We Need a Hero

"At least a lakh," I heard a voice behind me as I stood staring in wonder at the African elephant in front of me in the zoo we were visiting. I frowned. Was he estimating the cost of acquiring this huge, majestic guest from abroad? Was he calculating the transportation charges? Was he... As is if in reply to the questions in my mind, I heard him tell his companions, "Look at the length of the tusks. At least a lakh," he repeated sounding knowledgable.

It made me shudder. It was obscene - this assessment. Is that the only thing that caught the man's eye? Look at the way the tusker communicated with her companion - yes, it was a she, as we discovered by the love-play between her and the smaller elephant in the huge pen. It held me fascinated so much that I was loathe to leave.

But that's the sad fate of our wild animals. They are assessed only for what money they will fetch. A film by Shekar Dattatri - The Truth about Tigers - was screened at the Jungle Lodges Resort we were staying in. The pictures of animals killed mercilessly were ugly. The picture for wildlife in our country was ugly. The money they fetched was the sole reason for this heartlessness. It was like raping a woman and killing her - worse, it was like raping your own mother. Not just tigers - the elephants too. And in reverse order. Kill first, loot next.

The film also said that things were looking up. That the tigers have been brought back from the brink of extinction - thanks to individuals who have struggled against indifferent government attitude. But today, hopefully more sense prevails. The JLR itself has people who seem passionate about nature and preserving it. It is a beautiful way to alert us to our assets - no, not in the value they fetch, but the beauty and the delicate cycle they help balance. Forests have been revived and space provided for the wild animals to roam freely. Of course, some tourists seem to think that the animals are for their pleasure - making noise, carrying cell phones despite warning... But that's for another time.

The image of the men who were caught and what they had to say does not go away. Maybe because for me these images - not for the first time, of course - came at a time when the nation is boiling over about the rape of a young woman in Delhi and her death. The rape of the woman and the country only seem to reflect the apathy and indifference we have developed over the years. So long as it is not in our backyard, not affecting us, then why bother - till now, this seemed to be our thinking. This has given the authorities enough reason to become slack because we have ignored several other wake up calls, or sunken back to the stupor of routine. Corruption festers because there is no citizen action, no citizen group, no powerful vigilant body that acts as one. We hear of one or two bureacrats who clean up systems and feel everything is fine with the world. We don't even realise when the system relapses to old ways, when the bureacrat retires and another one comes in his place with more - maybe not corrupt - but complacent view of life. We do not have fire in our bellies.

To rouse us up, we not only need victims who evoke anger, but leaders who show us the way. I am willing to fight, but I don't know where to begin. I am scared too, of stirring up hornet's nests for I value my life. But if I knew others believe like me and will guard my back as I guard theirs, taking that step forward will be that much easier.

What we need today is a leader who will shake up, persist and disrupt.

A Place Under the Sun

A small stretch of water body, a few thousand fish, a handful of trees, and millions of birds traveling across the continents to reach here. To compete for food, for space to roost in... Even in the crowd, they do not lose each other. When it is time to fly, they instinctively flock together - not confusing their bretheren with the others. What purpose do they serve? Why so many varieties if the purpose is the same? Why all in one place?

As I grapple with these thoughts, I wonder if man's knowing or not knowing the answers to these questions matter even a wee bit to them. What matters more is when out of ignorance, he destroys their habitat, hunts them for their meat and kills them.

We may not know what purpose they served. But if we lose them, we may never know what more we lost in the bargain.

Green with Joy

How can green be the colour of envy?!

A late bloomer, I have only now dared to have something more than tulsi in my balcony. First a friend's photos of the flowers on her windowsill used to have me longing for blooms of my own. But I didn't think I quite had the green thumb. Then another friend put up photos and now that my kids are older, I started thinking, why not.

Today I have a few - not many, but just enough to fill my heart with contentment. Each new leaf brings joy over the fact that the plant survived another day and will survive another fills the heart with a pleasure that can only be compared to watching your children achieve the milestones. One variety, which my maid calls patrose, blooms almost everyday and each morning, the sight of the three different colours that burst forth in the pot makes me hum. As the regular rose burst forth in new leaves, I detect small buds that I am waiting will bloom. The hibiscus came with a bud that withered. But now I detect a few in the plant as I examine it closely. My jasmine stopped awhile, but new leaves are erupting forth...


