The Inner Conflict

We all start off as students of wildlife studies wanting to see more animals, observe and learn from them, touch them maybe and with age, we begin wanting to save them from all that is threatening.  Eventually, at various points in that learning curve, we are encountered with what looks like a fork in the road. You realise that the ‘defenders’, ‘experts’ and ‘protectors’ of wildlife were never one person or one kind of person. You notice how many roads there are leading out of that fork. You see that those roads often do not meet, or are sometimes go in exact opposite directions. You realise that the only way forward would be to pick a lane, take sides. It almost wholly decides your approach, who you can associate with and how far your influence can reach.

            Once you have decided that your career will revolve around wildlife, you see that you now have options. Perhaps too many. You could do science but then you feel this weight on your shoulders, bordering on guilt, for making your science so academic. You could take your science forward but then lose your ‘objectivity’. You decide to go into conservation and then people ask you -but what is conservation? What are you trying to conserve, for whom and for how long? Those questions get you thinking. You ask around, and you notice that the term ‘conservation’ itself holds different meanings to different people. But you doubt that that is really relevant, as long as their intentions are good and true, until you realise that it is tremendously important. It decides which fork in the road you saw earlier, they took.  If a person who felt nature and wildlife prevailed over people is the one making managerial decisions for a particular forested habitat, that spells out the fate of thousands of people at a time. Meanwhile, there could be scientists studying an animal somewhere else, who have the power through their knowledge to declare the species as being of critical importance requiring inviolate space, but do not, because they are worried for the lives of the people they would endanger by doing so.

            So, you then come to understand that your actions matter. Your actions have consequences, wide ranging, in the places you would least expect and in magnitudes you may not be prepared for. You realise then, perhaps a bit too late that you should have put more thought into it. Put more thought how? Some would say that, taxing as it maybe, you have to have that conversation with yourself about what conservation means to you, what underlying philosophy drives you and how far you are willing to take the responsibility and accountability of anything you do with it thereafter.

            Could this conversation with yourself help you decide which fork in the road you want to take? A scientist, people say has it the easiest, with his research he can imply but is not obliged to apply. Beyond that, it is up to those who want to actively protect wildlife to decide what from the plethora of knowledge available, really needs to be applied. Depending on their personal ideologies, the results of their hard work could go in one of many directions, for instance towards the much debated divergent conservationist or preservationist frameworks of protection.

            Once immersed in the field of protecting nature, you could take on a number of roles, grass root or top down, in the media or in the board room, on the roads or in the court. Each avenue brings with it a set of challenges and none of them, mind you, are for the faint hearted. So, what if you are a faint hearted person, passionate about wildlife and the environment? Where does it leave you? You want to be a part, in some way that can effect change, but you are not strong enough to put your life at risk or leave your family behind.

            People will say that you could go with what your heart tells you, so you decide that you want to investigate threats to animals but you realise that you are not tough enough. So others tell you to go where your skills bring value to the table, so you decide to study the behaviour and ecology of animals, but you are advised that there is no time left for this sort of science. Some others say that if you look carefully enough, you will find a point where both, heart and skill meet. But how long do you search before you find that point in or of your life? No one can tell you the answer to that without the risk of influencing you with their biases. And if you are a person of principles, you would want to make sure your choice is bereft of anyone’s biases, bereft of what your peers tell you or what society tells you, right?

            By the end of it all you are likely to just sit back in exhaustion after what seems to be a very convoluted thought exercise about what exactly it is you really want to do. You then pick up your mug of tea and look into your backyard and funnily enough remind yourself of how it was that small clueless green caterpillar that you as an awestruck child saw pupating on that plant, that really started this all. 

Agumbe: The Diving Board.

This blog is awake again, talkative, again.

A lot of important milestones were met with, dealt with and crossed this year. I have learned immensely from each one and want to remember the experiences like a story. I throw it into the web in the hope that someday someone will stumble upon it and find it worth reading.

Here I begin with the first chapter.Agumbe.

Even as recent as six years ago most people would never have heard of Agumbe. Even those who did would speak of it as the quiet sleepy town that hosted the crew of 'Malgudi Days' for a few years. But to researchers and students who study the wildlife in evergreen forests , Agumbe is a wondrous microcosm of everything wild and natural. Not exactly pristine or trouble free but a treasure all the same.

