February 17, 1999, Wednesday, sunny, 7-24C

 

[18:08 @ Rm. 112, Kanha Jungle Lodge]

      Credit was given to Pradeep for his impressive performance in organizing the Tiger Walk, but back here in Kanha, I regain full objective view of the Big Picture, and it is still not pretty.  But first, today’s activities:

      A productive day. 

      I woke up around 04:30 last night, got up, and wrote down the items list for the solar mirror cooker which I planned to build today, then went back to sleep around 05:30, and was awakened by a knock on my door for breakfast.  I looked at my clock, and it was 08:45 – late by two hours for me.

      The two Indian couples as well as Chris have left by then.  Only Chris will be back, who went with the Indian couples to Gondia to buy his train ticket to Delhi.

      I had a hurried breakfast with Faiyaz.  Anne had already eaten, but she sat with us.  We then jumped into the Gypsy with Amar at the wheel, and headed for Baihar. 

      Our first stop was the office of Mr. Jharia, Assistant Forest Conservator, where we discussed our purchasing with Rs2200 a young (14 months old) hybrid bull (half Hiana) to give to Chichrunpur.  Hybrid because a pure bred bull from elsewhere would not do well in the local environment.  We exchanged many questions and answers regarding what’s already been done by Faiyaz and what we plan to do.  According to Jharia, Chichrunpur has already accepted the idea of neutering all its own bulls, which are of average quality by local standards, which is to say very low, if this new high quality bull is given to them.  According to Jharia, several other villages have shown similar interest.  The program is to have the village bulls neutered first by the villagers themselves using their traditional methods (How do they do it?), followed by a vet check to verify the fact, and if things check out fine, then the new bull will be introduced to the village by walking it there.  The new bull is to be free-range grazed with the cows in the day time, and stall fed with grains at night.  The breeding of the cows will be done by the bull on its own accord – as is the custom of the local villages, who may also breed the cows of neighbouring villages he will encounter in the normal course of free-ranging-grazing.  After a couple of years, he would be rotated to another village to prevent inbreeding, and a new bull will be rotated to Chichrunpur to take his place.  The objective of this scheme is to bring up the quality (e.g. milk productivity) of the cattle and reduce their quantity, so that the grasslands and forests may rebound.  In the short run, however, free range grazing will continue. 

      After our meeting, Jharia took us to a veterinarian hospital to meet the head vet, who then took us to see the bull which currently belongs to a private owner nearby.  The average milk yield of a local cow is about 2 litres a day.  This young bull’s mother is supposed to yield 14 litres.  Being only 14 months old, he is not impressive to look at, but according to the vet, he will mature into a magnificent animal.  They say, however, that he is ready to perform his intended duty.  They believe that the neutering of the Chichrunpur bulls either is being done or has been done.  The vet check will be done shortly.  Meanwhile, this little bull – the name “Bullet” popped into my mind - will stay where he is.

      After the bull viewing, we went to “downtown” Baihar to shop for material with which to build the solar mirror cooker – wooden boards to make the stand for the mirror, nails, metal cutter to cut the steel sheet, bamboo poles and ropes to make two tripods and a horizontal beam for suspension of the hot plate and grill, coarse mesh wire grill to put pots on, etc., and eventually hired a carpenter who came back with us to the lodge to make the wooden base, which has now been made.  The steel sheet is highly reflective alright, but it is somewhat rippled when unfurled, which means it’s going to scatter off some 30% (I estimate) of the incident solar heat.  Tomorrow near noon, we’ll test the device.

 

[22:32]        During my time in Delhi and Jaipur, as well as here at Kanha, I have come across information which either just fell into my lap by accident, or was thrust into my hands unbidden, or was the fruit of my own investigation.  This information range from mildly interesting to surprising to downright staggering.  Following are a few of these items:

 

1.    According to what I’d been shown previously, I had always assumed that Dimple was the main, full time teacher at the free school.  But last night I found out that she does so only sporadically, and that Faiyaz in fact is the full time teacher.  Dimple, however, always manages to be the one seen whenever I was there – certainly far more than probability would dictate.  Thus my assumption.

