14 when she first met Maya
at the Tadoba Andhari National Park, a wildlife sanctuary in her home
state of Maharashtra in India.
The tiger was only a cub then, frolicking in the patchy dirt by her parents, nibbling her mother’s paw and tugging at her father’s tail.
It would take another two years for Sridhar to decide to feature
Maya as the star of her National Geographic documentary
Tiger Queen of Taru, which premiered regionally on OSN on Monday, January 25. But even then, she knew the cub was special.
“Maya stood out from the rest of her siblings,” says Sridhar, 24. “She was everywhere. Whoever came to see her at the park knew she would grow up to be queen.”