The Tiger King Summary: In this article, we have provided the summary of The Tiger King of class 12 for students to help them prepare the chapter.
Summary of The Tiger King of class 12
The story is written by a Tamil writer Ramaswamy Krishnamurthy who is known by his pet name. ‘Kalki’. The story is a satire on how people love to kill innocent animals to satisfy their egos. The theme of the story is that death is inevitable and how powerful men become ruthless towards wildlife.
The protagonist of the story is Maharaja of Pratibandapuram, Jilani Jung Jung Bahadur. The story begins when the king is only ten days old and it was predicted by a chief astrologer that the king will die. Upon hearing the news this ten-day-old king asks the chief astrologer if death will come to everyone but tell him how will I die. This made all the present there surprised that this ten-day-old king is speaking but he is also asking intelligent questions.
The chief astrologer replies that this king was born in the hour of bull and bull and tigers are enemies so the king will meet his fate by a tiger. Upon hearing this the ten-day-old crown prince was not afraid but gave a deep growl and said “Let tigers beware!” And then he was known as Tiger king.
As he was growing up he was brought up in English manners and when he turned 20 he killed his first tiger and went to the astrologer to show him. To this astrologer said that he can kill ninety-nine tigers but he has to be aware of that hundredth king. From that day the proclamation was issued stating that only Maharaja will kill the tiger in the state and no one will dare to even throw a stone at any tiger.
During all these times tiger king used to kill tigers all by himself. Many instances come when the tiger king was in danger of losing his kingdom. Once such incident was when a British officer expressed the wish to go for tiger hunting but the king declined him and stood in danger of losing his kingdom. To compensate for this the maharaja sent around fifty rings to the wife of that English officer.
Within ten years the maharaja killed around seventy tigers in his kingdom but now the tiger population became extinct in his kingdom and brought his mission to stand still. The Maharaja asked his Dewan to look for a state in which the tiger population is good and see if there is any girl suitable to marry him. Darvan followed his orders and Maharaja was happy his killing spree continued each time he visited his father in law state.
Finally, the tally came to the 99th tiger now the maharaja was anxious and sad because in his father-in-law state’s also the number declined. But suddenly the news came from his own kingdom that the sheep were disappearing again from a village. The maharaja set out on the hunt at once. The tiger seems to be hiding and playing the maharaja but he too was determined to kill the last tiger but his rage was heightened and one day he called his Dewan and asked to increase the tax on people or else he will lose his job.
So the Dewan saw a tiger in a people’s park in madras and hatched a plan to place that tiger in the forest so that the tiger king can kill the tiger. The same thing happened and was shot by the tiger king. He was very happy and asked his people to bring this tiger to the capital but as soon as the king’s hunters went near the tiger they saw that the tiger is still alive and was only unconscious. They decided not to tell this thing to the king and killed the tiger themself. The tiger king was now under the impression that now he have changed his destiny and had killed his hundredth tiger.
Now the tiger king decides to spend time with his family and give proper attention to his kingdom. The tiger king’s third son’s birthday was approaching he decides to give him a gift. He goes to a shop and looks for the perfect gift. He found a wooden tiger and decides to give this to the king. When the king and his son were playing with the wooden tiger a small piece of wood was coming out from the toy which pricked the finger of Maharaja. He does not take any significant notice of this. But this turned into an infection many surgeons were called to operate on him but in the end, the maharaja died because of his hundredth tiger who took his revenge.