Climb.

Katya & I left for Agumbe the night of our last zoology practical in college. We had been looking forward to this for so long and with so much anticipation that the last 2 hours of identifying types of placenta nearly killed us. Both of us were going to kick start a 3 month pilot study on the Draco dussumieri with The Gerry Martin Project at the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station commonly known and henceforth in this blog as ARRS. I was also going to help the organization in an administrative capacity of sorts too, by handling their email correspondence. On a more personal level,this experience was going to be a platform, a kind of launch pad into the line of work I hoped to make a solid contribution to in/with my life.

Agumbe was bustling with people when we arrived, Gerry was running kids camps, the telemetry project had a few people tracking the king cobras and a Sita Nadi recce was also underway. We slipped into a routine right away, brainstorming on how best to go about observing dracos and with what objectives to begin with. This is where I introduce Sreekar Rachakonda, the birdman with a gecko tattooed on his leg. Having done studies on lizards previously, he took the lead right away and within no time we had a project in place. Like most field studies, one can never stick to what one finalizes on paper! Each day we'd improvise further, come up new questions, hit a roadblock and find ourselves back to square one again. Soon we had more people join us,each one handling a different aspect of the project. And in the end it all worked out. We presented our findings at YETI, had debates with several other researchers and to no ones surprise, came up with more questions.

Three months flew by even before I could say Goldilocks.It was hard trying to juggle many things at the same time, simply because all of it was still new to me. Initially I thought it would be a piece of cake, dracos by day, correspondence by night! How hard could checking emails be? This was until the day Rom and his legendary clipboard sat me down in the office to discuss all things (read ALL THINGS) ARRS. At the end of it my mind was in a tizzy. I was thrilled about the many many things planned but worried about how capable I would be in managing them.
While working on updating the ARRS website, Rom kept hovering over the 'ARRS Team' Page. "You need to be added onto this, by the way" he said. "Oh I don't know..." I wasn't too sure about getting into all that fuss, to which Rom quickly said "Of course! and we will call you...hm mm...Communication Officer" with a Gandalfian grin on his face.

The title stuck and so did the job.For the rest of the year I would communicate. For ARRS. With the world!

Jemb.
" Here are 2 kestrels, waterproof paper and a whole lot of Ziploc covers" Gerry said as he handed me a box full of what would soon be the field gear for the amphibian work scheduled to begin in the rainy {repeat several times} month of July. Ben & Suzan from Jersey, UK had been back and forthing emails with Gerry and Ganesh S.R for nearly a year trying to come up with an ecological study that could be done on the amphibians of Agumbe( for which I was to be their field assistant).
Ben & Suz took close to no time to adjust to the Agumbe monsoon. Now, if you've seen the place in the summers and in the winters but not in the monsoons, you haven't seen nothing! It is actually like one dramatic transformation that the first winds in June slap onto the Agumbe ridge. When everyone at ARRS kept talking about and preparing for the monsoon with the vigour that they did, for the life of me I couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. So it will rain, probably even all day , don't go outside and even if you must go outside, take an umbrella with you!

*Here I pause to laugh at myself until I break at the seams* What a fool I was.

The monsoon was NUTS. Not only did it rain all day, it rained EVERYDAY, for DAYS and for the most part, for WEEKS on end. We stayed indoors as much as possible, but the colder it got, the more often one had to pee. Clothes were damp, mattresses were damp,food went bad, toes grew fungus! No sun, no power, no internet , no work! I would set aside money every week just in case one more umbrella died a brave death. Gosh, the winds were merciless.

Seeing Ben with black lips and sooty hands was a very common sight.He had to keep the fire going extra long in their room as it would get damp the quickest and the mostest. At night we'd all bond over the charcoal fire, snug in our rugs with moldy feet thawing above the flames.

