How the very visuals create a perception, right? Look at the cat family. Well, I am not referring here to the group merely technically. What I mean is, I will not be discussing here the evolutionary relationship the 'felidae' family shares among its members.
Unmistakably, they all, the cat, the serval, the caracal, the cheetah, the leopard, the tiger, and the lion share the gene pool. Each has a unique personality as well. The serval is an African wild cat. The caracal has bunny ears. The rare cheetah literally has a windspeed. The leopard is wily. The tiger is ferocious.
Unique, however, is the lion. Its very look is royal. The majestic mane, the piercing look, the athletic, agile and beautifully built body, the very visual effect is grand, right?The lion cubs, too, are the cutest, mewling the soft way, naughtily playing endlessly with siblings and cousins.Very soon, that meow would resound in to a roar the whole jungle would listen to.
A lioness, too, is a 'thing of beauty', what with the pale golden colour, the spring in the step, the ochre golden eyes, the slim, trim waistline, and so on. The lionesses are the arch feminists in my opinion. They hunt for the family, they care for their own cubs, and provide a sisterly support to the other lionesses in the pride in child rearing, in hunting, in keeping the pride together.
Yes, they are big built. Of all the off-shoots of the 'felidae' family, the lions/lionesses might be the heaviest. I think, a lion is weightier than a tiger, though right now I do not have the data to prove it either ways. Surely the lions appear larger. So appears their personality, at least as perceived imaginatively.
Yes, a lion is a carnivore, too. Yet somehow a lion appears noble, has a majestic look. A lion does not appear violent or vicious. Even the hunting technique appears less cruel, unlike a tiger's or the much ignored leopard's.
Even in stories and myths, we have a majestic, grand, gorgeous representation of a lion. Remember the story of 'the lion and the slave'? The lion, as the story shows us, has deep gratitude. Remember Simba of 'The Lion King' fame? How can we forget the story of Elsa, the lioness? Or her Maharashtrian cousin, Sonali, the lion cub of Purnapatre family?
All in all, we get the feel that the lions are noble, they are indeed regal. May be, the Gir forest may not bear out such stories. Yet somehow one has a gut feel, the tales the leaves of the Gir forest may rustle to the gentle drizzle may not be vastly different from the majesty we meet in Aesop's fables!
Somehow, hence, a Richard Parker does not appear in the annales of the lion-man connection. We love the conservation of lions, never begrudge the cost, and want them to be the eternal kings of the dense forest. No wonder, when a small time goon appears to be too big for his paws, eh, boots, the saying goes, every cat is a lion in his lane. It does not occur to anyone to say, every cat is a tiger or a leopard in its lane, right?
Actually, if they were to eventually fight it out, it seems, the terrible tiger might win, and yet in the perception and imagination of millions, the lion is the king. Indeed, THE majesty! Long live on this earth that grandeur called the lion!
Pratima@" The lion is passion, the lion is fire, lions call you to them," says Michael Samuels.
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