingly as we are here to travel It will be good to meet the tiger Actually, it's not like that for the people

here. Listening to everyone's story, it is clear that How terrible the thing will be if you actually run into a tiger Only those who have seen tigers in front of them can tell We might have seen tigers in the zoo. We might have been very happy if we had come to see a tiger But God forbid, I don't want that someone die such tragically because many have said so it is difficult for one who has once been caught by a tiger to survive. They pray not to see it again Once I saw it, I survived I survive

d in the name of Allah But to face it again... there is no guarantee that they will be able to return. Only those who live can tell how terrible it is. Their song that we listened they sing that and pray. And then go to the jungle So that their Goddess.... They actually want protection. that "Give us some protection." They pray for protection through song. Then they go inside. The time we went Today is the 12th of November Time is very risky. What is the reason for the risk of time? As winter ap

proaches, more water will dry up And when the water dries up, the tiger will come here Many times he will come to drink water or sunbathe in winter This is the time we went in the afternoon. The sun is high during the afternoon So they are according to those who live here The tiger comes this time to drink water So they were saying we never come this time or this season. Because there is risk. We won't know better than that if it's risk. They told us after we came back after the tour was done It

was better Because they understood that as we are from Dhaka We are not used to these things If we had been told earlier, we would have been afraid that when we will leave! So by the grace of Allah, Alhamdulillah, we were able to return properly It is a big adventure for us. Or what we could show you If you get this feeling sitting at home. But for them it is daily life. Something that is luxury for you is actually need of some They have to do it. They have to go to the jungle to meet their nee

ds even if they have to fight with a tiger Still in 2024 they have to live like this. Subtitle by: Shanjin Sharita and Nilima Zaman