[19:21 @ Rm. 117, Tiger Lodge, Mukki (mook-KEE), Kanha National Park]
A
full day.
Rose
before dawn, about 05:30. Into the park
by 06:30, with Anne, Chris, a lodge guide and a park guide, Tarun at the wheel
of the Jungle Lodge Gypsy.
Kim
and another Dynamic Tours volunteer named Janice, from Nova Scotia, came down
sick in the stomach and stayed in the lodge.
They are the only two among us who had the mango pickle last night. I also got sick from Mango pickle back in 1997,
in a Delhi hotel, and since then the smell of mango pickle has been unpleasant,
in fact marginally nauseating, to my nose.
Highlights
of the safari – two massive Gaur bisons (the largest bovine species in the
world, bigger than even the African Cape buffalo, but less aggressive and
therefore less dangerous) and a gorgeous Indian Roller (a robin-like bird with
florescent multi-hued blue plumage, the most exquisite of which being under the
wings, so that it flashes brilliant blue with every wing stroke as it flies,
and since it sits more than flies, it is very difficult to capture its maximum
beauty photographically, which so far I have failed). I did expose a full roll of 36 on the animals and plants we saw
today, well worth it. In regards to
plants, we have to bear in mind that in a Canadian forest we may count 20 tree
species, but here at Kanha, there are some 300 species of trees, and a
comparable number of bird species. The
biodiversity here is phenomenal.
In
mid-morning, we stopped for brunch on the bank of a small lake, or large
pond. With water fowls feeding, and
swamp deer belly deep in water munching on aquatic plants, and herds of chital
(spotted deer) grazing serenely on the meadow, and birds calling here and
there, and bright red dragonflies flitting about, I have reached my nirvana,
even with no tiger visible today.
Tiger,
tiger, you don’t have to play hard to get.
You are totally irresistible.
When
I saw the glow on the enchanted faces of Chris and especially Anne in her first
sight of Kanha, I saw myself as I was the first time I entered a tiger reserve
two years ago. Perhaps from Tarun’s
point of view, my face was glowing with enchantment still.
Upon
arrival back in camp, we found a Caucasian couple in their 50s - Albert and Andrea
Loughran, from Bristol, England - having tea in the vaulted-roofed but
wide-open-unwalled dining pavilion. The
husband was born in India, whose uncle still lives here. We chatted a little about how London used to
be like Delhi, pollution-wise, and Delhi is “out of control”, in his
words. I can attest to this. A few days ago, while our plane was
approaching Delhi from Kuala Lumpur, we identified the city by first identifying
its smog. As soon as the plane’s door
opened, our noses were assaulted by a thick fume-cocktail. In traffic downtown, visibility is down to
about one or two blocks, anything beyond being mere lurking shadows in the
blinding grey haze. Seeing thick
blueish-brown smoke pouring from the exhausts of the ubiquitous 3-wheeled auto-rickshaws,
whose 2-stroke gasoline-engines are being fed a kerosene diet. Delhi is now a massive laboratory. It’s air has never been as bad as this, even
twenty years ago, even ten. It is not
that they aren’t aware of the problem.
They just can’t do anything about it.
They can’t just install a Canadian style Air Care system and refuse
insurance to those vehicles that don’t pass.
First, they don’t give a hoot about insurance. Second, just about every vehicle would fail, so what’s the
point? And if government clamps down
and ban the auto-rickshaw, transportation would be semi-paralyzed, and millions
of people would be out of a job. So
what do you do?
During
lunch, the gentleman looked at me intensely and finally said, “Are you in a
television wildlife documentary about tigers?”
“Yes. In a series called Champions of the Wild.”
“That’s
it. You know, it is because of that
documentary that we’ve decided to come to Bandhavgarh and Kanha.”
Anne
said that at the Vancouver airport, an airport employee asked her, “Is he
Anthony Marr? I read about him in some
newspaper article some time back.”
As
for me, I’ve learned to just shrug it off.
This kind of thing happens about once a week in Vancouver. Dimitri, the owner of Sunshine Diner on
Broadway and McDonald, even asked, several times, to have a picture of me to
hang on the wall, along side Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles; I
gracefully declined. Back in February
or March last year, Vicki and I saw on the front window of the Hemp Shop on 4th
& McDonald a copy of the Vancouver Sun article about me being beaten up,
with photo. When I went to the Sea
Shepherd, Lisa Distephano was heard to tell the crew, “That’s Anthony Marr over
there. He’s awesome.” While having a coffee with Vicki and Rico in
Victoria, a man passed near our table and just said, “Keep up the good work,
Mr. Marr.” When I turned to thank him,
he had already turned the corner. Well,
keep up the good work, Mr. Marr, but don’t let this go to your head, Anthony.
