Bites! That's practically the first question anyone asks me when I talk of my croc bank vacation. Did I get bitten? Yes, several times, mostly by accident. But sometimes I allowed myself to be bitten just for the heck of it. I recall once when a ratsnake gave me a bite on the nose. I tried to prevent Rom seeing it but he found out soon enough by the blood on my shirt. A bite from a ratsnake is not painful but it bleeds like a leaking tap. "Don't worry, Rahul," Rom said cheerfully, "the venom will not take effect for another half an hour." (Ratsnakes are non-poisonous.)
Another time I was getting a picture taken of myself with a baby crocodile when it turned round and bit me. That was quite bad! Imagine a sawing machine running over your hand. But I was cool, and happy that I had been bitten by a crocodile!
Then I was dumb enough to try the bite of a wall lizard that Gerry had caught to feed to his pit vipers. The scar, still on my hand, reminds me also of the chequered keelback bite I got in Pune (the one which got so bad that I couldn't wear my watch for a few days).
And on the last day of my stay at Croc Bank the red-eared turtle which I was taking away as my gift and souvenir from Croc Bank bit me so bad that I could see my flesh and I could barely use my hand for a few days.
Now when I look back I think I was collecting bites in much the same way that some people collect trophies. Although this may appear quite a foolish thing to do and perhaps it was too (some of the bites were quite painful), one good thing did come out of all those bites. I have no paranoid fear of such bites any longer. I am very careful when I handle reptiles and take all the precautions that I have been taught but I know that I would not be terror stricken should I get bitten and would know what remedial steps to take.
Apart from my practical studies, there was a huge library at the Croc Bank where I would browse through several books on crocs, snakes, monitors, turtles, the works. It was always with great pleasure that I would search for information about something that I had learnt or seen that day. And the best part is that although I didn't have to memorize the facts for any examination, nothing of what I read has gone out of my head.
And then, there was always time for fun. Sometimes I would go to Harry's house where Tharaq and I played music or recorded songs. Other times, I would watch a movie at Rom's. There was time for barbecues of field rats, froglegs, frankfurters, parrot fish, chicken and beef, rounded off with chocolate cake. The beach at the back was for swimming during the day and catching crabs during the night.
One of the interesting happenings at the time that I was there was the arrival of a film team from the magazine National Geographic to film the King Cobras at the Bank. I became one of the many hands-on they had for the job: I would assist in various ways like holding the flash, helping with the setting up of shots, catching and re-catching the frogs as they scampered off during the numerous retakes.
One lazy afternoon Tharaq suggested a haircut for me. My hair was by then really long. In fact I had not put a scissor to it since the beginning of my sabbatical. So now it stood nearly at shoulder length. He told me he had one and a half months' experience in hair cutting. I was thus persuaded to take up his offer of a "free" haircut in the "latest style".
I explained in great detail to Tharaq how I wanted it cut and he nodded attentively making a few suggestions here and there. Then he started to work with the scissors, cutting and shaving here and there. When he announced that he had finished he produced a mirror and I looked into the face of an unrecognisable Rahul with a hairstyle of triangles sitting amidst shaved parts and a long strand of hair in the front. I looked crazier than any rock star! It was only then that I learnt that Tharaq did not know the ABC of haircutting, much less hairstyling and that he had just had a great time experimenting on my head.
Anyway I decided that now was a good time to try out the "bald look" and so I got to a proper barber and had my hair shaved off completely. It was truly liberating. I took several pictures of myself at this time with the reptiles at the croc bank to remember my days here and also to record for posterity my new look.
I felt truly sorry when it was time for me to leave Croc Bank. I promised everyone that I'd be back soon. I carried a souvenir with me-a red-eared turtle (which I still have) and some turtle eggs.
I travelled through the night on a bus to Bangalore. At my foot was the turtle in a box and I had left a small opening for her to breathe. Suddenly I noticed that the turtle was out and was already making for the door of the bus. I quickly caught her and put her back without any of the sleeping passengers noticing it except for a dear old lady who smiled and said, "Dropped your water bottle, son?"
Field Work Notes:Crocodiles
Living millions of years before man, but today facing extinction…with many myths about them and very little known about their nature. Many are considered dangerous. None are considered useful. Who are these creatures? They are called crocodiles, alligators and lizards.
There are 21 species of crocodiles and alligators in the world.
Three species of crocodiles are found in India, namely:
1) the Gharials-which are fish-eating crocodiles;
2) the Muggers; and
3) the Salt-water crocodiles.
The biggest and the most dangerous of all crocodiles in the world is the salt water crocodile, which can grow upto 25 feet. It is the only crocodile that can live in the sea for a long time. The Nile crocodile of Africa is yet another deadly species. Fossils of three other extinct species of crocodiles have also been found in India.
