WRITING OUTDOORS
A Natural Reader
Edited by
Stephen Alter
WWF – India
Hanifl Centre for Outdoor and Environmental Study
Woodstock School
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Writing Outdoors
Anita Desai
Five Encounters
M. Krishnan
Are Warblers Less Important Than Tigers?
Madhusudan Katti
66
Jungle Lore
73
The Himalaya in Indian Ornithology
90
Establishing the Sanctuary
109
Trees
120
Discussion Points, Exercises and Essay Topics
132
Prerna Singh Bindra
1
Introduction Stephen Alter
Outdoors
The Enchanted Forest
11
13
23
Jim Corbett
Salim Ali
Billy Arjan Singh
Ruskin Bond
The Whistling Hunter
28
Authors
144
The Folded Earth
40
Acknowledgements
148
Why Save Tigers?
43
Escape From the Sanctuary
50
The Saga of Harjit
61
A.J.T. Johnsingh
Anuradha Roy
K. Ullas Karanth
Bill Aitken
Dhriti K. Lahiri-Choudhury
WRITING OUTDOORS
Stephen Alter
Ancient poets and philosophers drew inspiration from India’s rich and diverse ecology,
her forested plains, rivers and mountains, as well as the sea. Both the Mahabharata
and the Ramayana epics contain episodes set in the jungles of the subcontinent,
a primal wilderness that is both discomfiting yet protective of those who enter its
green embrace. The Sanskrit poet Kalidasa composed narrative verse and drama that
celebrates nature. His Meghduta contains one of the most remarkable metaphors - a
cloud shaped like an elephant that drifts over the verdant countryside. Observed from
this flying jumbo the landscape below is described with lyrical precision, curiously
similar to satellite images we find today on Google Earth.
The earliest invaders and travellers to India were struck by the lush fertility of the
land. The Greek historian Megasthenes, who followed in the footsteps of Alexander,
could barely contain his sense of wonder for the natural resources he discovered:
India has a long history of nature writing, going back to some of the earliest literature,
including the Rig Veda, which contains several hymns to nature. One of these is
addressed to Aranyani, goddess of the forest:
Aranyani. Aranyani. Timorous spirit of the forest, elusive goddess
who vanishes amidst the leaves. You do not ask: Where is the
nearest village?
Lost in the wilderness, I hear a chichika bird echoing the crickets,
the alarm cries of animals. Could it be a hunter? Do I see a hut?
At twilight your presence fills the forest. I listen in vain for cow
bells. Insects creak like the unoiled wheels on a cart laden with
firewood.
Afraid of the shadows, I hear imaginary voices, graziers calling,
the sound of an axe. Silence.I am alone in the forest at night.
Aranyani, gentle spirit who threatens no one. Unlike the tiger you
feed on fruit. You do not lie in ambush like the bandit.
Mother of wild creatures, your untilled forests are full of food,
fragrant incense and sweet herbs—Aranyani, accept my prayers,
sheltering goddess of the trees.
(Rig Veda 10.146)1
1
This rendition is based on several translations, particularly Wendy Doniger’s ‘Lost in the
Forest’ from The Rig Veda
1
India has many huge mountains which abound in fruit-trees of
every kind, and many vast plains of great fertility intersected
by a multitude of rivers . . . It teems at the same time with
animals of all sorts - beasts of the field and fowls of the air - of
all different degrees of strength and size. It is prolific, besides,
in elephants, which are of monstrous bulk, as its soil supplies
food in unsparing profusion...’ 2
Many centuries later, Mughal writers, too, were struck by the complex array of
species that they encountered after crossing the Hindu Kush. The Baburnama and
Tuzk-e-Jahangiri, both imperial memoirs, describe the birds and other creatures
observed in India, colourful elements of the land they conquered. Court painters were
commissioned to copy miniature images of these species with scientific accuracy.
Scribes who recorded the emperor’s memoirs included both physical descriptions as
well as accounts of the bird’s or animal’s behavior.
Of all the visitors, interlopers and invaders to enter India, the British were the most
enthusiastic naturalists. Volumes upon volumes of research on plants, trees, insects,
reptiles, mammals and birds were produced by amateur and professional scientists.
Botanists like J.D. Hooker made extended expeditions into the Himalaya, cataloguing and classifying thousands of different varieties of flowers, shrubs and trees. Animal life, particularly those species identified as ‘game’, was of particular interest to
2
McCrindle, J.W., Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian. (Calcutta.Chuckervertty, Chatterjee& Co. 1960)pp. 29–30.
2
colonial hunters who expressed curiosity and admiration for their prey, even as they
decimated the population. The hunter-naturalist became an iconic figure during the
Raj, entering the jungle with a rifle in one hand and a pen in the other. G.P. Sanderson’s Thirteen Years among the Wild Beasts of India is a classic example of the genre,
which combines zoological research with bloodsport. Under British rule, man-eater
stories became a popular subject in India, a junglee variation on detective novels, in
which the hunter pursued an elusive killer through the forest, picking up clues along
the way - identifying pug marks, blood stains and alarm calls.
Jim Corbett is the best known of these hunter-naturalists. Born in India, he had a
closer connection with the land than most of his British compatriots. He approached
nature with a sympathetic and observant eye, even as he tracked down man-eating
tigers and leopards, one predator pitted against the other. Corbett was among the first
to voice concern about dwindling populations of wildlife, particularly tigers. In a
sentence that has been quoted more often than any other statement on Indian wildlife,
Corbett writes: ‘The tiger is a large hearted gentleman with boundless courage and
when he is exterminated - as exterminated he will be unless public opinion rallies
to his support - India will be poorer by having lost the finest of her fauna.’ 3 Unlike
many of his contemporaries, Corbett was acutely aware of the fragility of nature and
its vulnerability to human encroachment.
While the earliest nature writers in India chose subjects such as trees and animals,
simply for their beauty and exoticism, or the spiritual and emotional sentiments they
evoked, twentieth century authors like Corbett and F.W. Champion, began to express
a need for conservation and the importance of shooting animals with a camera instead
of a gun. Today, most nature writers follow this tradition, composing their books,
essays and poems out of a desire to protect and preserve the almost-emptied pockets
of nature that remain within the ever-expanding domain of man.
Both before and after 1947, Indian authors began to explore the country’s natural history
with an independent eye. While there were those who continued with the man-eater
genre, others, like Salim Ali (himself a hunter-naturalist) and M. Krishnan, were more
concerned with field research, taxonomy and preservation. Part of the encouragement
for studying and writing about nature came from India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal
Nehru, who was a strong advocate of conservation and helped establish national parks
and sanctuaries. In a foreword to E.P. Gee’s The Wild Life of India, Nehru wrote:
Corbett, Jim, ‘On Man-Eating’ in Jim Corbett’s India, ed. R.E. Hawkins (New Delhi. OUP,
1978) p. 247.
3
3
Wild life? That is how we refer to the magnificent animals of
our jungles and to the beautiful birds that brighten our lives. I
wonder sometimes what these animals and birds think of man
and how they would describe him if they had the capacity
to do so. I rather doubt if their description would be very
complimentary to man. In spite of our culture and civilization,
in many ways man continues to be not only wild but more
dangerous than any of the so-called wild animals . . . 4
After more than 64 years of freedom, Nehru’s words remain prophetic as the success
stories of conservation have been heavily outnumbered by failures. India’s forests
have shrunk dramatically and even those few areas marked out for preservation have
been seriously degraded. While the human population has multiplied exponentially
to 1.25 billion citizens, less than 2,000 tigers remain in the forests of India, not to
mention shrinking numbers of other species.
Today, more and more writers have taken up the cause of conservation. The Journal
of the Bombay Natural History Society and other scientific periodicals publish
academic articles while magazines like Panda and Sanctuary promote an awareness
of ecological issues in a popular forum. Though the overall picture may be bleak, it
is encouraging that a new generation of naturalists has emerged in India. Whether
they are botanists or birdwatchers, a small yet committed band of young people are
learning to appreciate the natural heritage of India, which has been so sadly neglected
and willfully destroyed.
‫٭‬
This Reader is a modest attempt to encourage nature writing and thereby promote
an awareness and concern for India’s forests, mountains, deserts, rivers and oceans.
Through the written word we can understand our place in nature, as well as the
responsibilities of being a dominant species. This collection of essays, articles,
stories and extracts offers a limited sampling of nature writing from India. All of
the pieces in this anthology were published after Independence, many of them in the
past decade. They have been chosen as examples of good writing but also for their
variety of approaches to both subject and style. The primary purpose of this Reader
4
Nehru, Jawaharlal. ‘Foreword’from E.P.Gee’s The Wild Life of India (London.Collins) p. 5.
4
is to provide teachers and students with a collection of published texts, which can
stimulate discussion and debate, while serving as models of effective nature writing.
A series of discussion points, writing exercises and essay topics are included at the
end of the book to reinforce the themes and issues in this anthology.
While tigers and elephants remain the flagship species of conservation, a student
writer should not feel that he or she must travel all the way to the Kaziranga or
Nagarhole National Parks in order to find suitable subjects for an essay about nature.
Even in cities like Mumbai or Delhi, plenty of topics are waiting a few feet from
your doorstep. It could be a palm squirrel on your roof, or a worm in a flowerpot,
or the grass that grows out of the cracks in a concrete sidewalk, or even the wind
that blows monsoon rain against a window on the eighteenth floor of a multi-storey
building. Nature is everywhere. It needs to be observed. It needs to be understood and
identified. It needs to be appreciated. It needs to be photographed and drawn. It needs
to be expressed in words.
Obvious though it may seem, ‘nature writing’ is an ambiguous phrase that is difficult
to define, for it covers a whole range of exposition, from academic papers to editorials
in daily newspapers. Most of the time, however, it implies a scientifically informed
yet literary approach to any subject in the natural world. Thankfully, that eliminates
political and military memoirs, computer manuals, and books on spiritual wellness.
But where do you actually draw the line? A Ph.D dissertation on the enzymes found in
the digestive tract of a mouse deer is generally not considered nature writing because
it is too specialized and technical for most readers. Similarly, a nostalgic reminiscence
about the colours of a rainbow, and how these reflect poetic moods, doesn’t really
qualify. Good nature writing lies somewhere in between. It can be fiction but usually
isn’t. It often employs techniques of journalism but goes beyond simply reporting the
facts. It is usually written in the first person, with the author being part of the story,
but the human element is always secondary. It identifies different species using their
common or scientific names but it is much more than a field guide. Sometimes it is
illustrated with photographs or drawings but the writing always stands on its own,
creating vivid images in your mind through the power of words on a page.
Though impossible to explain within a single dictionary definition, ‘nature writing’
is, essentially, a well-researched, thought-provoking piece of prose that focuses our
attention on anything that human beings haven’t invented, built or programmed.
5
If that doesn’t make sense, then I suggest you read the thirteen selections in this
anthology, and you’ll know exactly what I mean.
‫٭‬
In many ways, rhetoric is the antithesis of nature. Rules of written discourse have
little to do with biology, earth sciences or geography. Like everything we do, writing
involves both a theoretical framework as well as a practical process. Most writers
don’t think about these things when they are composing an essay or a book, but it
is useful for student writers to understand some of the fundamental approaches to
writing that can help them organise their thoughts and observations. A standard
curriculum of expository writing divides basic composition into ‘rhetorical modes’,
which provide simple templates for beginning writers.While this can be an effective
method of analysing the writing process and a source of worthwhile exercises, it must
be emphasised that none of these rhetorical modes are etched (or fossilised) in stone.
To use an analogy from science, they are more like hypotheses than laws. It is also
important to recognize that nobody writes exclusively in one rhetorical mode or the
other. Most writers mix them up to good effect.
Here, then, is a simplified approach to rhetoric, with a focus on nature writing:
•Description: This is the most basic and obvious mode, in which the writer records
his or her observations, using one or more of the five human senses - sight, smell,
sound, touch and taste. For example, a writer who describes an elephant might tell us
how large it is, the shape of its trunk and other physical characteristics, what noises it
makes, the texture of its skin, the smell of its dung.(Hopefully, nobody would taste an
elephant.) Descriptive writing may appear simple but it needs to be exact in its details,
particularly spatial relationship (above, behind, below, etc.) and it must evoke a visual
image in the reader’s mind, using both facts and metaphors. Classical writers from
Kalidasa to Amir Khusrau often compared elephants to mountains, which helps create
a mental picture of the animal. Good description combines empirical evidence with
poetic imagery, using language both as a mirror and as a lens.
•Definition: The distinction between description and definition is often blurred.
While a description tells us what something looks or smells or feels like, and where
6
it stands in relation to other things, a definition attempts to tell us precisely what it
is and isn’t. A good example might be the ‘monsoon’, a word that almost everyone
understands. We can describe the growing humidity before the monsoon arrives and
the dark clouds that gather on the horizon, like a herd of elephants, bringing the first
heavy drops of rain . . . But what is the monsoon, exactly? In simple terms, it is an
annual weather pattern that builds up over the Indian Ocean during the months of May
and June, blowing in across the subcontinent in a north-easterly direction, bringing
hundreds of centimetres of rainfall. That could be one part of a definition but it can
also be expanded to include an explanation of how the monsoon affects the foliage in
different regions of the country, how ferns and moss and fungi emerge during rain-filled
months. A definition can be as simple or complex as a writer chooses but it must give the
reader a clear sense of what the subject is, beyond just giving it a name.
for words have been invented to represent objects, feelings or ideas, through a process
of association. Not only do we identify similarities, but differences as well. Contrasting
opposing objects or elements helps bring them into clearer, sharper focus. It is perfectly
possible to describe, define or classify something by explaining what it is not, rather
than what it is. Comparison and contrast is the easiest way to handle either a familiar
or unfamiliar subject. A nature writer might, for example, choose a specific river as
the subject for an essay. Let’s take the Kaveri, which flows through Karnataka and
Tamil Nadu. Metaphorically, the author might compare the Kaveri to a python, a slowmoving reptile, swollen at places and curving with serpentine grace across the forested
rim of the Deccan plateau. On the other hand, the writer could compare the Kaveri to
the Ganga, two very different rivers, though they have much in common. By placing
one beside the other, we gain a better understanding of both.
•Classification: The natural sciences are all about classification, or taxonomy. After
defining a plant or animal, we place it in context with other species. Greek and Roman
writers, like Aristotle and Pliny, tried to organize the natural world into different
categories and relationships, sometimes referred to as a ‘chain of being’ or ‘ladder
of life’. Early Sanskrit writers were equally interested in creating well-ordered lists
of plants and creatures. Palakapya’s Hastyayurveda, the seminal text on elephants,
outlines an elaborate series of categories for Elephas maximus, based on colour,
demeanor and size. For a nature writer today, it is important to understand scientific
systems of classification and to be able to use these delineations effectively. But there
are other ways in which a writer can employ classification as an effective rhetorical
tool. For instance, if you are writing about sand on a beach, it isn’t essential to
determine exactly what minerals it contains and where they lie on a periodical chart.
Nevertheless, you might tell your reader about the different textures of sand and broken
seashells you can feel under your feet, or the variations in colour as the tide recedes,
or the array of shapes and sizes of granules you discover after scooping up a handful
of sand. What first appeared to be an endless expanse of sameness, suddenly contains
so much variety, it has to be differentiated and grouped into a range of similar and
dissimilar elements.
•Narration: Tell us a story. Human beings, as a species, seem to have an instinctual
desire for narrative. From earliest man, who recounted hunting exploits in fire-lit
caves, to the shelves of bestselling novels in airport transit lounges, there is a basic,
insatiable demand for stories. That’s what writers do. We provide sustenance for
a reader’s imagination. Nature writers must be good storytellers for their subjects
contain many different narratives and it is important to pick the right thread with which
to snare a reader’s attention. Narration requires both a voice to tell the story and an
audience to hear or read the tale. Determining who your audience will be is one of the
first steps in constructing a good story. How old are they? How much do they know
about the subject? What kind of stories do they like? Creating an appropriate voice
is important, too. If you are telling a story about geological change in the Himalaya,
tectonic forces that have formed the highest mountains in the world, over thousands
of millennia, your voice might carry a tone of authority and detachment. However,
if you are recounting a trek across a Himalayan glacier, full of dangerous crevasses
and seracs, then your voice could be more immediate and suspenseful, a first-hand
account of the rocks and ice, the crumbling snow beneath your boots, the first ache of
frostbite in your fingers. Most important of all: something must happen in a story—
something changes, something is revealed. That’s why we listen to stories, because
they have a progression of events - a beginning, a middle, and an end. We want to
find out what happens, whether it’s the life-cycle of a mosquito or a mountaineering
expedition to the summit of an unclimbed peak.
•Comparison and Contrast: One of the most effective rhetorical modes that supports
description, definition and classification, is the use of comparison. A metaphor or
simile is exactly this. We create an image in our reader’s mind by telling them what
something looks like, or sounds like, or smells like. Language is all about comparisons,
7
8
•Persuasion (or Argumentation): The most challenging form of writing is
the persuasive essay, which attempts to influence a reader’s opinion. It uses all
of the other rhetorical modes with the single purpose of arguing a point of view.
Descriptions can be persuasive, just as stories can reveal what is right or wrong.
For a nature writer, who wants to communicate an urgent need to save the habitat
of an endangered species, or the rapidly multiplying dangers of Global Warming,
it becomes a matter of life and death. First of all, make sure you have clearly
defined your argument. It should not be vague or conditional, and the simpler the
better. Always, be specific. Tell us that a glacier has receded 800 metres in three
years instead of just saying it’s shrinking. Anticipate other points of view and refute
them effectively. Persuasive essays are a written form of debate, in which the writer
advocates an opinion. Just like a good storyteller, you need to be aware of your
audience. Will they be sympathetic or skeptical of your point of view? How much
do they already understand? As you present your argument, make sure your facts are
correct and convincing. Your descriptions must be clear. Define important terms and
elements of a problem, precisely. Metaphors can be persuasive tools. ‘Meltdown’ is
a stronger phrase than ‘temperature shift’. Comparing climate change to a malarial
fever is more convincing than simply calling it a global challenge. State the problem.
Summarize the issues. Draw clear conclusions. Think of yourself as a lawyer whose
client is nature. The judge and jury need to understand and appreciate your passion
for the future of this planet.
Now, go on. . .get outdoors! That’s the most important piece of advice for any student
of nature writing. Of course, you can sit in your room and compose a perfectly good
essay about the natural history of a cockroach, but it’s only when you step out for
a walk in a park, in a forest, or along a mountain path, that you will discover a
multitude of subjects to inspire and intrigue you. Before putting pen to paper or
fingers to keyboard, take the time to look around you and observe the hidden secrets
and complexities of nature. You can stare at an acorn for an hour and still not observe
everything about it. Good nature writers are always on the lookout for something
new and different, even when their subject is common or mundane. Try to see what
nobody else has seen before and then, when you finally sit down to write, try to make
your reader visualise what you describe, through a fresh set of eyes.
on your walk and carefully made your observations, check reliable sources to confirm
the identities of the various species and phenomenon you encountered. Whether you
look up a certain insect online or consult a traditional field guide, note down its
names, its characteristics and behaviour. Use these details to inform and enrich your
writing. This doesn’t mean everything you describe in your essay must be given Latin
or common names, but your writing will be far more successful if you tell us that you
saw ‘a verditer flycatcher perched on the branch of a banj oak’, instead of calling it
‘a little blue bird in a big green tree’. Careful research will make an expert out of the
most inexperienced author.
But above all else, learn to listen to the language of nature. It is essential to be attuned
to the vocabulary of forests and deserts, the whisper of rain falling upon the broad
leaves of a teak or the hushed murmur of wind unfurling curtains of sand. Hear what
the red-wattled lapwing has to say: ‘Did you do it? Did you do it?’Or the lament of
a great Himalayan barbet: ‘Unneai!Unneai!’(Injustice!Injustice!)Here in India, there
are wild dogs that whistle and deer that bark. What does it mean when we hear the
alarm cries of jungle babblers? Are these birds warning us that a leopard is near, or
signalling the danger of our human approach?
Nature writing can be one of the most rewarding pursuits, because it gives us an
opportunity to translate our encounters with a world that does not require our presence,
yet constantly invites us to become part of its mystery. Learn to write with the eyes
of a scientist, the ears of a musician, a gardener’s sense of smell, the fingerprints of a
detective, and a poet’s tongue. But first of all, go on . . . get outdoors and explore the
knowledge, pleasure and inspiration that we receive from nature.
Do your research. Many readers are under the false impression that nature writers
retain an encyclopedia of facts inside their heads, which isn’t true. Once you’ve been
9
10
OUTDOORS
Anita Desai
From The Artist of Disappearance, Random House, 2011.
slithering new length, leaving behind on the path a shroud, transparent as gauze,
fragile as glass. Once he had come upon a tree with long, cream-coloured cylinders
for flowers, attracting armies of ants coming to raid their fabled sweetness and sap,
armies that would not be deflected by the intervention of a stick, a twig, and would
persist till they reached the treasure, and drowned.
Outdoors, the spiders spun their webs in tall grass, a spinning you would not observe
unless you became soundless, motionless, almost breathless and invisible, as when he
had seen a praying mantis on a leaf exactly the same shade of green as itself, holding
in its careful claws a round, striped bee buzzing even as it was devoured, which
halted when its eyes swiveled towards him and became aware it was being watched.
And there was always the unexpected - lifting a flat stone and finding underneath an
unsuspected scorpion immediately aroused and prepared for attack, or coming across
an eruption from the tobacco-dark leaf mould of a family of mushrooms with their
ghostly pallor and caps, hats and bonnets, like refugees that had arrived in the night.
Or a troop of silver-haired, black-masked monkeys bounding through the trees to
arrive with war whoops, or sporting like trapeze artists at a circus, then disappearing
like actors from a stage that the forest provided.
And everywhere were the stones - flat blue splinters of slate, pebbles worn to an
irresistible silkiness by the weather and that could be collected and arranged according
to size and colour in an infinite number of patterns and designs, none of which were
ever repeated or fixed.
Outdoors was freedom. Outdoors was the life to which he chose to belong – the life
of the crickets springing out of the grass, the birds wheeling hundreds of feet below
in the valley or soaring upwards above the mountains, and the animals invisible in
the undergrowth, giving themselves away by the occasional rustle or eruption of cries
or flurried calls; plants following their own green compulsions and purposes, almost
imperceptibly, and the rocks and stones, seemingly inert but mysteriously part of
the constant change and movement of the earth. One had only to be silent, aware,
observe and perceive - and this was Ravi’s one talent as far as anyone could see.
Infinite - unless you were like Bhola who always brought with him a catapult and
almost automatically raised it whenever he saw a dove or a squirrel that could be
brought down with a shot. Ravi was not for such sport; a heap of dead feathers or
fur were for him as unnatural as for the slain creature. Ravi was interested only in the
variations and mutations of the living, their innumerable possibilities.
Outdoors, Ravi had watched as a snake shed itself of its old skin, emerging into a
11
12
FIVE ENCOUNTERS
M. Krishnan
From Nature’s Spokesman: M. Krishnan and Indian Wildlife, Ed. Ramachandra Guha,
Oxford University Press, 1997.
and filled me with wonder. I recount some here.
‫٭‬
Long ago, I was in service in a small princely state in the Deccan, in a narrow, green
valley girt round with a double ring of hills. The flora was distinctive (as noted nearly
a century ago by J.S. Gamble in his monumental Flora of the Presidency of Madras),
the bird life was rich and the mammalian fauna varied, featuring sambar, wild pigs
and leopards among the larger animals. My official duties were heavy and laborious,
but compensated by unspoilt nature all around.
I do not shoot, and disapprove of all hunting, but my best opportunities for seeing
animals lay in joining the occasional shikar parties organised, usually just outside our
state. If there was to be a beat, I like to stay with the beaters: that way one could see
many birds and small animals usually missed, hares, mongooses, monitors, snakes
and the like. A hillside was being beaten towards the guns on top by a dozen men,
and I had been posted as a stop - that is, to turn what came along a game path back
into the beat. It was almost evening, and I was standing where the path ran through
a line of tall bushes, blocking the gap. In those days I used to supplement my olivegreen clothes with a cap having a deep peak and side-flaps to prevent incident light
causing my spectacles to glint. I stood some distance from a bend in the path, and
nothing came towards me. Then, as the beat was nearing its end, a pair of four-horned
antelopes came tripping round the bend.
For over six decades, right from my college days, I have been wandering over the
forests and scrublands of India, investigating their wildlife. And in all that time, and
in spite of dangerous risks run in ignorance of animal ways, only on four occasions
have I been in the shadow of imminent death; once when I almost walked into an
enormous sloth bear while looking up at the fruits on a tree, and thrice when following
wild elephants on foot by myself - it is best to go alone, for a companion doubles the
chances of being detected. There was no time to feel frightened then: one is wholly
preoccupied with escape, and it is only after escaping that one’s liver turns to water
and belated fright-reaction sets in. Strangely, it is not these crises that I remember
most vividly, but comparatively minor encounters with wild animals that excited me,
13
The chowsingha, or four-horned antelope, is the only wild animal which, in the
buck, has an additional pair of little knob-horns above the eyes and below the regular
spike-horns on top of the head - the doe is hornless. Even otherwise it is unique
- exclusively Indian, without any close relative anywhere, capriciously distributed
across the country on low hilltops, given to drinking every day during the hottest
hours, and unlike most antelopes, not gregarious but going about by itself or in a pair.
It is small and compactly built, just two-foot high, a greyish brown on top and furry
white below, and has a dainty gait.
I stood stock-still and the pair came tripping along in no hurry, almost side by side.
They did not see me till they were quite near, only some 10 feet away, and then
14
froze instantly, and half-squatted. Then they rose in a brace in the air and flew right
overhead, to my incredulous surprise. The most athletic of our animals, the leopard,
could not have jumped so high from a standing start - in my thick-soled boots and
cap I stood six-foot tall, and they cleared my head with a cubit to spare! By the time
I could turn around, they had disappeared into the bush cover behind me and I just
stood there, almost unable to believe my eyes. Then slowly my amazement turned to
a feeling of relief and gladness, that they had escaped the beat so comprehensively.
‫٭‬
There was no bush to hide us, to try running away would most probably provoke a
charge, and standing still we were conspicuous. We sank to the ground and crouched
low. ‘Take off your clothes,’ whispered Mara urgently. For a moment I did not
understand him, then did. He had already stripped, and gathering the fresh elephant
dung in front of him in his hands, was smearing it all over himself. Quickly getting
out of my clothes, I followed suit. It was nauseating, but necessary. The ground
breeze was blowing directly from us towards the elephants - the overpowering stench
of the still-warm dung would mask our man-smell.
The road from Masinagudi to the Moyar hydel project is over a dozen kilometres
long. On one side of it is the concrete-flanked Maravakandi canal, carrying the waters
of the project, and on the other the north-eastern border of the Mudumalai sanctuary.
This part of the preserve features alternating stretches of dense forests and clearings,
and wild elephants frequent it after the rains. The rainwater collects in shallow, linear
pools in some of the clearings, and elephants like to drink at them, standing five or
six in a row. I had long wanted to photograph them drinking here, and that forenoon
offered the opportunity.
The two cows sauntered to the trees ahead of them and went in. To our consternation,
we noticed that a cow with a young calf, and behind them a big tusker, had now come
on to the clearing from behind us. We continued to crouch and stay still. Slowly the
cow and calf crossed to the trees in front, but the tusker stopped directly in a line with
us, and very near: he was less than the length of a cricket pitch to my left. I dared
not turn to look, but after what seemed an unbearable ten minutes, and was probably
two, I glanced sideways. He was standing at ease, flapping his ears (always a sign of
contentment), with his trunk lowered right to the ground - and he had sharp, curved,
murderous-looking tusks! After an age, I stole another sideways look, and he was still
there, flapping his ears.
A herd was approaching a clearing through the forest, a large boisterous herd to judge
by its many voices. Old Mara and I stood on the road, facing the clearing. He knew
the area well, and I did not, and he said the herd would cross the clearing, enter the
belt of forest beyond, and proceed through it to a sandy clearing still further off where
there was a chain of pools: we should give them time to get to the water, and then take
the path they had taken through the trees, the only path there was to those pools. I do
not like having anyone with me on such occasions but needed Mara’s guidance, for it
is easy to lose one’s way in dense cover.
The most remarkable thing in existence is not the behavior of wild elephants but of
the human mind. By now my curiosity had overcome my dreadful apprehensions, and
inch by inch I turned a little to my left to watch. The tusker was standing at a patch
of Mimosa pudica (the sensitive plant, the ground herb whose tiny, feathery leaves
shrink and close when touched) covering the ground in a flat, dark-green spread.
The spread was in bloom, with a great many tiny flower heads, like miniature pink
badminton balls, dotting it all over. Laboriously the great beast was gathering the
flowers in the crook of his trunk-tip and conveying them carefully to his mouth!
We did not have long to wait. The elephants came on to the clearing in small groups,
twenty of them, and entered the belt of trees beyond. We waited ten minutes for any
lagging behind to come out, and none came. We had to go quite some distance into
the clearing to reach the point of entry into the tree cover, and overshot it. And as
we were retracing our steps, we saw that two cow elephants had entered the clearing
just behind us, and were crossing towards the trees. They were to our left, between
us and the road.
After a while he too crossed over and disappeared into the tree cover, and getting to
our feet, we raced to the road, crossed it, and plunged into the Maravakandi canal.
The water here is never clean and clear, but there was a distinct current, and in no
time at all it had washed our skin free of every trace of elephant dung. In my hurry, I
had left by clothes behind in the clearing and sent Mara to get them, while I climbed
out and let the sun and air dry me.
15
16
(PS: I can find no reference to elephants fancying Mimosa pudica flowers in the
literature on the animal, but can vouch for this authoritatively. Incidentally, the
flowers have a faintly acid taste in the human mouth.)
*
I have seldom photographed animals from a hide. I have often used treetop hides
overlooking a forest pool or path to observe wild elephants in safety, unknown to
them, but taken very few pictures of them then. And at the Guindy National Park
around the Madras Raj Bhavan, I felt the need for a ground-hide to study the native
blackbuck and the introduced chital closer than I could otherwise.
I need not explain why I felt this need, except to say it was for evidence to substantiate
my reasons for chital thriving in places into where they have been newly introduced,
to the detriment of the native herbivores. Preliminary reconnaissance disclosed a
further problem. It was no use setting up a ground-hide at a selected spot. At Guindy,
men are constantly moving about and the animals, while used to human proximity,
keep their distance and shift ground frequently. I needed a portable hide.
It then occurred to me that with a modification of what I wore in the field, no hide
was necessary. Over the years I have acquired the ability to stay still and to move, if I
must, in slow-motion. My stained and patched brownish green trousers and bush-shirt
were inconspicuous, and if I had a light, wide-brimmed hat from which a veil could
be hung, to mask my face, that should do. A khaki soft hat, such as some policemen
wear, seemed best, and I bought one at a second-hand clothes shop. Then I consulted
an acquaintance who had worked as a sempstress, for the veil, and she advised not a
fixed veil, but a number of slip-knot nooses around the brim from which thin green
twigs could be hung, for better camouflage and to enable me to see through readily.
This she was kind enough to stitch on herself, and armed with my new headgear, I set
out for Guindy after lunch.
By three o’clock I found a promising spot, with no men near and a flat stone at
the foot of a wood apple tree to sit on. The ground in front was bare and brown
with sparse patches of low herbage, but there were some tall bushes. A soft-haired,
leafy twiner with a sticky white juice festooned two of the bushes: it was in fruit,
17
hung with long, green, paired follicles along its pliant coils - obviously, a plant of
the Aclepiadaceae (Pergulariadaemia, as identified later). Taking the hat out of my
handbag, I collected lengths of the twiner complete with follicles, so that the twin
fruits would stabilize the pendent veil of their lengths. Securing them in place, I put
on the hat and ensconced myself on the stone slab.
Soon it was apparent that I had overdone things a bit. The hanging greenery in
front of my face was too closely spaced and in the way of clear vision, even of easy
breathing, and the twiner had a strong, foul smell. Thanks to the slipknots, this could
be easily remedied, but as I raised my hand to do so, five chital came into view,
feeding steadily towards me - three adult hinds, a young stag in velvet, and a halfgrown fawn. I froze, and watched.
They were both grazing and browsing, cropping such ground vegetation as there was,
and feeding on the foliage of some bushes: they were partial to the follicles I had left
behind on top of the bushes, standing up on their hind legs to get at them. By now
they were very close, and I wondered when they would spot me. Then the hind in the
lead trotted right up and snipped a follicle off my hat, and at once the rest joined in,
tugging at the fruits from all around so that the hat stayed miraculously wobbling on
my head. Then it fell away, and at once they scattered and bolted.
Chital are short-scented. How was it, then, that from so near they had failed to notice
my sweaty man-smell? Had the stronger smell of the fresh-cut twiner masked it? I do
not know the answer to these questions. I never tried the experiment again.
*
I made an early start on elephant-back, so as to be at the expanse of up-and-coming
grass in time to see what was feeding there, but on the way we chanced on a huge
lone bull gaur and followed him for almost two hours. It was nearing noon when we
reached the slope lush with fresh grown tall grass. There was no animal to be seen, but
something had fed there quite recently. There was a darkish furrow in places going
up the sea of bright green grass tips. It was Maasthi, my mahout and companion, who
noticed this first and pointed it out to me.
