The real deal

When the Gujarati grandmom, a fellow tourist on the Sunderban Tiger Reserve launch, the MV Chitrarekha which was both our Tiger Reserve hotel and Tiger Reserve vehicle, yelled a shrill "Tiger!" at 7:05 AM on the morning of the 14th of November, 2010, I had very good reasons not to feel excited. The previous day had already seen overexcited eyes identifying a herd of Chital deer and a sauntering, casual wild boar as the big sighting, a dream which I unfortunately had to puncture via the 10X optical zoom digital camera borrowed from a friend for this trip. The feeling of being inside a jungle was tremendous in itself but hallucinations were not to be encouraged. Nonetheless I moved quickly to the starboard (right) side of the vessel and looked in the direction her shaking finger was pointing to because like everyone else who was making this trip or had done so in the past, a question loomed large over my head. What if?

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I was lucky not to be completely pessimistic on this occasion because what I saw was too far away to tell how big it was, but it doesn't take too much to tell the distinctive coat coloured in a combination of black and gold. At the edge of the water in one of the many narrow water channels that we had seen in this thick jungle leading off from the main channel through which our big launch was plowing, stood the top predator of the jungle casually looking at us. The top deck was nearly empty but for about 10 odd people as the few people who had groggily woken up for the sunrise had gone back down to their beds. The launch was well past the channel where the animal stood and I got only a 5 second look at it before we lost sight of it.

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The launch was too big to brake to a sudden halt and turning it around would generate so much engine noise that the creature would be scared off anyway. So the pleas to the launch's Captain to turn around by those who had missed it fell on deaf ears and the vessel chugged on. That would be the only glimpse of the Royal Bengal tiger that we would get on this vessel in this trip, rare as it is to spot a tiger from a launch in the Sunderbans.

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All of the mystery, all of the fear, all of the awe of being in a jungle stemmed out of the presence of this one creature and the fervent hope of seeing it in its full wild glory. I hardly saw it for those few seconds with concentration as my heart was working overtime and my eyes analyzed the possibilities before agreeing on the obvious. By the time my brain was ready to make a decision, the visual link was lost.

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It was there. Like a ghost, like a myth, like a legend - its existence believable and valuable to only those who had set eyes on it and those young at heart. Everyone knows that the Sunderbans are teeming with tigers; everyone knows that the terrain is the most unsuitable for viewing a tiger and the chances of seeing one are close to nil yet so many are still willing to take that slimmest of chances. I took that chance and fate favoured me. I almost felt happy that I did not find time enough to take a picture to show the world and thankfully neither did the few who spotted it. Having all its mystique reduced to a piddly concrete JPEG image on my desktop is not how I would like to remember my first encounter with a tiger in the wild. It still stalks the jungles of my imagination, elusive, powerful and majestic. It was no coincidence that the date was the 14th of November, the day that India celebrates as Children's Day. Save the tiger not just for the environment, not just for the future generations and not just for the integral place it holds in our culture. Save the tiger because it keeps that child of adventure and wonder inside us all alive.

An audience with the king

Image by Douglas Brown via Flickr

Tomorrow I set out for a trip into the most heavily populated tiger sanctuary in the world... both in terms of people and in terms of tigers. 274 odd Royal Bengal tigers inhabit the Indian portion of the forests of Sundarbans but oddly enough, it is the place where all around the year the chances of spotting a tiger are the least. The thick mangrove vegetation of the Sundarbans (the picture above is of the Siberian tiger not the Royal Bengal tiger, hence all that snow) with narrow channels of water where the tourist launches cannot go (Too swampy for jeeps and elephants the terrain happens to be) is just one of the reasons why it's so difficult to spot them. The other reason is that the tigers of the Sundarbans have a knack for wilyness and carry a nasty reputation of being scientifically acknowledged man-hunters! Nowhere else, does the tiger have to come across so many human beings in his domain and likewise nowhere else is a tiger attack more common.

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Then there's the mystique of the animal. The powerful, graceful top of the food chain predator commands respect even in our imagination, let alone when it growls imperiously in its own domain of the wild. To be able to see it very frequently would ruin its powerful grip on our thoughts as we cruise wide-eyed through the water channels in search of a fleeting glimpse of the yellow and black coat. In the midst of his vast kingdom, we would be praying that the king will grant us audience.

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This, being November, is not at all the season for tiger-spotting, our tour operators have already told us. In the summers, when the heat brings out the tiger for a drink to the water's edge is our slim but best chance of spotting one. But I am going now in the off-season so to speak and they say there are lots of other creatures to see including a personal favourite monster of mine, the estuarine crocodile (the salt water crocodile) which regularly grows 20 feet long and is also a known man-eater. To add to that there is the hair-standing-on-end thrill of being in a jungle, with the safety and security of urban civilization only distant dreams. 

