Idiots on the prowl - Why wildlife is endangered in India..

The Bandipur forests, as they are called in Karnataka, are some of the most pristine forests known to man. They belong to the Nilgiri Bisophere Reserve and are contiguous with the Western Ghats, hence making them part of a World Heritage Site, as declared by UNESCO. They also bear the torch of being one of the foremost Project Tiger reserves.

Any avid wildlife enthusiast should find himself landing up at these forests sooner or later to witness what a real jungle is all about.

And yes, this also attracts a lot of the laptop-wielding, iPhone-worshipping urban crowd as a weekend destination, and puts their knowledge of their own surroundings to the sword, which is when some experiences throw up hilarity as well as indicate a disturbing malaise that runs deep in a population that is engrossed with (non)reality shows, celebrity worship and brash consumerism.

Picture courtesy: Mr.Chiranjib Sur who had a kick-ass camera ready when we were lucky to sight the King.


Typically the wildlife safaris are done through the forests on designated tracks in jeeps and small vans driven by people who belonged to the forests right from their birth. Let me get down to acquainting you with the eye-opening experiences that I had to witness on the wildlife safaris.

Idiots - Part 1:

We checked into a wildlife resort at noon. The itinerary read that, we would be taken out on a safari in the late afternoon, around 4 PM and a guided trek into the wild the next morning at 6 AM. Around 3 PM, it started raining heavily and the message was given to us that the people who were scheduled to go by the vans could not have a safari conducted. This was because, the van-tyres could get stuck in the muddy driving tracks in the forest, and people would be stranded in the middle of nowhere. 

Some people were lucky enough to get going for the safari on the jeeps, which were a hassle-free affair, come rain or shine.

There was a particularly noisy Bengali family who were very blase about their excursion into the wild. Even the children were content just making noise and not enjoying the silence all around. There was an Alpha-female in this group who called all the shots as to when they would go for lunch, where they would sit and talk, what they would drink and pretty much everything else.

 They did the safari and came back with the sighting of nothing but a few Chitals (spotted deer). These Chitals are a very common sight on the roads through this forest and hence are not of much appeal to the normal tourist who isn't interested in a creature which pops up at every turn and thus has no presence-value.

Hence, they must have returned disappointed from the safari, which showed up in a grand way at the dinner that evening. 

She started bothering the workers of the resort to come up with the truth for a few questions of hers. She started in a loud voice, "Aap mujhe yeh batao, yeh jungle hai ki nahin? Yahaan pe koi jaanwar rehte hain bhi, ke nahin? Agar rehte hain to hame safari mein mile kyon nahin? Yeh resort, yeh safari sab natak hai, hum jaise tourist logon se paise nikalvaane ki. (Is this a bloody jungle? Are there even any wild animals in this jungle? If they were indeed there, then why didn't they show up when we went for the safari? We have just been swindled of a few thousands. I know what you guys are doing to innocent and unassuming tourists like us. This wildlife safari thing is just a sham.)". 

The boy from the resort who was serving dinner made some mumbling noises about the heavy rains, the low visibility within the forest to spot wild animals and the elusive nature of wild animals. She retorted loudly before he could complete his reply, "Kal trek bhi hai ki nahin? Kya karvaaenge usme? (Is there even a trek tomorrow morning or not? And what would we be doing on the trek?)". Errrr.. Madam didn't know people "walk" through the forest on a wildlife trek. 

The boy replied that there would be a guided walk through the forest and again she asked a question as to how much they would need to walk. 4-5 km was the reply from the boy;she was flabbergasted and she let everyone else around know loudly of course, that she would need to flex her muscles for a walk that long and that too, only to get cheated by these resort folks. 

 Anyway, she resigned herself to her fate and said, "Aap ko zaroor hame jaanwar dikhana hoga. (You have to certainly show us some wild animals)". Sure. The wild animals were business partners with the resort folks and they would appear as and when people embarked on a trek.
The worst from her was yet to come.

The next morning the resort folks took their group on a trek as promised, since the rain had stopped the previous night. 