18
We went a little way up, for a closer look. It had rained in the night and the ground
was moist and impressionable. The unmistakable, so-human footprints of a large
sloth bear zigzagged up the rise, and alongside the track the grass had been bitten off
in sheaves. I remarked to Maasthi that the bear must have had quite a feast here. He
shook his head.
*
‘Bears do not eat grass,’ he said.
Late in the year, when cyclones hit the south-eastern coast, I was at Point Calimere
in a tiny cottage on the beach. Very late one afternoon, it grew suddenly dark, black
rainclouds blotted out the sun, and a high wind sprang up. By the time I could close
and bolt the door and the two small windows, the storm was upon me.
I assured him they did, and that I had seen them feeding on fresh grass with gusto.
Maasthi had great faith in my knowledge of animals, and had often consulted me
when in doubt—he had also told me things I did not know, which I subsequently
found to be factual. He knew perfectly well that I would not make a positive assertion
unless it was true, but this once he was unable to accept my authority. He said that
I must have seen what I had seen elsewhere, not here - here, bears did not eat grass.
Torrential rain beat down on the steep tiles, thunderclaps crashed overhead and the
wind’s voice rose to a banshee shriek. Not a drop of water penetrated my retreat, built
to withstand the elements. My food was being brought from outside, and I could not
hope for dinner, but I thought this primeval fury could not last all night, and sat down
stoically to wait. There was no let-up, and by four in the morning I fell asleep to the
strident lullaby of the cyclone.
I asked what animal, then, had guzzled the tall grass here so zestfully - there were
no other tracks on the ground, not a single hoof-print. However, I did not argue the
point further. I was already feeling peckish, and it would take us an hour and a half to
get back to the rest house and lunch. We decided to be at this pasture early next day.
And when we were there next morning, the bear was also there, busy with his
breakfast. For a while we watched from behind a thick-boled tree. He was facing
away from us, but we could see him quite clearly. He fed choosily, taking his time,
selecting a tussock of tender grass and bending its top to his mouth with a paw to
munch it up. I was keen on a photograph if I could get one, but had to get closer - he
was already halfway up the rise. Not following in his wake, but keeping to one side
of it, we moved the elephant up, and at once he began to hurry. He had his back to us
still, but had somehow sensed our presence. I called a halt so as not to panic him, and
he went right up to the bare, stony top of the rise and bending his head low down so
that the crown almost touched the ground, looked at us from between his legs! For
nearly a minute he stared at us like this, and then went down the other side of the rise
at a bobbing run to vanish into the forest.
A hammering on my door awoke me, and when I opened it, it was bright outside
and seven o’clock already. The Forester was there with a flask of hot coffee and
a substantial pack-breakfast. I was feeling famished, but ate sparingly, for it was
important to go out at once to see what damage the vegetation and animal life had
suffered. The Forester vetoed the outing: there was an almost overpowering wind
blowing just above the ground, and he had experienced considerable difficulty getting
to me. He was lath-thin and insubstantial: I was almost twice his weight and in hard
condition. Picking up a light 35 mm camera, I ploughed my way to the sea.
Maasthi turned to me in utter puzzlement.
‘Would we have seemed upside down to the bear?’ he asked.
19
I have never known anything like that two-level ground wind. Up to knee height there
was no stir of air, and then till well above one’s head there was an almost solid blast
of faintly sibilant wind, repulsing one. I had to lean into it to force my way through.
The sea, flat and placid at Point Calimere, was calm again, but it had run amok in the
night. The wreck lay scattered high up the shore, shellfish, squishy molluscs, brokenup crustaceans, bits and pieces of long-drowned wood, and small fishes - nothing
large and, surprisingly, no seaweed.
I was astonished at the way the vegetation had survived the cyclone’s violence. Trees
and bushes here are tough and flat topped: they had bowed their crowns to the raging
wind, and except for twigs and branches torn off and flung around, had escaped
unscathed. The ground vegetation was unaffected: in places, ephemeral little pools
20
had drowned it, but the sand would suck in the water by nightfall.
Round a bend, I came upon a pair of jackals scavenging on what the sea had thrown
up, and seeing me they decamped into the bushes. A little beyond some 200 brownheaded gulls were sitting tight on the wet sand in a long row, all facing the air current,
waiting for the wind to die down. They ignored me as I passed very close by them
and took some pictures. Further still, I came to what had been a little bay the previous
day, now scooped by the storm into a miniature lagoon extending far up the shore
and about seventy yards across. The opposite bank was topped by ground vegetation
and through its tangle I could just glimpse what looked like the heads of some large
sea-birds.
streak along the flanks, and the jaws in a beak armed with teeth that could probably
bite through one’s arm. I felt no fear - only amazement and wonder. Then, as suddenly
as they had come, they raced away, far into the sea. I have seldom felt so thrilled.
These dolphins are the only wild animals that have a strange affinity to humanity.
Right from Greek mythology to Mediterranean tales there are accounts of their
friendliness towards men. I had read these accounts, and thought them only charming
legends.
The sea at Point Calimere is quite shallow for quite some distance from the shore. A
few days earlier, I had spent an hour standing waist-deep in the sea, photographing
the assorted crowd of gulls flying around the incoming boats for the guts of the catch
being tossed out. I had been sternly warned by the fishermen not to be so foolish there might be sting rays in the shallows that could inflict a fearful injury.
Far out to sea, I could see dolphins circling and occasionally leaping up into the air. I
had seen them here in the sea many times, always too far away to be clearly watched.
There was nothing else in sight, and I wanted to have a look at the birds on the further
bank before turning back.
To go all the way round would be progress through the buffeting wind, but I could
easily wade across. I walked into the water, which came only up to my knees, and
then to my waist, and was half-way through when I was suddenly almost shoulderdeep in it. Evidently the storm-tossed sea had dug into the sandy bottom here, and it
was best to get out of the trough: holding my camera at head height, I turned round.
Something long and live and heavy brushed gently against me in the water, and I
stopped dead. Again something long and thick brushed my back, hardly touching me.
Then the dolphins were swirling around me, in a whirligig of joie de vivre.
There were half-a-dozen of them, circling at high speed and skimming the surface
now and again to throw up an impetuous spray. I just stood there, holding the camera
pressed to my head, utterly spellbound. These were common dolphins, eight-foot
long and sleekly streamlined, steel-grey on top and white below with a yellowish
21
22
ARE WABLERS LESS IMPORTANT THAN TIGERS?
Madhusudan Katti
From In Danger, Ranthambhore Foundation, Ed. Paola Manfriedi, 1997.
benefit. Given the limited funds and manpower for conservation (research and
action), is it not better to focus on the mega-fauna and let the mini- and micro-fauna
take care of itself? The only small creatures one should worry about then are those
that may form part of the food chain leading up to the larger focal species.
Before you accuse me of a biased perspective (which is undoubtedly true, for I make
my living watching little warblers!) let me state that, in defending these little creatures,
I am also arguing in favour of a broader ecological perspective in conservation, one
that goes beyond the charismatic mega-fauna and starts looking at species more in
terms of their ecological role in the system rather than their appearance, charisma or
tourism potential! So what is the ecological role of my favoured little leaf warblers?
Leaf warblers (genus Phylloscopus) must surely rank among the least glamorous
vertebrates, so utterly lacking in charisma that even many die-hard birdwatchers
dismiss them lightly, scarcely bothering to try and even identify them to species
level. Part of the problem is, of course, the fact that they are all small, dull-green
coloured, and highly active in the forest canopy, making identification in the field
difficult. It is only rarely - either when one is truly nuts about birds or when the fate
of one’s PhD thesis hangs on such identification - that one develops the eye for the
subtle morphological, auditory and behavioural differences between species. These
difficulties in identifying species, however, need not bother our busy manager too
much, since the leaf warblers are all pretty similar ecologically as well; their role in
the forest is largely independent of their taxonomic status, except insofar as structural
aspects of their foraging microhabitat within the forest canopy are concerned.
Now what kind of a stupid question is that? Everyone knows that tigers are more
important, being large predators, as apex species, at the top of the food chain, flagship
species for conservation . . . etc., etc., etc.! These are arguments I have to face often
enough when I tell people I am studying warblers - in the Kalakkad Mundanthurai
Tiger Reserve! For some reason, studying these tiny, non-descript, common birds is
thought to be an entirely trivial, indeed arcane, academic pursuit of little practical or
conservation value. ‘What can studying little birds tell me about the habitat of large
mammals, which are my primary concern?’ asks the reserve manager. On the other
hand, if we focus on the larger mammals - the apex species philosophy of Project
Tiger - and do our best to improve their habitat, other species will also naturally
23
All 18 species of leaf warblers occurring in the Indian subcontinent are migratory.
They breed during the temperate summers from the Himalaya north to the Arctic
Circle, and take over the peninsular forest, including those in the Himalayan foothills
and much of north-east India, from September through May. While each individual
may weigh only seven to 11 grams (this range includes all species, give or take a
gram), one may still emphasise the term take-over when describing their relationship
to their forest habitats: they number in the billions and form probably the most
abundant avian guild in the subcontinental forests during our tropical winter. My
study at Mundanthurai (in the southern Western Ghats) records a density of six to
eight leaf warblers (of two species) per hectare of forest - usually any given patch
of forest may have two to three species, depending on the type of forest. I doubt
24
whether there is any forest habitat in India that does not host at least one species
some time of the year. Picking a random hectare from my 20 hectare study plot at
Mudanthurai, I find six leaf warblers (of two species) making it their home for seven
to eight months - for these are territorial individuals that remain on site for much of
the winter. And what do they do during this period? Eat insects, mostly. Humdrum
as their lives may sound, they spend over 75 per cent of their waking hours foraging
for insects (and other arthropods, but insects predominate) in the foliage. Since they
are not concerned about finding mates or raising young during this season, and want
merely to survive in good shape for the next summer, their other activities - preening
and maintaining territories through vocal and visual dialogue with neighbours - do
not take much time. Hmm . . . a bunch of small, dull birds spending most of their day
peering at leaves in search of insects - do I seem to be only weakening the defence?
Not really . . . not really . . .
Consider the fact that each leaf warbler, on average, eats three insects every waking
minute (this is averaging over all their activities throughout the day). Since they
forage by picking prey off a substratum - mostly leaf, sometimes also twigs and
flowers - the prey largely consists of herbivorous insects. In the case of my one
hectare on Mundanthurai, it is mostly leaf-eating caterpillars. A single leaf warbler
thus eats an average of 180 insects every hour, or about 1,980 per day (assuming an
average 11-hour working day from dawn to dusk). The six individuals on our plot
thus rid the plants of almost 12,000 insect pests every day! Multiply that with the
number of days (200 to 250) when they are in residence on that one hectare plot and
you may begin to appreciate the service they render to all the plants. Now I ask you to
consider removing these warblers from the study plot, since they seem to take away
so much research and conservation energy from your more favoured mammals, and
picture the forest as it may appear in a few weeks’ time! The scenario could become
even more dramatic if you (in your large-mammal chauvinism) remove all the other
insectivorous birds from the plot as well: I estimate each hectare of Mundanthurai’s
forest has at least 40 insectivorous birds, including other warblers and flycatchers
(both resident and migrant), minivets, shrikes, drongos, babblers, etc. The average
number of prey may come down to just over two per bird per minute - which gives
a total of about 5,000 insects per hour, or 55,000 per day, in every hectare of forest!
Remove those insectivores, and don’t be surprised if in a few weeks your plants
start to appear ragged, with their foliage tattered; and your endangered langurs
become unhappy because so many leaves are now packed with toxic anti-herbivore
25
compounds produced in response to caterpillar nibbling; and the plants make fewer
flowers and fruits as they are forced to spend too much energy on self-defence, in
turn making the nectarivores and frugivores unhappy; and regeneration of the forest
slows down as fewer seeds get produced and dispersed; and the ground starts to dry
faster because the canopy is thinner and more sunlight gets in! I leave you to work out
the rest of the ecological cascade effects on your own. For now, I’d be happy if you
simply pause to appreciate the job done by the nondescript little green birds—the leaf
warblers - and their insectivore colleagues that travel thousands of kilometres every
year to eat all those insects.
Before you start protesting that you will never contemplate removing all those birds,
and that I am just another doomsayer, consider the fact that 80 per cent of the warblers
(especially the green leaf warbler, which is the most common one here), as well
as the next most abundant migrant (Blyth’s reed warbler), spending each winter at
Mundanthurai come from the forest in the hill regions around the Caspian Sea, from
Turkey east through Kashmir, including bits of southern Russia and Afghanistan.
Now imagine that these hills - breeding grounds for so many migrant insectivores
- are deforested on a large scale (either directly by us or through effects of global
climate change) cutting down the bird population by 90 per cent. Such a decline is
not very unrealistic, as those studying migrant forest birds in the Americas will tell
you - though they worry more about forests in the wintering areas being cut down
rather than in the breeding grounds. In fact, over the past two decades, Americans
and Europeans are increasingly facing the prospect of another Silent Spring. Not,
this time, due to the factors mentioned in Rachel Carson’s clarion call in the 1960s
- overuse of chemicals in agriculture at the height of the green revolution—but a
suite of other human activities that have hit the habitat of avian migrants in both
their northern breeding grounds and southern wintering grounds. Many species of
migrant songbirds, which enliven the northern spring after the dreary and silent
winters, have been pushed to the brink of extinction—some, like the Kirtland’s
warbler, down to a few scores of breeding pairs—over the past two decades, even
as my ornithologist comrades in the West are racing against time to figure out the
causes of these declines, so that we may try to reverse the process. The culprits are,
of course, us humans: deforesting the tropical wintering grounds, fragmenting the
temperate forests into suburban woodlots more accessible to human subsidised nest
predators such as domestic cats and other small carnivores (wild or feral) thriving
on our garbage, and directly subsidising populations of non-migratory nest parasites
26
like the North American cowbird through backyard bird feeders, enabling them to
survive the harsh winter, and fool over 200 gullible species of songbirds into raising
their offspring! We seem to be particularly adept at causing damage to the ecological
fabric of this planet, even when we mean well - feed them poor little birdies in the
winter, or the cute racoons at night.
THE WHISTLING HUNTER
A.J.T. Johnsingh
From On Jim Corbett’s Trail, Permanent Black, 2004.
Getting back to our continent, where we have no information on population trends of
forest birds at all - whether resident or migratory, in tropical South and South-East
Asia, or temperate Russia, Mongolia, and Siberia—declines paralleling those on the
other continents are very much on the cards, if, indeed, they haven’t occurred already!
Given the contempt that these migrants have for human geopolitical boundaries, their
populations are subject to forces beyond the control of any one national conservation
agency, let alone the manager of a single tiger reserve. If their populations are found
to be declining as drastically as many New World migrants have over the past several
decades, mammal chauvinists may be reduced to haplessly watching the habitats of
their favourite creatures getting degraded.
Do you think even the tigers might get worried about such a scenario? Is it worth
studying these warblers, trying to figure out what makes their populations tick, and
how to save them and ensure they continue to keep all those insects down?
Are warblers less important than tigers? Isn’t the question itself meaningless?
It was early on a winter morning in 1977. From my room in Bandipur village, the
shooting hide near Thavarakatte - the pond in the Bandipur Tiger Reserve - was a
kilometre away. Thin mist made a Japanese water colour of the forests around the
pond. I walked cautiously towards the hide, looking out for wild elephants.
The shooting hide, built long ago by a Mysore maharaja, was in the middle of dense
lantana, bamboo and dry deciduous forests which had an abundant population of
wild pig, chital and sambar. Tiger, leopard and dhole naturally hunted in this area
frequently. The hide had mud walls, with several holes to shoot through, and a tin
roof. It stood under a large Terminalia bellerica tree. Visibility was much better from
27
28
the shooting hide as a road ran in front of it for about 200 metres and a ten metre viewline cut through the scrub to the left of the hide for about 150 metres. I had discovered
that Thavarakatte was the best place in Bandipur to observe large mammals. I used to
sit either inside, or on the rooftop or on a tree to wait for dholes. Exciting encounters
with elephants were numerous in this area as well as tiger and leopard sightings.
facing the trail along which the sambar was emerging. I was so tense with excitement
I could barely breathe. The sambar doe emerged from the scrub with an extended
neck and dilated nostrils. She had rolled back her eyeballs so that the whites of her
eyes were visible. Every hair on her neck stood erect. She snorted and stamped her
forefeet as she walked. It was a formidable threat display.
Soon after I sat down on the hide’s rooftop, a lone sambar’s alarm call broke the
silence of the forest. This was followed by many alarm calls of sambar and peafowl,
a sign of the presence of a large predator. I stood on the rooftop for a minute, carefully
looked on either side of the view-line to verify that there were no elephants and
then jumped down from the rooftop and hurried to a large rosewood tree (Dalbergia
latifolia) closer to the view-line, about 100 metres from the hide.
Contrary to my expectations, the dholes, instead of pouncing on the doe and tearing
her to pieces, split into two groups, giving enough space for the doe to walk through
safely. A yearling and another adult doe followed the first doe; all of them walked
through the dholes unharmed. Meanwhile some more dholes, which had flushed out
these sambars, joined the six on the view-line and entered the scrub jungle behind
my tree. A little later a muffled scream of a fawn, which was immediately followed
by the cracking of bones, indicated that the dholes had eaten their morning snack.
After the hunt, the dholes probably went to the pond to drink because when I saw
them again they were all coming from that direction. They lay down to rest when they
came to the cool shade of a rosewood tree. A little later four sambar does came out of
the scrub and, as a team, chased the dholes here and there. The dholes pranced about
playfully with the sambar chasing them. I contemplated how inappropriate it is to call
these graceful hunters ‘bloody killers’ as they normally are.
I often went to the forest in rubber Hawaii chappals: I found these best for wading
through water, walking over mud and climbing trees. I had to climb trees several
times in a week to avoid elephants and to find a comfortable and safe perch to wait for
and watch dholes. Wearing flip flops had a flip side though; it made me vulnerable to
Russell’s viper (Vipera russelli)and the common cobra (Naja naja) which I frequently
encountered. But this vulnerability forced me to tread the jungle carefully and silently,
which is vital in approaching and observing shy animals in a dense forest.
By the time I had perched on a large branch about four metres from the ground,
the jungle around me was painted by the golden light of the morning sun. As I sat
watching, with camera and binoculars on my lap, a sambar stag with magnificent
hard antlers ran out from the scrub jungle in front of me. I could hear the commotion
of several animals running through the scrub jungle.
Soon six dholes came trotting on the view-line from my left and when they came
closer to my tree they stood, spread in a single line within a distance of 15 or 20
metres, facing the scrub jungle. Their soft whines, restlessness and the occasional
twitching of muscles on their bodies indicated that they were all excited by the
impending morning hunt. I looked towards the area which the dholes were intently
watching and soon discerned the movement of animals walking through the scrub
jungle in the direction of my tree.
These Asiatic wild dogs are rust or sand coloured, weigh around 16 kilograms, and
stand approximately 50 centimetres at the shoulder. Their length, including a long,
black, bushy tail, is about 135 centimetres. Females are somewhat slighter of build
but cannot easily be differentiated from males at a distance.
Of the dhole’s nine sub-species, three definitely occur in India. These are Cuon
alpinus laniger in Kashmir and Ladakh, Cuon alpinus primaevus in Garhwal,
Kumaon, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan and Cuonalpinus dukhunensis south of the
Ganges. The dholes found in the Namdapha area in Arunachal Pradesh could be Cuon
alpinus adjusts from northern Burma. The genus Cuon is distinguished from Canis
by the more rounded ears and proportionately short muzzle, a characteristic that gives
dholes their extremely powerful bite. Dholes have only two molars on either side of
the lower jaw instead of the usual three. Thus, the dental formula for Cuon is incisors
3/3, canines 1/1, premolars 4/4, molars 2/2 = 40. The usual pattern in the family
Canidae is incisors 3/3, canines 1/1, premolars 4/4 and molars 2/3 = 42.
The first to emerge was an adult sambar doe. Meanwhile, the dholes had come closer,
29
30
Dholes used to occur as far north as the Altai mountains of the former USSR, perhaps
in southern Siberia, where they are now extinct. From there their range extended
radically southward encompassing Mongolia, much of China, Thailand, Indo-China,
the Malaya peninsula, Sumatra and Java. Dholes are found in Tibet, Nepal and India
but not in Sri Lanka, Borneo or Japan.
They occupy an enormous variety of habitats. In the northern reaches of their range
dholes inhabit dense forest, river gorges and mountainous alpine regions. In the rest
of India they exist almost exclusively in dense forests and thick scrub jungles where
there is sufficient prey and water. Dense montane forests are their preferred habitat
in Thailand.
Not long ago hunters and wildlife managers thought that dholes were responsible for
the decline of various deer species, which in fact was due to overgrazing, habitat loss
and poaching. Phythian Adams, a retired Indian army officer, wrote in the journal of
the Bombay Natural History Society in 1949, that the epithet ‘a perfect swine’ may
with every justification be applied to the wild dog, whose nature and habits may be
summed up in a single word - ‘bloody’. He concluded that except for his handsome
appearance the wild dog does not have a single redeeming feature, and no effort, fair
or foul, should be spared to destroy these pests of the jungle. As recently as 1964, E.P.
Gee did speak up in favour of dholes, but in a lukewarm fashion. Dholes play a useful
part in the general set-up of nature, he said. They keep the deer on the move, and
so favourite grazing areas do not become over-grazed and therefore impoverished.
Otherwise, he commented, there is very little to be said in favour of these animals.
Not surprisingly, the dhole was one of the much maligned and persecuted species in
the Indian jungles and until 1975 it even carried a bounty on its head - even if a paltry
one - of 20 rupees.
Many myths are woven around the dholes. These add up to making them seem
almost human in their supposed malice and deviousness. One myth: dholes attack if
people run away from them. I had an opportunity to explode this myth. One morning
in Bandipur, I observed nine dholes coming out of the jungle to a forest road, and
immediately I took cover behind a large tree. The dholes were 50 metres away and
were trotting in my direction. To see their reaction to my running away from them, I
came out and ran in full view of them to a tree 30 metres away, which I could easily
31
climb. The dholes, instead of chasing me, abruptly turned back with a short alarm
growl, and disappeared into the bush.
Another myth is that the dhole hunts its prey in relays. According to this theory one
dhole runs after the prey till it is tired and then another dhole pursues the prey and
this change of hunters goes on until the prey is too exhausted to run. Thereafter, all
the dholes join together and kill the prey. I never observed this to happen. Of the
48 chases I witnessed in Bandipur, in 44 the dholes chased their prey for only 500
metres; only twice did the chase go beyond 500 metres. Teamwork and speed enabled
them to kill their prey within short distances. It would be impossible for one dhole
to pursue one particular prey for a long distance through the dense Indian jungle
where many individuals of different prey species and different prey signs confuse the
animal that is chasing.
I observed that dholes employ two strategies. One, which I observed while sitting
up in the rosewood tree, was to flush out prey to waiting dholes. The other was to
go in an extended line through the forest and attack at once, alone, without flushing
the prey out, when suitable prey is located. It is possible to identify which strategy
dholes adopt only at the beginning of the hunt, as at the end, in the melee, it would be
impossible to differentiate the two strategies.
It is believed that dholes urinate on the eyes of the prey, making them blind, and then
kill them. This is as improbable a technique as would be keeping butter on the head
of a pond heron and catching the bird when the butter melts and blinds the bird! It
is also reported that dholes urinate on leafy branches, force the prey to run into the
branches, make them blind and then kill them. This again is an impossible technique
for a dense jungle and I saw no evidence of this.
The reason dholes are called ‘bloody’ is that they kill much larger prey by biting off
chunks of meat and by evisceration. Often killing occurs in daytime, witnessed by
people. One March evening, atop the shooting hide when darkness was just gathering,
my attention was abruptly drawn to a silent struggle between a large chital stag with a
fine set of hard antlers and a group of seven dholes. Two or three dholes were biting,
and hanging on to the rump of the stag, thereby rendering it completely immobile,
while others attacked its flanks. The stag was trying to fight off the dholes by
swinging its great antlers, which never came in contact with the dholes. Throughout
32
the struggle the dholes remained silent while the deer cried out its agony three times.
Suddenly one dhole caught the snout of the stag and pulled it forward while those
at the rump continued to bite and pull it backwards. Eventually the helpless stag
was dragged down and the dholes started eating it even before it had died. Although
predation is as much a biological process as grazing, to a layman such a sight is
repugnant and bloodthirsty. However, dholes are biologically predators and since
they lack the killing bite of the large cats they can at best kill prey larger than
themselves only by biting off chunks of meat. As blood loss and shock rapidly lower
the prey’s resistance, the animal, thus weakened, becomes easier to overcome. Close
examination of numerous fresh kills clearly shows that dholes are particular about
holding on to the nose of stags sporting hard antlers, obviously to prevent themselves
from being stabbed by these lethal weapons. Often, in the process of biting off chunks
of flesh from the rump of adult stags, dholes bite off the scrotum: this has led to the
belief that dholes intentionally emasculate their prey. This too is a misapprehension.
Faced with smaller prey like hare and chital fawn, dholes instantaneously kill them
with one bite and a vigorous head shake.
One cloudy evening I was atop the shooting hide and heard repeated chital alarm calls
and sounds of some other animals. I saw three dholes, that stood facing west, as if to
intercept an animal. Soon a big chital fawn, chased by another dhole, came running
in the direction of the three waiting dholes. The fawn, when it saw the dholes, veered
to the right, but the dholes also swiftly moved as if to block its way. Then the fawn
leaped across the dholes. When it landed six to eight metres away from the dholes, all
four of them fell on it almost simultaneously. There was only a short muffled scream.
Within a minute the fawn’s entrails were thrown out and by this time the entire pack
was on the kill.
Dholes, though they look like dogs, do not bark. The most interesting call of the dhole
is a whistle. How it produces the sound is an enigma. The whistle call can be imitated
by blowing into a medium-bore empty rifle cartridge and in the past hunters used to
trick dholes by mimicking the call and drawing dholes closer to shoot them. Dholes
separated from the rest of their pack whistle to reassemble after an unsuccessful hunt
and even lone dholes whistle to discover the whereabouts of their pack members.
I have never observed dholes whistling to maintain the cohesiveness of their pack
while the hunt was in progress. Sounds play an important role in the lives of dholes
and they can be attracted not only by imitating their whistle, but also by blowing air
33
with a leaf between the lips, thus producing a shrill note similar to the distress call
of a deer fawn.
Like most other large carnivores, the dhole has an amazing ability to consume large
quantities of meat. A pack of fifteen could easily eat a yearling sambar male of 90 to
100 kilograms, each dhole consuming about five kilograms of meat, which is a little
over one-fourth the body weight of the dhole. This capacity to gorge is thought to
enable them to live without food for a few days; this, however, has not been verified
in the field. Once I managed to collect almost all the kills made by my study pack
for about fifteen days and calculated that during this period, on the average, each
dhole ate 1.8 kilograms of meat. One of the benefits of pack life, in addition to
providing the capability to bring down large prey several times heavier than a single
dhole, is the efficiency with which kills are eaten. Even the bones and skin of young
and smaller prey are eaten. When larger kills are made, the dholes may come back
even to scavenge on the dry skin. This habit of scavenging also enables dholes to
appropriate kills of leopards and tigers and on many occasions leopards have actually
lost their kills to dholes. Stealing of kills from other large sympatric predators can
be dangerous. I have seen once a dhole pup, nearly six months old, killed and partly
eaten by a leopard; the potential robber had become a prey.
One fear about the dhole is that a high density of its population can suppress tiger
and leopard populations. This need not be true, as there are several behavioural and
ecological parameters which help these predators to avoid conflict with one another.
There is temporal and spatial variation in their use of habitat. Dholes are largely diurnal,
while tigers and leopards prefer to be nocturnal. The shy tiger and leopard generally
avoid open habitats and dholes use them without any inhibition. Tigers generally
prefer prey heavier than 100 kilograms while the leopard and dhole largely kill prey
around or less than 50 kilograms. K. Ullas Karanth, the tiger specialist, has observed
this kind of prey selection in the Nagarahole National Park, which is adjacent to the
Bandipur Tiger Reserve. In Bandipur, dholes showed a preference for male sambar
and male chital and my limited experience of sambar and chital kills of tigers and
leopards seemed to suggest their preference for female sambar and chital. Females,
which spend considerable time in cover to give birth and nurse fawns, are more prone
to stalking predators like the tiger and leopard. In addition, the kill data also suggests
that the dhole, a coursing predator, kills mainly young or old animals while the tiger
and leopard, as they hunt by stealth and surprise, can kill prey of all ages.
34
All dholes look alike to a casual observer. Attentive and prolonged observation,
however, can help us differentiate a few individuals based on variations in their
colour, and shape of the ear and tail. ‘Bent Ear’ was one such individual I grew to
recognize. My first prolonged meeting with him was on 4 January 1977 when I went
to the dhole den at around eleven in the morning. Bent Ear had already returned
from the hunt and was resting in front of the den. The leaf litter was so dry I found it
difficult to walk without making a noise. My approach had alerted him and, pricking
his left ear, he looked in the direction of the sound. I crawled to the cover of a rock
40 metres from the den, and, lying under a bush, I observed him.
Venkataraman, who has done several years of research on dholes in the Mudumalai
Wildlife Sanctuary near Bandipur, explains that such large packs could be caused by
the absence of suitable areas nearby for the emigrants to occupy.
He had an unusually thick neck and a pale white throat, chest and belly. His tail had
a bend as if it had been broken. His scrotum hung loosely, showing he was aged.
Throughout the three hours of observation he was suspicious of my presence but
never came close to investigate. This was probably because of his dislike for the hot
sun, which scorched the shadeless areas. When I left the den he was sleeping in the
shade. The rustle in the bush made him raise his head lazily and open his eyes a little,
but he again fell into a deep slumber to while away the hot afternoon.
The pack cared for the pups even after they had left the den and the adults treated
them with special concern and solicitude until they were four to five months old.
During this period the adults would hunt either very early in the morning or late in
the evening to avoid both the presence of man and the heat of the day. The pups were
left in hiding during these hunts and the absence of a couple of adults in the hunting
party even suggested that some adults stayed behind to guard them. Even when the
pups started following the pack on hunts, one or two adults escorted young stragglers.
The pups were permitted to monopolise small kills like chital fawns and when food
was insufficient the adults, who had eaten earlier, regurgitated meat for them. When
the pups were about seven months old, on occasion, when food was insufficient,
adults were reluctant to regurgitate meat. The pups, however, chased the adults and
appealingly nibbled the corners of the adults’ mouths until food was regurgitated.
Thereafter,I observed him several times. He appeared to be the leader of the pack and
was extremely fond of the pups. When the pack had made a kill of a small animal the
pups would run to him, pestering him to regurgitate extra meat. I soon developed a
strange affection for this aged hunter who flitted freely through the forest. He led a
daring life. Alone and unafraid, he slipped without any hesitation through the thickets
that I entered with much reluctance, with bated breath and a tense body. When he
suddenly disappeared in April 1978 I felt a pang of sadness which stayed with me for
a long time.
During my study in Bandipur I came to understand the mechanisms of pack size
regulation. In the first year of my study, in the month of November, just prior to the
birth of some pups, the pack of fifteen was suddenly reduced to seven or eight animals.
This was unexpected. The diminished pack had three females but one gave birth to
eight pups. Also, at no time were two packs seen operating in the same area, which
suggests that the dholes could be territorial. I realised that mortality, emigration of a
part of the pack before the arrival of pups, breeding by one female, and the dhole’s
territorial nature may be the mechanisms that regulate pack and population size. In
spite of these mechanisms, sometimes pack sizes of 20 to 25 dholes are reported. Arun
35
In Bandipur, the pups remained in the den until they were 70 to 80 days old and,
during this time, they did not visit the nearby waterholes. They possibly got enough
water from mother’s milk and the meat regurgitated by several of the pack members.
I also observed that pups were shifted from one den to another when people disturbed
the dens.
One heavily foggy winter morning, I made my way to a large tamarind tree about
500 metres south-east of Bandipur. Perched on the tree, I heard the hushed scream
of a sambar fawn 150 to 200 metres from Bandipur village, an obvious sign of a kill.
I hurried to the place, where a flock of jungle crows had already reached. Jungle
crows in Bandipur tenaciously follow dholes to feed on the kill remains and were of
immense help to me in locating dholes. I waited to give sufficient time to the dholes
to settle on the kill as I wanted to approach them and take some photographs.
The crows were sitting on the top of a dead tree, looking down and cawing. Minutes
ticked by and abruptly the dholes growled and ran in different directions. For a
moment I thought that they had fought among themselves, which made them disperse
and, as I waited for them to reassemble, the crows landed on the kill site: evidence
that the dholes were not at the kill. I went ahead cautiously. The crows flew up the
36
dead tree when I approached them, and except for the splattered blood and hair and
few splinters of bone, there was no sign of a kill on the short green grass. I walked
around the kill site and found on the dew-covered grass, tracks of two persons who
had come from and gone back to Bandipur village. Anger swelled in me when I
realized that the kill probably had been stolen. The clearly visible tracks led me to a
Kuruba tribal hut on the outskirts of Bandipur village. Some jungle crows were sitting
on the grass rooftop of the hut and cawing, and other crows were flying around. All
this clearly indicated that the kill was hidden somewhere either inside or near the hut.
