THE SUNDERBANS, India -- Sumitra Mondal felt uneasy from the moment her husband refused to eat a proper breakfast. Her spouse, Patiram, was a fisherman and they lived with their three children in a thatched mud hut in the Sunderbans, a vast mangrove swamp in eastern India. On that crisp December morning Patiram was feeling lucky and thought he might bring home a bountiful catch of fish. He wanted to wait until the evening to eat properly when the whole family could feast together.

After Patiram left, Sumitra also went down to the river to catch fish. While wading through the murky waters with her fishing net, her uneasiness grew more acute. When the knots she tied in her net kept coming undone, she saw this as a bad omen and knew for certain that danger would befall her family. Patiram, meanwhile, had happier thoughts on his mind. He had pulled in such a good haul he decided to cast his net out a second time. The fishermen he was with warned him a tiger was prowling in the area, but Patiram thought he would risk just one more catch.

There was nothing anyone could do when the tiger leaped from the cover of gnarled mangrove trees, fastened its jaws around Patiram's neck and dragged him back into the forest. The fishermen chased the tiger and, because there was a large number of them, they were able to scare it off and carry Patiram back home to his wife. By then, of course, Patiram was long dead.