January 26, 1999, Tuesday, sunny, 6-20C

 

[12:56 @ Tiger Lodge, Kanha National Park]

     A day the equal of ten good days, and it’s barely noon.

     This morning, there were two options.  One was to go to a local school to see a Gantantra Diwas (Independence Day) celebration and the other was to go into the park.  I opted for the latter – with Kim and the British couple.  Anne elected to go to the parade with Faiyaz and Christopher. 

     While paying our park fee at the park gate, we encountered a troop of children chanting some slogan parading past.  When they saw me, they shouted excitedly something sounding like “Bagh Cha Cha”.  I waved at them and they waved back.  I took a couple of shots at them with my camera, and they waved some more. 

     As it worked out, from a wildlife photographer’s point of view, I made the better choice of the two.  What I had was arguably the best tiger sighting at Kanha among the many I’ve had, including the two big cubs back in 1997.  We were sitting in the shade of a tree, with engine off, just listening.  What we were listening for was not the roar of a tiger, since tigers hardly ever roar, that I’ve heard.  What we did hear after what seemed like a long wait were the alarm calls of deer and monkeys.  At once, Tarun started the engine and took the shortest road to the approximate location where the alarms sounded.  We arrived just in time to see the tiger disappearing into a forest.  Tarun took another road and stopped in a glade on the far side of the grove.  There he turned off the engine and we waited.  Sure enough, within minutes, the same tiger emerged.  It was a tigress in prime condition, whose pug marks we saw earlier identified her as the mother of three young cubs.  When we saw her, she was alone, meaning that she was out hunting, having hidden her cubs in some thicket nearby.  It so happened that on the far side of the glade was a small herd of wild boar.  She stalked them stealthily for some minutes, but before she had reach charging distance, the wild boars, already alerted by the earlier alarm calls, spotted her and dashed away.  One of her twenty or so failures before her next success, statistically speaking, and she would never be so discouraged to stop trying  – a lesson for us humans to learn.   

     In the Gypsy I had a happy chat with the ecstatic Loughrans, ecstatic, of course, because of the tiger sighting, of which up to this point they had been deprived.  As per their request I promised to send them a Champions-of-the-Wild tape, a tiger T-shirt for their 10 year-old nephew and a few duped slides of today’s tiger sighting, since they considered my camera, with its 28-200 mm zoom lens, the best of the four on board.

     When we got back to the lodge at noon, Anne said to me, “You have a very good reputation with the kids.”

     “What do you mean?” I asked her. 

     “They call you ‘Bagh Cha Cha’.”

     “Yeah, that’s what I thought I heard this morning when we were at the park gate.  I know ‘Bagh’ means ‘tiger’, but not ‘Cha Cha’.  What does it mean?” 

     “You are their ‘Tiger Uncle’,” said Anne, very pleased. 

     The Lougrans left Kanha after lunch.

 

[17:19]     This afternoon, Anne said to me, “It seems that your concern about Pradeep as discussed on the train has some truth to it.  I’ve been speaking with Faiyaz.  He was hired as Tiger Trust field officer to do conservation work, but instead is placed under the control of Tarun, of Dynamic Tours, to serve Pradeep’s commercial interest.  This is not what he accepted the job for.  His heart is in working with the villagers and park personnel and government officials towards saving the tiger and other wildlife, not in entertaining tourists to profit Pradeep’s Dynamic Tours.  It is only because there is currently no tourist at the lodge that he has the time to work with you.  He says he’s been seriously considering resigning.  He’s being paid only 4,000 rupees (C$150) a month and has received job offers with much better pay from other employers, but he’s sticking with Tiger Trust for now because he still hasn’t given up all hope that things will improve, especially with you being here.” 