The Kuruba family and their neighbours, however, denied having any association
with the kill.
One of the major objectives of my study was to evaluate the impact of dhole predation
on chital and sambar and, therefore, every kill was valuable to me. I realized I had
to report the stolen kill to the forest department to put an end to this illegal activity.
I went to the office of the range forest officer who was aware of the problem of
local people stealing kills. I was able to convince him that such stealing, if unabated,
could seriously affect my study and also the delicate prey–predator balance that
exists in the Bandipur Tiger Reserve. Determined to put an end to this disturbance,
he accompanied me with two guards to the hut of the tribal. An intensive search
brought out a 30 kilogram sambar fawn wrapped in sacks hidden in a corner of the
hut. I removed the jaw of the fawn for ageing it by studying tooth emption, and pieces
of lung and liver for an investigation of parasitism. We left the carcass at the kill site
in the fervent hope that the dholes would come back to feed on it.
Since time immemorial, in every association with man, the dhole has been the loser.
Jungle tribes all over the range of dholes have been following dholes and appropriating
their kills down the years. Given this parasitic association, tribes such as the Gonds
in Madhya Pradesh never harm dholes directly. Another way in which dholes are
harmed by people is by den-digging and killing of pups. This happens mostly in areas
where dholes prey on livestock. In such areas, carcasses of livestock killed by dholes
are also poisoned. For example, Lieutenant Colonel R.W. Burton in an article written
in 1941 in the journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, recommends the use of
strychnine bi-hydrochloride for poisoning dholes.
Burton thought that as the stock of deer in all parts of the country was rapidly
lessening, it should be the policy of the Imperial Forest Department to offer sufficient
37
government rewards to encourage the continual destruction of wild dogs in all reserve
forests. This was practised throughout India but only certain agencies kept a record of
how many dholes were killed.
For 21 years, from 1912, the average yearly destruction of dholes in the area controlled
by the Nilgiri Game Association in south India numbered 38 and the reward offered
for each dhole killed was 20 rupees; which was a covetable amount in those days.
This promotion of killing was continued by the Association and between 1939 and
1964, 309 dholes were slayed.
Fortunately for the dholes, the tide has turned. The last dhole was shot in Bandipur
in 1975 and being a part of Schedule II of the Indian Wildlife Act, 1972, the dhole is
now totally protected from hunting. Unless there is permission from the chief wildlife
warden of the state, the dhole cannot be legally shot. Neither wildlife managers nor
conservationists believe any longer in the accusation that dholes can suppress tiger
populations. Since the inception of Project Tiger, many tiger habitats, such as Kanha,
Melghat, Simlipal, Bandipur and Periyar, that also harbour dholes, have shown a
significant increase in tiger numbers, which would not have happened had the dholes
been containing tiger numbers.
My study on dholes in the Bandipur Tiger Reserve from 1976 to 1978 was fraught
with discomfort and dangers. One major problem was my allergy to ticks, which
were abundant in the jungle. Initially, the tick bites led to fever and itching, and,
though, eventually, the fever stopped, the itching continued and I never developed
immunity to the bites. Some of the bites itched for months. The healed bites, which
were all over my body, were black. Soon I looked as if I had had a serious attack
of smallpox. Dangers from elephants were many. Once, while looking for kills, I
walked into a sleeping cow elephant in a dense scrub and mistook it to be dead! I
foolishly made horrendous sounds by beating two sticks of dead and dry bamboo to
verify whether the elephant was dead; the cow came out charging with her tiny calf
on her heels. I was in my early thirties then and had the confidence to run and escape
elephants. This confidence, which enabled me to escape from two very bad chases by
elephants, was shattered when a conservator of forest, who was accompanying me,
was tragically killed by a young tusker. Thereafter, for several weeks I walked with
great fear in my heart. Any rustle caused by a heavy-bodied animal in the bush sent
a chill up my spine.
38
I spent over 5,000 enjoyable hours in the jungle and observed dholes for a little over
100 hours. My project was the first PhD study by an Indian biologist on a free-ranging
large mammal. Nearly 25 years have passed since my field study and there are many
questions that need to be answered to fully understand dhole biology and ecology.
Some of them are: What prevents Cuon alpinus primaevus from returning to preyrich areas like the Corbett Tiger Reserve? What diseases periodically wipe out dholes
in reserves like Kanha and how are these diseases transmitted? What happens to the
migrants and what is their social status? What is the genetic status of the different
dhole populations? Several short-term studies focusing on different populations of
dholes and long-term study of three or four neighbouring packs in an expansive
dhole habitat, with several dholes individually marked and some radio-collared, are
urgently required to unravel many of the existing mysteries about the dhole.
THE FOLDED EARTH
Anuradha Roy
From The Folded Earth, Hachette India, 2011.
The sky over our heads here in the mountains has not the immensity of the sky I grew
up with in the Deccan where it spans the entire planet, broken only by the buildingsized boulders that sit here and there on the open flatland of the plateau as if a giant’s
child had collected them from the giant’s river and dropped them like marbles on a
playing field. In the hills the sky is circumscribed. Its fluid blue is cupped in the palm
of a hand whose fingers are the mountains around us. We too are cupped in its palm
and while there is a feeling of limitless distance, we have, at the same time, the sense
that here on our hill is where life begins and ends. Here is where sky begins and ends,
and if there are other places, they have skies different from our sky.
39
40
Our town spans three hills. It is far away from everywhere and very small. If you look
at it from the other side of the valley at night, you see darkness dotted here and there
with yellow lights half-hidden by trees. On every side there are mountains and forests,
stretching many miles, interrupted only by tiny hamlets and villages so small that
they might have just five houses and nothing but a foot-beaten path connecting them
to the main road miles away. To the north of our town are the high Himalayas; icewhite peaks on the other side of which lie Tibet and China. On clear days, eastward,
you can see the five pyramids of the Pancha Chuli, which are at Nepal’s door.
up residence in the corners of the rooms: slow-moving black scorpions, confused
moths that banged into lights, green-eyed spiders whose legs could span dinner plates.
My cottage was at the edge of the spur on which the Light House stood. When I lay
in bed, what I saw framed in the window was the Trishul. At its base, invisible at this
distance, was the lake where Michael had spent his last hours. Nothing but miles of
forests and wave upon wave of blue and green hills between us.
When you come up to our town from the plains, the dust-gloomed, table-flat land
begins to slope upward at Kathgodam, folding itself into hillsides, and in less than
two hours the trees change from banyan, mango, banana and sal, to pine, oak, cypress
and cedar. Everything looks sharper-edged in the clear air, as if your bad eyesight has
been inexplicably cured. Ferns fountain from rock faces, flowers blossom on stone.
In fertile areas, the hills are terraced into green and brown circles of wheat fields with
squares of white, where the peasants’ slate-roofed cottages are. The dishevelled small
towns are soon left behind, and then you pass gushing mountain rivers and barren
cliff sides pin-cushioned with cacti, deep forests and still grey-blue lakes. By the time
you are in Ranikhet, you have travelled from the tropics to temperate lands.
This was the town to which I came after I lost Michael. Father Joseph used his
network to get me a job at St Hilda’s, a church-run school. I found a cottage to rent,
on an estate called the Light House because it was so situated that the mansion on the
upper grounds caught the first rays of sun on its eastern windows, and the last of them
on its western lawns. My landlord, whom everyone called Diwan Sahib, lived alone
in the crumbling mansion. Down the slope there was a set of brick and mud rooms
clustered around a beaten earth courtyard and cattle sheds. Charu lived here with her
grandmother and an uncle, Puran, who was often called Sanki Puran because he did
not seem to have all his wits about him.
My own cottage, close to theirs, had once been stables where herders were housed in
a room above the stalls for horses and cows. The cottage now had two whitewashed
rooms of stone, one above the other, and a small veranda. The wooden planks of its
floors creaked and shifted with age. The kitchen and bathroom, tacked on later, stood
at odd angles to one another and to the house. None of the windows or doors fitted
well. Icy draughts surged through the gaps in winter, and in the monsoon insects took
41
42
WHY SAVE TIGERS?
K. Ullas Karanth
From The Way of the Tiger, Universities Presses, 2006.
this planet. Ecological modeller Simon Levin compares the earth’s biosphere to a ‘self
organizing, complex adaptive system’ in which each little cluster of component parts
influences the overall functioning of the system through feedback loops. He suggests
that loss of species could have unpredictable and possibly dangerous consequences
for us. Ecologist David Tillman argues that biological diversity itself may provide
stability to our ecosystems.
Population biologist Paul Ehrilich illustrates the danger of potential species losses,
with a dramatic example: the ecosystem is like an airplane in which we are passengers.
We can go on removing the rivets that hold the plane’s wings up, one by one, for
quite a while. While no single rivet may determine when we will crash, ultimately
one particular rivet surely will. Each species that we extirpate is like one more rivet
pulled out from our plane.
Going beyond such arguments that urge prudence for the sake of the future, we can
see that tiger habitats provide us with tangible benefits even now. The forests that
clothe the tiger’s habitats are also watersheds of major Asian river systems such as
the Ganga, Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy and Mekong. These forests regulate the flow
of water after the seasonal rains and protect the soil underneath from erosion. The
survival of these forests is therefore critical to the welfare of millions of farmers who
depend on these rivers. When we protect tiger forests from logging, overgrazing, fires
and conversion to cropland, we are not indulging in a luxury that we cannot afford
in a poverty-stricken, overpopulated world. We are, in fact, protecting the soil–water
resources that sustain millions of people in Asia.
Saving wild tigers in an overpopulated world now means locking up productive
farmland in wildlife reserves, and suffering occasional depredations on livestock and
even human beings. Yet, for over a quarter of a century now, we have kept up the
efforts to save wild tigers. Is this rational behaviour on our part? Why should we try
to save tigers when so many other urgent human problems demand our attention?
Ecologists who study the earth’s ecosystems and try to model their dynamics argue
that the plant and animal communities that share our planet contribute to the stability
and functioning of biological and chemical cycles that make life possible for us on
43
These tiger forests are also treasure troves of biological diversity. They harbor
millions of species of plants, insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. These
life forms took millions of years to evolve and we have only just begun to document
their extraordinary variety and diversity. Consequently, we barely understand the
complex ecological linkages among these plants and animals: certainly not enough to
predict how the elimination of one species may affect the fate of others.
Often, extermination of species can disrupt links between predators and prey,
flowers and pollinators, fruits and the dispersers of their seeds. Collecting specimens
in museums, arboretums and zoos cannot prevent the cascading effects of species
extinctions. Wild plants and animals have to be primarily saved wherever they
44
occur in living landscapes around us. Tigers are an integral part of these complex
ecosystems.
The diversity of plant and animal life needs to be preserved because of the immense
current benefits and future gains that it can bring to us. Most of our crop plants and
domestic animals are bred from wild relatives and can potentially benefit greatly from
the vast, barely tapped wild gene pools. Many of our current drugs, as well as sources
of energy, fibres and structural materials come from a few exploited species that we
have discovered. As biotechnology becomes an increasingly important weapon in
our fight against hunger, homelessness, poverty and disease, the role of those as yet
undiscovered life forms will become even more central to our own welfare. Yet the
natural habitats that harbor potentially useful life forms are being lost every day in a
massive extinction spasm that we have inflicted on nature. Sometimes, we humans
seem determined to burn this unique insurance policy that nature has generously
provisioned for our future.
Wild tigers are the warning lamps that indicate how healthy natural landscapes
continue to remain in the face of our onslaught; their survival is as useful to us as the
oil-pressure lamp on the dashboard of a car or the battery life indicator on a laptop
computer.
The remaining tiger habitats are wonderful laboratories of nature, an irreplaceable
library of life. They possess, in a large measure, what conservationist William
Conway calls ‘nature’s ability to surprise us’. In these we can study nature at work
and benefit from the knowledge we gain. In our attempts to destroy the remnants of
such forests to meet some temporary need, human society seems to be behaving like
a mob of illiterates bent on burning down an ancient library.
Moreover, the wild landscapes that now harbour tigers comprise less than 5 per cent
of the land in most tiger range countries. One cannot imagine any pressing problem
faced by the three-billion-strong population in Asia being solved by sacrificing these
nature reserves. Problems such as poverty, landlessness, hunger, disease and social
discrimination have remained intractable over centuries. Their ultimate solution lies
in using the remaining 95 per cent of the land outside the reserves wisely.
Apart from such practical reasons, there also are ethical and aesthetic reasons for
45
saving wild tigers. Tigers, and the plant and animal communities that sustain them,
are products of millions of years of natural evolution. Don’t they have a right to
survive and evolve as nature intended them to, at least in some parts of the once green
earth that we have drastically modified?
The tiger is, undoubtedly, one of the most beautiful of all nature’s creations, and
has inspired human cultures over millennia. No one has expressed the ethical and
aesthetic imperative for saving wild tigers more eloquently than biologist George
Schaller who said in 1993: ‘Future generations would be truly saddened that this
century had so little foresight, so little compassion, such lack of generosity of spirit
for the future that it would eliminate one of the most beautiful and dramatic animals
that the world has ever seen.’
Critical Questions in Tiger Conservation.
For all the above reasons, the world’s scientific community, most governments,
conservation agencies and a wide section of the public agree that saving rare,
extinction-prone species, such as the tiger, is a global necessity from both practical
and moral considerations. The consensus on this issue is remarkably broad, and cuts
across political, ideological, national and cultural boundaries. Even more remarkably,
this consensus has crystallised within a relatively short period during the last quarter
century. However, all this does not make the actual task of tiger conservation any less
difficult. While there is agreement as to why we should save tigers, there are widely
diverging views on how we should go about doing so. Many vexed questions are
raised and debated.
Should we advocate policies that promote the coexistence of tiger populations amidst
human settlements, or should we strive for separating the two as much as we can? To
what extent are activities such as agriculture, raising livestock and collecting forest
products compatible with tiger conservation goals? Can economic development
projects be reconciled with tiger conservation? Is the international trade in tiger body
parts the most important factor in driving the tigers’ decline or is it the depletion of the
tigers’ prey base by local villagers? Should tiger habitats be managed by decentralised
local authorities or by organised governmental efforts? Should we emphasise tough
law enforcement to protect tigers or should we focus on people-friendly policies that
keep the tigers’ human neighbours happy? Should we motivate local people to save
46
tigers through commercial incentives or by appealing to their sense of local pride,
culture or tradition? Do we need more or less money to go into tiger conservation
schemes? How important are the issues of genetics and captive breeding in saving
wild tigers? How can captive tigers help wild ones? How do we measure success
or failure in tiger conservation - by the amount of money we spend, the welfare
provided to local people or by actually going out and counting wild tigers? Are we
succeeding or failing in our collective efforts to save tigers? Is the tiger a lost cause,
or is there some reason for hope?
The Role of Reliable Knowledge
The answers to these questions differ widely, but in the end they boil down to two
things: which conservation activities should be emphasised and what proportion of
resources should be allocated to each. Different conservation prescriptions arise from
differences in perceptions about what wild tigers need and about our own impacts on
these needs. Much of the discord arises because of a lack of reliable knowledge about
tigers. To illustrate this let us look at some opinions that are widely shared among the
world’s tiger conservationists:
• It is often stated that there were 40,000 tigers in India at the beginning of the
twentieth century and that only 3,000 or 5,000 or some other number, survive
now. The first number is merely an opinion expressed by a naturalist 40 years
ago, and the latter numbers are only guesses without any solid basis. Yet these
so-called ‘facts’ have gained wide currency through repetition in the foreign
press.
• Another famous, oft-repeated quote is that the largest contiguous wild tiger
population in the world today survives in the Sunderban delta, in India and
Bangladesh. In fact, mangrove forests are poor-quality tiger habitat, with
apparently low prey densities. Recent studies suggest that the high tiger
numbers reported are more likely to be the result of poor counting methods.
Although a unique and important habitat, the Sunderban is unlikely to support
the largest contiguous tiger population in the world.
• It is widely believed that there were once eight tiger subspecies of which
five survive now. However, a recent biogeographic study suggests that there
were only two tiger subspecies, whereas another molecular genetic study
47
recognizes a new subspecies in Peninsular Malaysia and concludes there are
six extant tiger subspecies.
• Many people think that white tigers are a rare variety that need to be
conserved. Actually white tigers are genetic mutants derived by repeatedly
crossbreeding the progeny derived from a single wild-caught ancestor. While
white tigers are undoubtedly rather cute oddities, they have little conservation
value.
• It is often believed that tigers in captivity provide stock for reintroduction
into the wild. The fact is that it is more cost-effective to protect habitats so
that wild tiger populations can recover, compared to raising expensive captive
tigers that have little hope of finding suitable new habitats for reintroductions.
Let us take the bland assertion that, in Asia, tigers have happily coexisted with
local people over thousands of years. It then follows that policies that make local
people unhappy – restricting farming, livestock raising and the collection of forest
products in critical tiger habitats – are unnecessary to maintain viable breeding
tiger populations in the future. The reality, however, is that during this period of
alleged happy coexistence, the distributional range of breeding tiger populations has
probably shrunk to one per cent of its former size. For the tigers at least, the history
of coexistence has not be a happy experience.
Look at the dire prediction made in 1993 by many of the world’s leading tiger
conservationists and repeated by the media, including Time magazine and the BBC,
that wild tigers were in deep trouble and would go extinct by the year 2000. While
wild tigers continued to be in trouble in the year 2000, they were certainly not extinct.
There is a chance that tigers may indeed survive the twenty-first century, at least in
some parts of their range.
It can be seen from these examples that many of the differences in possible approaches
to saving tigers arise because of lack of reliable knowledge. Two basic biological
traits of tigers – its large size and carnivorous diet – impinge on every conservation
decision we have to make now.
Understanding the tiger’s biological needs so that we can accommodate them – to the
extent we can – in our vastly complicated agenda for human progress is a crucial part
of the conservation enterprise. Gaining such understanding through the application
48
of science is therefore essential for the process of conservation. Science derives its
strength because, as a philosopher said, “science works”. Science works in the real
world because of the methods it employs to gain knowledge. Rigorous methods and
evaluation of the results are what set tiger science clearly apart from tiger lore, legend
and hunter’s tales.
ESCAPE FROM THE SANCTUARY
Bill Aitken
From The Nanda Devi Affair, Penguin Books (India), 1994.
However, tiger conservation is an activity that we humans undertake – not tigers
themselves. Therefore, tiger conservation must involve a human dimension. The
social, economic and cultural dimensions of conservation cannot be ignored by
anyone seriously working to save tigers. Tigers have inspired humanity from its prehistoric past through historical times to the modern day. Tigers were worshipped as
deities by primitive cultures and have served as royal mascots. They are now used
in corporate logos that sell a variety of products, from ice cream to sports cars. Our
primary challenge is to channel this human fascination for the tiger into positive
conservation action.
It felt good to be alive as we sloped down to the sanctuary camp. The all-encompassing
mist prevented the fixing of landmarks but the green expansiveness of the rolling
moors announced this could be nowhere but the sanctuary of the Goddess. We headed
towards the roots of the mountain where across the sunken bed of the South Rishi the
black ragged rocks supporting Nanda Devi reared up to reveal ramparts eroded by the
undermining, scouring elements.
Expedition litter announced the main camping site where a small stream ran past
white encrusted rocks to make more vivid this emerald dell. Alongside was a rock
49
50
shelter built with stones to make a reasonable if constricted cave. Against our better
instincts the porters pulled up roots of the brush undergrowth to make a fire. Normally
we did not abuse the hospitality of the environment but now were too tired to bother
about the ethics involved. The porters went off rummaging but their beachcombing
did not yield anything useful. Next morning they declared they would continue the
march to Nanda Devi base camp (another eight-kilometre scramble up the South
Nanda glacier) to rescue some tinned supplies they had hidden from a previous visit.
I was undecided about my programme, feeling quite happy to have got this far, and
unambitious to cross the river and set foot upon the mountain. The cave was cold
and any comfort was totally lacking from its claustrophobic dankness. We spent a
wretched night unable to sleep, my exhaustion from failure to eat now catching up to
add to the misery of altitude.
could actually deduce from the junk the nationality of the parties. Yugoslavian biscuit
wrappers lay alongside British sardine tins and Coca Cola cans from America shared
space with jettisoned medical supplies from Indian military sources. The mess was
an affront to the Goddess and the illusion that the people who could do this to the
most beautiful of Himalayan wildernesses qualified as sportsmen never stood more
exposed. Shipton and his Sherpas had honoured their surroundings by the limited
size of their party and genuine exploratory motives for being there; since then the
sanctuary had been violated by the greed for fame and the mindless urge to keep up
with the record books.
In the morning I decided I wasn’t up to the extra march. Prithwi had given me a tiny
image of Nandi the bull to offer at the feet of Nanda Devi and I decided I would begin
the day by building a small shrine on the roof of our rock shelter for this offering
to the Goddess. This meant searching around for slates to pile up around the metal
image. To keep warm I fell to the job with a will. After fifteen minutes I was pulled
up with a pain in my chest and realised how careful one has to be at altitude. By now
the morning was distinctly warmer and wisps of cloud streamed away to announce
a weak sun trying to break through. The five days I had been on the trail had not yet
yielded a single snow peak but in spite of the aesthetic short-changing I remained
happy at having broken through to my goal. It was a joy just to be there in the riffling
winds of the meadows, where snow pigeons went screaming by and black choughs
with yellow bills performed their leisurely stalls. Bird life had not been abundant but
the need to keep one’s eyes glued to the dangerous trail had not allowed for much
straying interest. I was also disappointed at not sighting any herds of bharal. The
porters advised me to accompany them to ‘base-kin’ (base camp) where I could be
sure of a sighting but I was content and had no wish to leave the meadows.
As I sat on the cave roof, facing the black ramparts across the echoing river, the
shredded mist higher up the mountain suddenly revealed a patch of blue. It was
the first hopeful sign in five days of wet marching that the weather might clear.
Contented, I sat back to breathe in the pleasure of the moment and as I idly stretched
in the warming air the great moment happened. The top layer of cloud began to thin
and, tantalizingly, the outlines of the main peak began to flicker into recognition. I
couldn’t believe my eyes. Unknown to me, I had built the temple to Nandi exactly
facing the Goddess. It seemed a minor miracle that the sun should choose this moment
to reward my labours. As the reluctant beauty of the mountain strove to outwit the
parting cloud cover, I was aware, almost painfully, of the strong erotic pull this peak
of passion had on me. It was almost as if a spiritual striptease was being performed.
I could only gape as the revelation neared its climax. The sun climbed to disperse
the upper band of mist and lo! The full breathtaking face of the mountain coyly
floated into focus. Only her peak was revealed, as lovely a portrait in ermine as any
queen could wish for. She sailed majestically against the brief blue of eternity and I
could not take my eyes off this stunning apparition. Everything I desired had come to
fruition. There was a feeling of utter fulfilment and a song of thankfulness welled up
from that core of contentment that follows the union of heaven and earth; the perfect
end to all our striving.
They then decided their round trip of 16 kilometres to collect a tin of mince was not
worth the effort. They also preferred to laze and recoup their lost energy. The cave
was forever full of billowing smoke that wrung out our tears. Brushwood was the only
fuel as the juniper bushes had all fallen victim to earlier expeditions. This denudation
was not the only trace these earlier visitors had left behind. The unacceptable face
of the sanctuary was the sprawl of expedition junk rusting along the stream. One
The Goddess remained clear for the hour it took the porters to pack our reduced
baggage. Having experienced darshan of Nanda Devi, nothing remained but to
return and share it with those I loved. It was early afternoon when, at last, we tore
ourselves away from her loveliness and turned our backs on the Goddess’ enchanted
realm. Still the mist clung to the base of the mountain and obliterated the extent of
the swelling moors. Unlike the other parts we had traversed, here the grass of the
51
52
sanctuary overcame all attempts by the flowers to hold sway. There were brilliant
clumps of searing yellow along the small sanctuary camp stream but these served
only to highlight the immense expanse of turfed delight that sprawled to the horizon.
Intoxicated by the glow of our surroundings, we slowly made our way to the portals
and sat down under the cairns to bid a final farewell to the peak. The porters dozed off in
the warm sun and left me to breathe in full wonder of this extraordinary manifestation
of sanctified nature. It was now clear enough to look down the branching course
of the North Rishi and spot the great white rock that marked the junction of the
Changabang glacier. The Goddess carefully kept her snow treasures under lock and
key as if to suggest I must come back if I wished to see more of her jewels.
We climbed slowly over the boulders and made camp for the night at Patalkhan. The
small cave seemed perfectly adequate and I found all my fears of the descent had
evaporated. To aid our retreat, I had picked up a pilgrim staff with a ferrule from the
sanctuary camp that would ease the next day’s passage. The porters produced a tin of
mutton from their renewed searchings but my stomach was totally turned off at the
suggestion of any non-vegetarian article of diet. I lived on packets of soup powder
since the effort to swallow anything more substantial made the act of swallowing a
gamble against the urge to vomit. Despite the battering the body had undergone my
mood was buoyant. That night the moon shone as the river growled in the echoing
canyon. Now, to my rejuvenated ears, its music was no longer menacing. The Devi
had muzzled her watchdog and the gorge no longer held any threat.
The challenge of the Rhamani slabs was put behind us early next morning. Aided by
my stick and the helping hand of the porters we cleared the face with only one stretch
of protective rope required to be threaded through the conveniently placed pitons.
Vaikunth Siri was successfully negotiated (the so-called stairway to heaven) and as
we eased our way along the catwalk discovered by Shipton and Ang Tharkay, one had
to marvel at how this impassive gorge could yield such subtle links that guaranteed
access only to the most ardent of probers. In the cold morning, the panic that had
accompanied my scary ascent was missing. Similarly, the return crossing of the Trisul
Nala was done with business-like dispatch. My earlier petrified crawls were now
turning into more confident assessments of the challenge. It was thoughts of failure
that sapped one’s ability to take victory in its stride. Not skill but conscious poise was
the lesson of that descent.
53
Once across the first danger, the porters accelerated towards the second, the creaking
bridge over the Rishi at Deodhi. Now there was no stopping us. We simply took the
obstacles at a run, one at a time, but with never athought of the consequences. We
were free of the menacing river and, happily tired, seemed to have won our way
home. The day’s retreat had covered three paravs and our speeding feet had put 30
kilometres of the gorge behind us. We settled under the dank Dibrugheta overhang
to eat a dish of celebratory sweet porridge, confident that we would be back in Lata
the next day to make offerings at the Devi’s temple. At three in the morning, I was
woken in cold drifting rain and told it was time to start. The nala was noisily swollen
and the log by which we had entered was now under six inches of crashing white
water. I stared glumly at this development while the porters examined other reaches
of the spoiling stream and concluded we had to try from where we were. Another log
reared out of the river at a desperate angle but did not span the entire width. It fell
short by some six feet and any progress by its slippery offer was doomed to end with
a plunge into the icy swirl. To add to the pall of defeat the moon that had struggled
against the drizzle now chose to go behind the mountain. The porters leapt up on the
upreared log and began to prise out boulders along its lie hoping to ease the surging
flow by their removal.
Nathu’s strength was so uncontained that he managed to break off the ferrule of the
ice axe. I was reminded of how Sathya Sai Baba had blessed the pick and wondered
why his protection seemed now to have deserted us. The porters were shouting for me
to get started but I bawled back that there was no way I could cross the log - couldn’t
even see it under the white pressure of furious spilling water.
Then Pratap shouted words that gave hope - ‘Peet per jayega’.Nathuwould carry
me across on his back. I had never been in any doubt about the porters’ strength and
initiative but to risk their lives to bail out a comparative stranger seemed a remarkable
display of loyalty. Each season sanctuary streams washed away mountaineers and
porters and so fierce was their bore that the bodies were never found. I was all for
waiting till morning but Pratap argued that the earlier we tried the lower would be
the level of water to be contended with. With an enormous hoist Nathu took me on
to his shoulders. I found myself clinging like a monkey as he kicked a way across
the full force of the water. He was wearing an old pair of discarded expedition boots
which he saved for special occasions. Most of the time he went barefoot, but wore
54
boots out of caution at camp sites to guard against the danger of broken glass (another
sad comment on modern mountaineering culture). It seemed to take an age for his
one foot to risk another step. I had closed my eyes to the clamour of the hysterical
swimming water that seemed to bay for blood. Though I dread getting my feet wet let alone relish the prospect of drowning - I had never felt safer than on Nathu’s back.
There was a reassuring smell of goats about him and, if he slowly worked his way
across the rising log, his full strength revealed itself. Without dunking me in the white
swirling cascade, he managed to lower himself from the log into the full sweep of the
raging torrent. Then, with the river bed under his feet, he crashed a way through to
deposit me on to the sandy edge.
It was a heroic moment and I thumped him on the back in appreciation. It was not
just the achievement of fulfiling a voluntary responsibility that impressed but the
inherent fighting qualities of a simple village thakur on display. Lesser men would
have waited till morning or left me to find my own way across. But the code of the
Lata men demanded the contracts entered into for darshan of the Devi were to be
honoured fully. It was this tremendous demonstration of loyalty that touched me most
and I presented my watch to Nathu as a token of affection for his big-heartedness. It
had been given to me by my guru and so would pass from one compassionate hand
to another.
Nathu now would leave us to divert to a shepherd’s camp at Malathuni. He had
to collect a goat for a village ceremony and would meet us later at Lata Kharak. I
climbed very slowly up the steep bank of conifers lining the nala, then leaned into
the incline of the tiresome pull up to Malathuni in the pre-dawn stillness. The grass
was sloshy underfoot and gave off the swish of monsoon saturation. The fullness of
sap seemed appropriate to our condition. Here we were staggering up a killing slope
more dead than alive, half-starved from the rigours of altitude and worn out by the
punishing nature of the trail, yet we felt absolutely fulfilled and tingled with aliveness
even unto the uttermost pore. A sort of mystical veil of well-being seemed to descend
over our vertical slog and, as we crested the ridge, an air of hushed holiness overtook
the sanctuary and all that was part of it. Nanda Devi reared up grandly in a royal
sweep of purple power as fire flashed upon her summit in the first arrows of an eager
dawn. Against this kiss of life the rest of the sanctuary peaks rose in solemn array, a
stunning spread of spires, lowers, crags and pinnacles awaiting in the grey stillness
the promised touch of regal warmth. No cathedral had ever stood out grander than the
55
awesome architecture of that noble cirque of Garhwal, nor the breathless atmosphere
of natural sanctity struck one as so real. Beyond my state of heightened inebriation
the soul had momentarily glimpsed itself.
My diary was full and to sketch the thrilling lines of Nanda’s soaring peak, emerging
from the depths of the gorge, I had to resort to the medium of birch bark, a soft and
permanent record easily torn off from the trees along the way. We turned our steps
splashily through the sopping meadows that led up to the Dharansi crossing. Soon the
sun climbed over the barrier of Nanda Devi’s huge configuration and played upon the
colours of the flowers underfoot. With the wind in one’s hair and the simple pleasure
of walking homewards through the emerald expanse around Raj Kharak, I found
myself possessed by a conviction every bit as commanding as the vow that had led
me to savour the sanctuary. Just when I had achieved in full measure the culmination
of a 20-year-old desire, I discovered another spontaneously settling upon my brow.
There was the distinct impression of the Goddess prompting me to write about the
wonderment of her sanctuary, to get down in print, before it faded, the maddening
fragrance of her spangled monsoon largesse, and to seek to convey, no matter how
feebly, the benison of her grace, even through this crude medium of a mountain
lover’s notings. I can never forget that walk to Dharansi for it happens to be the only
time in my life when I was aware that I was fully conscious.
The mood did not last beyond Lata Kharak but the certainty it generated did. It was
as if instead of falling in love one had become one with the beloved. It never pays
to analyse the affairs of the heart since love refers to the mysteries of eternity rather
than being derived from the products of time. My feelings in the sanctuary echoed
uncannily the words of the alchemist Thomas Vaughan, brother of the poet. In his
Golden Treatise of 1650 he wrote: ‘All things when they first proceed from God are
white . . . of a celestial transcendent brightness . . . There is nothing on earth like it
. . . She a celestial transcendent brightness . . . There is nothing on earth like it . . .
she yields to nothing but love . . . This is she and these are her favours. Catch her if
you can.’
Vaughan summed up my mesmerizing darshan of Nanda Devi when the peak so
languorously had shaken herself free of the clouds, for all the world like a beautiful
woman aware of an admirer, watching and arranging to show herself off to maximum
effect. Vaughan’s description of the felicity that follows the seeker of nature’s secrets
56
closely resembled my feelings on that walk, a hallowed experience of passing
through a minster without walls: ‘Lookon the green youthful and flowery bosom of
the earth. The stars and planets overlook her and they shed down their golden locks
like so many tokens of love. Do but look on the daily sports of nature, her clouds and
mist, the scene and pageantry of the air. What glorious colours and tinctures doth she
discover. A pure eternal green overspreads her and this attended with innumerable
other beauties, roses red and white, golden lilies, azure violets, the bleeding hyacinths
with their several celestial odours and spices . . . Know for certain thou hast discovered
the sanctuary of nature. There is nothing between thee and her treasures but the door.