These cold blooded animals have evolved with dinosaurs millions of years ago and are more closely related to birds than to snakes or reptiles. Being cold blooded they control their body temperature by seeking shady, sunny spots or different levels in water. They often bask with their jaws open, which probably helps them to keep cool.
Their eyes, nose and ears are positioned in a straight line along with head and snout. They have good eyesight and a good sense of smell, and can hear very well. Their tail is very strong and helps them in swimming. They have a very low metabolic rate and thus need to hunt only every few days. They can decrease their metabolic rate and stay under water for a long time. Alligators have been known to stay under water for upto 6 hours. They do not make any unnecessary movements but can move very fast even on land when necessary. Small salties can gallop at a speed of 48 kph for short distances.
Crocodiles are found in large and small rivers, lakes, mangroves, and in brackish and fresh water. When a baby crocodile hatches, it is just about three quarters of a foot (25-30 cms) in length. In a few years it matures into an adult. Maturity depends upon size rather than on age. Generally males mature slower than females.
In the wild, a female will take between 5-7 years to mature whereas males will take 9-11 years. Gharials take longer to mature; about 8-10 years for the female and 12 years for the male. In captivity, such as in the Madras Crocodile Bank, females mature in four years and males in five.
The average size for maturity for a Mugger is-male (2 metres) and female (1.6 metres). Males of Gharials and Salties mature at three and a half metres and females at three metres.
Mugger crocodiles breed in between February and April. Salties breed inApril and Gharials between the last week of March to the second week ofApril.
Breeding depends on environmental conditions. In the breeding season males often fight for the right to court with several females. During courtship each pair may blow bubbles, rub noses, raise their snout and periodically submerge and re-emerge. Different species show different courtship displays. Gharials, for example, often court each other by making a loud buzzing sound. Mating occurs under water with the male mounted on top of the female.
The average gestation period is between 35-60 days. The gestation for a Mugger is 35-40 days and for Gharials and Salties, 40-65 days. The temperature at which eggs are incubated and the moisture content of the environment (humidity) influence the sex within the embryo.
Crocodiles will either dig a hole about 30 cms deep or pile up leaves to incubate their eggs. They sometime splash water on the nest to control the temperature. In mugger crocs, females are exclusively produced at constant temperature of 28¡C through 31¡C. At 32.5¡C only males are produced. Both sexes in varying proportion are produced at 31.5 to 33¡C.
The female guards the nest. At the time of hatching the young start croaking so the mother (sometimes even the father) digs open the nest. Then she cracks some of the eggs with her teeth to set free the young and carries them to the water in her mouth. The adult crocodiles continue to guard the young until they are about 5-7 months old.
Crocodiles have many uses in nature's ecosystem. They help keep the environment clean by eating the carcasses that would otherwise rot. They capture the diseased, wounded and weaker prey thus letting only the strongest survive and thus maintaining a healthy population and keeping up the genetic quality of their prey species.
In the dry season, wallows and tunnels dug by crocs provide essential water for other animals, turtles and fish. Many animals depend upon crocs for food for e.g. the sacred Ibis and monitor lizard will eat the eggs of the Nile crocodile. Crocs are also exceptionally resistant to disease and thus may be of great use in medical research.
January brought fresh experience for me and it happened entirely because of Hartman de Souza. I was to return to Goa via Bangalore and since our good friends, Hartman and Ujwala, live in Bangalore and had expressed willingness to accommodate me, should I need a place to stay for a while during my sabbatical, my parents suggested that I spend a few days there before returning home. I was to stay at their place, sight-see Bangalore if I liked and inform my parents as soon as I was ready to return. This then was the general plan.
I reached Bangalore at 1.40 p.m. on the 7th of January. Bing (that's how we all call Hartman) was at the bus-stand to pick me up, with his car. We drove to his house, me chatting away in reply to all his questions. At home there was Ujwala and their kids, Zuri and her younger brother, Zaeer. Also living with them at the time was Mrs Kalai who was Bing's colleague at the India Foundation for the Arts.
After settling down to a good meal and generally relaxing, Bing told me that he had in mind a few people and institutions connected with my interest i.e., wildlife and that I should use my time in Bangalore to meet them. I agreed to his suggestion, little realizing that the people he suggested I meet would make their own suggestions about other people I should meet and when I would report this information to Bing, he would insist that I go and meet them as well. So I spent quite a few days meeting, or writing to, various persons connected with wildlife in Bangalore.
Bing is quite a hard taskmaster and he would not let me off easily; if the people were not in station at that time or, if the names suggested were not from Bangalore, I had to write to them instead. I wrote numerous letters as a result. The general purpose of this activity was that I should get an idea of what options were there for me if I decided to pursue a career in wildlife eventually. Bing also suggested that I should try to find out how and why these people decided to take to environment and wildlife studies, whether they were happy in their choices and so on.
