Dreaming in Calcutta and Channel Islands is a book by Shubhobroto Ghosh. The main protagonist of the book Shamu is an ardent animal lover. While Ghosh sees himself in his institutions, their tasks and tools, he separates himself from them. By this the author perpetually puts in question all that is before him, with respect to humans as well as non-humans. Shamu experiences his being in his personal ventures in Calcutta, his backyard and Europe, across the seas – a journey he undertakes because he once dreamt of owning a zoo yet looked at its denizens as his kin.
The protagonist is fascinated with Gerald Durrell and his concept of zoos as arks, as a genetic reservoir to ensure that there is a breeding stock of animals in captivity from which to repopulate the wild. This fascination changes as Shamu embarks on his first journey beyond home turf, into the North-East. There he is an alien but not a marginal alien, he represents the mainland. He realises that people who take up arms to revolt have a plausible reason and are not as mindless as the politically compromised media portrays them. Fiercely possessive of his own freedom, Shamu begins to question conventional forces that seek to imprison and stifle the spirit of freedom, be it of humans or animals.
This realisation deepens as he sets off to document conditions of zoos under the Zoo Check of Born Free Foundation. He sees Chinese silver pheasants housed with common and yellow monitor lizards. Predator and prey together for reasons unknown. He sees a rusty cage with grass, the result of negligence rather than good management housing a black-backed jackal and an Indian fox. Two species of animals in one enclosure, something which was forbidden by the Central Zoo Authority. His vivid descriptions tells us that zoos are failing in their mission and epitomising human power. Otherwise, why would a place like Kohima, ravaged by civil strife for more than half a century, have a zoo or should it be called a prison camp? Surely, conservation of animals was not on the minds of decision makers. As Tura aspires to be Guwahati, it too needs a zoo to compete, is that not the plain and simple equation?
Shamu thus begins to be repulsed by the idea of a lifetime of incarceration for animals in zoos. However, his experience of working in Jersey Zoo in Europe, made him realise that Indian zoos were way behind. It was there that Sir David Attenborough had challenged anti-zoo lobbyists to visit Jersey Zoo and comprehend what role modern zoos could potentially play.
Shamu and his readers are faced with contradictions. Does captivity cage the body and mind? Sir Julian Huxley in King Solomon’s Ring’ says that captivity stifles the freedom of being in animals and the full range of their individual diversity cannot be reached. On the other hand Billy Arjan Singh in his ‘The Legend of the Maneater’ says that zoos bar only the physique and not the spirit of the wild.
What do readers decide? What do young minds, for whom the book is especially written, conclude? Should zoos be allowed to persist? People are free to choose. Would you support the good aspects of the likes of Jersey Zoo and Port Lympne Zoo or be opposed to captivity in general? Animal lovers should read this book and the other enriching books mentioned such as Travel Diaries of a Naturalist, In Defense of Animals, Beasts In My Belfry, Catch Me A Colobus, The Eye Of The Wind, Some of My Friends Have Tails as they search for answers.
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