Class 12 English · Original EZT practice
The Tiger King - Kalki (Class 12 English, Vistas, Chapter 2)
The Tiger King is Chapter 2 of Class 12 Vistas (pp. 8-17), Kalki's satire on the Maharaja of Pratibandapuram, 'Sata Vyaghra Samhari' - the Tiger King. Astrologers predict at his birth that 'death comes from the Tiger', and the ten-day-old infant growls 'Let tigers beware!' He kills ninety-nine tigers, marries for tiger territory, and survives every real beast - only to be felled by 'tiny slivers of wood' from a rough wooden toy. This page retells the tale part by part, unpacks the satire and dramatic irony, and adds fresh practice questions. (Note: this is original practice, not a textbook exercise key.)
6 original worked examples, 6 fresh self-check questions and 4 mixed questions, with explained answers. These are not copied textbook exercises, an official chapter index or a full answer key. No affiliation with NCERT is claimed.
Official sources for topic and edition context, checked 25 October 2026:
1. The story part by part
Part I - the prophecy: astrologers foretell that the newborn prince must one day die; the ten-day-old Jilani Jung Jung Bahadur speaks - 'O wise prophets!' - and asks the manner of that death. The chief astrologer explains: 'The prince was born in the hour of the Bull. The Bull and the Tiger are enemies, therefore, death comes from the Tiger'. The infant's reply: 'Let tigers beware!' Part II - the first tiger: raised on 'the milk of an English cow', an English nanny and English films, the Maharaja takes his State at twenty and starts hunting. After his first kill the astrologer warns: 'Your majesty may kill ninety-nine tigers in exactly the same manner. But... you must be very careful with the hundredth tiger'. Part III - the ban and the bribe: tiger hunting is banned for everyone else; flinging 'so much as a stone at a tiger' means confiscation of all wealth and property. When a high-ranking British officer wants a hunt, the Maharaja refuses - 'You may go on a boar hunt. You may conduct a mouse hunt. We are ready for a mosquito hunt. But tiger hunt! That's impossible!' - then saves his kingdom by sending the officer's wife fifty diamond rings, at 'a bill for three lakh of rupees'. Part IV - seventy to ninety-nine: 'Within ten years he was able to kill seventy tigers'; when Pratibandapuram runs dry he marries into 'a state with a large tiger population', until 'ninety-nine tiger skins adorned the walls of the reception hall'. Part V - the hundredth: desperate, he announces 'a three-year exemption from all taxes' for a village with tiger trouble; the dewan secretly supplies an old tiger 'brought from the People's Park in Madras' which 'launched its satyagraha and refused to get out of the car'. The Maharaja fires; the beast falls. But 'the bullet had missed it. It had fainted from the shock' - a hunter quietly finishes it, and the king celebrates a vow fulfilled. The real hundredth tiger: for his son's third birthday he buys 'a wooden tiger in a toyshop', priced 'two annas and a quarter' but sold to him as 'A bargain at three hundred rupees!' Its 'tiny slivers of wood stood up like quills'; one pierces his hand, infection spreads, and after the surgeons operate - 'The operation was successful. The Maharaja is dead.' So 'the hundredth tiger took its final revenge upon the Tiger King'.
2. The satire and the irony
Conceit of power: the Maharaja reshapes laws, taxes, marriages and ministries around a private vow; officers lose jobs, the dewan trembles, and the whole state serves one man's fear of a prophecy. Dramatic irony: the reader learns early that 'the Tiger King is dead' - the narrator compares him to Dasaratha reaching 'that final abode of all living creatures' - so every triumph over a real tiger tightens the noose we know is coming. The twist of the small: the killer is not a jungle beast but a two-anna wooden toy - the prophecy fulfills itself through the least tiger-like tiger of all.
3. Word meanings
'Stuka bomber': a German dive-bomber of the Second World War - the narrator jokes that even its threat cannot throw his story off track. 'Court of Wards': the authority that managed a princely state until its ruler came of age. 'Durai / duraisani': Tamil-flavoured terms for the British master and his wife. 'Harakiri': ritual self-destruction - the narrator wonders if the vanished tigers 'practised birth control or committed harakiri'. 'Satyagraha': Gandhi-style non-violent resistance - the dewan's tired old tiger 'refused to get out of the car'.
Choose, solve, check, then try a fresh question.