 

2.    I asked three impartial people to do a cost estimate of the CIDA-funded Tiger Trust program in 1997 without telling them the funding amount nor even telling them about the program.  Their estimate were fairly consistent, ranging from a low of  C$8,000 to a high of C$12,000.  The actual amount sent to TT from CIDA via WCWC was some C$45,000 (60% of that year’s project grant of C$75,000).  And Tiger Trust did not even fulfill a major part of the program, including the production of a Hindi-language tiger conservation comic book, or if they did, I’ve never seen it.

 

3.    While at Delhi in 1998, about the time when TT was requested by CIDA to submit receipts, a tour operator observed that Vijay, the Dynamic Tours accountant, was repeatedly told by Pradeep to assign expenses and unpaided bills and receipts to Tiger Trust, instead to Dynamic Tours, pertaining to activities due more to Dynamic Tours than to Tiger Trust.  I’ve also been told that it is very easy to obtain phony receipts in India, both in items and in amount.  As to who has or has not done what remains to be seen.

 

4.    Perhaps a coincidence.  While I was in Delhi, Pradeep asked me a couple of times when the CIDA grant money is coming through.  He even called Paul George about it.  As soon as the first installment of the CIDA money came through about a week ago, which was about C$15,000, almost or exactly to the day, he bought the new Gypsy.  He told me that it is for Tiger Trust to use, but both Dynamic Tours manager Manoj Sharma and Jungle Lodge manager Tarun Bahti, without me asking, let it be known that it is a new Dynamic Tours vehicle.  The price tag of the new Gypsy is about C$15,000.  When I was talking about using it for Tiger Trust outreach, Manoj, who overheard the conversation, said to me, “The use of the Gypsy is not listed in the agreement of the CIDA grant.”  (to which I replied, “But this will soon change.”) 

 

5.    Lodge workers have filtered the information to me that the lodge uses a lot of poached wood, which is cheaper than legal wood, to build and cook with, or to burn at the fire pit, bought from wood poachers, knowingly by the management above Tarun. 

 

6.    Manoj and Tarun have been heard to independently remark that CIDA money was not used fully towards tiger conservation and that CIDA/WCWC were not getting their money’s worth from TT.

 

7.    Several people, including Jharia and Tarun, have warned Faiyaz, and even tangentially me, to not get close to any of the village women, and be always accompanied by a witness whenever he goes to a village.  This is because his various previous visits involving promoting changes in lifestyle (e.g. “Do not cut wood.”) were not always welcomed by everyone concerned.  In most villages, there are usually a couple of people who take exception to his intrusion, and would consider using false accusations such as rape to get rid of him. 

 

8.    I have asked a couple of people in Delhi to translate for me a few of the articles generated thus far, all but one (The Hindu) are in Hindi.  At least one of them mentioned that the “big balloon tiger” belongs to TT, some did not say a word about WCWC or even Canada, and that the slideshows, all given by me as a WCWC campaigner, are a TT initiative.  It is true that media tends to misquote, but seldom several at once in the same way.

 

9.    I asked Pradeep whether my expenses in Delhi and Jaipur should be borne by WCWC or TT.  His answer was “I don’t know.”  My feeling is that TT should bear at least half if not all of it, since the organization to gain the lion’s share of the benefit is TT, not WCWC.  It is true that Pradeep often mentions “a Canadian campaigner of a Canadian conservation organization”, but WCWC is often not mentioned by name, and in the public eye, all the events were TT initiatives.  Often I felt used to promote TT, which I relatively didn’t mind in light of the other alternative, which is to be used to promote Dynamic Tours.  TT’s media exposure in Jaipur, his home town, was immense. 

 

10.             Pradeep’s demonstrated deference to me was well appreciated, but in light of the Big picture, much less so.  The picture is that when Faiyaz wanted to do certain things, he was stalled, but when I even just hinted to want to do the very same things, by myself or by Faiyaz, I was very quickly given the nod.  This means to me that giving me the go ahead was not all for the true cause, but often for my giving WCWC, and thus CIDA, a good report on TT.  I think Pradeep knows how I feel from one or two source, and is doing everything on the surface that he thinks I want to see.