The guide would have certainly showed them a wide variety of birds since this region is akin to heaven for bird-watchers and ornithologists. They also had a sighting of the proverbial Lone Tusker in all it's majesty and menace, before returning to the resort. 

Tea and breakfast was offered and all she could say of the whole experience was "Yeh forest tho waste hai.. Yahaan pe Camel bhi nahin hai aur Lion bhi nahin hai.. Hamara poora weekend waste hogaya..(We wasted our weekend on this stupid forest, which does not even have a camel or a lion)".
She expected Camels and Lions in South India. Beat that!!!!

I was thankful to National Geographic that she knew camels and lions existed, while she was surfing channels to watch different reality shows.

Idiots - Part 2:

The next afternoon, when we went to the jeep for our safari, a large posse of cops had just dropped into the resort. As is the norm in India, bureaucrats and politicians run roughshod stamping their authority on hapless citizens at every opportunity.

It was someone in the Babudom from the North, his wife, his parents and his brothers-in-law, who were acting important by telling the resort folks to do this and not do that. The resort folks had to arrange a safari for them out of the blue, by inconveniencing other tourists, and provide them with special treatment wherever possible.

Myself and my wife had to be stuffed into the same jeep as them, and we had the unenviable luck of witnessing the haughty attitude of the powerful.

The driver of this jeep was a local and had a superb eye for any movement around. And he had an unwavering concentration. 

He spotted a Serpent Eagle. It was a predator in all its glory. There was an elderly lady among the haughty group, who replied "Hum wahaan se yahaan Eagle dekhne aaye hai kya??(Have we come all the way to see an Eagle??)". They did not even give a fuck to the fact that this man had spotted it in the middle of two tree branches of exactly the same colour as the Eagle. It took about a minute for us to spot it as it was so well camouflaged.

Then he showed us a Woodpecker knocking away at a tree trunk, and this was a wonderful sight as it was completely at home with itself even as we moved towards it. 

To this, the bureaucrat about whom all the fuss was, shouted in a totally condescending tone, "Abey... Jaanwar dikha jaanwar!. Hum ye dekhne nahi aaye!(Hey.. Show us some animals! We did not come to see these!)". So, the driver could just call out to some animals and say, "Some IAS/IPS officer from the Babudom has come to the forest. So all animals are hereby ordered to line up and salute him", and the animals would just come out and stand in a line to greet him just as the Babu's chhelas do!

We got to see a magnificent herd of the Great Indian Gaur (Indian Bison) headed by so huge a male that some people including my wife mistook it for an elephant. And with such nervous animals as these around they started poking their hands out of the jeep and clicking away some snaps. 

Everyone thought it wise to stay silent around these powerful animals, but these people were chatting away to glory, much to the irritation of other tourists on the jeep. And one guy from this group who undoubtedly valued wildlife 'a lot' went, "Aur kitni der tak yeh bail dekh te yahi pe rukenge.. Chalo Chalo, kuch aur bhi dikhao! (For how much more time do we stay here and look at these buffalo. Get a move on and show us something else too!)".

We then got to see some beautiful Peacocks strutting around to which, pat came the suggestion from the same guy, "Yeh bahut tasty hote hain! (These birds are very tasty!)".

We passed through an area which was engulfed by the unbearable stench of decaying meat. The driver informed us that it was a Bison killed by a Tiger 3-4 days back which was the cause of this stench. 

A lady on that group not wanting to be left behind in their race for idiocy, heard the driver's information in parts and started telling people in her group that a Bison had killed a tiger causing this stench.(What does she smoke!) Myself and my wife had a hearty laugh at this.

We spotted a female Sloth Bear and it's cub, an hour later, by which time these people had exhausted their intellect and energy speaking about all sorts of stupid things such as TV shows, advertisements, and celebrities.

We got back to the resort, and we thanked the driver for the excursion into the wild. These people did not have so much as a word of thanks to tell him. Instead, they said, "Yaar tumne Lion bhi nahin dikhaya, Tiger bhi nahin dikhaya. (You neither showed us a Lion nor a Tiger)". A Babu wants to see a Lion in a forest of South India. He passed the Civil Services exam with such great knowledge!