     I produced the CIDA project expenditure list I promised while on the train, and went through it item by item with Anne.  In WCWC’s boardroom in Canada, with the executive-team used to dealing with high Canadian labour costs, Pradeep’s budgeting for his program might have looked reasonable, but once on Indian soil and become aware of the cheapness of Indian labour (Faiyaz’s salary being C$150/mo.), I had arrived at the inevitable conclusion that Pradeep’s half of the bargain is grossly underpowered and overpriced, and devoid of inspiration and drive or even sincerity.  Given a budget of C$60,000, a much greater result should be expected, perhaps by a factor of five or more.  Conversely, the cost should be much less.  The so-called medicinal plant garden, for example, which comprises only a small 10m x 10m plot with no more than 20 plants, claims a cost of $8,000 in the budget, which should not cost more than a few hundred dollars as is, even factoring in maintenance.  Pradeep simple had not spent any money on developing it in the past.  The two items “survey of visitors” and “project monitoring” claim a combined cost of $27,000 out of the budget, a huge amount when used in India, and a huge chunk out of the grant.  The worst thing about it is that they serve no proactive purpose; even if so, they should not cost a small fraction of the amount.  What the “survey of visitors” serves best is Dynamic Tours, whose name is projected to the tourists staying at other lodges showing them that Dynamic Tour’s Jungle Lodge has a conservation program that other lodges have not.  And project monitoring?  What project is there to monitor?  Of whom, by whom?  It’s almost that the monitoring is more expense than project.

     The “Conservation Centre” – little more than a mud-brick hut with a few chairs, a TV/VCR and posters on the wall albeit excellent ones hand-made by Faiyaz - yet another several thousand dollars.  There is also a big claim for producing educational material.  In 1997, Tiger Trust was supposed to produce a tiger conservation comic book in Hindi.  It did not materialize, and the unused grant money was not returned, nor carried over to 1998, as far as I know. 

     Anne was further incensed that given Pradeep’s now living in Vancouver – he bought a palatial house there in 1997, the same year Tiger Trust began working with WCWC under the CIDA grant - CIDA covers his expenses to travel between India and Canada, which is semi-personal, but does not cover mine, which is pure work. 

     Finally, for what would be really effective – village outreach - there is zero budget.  One of the selling points of Dynamic Tours is that it has a conservation component to it in the form of Tiger Trust of the late great Kailash Sankhala, versus other lodges being purely profit making enterprises.  My take on the lack of an outreach component in the Pradeep’s plan is that such a component would take Tiger Trust activities into the field, away from the “Conservation Centre”, rendering the work invisible to tourists.

     Back in 1997, it was Pradeep who proposed the idea of the “mobile educational centre / medical clinic”, which I thought to be an excellent and truly dynamic idea (pun intended).  But later he killed it, and more than once refused to resurrect it at my urging, nor at Faiyaz’s suggestion. 

     So, if he wouldn’t do it, I will.  But I’ll try it with Pradeep one more time.  

     I’m not the only person excited about the all-villages-outreach plan.  It’s clearly the way to maximizing the bang-for-the-CIDA-buck.  Faiyaz, Tarun, Anne, Chris and I piled into the Gypsy and drove to Baihar, the nearest town about 10 km distant, to call Pradeep in order to discuss the idea.  Pradeep is Faiyaz’s boss after all, and of course should be consulted, but when our phone call finally got through, Pradeep was not available, nor was there any message from him to us. 

     While in the Gypsy, Faiyaz asked me about Omni-Science.  He had long known about my animal protection work, so it was Omni-Science that intrigued him.  I had actually forgotten about it, but in my media folder was a complete collection of the thirty or so scientists’ critiques of Omni-Science written back in the 80s.  Anne and Chris have both looked into the folder, so all three of them have seen the critiques, so they turned to listen.

     I didn’t quite know where to begin, but ended up telling him about my conversation with Raminothna about conceiving the “Inconceivable” and speaking the “Unspeakable”.

     They listened intensely, including perhaps even Tarun who doesn’t strike me to be at all philosophically inclined, and when I was winding up, the Gypsy pulled into Baihar.

     On the way back to the lodge, Faiyaz said, “So, you conceived the ‘Inconceivable’?”

