Manish Kalani Captures Five Generations Of Ranthambore Tigresses In New Book

When acclaimed wildlife photographer Manish Kalani took up photography in 2016, he didn’t know it would become a serious passion and usher him into a “true calling.” When he started going on safaris after a professional career in real estate, he didn’t know the ABCs of photography but was interested to learn. After being told he had a keen eye for composition, he accompanied seasoned photographers into the forest and kept asking questions to better his craft like what settings to use and how to shoot a particular frame.

As a marker of how far he has come, he has now released his first coffee table book titled “The Warrior Queens of Ranthambore: Riddhi, the Reigning Queen” with over 500 extraordinary photographs of Machhli—the legendary tigress who ruled Ranthambore National Park for a decade—and her descendants, including her daughter Krishna, granddaughter Arrowhead, great-granddaughter Riddhi, and Riddhi's cubs. All of them ruled the lake zone—the prime safari spot of a national park.

The book’s launch event took place on July 25, 2024, and was attended by the chief guest and member of the Rajya Sabha, Digvijaya Singh; the general secretary and CEO of WWF-India, Ravi Singh; renowned filmmaker Subbiah Nallamuthu who is known for his tiger documentaries; Daulat Singh Shaktawat, a former wildlife officer at Ranthambore; and senior director of biodiversity conservation at WWF-India, Dipankar Ghose. Environmentalist Jai Dhar Gupta moderated a panel discussion on the role of emotions in tiger conservation.

The photographs span a period of eight years and pay homage to the legacy of Ranthambore’s tigresses who ruled their territory with dignity. Speaking about the project Kalani said, "It was some 10 years back that I went to Ranthambore and the only stories I heard were of the legendary Machhli who was hailed as the “Queen of the Forest.” Her stories, and how every other tigress was related to her, piqued my interest. That is when I decided to explore Machhli's family tree and the project was conceived.” The photographer also utilised late wildlife photographer and friend Aditya "Dicky" Singh's vast archive on Machhli for the book.

The tigress passed away at the age of 20 in 2016 which made her the world’s oldest-surviving tigress in the wild at the time. She was named after her mother and it is estimated that at the time of her death, at least half of Ranthambore’s 60-odd tigers were descended from her. Kalani’s book is India's first and only wildlife coffee table tome dedicated to five generations of the tigresses of Ranthambore, a unique distinction that fills him with pride.

“I don’t know how many pictures I had [when I started to put the book together]. I think the first shortlist was maybe 5,000 or 8,000 pictures. The second shortlist had maybe 2,000 pictures. The third shortlist was 1,000 pictures, and so on. I reduced it to some 400-odd pictures that you see in the book,” he says.

“When I finally compiled the book, all [the] other photographer friends of mine were critical saying, ‘Manish, we have never seen a coffee table book this thick in our lives. You are just making it logistically more difficult for people to buy and carry it with them.’ I said [that it was the only way] to do justice to the subject I have chosen, capturing 54 different tigers from 10 families of Ranthambore covering five generations.”

The project has deepened Kalani’s passion for wildlife conservation. As a boy, he would accompany his father on safaris in India and abroad but it was only when he took an extended sabbatical from his real estate business that his love and wonder for India’s wild inhabitants was reignited. He has since learnt many things in his time as a wildlife photographer.

"What I have learnt through my experience in the forest is that I think humans have a lot to learn from these animals of how to protect the environment. They care about the environment that they live in. Why can’t we care about our environment?” he says.

“Look what’s happened to Delhi, look what’s happened to any other metro city. When the animals protect the environment where they live in, everything that they do is for a reason. If a tiger is killing a herbivorous animal, it is for protecting the fauna. All three of them co-exist. Unfortunately, that’s not happening in the cities.”

Kalani is similarly forthright about the fact that over-tourism in India’s national parks is due to the illogical decision to open up only a portion of them to tourists. He cites the example of how well South Africa maintains its wild lands and animals as one that India should follow. “My way of looking at it is since only 20 per cent of the forest is open, you are overcrowding the forest which is disturbing the tigers. Are we saying that the tigers [in one area] can be disturbed but the tigers in the 80 per cent [area] should not be disturbed? What kind of logic is that? [We should] distribute the vehicles in the whole of the forest, in every forest of India. You will increase tourism. You will have less number of vehicles per square kilometre of density and the tigers will not automatically get disturbed since less number of vehicles means less disturbance,” he says.

He looks back with fondness at one of his favourite anecdotes from the book. “I was in Ranthambore shooting when I spotted Riddhi who was just 10 days old then. My daughter is named Ridhima and when I posted those photos on social media, I called her Ridhima too. Later, the forest department formalised her name as Riddhi. I keep saying that I have two daughters: one who lives in New York and the other in Ranthambore,” he says.

Ultimately though, Kalani hopes readers feel a sense of respect and love for the animals featured in the book. “[We have to] be responsible towards saving whatever we can for the future generations. If we don’t do it then our generations will never experience what I have experienced in this book,” he says.