By AGNISH KUMAR DAS(First Prize Winner at the Nature's Eye Blog Writing Contest)
Wildlife in its essence is contradictory. The antithetical nature of wildlife could be realized
through the fact that philosophically, it at the same time exhibits varying degrees of abstraction
and tangibility, and functionally, it is microcosmic but in constant symphony with the
macrocosm. Hence, anyone dealing with this dialectical term in varying forms and degrees is
asked a question by one who is uninitiated to its intricacy. The question is: Why do we do what
we do?
Wildlife and the understanding and feeling of it lies in the ability to appreciate imperceptible,
subtle nuances in Nature's behavior with you. And once you can perceive Nature to be your
Coleridge, the forest to be the palace at Xanadu, the interactions between the species to be Kubla
Khan, and all this to be a fantastic dream, maybe, Nature will allow you to understand her meter
and rhyming pattern.
However, the previous paragraph is exactly the reason why the questioner is alienated at the
answer, almost always without exception. So, here is my rather amateurish take on how to deal
with it. Let me tell you a story. A couple of years back, two of my friends and I were taking part
in a yearly activity which involved counting the number of bird species in the forest area which
existed adjacent to where we resided. While we thought, in a metaphor from farming, that the
rain clouds would shine on us, the day as it went along slowly revealed itself to be a desert which
was devoid of any oasis. There was no bird activity. Evening slowly started to set in like a
faraway light of respite on the roadside for a debilitated soul on a pilgrimage. We were returning
back, and then suddenly, we felt something move within the bushes at a distance as if a sniper
was just blowing his cover. A deer appeared. The mirage was seen, the oasis was found, and all
the pain that physically radiated from the muscles to the tendons to the bones, obliterated.
So, imagine four decades from now, when I’ll have a grandchild on my lap, and the child’s eyes
would express itself as the greatest exemplar of awe, I’d have a story to make the child smile.
Maybe, next time, when someone asks us the question, we could leave out the jargon and allow
them to embrace a story. Truth be told, who doesn’t like a story ?
- Agnish Kumar Das (agnishzzdas@gmail.com)