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A TIGER'S
STORY Call from the Indian WildThe striped predator comes alive in this story of struggle. By Mahesh Rangarajan A TIGER'S STORY At a time when space is shrinking for the wildlife and deeper conflicts between conservation and development come to the fore, Arjan Singh's is a story of struggle against the odds. A Tiger's Story revisits his unprecedented experiment in trying to acclimatise a captive-bred tigress into the wild. Though this had been attempted earlier with lions and cheetahs in Africa, he was the first to try with the great striped predator of the Indian forest. By the mid-'70s, Singh had been successful in securing governmental protection for Dudhwa, the remaining vast expanse of the terai in western Uttar Pradesh. He witnessed the end of an era, when nature was a force to be vanquished, and his own life saw a transition from hunter to protector of the wild. What is fascinating is his intimate knowledge of his terrain. The reader gets to know individual wild tigers: there is Splay Toes who almost became a man-eater, and Crooked Foot, so known because of the shape of his pug marks. The tigers of the forest are transformed from fierce apparitions of the old man-eating legends into creatures one can respect not so much due to stylistic elegance but because of the sincerity of the narrator. Arjan Singh is on firm ground on the deeper causes that underlie man-eating, those exceptional set of encounters in which people become the tiger's prey. But the case on re-introducing captive-bred animals to the wild is less convincing than he thinks. He is understandably vocal in defending his own tigress Tara from such charges. It is undoubtedly true that Tara, his zoo-born big cat did return to the wild and probably even raised her own cubs in Dudhwa. The case against her as man-eater remains unproved. There still seems little doubt that, as has often been the case with lions in Africa, captive born carnivores can be a hazard to humans in a manner wild predators rarely are. There is little need to embark on such experiments when wild carnivores are perfectly capable of reproducing on their own if they are protected. The author is less sanguine on this count. If the tiger survived our century it was largely due to the resolute action of the Indian Government and various states in creating tiger reserves a quarter century ago. His beloved Dudwa too is under such a protective umbrella. But with the passage of time, fresh pressures have mounted. He strongly urges a hands-off policy in at least a few remaining reser-ves, with the foresters giving way to expert biologists who view the forest as a natural entity to be cherished and not as a source of revenue. Given that this is a re-worked book, liberally borrowing from previous works by the author, it is a surprisingly good read. But it is more than just that. It is also an imprint of one of the last of gentlemen naturalists who studied wildlife out of sheer interest but left us a work that may outlive its subject. The tiger will stand to gain through such passionate advocacy. IDOL LOVE Grim portrait of women in a futuristic society. By Urmi A Goswami IDOL LOVE A novel in three parts with a common thread: the lack of choices faced by women. This lack is illustrated by two doomed loves. The first part, set in the '90s, tells the story of Rajni's life -- her loveless marriage, her interest in Ghalib and her love for an Urdu professor, Riaz. Rajni commits suicide but her reasons for doing so cannot be ascertained. The second and third parts are set sometime in the 21st century. Now comes the story of another Rajni caught in a loveless marriage. It is also about her love for music and her music teacher. These parts describe a futuristic society ruled by religious men who regulate the lives of all. Anuradha Marwah-Roy's futuristic society is neat with clearly identifiable black and white. But where is Marwah-Roy taking us with this thinly veiled satire? She writes of a time when people, especially women and the underprivileged, will have limited or no choice. Despite a sea change in the social and ideological fabric, women and the underprivileged are still on the margins. As with the plots, the characters too can be clearly demarcated as black and white. There is no room for any shade of grey. What is alarming is that the women here have no agency even in their limited spheres. And when women do manage a space of their own, their concerns are superficial. Is that the author's understanding of what is in store for women? As a reader, one is left confused. Is Marwah-Roy attempting to chronicle two doomed loves? Or is she trying to detail the limited lives of the underprivileged? Or is she trying to tell us that no matter what the ideology the underprivileged will never have a voice? Or is this a political warning? If this book was meant to raise questions then it certainly does so -- albeit not the ones the author would have hoped for. |
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