February 19, 1999, Friday, sunny, 11-27C

 

[16:38 @ rm.112, Kanha Jungle Lodge]     Great things are about to happen.  They are already happening. 

     In the late afternoon, we (Anne, Faiyaz, Chris and I) were brainstorming around the cold fire pit about what most effective things we can do during my stay here at Kanha, when I thought out a plan on the spot.  We will invite all the panchayats (multi-village councils) in the buffer zone (about 45, averaging one for every 4 villages) for a meeting at the Jungle Lodge.  We’ll show them the Champions video, give them the slideshow, demonstrate the solar devices and have a buffer-zone-wide meeting.  Faiyaz will organize it with the help of Tirath, a park guide who is also a Gond tribal who can drive.  The lodge will be without tourists March 1-4 and 8-12.  We’ll choose one of these days.

 

[22:34]     Just finished the meeting with three park guides, including the handsome and regal Tirath (even though he is in rags and sandals, or perhaps even an ‘Untouchable’ - this I don’t know).  They arrived around 19:30.  First we showed them the Champions video.  Then we had a discussion in the dinner pavilion.  One of their questions was the idea held by many villagers in the buffer zone that the park will expand into the buffer zone and they will be displaced farther into what they consider the boonies.  This was the perfect opening for me to present to them the idea of holding a buffer zone wide pan-panchayat meeting.  We asked their opinion on such an event.  They talked among themselves at length, and surprised me when Faiyaz interpreted that they offered to help us organize the event.  In order to reach all the panchayats, they would need about three days with Faiyaz, since they do have 1,000 sq. km. to cover.  They also opined that March 1-4 is not as good as March 8-12 because the “Holi” (flower) festival will be on in the former period and many villagers will be drunk!  We chose March 11 as the date, and also decided that it is imperative to invite the government officials in the region.  So, without further ado, Faiyaz and Tirath will get started first thing tomorrow morning to commence the networking with the various panchayats.  First thing on the agenda is to issue invitations to the officials to show our respect, and also to obtain their permission for us to traverse through the Core Area to get to the Buffer Zone on other side of the park.  So, all of us will go into the park 06:30. 

     I will also invite media and perhaps also people from the Centre of Science for Villagers (CSV) in a town a coupler of hundred km away to attend this “Kanha Region Panchayat Conference”.  

     This, we all agree, is the most effective way to contact the most number of villages in the shortest time.

     We went to Baihar to call Pradeep and discuss the plan with him, but he was again unavailable.  There is no promise I can reach him tomorrow or the day after.  Meanwhile, I can sit and wait, or go and act.  Given my limited time here, I chose of course to act.

     On the drive back to the lodge, Faiyaz asked me, “Anthony, I have further questions about corporation and organizations as specialized ‘tribe’.” 

     “Sure, Faiyaz.”

     “So, a corporation, or a non-profit organization for that matter, is a very specialized village-equivalent which cannot exist in the wild in its highly specialized form.  In our diction, a corporation in a city is a ‘social tribe’, as opposed to an independent tribal village being a non-social tribe, as a body cell is to an amoeba.”

     “True,” said Anne.  “If a 300-person corporation, say a law firm, were extracted out of the city and placed on a desert island, what do you think would happen to it?”

     “300 lawyers on a desert island?  It’s not a new lawyer joke, is it?” laughed Chris.

     “I think it – the law firm - would lose its speciality and become a generalized… village,” said Faiyaz, seriously.  “Take a few specialized cells from, say, a carrot and put them into petri dish with a nutrient solution, and they too would become generalized.  So the lawyer will all become farmers.”