Imagine having a garden full of plants and trees, a street full of them, a world filled with greenery... Can we reverse the trend and work towards increasing the world's green cover? It can only give joy, isn't it? Do we have the heart to relish it?

May Not Bee

So, we know it stings. Many of us are scared to cross a beehive because we expect the bees to just get a whiff of our body odour and rush at us, their' stings ready - 'Tom and Jerry' style. We love honey, but we are glad it is someone else who collects it from the honeycombs up the trees...

And then newspapers tell us, no, the bottled honey with a nice brand name is really not from the natural honeycombs in wild areas. Care to guess why? Because maybe there aren't so many beehives left in the wilderness in the first place! So these are box honey - bees bred in boxes, given jaggery water, and the honey nothing more than sugar syrup - coloured right, of course! Let's not even mention the antibiotics in that honey, making it more harmful than good. Being a regular honey user, this has really left me in a dilemma. Should I or shouldn't I?

But this is not the only cause for worry, it seems!

By divine grace, or curse, I was drawn into a street play. The grace or curse is not in being drawn into it. It was a pleasure all along, mixing what little I know of dance, with four others, to merge with a 20-minute street play on bees.

The grace/curse was to be the bee. To  lose my way back to the comb because of the vibrations caused by all the towers set up by human beings that confuse me. To suck in pesticides as I draw nectar from flowers, develop illnesses and stay away deliberately so as not to infect my brethren too. To be the queen bee that waits for her slaves eagerly so that the honey may be made, only to be disappointed at their not returning home.

Apparently the bees are needed to pollinate certain specific plants/trees like apple. In China, it seems, because there are not enough bees to perform this job, human beings use cotton for the process.

Is this a curse or a grace, to be part of a species that only seems bent on destroying everything around it for satisfying its insatiable thirst for 'development'?

Is it a curse or a grace to be made aware of how even the tiny bee is not spared in our march to progress.

How Green Was My Valley

There were trees and bushes; deer and snakes; mongoose and squirrels; woodpeckers and kingfishers.

Today, there is only cement and mortar; dust and noise; destruction and construction.

I lament the day I discovered this rich greenery in my backyard, for it means losing it to growing human needs for space. There is room for a mall, a petrol bunk, a commercial complex, a five-star hotel. But for greenery and nature, there is none. We are growing, and the mark of growth is more high rises, bigger vehicles, more greed.

Gone today are the varied bird sounds that I had grown to love and recognise. The treepie, the flycatcher, the woodpecker, the kingfisher - they cannot bear the sound of the crane and the road-roller as the demons destroy their habitat. Of the snake, I have no news. Even a pig cannot stay here, even if she is pregnant. The deer? I hope they are safe.

My only hope, that maybe, when all this stops and the dust settles, the birds at least will return.

I fear they may like to forget this nightmare and never return.

Conflict

Xenophobia, conflict with nature's creations... They are unique to mankind, right?

Wrong!

A raven and a pigeon got into a fight. The raven, bigger and more powerful, overpowered and would have poked the pigeon to death if a man hadn't come running to chase it away.

A bunch of mynas picked up a fight with each other. Well, we know what the reason is :D

Snake - let it slither out of its hole and the parrots set up a racket, even daring to take a peck at it to chase it away!

Squirrels, awww... the sweet things... Hmm... Aggressively ready to take the snake head on!

But no birdies and chweetie pies. Man still takes the cake. You only kill in ones and twos, for food, for security. We do it for pleasure, on a mass scale!

The Fish Balance

As we entered the stretch of road on Pulicat Lake, we saw these egrets waiting patiently for fish. The sight was beautiful, the birds eagerly watching the direction of the breeze which promised more food.

But man was smarter, and fishing at a spot ahead of the egrets. "If both fish, will there be enough fish left for either?" my daughter asked. What she knows, why doesn't a grown man also know and understand, 

I wondered. The natural food balance was so seriously being affected. The birds came only for the fish. And man tried to outwit them!

To top it, the traffic on the road, though sparse, was noisy. Horns blared loudly while my husband and I tried to shush our children to silence. The high speeding vehicles tore through the wind, scaring even us humans!

And then, I noticed the men and the women. Tired, hardworking, with hopes of making a few bucks from their catch to meet their ends meet. This man on the right had pulled that makeshift boat almost for two to three kilometers in knee-deep water. No pleasant job that.

Who am I to ride the moral high horse?

How do we strike the fine balance between need for survival of the birds, the man, and - well - the fish!