February 24, 1999, Wednesday, sunny,
15-27C
[11:11 @ dining pavilion in Kanha
Jungle Lodge]
The
prearranged 09:00 breakfast with Manu Srivastava, Collector, Balaghat, Madhya
Pradesh, was long yet enjoyable, not least of all because of his great charm as
observed by both Anne and myself. His
position of Collector, as explained to me, is very high and influential, and
his jurisdiction is over the whole district of Balaghat, including Kanha in its
entirety, and wherever he goes, an armed guard hefting an automatic assault
rifle loiters nearby. And yet, he is no
more than in his 30’s, married with three small children, and advanced on the
strength of his ability alone via a countrywide exam system, so I was told. When discussing an issue, he has strong opinions,
and projects them powerfully. It is a
good thing that he agrees with my view that the gate charge for foreign
tourists should be raised, and half of the revenue be plowed towards directly
benefiting villagers in the buffer zone.
It is his request that we have breakfast together, and we talked of many
issues, from birth control to AIDS to of course the park, the villagers and
wildlife conservation. He left around
noon and I felt comfortable enough with him to joke, “Some day I may have to
borrow your body guard.”
His
wife is currently organizing a one-day woman’s issues convention in a town
called Seony about 90 km. north of Balaghat on Feb. 27. Anne expressed an interest to attend, but
also wants to stay because that is the meeting date with the next group of
panchayat leaders. I urged her to go,
but pointed out that her absence would be more justified if she could secure a
plenary speech opportunity. This
evening, we’ll go to Baihar to call Mrs. Srivastava to see about arranging that
possibility. Tarun is kind enough to
offer to accompany Anne by bus, since there would be no tourists that day. By bus because there is no budget for this
in our campaign, and taking the Gipsy would involve a big gas bill.
When
Tarun came back from the morning safari with the Peter Harris group of about 20
(5 vehicles), he told of an unbelievable morning’s sighting, even for a
seasoned park tour-leader like him.
First, they saw tiger, leopard, Gaur.
Then they saw the very rare wild dogs, which alone is phenomenal. And then, the wild dog, which like the
African hunting dogs are pack hunters, put on a show of hunting down a chital
in a large meadow, which is a one in a thousand chance sighting. He related how six or seven wild dog
appeared one by one on different point of the compass, all converging upon a
large herd of chital which began dashing in all direction. The dogs concentrated on a fawn and captured
it, which then broke free and was captured again, and broke free again and
captured for the last time, and killed before Tarun’s very eyes. At one point the chital got so near and were
so frantic that one of them slammed against the Gypsy he was in. The sequence lasted about half an hour, and
Tarun said that it was about the best wildlife viewing experience he’s ever
had.
But
guess what? While the wild dogs were
just deploying themselves for action, about fifteen minutes into the hunting
sequence, one of the tourists said, “Well, enough of these foxes. Let’s go and find some tigers.” When Tarun was telling us about this, there
was disdain written all over his face.
Having been in the park enough times, Anne and I listened with jaws down
and eye brows up. There is no justice,
is there? A perfect illustration of
“casting pearls to swine”. For once, I
wish people would not be so fixated on the tiger for a change. But what would happen if the tiger
disappears and Kanha becomes known as a “wild dog reserve”? What tourist would come to this park? What future would the park have then? Not to mention the Barasinga deer of which
there is but one single population of about 300 in the world, and that’s in
Kanha. But if the Kanha tigers were
wiped out, so would the wild dogs of Kanha, and the Barasinga deer of the world.
As
recorded in yesterday’s entry, Tarun promised a vehicle after the morning
drive, but when at 12:30 Faiyaz was ready to go into the east core zone to
visit the core villages, there was no vehicle to be had, although all five
Gypsies were sitting empty in the parking lot.
Tarun was holding all five vehicles available for the afternoon park
drive just in case all 20 tourists decide to go. It was only due to four or five of them electing not to go that
Tarun finally released one Gypsy for Faiyaz to use, and by then, it was past
15:00. Again, Jungle Lodge was given
priority over Tiger Trust and undermined a WCWC/CIDA funded Tiger Trust
operation. And whatever happened to
Pradeep’s magnanimous offering that the new Gypsy was to be placed at Tiger
Trust’s disposal for outreach purposes? – Tiger Trust, his father’s and his own
organization, for tiger’s sake!
Absolutely unacceptable, and will not be accepted. And of course, when one of the five Gypsies
became available, the Gypsy with bald tires and almost no brakes was the one
dispensed to Faiyaz, not the one Pradeep purchased on about the same day when
the first C$15,000 installment of the CIDA grant came through.
Chris
is leaving the lodge tomorrow for good.