 

11.             Not much happened re. TT activities in my two-week absence from Kanha, but not for want of desire on the part of Faiyaz and Anne.  First, there was heavy tourist influx and both were put to work in that arena, and second, I was told that whatever they wanted to do not related to the tourist business were denied by Tarun, who would not release a single rupee for Tiger Trust work upon request, likely under order from Pradeep. 

 

12.             Both Anne and Faiyaz are concerned, with good reason based on what I have observed, that whereas TT outreach work will go well and smoothly while I’m here, this will abruptly end as soon as I leave.

 

      Closer to matters at hand, Chris, who went to Gondia in the Tata Sumo with the four Indian tourists, still hasn’t returned to the lodge.  He was supposed to be back by 20:00.  We (Anne, Faiyaz and I) decided that if Chris still hadn’t come back by 23:00, I would drive the Gypsy to Baihar to check on the home of the owner of the Tata Sumo. 

      While waiting for 23:00 to roll around, we whiled the waiting away by delving into OMNI-SCIENCE.  Faiyaz asked me, “So, if the termite mound and the human tribal village are on the same level, and if India is an organism, my question is: Is India one level or two levels above the termite mound?”

      “If two levels, what is the level in between?” I asked him.

      “It would be that of the city, I suppose, since the city of Delhi, for example, is composed of hundreds of thousands of ‘tribes’.”

      “What forms do these ‘tribes’ take?”

      “Extended families, mostly, I would think.”

      “And how would such a tribe differ from, say, the tribe of Chichrunpur?”

      “I would think that these ‘city-tribes’ would have to be in some form specialized, to contribute to the differentiation / cooperation make up of a multi-tribal society.  So it wouldn’t be just families or even extended families, unless that family has a specialized social function.”

      “I would suggest that all families in a city serve more or less specialized functions, such as Pradeep’s, specializing in eco-tourism,” suggested Anne.

      “Right, Anne,” said Faiyaz.  “So, we’re talking about family businesses, companies, corporations, organizations, whether they are family-based or investor-based, and the city people who are employed by them.”

      “So, Delhi, to you, is a bona fide organism?” I asked.

      “Definitely,” said Faiyaz.

      “Is it a social or nonsocial organism?”

      “Since it is not a generalized lone-standing city-state but a more or less specialized city in the nation of India, it is a social organism,” said Anne.

      It is now 23:00.  Time to go to Baihar.  More later.

 

[01:26]        We did go to Baihar, with me at the wheel.  A cool and breezy drive, with the top down as always.  When we got to the Sumo owner’s home, we interrupted the house lady’s sleep, who did not seem overly concerned that the Sumo still hadn’t returned.  We drove a little farther to the bus stop, and saw that the bus which was to take Amar to catch a train to Delhi (for him to co-drive the new Gypsy back to Kanha with Tarun) was still sitting there.  We spotted Amar at a window and I pulled the Gypsy alongside the bus.  Faiyaz talked to Amar who told him that the white Tata Sumo had just passed when we were talking to the sleepy house lady.  We drove back to the lady and saw no Sumo there, so we headed back to the lodge.  Shortly before we arrived, we met the Sumo coming back from the lodge, with which we exchanged a greeting with both vehicles stopped right in the middle of the deserted road. 

      We had a great time on the moonlight drive, both ways, filling the night with our uninhibited songs.  At one point, I said, “How would you like to hear a Western love song?”  Both Anne and Faiyaz cheered “yes!”, so I sang Elvis’ “Are you lonesome tonight?”  After that, Anne suggested “Jailhouse Rock”.  We probably woke up every sleeping creature we passed, and didn’t even have a single drop to drink.  There is alcohol, and there is spirit.

      Back at the lodge, we chatted a bit with Chris, then, 1 a.m. rolled around, and here I am.  Tata.