Thou hast resolved with thyself to be a co-operator with God. Have a care thou dost
not hinder His work. Take heed therefore lest thou set nature at variance with herself.’
The remarkable merging of ecology and theology in these alchemical formulae catches
exactly what Dr Jung was later to describe as the fierce animality of nature. It was
extraordinary to find in Vaughan the very thoughts that had coursed through my mind
in the negotiation of the sanctuary. The crossing of the Trisul log had been a vivid
exemplar of the alchemical art - the union of fire and water. One of the mantras of
the medieval inquirers into the art of transforming gross nature into gold was vitriol,
a codeword whose first three letters invited the seeker to ‘enter into the earth’. The
brute impact of the sanctuary had caused a profound shaking up of my consciousness.
Its naked threat had served to bring back the raw edge of fear and the sense of blessed
relief that follows survival. Crossing the rivers one was acutely aware of both the
destructive potential of water and its limitless energy. Nature taught that any force
one-pointed in its drive was unstoppable. Clinging face-down on the birch and fir
poles above the maelstrom one was entirely at the mercy of the elements but at the
same time wholly in charge of one’s fate. It was the resolve to work with nature that
would extricate the body from its predicament. Any negative reaction might result
in the wrong move and quicken dissolution: ‘For this fire and this water are like two
lovers; they no sooner meet but presently they play,’ noted Vaughan. Here, he catches
the paradox of the Devi, both gentle and ferocious and states the incongruity of her
mountaineering devotees who approach with love yet leave behind their litter. The
conflicts in nature and oneself were brought home by the dangerous quest to touch
the hem of Nanda Devi. The experience, had I undertaken it just for altitude gained
or a place in the record books, might have missed out on the real trophy—the rare
opportunity to learn more about the mystery of selfhood.
57
The feeling of plenitude that peaked after escape from the frank facing of difficult
challenges was the result of what the modern alchemist George Gurdjieff would have
called a supper-effort. One was distinctly aware of Gurdjieff’s definition of choices:
‘better to die seeking to wake than live in sleep’. The truth learned in overcoming the
physical odds was that Nanda Devi’s beauty and religious appeal were both real, the
physical up-thrust of granite as well as the subtle presiding presence of the Goddess
of Uttarakhand.
The next challenge was to recognise the benevolence of the Devi in the animality of
village worship and stomach the crude sacrificial behaviour of her more primitive
devotees. The courage and loyalty of the Lata porters had introduced me to this lower
element in the mystique of the Devi and one would have to face the reality of squalid
reactions in religious practice as unflinchingly as the noble. The wholeness of nature
had been the chief lesson of the sanctuary. The grim facing of one’s goal left no time
for the conventions of caste and hierarchy. One learned eagerly from everyone and
everything. Shipton’s description of a paradise where the wild blue sheep grazed
unafraid of man had been outlived by the pressure of mountaineering ambition. The
Bhotia mastiffs who from habit trailed after their Lata masters had caused the bharal
to withdraw from their traditional grazing meadows, now no longer safe from man.
Crop protection guns were brought in to take advantage of the innocence of nature’s
original arrangement. By the mid-sixties Indian mountaineers were boasting in the
Himalayan Journal of how many bharal they had shot for the pot. The smuggling in
of a nuclear spying device had apparently been the occasion for the building of our
flimsy bridge across the Rishi. Thus, we were in no position to blame the plutonium
backpackers for without their efforts we would not have been able to enter the inner
sanctuary.
*
Nanda Devi had come into the news in 1978 but for political, not religious, reasons.
The story broke in America when a former CIA agent gave the San Francisco fringe
magazine Outside a story entitled ‘The Nanda Devi Caper’. It supplied details of the
placing of a nuclear spying device in Nanda Devi sanctuary to monitor the deployment
of Chinese missiles along the Tibetan border. The cloak-and-dagger rumours that
went around international climbing circles (even the staid Alpine Journal referred to
58
the subject) gave off too much smoke for official denials to be taken seriously and the
involvement of top-class climbers in CIA operations was widely assumed.
In his Himalayan Handbook (a remarkable work of reference that lists the ascents
of the main peaks) the mountaineering historian Joydeep Sircar notes under the
entry ‘Nanda Devi’ that a secret Indo - US expedition in the mid-sixties sought to
instal a nuclear fuelled device. Presumably, the main peak with its flat top described
by Tilman was the logical goal, and the most likely route to it up the Coxcomb
ridge from the south sanctuary. Since no official details have been published from
the Indian side beyond confirming that the device was planted—then lost, to be
substituted by another device on a neighbouring peak which was retrieved—we only
have newspaper reports and mountain hut gossip to go on. The well-known American
climber Galen Rowell in his book on the 1975 US attempt on K2 feels obliged to
end with vigorous denials that the team was in any way part of a CIA operation.
The vehemence unintentionally indicates that American spying involvement was
suspected to go beyond the Indian Himalayas.
for commerce, reduced from the status of divine messenger to that of dollar
earner. It confirms the planetary insensitivity of the extraordinary decision to risk
pollution of the headwaters of the Ganga and marks modern blindness to the longterm environmental fall-out of hasty reactions. Perhaps it is an honest indicator of
the human situation that at the heart of one of the world’s last pristine Himalayan
wildernesses, now declared a heritage site for the delectation of future generations,
we deliberately introduced the deadliest substance known to our species.
The folly of placing a nuclear device above the last discovered source of the Ganga, as
well as illustrating the panic-stricken nature of modern political decisions, services to
distinguish the mountain lover from the modern breed of mountaineering mercenary.
It appears that a whole generation of India’s climbers was seduced to work against
nature and was forced by their official calling to conspire to pollute the sanctuary.
There is poignancy in such folly, and the saving grace of duty unquestioningly
performed when our insecurity leads to panic and snowballs into collective hysteria.
Instead of viewing the presence of a nuclear device ticking away at the heart of the
world’s most ravishing mountain wilderness as the outward sign that idiocy and not
freedom is our human birthright, we can see this curious paradox of beauty and the
beast as proof that Shiva’s wife also swallows the world’s poison. In accepting both
the crude villager and the complex mountaineer as her devotees the Goddess Nanda
shows herself even-handed in her bliss-giving.
While re-writing this book in the English Midlands 26 years after the air crash in
the Alps, the wreckage of Dr Homi Bhabha’s aircraft was stumbled upon by some
British climbers. Amongst the litter of frozen cargo were the gruesome carcasses of
Indian monkeys destined for the loathsome laboratories of vivisection. What irony
that Hanuman, the healing agent of the gods, who flew to Nanda’s neighbouring
peak to pluck the life-saving herb, should in our more enlightened age be caged
59
60
THE SAGA OF HARJIT
Dhriti K. Lahiri-Choudhury
From A Trunk Full of Tales, Permanent Black, 2006.
of an emblem of the place, and was unquestionably the most talked-about personality
of the region.
For a long time the army supply depot at Bengdubi was his favourite foraging
ground, till elaborate elephant-proof barriers denied him his prerogative. A visibly
shaken army officer once reported to me that the elephant was white, a ‘safed haathi’
in fact. ‘I tell you, sir, saw the damned thing myself in the morning. Milk white, I tell
you, and it wasn’t Sunday morning either.’ Apparently, the previous night Harjit had
broken into a warehouse storing flour and sugar. The officer saw him in the morning
emerging from the place, covered with the stuff, and was never the same man again.
When white elephants begin appearing, can pink ones be far behind?
Harjit was certainly not the shy and retiring type. He seemed to seek the forests more
for shade than cover. His total disregard of human presence occasionally led him to
escapades wholly regrettable.
Lalji was once camping at the forest rest hut at Bamonpokhri in Kurseong division.
One day, at the incredible hour of two in the afternoon, the people in the hut suddenly
saw an elephant’s trunk snaking in through the open window. Hastily all backed
against the opposite wall, as the huge proboscis went unerringly for the bunch of
bananas hanging in one corner of the room. Moments later the indignant company
saw their next morning’s breakfast disappearing through the window.
Harjit was a gigantic solitary makna (ed. male elephant without tusks) in the prime
of life, about 10’3” at the withers, and reportedly blind in the left eye. The Bengdubi
army camp had christened him ‘Harjit’ after one of the past camp commanders who
reportedly had the same physical handicap.
His range was the Kurseong division forests of North Bengal, west of the Siliguri Darjeeling road. Here, he moved like a liege lord with the air and assurance of one
owning the place. For years this one-eyed buccaneer dominated the life of the local
people, extracting grudging seasonal tributes. Over the years he had become a kind
61
A few months later Harjit took to visiting Lalji’s camp daily. There he was one day,
at about four in the afternoon, determinedly approaching the hut. Everybody shouted,
everything metallic—pots, pans, buckets and all - was beaten lustily, without any
apparent effect. Finally, Lalji himself, armed with a borrowed single-barreled
shotgun loaded with no. 6 shots, took his desperate last-ditch stand on the veranda,
barely thirty feet from Harjit, in defence of his bananas. It was a battle of nerves.
They waited face to face in tense silence, each waiting for the other to make the first
move. Not a single flap of the huge ears all spread out, not a twitch of the tail. After a
long wait Harjit changed his course, pretending he had intended to go the other way
all the time.
Once in the dead of night there was a frantic telephone call from the house of the
vice-chancellor of North Bengal University to the local police station. Harjit was on
62
‘dharna’ in front of the portico. It took hours to dislodge him from there. Tough is
the lot of vice-chancellors these days all over the country, but never was it tougher.
This sort of thing, obviously, did not help to improve Harjit’s public image.
Understandably, Harjit was the bete noire of the elephant squad of the forest
department, recently constituted to combat elephant depredation. Their effectiveness
against Harjit raiding crop was nil. Spotlights focused on him were ignored; flaming
torches thrown at him were either stamped out or thrown back. Shotgun pellets fired
at his legs caused only a muscular twitch, the sort of twitch one sees on a cow trying
to dislodge a fly on its back.
One winter the squad’s credibility received its severest drubbing from Harjit. It was a
freezing Dooars night, and the old sinner, as was his wont, was on crop. After battling
valiantly, albeit unsuccessfully, for hours to drive him off the paddy fields, the squad
retired in frustration to a nearby village and lit a fire to warm themselves, attended by
a jeering crowd markedly deficient in the milk of human kindness and that heavenly
gift, sympathy. In a few minutes, Harjit appeared on the scene and appropriated the
fire, whereupon all scattered like chaff before wind. For the next couple of hours or
so, Harjit stood there soaking in the warmth, while the shivering squad members
watched helplessly from a distance. The cup of their ignominy was full.
Harjit’s ruling passion in life was food and, let us face it, for all his charm, Harjit was
a dedicated gormandizer. Once the urge for female company came upon him, and he
decided to abduct a female elephant belonging to a herd which was passing through.
This action of Harjit, who appeared as brazen about love as about food, was resented
by a bull temporarily attached to the herd, an enormous tusker. A night long battle
of the giants followed. In the morning, a terribly battle-scarred Harjit was forced to
withdraw from the arena. For several weeks there was no news of him, and people
began to wonder if Harjit had at last paid the wages of his accumulated sins. But one
evening he was back, on crop, as usual.
Harjit might have been a glutton, but he bore no malice towards man. He was no killer.
Actually, there was no established charge of deliberate and unprovoked manslaughter
against him. A story goes that in some village near Panighata on the border with
Nepal, he knocked down a hut to get at the stored paddy within. The inmates of the
63
hut fled leaving an invalid old man behind. The elephant stood within a few feet of
the groaning man demolishing the paddy, but not touching him. On another occasion,
a near blind old man was trying to protect his crop by shouting and waving a flaming
torch about. After a while Harjit, for it was none other than Harjit who was his guest,
finding this bobbery distasteful, resolutely approached the man, took the brand away
from his hand, threw it away, and calmly went back to his supper. It was minutes
before the old man realized what had happened.
Harjit, then, was no hater of man. His was a case of not loving man less, but loving
paddy, maize, flour, banana, salt, and, of course, country liquor, a hell of a lot more.
When pestered by people he made impressive demonstrations of threat, purely, it
seems, as a matter of form; for, as a rule, these were never pressed home.
I saw him last in June 1977 close to the Pankhabari road near Rakti Jhora bridge, a
massive bulk standing nonchalantly among the tea bushes. It was about nine in the
morning, by which time elephants with any respect for elephantine custom and usage
retire to the depths of the forest, far away from the madding crowds of smelly bipeds.
We got off our vehicle, approached him close, and got ready the cameras, taking a
wary note of the ominous wet ‘musth’ patch on the temple.
After the first click Harjit turned to face the camera. Soon, however, he felt reassured,
and went back to a contemplation of whatever it is that elephants contemplate
standing among tea bushes at such hours of the day. And so it was past an hour before
long. Meanwhile busloads of people, cars, army vehicles carrying jawans, lorries and
tractors overflowing with tea garden workers, all intent on enjoying the fun, had piled
up on the road. The roadside was fast assuming the character of a village fair. Harjit,
despite his habitual insouciance, was getting restless.
We decided to break away from the crowd, and went to Bamonpokhri to fetch Lalji.
When we returned at about eleven, Harjit was still there. However, the sun was
getting warmer, and Harjit decided to move on to thicker shade across the river Rakti.
It was an unforgettable sight, the great bull stalking majestically across the bare dry
bed of the river, his towering height, now clear of tea bushes, fully exposed. A quick
‘whoosn’ in midstream, a momentary pause on the fringe of the forest across the
jhora, and the vision in reddish-brown was gone, leaving a strong feeling of ‘bird
64
thou never wert’ in us.
THE ENCHANTED FOREST
As has been noted before, Harjit’s besetting sin was gluttony or ‘gula’, one of the
seven deadly sins, with an occasional dash of lechery or ‘luxuria’, another of the
deadly ones. Further, he had allowed his ‘gula’ to cloud his reason, to corrupt his
will. He, alas, thought nothing of knocking down huts to get at the stored foodstuff
within. In 1976, he reportedly damaged over forty huts in one night. In July 1977,
he again damaged a few. Wages of sin being what they are, the death sentence was
passed on him. Harjit had gormandized once too often. When Harjit had to go, it was
a melancholic day. With him went a touch of drama which coloured the everyday life
of the area. The Kurseong division forests have never been the same again. It was a
true tragedy of character, the tragedy of one who ate not wisely but too well.
Prerna Singh Bindra
From The King and I, Rupa & Co, 2006.
Manas is home to three big cats: tiger, leopard and the elusive clouded leopard.
Besides, Manas has over twenty species of globally threatened animals. For some
fauna, like the hispid hare and the pygmy hog, this forest is the only refuge. A blonde
simian, the golden langur, inhabits the canopy by the river Manas. And Manas offers
an even rarer commodity—tranquility. Strange peace in a jungle ruled and ravaged by
the gun for over two decades. But then, over the years, Manas has worked its magic
even on the most hardened heart. Poachers with a macabre record are today diligently
protecting the animals they once killed. They now work with the forest guards, their
bitter enemy of yesteryears. That is the miracle of Manas. Little wonder then, that
this forest holds a multitude of titles: world heritage site, biodiversity hotspot and a
65
66
tiger reserve. All that is said about Manas is an exaggeration, a hyperbole beyond
the realm of possibility. ‘It’s heaven on earth,’ promised a friend. An article dating
back a decade said, ‘If God ever thought of settling on earth, Manas would be his
chosen home.’ I take it all with a pinch of salt; these are old grandma’s stories. I figure
nostalgia has tinged memory with a rosy hue, a yearning for paradise lost. Almost.
For years the park was closed to visitors. Even when it partially threw its gates open,
visitors stayed away. For over two decades, extremists held Manas under siege, and
lawlessness reigned. Peace had given way to savagery, the silence broken not by the
roar of the tiger or the trumpet of an elephant but by the crack of a gun. Animals were
slaughtered indiscriminately, so were the people. Infrastructure was destroyed, trees
were cut and grasslands flattened. Now, the tide has turned and the colour of death no
longer bloodies the pristine blue of the river Manas.
I finally travel to this reserve in early 2005, intrigued by its history and its turning
fortunes, skeptical of all the fairy tales I have accumulated about the wonders of this
fabled land. I drive past golden grasslands so tall and dense they hide even the bulky
silhouettes of elephant herds, their presence advertised only by the occasional squeal
of their young. Then, the woodlands begin, lush green foliage preceding the tangle of
trees, vines and creepers. Timid barking deer dash for cover, while the bolder sambar
look on curiously, almost disdainfully at our noisy contraption. Unlike the crowded
tiger reserves of Ranthambhore and Bandhavgarh, where vehicles are virtually a part
of the scenery, the denizens of Manas are yet unaccustomed to gawking humans.
The road veers towards the ageing, yet utterly charming, Mothanguri forest rest
house, atop a hillock by the mighty Manas. Vividly coloured capped langurs chatter
incessantly on the branches above. Brilliant fairy bluebirds contrast with the bright
red flower of silk cotton and the golden oriole regales us with his haunting melody. I
spot a hare hopping urgently into the bushes and my heart misses a beat; I am certain
it’s the hispid hare, a greener, bulkier version of the common variety. It was thought
to be extinct, till rediscovered in Manas. As it turns out, it is a case of mistaken
identity, but the imagination flies free in the wild, and if I err, who cares?
I close my eyes. The gurgling, gushing sound of the emerald blue river takes over my
senses; the fresh, clear air soothes my jagged nerves. Nothing said about Manas is
an embellishment, if anything even the greatest eulogy is an understatement. It is the
refuge of the divine, a gift to us mortals.
67
It is an unusual morning, a pleasant contrast from the polluted, grey dawn back
home. I walk down the river - so clear that I catch my own reflection. The water
murmurs, gurgles, then crashes as it gathers speed over the rocks, unaware that it is
an international border. Overhead, a storm breaks; it is the whooshing and honking
of great hornbills as they fly across the river, from India into the royal Kingdom of
Bhutan. Even from this vertical distance I can recognize the bulk of this bird with its
outlandish curved beak.
Crossing frontiers is a ritual, often repeated in the course of the day. I am told that
Bhutan, with its concentration of fruiting trees, is the feeding ground of the hornbills
and India is where they come home to roost. In the nesting season, the male brings
back the ‘daily fruit’, while his lady brings up the kids, locked by him in a hollow of
a tree. He feeds her through a slit and it is a partnership that has stood the strength
of time. Later in the day, I witness a courting couple. They sit close together. Then
the male forages in the tree, testing several figs for their ripeness. He selects one
and runs the fruit to and fro in his beak, mashing it to a pulp. With unexpected grace
for his size, he offers it to his mate who throws it down her gullet. Then she feeds
him, and back and forth they go. Somewhere here lurks a lesson for fragile human
relationships.
It is inevitable that I follow the hornbills, in a wooden dingy used by forest guards
patrolling the park. Armed guards accompany me too, and even though the park’s
bloody history stays in my mind, the gun appears intrusive in this spectacular
landscape. The boat gives itself up to the rhythm of the river, lolling and swirling
as it follows the waves. The waters of both countries unite, in utter disregard of
international boundaries, like the birds above. Two huge, pointed horns, attached to a
bulky wild buffalo, poke out of the river.
The boat wedges itself on the bank and I step on royal Bhutanese soil. I need no
passport, no one questions my credentials. A placid army of foresters greet me, and
over a cup of lal chai I feed their curiosity. No, I am not a scientist, not a government
official either. Here, I am but a child of nature, smitten by her beauty and curious to
explore her wonders. They wave me inside, nature is no one’s property: it belongs to
everyone.
A few steps later, I meet my fellow avian travellers, dozens of great hornbills. Most
68
lovingly feeding their mates, while others forage for themselves. A few doze, nestled
against the crook of the huge Bandardimatree, their heavy heads dipping forward,
like old men unwittingly falling asleep in their armchairs.
I am dwarfed amidst tall trees rising out of flowering shrubs. Perched on them are the
animals that have brought me here, the golden langurs, found only in this tiny patch
of the earth. These blonde beauties, and the commoner and drabber langurs back
home, are all part of the same family; the former being the most glamorous members
of the clan.
They are a huge group, well over two dozen, and I settle down on a fallen log, my
eyes and lens fixed on the primates above. The langurs reciprocate my curiosity, a
particularly bold member fixes his beady eyes on me, his tiny black face framed with
tufts of fur smoothing down to a golden coat. A few assorted pairs diligently groom
each other, combing and parting their blond hair. Essential to the beauty regime, I
assume, when blessed with such luscious tresses.
My attention shifts to a tiny simian nestled at her mother’s breast. I gather it is the
baby of the family surrounded by a cache of adoring aunts. One hugs her close, then
another takes over, carefully cradling her in her arms. She is handed back and forth
between clearly smitten adults, but oh-so-carefully. Why do we humans assume that
we are the only ones blessed with emotion? That we are ‘higher’ beings because we
can feel, while other animals live in a sterile world. I tear myself away, exceedingly
unwillingly, as the pelts of the langurs shine golden in the morning light. I wonder
if this paradise can be my permanent abode, the only option is the very charming
summer palace of the king of Bhutan. I still await the invitation.
That Manas thrives today, we owe to its rag-tag army of foresters. Ritesh
Bhattacharjee, deputy director of the park, told me that in the last six years, eleven
of their men have been killed. He took me to Bansbari, a shattered skeleton of a
forest chowki. It had been razed to the ground, only the charred and stunted walls
remained. Guards were slaughtered and department elephants shot to death. That was
February 1989. On the same morning, all the anti-poaching camps within the park
were attacked. The militants were well-armed and flush with money, the guards had
rustic, non-functional guns. The forest staff was not trained for guerilla warfare, nor
was it equipped with automatic weapons to counter the mines and explosives being
69
used against it. Many were killed, and morale was at its lowest.
‘Militants destroyed everything in this park. They finished off the rhinos. There were
numerous tuskers, but all killed for their ivory. I patrol Manas, every day, but it’s
been a year since I have seen tuskers,’ rues forest guard Babulal Oraon. He has been
our shadow for the past two days, a rusty .315 rifle slung over his shoulder. It’s not
an antique showpiece purely for effect. It’s a weapon he has used repeatedly and
brutally against the enemies of the park. In his career he has had over 100 encounters
and killed 32 poachers. Once he was badly injured and beaten up by the hunters, but
battered and injured, he fought on, delivering them to justice. For years, he faced a
death threat and still thanks the unknown face that risked his life to save him. The late
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi decorated him for his courage. He has not fought the
battle alone: there are others who maintain a lonely and risky vigil, underpaid, indeed
sometimes unpaid. All uncertain of their tomorrows.
Their efforts have paid off. The rhinos, once locally extinct, are back. Hoof prints
have been seen. Rhinos have a habit of defecating at the same spot and there are
reports of dung heaps, and big ones at that. Which is good news indicating that there
is more than one rhino using the common lavatory.
Now, the battle is over, and the enemies of yore have joined hands. Ex-poachers,
foresters, militants bonded by the love of Manas, work towards its protection. It is to
uncover this story of poachers turning over a new leaf that I went to the eastern side
of the park. This particular visit has taken months of meticulous planning with letters,
faxes, mails going back and forth, peppered with doubts and reciprocal reassurances.
For years, Kokilabari has been no man’s land, laid siege by Bodos, a rebel tribal group
fighting for their own land. For years, the forest was ravaged, its animals slaughtered
mercilessly. But now the Bodos are protecting the animals they once shot, allegedly
to partially fund their movement. Under the aegis of the Mauzigendri Eastern Manas
Eco-Tourism Society, conserving Manas and promoting it as a tourist destination is a
goal aimed towards earning an alternate income.
I am the first honoured guest; the army soldiers at the check post are astounded at
my arrival. Tourist, they mutter disbelievingly but graciously wave me in. We bump
along roads designed to induce the worst backache and are frantically waved down
by Bodo women. Repeatedly, I am pulled down from the car, luminous eyes gaze at
70
me in wonder, tentative hands smooth down my hair, bolder ones pinch my cheeks.
Initially, I am alarmed at the assault, but it dawns on me that it is an intense curiosity
that drives them, the joy at being confronted by an outsider. To me their beauty,
wrapped in hand-woven dokhnas and filigree jewellery is exotic, and I guess they
reciprocate the feeling in me, a creature oddly adorned in ragged jeans and pulled
down by assorted cameras. As soon as I arrive at the modest tourist home, the women
break into a dance. Each movement has a meaning, each graceful turn conveys a
message. They throw their arms wide open to welcome a guest and wave swords at
the enemy.
I am particularly entranced by the fire dance in which women swallow the flames.
Throughout the dance, the fire is used as a metaphor for anger and how it is a
destructive force. In the end the anger, or fire, is quelled. The dance takes on a special
intent, as a metaphor of the bitter battle against Manas and its denizens that has
finally met its end.
Next morning, I enter the jungle, riding on an elephant. I feel like an ancient explorer,
stepping on territory hitherto unknown to man. My thighs ache as I sit astride the
bulky giant, but I can vouch that there is no better vehicle for jungle roads. The
great animal sways beneath us to a uniform rhythm. Seated 12 feet above ground I
enjoy a vantage view of what lies beneath, and the capped langurs hollering above
us seem closer as well. A wild boar hurtles itself at our striding pachyderm, snorting
derisively. I am not surprised at this mismatched battle, the boar is a plucky creature,
known to even take on a tiger. Having made its presence felt, it departs, followed
soon after by a dwarfed version. This is not a piglet, but the pygmy hog, yet another
creature endemic to this park.
A few hours later, I meet Budhesar Bora, a diminutive man packed in a wiry frame.
His eyes sparkle and a smile steals over his serious countenance ever so often,
dimpling his cheeks. We are perched on a fallen log in Tanganmara amidst elephant
dung deposited minutes before. Two years ago, the tusker wouldn’t have passed by
unconcerned and unharmed. One shot from the gaazimara, the Bodo name for the
locally produced gun, and the mighty giant would have toppled. His tusks would
have been chopped off and sold across the border in Bhutan, at Rs 3,300 per kilogram.
slaughtered eighty. He bagged two tigers; of deer he has lost count. The prize though
was Kurusu or the greater one-horned rhinoceros. The hunters would go in a group,
about a dozen of them, sometimes more, tracking the animal in the forest. To find
one took them many weary days, rampant massacre had put an end to the season
of plenty. ‘For the horn,’ says Budhesar, ‘I usually got one lakh seventy thousand
rupees.’ When it reaches the ultimate customer, the costs multiply manifold, thanks
to the misguided notion that the matted hair that constitutes horn, serves as a magic
elixir for impotency. Joysaran, another ex-poacher, takes me to the Khwisifurhri
waterhole. He points to the water, the real elixir of life, where animals came to
quench their thirst. It made killing easy, all the poachers had to do was wait patiently
for the unsuspecting creatures in scorching summers. He had been party to a rhino
hunt here - perhaps the last of them, a few years ago. The killing was indiscriminate,
voluminous. With lawlessness ruling, other unsavoury elements had joined the fray.
The forest became a killing field, flowing with rivers of blood.
He has given up the gun, they all have after February 2003 when a new settlement
was signed for the creation of Bodoland. It goes beyond a surrender of violence: the
Bodos are actively protecting and managing the park. Twenty-seven Bodos patrol
the park round the clock and, last heard, had seized a cache of over seventy guns.
Budhesar did his bit, too. Stationed at his rickety watchtower in Tanganmara, he
nabbed seven men armed with sophisticated weapons. The society has built roads for
better patrolling and has started grassland management, burning tracts of old grass
before the monsoon so that the fresh showers will allow the new shoots to grow. This
is a vital tool in grassland management as new grasses attract herbivores and with a
healthy deer population, carnivores and other animals, too, will flourish and breed.
This jungle is not just a jungle; it is a miracle. The Miracle of Manas. How else
do youexplain trigger-happy poachers and terrorists now fiercely protecting the
sanctuary? Or bitter enemies joining forces to cherish the park? Budhesar terms ‘his’
park extra-special; the day before Babulal, the forest guard, had called it his paradise.
I agree.
I must leave Manas, but Manas will never leave me.
Killing the elephant comes easy to Budhesar, and by his own admission he has
71
72
JUNGLE LORE
Jim Corbett
From Jungle Lore in The Second Jim Corbett Omnibus, Oxford University Press,
1991. (Jungle Lore was first published in1953.)
From November to March the climate of the Himalayan foothills has no equal, and
the best of these five months is February. In February the air is crisp and invigorating
and the wealth of bird life that migrated down from the high mountains in November,
in search of food and of warmth, is still with us. The deciduous trees that have stood
gaunt and naked throughout the autumn and winter are bursting into bloom, or
are putting on a mantle of tender leaf buds of varying shades of green or pink. In
February spring is in the very air, in the sap of all trees, and in the blood of all wild
life. Whether it be on the mountains in the north, or the plains in the south, or in
the shelter of the foothills, spring comes in a night. It is winter when you go to bed
one night and when you awaken next morning it is spring, and round you all nature
73
is rejoicing in anticipation of the pleasures that lie ahead, plentiful food, warmth,
and the reproduction of life. The migrant birds are packing into small groups, these
groups will join others, and on the appointed day and at the command of the leaders
of the pigeons, paroquets, thrushes, and other fruit-eaters, will fly up the valleys to
their selected nesting grounds while insect-eaters, flitting from tree to tree, in the
same direction and on the same quest, will cover at most a few miles a day. While the
migrants are preparing for departure and the regular inhabitants of the foothills are
selecting each his own mate and looking for a building site, the combined population
of the jungle are vying with each other in a vocal contest which starts at daylight and
continues non-stop until dark. In this contest all take part even the predatory birds
whose most vocal member, the serpent eagle, while showing as a mere speck against
the blue sky, sends his piercing cry back to earth.
While instructing troops in jungle warfare I was in a forest one day in central India
with a party of men among whom were several bird enthusiasts. High in the heavens
above us a serpent eagle was circling and screaming. The party was a new draft from
different parts of the United Kingdom, destined for Burma, none of whom had ever
seen a serpent eagle. Waiting until we came to an open glade I pointed to a speck in
the sky. Field glasses were produced and disappointment was expressed at the bird
being too far away to identify or to see clearly. Telling my companions to stand quite
still I took a three-inch-long reed from my pocket, and sounded a note on it. This
reed, split at one end and blocked up at the other, reproduced with great exactitude the
piercing call of a young deer in distress and was used in my training for signalling,
for it is the only natural sound to be heard - both by day and by night - in jungles in
which there are deer, and it was, therefore, a sound least likely to attract the attention
of an enemy. On hearing the sound the eagle stopped screaming, for though a serpent
eagle, living principally on snakes, he does not despise other flesh. Closing his wings
he dropped a few hundred feet and then again started soaring in circles. At each
call he came nearer, until finally he was circling just above tree-top level where the
party with me had a close and clear view of him. Do those who were in that party of
fifty, and who survived the Burma campaign, remember that day in the Chindwara
jungles and your disappointment at my not being able to make the eagle perch on a
branch close enough to photograph? Never mind. Accompany me now on this spring
morning and we will see many things just as interesting as that serpent eagle.
You have traveled far on the road of knowledge since that distant Chindwara day.
74
Self-preservation has taught you that the human eye has a field of vision of 180
degrees. Pin-pointing sound which at first you found so difficult is now second nature
to you. And having learnt when a boy the difference between the smell of a rose and
of a violet you can now identify each tree and plant by the smell of its flower even
when that flower is at tree-top level, or hidden deep in the jungle. But much as you
have learnt and greatly as the knowledge has added to your confidence, safety, and
pleasure, much still remains to learn and on this beautiful spring morning we will add
a little to our store of knowledge.
The canal that forms the northern boundary of our estate, and in which the girls
used to bathe, is conveyed across the watercourse I have previously referred to by
an aqueduct. This aqueduct is known as Bijli Dant, which means, ‘lightning water
channel’. The original aqueduct built by Sir Henry Ramsay was destroyed by lightning
many years ago, and because of a local superstition that lightning is attracted to a
given spot by an evil spirit, usually in the form of a snake, the old foundations were
not used and a parallel aqueduct was built that has been functioning now for half a
century. Wild animals that visit the village at night from the jungles to the north, and
who do not like wading or jumping the ten-foot-wide canal, pass under the aqueduct.
So on this spring morning we will start our walk from this point.
On the sand in the passageway under the arch of the aqueduct are the tracks of hare,
kakar, pig, porcupine, hyena, and jackal. Of these the only tracks we will look closely
at are the tracks of the porcupine, for, having been made after the night wind had died
down, they are free of drift sand. Five toes and a pad and each footprint is distinct,
for a porcupine has no need to stalk and does not superimpose one foot upon another.
In front of each print is a small hole in the sand made by the porcupine’s strong nails,
on which he depends to a great extent for his food. The hind pads of porcupines are
elongated. This projection, or heel, is not as marked as it is in the case of bear. It is,
however, sufficiently marked to distinguish the track of a porcupine from the tracks
of all other animals. If you want further confirmation, look closely at the track and
you will see a number of finely drawn lines running between, or parallel to, the track.