Bing made several copies of an introductory cum reference letter for me which I was to give to the people I was to meet. The letter, which was signed by him, stated that I had taken a one year sabbatical to explore wildlife which I had done for the past eight months and that I would like to have a small interview with the person concerned. I also prepared small questionnaires to help me in the interviews. Bing would most often phone the person in advance and make the appointment for me. Sometimes he even reached me to the place; at other times I went in a rickshaw.
The first person I met was Mr T. Parameswarappa, Retd. Principal Chief Conservator of Forests. I reached Mr Parameswarappa's house at 11.45 a.m. I had an appointment with him at 12.30 p.m. However Mr Parameswarappa was out and did not arrive home until 1.30 p.m. So I sat and looked at a couple of books in his office. Soon after he returned we began to talk, first about my sabbatical and then about what I wanted to do in the future.
He told me that after graduation, one must answer a competitive examination held by the Union Public Service Commission. The students who are selected are trained and then posted to a forest. At the University of Agricultural Sciences at Dharwad or Hebbal, a four year course on forestry can be done after completing pre-university. At the Wildlife Research Institute short courses may be available, he said, but after graduation long courses are definitely available.
I asked him some questions and I relate briefly the interview I had with him:
Rahul: Is it possible to have a ranger give you a private guided tour within the Banargatta Wildlife Sanctuary?
Parmeswarappa: I'm afraid not. There are only routine safaris for visitors. But if you like you can meet Mr Venkatesh, Deputy Conservator of Forests and give him my reference.
R: What is the condition of the sanctuary?
P: It is a government initiative and as you can expect, there are good and bad points to all such activities.
R: Are there any unusual career courses offered in Wildlife?
P: In India there are no privately run sanctuaries or zoos. Therefore any career in wildlife or forestry must be through the government. This makes it almost impossible to have any rare or unusual career courses.
R: What are the duties of the staff at the Banargatta Park?
P: Their only duty is to see to the well-being of the animals i.e. feed them and keep their surroundings clean. They do not study or do research on the animals.
R: How did you acquire this post of Principal Chief Conservator ofForests? What was your background?
P: Like you, I had to study. I answered an examination and got a job as a forest officer. Later I went to the US for two years and on my return I was appointed as Chief Conservator of Forests.
R: Is it possible to set up a Snake Park for doing snake venom extraction?
P: Of course it is possible. But one must apply for a licence/permission for keeping wild snakes in captivity. Pune Snake Park will know the procedure and if you write to them they will give you all the details.
Mr Parameswarappa proved to be a very friendly and helpful person.Before I left I showed him copies of the letters which I had alreadysent to the Indira Gandhi Research Institute and to the Indian WildlifeResearch Institute at Dehradun.
My second appointment was with Mr Arun Kotankar, one of the main persons running an organisation called Samvad which has a programme called SMILE (Student Mobilisation Initiative for Learning) in Bangalore. I reached the office at 10.30 a.m. although my appointment was at 12 o'clock. I showed him my reference letter and in a little while he sat to talk with me.
Mr Kotankar told me about the SMILE programmes in Bangalore. On Saturday afternoons they have an informal open house at Samvad. They watch a film, have a debate or just talk on a specific topic of interest to students, like tourism, dowry, child abuse, fisherfolk's struggles or topics like marriage, love, education or parents.
Students also visit organisations working with dalits, tribals, women, street children, fisherpeople, etc. One can also learn environmental conservation. If the students cannot go to far off places and have to stay back during vacations, they are advised to take up campaigns or undertake studies on local problems like child labour, environmental degradation, construction workers' rights, etc.
Shodhane which means `search' is a newsletter brought out by students who have been to these exposure camps and they write about their experiences during the exposure or generally about other social concerns. One can contribute articles, poems, cartoons or stories in Kannada and English. I was quite interested to hear all that Mr Kotankar had to say about this organisation.
Later, I went straight to St. Joseph's College where according to the information Bing had, there were various environmental courses being conducted for college students. I met one of the clerks in the college office who gave me the information I requested and also a pamphlet listing the different courses one could take after graduation.
Two days later I went to meet Dr Harish Gaonkar at his house, at 11 a.m. Both he and his wife (who is German) were very friendly and I spent a lot of time talking with Mr Gaonkar who is a specialist on butterflies.
I learnt from him that butterflies are insects that are more closely related to plants than to insects. From the number of species of butterflies in an area, a butterfly collector can also find out the number of species of plants in that area. This is because each species of butterfly will use only a certain plant/plants species. For example, in Goa, there are about 250 species of butterflies, that means that there are about 900 to 1,000 plant species in Goa. This information would be much more difficult for a pure botanist to give. Thus butterflies are an ideal medium for a botanist who wishes to have an idea of the plant species in the locality.