Tea was our savior. Each one would take turns making some. After a point, we started to get creative. Lime tea, ginger tea, sometimes both. Ben's tea, Neethi's tea, Prashanth's tea, sometimes a cup of each.
But it wasn't all bad. Heck! It wasn't AT ALL BAD. Agumbe came alive amidst all that rain. The place was swarming with critters,up in the trees, in the bushes, in the streams and occasionally even in our bathrooms. Pit vipers,cat snakes, invertebrates , caecilians and our study subjects for the season- FROGS!

The study went off smoothly but with many twists and turns of course, just like the one with the dracos. In the end, we found over 25 species and made a key to identify them. We stumbled upon a whole lot of new things during the course of the study, some worth writing about too.
It was quite hard to say goodbye to Ben & Suz after all that we had accomplished and witnessed together during those 'happy days' (Sorry can't help the inside joke). But who knows (and I am hoping) our frog-ing paths might just cross once again.

Soar.

There was a significant species turnover in the ARRS team by the season season. The summers bring in all the king cobra people, the monsoons draw in the herp dudes and the winters - men with binoculars.
Winter of 2010 saw a whole new bunch of energy intoxicated folks come together. There was Sahas, the bird extremist, SiddharthNitali (yes they stick to one another like glue), Naren & Neethi (who got along like scorpions and tarantulas) , our seasoned telemetry team - Dhiraj & Ajay and ARRS' new Field Director Siddharth Rao & Inga.
Now that we had someone to hold onto the reigns, things started to fall in place.We finally had rigour, I would say. People began to brainstorm over tea,think differently, develop perspectives on issues, document and discuss, teach each other and best of all -get organized.Each one worked very hard, active all day, doing field work or reading papers after papers.
However, no matter what one did all day, it all HAD to stop it all at the stroke of five. All would congregate, from far and near (of the ARRS) , young and old, brave and timid to witness and participate in the most passionate sport Agumbe had ever seen. FRISBEE. That's right. Ultimate frisbee, slow-mo frisbie, dho dho frisbie...we had it all.
By now we had entered November. It had been about 8 months since I first started work at ARRS. Sahas, the young hyper-energetic ornithologist from Bombay designed what will hopefully be ARRS' first long term bird monitoring program. For the initial 2 months I was to be a field assistant once again. We would mark out trails across various habitats and walk transects every morning. Initially my knowledge of Agumbe's birds was very limited. But things took off almost immediately and I'm glad to say that the learning curve has only been going up and up!
The mush puddle type sensitive person that I am, by the end of November I started the morbid countdown. My days were now limited. I could count the number of Sundays before my departure, number of tea times , Frisbee matches and full moons! Others from the ARRS team leaving before me didn't AT ALL help my case.

Now with most of my bags back home already I have about a week left.A much more learned person, with countless memories to memorize and solid goals to achieve,It's time for the next chapter. Attraversiamo.

Your Time Starts Now.

‘Transition Elements’, I think that’s what I would call us. The generation of people who live life the 21st century way with all the technology and ease it has to offer, knowing fully well how life used to be as recent as a decade ago, simple yet content.
Personally I miss the days when I was restricted to just one hour of television a day, the Internet was a fascinating world that was yet to be explored and ‘the outdoors’ was my best friend.
I once had an interesting conversation with a kid, probably ten years old, talkative and brilliant. He knew exactly how to sneak into the heavily guarded palatial residence of the Brazilian President, assassinate him and walk out without a trace, thanks to his xbox 360. This same boy however didn’t have a clue of what his neighborhood looked like or worse, if there were any other boys his age living close by. There could be many reasons for this innocent yet strange ignorance and I am quite certain that he is just one of many such kids. Children today are born into a manmade world almost completely cut off from the natural one. They would rather choose to play virtual tennis and hack animated bad guys to death rather than go out and actually get bruised and dirty.
The definition of ‘socializing’, to a large population of teenagers wouldn’t exactly mean to mingle and get to know one another but instead it is most likely to be something on the lines of ‘lets shop all day, dress up and club all night!’
The point I am trying to make here is that most young people today have priorities spread across varied wavelengths. While ‘A’ might want to dedicate his life to prepare for higher studies, ‘B’ might want to be a little more laid back and spend his summers at home watching reality Television. But no matter where you go and what you do, the environment and its pathetic shape will most definitely affect you.
Yes, Global Warming is an enormous crisis that’s posing a threat to our planet, but if you break it down to smaller bits, it equates to something far more difficult to digest and simply put, REAL. People in the coasts being washed away by floods, people in bustling cities having to breathe hot air and drink rationed amounts of water while going through weeks without even so much as having a bath!
That is probably something you would call –The worst-case scenario. But strangely enough we seem to be inviting it with open (and careless!) arms.
The Green House Emissions of India have been found to be 1.1 tonnes per annum making us the third largest contributor to Global Warming, after the States and China. The margin by which they lead however is pretty huge, the US releasing approximately 20 tonnes. Yet, efforts are being made by our country to reduce the numbers further alongside making sure its economic progress isn’t affected. The area of Climate Change brings in new avenues for people from all walks of life because we NEED man power at every level!