     “I think so,” I said.

     “And you have spoken the ‘Unspeakable’ to the thirty professors?”

     “They seemed to think so.”

     “How long is one of these speeches?”

     “About two hours.”

     “We have lots of two-hours.  Care to add me to your list?”

     “Me too,” said Anne.

     “Me too, me too!” said Chris, in his usual high-spirited way.

     “I’d be glad to.”

     “When?” asked Faiyaz.

     “How about now?” said Chris.

     “Yes, now,” said Anne.

     “Yes, please,” said Faiyaz.

     “Sure.  But I have a better idea.  We have much more than two hours.  We have two months together.  Two months was about the length of time it took me to build up OMNI-SCIENCE bit by bit in my mind, under the guidance of Raminothna.  Those two months totally changed my thinking, my worldview and my life.  That experience was incredibly powerful, at least to me.  So, I’ll let Raminothna interact with you through me over the next two months.  By the time I leave, you should be quite as inspired and empowered as I was when I finally left Africa.  If we write our experience into the book, its reader may just be inspired and empowered likewise.”

     “In other words, over the next two months, you will re-enact your African experience, except this time you will be Raminothna and we will be you?” asked Anne.

     “Raminothna, you don’t seem to have any problem with this, do you?” I asked out loud, then said, “No problem.”

     “This sounds like fun,” said Chris.  “Unfortunately, I will have left long before you get to the core of the matter.”

     “When will you be leaving?”

     “February 26.  Exactly one month from now.”

     “Hmm, that’s a little unfortunate.  Well, not to worry.  I’ll give you something to take away.”

     “Mind if I take notes?” asked Anne.

     “Go ahead.  Especially what you guys say.  I want to put them into the book.”

     “Go for it, Raminothna,” said Anne.

     “Very well.  Anne, Chris, Faiyaz.  I’m Raminothna, the Fortunate and Called Upon, at your service.  I’m seeking three miracle workers, to work three miracles on this Earth, for her sake and on my behalf.  Any volunteers?”

     “I would, if I could,” said Chris.

     “Couldn’t you?”

     “Work miracles?  I don’t think so.”

     “And you?”

     “Me neither,” said Anne.

     “And you?”

     “I know I can’t,” said Faiyaz.

     “Okay.  See that hill over there?  I say that you can each raise ten gallons of water up to its peak within the next hour, without artificial aid of any kind.”

     “Without artificial aid of any kind?  Impossible,” said Chris.

     “And therefore miraculous,” said Raminothna through me.

     Half an hour later, on top of the hill, I told them the [Miracle Worker] story (see [1977-02-10 The Miracle Worker]).

     “I’ve never looked at myself this way,” said Faiyaz.  “But come to think of it, for this lump of physical matter I call my body to raise it’s own centre of gravity, at its own will, even by just one millimeter, is indeed quite miraculous.  I mean, imagine four 150 pound rocks rolling themselves uphill, but we did it.”

     “Something I’ve taken for granted all my life, too,” said Anne. 

     Faiyaz said, “Once I read about the chemical macro-composition of the human body – about 10% carbon, 3% nitrogen, 2% calcium, 1% phosphorus, 0.25% sulphur, 0.2% potassium, 0.15% sodium, 0.15% chlorine, 0.05% magnesium and so on, if my memory serves.  Just imagine somebody giving you 15 lbs of charcoal, 4.5 lb of liquid nitrogen, 3 lbs of calcium pills and so on, and of course the ten gallons of water, and asking you to create a physical body that can raise its centre of gravity at will, let alone think and talk and act.  You’ll have to be a miracle worker indeed to succeed in that.  A living thing is therefore a miracle unto itself, even just a mosquito, let alone a human being.”

     “You know, I’ve heard that life is a miracle for years, but I must say you have given it a new meaning,” said Anne.

     “A very good start, Raminothna,” said Faiyaz.

     “Thank you, Raminothna,” said Chris. 

     “Thank you, Raminothna,” I said.