Before calculating, read the method prompt and name the condition that makes it useful. Write your own attempt. Open the steps only when you need them, and use the check to catch a wrong sign, unit or interpretation. Finish with the fresh question before reading its answer.
Hear the prophecy
Choose the method: Bull versus Tiger.
EZT practice question
What do the astrologers predict at the prince's birth, and what are the infant's famous first words?
Show the worked solution
- The prediction: the newborn prince must one day die.
- The manner: 'The prince was born in the hour of the Bull. The Bull and the Tiger are enemies, therefore, death comes from the Tiger'.
- The ten-day-old's reply: 'Let tigers beware!'
Answer: That he must one day die - and the ten-day-old answers 'Let tigers beware!'
Check: The death prediction, the Bull-Tiger enmity, and the infant's growl.
Watch for this: Do not credit the infant with defeating the prophecy - his bravado starts the hunt that fulfills it.
Now try it yourself
Why does Kalki make the prophecy specific - tiger, not just death?
Check your answer
A named killer lets the whole plot become the prophecy working itself out, tiger by tiger, to the hundredth.
Specific prophecy plus proud king equals the engine of the satire.
Raise a mock-epic hero
Choose the method: English everything.
EZT practice question
Describe the crown prince's upbringing.
Show the worked solution
- The diet: 'the milk of an English cow'.
- The staff: an English nanny and an English tutor.
- The entertainment: 'nothing but English films' - until he takes the State at twenty.
Answer: 'The milk of an English cow', an English nanny, an English tutor, 'nothing but English films'.
Check: The English cow's milk, the English nanny and tutor, the English films.
Watch for this: Do not read the English upbringing as background colour - it is the satire's first jab at princely imitation of the colonizer.
Now try it yourself
What is the comic effect of listing English cow, nanny, tutor and films in a row?
Check your answer
Repetition piles absurdity on absurdity - a prince so Anglicized that even his milk had a passport.
The list is the joke: total imitation presented as normal upbringing.
Mark the astrologer's warning
Choose the method: Ninety-nine safe, one fatal.
EZT practice question
After the first kill, what does the astrologer warn about the hundredth tiger?
Show the worked solution
- The allowance: 'Your majesty may kill ninety-nine tigers in exactly the same manner.'
- The warning: 'you must be very careful with the hundredth tiger'.
- The stakes he names for himself: he will 'cut off my tuft, crop my hair short and become an insurance agent' if proven wrong.
Answer: 'Your majesty may kill ninety-nine tigers in exactly the same manner. But... you must be very careful with the hundredth tiger'.
Check: The ninety-nine allowance, the hundredth-tiger warning, the astrologer's stake.
Watch for this: Do not forget the warning's precision - the danger is not tigers in general but the hundredth, which is why the wooden toy counts.
Now try it yourself
Why does the astrologer stake his tuft and career on the prophecy?
Check your answer
It makes the prophecy a wager both men must honor - and gives the ending a second loser: the astrologer's profession.
Satire raises the bet so the payoff can be total.
Weigh the ban and the bribe
Choose the method: A law, then fifty rings.
EZT practice question
How does the Maharaja save his kingdom after refusing the British officer's hunt, and what does it cost?
Show the worked solution
- The refusal: 'You may go on a boar hunt. You may conduct a mouse hunt. We are ready for a mosquito hunt. But tiger hunt! That's impossible!'
- The rescue: samples of 'expensive diamond rings of different designs' are ordered; 'Some fifty rings arrived. The Maharaja sent the whole lot to the British officer's good lady.'
- The cost: 'In two days a bill for three lakh of rupees came from the British jewellers.'
Answer: Fifty diamond rings sent to the officer's wife - 'a bill for three lakh of rupees'.
Check: The mosquito-hunt refusal, the fifty rings to the duraisani, the three-lakh bill.
Watch for this: Do not miss that the king expected her to keep one or two and return the rest - she thanked him for all of them; bribery, like prophecy, overruns its budget.
Now try it yourself
What does the three-lakh bill add to the satire?
Check your answer
It prices royal pride in hard cash - the kingdom survives, but the exchequer pays for one man's vow.
In this satire, power's whims always arrive with an invoice.
Stage the fake hundredth
Choose the method: A park tiger on satyagraha.
EZT practice question
Where does the dewan find the 'hundredth tiger', and how does it behave?
