efore embarking upon writing this essay, first let me ask you, \u201cDo you know that the Cheetah, the charismatic spotted-yellow-bodied feline, the speediest runner among the mammals, once roamed in the Indian forests as well?\u201d

Now I guess you might be confusing them with Leopards, another spotted-yellow-bodied feline found in Indian forests, as we generally do. The fact remains that the very last entity of Cheetah was wiped out from the Indian subcontinent years ago. Iran is most likely the only place currently, where some of them still survive outside of Africa (there were reports of finding one dead animal in Pakistan recently).

Other than the taxonomical mismatches, there are quite a few differences in the outer body format of the Cheetah and the Leopard, so that one can easily distinguish between them. Cheetahs have more prominent spots; Leopards have more like rosettes all over their bodies. A Cheetah has a smaller head, more rounded ears, black lines from its eyes to lips, narrower legs, a very thin waist; unlike the other cat species, Cheetahs cannot fully retract their claws. A Leopard is more muscular, much stronger. They can carry a spotted deer up to the branches of a tree. Yes, they can climb up a tree; in fact, they are the number one in the cat family in this regard, and there is no evidence of a Cheetah climbing a tree. Another very important fact is that Cheetahs can easily be tamed and there has never been any instance of a man-eating Cheetah. Leopards, on the other hand, are famous as man-eaters (we recall the man-eating Leopard ofRudraprayag shot by Corbett). Actually, Cheetahs\u2019 jaws are smaller, and perfectly adaptable for a limited prey base.

Now coming to the main topic, Cheetah in India. There are hundreds of records of Cheetahs being tamed and used to entertain the Badshahs and rich people in India with their hunting skills. Even today we can find a locality \u201cCheetahwalon Ka Maholla\u201d near Jaipur. The taming process is a highly sophisticated one, and the Indians managed it well, no doubt about that. Moghul Emperor Akbar once possessed 1,000 Cheetahs. The \u201cShikaarnama\u201d (hunting book), commissioned by his son, Jehangir, has detailed records and images of the-then Cheetahs in India.

You may well ask whether there is a guarantee that those cheetahs were not imported from Africa. Well, I can say, the imports of zebras, falcons, hawks, turkeys, caracals and so forth are listed, but there is no record of importing Cheetahs. And we do have records of having 20,000-30,000 Cheetahs in India! Given that the Cheetah is hard to breed in captivity, they must have been available in Indian forests in abandon. Also, there is a major difference between the African and the Asian (sometimes called Iranian or Indian) Cheetah. The tip of the tail of the African one has white, whereas the Indian one has black color.

Like the caracals, the Indian Cheetah was subject to the same fate of diminishing in number, as a result of random catching and keeping them in captivity by Indians. In the times of Moghuls this tendency reached the highest level. Next came the British, and hence, the last nail to the Indian Cheetah\u2019s coffin! Instead of allowing the Cheetahs to use their skills to catch prey, the British found entertainment in killing the Cheetahs brutally as a game. After India\u2019s independence, their ways of entertainment were soon faithfully reproduced by some foolish Indian Maharajahs.

Today, our generation is happy enough at just finding the Cheetahs in action across some narrow grassland chasing a blackbuck in the Discovery or National Geographic channels. Most of us are unaware of the fact that Cheetah was native to our country. In today\u2019s world every living being except human is in the endangered list, but the Cheetah, being neither as mighty as the tiger, the