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If we do not come across a tiger, as is the most likely outcome, it will only be a re-affirmation that out in the depths of the forest, we are his subjects, and subject to his powers and not vice versa. Will I be happy if I spot a tiger in the Sundarbans? Will I be unhappy if I spot a tiger in the Sundarbans? The answer to both those questions (subject to the master hunter not coming too close for comfort as in this video from Kaziranga: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4SqXl9Zj6k) is a paradoxical yes.

Doomed to gloom

Image by TW Collins via Flickr

Long-due sympathy for a certain Ms. Roy

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The link below leads to an statement by Arundhati Roy only 3 paragraphs long so even if your concentration span has been reduced to one of a demented puppy thanks to guaranteed IQ evaporators like Twitter, this is something you should be able to plow through. This is as close to Twitter that Arundhati Roy is ever going to get. Thankfully no 160 character rants from her yet!

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"I write this from Srinagar, Kashmir. This morning's papers say that I may be arrested on charges of sedition for what I have said at recent public meetings on Kashmir..."

[http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?267656]

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Thereby begins Arundhati's 'post' from Srinagar. Look at me and worship my courage, it says in not so many words. Me the tragic heroine in yet another underdog's cause, abandoning all concern for personal safety and comfort, fighting for what is the 'one and true certified inarguable whole-and-soul, white as white comes, no greys, browns or blacks' version of right, the voluntary 'Take me, I am here' martyr a-la the new Che Guevara under the constant glare and sniper focus of Big Government, Big Corporation and Loony Right Wingers. No wonder Sergei Nechaev from Hamilton, Bahamas comments on the same article "in homage to a fearless & heroic writer of staggering talent and insight. If there were ten others like her the world would be a very different place. But there aren't." Like him, there are way too many people completely sold on the legend.

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What title can I possibly attach to her name which someone else has not already? 'Defender of the weak', 'Secret agent of the Vatican', 'The last hope of humanity and feminism', 'Anti-national', 'The most articulate voice of dissent', 'Pathological attention seeker' are just a sampling of the thousands of nominations/accusations being bandied around. I think I'll add another... 'Clinically depressed', for her life is so full of sadness and only sadness.

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Come to think of it, there is so much real injustice in this world that no one has any right to be happy before they are all solved. I had a Che Guevara poster in my college hostel room which said "Always be capable of feeling any injustice committed against anybody anywhere in the world." Arundhati Roy, I believe, may have taken this directive too much to heart. Which issue of injustice is more important than the other is a very very tough call to make. So many issues, so little time. No wonder this lady is quite so bonkers.

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The issues which she takes up are all very real and so it is difficult to resist reading her immaculately composed articles. But in the middle of a few good paragraphs of what is wrong with my country, while I am finding myself in mild agreement, she wrecks it all by going [Faking a quote here but read any of her articles and you'll find one version of this quote of her's in all her articles] "India is a failed nation meant only for the Hindu, upper-caste and class. Period... shobbie doobie doo" or while touching upon some truly ridiculous sections of the Indian Constitution, she ruins it by going [Fake quote again] "All said and done, the Indian Constitution is a document that has never worked for anybody... rum te tum!" And from her standard bag of literary tricks, she will also hoarsely whisper to the reader [Fake but real quote number 3] "Read my article for this may be my last. The CM/PM/capitalist monsters/powers-that-be have marked me for destruction. Ooooh!" and you can almost see her smiling when she says [Fake but real quote number 4] "In a weird kind of way, the Maoists/tribals/militants/protestors are the upholders of the Constitution while the powers-that-be trample the ideals enshrined in this all-of-a-sudden-highly-valued document. Take that!"

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The essential difference between speaking for a subjugated people and speaking like a subjugated people eludes her. As a visiting observer, you cannot claim to have felt as outraged as the victims themselves and if you make such a claim, your double standards will be exposed for all that are sane to see. The benefits of voicing their opinion to the outside world are completely lost if you speak the same warped language of one-sidedness and rhetoric as in their case, they may have valid reasons for feeling so but not you. It's the same India and largely capitalistic world that gave you a childhood, an education and a thinking mind to analyze the world as it is the same India that gives you a national platform to air these views. No one is asking you to sugar-coat the truth but is it too much to acknowledge that the matter is much more than a simple case of black-and-white. But Ms. Roy insists on being vehemently sad and making others feel likewise too. All she ends up doing is pooling a general mistrust, cynicism and bigoted hatred not only for herself but also the causes she espouses almost dooming them to failure.