That is the precise reason why the youth of today has to wake up and start becoming responsible for their future. Yes, we have reached a point where we need to think of our immediate future, not even that of our children’s.

No one is asking for people to quit what they are doing ,walk onto the streets, plant trees and eat berries! Not even close.
Climate change requires the convergence of every stream of Science, Arts and Commerce. Use the knowledge that you have spent your whole life trying gain, do your bit and Affect Change!

"Time, our most precious currency, is the most valuable thing we humans can spend"....so spend it well.

My parting words for every youngster who reads this would be, don’t let the water run, try the bus and yes, Vote!

BIG Citylife : Frustrated Perspective, if i may.

Kudos to the English Dept, Marvellous Topic indeed.

The City. I was born in one. Grew up in another. Visited a few. But settled in a completely new one.
On the surface, I can say I am happy, what with the home that I live in with the perfect family, fabulous friends, a well known college to go to and ample freedom to top it all off. However, very often I find myself sitting in the suffocating corner of a bus wondering if there is indeed, grass that’s greener on the other side.
To describe myself in a nutshell, id say I’m exceedingly ‘outdoorsy’. As a kid I loved climbing up ladders no matter how high, watering our garden (and watering myself in the process) and making mud puddings with my imaginary friend Suresh. When I grew up I went for wilderness camps and became an active athlete in school. All of these small happenstances molded me into a driven, nature-loving girl with dreams to make a difference in this world.
However, there always is a catch or figuratively, a large and sharp pin waiting to burst your happy bubble. In my scenario, it calls itself the City.
It is quite small mind you! But bustling with people everywhere, where oxygen is like gold (too precious to waste), water is either scarce and constantly evaporating or clogged with mosquito eggs and excess Carbon dioxide is the new next-door neighbor.
Even as recent as a decade ago, the city seemed magical and full of promise for those coming from smaller cities and towns. Siblings back home would run to the closest phone booth awaiting their brother’s exciting City stories. Tarred roads and skyscrapers were worth photographing. It isn’t the same story anymore, city life has changed drastically. Why, you might wonder. Many factors come to mind starting with over exploitation of resources, lack of hygiene to awful governance and over population. However in my opinion, it all boils down to Ignorance and lassitude.
The attitude of man has become such that he lives life for no one but himself, he thinks of life on a short-term basis, “who cares about tomorrow? Enjoy life today! “ Isn’t that correct? It is due to this sort of thinking that we have gotten ourselves in a soup. A soup that tastes like disease, smells like pollution and looks like disaster.
The point of this essay I think is to give vent to built up frustration and bring current issues into perspective. Watching trees (decades older than we are) being felled and getting caught in constant traffic jams is the new mantra we have to live by. Everyone needs to know that our current situation aptly fits the phrase “Desperate times call for desperate measures” but also that there is still time to rectify our mistakes by knowing and patiently doing what is right, instead of what is more attractive and appealing!
So, what thoughts do you think run through the mind of a person with such radical views as she enters her home after a 12-kilometer journey back home from college? After literally being mauled in the bus, avoiding successive potholes on the road that it almost seems like a dance sequence? After swallowing in that fear of being followed or watched? You would probably expect her thoughts to seem more negative or pessimistic. Surprisingly, her thoughts are completely drowned by the music that fills her ears (I-pods are magical), nudging in buses actually keeps her awake after long drawn days in college and unrelenting alertness keeps the stalkers at large.
See, the key is not to be cynical all the time, it is to see hope when no one else can, only then can you be an Environmentalist……………….
Living in a Big City.