These finely drawn lines are made by the long drooping quills of the porcupine when
they make contact with the ground. A porcupine cannot cast or project its quills,
which are barbed, and its method of defence or attack is to raise its quills on end
and run backwards. At the end of a porcupine’s tail are a number of hollow quills,
not unlike long wine glasses on slender stems. These quills are used as a rattle to
75
intimidate enemies, and to convey water to the porcupine’s burrow. The quills readily
fill with water when submerged, and the porcupine uses this water to keep its burrow
cool and free of dust. Porcupines are vegetarians and live on fruit, roots, and field
crops. They also consume the horns shed by deer and the horns of deer killed by
leopards, wild dogs, and tigers, possibly to obtain calcium or some other vitamin
absent in their normal food. Though a comparatively small animal a porcupine has a
big heart, and he will defend himself against great odds.
For a few hundred yards above the aqueduct the bed of the watercourse is stony and,
except where a game track crosses it, we shall find no more tracks until we come to
a long stretch of fine silt, washed down from the foothills, on which the tracks of all
the animals that use the watercourse as a highway show up clearly. This stretch of
ground is flanked on either side by dense lantana in which deer, pig, peafowl, and
jungle fowl, shelter during daylight hours and into which only leopards, tigers, and
porcupines venture at night. In the lantana you can now hear jungle fowl scratching
up the dead leaves, and a hundred yards away on the topmost branch of a leafless
samal tree is perched their most deadly enemy, a crested eagle. The eagle is not only
the enemy of jungle fowl, he is also the enemy of peafowl. These are his natural prey
and the fact that there are as many old birds as young ones in the jungle, is proof that
they are able to look after themselves. For this reason I never interfered with crested
eagles until one day, on hearing the distressed cry of a young deer, I hurried to the
spot and found a crested eagle holding down a month-old cheetal fawn and tearing
at its head, while the distracted mother ran round in circles striking at the bird with
her forefeet. Desperately as the brave mother had tried to rescue her young one—and
of this the scratches and blood on her muzzle bore ample proof—the great eagle had
been too much for her, and though I was able to dispose of her enemy I was unable to
do anything for her young, beyond putting it out of its misery, for even if I had been
able to heal its wounds I would not have been able to restore its sight. That incident
has cost the lives of many crested eagles in the jungles in which I have hunted, for
though it is difficult to approach close enough to shoot them with a shotgun, they
offer a good target for an accurate rifle. The bird on the samal tree, however, has
nothing to fear from us for we have come out to see things, and not to deal with the
enemies of young deer. In my catapult days the greatest battle in which a crested
eagle has ever been engaged took place on a stretch of sand, in the bed of the river, a
little below the Boar bridge. Possibly mistaking a fish cat for a hare the eagle stooped
on it and either because he was unable to withdraw his talons, or because he lost his
76
temper, became involved in a life-and-death struggle. Both contestants were equally
well armed for the battle; the cat with its teeth and claws, and the eagle with its beak
and talons. It is greatly to be regretted that photography at that time was confined to
studios and movie cameras were unknown, and that no record was made of that longdrawn-out and desperate battle. If a cat has nine lives an eagle has ten, and it was
lives that ultimately proved the deciding factor. With one precarious life still in hand
the eagle left his dead opponent on the sand, and trailing a broken wing went down
to a pool in the river where, after quenching his thirst, he surrendered his tenth life.
Several game tracks lead on to the open ground from the lantana and while we have
been looking at the eagle a young kakar stag has walked out of the lantana on to
the watercourse, fifty yards away, with the intention of crossing it. If we freeze and
remain frozen, he will take no notice of us. Of all the animals in the jungle the kakar
gives the impression of being most on his toes. Even here on this open ground he is
walking on tiptoe with his hind legs tucked well under him and at the first indication
of danger, be it conveyed by sight, sound, or smell, he will dash away at top speed.
The kakar is sometimes described as being a mean and a cowardly little animal, and
unreliable as a jungle informant. With this description I do not agree. No animal can
be called mean for that is exclusively a human trait, and no animal that lives in the
densest jungles with tigers, as the kakar does, can be accused of being a coward. As
for being an unreliable informant I know of no better friend that a man who shoots on
foot can have in a jungle than a kakar. He is small and defenceless and his enemies
are many, and if in a beat he barks at a python or at a pine marten, when he is expected
to bark only at a tiger, he is more to be pitied than accused of being unreliable. For
to him and his kind, these two ruthless enemies are a very real menace and he is
only carrying out his function - as a watcher - when he warns the jungle folk of their
presence.
The kakar has two long canine teeth or tusks on its upper jaw. These tusks are very
sharp and are the kakar’s only means of defence, for the points of his short horns are
curved inwards and are of little use as weapons of defence. Some years ago there was
a long and inconclusive correspondence in the Indian press about a peculiar sound
that kakar make on occasions. This sound can best be described as a clicking sound,
resembling that made by the bones used by Christy Minstrels. It was asserted by
some that, as the sound was only heard when kakar were running, it was caused by
double joints, and by others that it was caused by the tusks being clashed together in
77
some unexplained way. Both these assertions, and others that were advanced, were
incorrect. The sound is made by the animal’s mouth in exactly the same way as all
other vocal sounds are made, and is used on various occasions: as, for instance, when
uncertain of a seen object, when disturbed by a gun dog, or when pursuing a mate.
The alarm call of the kakar is a clear ringing bark, resembling that of a medium-sized
dog.
While the kakar has been crossing the watercourse a large flight of insect and fruiteating birds has approached us from our right. In this flight are migrants as well as
local inhabitants, and if we stand where we are the birds will fly over our heads and
you will have an opportunity of studying them as they perch on the trees and bushes
on both sides of the watercourse, and also while they are in flight. Birds, except
when they are very close, are difficult to identify by their colours when sitting where
they have no background or when seen against the sky, but every species of bird can
be identified while in flight by its shape and by its wing beats. In the flight that is
approaching us, every member of which is either chirping, twittering, or whistling,
are two varieties of minivets, the short-billed scarlet, and the small orange-breasted.
Minivets perch on the topmost leaves and twigs of trees and bushes, and from these
commanding positions keep darting into the air to catch winged insects disturbed by
their own kind or by other members of the flight. With the minivets are:
Six varities of tits.The grey, yellow-checked, blue-winged, red-billed, white-eyed,
and the common green.
Four varieties of flycatchers.The white-browed fantail, yellow fantail, slaty-headed,
and verditer.
Sixvarieties of woodpeckers.The golden-backed, black-naped green, rufous-bellied,
pied, yellow-naped, and the scaly-bellied green.
Four varieties of bulbuls.The golden-fronted green, white-winged green, whitecheeked crested, and the red-whiskered.
Three varieties of sunbirds.The Himalayan red, purple, and the small green.
In addition to these birds, which number between 2 - 300, there are a pair of blackheaded golden orioles who are chasing each other from tree to tree, and a lesser
racket-tailed drongo who, though not as aggressive as his big brother, has nevertheless
acquired several juicy morsels from the flight he is guarding, the last being a fat larva
industriously dug out of a dry branch by the pygmy pied woodpecker. The flight of
78
birds has now flown over our heads and disappeared into the jungle on our left, and
the only sound to be heard is the scratching of the jungle-fowl in the lantana, and the
only bird to be seen is the crested eagle, patient and hopeful, on the topmost branch
of the samal tree.
Beyond the lantana on the right is an open stretch of park-like ground, on which grow
a number of big plum trees. From this direction now comes the alarm bark of a red
monkey, followed a few seconds later by the excited chattering and barking of fifty
or more monkeys of varying ages and sizes. A leopard is on the move and as he is
on more or less open ground it is unlikely that he is trying to secure a kill, in which
case he is possibly making for one or other of the deep ravines in the foothills where
leopards are often to be found during the hot hours of the day. Winding through the
plum trees is a path used both by human beings and by animals. This path crosses
our watercourse two hundred yards farther on and as there is a good chance, I would
almost say a certainty, of the leopard coming along the path, let us hurry forward
for 150 yards and sit down with our backs against the high bank on the left. The
watercourse here is 50 yards wide and on the trees on the left-hand side is a large
troupe of langurs. The warning given by the red monkeys has been heeded, and all
the mothers in the troupe have got hold of their young ones, and all eyes are turned in
the direction from which the warning came.
There is no need for you to keep your eyes on the path, for the young langur who
is sitting out on the extreme end of a branch on the tree nearest the path will give
us warning of the leopard’s approach. Langurs act differently from red monkeys
on seeing a leopard. This may be due to better organisation, or to their being less
courageous than their red cousins. All the red monkeys in a troupe will chatter and
bark at the same time on seeing a leopard and where the jungle is suitable they will
follow it over the tree-tops for considerable distances. The langurs act differently.
When the young look-out sees the leopard he will give the alarm call of, ‘khok,
khok, khok’, and when the leader of the troupe, taking direction from the young
one, sees the leopard and takes up the call the young one will stop. Thereafter only
the leader and the oldest female will give the alarm call - the female call resembles
a sneeze - and no attempt will be made to follow the leopard. And now the young
look-out stands up on all fours, pokes his head forward and jerks it from side to side.
Yes, he is convinced he can see the leopard, so he barks, and one or two hysterical
companions behind him follow suit. The leader of the troupe now catches sight of the
79
dread enemy and barks, and a second later is followed by the old female whose alarm
call, ‘tch’, resembles a sneeze. The young ones are now silent and confine themselves
to bobbing their heads up and down, and making faces. The troupe appear to know
instinctively that they have nothing to fear from the leopard on this spring morning,
for if he had been hungry and out to kill he would not have walked out on to the
open watercourse as he has done, but would have crossed either higher up or lower
down, and approached them unseen. Being as agile, and little heavier, the leopard
experiences no difficulty in catching langurs. But it is different with red monkeys,
for they retire to the extremities of thin branches, where the leopard is afraid to trust
his weight.
With head held high, and the morning sun shining on his beautifully marked coat,
the leopard is now crossing the fifty yards of open ground, paying not the slightest
attention to the langurs clustered on the trees he is approaching. Once he stops, and
after looking up and down the watercourse without noticing us as we sit motionless
with our backs to the bank, he continues unhurriedly on his way. Climbing the steep
bank he disappears from our view, but as long as he is in sight of the leader and of the
old female they will continue to send their warning call into the jungle.
Let us now examine the tracks of the leopard. The path where it crosses the
watercourse runs over red clay, trodden hard by bare human feet. Over this clay is a
coating of fine white dust, so the conditions for our purpose are ideal. We will assume
that we did not see the leopard, and that we have come on the tracks by accident. The
first thing we note is that the pug marks have every appearance of having been newly
made, and therefore that they are fresh. We get this impression from the fact that the
pile or nap of the dust where it took the weight of the leopard is laid flat and smooth,
and that the walls of the dust surrounding the pads and toes are clear cut and more
or less perpendicular. Presently under the action of the wind and the rays of the hot
sun the nap will stand up again and the walls will begin to crumble. Ants and other
insects will cross the track; dust will drift into it; bits of grass and dead leaves will be
blown on to, or will fall on it; and in time the pug marks will be obliterated. There is
no hard-and-fast rule by which you can judge the age of a track, whether it be the pug
marks of a leopard or tiger, or the track of a snake or a deer. But by close observation
and by taking into consideration the position of the track, whether in an exposed or
in a sheltered spot, the time of day and of night when certain insects are on the move,
the time at which winds normally blow, and the time at which dew begins to fall or
80
to drip from the trees, you can make a more or less accurate guess when the track
was made. In the present case we have satisfied ourselves from the appearance of the
track that it is fresh, but this is not the only interesting point about it. We have yet to
determine whether the leopard was a male or a female, whether it was old or young,
and whether it was a big or a small animal. The round shape of the pug marks show
it was a male. The absence of any cracks or creases in the pads, the round toes, and
compact appearance of the entire pug marks show that the leopard was young. With
regard to size, here again only observation and experience will enable you to judge
the size of animals by their pug marks, and when you have gained this experience
you can assess the length of either a leopard or a tiger to a possible error of an inch
or two. The Koals of Mirzapur, when asked the size of a tiger, measure the pug mark
with a blade of grass and then, laying the blade down measure it with the width of
their fingers. How accurate their method is I am not in a position to say. For myself I
prefer to guess the size or length of an animal from the general appearance of its pug
mark, for whatever method is adopted, it can at best be only a guess.
A little beyond where the path crosses the watercourse there is a narrow strip of firm
sand, flanked on one side by rocks and on the other by a high bank. A herd of cheetal
has gone along this strip of sand. It is always interesting when in a jungle to count
the number of animals in a herd, whether cheetal or sambar, and to take note of the
individual members. This enables you to recognize the herd when you next see it
and to assess casualties, and, further, it gives you a friendly feeling towards the herd
as being one that you know. If the herd is on open ground it is not difficult to count
the stags, note the length and shape of their horns, and count the hinds and young
ones. When, however, only one of the herd is visible and the others are in cover, the
following method of inducing the hidden animals to come out into the open will, nine
times out of ten, be found effective. After stalking to within a reasonable distance of
the deer you can see, lie down behind a tree or a bush and give the call of a leopard. All
animals can pin-point sound, and when the deer is looking in your direction project
your shoulder a little beyond the bole of the tree, and move it slowly up and down
once or twice, or shake a few leaves of the bush. On seeing the movement the deer
will start calling; and its companions will leave the cover and range themselves on
either side of her. I have on occasion got as many as fifty cheetal to show themselves
in this way to enable me to photograph them at leisure. I would like, however, to add
one word of warning. Never try calling like a leopard, or any other animal, unless
you are absolutely certain you have the area to yourself, and even then keep a careful
81
look all round. The following is my reason for the warning. I heard a leopard calling
repeatedly one night, and from the intonation of the call I concluded it was in distress.
Before daylight next morning I set off to try to find out, if I could, what was wrong
with the animal. During the night it had changed its position and I now located it on
a hill some distance away, where it was still calling. Selecting a spot where a gametrack led on to an open glade, and where I would see the leopard before it saw me, I
lay down behind a boundary pillar and answered the call. Thereafter, for a matter of
half an hour or more, call answered call. The leopard was coming but it was slow
about it and was coming very cautiously. Eventually when it was a hundred yards
away I stopped calling. I was lying flat down with my elbows resting on the ground
and my chin resting in my hands, momentarily expecting the leopard to appear, when
I heard the swish of leaves behind me and on turning my head, looked straight into
the muzzle of a rifle. Late the previous evening Cassels, deputy commissioner of
Naini Tal, and Colonel Ward had arrived at the forest bungalow and unknown to me
had shot a leopard cub. During the night the mother had been heard calling and at
crack of dawn Ward set out on an elephant to try to shoot the mother. Dew was on
the ground, and the mahout was well trained, and he brought his elephant up without
a sound until only a fringe of trees lay between us. Ward could see me, but he was
not as young as he had been and, further, the early morning light was not too good,
and he was unable to get the sights of his rifle to bear accurately on my shoulders, so
he signaled the elephant to go forward. Mercifully for all of us, when the elephant
cleared the fringe of trees and was only ten yards from me, and when the mahout also an old man - was pointing and Ward was leaning down and aligning his sights for
a second time the elephant released a branch it was holding down, and, hearing the
sound, I turned my head and looked up into the muzzle of a heavy rifle.
The herd of cheetal whose tracks we are looking at, and in which we are now
interested, went along the strip of sand the previous evening. This you can tell from
the night insects that have crossed the tracks, and from the dew drops that have fallen
on them from an overhanging tree. The herd may be a mile or five miles away, out
on an open glade or hidden in cover; even so, we will count the number of animals
in the herd and this I will show you how to do. We will assume that when a cheetal is
standing, the distance between its hind- and fore-hooves is thirty inches. Take a stick
and draw a line across the sand at right angles to the tracks. Measure thirty inches
from the line you have drawn, this will be easy for your shoes are ten inches long, and
draw a second line across the sand parallel to the first. Now take your stick and count
82
the number of hoof prints between the two lines, marking each print with the point
of your stick as you do so. The result of your count is, let us say, thirty. Divide this
number by two and you can be reasonably sure that there were fifteen cheetal in the
herd that passed that way the previous evening. This method of counting animals of
any species, whether wild or domestic, will give accurate results for small numbers,
say up to ten, and approximate results for greater numbers, provided the distance
between the hind- and fore-feet is known. In the case of small animals such as wild
dogs, pigs, and sheep, the distance will be less than thirty inches, and in the case of
large animals such as sambar and domestic cattle it will be more than thirty inches.
For the information of those who were not with me during the years of training
for jungle warfare, I should like to assert that it is possible to glean a lot of useful
information from the footprints of human beings in a jungle, whether seen on a road,
path, or game-track, or in fact anywhere where the footprints of men in motion are to
be seen. Let us assume, for the sake of interest, that we are in enemy country and that
we have come on a game-track on which there are footprints. From the appearance
of the footprints, their size, shape, absence or presence of nails or sprags, iron shod
or plain heels, leather soles or rubber, and so on, we conclude that the prints have not
been made by members of our own force, but by the enemy. This point being settled
we have to determine when the party passed that way, and the number of men in the
party. You know how to assess the time. To find out the number of men in the party we
will draw a line across the track, and with the toe of one foot on this line take a step
of thirty inches, and draw a second line across the track. The number of heel marks
between these two lines will give the number of men in the party. There are other
interesting things you can learn from the footprints, and one of the most important of
these is the speed at which the party was travelling. When a human being is moving
at a normal pace his weight is distributed evenly over his footprint and his stride is
from 30–32 inches, according to his height. As the speed is increased less weight falls
on the heel and more on the toes, the imprint of the heel gets less and the imprint of
the toes greater, and the length of the stride gets longer. This process of less heel and
more toes continues to get more apparent until when running at full speed little more
than the ball of the foot and the toes come in contact with the ground. If the party was
a small one, ten or a dozen in all, it will be possible to see if any were limping, and
blood on the track will indicate that one or more were wounded.
If you ever get a flesh wound in the jungles I will show you a small and insignificant
83
little plant that will not only cauterize but also heal your wound better than anything
else that I know. The plant, which is found in all jungles, grows to a height of twelve
inches, and has a daisylike flower on a long slender stem. The leaves are fleshy and
serrated, like the leaf of a chrysanthemum. To use the plant break off a few leaves,
rinse them in water to wash off the dust - if water is available - and then squeeze the
leaves between finger and thumb, and pour the juice freely into the wound. No further
treatment is needed and, if the wound is not a deep one, it will heal in a day or two.
The plant is well named, Brahm Buti, ‘God’s flower’.
Many of you were my good comrades in the Indian and Burma jungles during the
war years and if I worked you hard, because time was short, you will long since have
forgiven me. And I hope you have not forgotten all that we learnt together, as for
instance: the fruit and flowers it was safe to eat; where to look for edible roots and
tubers; the best substitutes for tea and coffee; what plants, barks and leaves to use for
fever, sores and sore throats; what barks and creepers to use for stretchers, and for
making ropes to sling heavy equipment and guns across streams and ravines; how to
avoid getting trench feet and prickly heat; how to create fire; how to obtain dry fuel
in a wet forest; how to kill game without resort to fire-arms; how to cook or make a
dish of tea without metal utensils; how to procure a substitute for salt; how to treat
snake bites, wounds and stomach disorders. And, finally, how to keep fit and conduct
ourselves in the jungles to live at peace with all wild life. These and many other
things you and I, from the mountains and plains of India, from the villages and cites
of the United Kingdom, from the United States of America, from Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, and from other lands, learned together. Not with the object of spending
the rest of our days in the jungles, but to give us confidence in ourselves and in each
other, to remove our fears of the unknown, and to show our enemies that you were
better men than they. But much as we learnt in those days of good comradeship we
only touched the fringe of knowledge, for the book of nature has no end as it has no
beginning.
We have still much of our spring morning before us, and we have now arrived at the
foothills where the vegetation differs from that on the flat ground we have recently
traversed. Here there are a number of ficus and plum trees that have attracted a variety
of fruit-eating birds, the most interesting of which are the giant hornbills. Hornbills
nest in hollow trees and have the unusual habit of sealing the females into the nests.
This habit throws a heavy burden on the male, for the female moults and grows
84
enormously fat during the incubation period and when the eggs - usually two - are
hatched she is unable to fly, and the male has the strenuous task of providing food
for the whole family. By this ungainly appearance, his enormous beak fitted with a
sound-box, and his heavy and laboured flight, the hornbill gives the impression of
having missed the bus of evolution. And his habit of sealing up the nest and leaving
only a small hole through which the female projects the tip of her beak to take the
food the male brings her, possibly dates back to prehistoric days when the bird had
more powerful enemies than it has today. All birds that nest in hollow trees or that
make holes in trees in which to nest, have common enemies. Some of these birds tits, robins, hoopoes—are quite defenceless and the question, therefore, arises why
the hornbill, who by reason of its powerful beak is best able to defend itself, should
be the only one of these many tree-nesting birds to consider it necessary to seal up
its nest. Another unusual habit, which the hornbill does not share with any other bird
that I know of, is its habit of adorning its feathers with pigment. This pigment, which
is yellow and can be readily wiped off with a handkerchief, is carried in a small
sack above the tail and is laid with the beak on to two broad white bands that extend
across the width of the wings. Why the hornbill finds it necessary to paint these white
bands yellow with a pigment that washes off every time it rains, I can only attribute
to camouflage against an enemy, or enemies, that it suffered from in bygone days. For
the only enemy it occasionally suffers from now is a leopard, and against a leopard
operating at night camouflage is of little avail.
In addition to the hornbills there are a number of other fruit-eating birds on the ficus
and plum trees. Among these are two varieties of green pigeon, the Bengal, and
the pintail. Two varieties of barbet, the crimson-breasted and the common green.
Four varieties of bulbul, the Himalayan black, common Bengal, red-whiskered and
white-cheeked. Three varieties of paroquets, the rose-ringed, the Alexandrine and the
blossom-headed. Scratching among the dead leaves and eating the ripe fruit dropped
by the other birds, are fifty or more white-capped laughing thrushes. These thrushes
were the last to migrate from the high nesting-grounds and will be the first to return
to them.
Near the ficus trees is a fire-track, and crossing it is a well-worn game-track which
runs straight up the hill to a salt-lick near which there is a saucer of water fed by a
tiny spring. Between the salt-lick and the water is an old stump. Here a stunted kusum
tree stood, in the branches of which poachers repeatedly built machans. Shooting
85
over salt-licks and over water is prohibited, but poachers are no respecters of game
laws and, as dismantling the machans had no effect, I eventually cut the tree down. I
have heard it stated that carnivore do not kill at salt-licks and water holes. However,
considerate carnivore may be in other parts of the world, in India they certainly have
no compunction about killing at salt-licks. In fact, it is at these places that they do
most of their killing, as you can see from the bones and the horns partly eaten by
porcupines that you will find in the vicinity of this salt-lick, and in the vicinity of all
salt-licks that are surrounded by forests in which deer and monkeys live.
Let us now climb the hill above the salt-lick to a point from where we can get a bird’seye view of the foothills and the forests that lie at their feet. Before us stretches the
forest through which we have just come to our starting point, the canal. This forest
is as nature made it, for it has little timbre of commercial value and has, therefore,
escaped the devastating hand of man. The light green patches in the foreground are
shisham saplings which have grown from seeds washed down from the foothills by
monsoon floods. Later, when these saplings grow to maturity, they will provide the
best timbre for cartwheels, and for furniture. The dark-green patches with clusters of
red berries are runi trees, which provide the powder known to commerce as kamala.
When the poor people who migrate in winter from the high hills to the foothills in
search of food and warmth - as do the birds - can spare a day from their regular
labours, old and young resort to the jungles to collect kamala. Kamala is a red powder
which adheres to the runi berry, and the method of collection is to cut down the
branches, strip the berries into big shallow baskets, and then with the hand rub the
berries against the sides of the basket. The powder when freed from the berries drifts
through the cracks in the basket and is caught on a cheetal skin, or square of cloth.
A family of five - a man and his wife and three children—working from sunrise to
sunset can, when the crop is plentiful, collect four pounds of powder worth from
one to two rupees, according to the market price. The powder is used in India and
the Middle East for dyeing wool, and until dishonest middlemen started adulterating
kamala with brick dust, it was extensively used in the United States for colouring
butter. The powder is also used for medicinal purposes, and mustard oil in which runi
berries have been boiled is used for rheumatism.
Interspersed with the shisham saplings and runi trees, are feathery-leaved khair trees.
These khair trees, in addition to providing the foothill villages with plowshares,
provide a cottage industry for tens of thousands of poor people in the United Provinces.
86
The industry, which is a winter one and is carried on day and night for a period of four
months, produces a commodity known locally as kach, and to commerce as catechu.
It also produces—as a by-product—the dye known as khaki, used for dyeing cloth
and fishing nets. A friend of mine, a man by the name of Mirza, was, I believe, the
first to discover khaki dye, and the discovery was accidental. Mirza was one day
leaning over an iron pan in which khair chips were being boiled, to make kach, when
a white handkerchief he was carrying fell into the pan. Fishing the handkerchief out
with a stick Mirza sent it to the wash. When the handkerchief was brought back Mirza
found it had not lost any of its colour, so, reprimanding the washerman, he told him to
take it away and clean it. Returning with the handkerchief the washerman said he had
tried every method known to his trade of removing stains, but he could not take the
colour out of the small square of linen. It was thus that Mirza found he had discovered
a fast dye, which is now produced in the flourishing factory he erected at Izattnagar.
Mingled with the many shades of green—for each tree has its own individual colour are vivid splashes of orange, gold, lilac, pink and red. The trees with orange-coloured
flowers are dhank (Butea giondosa) which produces a ruby-coloured gum used for
dyeing silk of the finest quality. The trees with the three-foot-long showers of golden
bloom are amaltas (Cassia fistula). The two-foot-long cylindrical seedpods of this tree
contain a sweet jelly-like substance which is used throughout Kumaon as a laxative.
The trees with the big lilac-coloured flowers are kachanar (Bauhinia). The pink are
kusum trees and the mass of pink shading from delicate shell to deep rose, are not
flowers but tender young leaves. The red are samal (silk cotton) trees the flowers of
which are loved by all birds that drink nectar, and by paroquets and monkeys that eat
the fleshy flowers, and by deer and pigs that eat them when they fall to the ground.
Later in the year the samal flowers will give way to large woody seedpods. When the
hot winds blow in April these pods will explode like anti-aircraft shells and a white
cloud of silk cotton (kapok used in life-belts), each section carrying a seed, will drift
away in the wind to regenerate nature’s garden. All seeds that are not carried from
one place to another by birds or animals are provided with buoyant material or with
parchment sails or propellers, to enable the winds of heaven to carry them from place
to place. There are, of course, exceptions, one of which is the gotail which bears a
fruit like a small green apple and which no bird or animal eats. This tree grows on the
banks of rivers and the water does for its seeds what birds and animals, and the wind,
do for other seeds. Another is the coconut, which is provided with a husk that enables
it to float and be carried by the ocean waves from shore to shore.
87
Beyond the canal, our starting point, is our village. The vivid green and gold patches
show where the young wheat is sprouting, and where the mustard crop is in full
flower. The white line at the foot of the village is the boundary wall, which took
ten years to build, and beyond the wall the forest stretches in an unbroken line until
it merges into the horizon. To the east and to the west as far as the eye can see is
limitless forest, and behind us the hills rise ridge upon ridge to the eternal snows.
Here, as we sit in this beautiful and peaceful spot in the shadow of the mighty
Himalayas, with the forest round us putting on a new mantle of spring, with every
current of wind bringing with it the sweet smell of flowers, and with the air throbbing
with the joyful songs of a great multitude of birds, we can forget for a spell the
strains and stresses of our world, and savour the world of the jungle folk. For here the
law of the jungle prevails. The law that is older and infinitely better than man-made
laws. The law that permits each individual to live his own life, and that anticipates
no troubles or sorrows for the morrow. Dangers there are for all, but those dangers
only add zest to life, and, while keeping every individual alert and on its toes, take
nothing from the joy of living. And that there is joy all round you, who can now pinpoint sound, recognize every bird and animal from its call, and assign a reason for the
call, have ample proof. Away to our left a peacock is screaming his mating call and
from that call you know he is dancing, with tail-feathers spread, to impress a bevy
of admiring hens. Nearer at hand a jungle-cock is crowing defiance to all and sundry
and is being answered by others of his kind who are equally defiant. But of fights
there are few, for to fight in the jungle exposes the contestants to danger. Away to our
right a sambar stag is warning the jungle folk that the leopard we saw an hour ago is
lying out on an exposed spot basking in the sun. The stag will yell until the leopard
retires for the day into heavy cover, where he will be screened from the prying eyes
of informants. In a thicket below us twenty or more white-eyed tits, white-winged
bulbuls, and grey-headed flycatchers, have found a spotted owlet dozing in a leafy
bower and are calling to companions to come and see what they have found. They
know it is safe to approach and scream into the wise one’s very ears, for only when he
has young will he occasionally kill in daylight. And the owlet on his part knows that
no matter how much he is feared and hated by his tormentors, he has nothing to fear
from them, and that when they tire of their sport they will leave him to his sleep. In
the air all round there is sound, and each sound has a meaning. The liquid notes, the
most beautiful of all the songs to be heard in our jungles, is a shama wooing a bashful
mate. The tap-tap tapping is a golden-backed woodpecker making a hole in a dead
88
tree for his new home. The harsh braying is a cheetal stag challenging a rival to battle.
High in the heavens a serpent eagle is screaming, and higher still a flight of vultures
are patiently quartering the sky. Yesterday, first a Himalayan blue magpie, and then a
pair of crows, showed the vultures where a tiger had hidden his kill in a thicket near
where the peacock is now dancing, and today as they circle and soar they are hoping
for the same good fortune.
THE HIMALAYA IN INDIAN ORNITHOLOGY
Salim Ali
From A Bird’s Eye View: The Collected Essays and Shorter Writings of Salim Ali,
Permanent Black, 2006.(This essay was originally published in1981.)
As you sit here, alone or in company with a friend, you can realize to the full what
your knowledge of jungle lore means to you, and how greatly that knowledge has
added to your confidence and to your pleasure. No longer does the jungle hold any
terrors for you, for you know there is nothing for you to be afraid of. If the necessity
arose you could live on the jungles, and you could lie down where-ever you were
and sleep without any feeling of unease. You have learnt to maintain direction, to be
conscious at all times of wind direction, and you will never again lose yourself in the
jungle no matter whether you move by night or by day. Hard though it was at first to
train your eyes, you know now that your field of vision is 180 degrees and that every
movement in that field will be seen by you. You can enter into the lives of all the
jungle folk, for you have learnt their language; and being able to locate sound, you
can follow their every movement. You can now move silently, and shoot accurately,
and if the necessity ever arose again for you to face an enemy in the jungles you
would not face him with an inferiority complex, but with the full knowledge that no
matter what his reputation you are a better-trained man than he is, and have nothing
to learn or to fear from him.
It is now time to wend our way home, for we have a long way to go, and Maggie
will be waiting breakfast for us. We will return the way we came and as we pass
the strip of sand on which we counted the cheetal tracks, the path by which the
leopard crossed the watercourse, the fine silt washed down from the foothills, and the
passageway under the aqueduct, we will drag a branch behind us. This we will do to
obliterate our tracks, and all the tracks we saw this morning so that when we visit the
jungle again tomorrow, the next day, or maybe the day after, we will know that all the
tracks we see date from the time we last passed that way.
89
The Himalayan mountain range is a gigantic physical barrier which cuts off the
Indian plains from the high plateaux of Tibet and central Asia. On the one hand it
bars the northward passage of the moisture laden south-west monsoon currents, and
on the other it serves to insulate the plains of northern India from the severity of the
continental climate of Asia - the scorching desiccating winds of summer and the icy
gales of winter. These factors are responsible for the marked differences in the fauna
and flora of the northern and southern aspects of the mountains; an abrupt change in the
environment strikes the observer immediately upon his crossing the main Himalayan
axis. The ornithologist soon misses such familiar companions of his trek up to this
point as the white-capped redstart (Chaimarrornis leucocephalus), whistling thrush
90
(Myiophonus caeruleus), snow pigeon (Columba leuconote) and alpine chough
(Pyrrhocorax graculus), and suddenly finds in their place species not seen before.
The range constitutes the boundary between two of the six zoogeographical regions
of the earth, namely the Palaearctic (Europe, north Africa, stretching across north and
central Asia) and the oriental region south of this, which is subdivided into the Indian,
Indochinese and Indomalayan sub-regions.
Mean temperature drops at an average rate of 10C for every 270 metres of ascent,
the drop being steeper and more rapid above 1500 metres. Thus, the lofty Himalaya
encompass the entire spectrum of temperature, from tropical heat near the base - in
the tarai, bhabar and duars,and in some inner valley - to arctic cold at the heights,
through the gradation of subtropical, temperate and alpine, the arid areas above being
under perpetual snow. This wide diversity in physiographic condition gives rise to
altitudinal belts or ‘life zones’, corresponding closely to the climatic zones of latitude
in continental Asia, except that on the high mountains these zones are telescoped
vertically instead of being horizontal. Though diffusing into one another at the seams,
these life zones are often sufficiently clear-cut in their flora and fauna for the altitude
to be roughly predictable without the aid of an aneroid. In fact, one of the joys of
trekking in the Himalaya for the observant naturalist is the changing kaleidoscope of
the biota as he ascends from one altitudinal belt to another. In the alpine zone of the
high Himalaya which corresponds to the arctic tundra, scrub replaces forest above
the limit of tree-growth, and depending upon the degree of moisture, only certain
xerophytic annuals and perennials grow along with the dominant lichens and mosses
- as in the tundra. The snow-line, because of the difference in latitudes (e.g. Srinagar
c. 340 N, Thimpu c. 270 N) is lower in the western Himalaya than in the eastern; in
summer between c. 4500 and 5500 metres, in winter down to 2450 or 2750 metres.
