March 5, 1999, Friday, sunny, 18-33C
[23:54 @ Rm.111, Kanha Jungle Lodge]
Today
is a day of no return.
This
morning at 07:00, Faiyaz, Tarun and I drove into Baihar, they to talk to
Pradeep, and I to take him to task.
As
it happened, it took us more than an hour to place the call from Baihar to
Delhi. By the time Tarun got through to
Pradeep, it was past nine.
While
waiting for the call to go through, Faiyaz said, “The Channel-Net subsystem of
the living system called India leaves much to be desired.”
“You
might say that.”
“I’ve
heard that the Chinese has a philosophical system that puts the body organs
into five interacting groups. Is that
right?”
“Yes. It’s called the Five Elements system.”
“What
are these Five-Elements and how do they interact?”
“The
Five Elements are Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth. These five organ groups are arranged in the combined form of a
pentagon and a star. In this diagram,
Group A supports Group B, inhibits Group C, is inhibited by Groups D and is
supported by Groups E. And likewise for
every other group. Chinese internal
medicine strives to achieve optimal balance amongst the five organ groups.”
“Thus,
two interlevel parallelisms – 20-subsystems per Living System on all levels,
and the Five Elements within all organisms on all levels.”
“Very
good, Faiyaz.”
“Can
the Five Elements apply to India as a National organism?”
“I
can’t see why not, seeing as India is a living system in Miller’s terms, and an
organism in ours.”
“Thus,
yet another interlevel parallelism,” Faiyaz said.
“And
that is?”
“That
there exist organs in all organisms, on all levels. In our bodies are our bodily organs. Within a cell are organelles.
And within a society are social organs, such as this dysfunctional
social nervous system of ours here.”
“Very
good, Faiyaz. What I call Organ-ism,” I
said.
“Very
good, Anthony,” returned Faiyaz.
When
finally the call went through, Tarun talked first. From the outset, although I couldn’t understand a word he said in
Hindi, his body language said it all.
When he was done, he passed the phone to Faiyaz, who could not finish a
single sentence. The loud voice on the
other end just rattled on and on.
Whatever Faiyaz could manage to say was said in a subdued voice, and as
soon as the interruption came, he’d stop.
This went on for about 15 minutes.
Tarun filled me in. Pradeep had
indeed refused to release a single rupee to the panchayat outreach-conference
project - out of the CDN$15,000 first installment he had received from WCWC in
February. When Faiyaz was done, he was
so upset he just hung up the phone. The
two of them mumbled something to each other in Hindi, went back out to the
street and climbed dejectedly back into the Gypsy. Faiyaz seemed on the point of tears.
I
joined them. “Well?”
So
they spilled the beans. First, Faiyaz
was indeed ordered to give up even the old (instead of new) Gypsy assigned to
us for the outreach effort in favour of tourist use during their stay, which
means that WCWC/TT work would indeed be suspended. And second, Anne was ordered to go to Bandhavgarh almost at once,
which was in violation of Pradeep’s agreement with me that as long as I’m in
India, Anne would remain as my volunteer, and further would jeopardize the
conference project given Anne’s being an integral part of the team. Not to mention Anne’s own desire to still
with the team. There were apparently
other things that Pradeep said about me to Faiyaz, but these two point were
enough for the time being. I went back
into the STD-PCO shop to make my call.
Hardly
surprising, it was not a pleasant or even civil conversation. Pradeep’s first point was that we went ahead
to plan and do things without his approval.
I pointed out his almost total inaccessibility, and he did not dispute
it. Since my return to Kanha on
February 16th, the first time anyone succeeded contacting him by any
means was yesterday, March 4th.
Christopher delivered my letter to him on late Feb. 26th or
early Feb. 27th, and he did not read it until yesterday. Mean time, he left absolutely no instruction
to Faiyaz for any TT work, nor did he pre-discuss with me while I was in Delhi
what he would like TT to accomplish in his usual absence. So, I asked him if he wanted us to just sit and
wait at least two weeks and do nothing other than to try to get in touch with
him. He did not answer the question,
but had the audacity to say, “As far as I’m concerned, your work at Kanha is a
total failure.”
“And
yours?” I should have asked back.
Instead, I asked, “How’s that?”
He said, “You should have limited your
outreach to at most two villages and made sure that the villagers use the solar
cookers.”