Show the worked solution
- The source: an old tiger 'brought from the People's Park in Madras', hidden in the dewan's house.
- The behavior: it 'launched its satyagraha and refused to get out of the car'.
- The outcome: the Maharaja fires and the beast falls - but 'the bullet had missed it. It had fainted from the shock', and a hunter quietly finishes it.
Answer: 'Brought from the People's Park in Madras' and hidden in the dewan's house - it 'launched its satyagraha and refused to get out of the car'.
Check: The People's Park origin, the satyagraha in the car, the missed bullet and the hunter's quiet finish.
Watch for this: Do not count this as the prophecy fulfilled - the Maharaja's bullet missed, so his hundredth tiger was never truly his kill.
Now try it yourself
Why is the missed bullet the hinge of the whole story?
Check your answer
Because it keeps the prophecy alive - the hundredth tiger still owes the king a death, and the wooden toy collects it.
The satire never lets the king win; it only lets him think he won.
Meet the real hundredth
Choose the method: A two-anna executioner.
EZT practice question
What actually kills the Maharaja?
Show the worked solution
- The gift: 'a wooden tiger in a toyshop' for his son's third birthday - priced 'two annas and a quarter', sold to him as 'A bargain at three hundred rupees!'
- The wound: its 'tiny slivers of wood stood up like quills'; one pierces his hand and the wound suppurates.
- The end: three surgeons from Madras operate - 'The operation was successful. The Maharaja is dead.' So 'the hundredth tiger took its final revenge upon the Tiger King'.
Answer: A sliver from 'a wooden tiger in a toyshop' - infection spreads, and after surgery 'The operation was successful. The Maharaja is dead.'
Check: The wooden toy, the quill-like sliver, the surgeons' announcement, the final revenge line.
Watch for this: Do not call the ending a coincidence - the story frames it as the prophecy's precision: the hundredth tiger was wooden, and it still counted.
Now try it yourself
Why is 'The operation was successful. The Maharaja is dead.' the perfect satiric sentence?
Check your answer
It splits technical success from human outcome in one breath - expertise applauding itself while the patient dies.
The flattest sentence in the story carries its sharpest irony.
Try a mixed set
Choose a method or explanation before opening each answer.
1. The prophecy and the reply?
Show answer and reason
'Death comes from the Tiger' - 'Let tigers beware!'
Bravado starts the hunt that fulfills the prophecy.
2. The astrologer's warning?
Show answer and reason
'You must be very careful with the hundredth tiger'.
The danger is numbered - which lets a wooden toy qualify.
3. The bribe and its bill?
Show answer and reason
Fifty diamond rings to the officer's wife - 'a bill for three lakh of rupees'.
Royal pride, paid in cash.
4. What kills the Tiger King?
Show answer and reason
A wooden toy tiger's sliver - 'The operation was successful. The Maharaja is dead.'
The least tiger-like tiger takes 'its final revenge'.
Try it yourself
Work these on paper before checking any notes. Answers are deliberately not shown here.
- In two sentences, explain how the missed bullet in Part V keeps the prophecy alive for the wooden tiger.
- Contrast the Maharaja's 'Let tigers beware!' with the narrator's early reveal that 'the Tiger King is dead', and name the device at work.
- Explain in your own words why the story's killer being a toy - not a jungle beast - completes Kalki's satire.
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Questions about this practice page
- Who wrote The Tiger King?
- Kalki. NCERT's 'About the Book' note in Vistas describes this story as a political satire; it is Chapter 2 of the Class 12 supplementary reader.
- What is The Tiger King about?
- The Maharaja of Pratibandapuram, told at birth that death will come from a tiger, devotes his reign to killing a hundred tigers - and is killed in the end by an infection from a wooden toy tiger's splinter, so the hundredth tiger 'took its final revenge'.
- How does the Tiger King die in the end?
- Not in the hunt: a rough wooden toy tiger's sliver pierces his hand, the wound suppurates, three surgeons from Madras operate - and announce, 'The operation was successful. The Maharaja is dead.'
- Why does the Maharaja ban tiger hunting for everyone else?
- A proclamation reserves tigers for his gun alone - anyone who dares 'fling so much as a stone at a tiger' loses all wealth and property, because every tiger must be left for his tally of a hundred.
- Where is The Tiger King in the Class 12 book?
- Chapter 2 of Vistas, the Class 12 English supplementary reader (pp. 8-17), by Kalki.