Eggs are laid by the mother butterflies in distinct places on leaves to avoid predators from feeding upon them. They hatch within two to three days. The larvae will moult many times (on an average five) to become a pupa. During the pupa stage, it does not feed and after a few days it emerges as a butterfly. It waits for about 10 minutes to dry its wings in the sun and then flutters away. The whole process to become an adult may take a period of five weeks to two months. Then the butterfly will live for about 2 weeks, and within the first few days, will lay only one batch of eggs.
Moths are the ones that spin silk. No butterfly spins silk. There are about 10,000 species of moths in the world-much more than butterflies. Some butterflies and moths are poisonous e.g. the Crimson Rose, even found in Goa. It is a butterfly with wings and a red body. It also has red dots on its wings and black dots on its body. The smallest butterflies are about a few centimetres in size and one of the biggest butterflies is about the size of two palms put together.
At the end of the meeting Dr Gaonkar showed me some books on butterflies and some papers written by him on the subject. At around 1.30 p.m. I took leave of him and left for MES College where I had an appointment with Dr Leela for the same afternoon. There I saw preserved dolphin tails and specimens of hammer-headed sharks.
My stay in Bangalore also became very special because of the Times of India programme that Bing managed to arrange for me. The Times of India in Bangalore has a special section called "Newspaper in Education". One of the programmes of NIE is to have workshops in schools on varied topics. On the 20th of January, I went to The Times office on M.G. Road and after talking with the person in charge for sometime about what I had been doing during the past year I was asked whether I would take a few workshops in some schools over the next couple of days. Although I was not too certain how well I would do this job I agreed because if there is one thing I learnt during my sabbatical it is that one should always give a try to anything new because things are not always as hard as they might appear to be. So I said yes.
My first workshop was on the 22nd of January. I was picked up by one of the organisers from NIE and taken to the Srivani Education Centre where I was to speak to the students of Standard VIII. I was expected to speak for about 35 minutes and keep around 10 minutes for questions or discussion.
I was a bit nervous at first but as the talk progressed and I found the students listening attentively I talked more freely. After these sessions were over I would be dropped back home or to Hartman's office whichever was nearer. After the first few schools went off well and I became accustomed to the routine I found myself enjoying these classes. I was even more pleased to learn that I would be paid Rs.100 per workshop plus my travel costs.
For the talk I would start by telling the students about my sabbatical, how the idea came up, the various places I had visited and the various things I had done so far. After that I would speak about two topics-vermiculture and snakes-because I thought that these would be of most use to the students. Vermiculture because they could practise this at home to process the garbage into compost and snakes because people have so many fears about them.
When I talked about vermiculture, particularly about mixing cowdung with soil, sometimes the girls and boys would find it distasteful and would make jokes about it or laugh at the idea and I would think that these are city kids and they don't know anything about cowdung. But still I would continue to explain how a vermipit can be set up in their homes.
On snakes, I would first give general information about poisonous and non-poisonous snakes, and how to identify the poisonous ones. Then I would tell them what should be done if someone got a snake bite. I would also discuss the various beliefs that people have about snakes and which of them are myths. Depending on the time left, I would speak about other things too, like crocodiles, turtles or spiders.
At the end of the class, I would show them croc teeth, photos of myself with snakes, crocs, monitors, etc., and then my red-eared turtle that I always carried around with me in my bag. At this point there would be maximum excitement. Everyone would crowd around, some would ask to hold the turtle and they would ask questions about its eating habits etc. I would allow them to touch the shell and nothing more because the turtle is very nasty and bites. In this fashion I took workshops at several other schools including National English School, Sindhi School, St. Mary's School, Bolivian Girls School and Bangalore International School. I usually spoke to the students of Class VII to X. At Bangalore International School however the workshop was for the students of Class III and IV.
A few months later back in Goa I was pleased when the postman handed me a registered letter from NIE, Bangalore which contained a cheque for Rs.1075, my full earnings for giving the lectures. Later when I wrote an article on my one year sabbatical for the Hindustan Times I sent a copy to NIE and they too published it in their newsletter. Newspaper in Education has also invited me to take more workshops whenever I am in Bangalore.
Bangalore was very enjoyable in many other ways as well. One morning I went to a swimming pool with Kalia and got the shock of my life on jumping into the water; it was freezing cold! I resolved never to try swimming in Bangalore in the winter again.
I ate out often especially during the day and tried out various small eating joints (Bangalore has plenty of them), sampling South Indian food, vegetable cutlets, milk shakes and so on. Of course, I constantly had to watch my purse, for my budget did not allow lavish eating. Sometimes I went to a book shop, sometimes I did small errands for Bing and Ujwala, and I recall helping Bing with the cooking on at least two occasions and occasionally helping Ujwala with her garden.