In
the afternoon, around 15:30, Faiyaz and a lodge employee from Lakma village
named Deleep (19), took me behind the lodge for a 4 k hike along a very scenic
rocky river, then inland, to visit a village of about 150 Baiga tribal people. Since the sun would set shortly after 17:00,
we had to walk fast. Walking along the
river after sundown is not recommended due to the presence of tribal rebel
terrorist activities in the area.
When
we got there, the villagers were digging a well. Their present water supply takes the form of village girls
packing water in cans or urns on their heads up from the river, which lay about
1/2 km away. Their village used to be
inside the current boundaries of the park.
When the park was created some decades ago, there were some 20 villages
in the designated Core Area. They
relocated all of them into the surrounding Buffer Zone which today encompasses
178 villages with a total human population of about 100,000 and about as many
cattle. This particular village we
visited today is among the 20 that were relocated. The river we hiked along forms the boundary in this park sector,
so this village we visited is situated on the edge of the park. When the village was relocated, the
government made promises as to how much services would be provided, and it
seems that at least where a well is concerned, the government hasn’t yet
delivered. And the villagers are tired
of waiting and are starting to dig a well for themselves. The name of the village is Chichrunpur
(“chich-run-POOR”), meaning, incredibly, God-forsaken Place.
When
they saw us approaching, their stopped work and received us with unabashed
stares. When close enough, they closed
in upon us. We hadn’t made an
appointment, since there was no phone at the village to make an appointment
with. While approaching the village,
Faiyaz advised me to keep the cameras in my knapsack. Faiyaz introduced me as the “chief” of my troop, and asked for
the village chief, who happened to be out of village. So we just chatted with the villagers a little, including the
teacher of the village school, with Faiyaz acting as my translator.
Soon,
Faiyaz gave me the nod. I pulled out
the Polaroid camera first and took a few group shots inciting glee and
excitement when they saw themselves in the photos we gave to them on the
spot. Then I took some shots of the
village with my main camera. We chatted
a little more. They trusted me to hold
the babies and looked at me with undisguised interest and jabbered
unrestrainedly behind my back.
One
woman said something to me and Faiyaz translated that she was asking me for
money. I replied that I am here to help
them help themselves, and I will see what I can do for their village as a
whole. First, I want to understand
their culture and way of life, and only after that will I devise a plan. Meanwhile, I gave them a number of Tiger
Walk buttons, and made an arrangement to come back to visit them with Kim, Anne
and Faiyaz on Wednesday early afternoon, when the chieftain will be in.
I
observed one thing, confirmed later by Faiyaz – when I talked about WCWC and
Tiger Trust, they listened neutrally, but when Tiger Trust was linked to the
tourist business, the villagers seemed wary.
Yesterday,
Faiyaz asked me, very seriously, “Anthony, do you think that non-profit
environmentalism and for-profit business should mix?” He didn’t say much, but I can tell that he is very disappointed
and frustrated about something. By
conversation’s end, I had gathered enough to know that in short, Pradeep is too
busy making money to give pure conservation its due priority. Through the course of his employment under
Pradeep, Faiyaz has generated several proposals, none of which having been
seriously entertained, let alone implemented.
I asked him to provide me with a summary of his ideas, so I can make my
own judgment. He is an exceptionally
knowledgeable, sincere, passionate and dignified man, genuinely keen, almost
obsessed, on saving wilderness and wildlife.
If there is one thing I am happy about regarding what Pradeep has done
for me on this trip so far, it is to put Faiyaz to work with me.
Within
5 minutes of our arrival back in camp, the afternoon safari group, comprising
Anne, Kim, Chris, the British couple and of course Tarun, came back in. Around 18:00, I went to sit in the free
school class, with Chris, Kim, Anne and the British couple entering at various
times. The class is held at the Kailash
Sankhala Conservation Centre. When you
enter the Jungle Lodge, you first go through the entrance gate guarded by two
beautifully painted tiger-striped gate posts made of plastered brick. You then proceed along a long and unpaved
driveway curving to the left, with vegetation on both sides. After about 100 meters, you arrive at a
sandy parking lot. The driveway leads
on to the left past the parking lot to the service area of the lodge. From the parking lot leads a foot path to
the left into a sal forest which ends at the lodge compound, and one to the
right, which leads to the conservation centre.
