Neither wrinkled fingers nor walking with boots filled with cold water as the rains beat down on them in the Western Ghats could deter wildlife filmmakers Ajay and Vijay Bedi from filming one of their most passionate projects to date, The Secret Life of Frogs. An hour-long documentary, it is one of the few films made on amphibians in India.
Did you know about the rare purple frog that lives underground? If you watch the film you will know that it makes an appearance once a year in the swamps of Kerala, during the monsoon mating season. Featuring the life and breeding cycles of some exotic species of frogs, this documentary is sprinkled with such gems.
The 39-year-old New Delhi-based brothers, claim that their fascination for wildlife began at an early age, while observing animals at close quarters with their grandfather Dr Ramesh Bedi, a renowned wildlife author.
“I still remember we used to hear the gentle murmur of frogs calling from the neighbourhood parks as the monsoon hit North India. But those croaks have gone silent,” begins Ajay, adding, “In India, a complex set of reasons from roads cutting through their habitats to climate change is endangering species. With so much attention focused on tigers and mega fauna, the amphibians of India are fighting a lonely battle for survival. Somehow, we have forgotten how rich our country is in other forms of life. Our hope through our film is to ignite inspiration for an army of frog champions.”
The documentary is a quest to draw attention to these tiny creatures, that are as old as dinosaurs yet still a mystery to science, says Ajay. Shot painstakingly over three years, the Bedi brothers have captured different species that have their own unique story to tell — including a frog that uses dance moves to seduce its mate, another that does a headstand or the ‘potter frog’ that gently encases his eggs in clay to protect from predators.
“This film throws up behavioural facts hitherto unknown to science, documenting for the first time, the entire life cycle of the highly endangered, rare purple frog that emerges from underground to breed for just one day in a year,” offers Ajay, who along with his brother, is the youngest Asian to have won the Wildscreen Awards at Bristol, UK, also known as the Green Oscars for their films The Policing Langur and Cherub of the Mist.
The aforementioned purple frogs, also called pig-nosed frogs (due to their appearance) are found only in the forests of Western Ghats and appear only during the monsoons. Ask them what was interesting to observe about their mating ritual, and Ajay divulges, “The females carry the males on their back, almost wearing them like a backpack, as a part of their ‘courtship period’.
The female then walks with the male on her back for a good distance looking for a suitable place to mate, and subsequently lay their eggs there. Catching this on film was extremely rare and we tried unsuccessfully for two years to get these key sequences. Finally, our patience paid off and in the third year, we managed to film it.”
Time, however, wasn’t the only challenge they faced. “When we talk about amphibians, water is the key element, as they breathe through their skin, so they need very high humidity levels. For a cameraperson with expensive equipment, this was a technological nightmare trying to keep our filming gear dry every second. The second challenge was the light, as amphibians normally come out at night. We were sure we didn’t want to harm the creatures with bright lights nor interfere with their natural behaviour by placing them close to our camera lens. Every sequence for the film had to be shot as if we didn’t exist,” signs off Ajay.