I also used to accompany Bing and Ujwala and their two kids on family outings. Once we went to a lake called Sanki Tank where I enjoyed motorboat rides and then played with Zuri and Zaeer in a small children's park. Another time, we all went to see a dance performance that I didn't understand too much about. Sometimes we all just went out for a drive (I enjoyed these rides best) and then would have ice-cream cones on the way home.
I must tell you how I learnt to eat vegetables. I have generally disliked vegetables as far as I can remember. My mum tells me that she regularly fed me vegetables as a baby and we have always had one or two vegetables on the table at home for any meal. Still I would generally refuse vegetables and preferred to stick to fish curry and rice, our staple food in Goa.
When I was starting on my travels my parents warned me that in several places the food would be only vegetarian, and that did happen to be the case. During the year I learnt how to eat all types of food at different people's houses. But I stuck to veggies I could tolerate like cabbage and potatoes or I would eat the dhal and rice with pickles. I had still not started eating vegetables like ladyfinger and brinjal. Bing found out about this when chatting with me and said that he hated anybody making a fuss about food. So everyday while eating he would put a huge helping of vegetables on my plate. Especially the ones I didn't like, like tomatoes, brinjal and ladyfinger.
I would finish the vegetables first so that I could enjoy the better part of the meal i.e. the meat or fish without having to deal with the veggies. But no sooner had I finished the vegetables, he would say: "Oh lovely, you like this vegetable? Have another helping!" and despite my protests I would get another huge helping of vegetable. In this way I would eat about three times the quantity of vegetables as I took the first time before I finally ended my meal.
Eventually, I stayed on in Bangalore for three weeks, returning home only on the 30th of January. I had not met my parents and brothers for nearly 3 months and was eager to share my experiences with them. Unfortunately when I arrived, I got just an hour or so to chat with my parents as they were leaving that very day for a 10-day stay in Delhi to attend the World Book Fair along with some of the staff from Other India Bookstore. So I had to wait till their return to regale them with my tales.
But in the meanwhile there were my two younger brothers eager to know about my travels, my neighbours who hadn't seen me for five months and of course my old pals like Ashok who were happy to welcome me in their midst again.
I was at home for practically the entire month of February, partly because my parents themselves were away for nearly half the month and had asked me to help in the house during that time. Also, I had to re-plan my programme for the last few months of my sabbatical and some time was always needed for replies to be got from the people we had written to.
I found that I had completed most of the things I had set out to do during my sabbatical though there were a few areas like honey bees for which definite programmes had not yet been worked out.
I busied myself during this time with writing out those special essays of the past couple of months that I had not yet completed (though my daily diary was up-to-date and in perfect order).
I also set up the earthworm vermicompost pit in our backyard. It was my dad's idea that I should put into practice immediately the vermiculture that I had learnt, since managing garbage is becoming a problem in almost all households. His idea was that once I mastered the technique of setting up the vermipits by trial and error at home, I could set the same type up with little variations if needed for friends of ours and later for anyone who wanted this useful method of garbage management.
Dad suggested that I prepare a large vermipit which would be suitable for any family having a large compound like we have and also one or two small vermibeds which could be used by people living in flats who do not have lots of space of their own. We would keep all the pits going by putting waste into all of them from time to time and this way I could get experience on how the big and small pits both worked so that when people asked for such information I would readily have it.
So to start with I had to construct a vermibed. I began with the tank itself which was to be of brick. We had a labourer doing some odd jobs at that time at our house and he said he knew a bit about how to cement bricks together, so he and I constructed this 3' by 2' by 4' high tank of bricks. We mixed cement and sand in some rough proportion with water. Within a day we had the bricks placed one over the other with the cement mixture holding it all together. This was easy stuff I thought as I wrote out my record of how many bricks and the quantity of cement and sand we had used to construct the bed.
Next day, I dutifully wet the construction twice as instructed in order to have the cement set. Imagine my shock when on the third day I found that our entire tank was shaking and ready to collapse. I rushed off next door to my neighbour Guru who took one look at the tank and told me that we would have to take down the whole thing and start from scratch again. Apparently we had not used the right proportion of cement and sand mixture, or laid the bricks right. Nor had we laid any foundation for the structure. Masonry was not that simple, I realized.
I immediately got down to carefully removing each brick without damaging it as the bricks were to be re-used. Guru, the expert mason, then came over to construct the tank, and I helped. In fact, we built two tanks that day: one large and one medium. I then prepared the vermipits and Yesu, our maid, was instructed to henceforth put all the household wastes (except paper and plastic) into the pits, alternating between the different ones.
We also started vermiculture in a wooden crate. Eventually the crate was used as a seed bed and a fine crop of jackfruit seedlings was raised in the box. The other two vermipits (of brick) function well, and all our household waste is processed by the earthworms.
At the end of February, I was eager and ready to set out again. Although some contacts for the study of bee-keeping had been made by my dad, I was personally not very much interested in the subject. Crocs, snakes and the wild had gripped me and I was longing to get back to the Croc Bank.