On this blissful sojourn to the Bandipur forests, these incorrigibly bright people gave me the idea that it is this haughty attitude, ignorance, indifference and lack of respect for wildlife which is driving some of our glorious species such as the Royal Bengal Tiger, the Indian Rhino, the Asiatic Lion, the Asian Elephant etcetera, towards extinction and why some of our most beautiful animals such as the Asiatic Cheetah vanished from India altogether.

Song of the Free

This has to be one of the most brilliant pieces of writing.......ever.

The wounded snake its hood unfurls,
The flame stirred up doth blaze,
The desert air resounds the calls
Of heart-struck lion's rage.

The cloud puts forth it deluge strength
When lightning cleaves its breast,
When the soul is stirred to its in most depth
Great ones unfold their best.

Let eyes grow dim and heart grow faint,
And friendship fail and love betray,
Let Fate its hundred horrors send,
And clotted darkness block the way.

All nature wear one angry frown,
To crush you out - still know, my soul,
You are Divine. March on and on,
Nor right nor left but to the goal.

Nor angel I, nor man, nor brute,
Nor body, mind, nor he nor she,
The books do stop in wonder mute
To tell my nature; I am He.

Before the sun, the moon, the earth,
Before the stars or comets free,
Before e'en time has had its birth,
I was, I am, and I will be.

The beauteous earth, the glorious sun,
The calm sweet moon, the spangled sky,
Causation's law do make them run;
They live in bonds, in bonds they die.

And mind its mantle dreamy net
Cast o'er them all and holds them fast.
In warp and woof of thought are set,
Earth, hells, and heavens, or worst or best.

Know these are but the outer crust -
All space and time, all effect, cause.
I am beyond all sense, all thoughts,
The witness of the universe.

Not two nor many, 'tis but one,
And thus in me all me's I have;
I cannot hate, I cannot shun
Myself from me, I can but love.

From dreams awake, from bonds be free,
Be not afraid. This mystery,
My shadow, cannot frighten me,
Know once for all that I am He.

- Swami Vivekananda

The prophetic flash of brilliance

The arithmetic class was in progress. The teacher was solving questions on division. On the blackboard were drawn three bananas. "We have three bananas, " the teacher said, "and we have three boys.Can you tell me how many each will get?" 

A smart boy in the front row replied, "Each will get one."
"Right, " the teacher said. "Now, similarly, if 1,000 i bananas are distributed among 1,000 boys, each will get one, Isn't that so?"


While the teacher was explaining, a boy sitting in one corner raised his hand and stood up. The teacher stopped and waited for the boy to speak.

"Sir, " the boy asked, "if no banana is distributed among no one, will everyone still get one banana?" There was a roar of laughter in the class. What a silly question to ask!

"Quiet," the teacher said loudly and thumped the desk. "There's nothing to laugh at. I will just explain what he means to say. For the division of bananas, we divided three by three, saying that each boy will get one banana. Similarly, we divided 1,000 by 1,000 to get one. What he is asking is that if zero banana is divided among zero, will each one get one? The answer is 'no'. Mathematically, each will get an infinite number of bananas!"

Everyone laughed again. The boys understood the trick arithmetic had played upon them. What they could not understand was why the teacher later complimented the boy who had asked that absurd question.

The boy had asked a question that had taken mathematicians several centuries to answer. Some mathematicians claimed that zero divided by zero was zero. Others claimed it to be unity. It was the Indian mathematician Bhaskara who proved that it is indeterminate.

The boy who asked the intriguing question was Srinivasa Ramanujan. Throughout his life, whether in his native Kumbakonam or Cambridge, he was always ahead of his mathematics teachers and is still ahead of most contemporary mathematicians.


 - Anonymous (Found it while browsing)

Beginning with an "IF"

Counting on your inspirations is the way to go! What better way than a certain "IF"..

                                                             IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: 

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son! 

--Rudyard Kipling