Farm House with the kids- through the eyes of a chipmunk!

It's 6 AM and pretty much everyone is wobbling about like dazed zombies with backpacks slung over their sleepy shoulders. Amidst the many yawns and eye-rubs i was able to find some 'hey man, how u been?' & 'how were you're exams?' greetings being exchanged.
We were all getting set for yet another trip to Mr Martini's farm.As opposed to the summer program where only 14 kids came, here we had 22 and that gave me the jitters. In retrospect though, i feel silly for having felt nervous at first. The kids were naughty and sly pranksters but at the same time they were the type who'd crack jokes u could take with you even if u went backpacking in Venezuela 6 yrs from now, simply hilarious!
The group that came had a general mix of loudness(??), super energy,chatterboxes, spontaneity and quiet solo explorers. To name a few, we had the Lil cricket champ Lee, she knew more than some of the boys if u ask me, Cat malika and the sri lankan holidayers who spent a lot of their time giggling and playing with the animals. Ved who we realised suffers from Cow-o-phobia. Siddarth ,Arvind,anirudh and Chetan- the 'poi' boys who mastered that art in a matter of 48hrs. Aditya(1) who sadly had a fever throughout the programme & Aditya(2) who has the most adorable smile iv ever seen. Must not forget the PIS kids who accomplished a lot too,namely catching frogs(put a few to sleep and squish a few others), happily enjoy watching Gerry slaughter a pretty chicken, behead as many as 10 fish and my favorite --gulp down hot chillies while everyone laughed at their plight. SANJANA!! boy was she a handful! , what with wanting to "go see herpetology" and also "can we slaughter Kau?...or otherwise any other cow?"
The oh so cute Felix Holland and his dimples. Now i wont be surprised if he considers Machete production one of his career options!
During the 4 days we spent there not only did they learn to design n make bamboo rafts ( partly sink them too) but some of them even managed to climb up a coconut tree- Xavier style! We spent a Lot of time in the lake -rowing circles in the coracle & swimming among the reeds.
We saw some gorgeous snakes too and watched Shyama really bond with the checkered keel back water snake, ah! was so touching. Ha Ha.
The food was simply Mmm-mm...OK that covers the vegetarian aspect of every meal..but im guessing the chicken was splendid too. However most of it ended up in Shyams 'Lil belly.
The trek up the Nagarhole Hill was special in it's own way. It was BEE-U-T- FUL!
however, i didn't go with the entire group once we reached the 1060 m (above sea level mark) because Aditya(1) was beginning to feel exhausted.But Shyam, Xavier and i did our best to entertain him while the others carried on.
On our bus ride back from Nagarhole, we stopped to take pictures of two tuskers at the forest dept quarters that had been chained but enormous and gorgeous all the same. But as expected all the kids turned their focus to something else(which i choose NOT to mention here) Ha Ha.
Not everyone gets to bump into old friends in the middle of a forest but yea, Riddhi can tell you what that feels like!
The last day saw the kids displaying their skipping talents and Gerry's athletic skills.My oh my it was the best way to end the camp, playing lagori, dog in the bone and Xavier's Ram n Raavan.
The bus driver played horrific music which was more like noise wanting to sound melodious so for the bus ride back to Bangalore we flicked one of Gerry's Cd's. Everyone sang (read Brayed) along with the songs they knew (amazing performances i must add) and managed to guess & learn the lyrics of the ones they didn't. Precisely why i have a sore throat right now.Once we were back everyone said they're goodbyes and left. Sigh.
The point of writing this was so that we will never forget the little things in life that make us happy.
OK I'm very sleepy now. G'Nite.