The altitudinal zones of vegetation, particularly in the eastern Himalaya, are of the
highest interest to the student of bird ecology inasmuch as each of them harbours a
more or less characteristic avifauna of its own. Perhaps nowhere in the world would
one find so much diversity in climates and vegetation telescoped into so circumscribed
a space. Hooker gives a dramatic example of Sikkim: ‘From the bed of the Ratong, in
which grow palms with screw-pine and plantain, it is only seven miles in a direct line
to the perpetual ice . . . In other words, the descent is so rapid that in eight miles the
Ratong waters every variety of vegetation from the lichen of the poles to the palm of
the tropics; whilst throughout the remainder of its mountain course, it falls from 4000
91
to 300 feet flowing amongst tropical scenery, through a valley whose flanks rise from
5000 to 12000 feet above its bed.’
Geologically speaking, the Himalaya are of recent origin and it is unlikely that the
avian endemics confined to this mountain barrier date further back than the Pleiocene,
and possibly came considerably later. As suggested for the High Himalayan insects
by Mani (1956), evidently the avifauna also represents, at least in part, a geographical
relict fauna of the Pleistocene of central Asia. Mani remarks, furthermore, on the
deep penetration of the range by insect forms of the tropics and subtropics up to
relatively high altitudes - a phenomenon associated with local microclimates and
humidity consequent on the penetration of the tropical evergreen forest types pointed
out by Hooker. From entomological and botanical evidence it seems valid that the
climatic conditions in the Himalaya during the Pleistocene glacial period were not
too severe, and permitted the existence and distribution of animals and broad-leaved
trees such as the horse-chestnut (Aesculus indica). The Himalaya thus acted as a
refugiumand many animal species found there today do, in fact, represent Palaearctic
relicts.
The Oriental element in the avifauna is richly represented in the eastern Himalaya
and gradually diminishes westwards until in Kashmir and farther west it ceases to
be a significant constituent, its place being taken by Palaearctic forms. The largest
number of genera of birds of the forested area from Arunachal Pradesh to south-east
Kashmir occurs also in the hills of western China and northern Burma but not in
peninsular India or the Palaearctic. The infusion of Yunnan and Szechwan avifauna is
strongest in the eastern Himalaya and west to central Nepal. The Kali Gandaki river
in central Nepal (not Arun-Kosi in eastern Nepal as previously thought) has been
shown by the Flemings (1976) to be the dividing line between the avifaunas of the
western and eastern Himalaya. In floristics too western Himalayan flora differs from
eastern Himalayan in a greater representation of conifers; while European elements
are conspicuous in the former, Malayan, Chinese and Burmese elements are in the
latter.
The distributional radiation of birds in the Himalaya has evidently been from western
China and Assam and not from peninsular India. Blanford’s explanation of the process
seems eminently valid. He says, ‘When glacial snow and ice spread, the tropical
fauna which may at that time have resembled more closely that of the peninsula
92
was forced to retreat to the base of the mountains, or perished. Assam valley and the
hill ranges south of it afforded a securer refuge—being damp, sheltered and forestclad—than the open plains of north India and the drier hills of the country south of
these. During the glacial period the Palaearctic forms survived in greater numbers
since a considerable percentage of the genera recorded from the Tibetan sub-region
of the Palaearctic are not found in the Indomalayan sub-region. As glacial conditions
receded the Oriental fauna re-entered the Himalaya from the east.’
Bird families endemic to the Himalaya, not found in peninsular India, are roadbills (Eurylaemidae), honey-guides (Indicatoridae), finfoots (Heliornithidae), and
parrot-bills (Paradoxornithidae). Two monotypic genera of the pheasant family
(phasianidae) are endemic to the Himalaya, namely Catreus (chir pheasant) and
Ophrysia (mountain quail). Both are considered by Ripley (1961) to be Palaearctic
relicts. A third endemic genus Callacanthis,a cardueline finch, is also not found
elsewhere besides the Himalaya where its only species burtoni occurs in wet and
moist temperate forest between elevations of 1800 and 3000 metres.
In addition to these, Ripley (1961) shows that fourteen Palaearctic endemic species
are confined to the Himalaya, without adjacent relatives, and give strong evidence of
being relict forms. As notable among these he mentioned the wood snipe (Gallinago
nemoricola) Himalayan pied woodpecker (Picoides himalayensis), black-throated
jay (Garrulus lanceolatus), smoky leaf warbler (Phylloscopus fuligiven-ter), pied
ground thrush (Zoothera wardi), crested black tit (Parus melanolophus), beautiful
nuthatch (Sitta formosa),and two species of bullfinch (Pyrrhula erythrocephala and
P. aurantiaca).
Other interesting forms, though not occurring in adjoining Tibet nor in the Indian
subcontinent south of the Himalaya, extend more or less along the entire range. While
it would be tedious to give a bare listing, there are certain groups and individual
species which merit special mention since they lend character and distinction to the
avifauna of the Himalaya.
The avifauna of the Himalaya, thus, is mainly a conglomerate of Palaearctic and
Indochinese elements, the former predominating in Kashmir and the western section,
the latter in the eastern area. This is not the place for a catalogue of all the birds
to be found in the mountains. Such a list is available in several of the more recent
93
references cited at the end. There are, however, a number of families, or groups
of birds, or individual species, which are either peculiar to the Himalaya or are so
narrowly associated with the mountain range as to call for special notice. Some of
these birds are of special interest not only for their aesthetic appeal but because so
little scientific data are available concerning their status and ecology on account of
their living at heights beyond the ceiling of the average ornithologist, and of their
rarity and restricted habitats. It is to be hoped that this account will help to fill the
gaps for observant trekkers and mountaineers. Two such examples among the raptors
or birds of prey would indisputably be the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) and
the lammergeier or bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus). The magnificent golden
eagle is a large and powerful hunter, dark chocolate-brown (almost black) with a
tawny rufous hind crown, nape and hind neck. It usually keeps in pairs, frequenting
desolate rugged mountain country with crags and precipices, between c. 1850 metres
and summer snow-line (3000–5500 metres). The species, in a number of other
geographical races, or subspecies, ranges widely over the Holarctic region, south
to north Africa and the USA. The Himalayan subspecies, daphanea,also spreads to
Turkestan and from eastern Iran to central Asia. Its prey consists of pheasants, snowcock, chukor, hares and occasionally larger mammals such as musk deer and the
young of mountain sheep.
It is difficult to understand why the lammergeier is so commonly referred to as golden
eagle even by otherwise fairly knowledgeable sportsmen. Except that they are both
huge spectacular raptors found in similar high Himalayan biotopes and nowhere else
within the Indian subcontinent, there is little justification for confusing the two. The
lammergeier is less massive than the golden eagle. It has a fully feathered creamcoloured head and neck, silvery grey-and-black upper parts, and is rusty white below.
In sailing flight the comparatively narrow, pointed wings and longish wedge-shaped
tail are diagnostic, while the ‘goatee’ of black bristly feathers at chin, especially
conspicuous in profile, clinches its identity. The so-called bearded vulture is a purely
mountain-living form found in the Himalaya between c. 1200 and 4000 metres and
sometimes seen sailing majestically even above 7000 metres. The same subspecies,
aureus, inhabits the mountains of south-east Europe (Pyrenees, etc.), south Arabia
and eastward to north China. Two other subspecies occur: one in the mountains of
north Africa (Algeria, Morocco, etc.), the other in Ethiopia to south Africa. The
lammergeier is best known for its habit of carrying aloft large bones, like the femur
of an ox, and dropping them on rocks, often at regular ‘ossuaries’, from a height of
94
50 metres or more, in order to splinter them. The bird then descends to feed on the
fragments of bone and the marrow, which largely comprise its diet.
On many counts the family Phasianidae - pheasants, jungle fowl, partridges, quails
- collectively and popularly known as ‘game birds’ - may be regarded as the most
distinctive bird family of the Himalaya. The Himalayan pheasants, whose centre of
distribution is primarily the Indochinese sub-region of the oriental region, include
some of the most fascinating, spectacular and gorgeously plumaged birds in the
world. They are so eagerly sought by private collectors, aviculturists and zoos
everywhere, but particularly in the Western countries, that ruthless exploitation for
profit, chiefly by poachers and smugglers, has reduced the population of several
species to dangerously low levels, threatening their extinction in the wild. Happily,
most pheasants breed freely in captivity, and it is hoped that by re-introduction of
captive-bred stock into seriously depleted areas it may be possible in some measure
to rehabilitate the more vulnerable species. Poaching, as well as large-scale habitat
destruction for the construction of roads, and other dubious forms of economic
development, is the main cause for the declining number of this remarkable group
of birds. The genera of Himalayan pheasants concerned are mainly Ithaginis
(blood pheasant), Tragopan (horned pheasant), Lophophorus (monal or impeyan
pheasant), Lophura (kaleej pheasant), Pucrasia (crossoptilon) and peacock pheasant
(Polyplectron), though somewhat marginal, also merit a rightful place among the
avifauna of the Himalaya.
The genus Ithaginis, blood pheasant, with the single species cruentatus, and numerous
geographical subspecies, is distributed in the eastern Himalaya and associated
mountain ranges of China, from Nepal to Kansu. In not extending westward beyond
Nepal, the blood pheasant graphically exemplifies the Chinese influence in the
eastern Himalayan avifauna. It is a bird of the highest altitudinal zone among the
true Himalayan pheasants, affecting steep pine forest with rhododendron, juniper
and ringal bamboo scrub near the snow-line, alternating seasonally between c. 3600
and 4300 metres altitude. Three subspecies are recognized within Indian limits. The
blood pheasant is a large, gaudily coloured partridge-shaped bird, chiefly grey and
apple-green, with a mop-like crest, black forehead and crimson throat. A blackbordered bright red naked patch surrounds the eye. The upper breast is splashed with
crimson, like fresh bloodstains, and there are similar splashes also on the shoulders
and the tail. The female - bright rufous-brown with ashy-grey crest and nape - is so
95
startlingly different in looks that initially it was even described as a different species
from the cock. Successive observers have remarked upon the ‘stupidity’ of members
of a covey coming out in trustful inquisitiveness to a companion fluttering in its
death throes, and thus being killed one by one by the ambushed hunter - a shameful
commentary on the vileness of man rather than on the bird’s stupidity!
The genus Tragopan, or horned pheasants, have the shape, proportions and carriage
of partridges. The males have a great deal of resplendent crimson in their plumage.
The sides of the head and throat are naked and brilliantly coloured in most species.
In addition, they possess two long brightly coloured fleshy horns, one above each
eye, which are erected during courtship display. A brilliantly coloured and patterned
fleshy apron-shaped bib-like wattle on the throat is fully expanded at the same time,
heightening the bizarre effect. There are four species within Indian limits, which
live at altitudes between c.1400 and 4250 metres descending to slightly lower levels
in severe winters. The western tragopan, T. melanocephalus (Punjab, Himalaya,
Himachal Pradesh, Garhwal) is probably the most threatened species at the present
time and needs extreme protection. It is included in the Red Data book of the IUCN
and also in Schedule I (totally protected species of the Wildlife (Protection) Act,
1972, of the Government of India.
The genus Lophophorus is represented in the Himalaya by two species of remarkably
beautiful pheasants, namely the impeyan or Himalayan monal (L. impejanus) and
Sclater’s or the Mishmi Hills monal (L. sclateri). They are stoutly built, dumpy
birds shaped like the snow-cock (Tetraogallus spp.), but distinguished by the highly
refulgent bronze-green, purple and blue plumage of the males. The face is more or
less naked and coloured bright blue. The two species are readily distinguished from
each other by the shape of the crest. In the impeyan, the crest is composed of feathers
with naked shafts and a spatulate end: in Sclater’s it is of ordinary feathers which are
short and curly. The females of both are rather similar: brown, mottled and streaked
with paler and darker colours, with a pure white throat and a bare pale blue patch
round the eyes. They have a short crest of ordinary feathers. These pheasants live in
high oak, rhododendron and deodar forest with open glades and sheep pastures, at
between 2500 and 5000 metres altitude. While the impeyan is confined more or less
entirely to the Indo - Pakistan Himalaya, Sclater’s inhabits the section in Arunachal
Pradesh and the contiguous parts of south-east Tibet, eastward to north-east Burma
and Yunnan.
96
The commonest and most abundant genus of the true Himalayan pheasants in
Lophura to which belongs the kaleej (L. eucomelanura) together with a number of
extra-limital Indomalayan species. They are all distinguished especially by the long,
pointed, arching tails of the cocks which are laterally compressed and ‘roof-like’, as
in the domestic and jungle fowl (Gallus) - their closest allies. Kaleej may further be
identified by their coloration which is chiefly a glistening metallic black in the male,
and reddish-brown in the female. The latter lacks the characteristic sickle-shaped
tail of the cock. In both sexes there is a bushy backwardly directed crest and naked
bright scarlet face. Within the Indian Himalaya five (or six) races of the kaleej are
recognized from north-west Pakistan to Arunachal Pradesh, and in the associated
Assam hills. Popularly known as kala murgha, kaleej share their native habitat with
red jungle fowl, particularly at the lower altitudes. They are found in all types of
forest - sal, oak, rhododendron, spruce, etc. - from c. 400 up to 3600 metres. They
live amidst heavy scrub and undergrowth, and like jungle fowl, are partial to the
neighbourhood of water and terraced cultivation.
The genus Pucrasia, koklas pheasant, contains a single species macrolopha, found
more or less along the entire length of the Himalayan system, from Afghanistan
to eastern China. The species is enigmatically absent east of Nepal, but after a
considerable break in the distribution in reappears farther east in Yunnan and the
mountains of China and Mongolia. Four geographical races, or subspecies, are
recognized in the stretch between Afghanistan and Nepal, based on minor differences
of coloration and plumage pattern. Both sexes have the face fully feathered and with
a well developed occipital crest. The cock has two long tufts of metallic-black plumes
on either side of the crest, springing from the ear-coverts, which are erected in nuptial
display. The overall coloration is largely grey, black and chestnut, and the sexes are
dimorphic. The koklas are seen in wooded ravines on steep hillsides in oak and
conifer forest with heavy scrub and ringal bamboo undergrowth, within an altitudinal
range of 1500 or 4000 metres.
The genus Catreus contains a single species, the chir pheasant (C. wallichli). It is
endemic to the Himalaya and confined to a restricted range from north-west Pakistan
(Hazara) to west-central Nepal (Pokhara between c. 1400 and 3500 metres elevation).
It lives on steep rugged hillsides in oak forest covered with tall grass and scrub and
dissected by wooded ravines. It is an extreme skulker, taking to its legs when hunted,
and reluctant to fly unless flushed by a dog. The closely barred pale rusty upper parts,
97
long backward projecting crest of hair-like plumes, bright crimson naked patch round
the eye, and above all the long pointed tail broadly barred with black and grey, provide
a good identification key for the cock. The hen is rather similar but has a shorter tail.
To make this list of pheasants comprehensive, it seems pertinent to add two other
genera, even though their inclusion among the true Himalayan avifauna may be
somewhat equivocal.
The genus Crossoptilon, eared pheasant, is predominantly Chinese. Of the three
species known, only one (C.crossoptilon) enters Indian limits on the extreme northeast fringe of Arunachal from its main range in adjoining south-east Tibet, north of
the Himalayan axis. The eared pheasant is a large, heavy and showy bird chiefly bluegrey in colour with a laterally compressed metallic blue-black tail, the long arching
disintegrated central rectrices recalling ostrich plumes. The crown is velvety black,
and the sides of the head naked and deep scarlet. The ear-coverts are prolonged to
protrude behind like horns (for ears), hence the bird’s popular name. The sexes are
alike, but the male is larger. Our subspecies, C. harmani, Elwes’s eared pheasant,
lives at altitudes of between 3000 and 5000 metres. on grassy hill-slopes at the edge
of rhododendron and juniper scrub. Where unmolested, as in the neighbourhood of
Buddhist monasteries, the birds become astonishingly tame and even come to be fed
by the monks.
Finally, we have that elegant and quietly beautiful genus Polylectron, the peacock
pheasants, of smallish birds reminiscent in their shape and bearing of spur fowl.
Several species are found in the Indochinese countries and Malaysia but only a single
one, bicalcaratum, with two subspecies, in the north-eastern part of the subcontinent
- Sikkim, Bhutan, Arunachal, etc. It is a bird of grey, grey-brown and buff plumage,
studded with brilliant metallic violet, green blue eye-spots or ocelli on the mantle
and fan-shaped tail. The male has a short frowzled upstanding crest. The peacock
pheasant is a low-elevation bird, normally not found above c. 1200 metres. It lives
in the dense tropical foothill jungle of the Himalayan complex and is an inveterate
skulker, keeping to heavy undergrowth and almost impossible to flush even with a
dog.
One of the most elusive, intriguing and little-known members of the pheasant family,
and of the entire Himalayan avifauna, is the mountain quail, Ophrysia superciliosa.
This bird has defied all attempts to rediscover it since the last specimen was collected
98
in 1876. It was originally described for science in 1846 from a living pair, supposedly
from ‘India’ that had found its way to a private menagerie in England. Not until its
discovery in the wild around Mussoorie, many years later, was the exact provenance
of the species determined and the type-locality fixed. In all there are only ten museum
specimens of the mountain quail extant, five in the British Museum and the rest in
America. The only locality in which the species is known is the Kumaon division of
the western Himalaya, all the specimens having come from elevations between 1650
and 2100 metres – Jharipani (a little below Mussoorie), Benog and Bhadraj peaks
behind Mussoorie, and Sher-ka-dandda peak near Naini Tal. It was conjectured at
the time that the mountain quail may be a migrant, but since the bird has not been
recorded from any neighbouring country or anywhere else in the world, its origin and
status continue to remain a mystery. It is hard to account for its extreme rarity unless
the species is already extinct. The taxonomical position of Ophrysia is somewhat
equivocal. The structure of its wing is reminiscent of the spur fowl (Galloperdix);the
short stout bill, long lax plumage and the stiff bristle-like feathers on the forehead
are features that recall the blood pheasant (Ithaginis) the bill and forehead bristles are
also very much as in the bush quails (Perdicula). In size the bird is between a grey
partridge and a grey quail, but the tail is proportionately longer than in either. The
sexes are dissimilar. The male is dark slaty-brown overall, with distinctive blackand-white face markings and a broad white eyebrow; the female is largely cinnamonbrown with a pinkish grey face and a less prominent white eyebrow. The bill and feet
in both sexes are red. The birds are reported by early collectors to live in coveys of
five or six in tall grass from which they could be flushed only when almost trampled
on. They pitched into the grass again after a short heavy flight - and are therefore in
behaviour also very similar to the bush quail.
Among the many other groups and species of birds peculiar to the Himalaya or which
have special interest and significance in the context of Himalayan ornithology, the
orange-rumped honey-guide (Indicator xanthonotus) is one that merits immediate
attention. It is a rare species, and little is known of its ecology. The family
Indicatoridae (Order Piciformes), closely related to the barbets (Capitionidae), is
African in domicile, being represented in that continent by three (or four) genera and
thirteen species. One of these genera - Indicator, with two species - has a curiously
disjunct transcontinental distribution in south-eastern Asia: I.xanthonotus occurs
in the Himalaya between c. 1500 and 3500 metres from the Afghan frontier right
across to Arunachal and Manipur, the other species L. archipelagius being confined
99
to Malaysia. In the Himalaya it affects mixed broad-leafed and conifer forest in the
neighbourhood of bee nesting cliffs and rock scarps. No definitive data are available
on the ecology of the Himalayan honey-guide though by interpolation of what is
known about its African cousins its general life pattern can be constructed. The name
‘honey-guide’ arises from the fact that by means of certain well understood calls and
action, such as flitting from tree to tree in front of a honey-questing human or other
mammal, the bird guides the seeker to a comb and shares the remnants - honey, larvae
and wax - after the honey has been taken. An extraordinary anatomical adaptation of
the bird is its ability to digest that which few other animal systems can assimilate.
Thus a considerable proportion of its diet apparently consists of beeswax. In Africa,
honey-guides of this genus are known to be brood-parasitic on barbets, laying their
eggs in the nest-holes of the latter and leaving the dupes to foster the hatchlings.
Recent observations by two American ornithologists in Nepal, though not yet fully
confirmed, suggest that the Himalayan honey-guide has a novel type of breeding
biology, described by them as ‘resource-based non-harem polygyny’. The male holds
a bee’s comb, or group of combs, as his territory throughout the year and mates with
all receptive females that visit it to feed during the breeding season. These may total
up to twenty or more! Males without a territory apparently seldom have a chance of
mating (Cronin, Jr, and Sherman, 1977).
Ward’s trogon (Harpactes wardi) is found in the eastern Himalaya, from central
Bhutan eastward, between 1500 and 3000 metres. This pigeon-sized bird is similar
to the commoner red-headed trogon but is much larger (overall length 40 cm). It is
brilliantly coloured; the belly is crimson-pink in the male and primrose yellow in the
female. The tail is graduated and its feathers squarely truncated at the tip. The central
retrices are black and the lateral ones pink in the male and yellow in the female. The
bird is seen either singly or in separated pairs in subtropical forest amidst bamboo
and evergreen undergrowth. It feeds on large insects and berries.
Red-billed leiorthrix or ‘Peking robin’ (Leiothrix lutea) is a sprightly bright-coloured
sparrow-sized bird, grayish olive with a bright yellow throat and breast, a pale eyering and a scarlet bill. The wings are black with yellow-and-crimson edges. In the
female, the crimson of the wings is replaced by yellow. It breeds between 1500 and
2400 metres and descends lower in winter. It is seen in pairs or parties of four to six
or even twenty, affecting evergreen biotope: secondary growth, overgrown clearings
and tea plantations. Its food consists of insects, berries and seeds. Its harsh hissing
100
notes and loud cheerful bulbul-like warbling are diagnostic.
Red-billed blue magpie (Cissa erythrorhyncha)—A showy Himalayan bird found
between c. 1000 and 2000 metres is the red-billed blue magpie. It can be seen from
c.770 E in Himachal Pradesh (Kangra district) eastward through Garhwal and
Kumaon to c 870 E in the eastern Himalaya. Its reported occurrence in western
Sikkim needs verification. It is very similar to and confusable with the yellow-billed
blue magpie, but it usually occupies a lower altitudinal zone and is oftener met with
at Himalayan hill stations. In Mussoorie, UP, it is known as nilkanthand in Simla,
digdal. It is a spectacular, purplish-blue bird with a long graduated tail. The central
feathers are elongated into gracefully arching streamers. The head, neck and breast
are velvety-black with a large white patch on the nape. The underparts below the
breast are grayish white. Both sexes are alike.
The Himalaya and Bird Migration
The importance of the Himalaya in the context of Indian bird migration is only just
beginning to be properly appreciated. Of the 2,100-odd species and subspecies of
birds that comprise the avifauna of the subcontinent together with Sri Lanka, nearly
300 are winter visitors from the Palaearctic region north of the Himalayan barrier
(Eurasia to north-east Siberia and central Asia). This excludes the purely pelagic
forms such as petrels, shear-waters and boobies which sometimes get accidentally
blown in on the seaboard by monsoon gales. Many of these migrants are actually
Himalayan species that breed up to altitudes of 5500 metres or more in summer,
e.g. redstarts (Phoenicurus), and move down to lower levels in the foothills or to
the north Indian plains in winter, some continuing southward to spread through the
peninsula and even spill over into Sri Lanka. Among our most regular and abundant
winter visitors, the ‘classic’ long-distance extra-limital migrants, are the hordes of
ducks and geese (Anatidae) cranes (Gruidae) and the vast assortment of wading or
shore-birds (Charadriidae) which become conspicuous enough on every jheel and
wetland to obtrude their presence on the least observant. But the smaller birds, in
spite of their overwhelming numbers and far greater variety, are not usually noticed
unless specially looked for. The passerine families such as Muscicapidae (flycatchers,
warblers, thrushes, robins), Motacillidae (wagtails and pipits), Fringillidae (finches),
Hirundinidae (swallows) and some others are amongst our most abundant winter
visitors. Visual observations recorded over a series of years by British sportsmen-
101
naturalists, mostly army officers posted in the strategic north-west frontier areas
in the early part of the nineteenth century, had suggested the broad pattern of the
seasonal migratory movements, particularly of sporting birds like ducks and cranes,
and established the Indus Valley as the putative principal flyway of Siberian and
central Asian birds into peninsular India. Less substantial but similar evidence from
the north-eastern end of the Himalaya suggested that the main route on that side
was along the valley of the Tsangpo or Brahmaputrariver, and its affluents. The two
migrational streams entered from either end of the Himalayan mountain chain in a
sort of pincer movement, weakening in their advance as more species dropped out,
before reaching the tip of the peninsula or trickling into Sri Lanka, which is the
virtual terminus for our land birds.
Until recently, it was commonly assumed that the Himalayan range presented an
insuperable barrier to migrating birds from northern lands, and that the only way they
were enabled to cross it was by following river valleys. It used to be argued that the
freezing cold and rarefied atmosphere at the formidable heights which the birds would
need to negotiate would overpower them. Thus, western students of bird migration
had believed that migration flight normally took place under about 500 metres, rarely
as high as 1500 and only exceptionally around 3000 metres while crossing lofty
mountain ranges. Sophisticated devices and vastly improved technology between
the two World Wars, and especially the invention of radar and refining of relevant
scientific techniques have, however, radically altered the older notions. It is now
well established that a considerable amount of bird migration everywhere does
occur beyond the range of human vision, and that even small birds, of starling size,
when migrating, may fly at previously unsuspected heights of 6000 to 7000 metres,
braving the intense cold, even when there is no obvious compulsion for them to
do so. The growing popularity of Himalayan mountaineering since the First World
War, and the virtual rash of climbing expeditions since the Second World War, have
adduced convincing evidence that a very considerable - maybe even overwhelming proportion of the migration to and from the Indian subcontinent occurs directly over
the main Himalayan axis, thereby appreciably shortening the birds’ journeys. Autumn
migration in particular, by direct over flight, would appear to involve little difficulty
since the birds would merely need to coast down, as it were, from the elevated tableland
of central Asia to the Indian plains, with a maximum saving of time and energy.
For the upward return journey in spring, perhaps the river-valley route could have
more validity in certain sections. That this is a hazardous undertaking, nevertheless,
102
exposing birds to the unpredictable vagaries of the notorious Himalayan weather
such as sudden storms and blizzards, sometimes resulting in mass annihilation, is
evident from the reports of explorers and mountaineers from time to time. The famous
explorer Sven Hedin observed large numbers of migrating ducks in autumn at great
heights at the source of the Indus river in Tibet. The first Mount Everest expedition
(Younghusband’s) came across several birds on southward migration in September at
c. 5200 metres, among them Temminck’s stint (Calidris temminckii), ‘painted snipe’
(Rostratulabenghalensis), pintail snipe (Gallinago stenura), house martin (Delichon
urbica), and several pipits (Anthus spp.). More than once, migrating waders were
heard passing overhead at night at this altitude, among which the curlew (Numenius
Arquata) was unmistakable. Others have recorded, visually during the day and by
ear at night, migrating geese, cranes and waders passing over their high-altitude
camps. Dr Biswamoy Biswas of the Zoological Survey of India noted a stray hoopoe
(Upupa epops) on Pumori Glacier (5790 metres) in May, which had no business to
be there unless on migration. Black-tailed godwits (Limosa limosa) and pintail duck
(Anas acuta) have been observed on Khumbu Glacier (c. 4875 metres) at the foot
of Mt Everest. Colonel R. Meinertzhagen came across various species of duck in
Ladakh on passage to India over the highest parts of the Himalaya. Eric Shipton on
his 1937 expedition to the Karakorams found a large number of dead, frozen ducks
and possibly a crane strewn over the face of the Crevasse Glacier between c. 4500
and 4900 metres and in the upper basins of most of the big glaciers he visited C.H.
Donald, a competent Dharamsala-based west-Himalayan naturalist in the twenties,
frequently recorded large numbers of migrating geese and cranes, in one case both
common and Siberian, flying regularly in spring and autumn over the passes from
Ladakh, over Chamba and the Lahul ranges, at between c. 4500 and 6000 metres;
and more recently in Nepal R.L. Fleming observed bar-headed geese (Anser indicus)
flying north in spring over the eastern spur of Dhaulagiri at c. 7625 metres.
In May 1960 Brigadier Gyan Singh, the leader of the first Indian Mt Everest expedition,
found three eastern Steppe eagles (Aquila nipalenis nipalensis) lying dead on the
South Col - ‘One of the most difficult areas to cross’ - at a height of nearly 7925
metres, which had obviously perished while on migration. Since the Everest climber
Tenzing also mentions in his autobiography that he saw a dead eagle on the South
Col in autumn 1952 when with a Swiss expedition, it would appear that the South
Col is on the regular flyway of these eagles between India and central Asia. That birds
can exist and fly at immense heights, seemingly with little physical discomfort from
103
the intense cold and low atmospheric pressure, is suggested by one of the Everest
expeditions encountering crows and mountain finches around their high-level camp
at 7000 metres, and Himalayan griffon vulture and lammergeier between 6000
and 7000 metres, while alpine chough (Pyrrhocorax graculus) even followed the
climbers up to 8200 metres, where the atmosphere is reduced to only one-third of its
supporting power. Sir Edmund Hillary has reported a chough following him at 8500
metres - presumably one of the several individuals that scavenged daily around their
camp at 7900 metres. At Dehra Dun geese have been observed through a telescope,
flying northward in spring across the face of the moon at a calculated height of 8830
metres.
Altitudinal Migration
Apart from the host of long-distance trans-Himalayan migrants there is a large
number of species that breed at high altitudes and descends to lower levels or into the
northern plains in winter, some indeed extending well into peninsular India and even
Sri Lanka. Of those that stay permanently in the mountains and merely move from a
higher to a lower elevation, a typical example is the grandala (Grandala coelicolor).
The male is a gorgeous purple-blue myna-like bird, while the female is chiefly brown,
streaked with white. The grandala lives in large flocks and breeds between 4300 and
5500 metres in summer, seldom descending lower than 3000 metres in winter. In
particularly severe weather, however, it is sometimes forced down as low as 2200
metres, the lowest limit recorded. A better-known though not too common example
is the brilliantly crimson-winged wall creeper (Tichodroma muraria), an ashy-grey
sparrow-sized bird with slender longish bill and butterfly-like flight, which lives on
high cliff-faces around altitudes ranging from 4300 to 5500 metres, and breeds within
rock fissures. In winter the wall creeper descends to the base of the mountains and
is often seen in quarries and rock cuttings in adjoining plains. This bird has even
been observed as far south as New Delhi, clambering on the walls of the Central
Government Secretariat, no doubt having mistaken that august edifice for Mount
Olympus!
There are certain Himalayan endemics that evidently fly non-stop on their annual
migrations to the hills of the southern Western Ghats or Sahyadri complex.
Prominent among this group are the woodcock (Scolopax rusticola), pied ground
thrush (Zoothera wardii), blue chat (Erithacus brunneus), brown-breasted flycatcher
104
(Muscicapa muttui), blue-throated flycatcher (Muscicapa rubeculoides) and several
other flycatchers. All of them seem to be species of low tolerance and find the
requisite ecological conditions only in the damp well-wooded southern hills which,
as mentioned earlier, already support several relict forms of Himalayan flora and
fauna. These species, whose migration routes evidently lie along the Eastern and
Western Ghats, are fairly common in the south Indian hills during winter but are
very seldom met with on passage in the intervening country. It is thus evident that
they must perform their migration to and fro in a single hop, involving a minimum
distance of may be 1500 to 2000 kilometres each way. Among the more typical of
such single-hop migrants is reckoned the woodcock (Scolopax rusticola). This is a
coveted game bird - a dumpy overgrown snipe - much sought after by sportsmen in
its Himalayan homeland as well as in its southern winter quarters - the hills of the
Western Ghats complex, traditionally the Nilgiris.
Himalayan Relicts in South India
An intriguing aspect of Himalayan flora and fauna is the disjunct occurrence of so
many typical genera and closely related species as endemics in the hills of south
India. Among mammals two outstanding examples are the Nilgiri tahr (Hemitragus
hylocrius)and the Nilgiri pine marten (Martes gwatkinsi), but birds provide many
more examples. The laughing thrush genus Garrulax (family Muscicapidae,
subfamily Timaliinae) whose centre of distribution is the Indochinese sub-region of
the oriental, is strongly represented in the eastern Himalaya, and found throughout the
mountain range westward to Kashmir and Afghanistan in something like 27 species.
