In an intense effort to show the missing link between animals, birds and humans; how we perceive other species through our umwelt or sensory bubble, project human expectations on them, and then proceed to mostly exploit and willfully destroy, Stephen Alter’s book is as much a travel memoir as it is a conservation textbook.
The writer roams known, and relatively lesser-known, wildlife parks, reserves and waterways. He visits the late Billy Arjan Singh’s Dudhwa estate, where the erstwhile hunter hand-reared tigers, he heads to Kuno to take a close look at the imported cheetahs’ habitat, he examines the artwork in Bhimbetka and realises most of them are of animals that lived in the region long before science assigned them names, including the one-horned rhinoceros, wild buffalo and Asian elephant, which are no longer found in this part of Central India because of indiscriminate hunting and habitat loss.
At the Netravali Wildlife Sanctuary in Goa, he hears the spot-bellied eagle owl that has a blood-curling call; goes on a walking safari at the Satpura Tiger Reserve; and is literally stalked by a tiger for more than 15 minutes at Bandavgarh. From the IISC campus in Bengaluru, he rues the cruel fate of the hapless loris, which is linked to supposed curative and magical properties and hence, often abused.
He goes to the Sunderbans to see the ‘ecological castaways’—the tigers living on a diet so insufficient that they turn maneaters. He gazes long and hard at the animals carved on the magnificent Mahabalipuram rock friezes, goes to a sacred grove in Kodagu (Coorg) and watches an oracle in action there.
Alter doffs a hat to forest rangers, to the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station (ARRS); the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI); tiger specialist Ullas Karanth; India’s late great birdman Salim Ali; the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS); M Krishnan, who the author calls, India’s finest nature writer; Ashoka’s Edicts; the Irula Snake Catchers Cooperative, India’s source of snake venom, and other worthy initiatives and individuals.
There’s so much information packed in here. Alter tells us how the word ghazal derives from the English word gazelle; that the ancient tree at Kaliya Ghat in Mathura is actually kaim, not kadamb; the bizarre use of extra-sticky flypapers by the Gwalior Shikar Department to net lions; how some elephants can take an immediate and inexplicable dislike to humans; how there was a time in Assam when a hunter, who shot a tusker, was required by the forest department to kill a makhna (a tusk less bull elephant) too, in a futile attempt to redress the balance; that the sloth bear does not get its name from its slovenly appearance, but was first called a ‘bear sloth’ because of its long claws and unusual teeth; how otters maintain a communal latrine. How the northern parts of the Sunderbans were first settled by Sufi pirs and their followers; how sea snakes are five times more venomous than cobras; how the banian is connected to the Baniya community of traders who would set up shop under the branches of these large trees.
The Ladakh chapter is a gripping one. It tells of how the writer goes scouting the fabled snow leopard in the higher reaches of the moon desert, and gets to gaze upon a mating pair for as long as 14 hours, along with many other spotters who have braved Ladakh’s high altitude problems of insomnia, headaches and loss of appetite to lay eyes on this beautiful creature.
Alter places the cobra with its mesmeric gaze at the start and end of the book. He tells us the reptile’s eyesight isn’t too good and that they sense the world with their tongue. He talks of the awe and terror these creatures invoke in humans, how king cobras emit deep growls when charging, and drops the tidbit that there is no anti-venom for a king cobra’s bite.
There is absolutely no preaching here, though there is no obfuscation either. Stating that the book is an effort to weave together a coherent and compelling litany of proverbs, parables and prayers that draw inspiration from the wild, Alter makes it clear that he is but an amateur naturalist. The reiterations are gentle but firm, couched in a language that, at times, turns lyrical: how we are putting the big squeeze on animal habitats across India, how overtourism in wildlife parks cause damage to the species who inhabit them, and how we need to get our act together vis-a-vis nature protection and conservation.
The Cobra’s Gaze
By: Stephen Alter
Publisher: Aleph
Pages: 424
Price: Rs 999