I also had another totally unrelated and unconnected programme that I wanted to accomplish, namely to improve my eyesight by taking a course on eye care and learning eye exercises at the Eye Clinic at the Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry.
I came to know of the Eye Clinic through Farida, one of the resident staff at Croc Bank. I have been wearing glasses since class IV when my mum made the discovery that the reason I was not copying lessons from the blackboard was not because I was inattentive or disobedient but simply because I couldn't read clearly from the blackboard at all. Then came the visit to the oculist and the mandatory spectacles.
But I fervently wished to rid myself of these glasses ever since I heard that with eye exercises one can improve one's eyesight. In fact, I had begun doing eye exercises with Sister Gemma, a Medical Mission Sister who is associated with my parents' work. I had continued these exercises when I was at the Croc Bank, where Farida seeing me at it, had told me about the Eye Clinic at Aurobindo Ashram where I could get proper training.
As I was also eager to return to my favourite Croc Bank and since Pondicherry is not very far from Mamallapuram I proposed to my parents that I be allowed to go to Pondicherry via Bangalore, complete the eye course there and then proceed to Croc Bank where I could spend a fortnight or so before returning to Goa. This would comfortably keep me away during the month of March when my brothers would be studying for their school finals and I would return in time to enjoy the April-May vacations when our cousins from Belgaum, Lucano and Ricardo, would join us for a whole summer season of mangoes, jackfruits and umpteen picnics on the beach.
My parents approved of my programme and on the 26th of February, I set out for Pondicherry. By now I was quite familiar with the routes and did not need anyone to pick me up from the bus stops on arrival. However, I had phoned Bernard at Auroville earlier and made arrangements to stay with him at Auroville for the duration of the course.
I travelled by an overnight bus from Goa to Bangalore, rested briefly during the day at Hartman's place and caught the night bus again at Bangalore bus station arriving at Pondicherry at 4 a.m. There a cycle rickshaw fellow managed to cheat me of Rs.40 by promising to take me to Auroville but instead depositing me at Aurobindo Ashram which was more or less next door to the bus stop.
I had to get into another local bus to get to Auroville which was more than 10 kms away and after walking a short distance was greeted by Bernard, whom I knew, as I had met him some months earlier on my first visit to Auroville. I stayed free of cost at Auroville in a room in Bernard's quarters, sharing with him the meals he prepared.
I cycled twice a day from Bernard's house to the Ashram. At the Ashram, I used to do my eye exercises and then return home. I did a total of 45 kms of cycling per day i.e. 360 kms of cycling for the nine days that I was there.
The Ashram itself was an old building. Before you entered you had to leave your slippers outside and place a plastic tag, with a number, on them; another tag, with the same number, you carried in your pocket as you walked barefoot up the stairs of the ashram. The place reminded me of a retreat centre with people in meditative moods and soft Indian classical music playing continuously.
The first exercise was the most terrible one. I would have just reached the Centre after cycling in the sun when honey drops would be put in my eyes. I then had to stand sweating in the sun with my eyes burning because of the honey. (Honey is sweet on the tongue but burns in the eyes.)
The next exercise would be struggling to read fine print in the dark with only a candle light burning. Next, one had to carry out the same exercise in normal sunlight, outside. There was an exercise involving eye movement through the use of a small rubber ball, then the reading of a chart with letters and words of diminishing size in varying degrees, bathing the eyes with steam, much in the same way as inhalation is done, and then cooling the eyes with cold cotton packs. Finally, there was the colour treatment, where one stares at bright colours reflected over a lamp in a darkened room.
Each exercise had to be performed a specific number of times with small details like opening, shutting and blinking of the eyes controlled to the finest degree. After I finished I would return to rock music on a walkman, on my way to Auroville.
There was no charge for the 10 day course at the Ashram but at the end of it I paid Rs.77 for the material needed to enable me continue with the exercises-namely, 4 bottles of eyedrops, 2 small jars of honey, one rubber ball, two charts and two booklets with fine print.
I benefitted a lot from the course and within a month or so, after regularly doing the exercises, I was able to read without spectacles. I still do the exercises, though not so regularly, and the best part is that after having been a regular wearer of glasses I now have to use my glasses only occasionally, like when watching TV or movies-which I do very rarely anyway since we do not have a TV set at home.
After the course was over I was eager to get another look at the CrocBank and as per the prior arrangements made on telephone I set out forMamallapuram, once again, on the 7th of March.
A funny, but expensive incident happened to me on the way.
I got to the interstate bus station early that morning and waited till 8 or 9 a.m. for the bus going to Mamallapuram to arrive. I started asking around and eventually I was directed by a bus driver to the Mamallapuram bus.