After a total absence of over 2000 kilometres in continental and peninsular India,
the genus reappears in the south with two endemic species, cachinnans and jerdoni,
the former confined to the Nilgiris, the latter in three well-differentiated subspecies,
to the Palnis and Kerala hills. There is, additionally, a third member of the genus
found in Kerala, namely the Wynaad laughing thrush which is an obvious subspecies
of the east Himalayan Garrulax delesserti. A point of special interest in the case of
these far-flung laughing thrushes is that their presence in the southern hills is closely
associated with the occurrence of the plant genus Rubus (raspberry, blackberry, etc.)
which itself is a common Himalayan taxon with an identical disjunct distribution in
the hills of the southern peninsula. The close ecological association between Garrulax
and Rubus in the Himalaya is faithfully reproduced in their common southern
refugium. Thickets of Rubus first make their appearance in the south Indian hills
105
from an altitude of about 1000 metres upward, an elevation at which, significantly,
Garrulax also appears on the scene. Other examples of this sort of symbiosis are not
uncommon. The disjunct occurrence of so many Himalayan animals and plants in the
south Indian hills presents some intriguing problems of logistics. The late Dr Sunder
Lal Hora, a distinguished Indian ichthyologist, found several genera of specialized
torrential freshwater fishes in Kerala which were identical with those in the eastern
Himalaya and the Malay peninsula. Since the geographical distribution of fish is
inescapably dependent on a direct connection at one time or another (river capture) of
the streams and rivers they inhabit, and they can spread in no other way, Dr Hora after
careful research propounded a rational explanation in his ‘Satpura Hypothesis for
the Distribution of Malayan Fauna and Flora to Peninsular India’. While this related
primarily to Malayan–east Himalayan highly adapted torrential freshwater fishes,
it seems to answer satisfactorily for other organisms as well. The hypothesis has
received varying support from several different disciplines and investigators, but still
remains equivocal and calls for further intensive in-depth studies. It seems relevant
here to highlight some of its salient points. The Satpura Hypothesis postulates that
the Satpura-Vindhya trend of mountains stretching across India was at one time more
elevated and more humid than now. It was continuous with the Assam hills in the
east and with the northern end of the Western Ghats (in Gujarat) in the west, and thus
served as a causeway for the spread of specialised Himalayan flora and fauna into the
south Indian hills and Sri Lanka. The link of the Assam Himalaya with the SatpuraVindhya trend lay across the Garo-Rajmahal gap on the Chota Nagpur plateau, which
was postulated to have been more raised and humid than now, providing a continuous
stretch of ecologically suitable hilly country as a bridge for the dispersal of plants
and animals. Geotectonic processes such as erosion or subsidence of the connecting
highland and consequent changes in the physiography may be responsible for cutting
off the continuity in the distribution of the ecologically adapted organisms now met
with as ‘marooned’ relict populations of Himalayan animals and plants in the southern
hills. Geological evidence on the whole is not in favour of this easy explanation and
alternative possibilities need to be investigated. Nevertheless, the Satpura Hypothesis
offers an attractive interpretation which on, biogeographical evidence alone, seems
unexceptional.
Among the more prominent Himalayan relicts in the avifauna of the Western Ghats
complex in southern India, besides the laughing thrushes (Garrulax), are the great
pied hornbill (Buceros bicornis), frogmouths (Batrachostomus), fairy bluebird
106
(Irena), lizard hawks or bazas (Aviceda) and rufous-bellied hawk-eagle (Hieraaetus
kienerii). Several others also show the same widely disjunct distribution and are
palpably relict Himalayan forms.
Pioneers of Himalayan Ornithology
Most of our early knowledge of Himalayan avifauna comes from Brian Houghton
Hodgson (1800–94), the undisputed ‘father’ of Himalayan ornithology. Hodgson first
went to Nepal at the age of twenty and was British resident in that then difficult
country from 1833 to 1843. During a period of about twenty years, in spite of the
constraints on free movement for foreigners, he managed to collect over 20,000 skins
of birds and mammals which he later presented to the British Museum. He published
numerous scientific papers which form the hard core of our knowledge of Himalayan
birds. After retirement from Nepal he lived and continued his natural history work
from Darjeeling between 1845 and 1858 when he finally left India. Hodgson (1833)
was the first to write on bird migration in India, of ducks, etc., as observed by him
at Kathmandu, and also the first to draw attention to the altitudinal distribution of
species in the Himalaya (‘Physical Geography of the Himalaya’, 1840).
Of the many other naturalists who have contributed to Himalayan ornithology before
and since Hodgson, perhaps the one deserving special mention is John Gould. Gould
was the taxidermist in charge of the Zoological Society’s museum in London, and
later superintendent of its ornithological collection. He was a gifted bird painter
and, in collaboration with his artist wife, published in instalments, commencing in
1831 - 2 - partly on the basis of Hodgson’s material - a splendid folio of coloured
lithographs entitled A Century of Birds of the Himalayan Mountains. The scientific
text for this was written by Nicholas Vigors, the secretary of the then newly founded
Zoological Society of London, who was responsible also for the description of many
of Hodgson’s newly discovered species from Nepal.
_______________, 1962; The Birds of Sikkim. Madras. Oxford university press.
______________, 1977; A Field Guide to the Birds of the Eastern Himalaya.New
Delhi. Oxford University Press.
Champion, Harry G. and S.K. Seth, 1968; A Revised Survey of the Forest Types of
India.Nasik. Government of India Press.
Cronin, Edward (Jr) and Paul Sherman, 1976; Living Bird.Cornell University.
Fleming, R.L. Jr, 1971; ‘Avian Zoogeography of Nepal’.The Himalayan Review
4:23–33.
Fleming, R.L. Sr and Jr and Lain Singh Bangdel, 1976; Birds of Nepal
Hodgson, B.H., 1833; Asiatic Researches.
Hooker, J.D., 1905; Himalayan Journals.London. Ward, Lock & Co.
Hora, S.L., 1937; ‘Distribution of Himalayan Fishes and its Bearing on Certain
Palaeo-geographical Problems’.Rec. ind. Mus. 39:251–9
_________, 1949; Symposium on ‘Satpura Hypothesis of the Distribution of Malayan
Fauna and Flora to Peninsular India’.Proc. Nat.Iinst. Sci. India 15(8): 307–422.
_________‘Hora’s Satpura Hypothesis: An Aspect of Indian Biogeography’. Current
Science 19: 364–70
Secretary of State for India, 1908; Imperial Gazetteer of India. Oxford. Clarendon
Press.
Mani, M.S., 1956; ‘Insect Fauna of the High Himalaya’.Nature 177:124.
Medlicott, H.B. and W.T. Blanford, 1879; ‘A Manual of Geology of India’, 2 vols
LXX. 374. Calcutta.
Meinertzhagen, R., 1928; ‘Some Biological Problems Connected with the Himalaya’.
Ibis.480–533.
Ripley, S.D., 1961;ASynopsis of the Birds of India and Pakistan. Bombay. Bombay
Natural History Society.
Stephenson, J.S.; ‘The Geographical Distribution of Indian Earthworms’. Proc.
Asiat. Soc. Bengal (N.S.) 12; cxvii.
Wadia, D.N., 1939; The Geology of India.London. Macmillan.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ali, Salim, 1949; Indian Hill Birds. Bombay.Oxford University Press.
_________________, 1949; ‘The Satpura Trend as an Orinithogeographical
Highway’.Proc. Nat. Inst. Sci. India.Nov–Dec.
107
108
ESTABLISHING THE SANCTUARY: THE BIRTH OF DUDHWA
NATIONAL PARK
Billy Arjan Singh
From Watching India’s Wildlife, Oxford University Press, 2003.
ekeing out a precarious existence in diminishing numbers. Both in the forest and
outside it the animals were retreating before the tractors, domestic cattle and guns of
the human invader.
For those which lived outside the forest no single development was more harmful
than the remorseless spread of cultivation. Up to the end of the Second World War
the area to the north of the Sarda river and up to the reserved forests along the Nepal
border formed a buffer region which was almost completely wild. It had been a
natural game reserve, but now civilization was gradually encroaching and depriving
the animals of their living space. An ever-increasing population required more food
to sustain it and therefore more land to grow the food. Soon after Independence and
Partition this land-hunger assumed mammoth proportions, and in the Trans-Sarda
belt the dacoit-infested, malaria-ridden tracts were heavily colonised by farmers from
the Punjab. Every inch of available soil was reclaimed to the very edge of the forest Tiger Haven had been one of the few places to remain untouched - and the grassland
buffer which had prevented a clash of interest between the wildlife and the settlers
disappeared. With it went the great herds of deer which used to roam across the
plains, the crocodiles in the rivers and any living thing which was unable to adapt
to the new order. A few swamp deer did manage to colonise some patches of open
grassland within the forest, but in such radically different surroundings they were
unlikely to survive for long. These islands of space in the forest were invariably too
small to support many animals, and continual forestry operations threatened their
existence.
Less than a hundred years ago, India was one of the great reservoirs of wildlife in
the world. From the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean vast numbers of animals, and a
remarkable variety, populated the plains and mountains of the subcontinent. Over the
last century, man has almost totally destroyed this natural reserve; slowly at first, and
without much conspicuous effect because of the quantity of wildlife, and then, after
Independence, more rapidly, in a wanton display of thoughtlessness and intolerance.
Here, too, the deer encountered herds of domestic cattle in whose company no wild
animal can survive for long. In India the cow is sacred; it is never killed and, therefore,
multiplies in thousands. Crowded out like the deer from their traditional grazing
grounds by the advance of cultivation and by their own increasing numbers, the cattle
gravitate to the forest where they are allowed to move about without restriction. Food
becomes scarce and disease breaks out and is then transmitted to the local wildlife;
in such conditions it is always the deer which yield to the cattle and slowly lose the
will to survive.
In my own district of Kheri the process of destruction has been as effective as
anywhere else in India. When I first arrived at Tiger Haven the local supply of wildlife
was already thin on the ground. Some species had virtually disappeared; others were
The democratic processes of the Government also hastened their decline. On the basis
of one man, one vote, gun licences for crop protection were issued on a massive scale
as political patronage by the party in power. It was not only bona-fide farmers who
109
110
benefitted from this situation; anybody who went to prison during India’s freedom
struggle, even if his offence was somewhat less respectable than political resistance,
could count on getting a licence; common criminals and jailbirds were also able
to cash in on the windfall. There was no law to control shooting outside the forest
at the time, and guns which had been issued for crop protection soon provided the
necessary arms for an ever increasing band of poachers who slaughtered the deer
indiscriminately and then sold the meat.
Legitimate shooting was less damaging but, combined with the spread of cultivation,
poaching and the presence of the ubiquitous cattle, it helped to accelerate the
destruction of the wildlife. Hunting was once governed by carefully devised rules
and a strict code of behaviour; with Independence a new type of sportsman, less
scrupulous than his predecessors, appeared on the scene. He shot anything at any
time of the year and often used a machine gun mounted on a jeep in a purely militarystyle operation. India, sadly, has always suffered from debasing the art of hunting
until a sport becomes a slaughter.
Inside the forest the assault of the human invader was scarcely less thorough and
certainly no less violent. The drive to exploit more land in the interests of solving
the nation’s chronic food problems inevitably marked out forest areas as future sites
of cultivation. Thus, in the early 1950s, began the process which has reduced the
forests of north India to 13 per cent of the land - considerably less than the 33 per cent
recommended by a recent commission. First to suffer were the Terai forests of Naini
Tal in the west where giant tractors and bulldozers moved in, uprooting and levelling,
ploughing and harrowing. Importers and traders converged to cash in on vast orders
for machinery, much of which was ruined from both disuse and misuse. A small
fortune’s worth of equipment, for instance, rusted for want of minor expenditure on
sheds and tarpaulins. Inevitably, the momentum was too great and vast areas were
deforested, wildlife fell prey to this systematic destruction and the battered remnants
which managed to escape to the fringes of the forest survived for a short while only as
hostages to the massed barrels of crop-protection guns. A little later, the same process
was repeated in my own district, this time as part of a programme which provided
each landless labourer from eastern Uttar Pradesh with 10 acres of ground carved out
of the forest; the educated did rather better; they received 20 acres, a brick hutment
and a pair of bullocks.
111
Simultaneously, there emerged a new policy of exploiting the forests to their
maximum potential which was as harmful to wildlife as the wholesale destruction
of their living space. Among the many good things left to us by our erstwhile British
masters was the legacy of sound forestry principles whereby we both had our cake
and ate it. Under the British, the annual felling of trees was a planned operation
designed to improve the quality of the timbre; considerable care was taken to see
that the trees did not become overcrowded, thus encouraging the greatest possible
growth; regeneration was mainly natural, but wherever necessary the existing forests
were perpetuated by controlled programmes of replanting.
With Independence came a more commercial approach which led to the systematic
felling of slow-maturing trees and their replacement by exotic and faster-growing
varieties. The chief timbre of the forests of north India is the sal (Shorea robusta),a
magnificent tree which reaches a height of between 100 and 150 feet and a girth of
8 to 12 feet. The sal has narrower leaves than the teak (Tectona grandis),and thus
allows a certain amount of light to penetrate the forest. This encourages the growth
underneath of a whole range of smaller trees, shrubs and bushes which provide
excellent shelter for every kind of wildlife. However, the sal takes 150 years to attain
maturity, a span of time not in keeping with the Forest Department’s plans for a
quick commercial turnover; and so began the process of replacing it with trees like
the eucalyptus which has the advantage of reaching maturity in twenty years or less.
Unfortunately, the eucalyptus provides little shade to protect the ground from the sun
and almost no leaf deposit to fertilize the soil; nor does it offer effective shelter for
wildlife. None of these disadvantages, of course, deflected the forestry authorities
from their aim of increasing revenue, and each year saw larger and larger tracts given
over to the new plantations.
The trees were not the only thing to be affected. No leaf in the forest was left
unturned in the frantic search for a quick profit and soon almost everything, however
insignificant, acquired a monetary value. Fish from the rivers and driftwood from the
streams, grass for thatching and grass roots for scent-making, honey, manure, small
plants and dead wood—nothing was left untouched. The proceeds from this exotic
harvest were considerable; in my forest division the auction of all forest rights over an
area covering 300 square miles produced over 25 million rupees a year. Naturally the
one aim of every official was to surpass the total of his predecessor, and thus a vicious
circle was created which caused the forest to be more thoroughly exploited every year.
112
Wildlife also had its value in this market through hunting fees and royalties on
animals killed, but the comparative insignificance of these earnings was reflected in
the denial to the animals of the age-old principle that what comes out of the forest
belongs to the forest: if a man was caught with timbre outside the forest the onus was
on him to prove that he had acquired it legally; but if a dead animal was discovered
in the same place, two independent witnesses were needed to prove that the animals
had indeed been killed in the forest. Such unlikely conditions were never satisfied and
no prosecutions resulted.
Finally a special mention should be made here of tiger shooting, the time-honoured
sport of the ruling classes, both British and Indian. Legitimate shooting for sport,
as I have already indicated, has never on its own exterminated a species. But for
various reasons, which I will examine in a later chapter, the tiger has been hunted
more consistently than any other animal, and this has undoubtedly made a large
contribution to the decline in its numbers. By the early 1960s few people had realized
that the symbol of India’s wildlife was nearing extinction; each year fresh expeditions
were mounted to the forest, and though it became increasingly difficult to bring home
a trophy the sport continued to attract local and foreign hunters.
Thus, by the time I arrived at Tiger Haven the local wildlife was under attack from
all sides. During my first few years there I was too preoccupied in building my farm
either to appreciate what was happening to the animals or to do anything about it.
I still occasionally went hunting, though not for tigers, and the possibility that the
animals might vanish altogether was only a vague and not altogether convincing idea
at the back of my mind. Still, the signs were there, and each shooting season turned
me a little more into a conservationist.
The immediate area of forest surrounding my farm formed part of one of the 40
shooting blocks in the state of Uttar Pradesh, and for a long time the only effective
protection I gave the animals was when I managed to lease it from the forestry
department. Each year I, along with 20 to 30 other people including local residents
and sportsmen from Bombay and Delhi, would apply for the block three months
before the shooting season opened. By then the professional shikaris had already had
their pick on the basis of their claim that they had booked important American clients
who could not be put off. The rest of us had our names put in a hat, and those who
emerged successful acquired the block for a month’s shooting.
113
Sometimes I used to put in four or five applications in different names, and with
the help of this device I was generally able to lease the block two or three times a
year. Then, of course, there was no shooting. But it was an expensive and haphazard
business which only gave the tigers a brief respite. Occasionally, I made life difficult
for others who rented the block, particularly one individual from Calcutta who used
to tie up buffalo as bait for the tiger immediately opposite my farm. As soon as it
became dark, my brother (who used to visit me occasionally) and I went out and cut
the buffalo loose. The man eventually discovered what was going on, and since then
we have never been very friendly.
I also tried to stop some of the professional shikaris from ignoring the state rules for
tiger shooting by reporting them to the authorities. On one occasion I received firsthand evidence from a party of American hunters who came to visit me and spoke
freely after they had drunk a couple of tots of Old Crow bourbon. They mentioned
that they had waited up for a tiger after dark and had used a light, both of which were
offences. Another time I heard that a tiger cub had been shot. I reported all this to the
forest department, but as usual it was a complete waste of time and nothing was done.
It was the swamp deer and not the tiger, however, which finally engaged all my
energy in the cause of conservation. With the possible exception of the black buck, no
other species of Indian wildlife had been subjected to such a catastrophic reduction
in numbers in the post-war years. The swamp deer is found nowhere in the world
but India and Nepal and at one time existed in great numbers all over the north
and central parts of the country. In my own region the banks and reaches of the
river Sarda afforded an ideal natural reserve for the species up to the end of the
Second World War. Between the river and the forest, 15 miles to the north, there was
plenty of marshland, interspersed with creeks and patches of sand and silt where the
unstable Sarda overflowed its banks each year. This was the selected home of the
deer, shared by robber gangs and malarial mosquitoes, and it was probably one of
the most spectacular wildlife sights in the world to see a herd of nearly a thousand
animals galloping across a freshly-burnt plain or splashing through an expanse of
water in what seemed like an endless surge of antlers, magnified by the stag’s habit
of segregating and by the many tines the swamp deer head possesses.
During this period there were a great many elaborately organized local shoots
sponsored by the raja of Singahi, one of the minor luminaries of princely India. The
114
shoots took place in the jheel, or marshy lake of Mirchia, once famous as the home
of countless thousands of swamp deer and now desolate of wildlife except for the
occasional migrant flock of mallard which might fly in, only to rise again to the boom
of a musket, sometimes leaving behind a few of their number. A line of 20 elephants
or more used to drive the swamp deer past butts strategically situated on higher land,
and the massacre would begin. As many as fifty head a day were reported to have
been gunned down in these orgies and only the antlers removed. Nevertheless, this
excessive harvest did serve a useful purpose, as it prevented over crowding among
the males; it also probably improved the stock by encouraging breeding from the
younger stags, since it was usually the older ones which were selected as trophies.
After the war it was still possible to see herds of over 500 deer in the region, but
with the systematic clearing of the land their numbers were quickly and drastically
reduced, until only a few groups survived in open grassland areas within the forest.
Much the same thing was happening to the swamp deer in the rest of India, so that by
the early 1960s, one of the last refuges of any size in the whole subcontinent was at
Ghola, an area of about 3000 acres, eight miles to the west of Tiger Haven. Shaped
like a cup, it consisted of marshes and swamps in the middle, surrounded by fields on
every side. The land was leased to large-scale farmers but had not been cultivated for
some time because of the Government’s policy of imposing a ceiling on the size of
holdings and distributing the surplus land to landless labour.
In 1964, when the State Wildlife Board was created in Uttar Pradesh and I became
a member, I strongly recommended to the board that Ghola presented a wonderful
opportunity to save the swamp deer for posterity; instead of distributing the land in
small parcels the Government should hand it all over to the Forest Department, who
could combine the 3000 acres with the adjoining forest to create a permanent reserve.
My proposal became all the more urgent, at least in my mind, when the American
scientist George Schaller visited me in1965, and together we went to Ghola and
carried out a survey of the local swamp deer population. Instead of the 1,500 animals
that had been reported in the area, we found only 600.
As usual, however, the state Government vacillated, and it was not until 1966 that
they accepted my idea. By then it was too late. Before anything could be done, land
grabbers in the guise of Naxalities, an extreme political group who operate under the
age-old principle of taking away from those who work and giving to those who talk,
115
took possession of Ghola and with plough and gun once again routed the unhappy
and persecuted swamp deer from their last retreat. That the provincial constabulary
had later to eject these would-be landowners is another story; the fact remains that the
Government had failed to protect a species threatened with extinction.
One morning soon after this debacle I was sitting on a platform high up in a silk
cotton tree (Bombax malabaricum) on the edge of the forest near my farm. Below me
lay a burnt-out meadow where the new shoots of grass were just beginning to sprout
through the charred ground. Gazing towards Ghola I wondered about the fate of the
swamp deer I had been trying to protect; step by step they were being eliminated from
the marshes and swamps of their birthright through no fault of their own. Their only
mistake had been to clash with human interests. They had no vote and nobody cared.
Was this the end?
From where I was sitting, I could see large numbers of cattle grazing and shimmering
in the heat haze in the middle and far distance. Huddled in one corner was a pitiful
herd of about 40 swamp deer slowly being squeezed out of their territory by the
domestic animals. It was then that the idea came to me for the first time of trying to
set up a sanctuary for wildlife around my farm. If I could only attract the swamp deer
of Ghola to join the small herd below me, and at the same time exclude the cattle
from the area, something might still be saved from the holocaust. It was an ambitious
scheme, which might easily fail, but at the time it seemed better than giving up.
I realized from the beginning that it would be useless to approach the state Government
for help, so I immediately set about preparing the ground myself. The first step was to
plough up five-acre strips of open land in the reserved forest and sow them with the
appropriate grasses for the deer to graze on. Next, I constructed salt licks in the shape
of cones on the edge of the fields; these would provide the deer with the minerals
they needed. My aim was to attract wildlife, and this I soon succeeded in doing
in the shape of a forest ranger, whose brother I had recently reported for illegally
shooting a young chital. He demanded to know why I should not be prosecuted for
ploughing up Government land. Technically, of course, he had a point. But by then I
had learnt that if you want to get something done it is fatal to wait for permission, so
intricate and slow-moving are the wheels of bureaucracy. The best and only course
of action is to go right ahead with whatever you are doing. As it happened, the forest
ranger’s superior officer had a sense of proportion; wisely he realized that in the
116
serious business of forestry there was no harm in getting someone else to deal with
the minor subject of wildlife, which by now held some academic interest even for the
less exalted ranks of the administration.
My next visitors were the cattle, which grazed on the new shoots of barley which I
had sowed for the deer, and knocked over and trampled on the salt licks. Attempts
to persuade the graziers of the value of a wildlife sanctuary were futile, and my
appeals to them to keep their herds away served no purpose, as the area was a normal
forest block where cattle were allowed to graze on payment of a royalty. The only
effective course of action, it seemed, was to adopt strong-arm tactics. After waiting
for a suitable opportunity, I caught a grazier (who was also illegally gathering
dropped swamp deer horns) and tethered him to the towing hook of my jeep, this
being the only way in which I could persuade him to accompany me to where two
more graziers were awaiting collection. Then, with my two dogs looking out as
interested spectators from each side of the vehicle, I drove slowly down the forest
road, pursued by a strange assortment of sounds coming from the rear. Thereafter I
had little trouble, at least for a while, and was able to rebuild the salt lick in peace.
The matter was taken up by local politicians but nothing could be proved and the law
of the jungle prevailed.
I was now ready to receive the swamp deer of Ghola but the problem remained of
persuading them to come. Ghola was eight miles away and separated from us by a
thin belt of forest; clearly they would not move on their own. The answer seemed to
be to drive them out, and so one early morning while the dew was still lying on the
grass I set off to Ghola on Bhagwan Piari with five other elephants borrowed from a
nearby farm. At the far end of the marshes the elephants fanned out, and we started
moving slowly through the long grasses towards Tiger Haven, shouting and letting
off blank cartridges as we went. The deer leapt away in front of us, and though some
wheeled back into the marshes as we approached the forest, quite a few disappeared
into the trees. How many had gone through we did not know at the time, but a few
days later I discovered that a herd of 250 swamp deer had arrived at the salt licks on
the other side.
Here at last, they found some protection, since the area I had prepared was inside the
reserved forest where shooting rules prevailed, whereas at Ghola they had been freely
shot by anyone with a gun. But it was still a long way from being a safe reserve. Local
117
poachers sneaked in to kill the animals and large numbers of cattle remained on the
range. I was the only person who tried to protect the swamp deer from these hazards,
and though I did what I could, patrolling the forest at odd hours of the day and night,
it was a hopeless task. Unless the Government declared the place a sanctuary and
prohibited cattle grazing in the forest, all my efforts would be wasted.
This was a dismal prospect, so, using my influence as a member of the State Wildlife
Board, I started working on the authorities, pointing out that as the deer were already
within the orbit of the forest it would be a simple matter to declare a sanctuary
and order the cattle out. To back up my case I took pictures of the swamp deer and
submitted several papers to the board. But everyone seemed to have some objection
to the scheme. The politicians maintained that there was nowhere else for the cattle
to graze and the down-wind forest officials were inclined to agree with them. The
vested interests of the professional shikari hunters also opposed my plan, since the
sanctuary would protect the tiger as well as the swamp deer. They still clung to the
tattered memories of the past when shoots invariably produced mammoth bags, and
the fact that the supply had now dwindled to single figures did nothing to dispel their
ambitions.
For over a year the discussion continued with constant lobbying by the interested
parties. I used to make the tiring eight-hour journey from my farm up to Lucknow
where the meetings of the wildlife board usually took place, but more often than not
I would return with the feeling that we were no farther advanced at the end than we
had been at the beginning. After a time I began to despair of the whole project until,
quite suddenly, help appeared in the shape of Charan Singh, a state forest minister
who showed great interest in the preservation of wildlife. Finally persuaded by my
arguments, he announced one day that an area of 82.2 square miles surrounding Tiger
Haven would be declared a sanctuary, and that the cattle would be excluded ‘as far
as possible’.
That last clause was the catchphrase, of course, as it allowed a wide degree of
interpretation to individual officials, but I was too pleased at the time to pay much
attention to it. I had originally asked for only 40 square miles to be turned into a
reserve; now, on the recommendation of the local wildlife officer, more than twice
that amount was to be protected.
118
The proposed sanctuary, which was to be called Dudhwa, was about 25 miles long,
stretching 12 miles each side of Tiger Haven and three miles deep into the forest
towards the Nepal border. Of the total area about 20 square miles was open land
where the swamp deer could graze, and the rest forest consisting of two halves of
different shooting blocks. Thus something had been done to protect the tiger as well
as the deer.
TREES
Ruskin Bond
From Ruskin Bond’s Book of Nature, Penguin Books (India), 2008.
It had been a long struggle but I was naturally delighted with the results which,
among other things, would give me the opportunity of studying many animals in
comparatively protected conditions.
Trees have always played an important part in my life. The litchi, guava, mango,
jackfruit and lemon trees of my childhood.Later, the grandeur of the banyan, the
sacred peepal, the sal and the shisham.And here, in the hills, the stately deodars and
fragrant pines. Long ago, I made some notes, short essays, on some favourite trees,
and now I share these with my readers.
The Guardians of My Conscience
The trees stand watch over my day-to-day life. They are the guardians of my
conscience. I have no one else to answer to, so I live and work under the generous
119
120
but highly principled supervision of the trees - especially the deodars, who stand on
guard, unbending, on the slope above the cottage. The oak and maples are a little more
tolerant, they have had to put up with a great deal, their branches continually lopped
for fuel and fodder. ‘What would they think?’ I ask myself on many an occasion.
‘What would they like me to do?’ and I do what I think they would approve of most!
Well, it’s nice to have someone to turn to . . .
The leaves are a fresh pale green in the spring rain. I can look at the trees from my
window - look down on them almost, because the window is on the first floor of
the cottage, and the hillside runs at a sharp angle into the ravine. I do nearly all my
writing at this window seat. Whenever I look up, the trees remind me that they are
there. They are my best critics. As long as I am aware of their presence, I can try to
avoid the trivial and the banal.
Notes on My Favourite Trees
Dehra was a good place for trees, and Grandfather’s house was surrounded by several
kinds - peepal, neem mango, jackfruit, papaya and the ancient banyan. Some of them
were planted by Grandfather and grew up with me.
There were two kinds of trees that were of special interest to me - trees that were good
for climbing, and trees that provided fruit.
The jackfruit tree had both these qualities. The fruit itself - the largest in the world
- grew only on the trunk and main branches. It was not my favourite fruit, and I
preferred it cooked as a vegetable. But the tree was large and leafy and easy to climb.
The peepal was a good tree to sit beneath on hot days. Its heart-shaped leaves,
sensitive to the slightest breeze, would flip gently when the clouds stood still and not
another tree witnessed the least movement in the air. There is a peepal tree in every
Indian village, and it is common to see a farmer, tired at the end of an afternoon’s toil
in the fields, being lulled to sleep by the rustling of its leaves.
A banyan tree, as old as the town of Dehra itself, grew behind our house. Its spreading
branches, which hung to the ground and took root again, formed a number of twisting
passageways which gave me endless pleasure. I could hide myself in its branches,
121
behind thick green leaves, and spy on the world below. I could read in it too, propped
up against the bole of the tree with my favourite books.
The banyan tree was a world in itself, populated with small beasts and large insects.
While the leaves were still pink and tender, they would be visited by the delicate map
butterfly, who committed her eggs to their care. The ‘honey’ on the leaves - an edible
smear—also attracted the little striped squirrels, who soon grew used to my presence
in the tree and became quite bold, accepting peanuts from my hand. Red-headed
parakeets swarmed about early in the mornings.
At the height of the monsoon, the banyan was like an orchestra pit with the musicians
constantly tuning up. Birds, insects and squirrels expressed their joy at the termination
of the hot weather and the cool quenching relief of the monsoon. A toy flute in my
hands, I would try adding my shrill piping to theirs. But they thought poorly of my
musical ability, for, whenever I piped, the birds and the insects maintained a pained
and puzzled silence.
The branches were thick with scarlet figs. These berries were not fit for human
consumption, but the many birds that gathered in the tree - gossipy rosy pastors,
quarrelsome mynas, cheerful bulbuls and coppersmiths, and sometimes a raucous,
bullying crow—feasted on them. And when night fell, and the birds rested, the dark
flying foxes flapped heavily about the tree, chewing and munching as they clambered
over the branches.
One of my favourite trees in Dehra was the jamun, also known as the Java plum. Its
purple astringent fruit ripened during the rains, and then I would join the gardener’s
young son in its branches, and we would feast like birds on the smooth succulent fruit
until our lips and cheeks were stained a bright purple.
After I moved to Mussoorie in my thirties, I lived for many years in a cottage at 7000
feet in the Garhwal Himalayas. I was fortunate in having a big window that opened
out on the forest, so that the trees were almost within my reach. Had I jumped, I
should have landed safely in the arms of an oak or chestnut.
The incline of the hill was such that my first floor window opened on what must, I
suppose, have been the second floor. I never made the jump, but the big silver-haired
122
langurs, with long swishing tails, often leapt from the trees on to the corrugated tin
roof and made enough noise to disturb the bats sleeping in the space between the roof
and ceiling.
Standing on its own was a walnut tree, and truly, this was a tree for all seasons. In
winter its branches were bare, and smooth and straight and round like the arms of a
woman in a painting by Jamini Roy. In spring each branch produced a hard bright
spear of new leaves. By mid-summer the entire tree was in leaf, and towards the end
of the monsoon the walnuts, encased in their green jackets, had reached maturity.
Then the jackets began to split, revealing the hard black shell of the walnuts. Inside
the shell was the nut itself, shaped rather like the human brain. (No wonder the
ancients prescribed walnuts for headaches!)
I went among the trees on my hillside often, acknowledging their presence with a
touch of my hand against their trunks - the walnut’s smooth and polished; the pine’s
patterned and whorled; the oak’s rough and gnarled, full of experience. The oak had
been there the longest, and the wind had bent its upper branches and twisted a few, so
that it looked shaggy and undistinguished. It was a good tree for the privacy of birds,
its crooked branches spreading out with no particular effect; and sometimes the tree
seemed uninhabited until there was a whirring sound, as of a helicopter approaching,
and a party of long tailed blue magpies shot out of the tree and streamed across the
forest glade.
After the monsoon, when the dark red berries had ripened on the hawthorn, this
pretty tree was visited by green pigeons, the kokla birds of Garhwal, who clambered
upside-down among the fruit-laden twigs. And during winter, a white-capped redstart
perched on the bare branches of the wild pear tree and whistled cheerfully. He had
come to winter in the garden.
The pines grew on the next hill - the chir, the Himalayan blue pine, and the longleaved pine - but there was a small blue one a little way below my cottage, and
sometimes I sat beneath it to listen to the wind playing softly in its branches.
Opening the window at night, I usually had something to listen to, the mellow whistle
of the pygmy owlet, or the cry of a barking deer which had scented the proximity of
a panther.
123
Some sounds I could not recognize at the time. They were strange night sounds that
I now know as the sounds of the trees themselves, scratching their limbs in the dark,
shifting a little, flexing their fingers. Great trees of the mountains, they know me well.
They know my face in the window, they see me watching them, watching them grow,
listening to their secrets, bowing my head before their outstretched arms and seeking
their benediction.
Sometimes, there would be a strange silence, and I would see the moon coming up,
and two distant deodars in perfect silhouette.