His first stop is Gondia, where he will catch a 26-hour train to Delhi,
leaving Gondia at 18:00. But after
devoting two months of his time to Pradeep’s outfit, he was given a cheap bus
ticket which requires him to leave the lodge at 08:00, and wait for 5 hours
somewhere enroute. Since Chris will be
traveling alone, he would not be able to relax for a moment due to the constant
threat of theft. While on the train
coming in, he was lifting a suitcase up to the overhead rack when another case
at his feet was lifted, which contained his papers, among many precious
things. This is yet another
unacceptably tacky and disrespectful way in which Pradeep treats his nontourist
people. Knowing that Chris has no money
to pay for a jeep ride, Anne and I agreed among ourselves to hire one for him
at our expense, at the cost of Rs.5 per km.
The trip being 120 km. one way, the cost to Anne and me would be
Rs.1250, or CDN$50. Christopher can
respectfully return the C$1 bus ticket to Pradeep.
During
afternoon tea for the tourists, a woman of about 60 looked at me and asked,
“Are you a wildlife conservationist with WWF or something like that? I think I saw you on television while in
Montreal recently.”
“Something
like that.“ I explained my position with WCWC and gave her a copy of my Total
TV “business sheet”. She dug out a pen
and asked for my autograph.
Being
tourist oriented, Kim went out on both morning and afternoon safaris. She told me at one point that she read the
“spiritual” (vs intellectual) side of my book (tape version), which she
borrowed to take to Bandhavgarh to read.
“Surprisingly good.” Some days
ago, I gave my only taped copy of OMNI-SCIENCE (the Roxy version) to
Christopher. I told him that I give my
tape only to highly valued people. “I’m
not going to change my mind about you.”
Today, he typed his “long poem to Adriane” into my computer.
[00:22] Faiyaz came back around 19:45, and we (Faiyaz, Anne, Chris L.,
Chris C. and I, with Amar at the wheel) went to Baihar to do several things:
1.
Order a vehicle to drive Chris to Gondia.
2.
Phone Manoj about the converter – that we need it, so get one in
Delhi. When the “boy” came in camp
yesterday, he brought the voltage converter instead of the 220 volt projector I
had asked for. Manoj attached a note
saying that I must send the converter back to him after the one-time use, and
now, on the phone, he insisted on it.
He said that it was needed for operating the fan of the blowup-tiger on
the 27th. This certainly
will not be done, since I need the slide projector continuously for the whole
month I’m here. Why did he send the
converter instead of the 220-volt projector, I asked him. Can the guy do anything right? It was he who sent me the wrong (110-volt)
projector in the first place, and without the slides at that. He suggested that we go and rent a slide
projector from Balaghat instead. Even
Tarun said this was ridiculous. Are we
suppose to rent a projector for a whole month, when all that needs to be done
is for them to send me the right projector in the first place? He asks me to call him back tomorrow at
12:30. What good does that do? He also says that in the absence of Pradeep
he will send Sucheta to monitor our progress.
Screw that. WCWC is not sending
CIDA money to Pradeep to spend it on monitoring the work of a WCWC campaigner
who is doing the work that Pradeep should be doing himself. If Pradeep wants to use Sucheta, fine, send
her to Bandhavgarh to do Tiger Trust field work, or send her to monitor him for
non-performance.
3.
Attend to Bullet. Not
done.
4.
Visit Jharia. Not done.
5.
Get brick mason and tub and glass and frame. Not done.
The
last three “Not done”s illustrate our deflated spirit which was zapped by the
insincerity of Pradeep and incompetence in Delhi.
While
in Baihar, there was a wedding ceremony going on in the street right where our
Gypsy was parked when Tarun went into the phone café to make the call to
Delhi. Well, guess what? We stole their show by just being
there. Our Gypsy got surrounded by
people, all looking up at us. Even the
TV camera was trained at us, not at the wedding party. Anne, being the only woman in the party, and
a white one at that, was slightly discomfited as usual when she finds herself
being gawked at, which is about 100% of the time whenever she comes to
town. She would not come to town alone.
After
that, we went to visit Faiyaz’s friend Vijay Chandra, who is the only judge in
town, again a very charming young man of no more than 35. He put heavy emphasis on wildlife
crime. He showed us his thesis, in which
he wrote: “Science without law is lame; law without science is blind.” When Faiyaz asked him about my driving
license, he said that it is illegal to drive with a Canadian license, but, he
says, you can always do it “the Indian way” (i.e. to bribe), plus, the penalty
for driving without a valid license is Rs.100, less than the cost to get a
temporary license. I wonder what the
penalty against running over somebody while driving without a valid license
would be. If it comes to suing somebody
in court for damages, how much do they put on the rupee-worth of an average
villager’s life?
There
is a road bridge we drove past that was damaged last month by a traffic
accident. Today, we see that it has
been repaired.
“Behold
the self-healing power of National Organism India,” observed Chris, who is a
holistic healer while back home in New York.
Excellent
parting shot, Chris.