March 2, 1999, Tuesday, Sunny, 17-31C

 

[13:57 @ Rm.111, Kanha Jungle Lodge]

     Off day number 3.  Holi (colour) Festival in full swing.  Our faces got smeared with coloured powder by the little girl of an Indian family staying here, and by the lodge staff accompanied by hugs.  Hugs-wise, this is likely the only occasion on which the staff dare to touch us.  For once, there is a feeling of oneness and equality in the lodge.  Because the park personnel themselves wanted to enjoy some Holi fun, so our refuge the park was closed for the day.  Anne expressed interest to go and check out Manjitola and perhaps Baihar.  Faiyaz gave a curt “no” as an answer, supplemented by “go at your own risk”.

     This morning, in a chat with Faiyaz, Anne and Tarun, Tarun paid me a great compliment.  We were talking about the great Valmik Thapar again.  Other than the usual “media crazy”, Tarun said that Thapar is extremely rich, urbane, and hardly ever gets his hands dirty or feet wet. 

     “Now, Kailash Sankhala is quite different,” he said, glowing with family pride, being Kailash’s grand nephew.  “He had not much money, and lived modestly, and he waded into the mud to do front line work,” he said, “just like Anthony.”

     Indeed, Kailash Sankhala used to spend days on end, and nights, studying tigers in his rickety bamboo blind that his subject could demolish with a single paw swipe. 

     “He was a very physical man,” continued Tarun.  “Once he pulled a twenty-foot python bodily out of its hole to…”

     “Oh, stop!  Tarun, stop!” cried Faiyaz.

     “Why, Faiyaz?”  I asked.

     “I don’t want to hear it.  Mr. Sankhala is my hero.  I don’t want to know anything about him doing something I might think wrong.”

     Today, with Faiyaz’s help, I set up the big communal solar oven for its debut experiment.  We wrapped the galvanized steel tub with three layers of blankets, and used the parabolic mirror standing on its side on a cart as reflector (since the designer reflectors are not yet ready).  We put in two pots of rice around 12:30, one the usual black solar oven pot, and the other an uncovered aluminum pot.  I expect it would take about 3 hours, Faiyaz estimated four.

     Faiyaz also submitted to me a list of panchayat leaders we’ve met to date:

 

     1999-02-23

          Paundi Panchayat -                                    2 villages

               Bagas Ram Mohne -  ward member

          Rahesh Singh Vaishya -  Chairman

          Gram Van Surakcha Samits (Forest Security Committee)

          Jaitpuri Panchayat -                                    3 villages

               Smt. Danmat Ghurve -  Sarpanch (head)

               Budh Singh Dhurve -  ward member

               plus 3 more panchayat members

 

     1999-02-25

          Mana Panchayat -                                    3 villages

               Mahendra Singh Kusre -  Sarpanch

          Samaria Panchayat -                                  3 villages

               Mahesh Kumar Makaur -  Sarpanch 

          Khajra Panchayat -                                  5 villages

               Rajendra Dharve -  Deputy Sarpanch

               Chait Ram Taram -  ward member

          Kukarra Panchayat -                                   12 villages

               Tula Ram Kalihare -  Deputy Sarpanch

 

     1999-02-27

          Banderwadi Ramchayat -                            3 villages

               Sukla Singh Tekaur – ward member

               Mambodh Sign Meravi – ward member

               Holu Singh Markaur – ward member

               Mangal Das Taneria – Chairman, Forest Security Committee

          Bhimdongri Panchayat -                             1 village

               Smt. Maya Bai – ward member

          Murkutta Panchayat -                                   3 villages

               Uttam Lal Rai – Deputy Sarpanch   

 

     35 villages out of 178.

 

[15:02]     Santosh, one of the tribal lodge workers, who was convinced that the solar devices were jokes, and according to Tarun, led the staff to laugh at us behind our backs, is now firmly convinced that it works.  It was he who informed Faiyaz that the rice was cooked, and that was only after two hours in the sun.  And the conditions weren’t even perfect – make shift reflector, wrong sized blankets as insulation, no outer casing.  Tarun, who was very skeptical a couple of day ago, is also convinced, not only that the cooker works, but can cook 20 pots of rice in one go for the whole village.

     “But now, my question is - Can you convince the villagers?” 

     “Piece of cake, Tarun,” I answered with more confidence than I felt, “or should I say, pot of rice.”

 

[22:32]        Off and on throughout the day, we heard tribal drums and shouts all around the lodge – and most unnervingly in the forest behind the lodge grounds.  It was semi-drunken villagers invading various compounds demanding money or else – their version of our trick-or-treating, although some of their tricks are said to be not very amusing or even dangerous.  The Jungle Lodge would be a prime target. 

     At one point, I was out in the grass field doing something with the solar reflector when Santosh ran to me and said, “Sir, please return to you room at once.  Please draw your curtains and don’t answer the door if it is knocked on by someone you don’t know.”  We basically shut ourselves in our rooms and let the staff deal with the intruders, all day into the night.

     Somewhere in the course of the evening Raminothna asked the group, “Name a new reason for LaMarckian evolution on the higher levels.”

     “Something not discussed before?” asked Faiyaz.

     “Yes.”

     “Give us hint.”

     “How many organisms are there in the national species to which India belongs?”

     “One?  At most a countable few, even including nations like Sri Lanka and Pakistan,” said Anne.

     “It does seem that in general the higher the level, the fewer the number of organisms per species,” said Faiyaz.  “There are countless molecules in the ‘molecular species’ H₂O on the Molecular level, quadrillions of amoebae in an amoeba species on the Cellular level, trillions of ants and billion of humans on the Metabion level, millions of ant colonies and hundreds of thousands of human villages on the Tribal level, thousands of cities on the City level and only several nations per species, or perhaps even genus or order on the National level.”

     “Well observed, Faiyaz.  And if and when the planet Earth transcendentally integrates into one?”

     “The planetary organism Earth will be the only organism in the Solar System on the Planetary level of organization.”

     “So, one Planetary organism per Planetary species?” asked Anne.

     “Until Planetary organism Earth reproduces and gives rise to offspring Planetary organisms elsewhere in the Solar system.  And even so, the offspring Planetary organisms would evolve at once to suit the physical properties of those planets on which these offspring organisms have taken root, or of interplanetary space itself in the cases of orbital space-colonies.  So, I would think that there will be as many Planetary species as there will be Planetary organisms, and the one-organism-per-species ratio will hold true,”

I said.

     They hesitantly nodded.