[18:46 @ Kanha Jungle Lodge]
A
full and exciting day, despite an inactive morning.
But
came noon, we sprang into action.
We
had lunch at 12:00 and got on the hike to Chichrunpur by 12:30. Faiyaz and I, with lodge employee Santosh
who had the portable solar oven slung over one shoulder, charged ahead, leaving
the slow pokes (Anne, Chris, Janice and Kim) way behind, who also got lost
along the way, necessitating Santosh to go back to look for them. We arrived at Chichrunpur by 13:00. Because the villagers had to go to the river
to fetch cooking water – mostly by means of jars on the heads of girls – we
didn’t start the solar cooker until around 13:30. Given the semi-success back at the conservation centre with the
Manjitola chief yesterday (too short a cooking time), we kept the cooker on
till 16:15 before opening it. The rice
was cooked perfectly.
While
waiting, we did all sorts of things to keep the villagers entertained. Polaroid snap shots are always big
hits. At one point, I challenged Faiyaz
to a foot race between two trees over uneven terrain about two hundred meters
apart. Chris yelled, “Count me in!”
Faiyaz, with his cheetah-like build, came in first; I blame it on my age
for losing by less than half an elephant’s nose. Chris, due mostly to his sandals, brought up the rear by about a
cow’s length. Faiyaz dispensed aspirins
and quinine pills. Chris orchestrated
an impromptu eco-skit with the village children who played different
animals. Most of the activities were
photographed (mostly by me) and video-taped (mostly by Chris). The response of the village chief and
teacher to the solar oven demonstration was to talk quietly in front of it,
then pick up a stick from the ground and took crude measurements of the oven
box with it, and make hand gestures meaning “enlargement”. Too bad I didn’t have the camera at hand
when they were doing the measuring. It
would make a distinctive picture in the annals of tiger conservation.
After
the foot race in the heat, Faiyaz, Chris and I sat down under a-tree to catch
our breath. After a few moments, Faiyaz
said to Chris, “Well, Chris, would you believe that Chichrunpur is a single
bona fide organism?”
“Can’t
see why not, Faiyaz,” said Chris. “If a
society of termites is an organism, why can’t a society of humans?”
They
put Chichrunpur through the Eight Vital Functions test and were both satisfied.
After
pondering the idea for awhile, Chris said, “Yes, I can see it now. Look at the well. It is like Chichrunpur is sinking a proboscis down to tap the
life-giving fluid of Mother Earth.”
“Just
don’t say ‘like a mosquito’, although a mosquito is certainly a non-social
metazoan organism,” I said.
“Metazoan?”
Chris asked.
“Just
a word that means ‘multicellular organism’.
It allows us to drop the use of prefixes like ‘uni’ and ‘multi’. So the term ‘unicellular organism’ can be
shortened to ‘cellular organism’.”
After
returning to the lodge, Janice told me that she really lucked out on coming to
Kanha. It took some courage for a
single white woman to take a public bus, let alone a relayed string of three
from Bandhavgarh to Kanha. There are no
tourists due for days in the Jungle Lodge at Bandhavgarh tiger reserve and she
was bored out of her tree. She said
that she had heard about the WCWC/TT project and to be a part of it was her
dream come true.
Faiyaz
just knocked on my door to inform me that Assim Srivastava, director of Kanha’s
Buffer Zone, has just arrived and would like to meet me. More later.
[22:46] The meeting with the Buffer Zone Director was successful to the
extent that I think I made him see that increasing the gate charge for foreign
tourists is beneficial to tigers, park and villagers alike, which needed no
lead-in, since one of his opening questions was “What do you tell a villager
who asks you why we should protect the tiger?”
We worked out that if we charge the 4,000 foreign tourists each Rs1,000
(US$25) instead of the present Rs100 (US$2.50), the revenue would be
Rs4,000,000 (US$100,000) which, though not a huge sum, is nonetheless ten times
better than the Rs400,000 (US$10,000) per annum. He suggested asking the tourists to see if they’re willing to pay
more for the tiger. Now, here, finally,
is a question worthy of a survey, but one I doubt is on Pradeep’s list for the
survey he has in mind, and it certainly wouldn’t cost $27,000. Anne happily volunteered to do it, and I
have no doubt of the outcome. We also
showed him the Champions of the Wild video.
He estimated the number of people who have seen it and will see it
worldwide – probably millions. He
thought it would have a good effect on Bandhavgarh, Kanha, and tiger
conservation in general. I think
something good will come out of this meeting.