“Just
two? We have succeeded to impress and
convince the panchayat leaders of at least 50 villages that the solar cooker
physically works. I aim to do so with
at least 120 villages during my stay here.
The follow-up to the conference would be the time to install units in
the villages interested in them, and there should be dozens willing to try out
this technology. What we are doing will
accomplish a Buffer-Zone-wide distribution after the conference with the
necessary follow-up work to be done by Faiyaz and Anne after I’ve left. But if we limit our effort during my stay to
just two villages, and if they end up selling the cookers for alcohol as they
did the hand pumps, then that would have been a total failure, with none of the
other villages even hearing about even the idea of alternative cooking
technology.”
Pradeep
did not argue this point, but started ordering me saying “I want” this done and
“I want” that done, most of which showing no understanding nor respect for what
we are doing and have done, and would derail the conference project
altogether. Before the list of
unreasonable and unworkable items got too long and out of hand, I said,
“Pradeep, it’s not what you want.
If you want these things done, why don’t you do just one of them
yourself? I’m not your employee or
servant. I represent the organization
that have brought you the CIDA grant money which you are withholding from our
use. So please don’t order me
around. This is a joint project between
our organizations. Indeed, you can tell
Faiyaz ‘I want’ this and that, but all I’ve heard you say to him has been,
‘suspend Tiger Trust action to serve my clients’. As far as I’m concerned, if there are two equal partners, one
doing everything and the other nothing, the one doing nothing has no right to
make the rules or even criticize the other.
Still, you’re the head of Tiger Trust, and we are organizing the conference
in the name of Tiger Trust. You do have
the right to call it off. So if you
think the work on the conference is a total failure, why don’t you just order
it cancelled?”
He
said, “Okay, cancel it.”
I
said, and not too coolly, “No. I’ll go
ahead with it. If you still wouldn’t
release the funds to us right now, I’ll call WCWC to get them to withhold from
you the second installment of the CIDA fund.”
He then said, “You forced me to say cancel
the conference. I didn’t mean to say
it.”
“Consider
the project proceeded upon, with a vehicle.”
“Then
go rent a vehicle for the three days.”
“Well, thank you, Pradeep. Kindly send Tarun the funds ASAP. Meanwhile, I’ll just use my own money.”
He said nothing.
“And how about Anne? What happened to our agreement that she be a
WCWC/TT volunteer while I’m here? She’s
a vital part of this project. If you
pulled her away, you’d compromise the conference.”
“Anne
can stay at Kanha if you insist. But
somebody else will have to go in her place.”
At
that point, Tarun pointed at Chris through the window, who was sitting in the
back of the Gypsy. I said, “How about
Chris Cook?”
“Absolutely
not. Chris will never go back to
Bandhavgarh. It’ll have to be Kim. Kanha Jungle Lodge is not a club house.”
“A
club house? For your information KJL is
more like a work camp than at any other time in its history.”
Chris
is not welcome back to Bandhavgarh because BJL (Bandhavgarh Jungle Lodge)
manager Pushpinder does not get along with him or prefers Kim over him, and
Tiger Trust officer Vivek Sharma competes with him and/or is jealous of
him. Chris is a superb self-made birder
and Vivek, I’ve been told, feels that as a threat.
Regarding
Kim, I know for a fact she will not go back to Bandhavgarh with only Pushpinder
and Vivek there, even if she has to quit Pradeep. Tourists-wise, the season has pretty well dried up except for the
Peter Cambridge group of about ten on March 10th-13th,
and Peter Cambridge has expressly told everyone he does not want volunteers in
their midst. After that, it wouldn’t be
until after the conference when, from March 28th to April 10th,
there’ll be about 4 stragglers. So,
what’s the point of having Kim go over there to sit for a month, especially
when she has been helping out with the conference? I cannot, however, speak for Kim as I can for Anne, so Kim would
have to speak for herself.
Pradeep
and I ended the phone call as abruptly and coldly as it began.
At
dinner after we’d come back from Baihar, I sat next to Kim and personally broke
the news to her in the presence of all concerned. Kim, in her usual quiet and succinct way, said simply, “I’m not
going back, even if I have to leave.”
“I’ll
support you,” I said to her, not quite knowing what that would entail, nor
whether it would do any good.