No tree lover, even if he or she is a city dweller, can ignore the sal and the mahua, two
of the most splendid and most valuable of our trees.
The sal can be grown in a city, but it does not like being alone; it is much happier
amongst its own kind in the forests that cover the moist foothills and plateau lands
of northern and central India. It is a valuable timbre tree, and in northern India most
of the wood used in buildings comes from the sal. But it is not only the wood that is
useful. When tapped, the sal yields a large quantity of resin, which is burnt as incense
in Hindu religious ceremonies. The resin is also used to caulk boats and ships. The
large, shiny leaf is sometimes put to good use too. The Santals of Bihar gather fresh
sal leaves daily, and use them as plates or as drinking cups. When fitted cleverly into
one another, the leaves make excellent plates for holding dal and rice, while one large
sal leaf, twisted round to form a hollow, will hold water quite effectively.
The leaf is used for building too: not by men, but by ants! The nest of the red ant
consists of a mass of green or dead sal leaves struck together with a sort of gum which
the adult ant extracts from the young ant grubs. If you examine one of these nests
(do not disturb it!) you will find it humming with ant life. But do not try making pets
of these ants; they are as aggressive as the big bees, and bite quite fiercely, as many
a shikari has known to his discomfort when he has brushed against a nest when out
hunting on an elephant.
Another insect inhabiting the sal tree is the cicada. You may have heard it singing
away through the long hot weather and the rains. One cicada is shrill enough; a forest
full of singing cicadas is like an orchestra tuning up, each musician trying out a
different tune. Even the birds are shocked into silence.
124
The sal takes the place of the peepal among the tribes of central India, and when the
tree blossoms in March a festival called the Bahbonga is held. During marriages, two
poles, one of bamboo, the other of sal wood, are set up in the marriage shed and these
are anointed with oil and turmeric. If one of the couple is unwilling to go through
with the marriage, he or she may take a leaf of the sal and tear it in two.
There is a tradition that at the time of the Buddha’s birth, his mother stretched out her
hand to hold a branch of a sal tree, and was delivered of her child. Sal trees are also
said to have rendered homage to the Buddha at his death by letting their flowers fall
on him out of season, and bending their branches to shade him.
The beautiful mahua is another forest tree that plays an important part in the lives of
the tribal people. The flowers of the mahua can be eaten, raw or cooked, and are an
important item of the food of the Gonds and other tribes in central and western India,
particularly in time of drought when rice is scarce. In fact, the poorer people depend
almost entirely upon the mahua crop.
From the seeds of the mahua, an oil is extracted which can be used for lighting as
well as for cooking (as a substitute for ghee). Oil from the seeds is also used in the
manufacture of soap.
The mahua tree bursts into full bloom at the very beginning of the hot weather,
when the fortunes of the tribal people are usually rather low. As it is the slack season
among cultivators, the gathering of the mahua blossoms is a welcome task, the whole
village often turning out to bring in the crop. Sometimes the grass under the mahua
tree is burnt so that the blossoms may be gathered more easily. The women equip
themselves with baskets, piling them one on top of the other on their heads, and the
children carry brooms so that after all the blossoms have been gathered the ground
can be cleared in readiness for the next fall.
During the short period - only about fifteen days - that the mahua blossoms fall, the
villagers practically live in the jungle, the men carrying away the crop as fast as the
women and children can collect it.
Laid out to dry on a smooth bare patch of ground that has been especially cleared
and prepared, the blossoms become quite dry and shrink to half their normal size,
125
changing from white to brown. The mahua is often eaten by itself, but sometimes sal
seeds and rice are mixed with it to improve the flavour. The mahua is first boiled; the
sal seeds, which have already been dried in the sun and roasted, are then added with
a small quantity of rice.
Wild animals, particularly bears, are fond of the flowers of the mahua, but no one,
human or animal, has to climb the tree to gather them. The tree blooms at night, and
the flowers fall to the ground at dawn.
The Gentle Banyan
Just as tall men are often the most gentle, so are big trees the most friendly. The
banyan is probably the biggest and friendliest of all our trees.
We don’t see many banyan trees in our cities nowadays. These trees like to have
plenty of space in which to spread themselves out, but in our overcrowded cities,
where there is barely enough living space for people, banyan trees don’t have much
of a chance. After all, a full-grown banyan takes up as large an area as a three-storeyed
apartment building! Of course, many parks have banyan trees. And every village has
at least one.
The banyan has, what are called, ‘aerial roots’, that is its branches drop to the ground,
take root again, and send out more twisting, trailing branches, so that after some
years the tree forms a forest glade of its own. No wonder, the banyan was chosen to
represent the matted hair of Shiva!
The aerial roots of the banyan are like pillars supporting a great palace. If you destroy
the pillars, the palace will fall, and so will the banyan, because its main trunk isn’t
very deeply rooted. So naturally it needs plenty of space in which to put out its
supporting roots. Tiny gardens and busy roadsides won’t do. Nor should the tree be
planted too close to your house: you might find it growing through your bedroom
wall!
It is always cool, dark and shady beneath the banyan. And it is a good tree for
climbing. You can get up amongst its branches without much difficulty, and there is
no danger of falling off. It is also one of the most comfortable trees to sit in. You can
126
lean against its broad trunk and read a book, without any fear of being disturbed, for
you will be completely hidden by the broad, glossy leaves.
The banyan is also very hospitable. Apart from boys and girls, it attracts a large
number of visitors - birds, squirrels, insects, flying foxes - and many of these
interesting creatures actually live in the tree which is full of dark, private corners
suitable for a variety of tenants. The banyan is rather like a hotel or boarding house in
which a number of different families live next door to each other without interfering
very much in each other’s business.
The banyan belongs to the fig family, and, in India all the figs - the best known of
which is the peepal - are held sacred. The Akshaya Vata, the ‘undying’ banyan tree at
the sacred confluence of the rivers at Allahabad, is the subject of many legends, and
still attracts millions of pilgrims. It was first described by Huen Tsang, the Chinese
pilgrim, who visited India over a thousand years ago.
A group of three sacred trees known as tentar, ‘triad’ - a banyan, a peepal and a paakar
planted together - is especially sacred, and is known as Harsankari, ‘the chair of Hari
(Shiva)’.
In Hindi the banyan is known as the ‘bar’, in Tamil, the ‘ala’. But how did it get its
English name? Well, it seems that the first Europeans who came to India noticed
that the tree was a favourite with the banias, the Hindu merchant class, who used to
gather beneath it for worship or business. So they gave it the name ‘banian’, which
later became banyan.
Lest you should feel that the banyan is a magnificent giant of little or no value to man,
it should be remembered that its wood, which is tough and elastic, has for centuries
been used for making tent poles and yokes for bullock-carts, while its leaves and
twigs have always been a favourite snack with the elephants.
Avenues of banyan trees are not as common as they used to be, and roadside banyans
can often be seen with their beautiful supporting roots cut off - a sad spectacle. No
other tree provides so much cool, refreshing shade on a hot summer’s day, and for
this reason, if for no other, this noble tree deserves our love and care.
These lines by George Morris could well be applied to the friendly banyan:
Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I’ll protect it now.
The Tree of Wisdom
In some ways peepal trees are great show-offs. Even when there is no breeze, their
beautiful leaves spin like tops, determined to attract your attention and invite you
into their shade. And not only do they send down currents of cool air, but their long
slender tips are also constantly striking together to make a sound like the pattering
of raindrops.
No wonder the rishis of old chose to sit and meditate under these trees. And it was
beneath a peepal that Gautama Buddha gained enlightenment. This tree came to be
called the Bodhi, the ‘tree of wisdom’.
To the Hindus, the peepal is especially sacred. Its roots, it is believed, represent
Brahma, its bark Vishnu, its branches Shiva. ‘As the wide-spreading peepal tree is
contained in a small seed,’ says the Vishnu Purana, ‘so is the whole universe contained
in Brahma.’
In rural areas, when the new moon falls on a Monday, the peepal is still worshipped
by women, who pour water on its trunk, and lay at its roots a copper coin and
sweetmeats.
It is said to be dangerous to lie or cheat beneath a peepal tree, and sometimes to tease
shopkeepers they are told that they ought not to plant one in a bazaar. All the same,
there are plenty of peepal trees in our bazaars. It is a tree that grows wherever its seed
falls; it will take root in a wall or on a rooftop - or even in the fork of another tree if
given the chance. As its roots are quite capable of pushing through bricks and mortar,
it is best to plant it some distance away from buildings.
No other tree has a leaf which tapers to such a perfect point as the peepal. When it
127
128
rains, you can see the water drip from the points. Water runs off more easily from
a point than from a blunt end, and the sooner a leaf dries the better it is for the tree.
The leaf is beautiful, and has been likened to the perfect male physique. From the
stalk (the human neck) the edges of the leaf run squarely out on either side (the
shoulders) and then curve round inwards to end in a finely pointed tail (the waist), so
that the suggestion is of a square, broad torso upon a narrow waist - a body such as
we see in pictures of Krishna.
While the chief occupants of the banyan are various birds and insects, the peepal is
said to be the residence of a wide variety of ghosts and mischievous spirits. The most
mischievous of these is the Munjia. He lives in lonely peepal trees, and rushes out at
tongas, bullock carts and buses, trying his best to upset them! Our grandmothers still
advise us not to yawn when passing under a peepal tree. Should you yawn, it is best
to cover your mouth with your hand, or snap your fingers in front of it. ‘Otherwise,’
says Grandmother, ‘the Munjia will rush down your throat and completely ruin your
digestion!’
Peepal trees have very long lives. There are some ancient peepals in Hardwar
which are even older than the present town probably as old as the eleventh-century
Mayadevi temple. A peepal tree taken from India to Sri Lanka in 288 BC is still alive
and flourishing. Records of its growth were carefully preserved over the centuries,
and it must now be over 2,000 years old.
To fell a peepal tree was once looked upon as a great sin. On the other hand, anyone
who planted a peepal was said to receive the blessings of generations to come.
Let us also earn the blessings of future generations by planting not only more peepal
trees - which are quite capable of looking after themselves - but all kinds of trees for
shade and shelter, fruit and flower, beauty and utility.
Can you imagine a country without any trees, a country that has become one vast
desert? Well, that is what could easily happen here if we keep cutting our trees and
forests without bothering to grow others in their place.
129
Garden of a Thousand Trees
No one in his right mind would want to chop down a mango tree. Every mango tree,
even if it grows wild, is generous with its juicy fruit, known sometimes as ‘the nectar
of the gods’, and sometimes as the ‘king of fruits’. You can eat ripe mangoes fresh
from the tree; you can eat them in pickles or chutneys or jams; you can eat them
flattened out and dried, as in aam papad; you can drink the juice with milk as in
‘mango fool’; you can even pound the kernel into flour and use it as a substitute for
wheat. And there are over a hundred different varieties of the mango, each with its
own distinctive flavour.
But in praising the fruit, let us not forget the tree, for it is one of the stateliest trees
in India, its tall, spreading branches a familiar sight throughout the country, from the
lower slopes of the Himalayas to Cape Comorin.
In Gujarat, on the night of the seventh of the month of Savan (July–August), a young
mango tree is planted near the house and worshipped by the womenfolk to protect
their children from disease. Sometimes a post of mango wood is set up when Ganesh
is worshipped.
If you live anywhere in the plains of northern India, you will often have seen a grove
of giant mango trees, sometimes appearing like an oasis in the midst of the vast, flat
countryside. Beneath the trees you may find a well and a small temple. It is here that
the tired, dusty farmer sits down to rest and eat his midday chapatti, following it with
a draught of cold water from the well. If you join him and ask him who planted the
mango grove, he will not be able to tell you; it was there when he was a boy, and
probably when his father was a boy too. Some mango groves are very, very old.
Have you heard of the Garden of a Thousand Trees? Probably not. But you must
have heard of the town of Hazaribagh in Bihar. Well, a huge mango grove containing
over 1,000 trees—some of which are still there—was known as ‘hazari’, and around
these trees a village grew, spreading in time into the modern town of Hazaribagh, ‘
Garden of a Thousand Trees’. Anyway, that’s the story you will hear from the oldest
inhabitants of the town. And even today, the town is almost hidden in a garden of
trees: mango and neem, sal and tamarind.
130
All are welcome in a mango grove. But during the mango season, when the trees are
in fruit, you enter the grove at your own peril! At this time of the year it is watched
over by a fierce chowkidar, whose business is to drive away any mischievous children
who creep into the grove in the hope of catching him asleep and making off with a
few juicy mangoes. The chowkidar is a busy man. Even before the mangoes ripen,
he has to battle not only with the village urchins, but also with raiding parties of
emerald-green parrots, who swarm all over the trees, biting deep into the green fruit.
Sometimes he sits under a tree in the middle of the grove, pulling a rope which makes
a large kerosene tin rattle in the branches. He can try shouting too, but his voice can’t
compete with the screams of the parrots. They wheel in circles round the grove and,
spreading their tails, settle on the topmost branches.
DISCUSSION POINTS, EXERCISES AND ESSAY TOPICS
Even when there are no mangoes, you will find parrots in the grove, because during
their breeding season, their favourite nesting places are the holes in the gnarled trunks
of old mango trees.
Other birds, including the blue jay and the little green coppersmith, favour the mango
grove for the same reason. And sometimes you may spot a small owl peering at you
from its hole halfway up the trunk of an old tree.
DESCRIPTION
Discussion Points
1.What are the images that you recall most vividly from the essays in this Reader?
Why do you think the author succeeded in making you visualise that image?
2.Do you think a nature writer should carry a camera, or does it interfere with
observation?
3.If you were to describe a tree, where would you begin - with the leaves, the trunk
or the roots?
4.In what ways is a nature writer different from a landscape painter, and how are they
similar?
5.In Jungle Lore, Jim Corbett literally takes you, his reader, on a walk through the
forests of the Terai. Is this an effective method of describing the forest? Why or why
not?
131
132
Writing Exercises
DEFINITION
1.Find a simple, natural object, like a leaf or a stone, and list as many physical
characteristics (colour, shape, size, etc.) as you can observe about that object. When
you have listed 10 different characteristics, exchange your object and list with
someone else in the class and try to observe 10 more characteristics about each
other’s object, which haven’t been listed already. Compare your lists after you finish.
Remember, you can pick the object up and turn it over.
2.Write a short paragraph of about 100 words describing the view from your bedroom
window. Do not use any adjectives or adverbs but try to make the description as
visual as possible through your choice of nouns and verbs, as well as similes and
metaphors.
3.Think of an imaginary bird or animal, like a dragon or a phoenix, then list 10
questions you would ask to help identify this species.
Discussion Points
1.How do you define the word ‘nature’? Can there be more than one definition?
2.How does a dictionary definition of the word ‘tiger’ differ from the way in which
K. Ullas Karanth defines a tiger in his essay ‘Why Save Tigers?’?
3.In what ways do common and scientific names define a species?
4.Why is it important for a nature writer to clearly and precisely define what he or
she describes? (For example: In ‘The Whistling Hunter’ why is it necessary for A.J.T.
Johnsingh to tell us that wild dogs have 40 teeth while domesticated dogs have 42?)
5.What are some common misinterpretations or misconceptions about nature that can
be corrected through a clear definition of facts?
Essay Topics
1.Go on a walk for 20 minutes, through a park or a forest, and explain the route you
followed by describing the different trees, plants, flowers and other natural objects
you observed. Your reader should be able to follow the same route by recognising
these natural landmarks.
2.Describe a specific kind of tree (neem, oak, peepal) from the perspective of a bird.
3.Describe a wild animal that you have observed in its natural habitat (it could be
a rhinoceros, a pangolin or a mongoose) and explain how it has adapted to this
environment both in terms of its physical characteristics and behavior.
Writing Exercises
1.Pick five different species of insects and define them each as a verb. Then use
each verb in a sentence. (For example, a ‘mosquito’. Definition: to move about in
an agitated manner while making an annoying buzzing noise. Sentence: My little
brother mosquitos around the house when he comes home from school.)
2.Define an environmental problem, beginning with a general subject and moving
to more specific consequences. (For example: Pollution - Industrial Effluents and
Sewage - Toxic Chemicals in the Ganga - Endangered Status of the Ganges River
Dolphin.)
3.Choose a familiar word related to nature (for example: evolution, conservation or
drought) and define it in a paragraph of about 100 words, using specific examples
from your knowledge, to help illustrate the word.
133
134
Essay Topics
CLASSIFICATION
1.Define an ocean, beginning with the general and moving to the specific.
2.Chose a reptile or amphibian and then describe or define it by telling your reader
what it isn’t rather than what it is. (For example, a cobra does not have wings or feet
and isn’t found above an altitude of 2,000 metres.)
3.Explain which phrase is a better definition - ‘Climate Change’ or ‘Global Warming’?
Discussion Points
1.What is the difference between the classification of species and the classification of
music videos from Bollywood films?
2.What categories does Salim Ali use to classify Himalayan birds? Would these be
similar to classifications for birds in the Alps or the Rocky Mountains?
3.If you were to classify the essays and extracts in this Reader, how would you
organise them into separate categories?
4.Classification is the direct result of observation. If you were to take field notes on
different species of butterflies, what characteristics would you focus on in order to
classify them?
5.Imagine that you have just discovered a new species of fish. How would you go
about classifying it and giving it a name?
Writing Exercises
1.During a half hour walk, list as many different natural objects or species that you
encounter. If you know the name write it down, or simply describe it in a few words
(for example: brown snail shell, or compound leaf with serrated edges). After you
finish your walk, sit down and reorganise your list into categories. Do some species
or objects fit in more than one category?
2.On a piece of notepaper, create three columns, each with a heading that denotes
a particular order of nature (i.e., mammals, birds, trees). Then list 10 species under
each heading. After completing your lists, number each of them according to which
are the most common species in India ( 1 = most common, 10 = rarest).
135
136
3.Using the categories of ‘Endangered,’ ‘Vulnerable,’ and ‘Least Threatened’ make
a list of birds and animals that you can identify, placing them under the appropriate
categories.
COMPARISION AND CONTRAST
Discussion Points
Essay Topics
1.The expression ‘Eco-Friendly’ has become a catchword for many different projects,
institutions and businesses, not all of which live up to the name. Write an essay
that evaluates the different ways in which ‘Eco-Friendly’ has been interpreted or
misinterpreted, giving specific examples.
2.If you knew that a catastrophe was about to occur on earth that would wipe out all
living creatures, and you had an opportunity to protect twelve different species to
repopulate our planet, which would you choose and why?
3.Recalling a journey you have taken, by bus, car or train, describe how the landscape,
including plants, trees, animals, birds, etc., changed as you travelled from one place
to another.
1.Is it easier to compare two animals that are virtually identical, such as a wild
buffalo and a domesticated buffalo, or to compare two very different animals, such
as a mouse and an elephant?
2.Choose five different species of reptiles and create metaphors for these by comparing
them to modern forms of transport or technology.
3.Over the past century, most of the forest cover in India has disappeared. How would
you compare the physical features (forests, rivers, mountains, etc.) on the map of
India from a hundred years ago to the same map today?
4.What are the similarities and differences between a park in a city and a natural
forest?
5.Ruskin Bond describes a number of different trees in his essay. How does he
compare and contrast these various species? Does he make his comparisons directly
or indirectly?
Writing Exercises
1.Take three different leaves and trace each of their outlines on a blank sheet of paper.
Then compare the different shapes, listing the characteristics that are similar and
those that are different.
2.Divide a sheet of paper into two columns. Then choose two seasons (winter, spring,
summer, monsoon or autumn) and write these at the top of each column. List the
differences that occur in your immediate environment, between these seasons. (For
example: if you chose winter and summer, you might write ‘short days’ for one and
‘long days’ for the other.)
137
138
NARRATION
3.Imagine what the Yeti or Abominable Snowman must be like and list all of the
differences and similarities between this unknown species and yourself.
Essay Topics
Discussion Points
1.Compare and contrast a live tiger in the forest to the skin, bones and teeth that are
recovered from poachers and smugglers.
2.Choose two of the essays in this reader and compare the subject, style and approach
that each author has taken. (The essays can be either similar or different but you
should describe what they have in common, as well as the differences between them.)
3.Choose three different species of animals, birds or insects and compare their life
cycles to the life cycle of human beings. Which of them lives the longest? How are
they born? How do they mature?
1.What are the elements in a good story that make it interesting and compelling?
What are the aspects of nature that make it an interesting and compelling subject?
2.If you were to write a film script based on a specific species or event in nature, what
story would you choose and why? What would make it visually exciting for your
viewers? How would you create suspense in your film? What would be the first and
last scenes in your film?
3.There are many nature shows on television. Do they tell true stories or are these
narratives adapted and changed to catch the interest of an audience? Are some
nature programs more realistic than others? Are viewers sometimes given the wrong
impressions about nature?
4.Billy Arjan Singh narrates the process by which he founded Dudhwa Sanctuary.
Why do you think he chose to tell us this story?
5.Which story would you rather tell, one about evolution, or one about extinction?
Why?
Writing Exercises
1.Verbally describe an event in your life, which could be titled ‘Me vs Nature’. Take
no more than five minutes to tell this story. Then ask your audience: Did they believe
you? What was missing? Are you the hero in the story or the villain? How different
would it be if you had written it down instead of telling the story?
2.Most stories have a beginning, a middle and an end? If you were to pick an
environmental problem or crisis (i.e., the presence of domesticated cows and buffaloes
in wildlife sanctuaries or illegal quarries in the Aravalli Range), what would be the
139
140
PERSUASION
beginning, middle and end of your story?
3.Describe a fictional character who interacts with nature (for example: a woodcutter,
an ornithologist, a scuba diver). List everything you can about this person - appearance,
motives, emotions, relationships, education, morals, etc. Then decide which aspect
of this character would be revealed at the beginning of a story, and what would you
save until the end.
Essay Topics
1.Write a hunting story from the perspective of an animal that is being pursued by a
poacher?
2.Write a story about water. You can choose whatever types of water it might contain
- glacial melt, salt water in the Bay of Bengal, rain, floods, etc. Remember, the
challenge will be to hold your readers’ attention and make them want to keep reading
until the end.
3.Write a science-fiction story in which human beings face extinction, while other
species on earth survive.
Discussion Points
1.When presenting issues about conserving nature, which is a better medium for
debate: public speaking or writing? What are the advantages and disadvantages of
the spoken and written word, when it comes to presenting an argument?
2.When you are writing a persuasive essay about a topic like the construction of
large dams, how do include facts that might contradict your argument? (For example:
A dam may have displaced 25,000 people who were living in the forest without
electricity or running water, but it now provides electricity and regular water supply
for 500,000 people, including those who were displaced.)
3.What are the kinds of visual images that convince or persuade you on a controversial
subject? (For example: Does a photograph of baby elephant make you want to protect
that species, or a photograph of an adult elephant that has been electrocuted by
villagers protecting their fields?)
4.Madhusudan Katti’s essay ‘Are Warblers Less Important than Tigers?’ argues in
favor of studying and protecting even the least flamboyant species. Do you think the
question posed in the title is effective? Would it have been more convincing if the
author had chosen to compare peacocks to tigers, rather than warblers?
5.Would the world be a better place if certain species were exterminated? Head Lice?
Sharks?
Writing Exercises
1.Pick five controversial topics related to nature and express each problem in the
form of a question, which can either be supported or refuted. Which side of the issue
would you want to argue? Which would be easier or more difficult to defend?
141
142
2.Choose three different kinds of readers (for example: a 10 year old student, a
Supreme Court justice, a field biologist). Then decide on a subject that you will
debate (for example: banning petrol and diesel in favour of CNG, for all transport
vehicles in India). Create three separate columns for each potential reader, then list
the elements of your argument that would be most convincing for each.
AUTHORS
3.Natural disasters, like tsunamis or earthquakes, cannot be blamed on man. However,
list 10 precautions that human beings can take to reduce the consequences of these
events.
Essay Topics
1.Agree or disagree with this statement: Zoos are essential for the survival of wild
animals.
2.Forest dwellers, who have lived in the jungles of India for generations, often have
traditional knowledge about medicinal plants. Should they be allowed to collect and
market these plants from inside the boundaries of a protected forest?
3.Write a satirical story about how you would track down the worst environmental
offenders by following their carbon footprints?
Bill Aitken is Scottish by birth, a naturalized Indian by choice. He studied
comparative religion at Leeds University and then hitch-hiked to India in 1959. He
has lived in Himalayan ashrams, worked as secretary to a Maharani, freelanced under
his middle name (Liam McKay) and undertaken miscellaneous excurisions – from
Nanda Devi to Sabarimala. Aitken has written on travel and tourism for newspapers
and magazines in India and abroad. His books include The Nanda Devi Affair, Seven
Sacred Rivers and Travels by a Lesser Line.
Salim Ali (1896 – 1987) was India’s preeminent ornithologist and naturalist.
Known as the “birdman of India”, Salim Ali was among the first Indians to conduct
systematic bird surveys across India and his bird books helped motivate a scientific
approach to natural history and conservation. He became the key figure behind
the Bombay Natural History Society after 1947 and used his personal influence to
garner government support for the organization, create the Bharatpur bird sanctuary
(Keoladeo National Park) and prevent the destruction of what is now the Silent
Valley National Park. He was awarded India’s second highest civilian honour, the
Padma Vibhushan in 1976.
143
144
Prerna Singh Bindra is one of India’s leading environmental journalists and travel
writers. She has worked for various newspapers and magazines such as The Pioneer and
Darpan, where she has documented the ongoing crisis of India’s wildlife. Her books
include The King and I: Travels in Tigerland.
Ruskin Bond was born in Kasauli and grew up in Dehradun and Shimla. His first
novel Room on the Roof received the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize in 1957.
Since then he has written over thirty books for children, as well as a hundred short
stories, essays and novellas including Vagrants in the Valley and Flight of Pigeons. In
1992 he received the Sahitya Akademi Award for English writing in India. Ruskin Bond
lives with his adopted family in Mussoorie.
Jim Corbett (1875-1955) was born in Nainital and lived and worked in India until
1947. For twenty years he was employed as a contractor with the Indian railways and
served in both World Wars, training soldiers in jungle warfare and survival. His first
passion was the forests of India and he became a celebrated hunter and naturalist, best
known for killing man-eating tigers and leopards but also recognized as one of the
foremost authorities on Indian wildlife. Corbett began writing late in life and published
a number of books describing his experiences in the jungle, including Man-Eaters of
Kumaon, Jungle Lore and My India.
Anita Desai was born and educated in India. She now lives in the United States where
she is professor emeritus at MIT. She has received numerous awards for her fiction,
which includes the novels Baumgartner’s Bombay, Clear Light of Day, Fasting,Feasting,
and The Zig ZagWay. Her most recent book is a collection of three novellas, The Artist
of Disappearance.
A.J.T. Johnsingh retired as Dean, Faculty of Wildlife Sciences, Wildlife Institute of
India. He has written widely on wildlife, including the book On Jim Corbett’s Trail. He
has been given the 2004 Distinguished Service Award for Government by the Society for
Conservation Biology, which publishes the prestigious journal Conservation Biology.
K. Ullas Karanth is a Senior Conservation Scientist with the New York-based
Wildlife Conservation Society and the Director of its Indian Programme. He is a
Scientific Fellow of the Zoological Society of London and serves on the boards of WWFIndia and the Ranthambhore Foundations. His research findings have been published
145
in many reputed scientific journals in India and abroad. His books include The Way of
the Tiger and A View From The Machan. He was awarded the prestigious J. Paul Getty
Award for Conservation Leadership in 2007.
Madhusudan Katti is an evolutionary ecologist who discovered birds as an
undergraduate after growing up a nature-oblivious urban kid near Bombay. As a
graduate student at the Wildlife Institute of India and the University of California, Sand
Diego, he went chasing after vanishing wildernesses and returned to the city grown up
as a reconciliation ecologist! He studies ecological and evolutionary processes in more
or less human dominated ecosystems with the goal of applying our understanding of
these processes towards reconciling biodiversity conservation with human development.
He holds a position as an Associate Professor of Vertebrate Ecology in California State
University, Fresno.
M. Krishnan (1913-1996) was an environmentalist, photographer, artist, literary
scholar and essayist. Through carefully crafted images and words, he explored wildlife
and ecology with precision, insight and humour. Most of his photographs and writing
appeared in popular magazines and newspapers such as The Statesman and The Illustrated
Weekly of India. He published two books Jungles and Backyard and Nights and Days.
Some of M. Krishnan’s most memorable writings were collected posthumously in
Nature’s Spokesman: M. Krishnan and Indian Wildlife edited by Ramachandra Guha.
Dhriti K. Lahiri-Choudhury was Professor and Head, Department of English,
Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta. In his parallel life as an elephant specialist,
he is a member of the Asian Elephant Specialist Group of the International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN). He was a member of the task force outlining India’s
‘Project Elephant,’ and, later, its coordinator for eastern and north-eastern India. His
published work on elephants includes The Great Indian Elephant Book and Hathi O
Banjangaler Katha.
Anuradha Roy was educated in Calcutta and Cambridge. She has worked as
a publisher and a journalist and is now an editor at Permanent Black. She was the
winner of the Picador-Outlook Non-fiction Prize in 2004 and her first novel, An Atlas
of Impossible Longing, was shortlisted for the Crossword Prize. Her second novel, The
Folded Earth, was published in 2011.
146
Billy Arjan Singh (1917 – 2010) was a hunter turned conservationist and an
author of books on wildlife. After serving in the Indian army, he acquired forested
tracts of land in the Terai region bordering Nepal and settled down to a life of farming
and wildlife preservation. At Tiger Haven, his estate bordering Dudhwa National
Park, Billy Arjan Singh experimented with reintroducing captive tigers and leopards
into the wild. In 1976, he was awarded the World Wildlife Fund’s Gold Medal, for
his conservation work, which included the creation of Dudhwa National Park.
Stephen Alter is the author of fifteen books of fiction and non-fiction. His nature
writing includes Sacred Waters: A Pilgrimage to the Many Sources of the Ganga and
Elephas Maximus: A Portrait of the Indian Elephant. As a writer-in-residence, he
has taught creative writing for more than eighteen years, at the East West Center in
Honololu, Hawaii, the American University in Cairo, Egypt and at MIT in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. He has received Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships. Founding
director of Mussoorie Writers, Stephen Alter was born in Mussoorie, India, where he
now lives and writes. For further details see www.mussooriewriters.com
(Sources for Authors Notes include publisher’s biographies and Wikipedia entries)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to Maninder Kohli of the Himalayan Environment Trust for his
enthusiastic assistance and support for this publication.
The editor wishes to thank Ravi Singh, Secretary General and CEO of WWF-India
and Mita Nangia Goswami, Director of Environment Education at WWF-India, Dr.
Jonathan Long, Principal of Woodstock School, K.Krishnan Kutty, Director, Hanifl
Centre for Outdoor and Environmental Study, and Winterline Foundation for their
support of this and related projects.
Permission to reprint the following essays and extracts is gratefully acknowledged.
“Outdoors” by Anita Desai from The Artist of Disappearance pp. 101-103.
Reproduced by permission of the author.
“Five Encounters” by M. Krishnan from Nature’s Spokesman. pp. 73-81.
Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press, New Delhi.
“Are Warblers Less Important Than Tigers?” by Madhusudan Katti. Reproduced by
permission of the author.
“The Whistling Hunter” by A.J.T. Johnsingh from On Jim Corbett’s Trail pp. 30-49.
Reproduced by permission of Permanent Black, New Delhi.
“From The Folded Earth” by Anuradha Roy from The Folded Earth pp. 16-17.
Reproduced by permission of Hachette India, New Delhi.
“Why Save Tigers?” by K. Ullas Karanth from The Way Of The Tiger pp. 1-7.
Reproduced by permission of Universities Presses, Hyderabad.
“Escape From The Sanctuary” by Bill Aitken from The Nanda Devi Affair pp. 5058. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books India, New Delhi.
147
148
“The Saga of Harjit” by Dhriti K. Lahiri-Choudhury from A Trunk Full of Tales
pp. 46-50. Reproduced by permission of Permanent Black, New Delhi.
NOTES
“The Enchanted Forest” by Prerna Singh Bindra from The King and I pp. 80-87.
Reproduced by permission of Rupa Books, New Delhi.
“Jungle Lore” by Jim Corbett from The Second Jim Corbett Omnibus, pp.137- 162.
Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press India, New Delhi.
“The Himalaya in Indian Ornithology” by Salim Ali from A Bird’s Eye View pp.
156-176. Reproduced by permission of Permanent Black, New Delhi.
“Establishing the Sanctuary” by Billy Arjan Singh from Watching India’s Wildlife,
pp. 23- 32. Reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press India, New
Delhi.
“Trees” by Ruskin Bond from Ruskin Bond’s Book of Nature pp.120-138.
Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books, India, New Delhi.
The illustrations were reproduced from the publications below:
Sterndale, Robert A. A Natural History of the Mammals of India and Ceylon.
London: W. Thacker & Co. 1884 (Reproduced for Project Guttenberg by Ron
Swanson): Front cover, pp. 1, 13, 23, 28, 43, 50, 61, 73, 109, 132 and 144.
Whistler, H.Popular Handbook of Indian Birds. London: Gurney and Jackson,
1935: Title page, pp. 11, 40, 66, 90, 120 and Back cover.
149
150
NOTES
151