Before I could reached the bus a man dressed in a conductors' uniform walked towards me. "Where are you going?" he asked. "To Mamallapuram", I replied. "Come, come with me", said the man. We both got into the bus, I took a seat and he put my luggage on the overhead rack. "Ticket", he demanded. "How much?" I asked. "25 rupees", he replied. I handed over the amount to him.
Shortly after the bus had started on its way, and to my astonishment, another conductor appeared and started issuing tickets to the passengers. I explained that I had already paid Rs.25 to the other conductor only to find that there was no "other conductor", only a clever cheat who had taken me for a ride while the bus was still stationary. I had to shell out another 18 rupees for my journey to the Croc Bank! What I found hard to accept was that the man was able to cheat me in front of all those passengers sitting in the bus. No one thought to tell me that he was not the real conductor.
This time I stayed at the Croc Bank only for a week as Rom, Harry and everyone else on the farm were leaving for Kerala to continue with the National Geographic film programme and there was little else I could do at the Croc Bank with everyone away.
The summer vacation that year was great fun. My cousins from Belgaum arrived on schedule and since no one had Board exams that year the holiday season began in the first week of April itself. We would enjoy two whole months of the sea, swimming as often as we could in the river that joins the sea at Baga.
One morning in May my dad asked me whether I'd like to participate in a project that the Goa Foundation, an environment organisation of which my dad is Executive Secretary, was organising for college students. I agreed. The project turned out to be field visits to the forests in Betim in order to identify which areas were still forest, which areas had been cut down and by whom, which projects/constructions had come up, and so on. The two students who had opted for this project were Stephen and Jerry, both from St. Xavier's College, Mapusa doing their graduation degree. I joined the team as an extra.
On the morning of the 20th of May, Dad and I set out in the car for Betim. On the way we picked up Stephen and Jerry. Dad showed us the different spots in and around the area he wanted us to cover and then left.
Steven was the leader of the team. He had obviously been briefed by Dad on how we were to proceed for he soon took out a note book and started writing notes. I took my notebook and wrote down some names of birds. Stephen said that just in case anybody questioned us, we were to say we were birdwatchers!
We found two illegal houses in the middle of the forest and a huge clearing made by cutting a lot of big trees. The trees appeared to be cut with the use of an electric saw and tar was smeared on top of them to prevent further growth. Many logs were thrown nearby. It was a tiring task and being the month of May, it was extremely hot and my shoes had begun cooking my poor feet. Even if we saw a small path, Steven would insist we go to the end. Jerry would sometimes complain, "Steven who the hell do you think will go down there, in that inaccessible valley, to cut trees?" But Steven was stubborn and would retort, "Jerry if we don't go down there we will have it on our conscience that there was a path which we could have checked out but didn't." So we trudged down each and every pathway we saw, howsoever narrow and unused it appeared to be.
On the second day, I went on my bicycle to Betim. We continued and we found another two illegal houses and a big tree cut, on the hill. This tree was also smeared with tar. The exercise usually took the whole morning and we would call it a day by about 2 p.m. or so.
On the third day, my Dad and my cousin Luke joined us. We showed my father the different spots we had visited, the places where trees were cut and the illegal houses. Dad had brought along a camera which he gave to Stephen to take photographs of the different patches of forest, the felling and the constructions. In some areas we found that fire had been set to the area after the trees were cut and this had destroyed the scrub bushes as well.
I was glad that the fourth day would be the last, since by now I was quite tired of this assignment. I had a lot of thorn pricks all over my body and they had become little itchy swellings. My feet were also sore and the heat was killing. But I carried on, as the project was near completion. On the hill we found a lot of houses, several of them illegal, coming up in the forest. We also found clear-felled plots with barbed wire fences around.
My part of the assignment was over that day and I received a small stipend for my work from the Goa Foundation. Steven and Jerry later prepared the project report with photographs and write-up. The report was submitted by the Foundation to the Forest Department. The department sent an officer to investigate the matter and also issued orders not to allow felling or constructions in the area.
A year had gone by since I had finished school and what an exciting year it had been. Having to go to college now seemed quite tame in comparison. But as I busied myself with filling up the admission forms and getting the ID card photographs ready another surprise awaited me, and it came from a totally unexpected place.
I was invited to be Chief Guest at an Environment Day function to be held in Belgaum on 5th June, World Environment Day, where I was to speak on my experiences during the past year. This was surely the crowning event of my one year sabbatical.
The invitation came from Dileep Kamat who was one of the organisers of an environment awareness programme, which he and others in Belgaum had organised for school children during the previous month. The programme included painting and essay competitions. The concluding part of the programme was to be held on 5th June where the finalists would give their speeches and the winners of all the competitions would be given their prizes.