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The ultra-nationalistic (read extremely stupid, extremely intolerant, extremely violent, fundamentalist and corrupt) elements that keep promising to bring her to 'appropriate out-of-court' justice need to take a hike. Neither do we really need to jail her. Arresting her under the Sedition Act would only make her and her followers swell up in pride as the Act used by the Brits against the likes of Tilak and Gandhi at their peaks is being used to silence her. Instead in keeping with her fondness for conspiracy theories, I have one proposed by my dad, quite easily the most cynical person yet strangely optimistic person I have known (His theory should throw light on the unique category that I bracket him in). He says that the reason why Arundhati Roy will never be arrested or harmed is that by keeping her out of jail and letting her voice her staunchly anti-government opinions openly, the Indian government is making an international advertisement of how free speech is encouraged in this country unlike our Communist neighbour, and the more she flourishes, the more in international circles, the fame and reputation of India's historical claim to tolerance grow. In panning pretty much everything under the sun, Ms. Roy is doing us a world of good. I hope someone lets her know that. In her subsequent gloom, lies her redemption.

High hopes

Image via Wikipedia

Will having too high an expectation of a place ruin the experience when I actually get there? When I think Goa, I am reminded of palm fringed beaches, silver sands and the blue ocean. When I think Goa, I see old colonial mansions painted in exuberant colours and crumbling old churches clinging on to the present. When I think Goa, I dwell on lazy days lounging on a hammock in the sun as the sea breeze plays your nanny swinging you to sleep. When I think Goa, I hear the steady thump of a mighty Enfield which has given me the honour of riding it as it grandly cruises its way on a road hugging the crashing waves and spectacular cliffs. When I think Goa, I imagine a never-ending party with the strumming of guitars and banjos, beautiful faces greeting strangers with the most familiar of smiles. Maybe I am setting myself up for disappointment on all of these counts, but what the heck, dreaming don't cost no money! In exactly a couple of days, for better or for worse, I am going to find out for myself if the legends are true.

"Take it easy policy"

Image via Wikipedia

A few mornings ago, my box radio was blaring out music beaming from a Calcutta station, the usual mix of good, bad and ugly. In a stark reminder of how fast time moves on, they played one of the big A.R. Rahman Bollywood hits from back when we were kids, "Urvashi Urvashi" from "Hum Se Hai Muqabala" [As it was dubbed in Hindi] under the Retro section! Besides conjuring up images of Prabhudeva and his troupe's incredibly flexible but incredibly weird dance moves atop a moving glass roofed bus, a line in the the song's lyrics of convenience seemed oddly relevant in the present context. 

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"Billiyaan naa shaakaahari, har koi Ram nahin hotaa..." [Loosely translates to "Cats aren't vegetarians and not everyone is Ram..."] was what drew attention when the day for the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case judgement was near. Not everyone is Ram, because Lord Ram is one of the most straightforward and just Gods of our pantheon, free from any grey areas, never compromising on what is right for the need of the hour, unlike most other heroes who have featured in our mythology and the Mahabharata. Not everyone is Ram, because when Mahatma Gandhi began his mission of truth and peace, he chose to call the ideal world based on these standards "Ram-rajya" [The kingdom of Ram], the reason being Lord Ram did live his life by these standards.

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Concrete evidence of whether Ram existed as a person is bound to be a long-drawn meaningless debate between faith, history and science, but irrespective of the outcome, it still is a royal shame that his name has been hijacked by those who rape, loot and destroy. The essence of his legend is lost when instead of talking about a kingdom of justice and happiness, the extremist Hindu right-wing movement forces all non-Hindus to accept their essential "Hinduness" in a horribly warped version of Ram-rajya, one of their own making. Raking up hatred for what Muslim conquerors did hundreds of years ago, and directing it towards the innocent Muslim on the streets is about as far away from Ram's ideals as anyone can get. Their present loutish behaviour, disrespect for other religions and the destruction of symbols of faith puts them squarely in the same category as Mohammad Ghazni, Timur the Lame, Aurangzeb or any other historical maruder that they claim to hate. Far from being the so-called 'protectors of the Hindus' and the people who 'set things right', they are the mega-sized warts on the face of Hinduism which draw all the attention and who alongwith fellow loonies like extremist Muslims, war loving corporate-government conglomerates and revolutionary Lefties make the world an increasingly dangerous place for live in, for Hindus and all others.

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Disagreements are unavoidable in a world where cultures are so radically different and in times of strife, it is very very difficult to find common ground but what choice do we really have except to put up with each other, thereby saving ourselves a whole lot of bloodshed and tragedy. The 'developed' world is reeling under what it calls 'immigration issues' but it should stop freaking out and take its cues from this country which has been handling 'immigrants' for thousands of years now, rapidly digesting the immigrant label in its cast-iron stomach. Falling back on good ol' Prabhudeva and A.R. Rahman's one-stop solution "Jeet kaa mantra hai [The magic spell to victory is]... take it easy policy!" Considering that it is after all a policy, I should add "Conditions apply! Please read the offer document carefully before investing." but in the long run and the short, I hope it becomes evident that this is the only worthwhile policy on the market.