More Slobber than Ruff Ruff

You know what i think,

pet owners all over the world have one thing in common. they can brag about their 'Lil cutie,pwetty baby coochi poo' pet for eternity (if given a chance) irrespective of whether or not the listener....is actually listening. I know this and yet I choose to belong to the above mentioned asinine population of humans.
Right from the time I first learned to speak as a baby, I began asking... OK i think the appropriate term would be BEGGING, my parents to 'gift me a brother or a sister for my birthday!!' (in time however I became aware of the phenomenon of the birds & the bees ,and accordingly rephrased my plea to a plain 'Produce one for me?') It was dreadful being the only child, to be given no choice but to have conversations with my orange teddy bear, to have to play 'teacher teacher' with my imaginary friend 'Suresh' and tie rakhis for cousins I met once year. It was PAINFUL. Nothing happened though, my parents didn't want to risk bringing another Me into this world. So, hence, therefore, as a result of which we brought home A dog.
A tiny little fawn fur ball , roughly 3 weeks old. He was simply gorgeous!! So small and excited. He kept tripping over his own pink paws while getting lost in the gigantic-ness of the curtains in our house. Well, one might think that the tantrum-ous girl was now going to be happy forever. Sorry boss! as always, there had to be a catch right? Father wouldn't let me name him......which is why we have had to call my dog Vikram for nearly 9 years now.
That hardly matters though, what matters is that bringing him home was the best decision our family has ever made, I haven't begged for siblings since. He's our watchdog,salesmen shoo-er!, vacuum cleaner, lean mean licking machine, morning alarm, playful 'lil brother and of course my dad's midnight television buddy. He's a bit of everything, he can be dumb( still not grasped the fetch! concept) and yet sharp enough to learn to tell time, memorize all names and routines without being taught.
Sounds very cliche but I honestly feel like there is no better therapist than a dog licking the tears off your face (is it the salt though?). He never interrupts or withdraws eye contact while I'm talking , although occasionally he tends to burp when I pause for his response.
What is totally beyond me is how these animals can be so loving and forgiving when we least deserve it.

which is why....He the Man.Always.

We was like Peas and Carrots

(Note : 'New Days' - Asher Lane blaring in the background.My current obsession.)
When i was a kid , i don't think i was ever in a particular school long enough to make good friends...when i say GOOD, i mean friends whom i was comfortable telling my secrets to (yes back then, flushing milk down the toilet was a huge deal),friends whose birthdays i could remember or come to think of it, friends i would continue to miss even after a month of being away from them. At first it was cool and felt rather nice to get farewell gifts and hand made cards(buying something from Archie's meant making a huge investment)from my friends which said that they would miss me and would remember me forever.
Eventually though, i was started to get sick of it,i hated the idea of losing out on the fun i was just beginning to experience.i had shifted schools in three different states and now my father was planning on moving to a different COUNTRY!!At first my parents would sit me down and explain to me how things like this happen to most kids my age. But with time they began to lose patience and i got tired of whining as well.
We didn't leave the country ,father compromised ...we settled for good in one place finally, again in a different state though!
High School simply flew by. Was an OK student, nothing to complain about, made many good friends (yes they satisfied the above mention criteria) and i have memories, great memories Plenty Plenty!
But then came 11th & 12th and that's where i met Sonal.The dweeb faced unfairly pretty thing i call my best friend.The first time i ever spoke to her was when we were well into the second or third month of school. She seemed like a book-a-holic to me(and I'm not wrong about that). But what i was wrong about was that , that wasn't the only thing she did.She was, I'm sorry IS multifaceted and tremendously talented .See her sketch, hear her sing, watch her catwalk unknowingly or simply listen to her sarcastic one liners. But like every other down to earth girl who is a walking testimony to the phrase 'Beauty with brains' , she is totally oblivious , about herself and what she can do.Forget showing off, she can't even take a compliment decently. It is always accompanied with a snort, a hysterical laugh or just a 'and-I'm-supposed-to-believe-you because?' look in her eyes.
I talk a lot and she always listens. That's how our friendship works i guess.We fight like idiots like most best friends do, but there's never been a fight or a period of non-talkingness that's lasted for more that 48hrs.It just gets too much. We have the most absurd conversations , send each other text messages that would seem like Greek & Latin to everyone else , laugh like hyenas after doing terribly in our exams and yes , we get high on mint fudge.
She has new friends now, who are disgustingly fantastic! Ha ha i love them too. I just hope we don't drift apart.Ever.