The saying ‘Tees Maar Khan’ has been around for 140 years. It’s famous because it was given to Mir Mehboob Ali Khan, the sixth Nizam of Hyderabad after he bravely hunted down thirty tigers.
You might have heard of someone being called ‘Tees Maar Khan’ when they do something very brave or handle a tough situation. It means being courageous. The history of Tees Maar Khan goes back 140 years when Mir Mehboob Ali Khan, the sixth Nizam of Hyderabad, got the title for killing thirty tigers between 1880 and 1890.
There was even a movie named ‘Tees Maar Khan’ made a few years ago. But Tees Maar Khan wasn’t the only hunter in that area. Many others hunted thousands of tigers, leopards, and other animals in those forests. This led to a serious problem where tigers almost disappeared. In 1935, Azam Jah, Tees Mar Khan’s grandson, surpassed him by killing 35 leopards in just 33 days. Even before Mehboob Ali Khan, approximately 300 tigers were killed by British military officer Colonel Jeffrey Nightingale and the 5th Nizam of Hyderabad, Afzal-ud-Daula.
The situation got so bad that India had to start Project Tiger to protect tigers, and some were even brought from Africa. While there are different stories about Tees Maar Khan, the facts about Mir Mehboob Ali Khan, the Nizam of Hyderabad, suggest this one is true. But he wasn’t just a hunter; he was also a poet who wrote many poems in Telugu and Urdu. He was fluent in Persian as well.