Dileep, his wife Nilima and their son Partha are family friends of long standing and whenever Uncle Dileep comes to Goa he stays with us. As he explained, the purpose of the environment programme was to inculcate the idea that one can do things on one's own and one has to think out ways and means for this. And so, he said, he had considered the idea of inviting a young person, whom the students could identify with, to speak on the occasion. The Committee had wholeheartedly approved when he suggested my name as I had done something quite unique during the past year; and the fact that my preference was in the field of ecology made me an ideal choice, according to Uncle Dileep.
Of course I was delighted and accepted the offer. Who wouldn't be? Uncle Dileep said that all my expenses would be taken care of. I had an uncle (my father's youngest brother, Benjamin) at Belgaum, at whose house I could stay. There was only my bus ticket which the organisers had to pay for.
I started preparing my speech straightway as there was only a week left to go and I knew that I had do a good job as this was a big occasion for me. As usual I turned to my mum for help. She helped me choose the points I would speak on, then I wrote out my entire speech which she corrected and I set about memorising it.
Public speaking was not a major problem for me nor did I suffer from stage-fright as I had participated in several school competitions and also represented my school in inter-school debates. In fact, I had been awarded the Best Speaker prize in my final year at school. Still, speaking at a competition was one thing and being the main speaker for the day was quite another.
My mum gave me several tips on how to address the gathering, what I should do if I felt I could not remember the next line and so on. I rehearsed the speech several times at home and when I left on 3rd June for Belgaum I felt quite confident and well-prepared.
Along with essentials like clothes to wear, etc. I carried with me in my haversack my red-eared turtle, and another small turtle found locally in Goa, the croc teeth and photos of myself at the Snake Park, the Croc Bank, etc.
I arrived in Belgaum on 4th June and was met at the bus stand by my cousin Lucano who took me straight to his home. That evening Uncle Dileep came to our house, briefed me about the next day's programme and when he left he took with him the photos which he said he would put up on exhibition at the hall.
The next day Lucano took me to the venue at 3 p.m. The function was held in the school hall. There were children from several schools already there along with their parents. I noticed my photos put up on a cardboard on one side of the hall. My uncle Benjamin and aunt Grace and my other cousins also came for the function which began at 4 p.m. The hall was quite full when I entered. I was seated in front with my cousin Lucano next to me.
The programme was compered by one of the students. It began with the prize winners of the elocution competition delivering their speeches-one in English and the others in Marathi and Kannada. Then one of the students introduced me to the audience and I was called up to the stage to deliver my speech. I spoke in English and initially had to halt every little while for Uncle Dileep to translate what I had said into Kannada. Fortunately, however, after a few rounds of this English-Kannada speech it became obvious that the audience did not need the Kannada translation since they all understood English quite well. Then it became easier for me to continue and I finished with great confidence and was roundly applauded.
As I had done in the workshops I had conducted in the Bangalore schools earlier, I then took out the red eared turtle which I carried around for the audience to see at close quarters while my cousin took around a local turtle which those who wanted could handle. There were many students and parents who wanted to be photographed holding the turtles. I also showed the croc teeth to those who were interested.
The compere then announced that they would like to get on with the rest of the programme, but in view of the fact that several students wanted to ask questions, a question-answer session would be held, after the programme of skits was over. I returned to my seat and watched the skits which were on the theme of ecology.
After that was the prize distribution ceremony and I was called up to the stage to hand out prizes to the winners of the various competitions (elocution, as well as dramatics and drawing which were held earlier).
After this, the organisers allowed questions from the audience which I answered on the spot. I was quite happy to find that the audience had heard me attentively for there were many questions both from students and adults. Most of these concerned information about snakes. From this I gathered that snakes not only frighten people but fascinate them as well. The function ended at around 6.30 p.m. Before departing, the organizers gave me an envelope containing Rs.300 which more than amply covered my expenses for the trip.
Uncle Dileep invited Lucano and myself for dinner that night. On seeing that he had an interest in keeping the small turtle, I happily left it behind for him. Next morning I was pleasantly surprised to find that one of the local Kannada papers had reported the previous day's function and there was a photograph of me at the function and a report on it as well. I was thrilled beyond words.
Later I wrote an article on my one year sabbatical for the Hindustan Times which appeared on the Youth Page together with a couple of photographs and was pleased when my parents told me that several of their friends had read it and had complimented them and me for this bold and unusual step of taking a break from studies. The same article was eventually carried by several other newspapers and magazines including The Utusan Konsumer in Malaysia.
In my speech at Belgaum, in the workshops I had conducted at Bangalore for the school students and in the article I wrote I always recommended at the end of my presentation that every student ask their parents for a break from regular studies when they finished school as it is something they would never regret.
And I wish to repeat here, at the end of my book, that June 1995 to June 1996 was the most wonderful year that I can ever remember. I learnt a lot, not only about the things I wanted to learn, but about many other things as well. And best of all I had a lot of fun and a whole lot of freedom to do all that I ever wanted to do. I certainly look forward to another sabbatical! And so, by now, should you!