Sahyadrica

  Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve, 2018. Part I In the last few years, we have celebrated the success of doubling tiger population, leopard population, rhino population, and vulture population nationally as well as regionally. This success is hard-earned. In case of the rhino and vulture populations, both saw significant declines due to man – poaching and habitat loss in case of the rhino, and the NSAID-drug in case of the vultures. The longest recovery has been spearheaded for the tiger than any other species in India – and it has seen its successes, if not without localized setbacks where populations declined or were locally extirpated. Regionally, too, the successes have been worth celebrating, the hard-ground barasingha found in Madhya Pradesh has not only increased in numbers to levels now considered safer than they were a decade ago, but also expanded through reintroductions to historically-occupied sites. There are report after reports celebrating a revival of wildlife in Indi...

A tigress looking at a bird taking off in a meadow of Kanha. After months of musing over whether a writing break at the onset of winter was affordable, I went for it and in the process extended the writing break by writing about it. In my defence, there is a very good reason to do so, for after nearly a decade of planning and rescheduling and budgeting, my family visited Kanha Tiger Reserve with me, giving shape to this piece about showing a tiger in the global age of wildlife tourism of India. The leisure that wildlife tourism – particularly tiger tourism – in India affords is a subject that I take no comfort in discussing. On the one hand, it offers an opportunity for citizens to cherish nature in isolation and on the other hand, it is a high-cost venture that is not afforded to every citizen. It’s the reason for the success of species-centric exclusionist-model of conservation and at the same time it is the reason for further alienating a large mass of people from benefitting from...

The Satpuda. Long ago, someone told me – or I read somewhere – I cannot remember which as my memory now fails, but I remember what was said or written: Himalaya is always the Himalaya, not Himalayas, and by extension, Satpuda – the seven hills of Mahadeo – are the Satpuda, not Satpudas. The mountains, it said, are individual entities, the name should be identified as proper noun, not common noun. As someone who boasts of belonging to the mountains, it ticks me off when technical reports miss out on such nuances creative writers take to heart. Sahyadrica has been on the longest hiatus ever, the whole of five months, but I promise this has not been for nothing – I worked on some bigger things in this period which I hope see the light of the day sometime in the coming year. Coming back to Sahyadrica is made possible because of a short summertime respite in the mountains of the Satpuda (also spelled Satpura), the Satpuda Tiger Reserve to be specific: where bright shines the sun, gentle b...