yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Mumi could not quite accept the fact, during initial days, that Agraa did not have a phone and wondered why I had to move to such a place. I then had to travel to Vijaypur on our Rajdoots about 18 kms and we talked about once in 10 days. Mukesh, the PCO owner, became a friend over the 2 years! My love for bike rides there I would dwell on some other time.  Move to Baghmara took place sometime during 2004 and it was funnier. I could not call the land lines in Gujarat for they were locked; mumi however could call me up. I did talk to the district BSNL head and got to know that along with locking Jammu and Kashmir the department had ended locking up calls to Gujarat as well! I recall the person at BSF run PCO telling me ' bhaisaab kahan transfer ho gaya aap ka '. Yes the Border Security Force also ran a PCO besides illegally logging the Baghmara Reserve Forest! Many a times when mumi called ( i.e. when the phone worked ) she could hear more of the rain on tin roof as o...

One late December evening we returned to our base at Saiha. The morning next as we shuffled between resting and getting the base in order we saw moths having taken over the place. One, two and the count went up till 18 different species or should I say differently appearing moths as I walked around the place. Fatigue of 14 hour sumo ride of the earlier day vanished and I was climbing tables and chairs to click their images.  Some on the ground and some up near the tube-light. It was as if we had let out the place to them for the three weeks that we were out.  It appears as mind boggling now as it was then!  My awareness on moths then was at best pathetic and I was keen to know of them! There hasn't been any significant change in my awareness levels since then either. Attempts to get help with identification proved difficult. Responses ranged from 'I know only butterflies and not moths' to 'email silences' and I gave up after a while. Getting in touch with Gee...

Initial interactions had team-members (conservation education team) share of their activities and me ask them questions. These would help me understand the program (including people associated) and would be pertinent given that   the team, language and landscape were fresh for me! (We had a discussion on my asking questions including my saying that I quite like doing so and have been told I overdo it at times; but that I will skip for now). Next I shared briefly my journey with conservation education.  I looked at partners and activities; how I had learnt from experiences and as a corollary affected revision. One of the activities, film-screening, we delved on at length. This consisted of our seeing the film Sekhar Dattatri’s “ Save our Sholas ”, team dividing into 2 groups and discussing how it could be ‘shown’ in the 2 different settings team works in and ended with me sharing of how we used to screen films. Team presentations were interesting and suggestions o...

Picked up ' Gulbadan' from a 'Book Sale' on account of love for history and interesting cover besides the tone of the author in the initial pages; she translates the name to 'rose-body'. Gulbadan was the youngest daughter of Babur, first Mughal emperor of India and lived almost through three reigns: her father Babur’s, her brother Humayun’s and her nephew Akbar’s, till two years of his death. This I find interesting on account of my interest in wildlife; recent reading of Valmik Thapar's Exotic Aliens : The Lion and The Cheetah in India  brought forth the clear distinction between 'maintained forests' and 'natural wilderness' during those times! As Akbar grew older and the Empire more settled, hunting took the place of battles; it, too, was cruel. Hundreds of soldiers would surround some chosen miles of jungle and gradually beat inwards, driving the animals until they were in a vast net. The Emperor went in first to take his...

As Pankaj (Sekhsaria) and I continued out telephonic chats over the book ( Protected Area (PA) Update – A Compilation ) we discussed how we would break the monotony and make the book interesting. The book, in the first section, moves from one state to another; each of the states was to have information collated from the PA Update. We felt the need to bring in an introduction of sorts to the state. List of PAs was needed but stand-alone it appeared somewhat dry and the pieces (which form the second section) were out of contention since a healthy number focused on the ‘region’ as opposed to a state in particular. A sketch map for each state was agreed upon and then we also decided to cull in ‘historical pieces’ for each state. Together these three (sketch map, list of PAs and the historical piece) would ‘begin’ each state in the book. While the word-limit that we agreed to made me feel, at times,  I was doing anything but justice to the piece I loved put in many an afternoon g...