It is basically two huts, one big enough to seat about 50 people,
equipped with a TV/VCR, a black board, a small collection of wildlife oriented
books, a few pictures and charts and posters on the walls, including the 1998
WCWC tiger paper, a blank white wall serving as a projection screen, and the
slide projector that we have brought from Canada.
Under
Dimple’s guidance, the students continued with their regular activities for
awhile, then began asking questions directed at me, whom they have seen in the
Champions video shown to them yesterday.
Faiyaz served as my translator, and he is very sharp and fast about it,
sentence for sentence, both from Hindi to English and from English to
Hindi. The first few questions were all
from boys, and I encouraged the girls to ask theirs. Most of the boys’ questions had to do with numbers of various
animals, including the Canadian bears, but one very young girl asked about us
“white” people why we were white.
(Who? Me?) I struggled for an answer. How do I explain to them in a few sentences
the theory of evolution and the origins of the human races? So I gave an off the cuff part-truth, “The
white japarti dough turns brown when you put them into an oven. Your country is hot, so we ‘white’ people
will turn brown soon enough.” I didn’t
think it was all that funny, but the kids laughed hysterically. The kids then sang some songs for us. On the spur of the moment, I offered to sing
them the Save the Tiger song, with Anne, Kim, the British couple, Dimple and
Faiyaz serving as the “choir”.
Tiger
Song is the creation of Tim Murphy, my assistant over the last two years.
lead
(me) chorus melody
SAVE THE TIGER Save the tiger (doe-ray-mee-doe)
THEY’RE OUR FRIENDS They’re
our friends (mee-fa-so)
THE TIGERS ARE IN TROUBLE The tigers are in trouble (so-la-so-fa-mee-doe)
LET’S HELP THEM Let’s help
them (doe-so-doe)
A good time was had by all.
[00:21] Around 20:00, an official of the Forest Department came to
visit, as invited by Faiyaz. He and I
talk one-to-one for awhile, then, around 21:00 (9 p.m., India’s standard dinner
time) all of us sat down and ate together.
After that, they (including the British couple, Tarun, Dimple, Faiyaz,
Chris and the official) watched the Champions of the Wild video.
It
was an easy sell. The British couple
wants a copy of the video to take home.
Tarun wants a copy for Tiger Trust.
The official talks to me with obvious respect. The topic of conversation turned to the solar oven. We discussed its socio-economic benefits,
benefit to women, benefit to the tigers, to the environment, the village, the
entire buffer zone, the entire province, the entire India. But the natural resistance to change, the
T-word - “Tradition” - will need energy and patience to overcome. We came up with new ideas for the solar oven
concept. Now this is really
exciting. Communal solar cookers, which
can be made of brick, an excellent insulator, with double paned glass on top,
and metallic reflectors around. Tarun
estimates the cost at no more than Rs 4,000 or US$100. It can practically last forever. The official played devil’s advocate for
awhile, then began to participate in the planning process. Faiyaz says he can build one within ten
days. Meanwhile, the portable model
will be tested tomorrow. After that,
Dimple will give a demo to the kids that come to the free school, and village
elders will be invited for lunch cooked with the cooker. Everyone is excited with the prospect.
Faiyaz
is the person I talked to the most today.
He’ll be the person I’ll be working most closely with, who will be
speaking in Hindi with the locals on my behalf. We discussed how to reach all 178 villages during my stay at
Kanha. I certainly cannot go and visit
each and every one of them. So we
formed a plan. I will give daily
slideshows for village elders at the Tiger Trust conservation centre. Faiyaz will go out in a Gypsy daily to
invite them and make appointments, and also pick up the village elders of the
day. We would also take the opportunity
to take the village elders for a short safari in the park, for though they live
in the park’s Buffer Zone, most of them have never been inside the park’s Core
Area, where the tigers live. At the end
of the slideshow, we’d drive them back to their villages. Originally I said I would go with him, but
he thought it less intrusive if only he went on the first visits, my being yet
again definitely a visual minority. So
I gave him my thick media folder which contains many newspaper articles with my
photos in them, to take to the villages as my calling card and to pique their
interest, as well as for the eyes of Faiyaz himself.