The dusty chases across the fields, the chinkara sweating in the moonlight, the gunshots that interrupt the silence of the night. Then the crunch of shoe on sand as Salman Khan stepped off the Maruti Gypsy and unclasped his knife. For Harish Kumar Dulani, the driver, this part of the tale is the toughest to tell. He would then slit the deer's throat, clean his hands, and the others would cover the blood with sand. No one complained that the chinkara was an endangered species, not a voice was raised about the law.
Life is cheap in the desert.
Not for the Bishnois. For centuries they have carried on a sublime romance with nature. It is a bond so uncommon, that in M.K. Ranjitsinh's book Beyond The Tiger, there is a photograph of a young Bishnoi woman suckling a blackbuck fawn. On October 1, Salman had no idea he'd gone shooting in the wrong place. They attacked him, chased him, damaged his Gypsy and reported him to the forest officials.