Lion centric debates, in recent weeks, have been triggered by the Supreme Court verdict that could finally see lions in Kuno (Sheopur) and Valmik Thapar's "Exotic Aliens : The Lion and the Cheetah in India" which questions these two species as ever having been local. During a recent trip to Nagaland I came across both Lions and Tigers on the walls; while Tigers occur in the state the presence of Lions (on the walls) was surprising for sure! Share some images below ~ These are from the Tourist Lodge at Ungma (Mokokchung) These from a hotel in Mokokchung  And these from 2 separate villages in Zunheboto  (miss the names now and dont want to postpone the post) R A Lorrain's 1912 classic '5 Years in Unknown Jungles' mentions lions in south Mizoram; look forward to interesting readings and interactions on Nagaland!

Memories from the past  Share fun and energy of Bal Mela we organized during 2004 at. This was at Samrakshan's Agraa field base  in Sheopur, Madhya Pradesh.  Bal Mela : February 2004  Once the date for the Bal Mela was finalized, during the month of January things started falling into place and everyone in the team began chipping in with their efforts, individually as well as through weekly meetings. The way we perceived it, the Bal Mela this year was to be a litmus test for the dictum "how we do a task is more important that what result we bring out from it". To put this belief into practice, we tried to ensure that a large part of the arrangements for the event were taken care of by the teachers and the village level workers. The  role of the Samrakshan coordinators was  limited to tying the loose ends and overall coordination. It was really invigorating to see the village level workers and teachers allocate responsibilities among them...

We started with a film . This would keep boredom at bay for participants who had arrived on-time as also help lay a platform for further discussions. The film " A Hunter's Tale ", that I have facilitated screenings earlier too,  held the participant's interest ~  Some of the participants then got on to identifying species in the field-guides. As we wondered on how Hoolock Gibbon and Hornbills were charismatic species from participant's perspective as well, it dawned on us that only the elders were then vocal! On asking the young participants we got to know that none of them had seen either Hoolock Gibbons ( Ashuai)  or Hornbills ~ As the participants arrived we moved on to Prayer and Introduction by the Nanga Greener Zone (NGZ) Committee; Governing body of Community Conserved Area (CCA) that spans 14 Sema villages ~ Participants had questions for us as well as the Committee. These ranged from whether GPS units would be provided for each village ...

This happened one February 2013 day near the Bansbari gate :  Manas National Park (Assam) ~ Civet ~ In the evening as we ( Yaranajit, Kamal and I ) sat discussing in the hotel lawns one of the hotel staff came to ask if we had a camera – there was a kind of wild cat around the place where fire-wood was stored. As we walked in the direction we saw one of the staff tap the firewood stock with a bamboo taller than the tallest amongst us. This could have scared the mammal, encouraging it to hide. Couple of minutes later a domestic dog sensed something ‘wrong’ and arrived at the scene to announce his loud presence. This could have resulted in the fear of the hiding personality crossing its tipping point and we saw a scared Large Indian Civet ( Viverra zibetha ) take tentative steps from behind the firewood. Before we could see it for a brief while and admire its beauty the blessed dog got into action and started chasing it. Startled, not knowing what else to do, I ran after ...

Driving down a forested lane:  Elephants and other memories of the Garo Hills. This piece is published in The State of Wildlife In Northeast India (1996 - 2011) : A Compilation of News from the Protected Area Update . My bike stopped at the very place it used to then. I would either have to push it a little or kick-start it to reach the next turn from where Panda was downhill. Panda lies on the India – Bangladesh border in South Garo Hills and abuts the Baghmara Reserve Forest (BRF). As I drove on I relived moments from my three year (2004 - 2007) stint in the landscape; some of which I happily share below. The Garo Hills Landscape I was at Baghmara after a hiatus to review the efforts at Samrakshan and my only condition was that I would take a day off to drive around with a bike. Samrakshan Trust is based at Baghmara and works towards conserving biodiversity values in an equitable and just manner. The Garo hills along the India-Bangladesh border are compris...