BOOK REVIEW
India is home to 106 national parks and over 550 wildlife sanctuaries, each with its unique characteristics and problems that one may not understand as a visitor or tourist. But on delving deeper, one might understand the complex issues pertaining to man-animal conflicts, mutual co-existence, related crimes, the urgency in protecting natural cover, and the wild beauty seldom revealed to an outsider.
Former Indian Forest Service official Sunayan Sharma cherry-picks anecdotes from his wildlife diaries to tell stories of national reserves and wildlife sanctuaries from across the country in his new book, Wild Treasures & Adventures: A Forester’s Diary. He not only portrays the beauty of the wilderness but also the lives intrinsically associated with forests and the socio-political hurdles in maintaining the balance between human and animal habitats.
As Sharma writes about the dangers of exploring the dens of tigers, he also gives vivid descriptions of the exotic beauty of the forests. There are several anecdotes from his career as a wildlife officer at Sariska Tiger Reserve in the Northern Aravalli region where he contributed immensely to the protection of the big cats, and later, replenishing their population in a time of crisis. His treks through the treacherous tracks in the deep jungles were menacingly adventurous and fraught with the uncanny feeling of an encounter with the beast. “Though every step taken forward was scary but somehow or the other, we reached the next turn after covering about 300 metres… The main risk was that a little tumbling or slip could throw us in to the nullah,” he writes about his visit to Sariska along with other fellow officials and forest guards.
Among the anecdotes are stories of abandoned human habitats and wildlife smugglers. In the chapter The Haunted Fort in the Jungle, Sharma writes about the ruined city of Bhangarh that was cursed by a wily magician. Later, the Archaeological Survey of India took up the revival and renovation project.
There is also mention of Ajabgarh which is believed to be a haunted city. In this context, he also points out how human encroachment and greed displaced a large population of wild cats.
Political interference and exploitation of power have contributed largely to the depletion of the wildlife population in the country and Sharma does not shy away from chronicling a few events to prove that. In the process, field workers would find it extremely difficult to maintain the sanctity of the wilderness. Hunting, for instance, would be clandestinely practised in Sariska and forest guards and officials had a hard time controlling the high-profile rogues.
In the chapter Tiger Tragedy in Sariska and Translocation of Tigers, Sharma writes about his experience in rehabilitating wild cats in this reserve forest from Ranthambore and how painstakingly his staff monitored the process.
The book is a treasure trove of stories from Indian jungles. The encounters not only with tigers in Sariska and elephants in Kaziranga aside, the anecdotes of fierce timber smugglers, brave and resourceful forest guards and the original tribal inhabitants add a human element to Sharma’s reminiscences and establish the fact that man-animal coexistence is not only imperative but needs to be balanced to create a healthy ecosystem.
The lucid language and Sharma’s effortless style of storytelling make the book an interesting read even for those who have explored these places.
Book: Wild Treasures & Adventures: A Forester’s Diary; Author: Sunayan Sharma; Publisher: Niyogi Books; Pages: 206; Price: Rs 395