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[Due apologies to Gautam Buddha, the Sufi saints, Mahatma Gandhi, Peter Fonda + Dennis Hopper, The Eagles, TVS Scooty and everyone else who have espoused the "Take it easy" cause throughout history and who also have been consistently ignored. I did not intend in any way to make light of the importance of their message.]

While you were Facebooking

Image via CrunchBase

While you were Facebooking, the rain came down,
While you plunged in a stream of pictures, the sea sighed aloud
Lost in the web of viral videos, as the jungle lies unexplored
Ancient ruins have no visitors, yet statuses have 'likes' galore

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Your regular job may be boring, but hey, it pays the bills
Once you are done with the necessary, you still need a rethink
Friends are friends, let's not forget, it's good to keep in touch
But adventure awaits beyond the virtual, at the cost of being 'social'.

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[This is more of a reminder to myself that I should not be spending too much time on FB. But all of you FB addicts out there, feel free to take it personally and act as if insulted]

The simple truth

It's not easy to publicly admit, but the simple truth is that I am a thief, albeit a rather guilt-ridden one. And to be stealing from the very person I idolize, both for his creative output and for his principled and happy existence often times projected through his creations is even more unforgivable. Bill Watterson spent a lifetime fighting off the pressures of his comic book syndicate; refusing to lend his brilliant Calvin and Hobbes characters for any kind of commercial promotion and here I was knowing everything about all that, yet using a panel from one of his Sunday strips as a header for my blog, in a rather obvious and lame attempt to pull in readers already familiar with his brilliant work, even though my writing had absolutely nothing to do with the comic strip or its themes. Since then I have even tried to change my blog header a number of times but for some inexplicable technical reasons, I seem unable to do so. For now it seems that I am condemned to have my conscience pricked every time I open my blog's home page. The panel of the strip which I have as a background for my blog's title will hopefully disappear at some point in the near future if I put my head to it but it'll still be impossible to see a snow covered slope, and not be reminded of a tiny kid talking to his stuffed tiger as he drags his toboggan up the slope of Rigor Mortis Cliff.

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A lot of logic and rationalization is pumped out by the gallon about how downloading bootleg version of music MP3s, TV shows, movies and books is actually not 'stealing', rather it is essential to 'popularizing' the artist and helping 'more' people appreciate the content but I will skip all that nonsense. Though I have been guilty of the aforementioned acts myself multiple times over, I'll never console myself by saying that it is perfectly acceptable. It may be the smart thing to do but it certainly is never the right thing to do! More so in the case of Calvin and Hobbes, and for those to whom these things matter, here's throwing some light on the exemplary artist that is Bill Watterson and the most famous products of his imagination.

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Bill Watterson's speech for the commencement ceremony of his alma mater Kenyon College (http://web.mit.edu/jmorzins/www/C-H-speech.html) is a masterpiece and a very precise encapsulation of everything that he wanted to convey through the delightful 10 year existence of Calvin and Hobbes. Achieving the roaring popularity which the strip saw was far from easy and the only thing that kept him going before his strip made it big was in his own words was "self-belief bordering on delusion" But when the peak of success did arrive, he stopped short of what could have added on millions of dollars to his bank account. That Calvin and Hobbes would never sell T-shirts; that they would not line toy store shelves as soft toys; that they would not sell insurance and that they would not keep running forever in newspapers scripted and drawn by ghost artists while Bill Watterson holidayed in some exotic Pacific resort is a testament to the guy's deep attachment to his protagonists and to his repeated stress on the higher purpose of art, disguised as a entertaining comic strip though it may be. Watterson wanted them to exist solely as comic strip characters true to the intentions he had created them with and he managed to keep them that way. My recent purchase of the "The Complete Calvin and Hobbes" is a minor attempt by me at damage control because I believe that an artist as dedicated as him deserves every single cent or paisa of what is due to him.

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Not that any amount of money could ever come close to repaying the debt of laughter and food for thought that I and millions of other fans owe to the story of an imaginative 6 year old and his philosophical talking pet tiger. The painstaking artwork whether it be a stretch of imagination as ridiculous as T-Rexes flying F-16s or a scene as sublime as the pair jaunting through the woods in the beautiful season of fall speaks for itself. The humourous dialogue laced with sharp observations about the follies of people manages to establish a unexpected common boundary between deep wisdom and all-out entertainment magically retaining the essence of both. The man himself is candid enough to admit that the struggles of life that he had to face on the way were essential so that when Calvin and Hobbes finally came out, the content was just right for it to find the right audience at the right time snowballing into the world-wide phenomenon that it became. All I can say that I feel lucky that I was the part of the right audience, the supposed right group whose fancy Mr. Watterson's incredible work caught. Because whenever I think of life, philosophy, happiness, childhood, friendship, adventure, imagination and the incredible satisfaction gained out of just being yourself, the first thing I think of is Calvin and Hobbes.