Showing posts with label ornithology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ornithology. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 01, 2018
Thursday, October 12, 2017
In Conversation With India’s Birdman Aasheesh Pittie
Rohini
Kejriwal spoke to the ornithologist about the state
of conservation in India, challenges posed by urbanisation, and the lessons he
has learnt from the flying beauties
“Birds are the eyes of Heaven,” – Suzy
Kasse
Hyderabad-based Aasheesh Pittie
ornithologist, bibliophile, and bibliographer, most certainly agrees with
Kasse’s words. With a strong interest in the history of South Asian
ornithology, Pittie has compiled a database of over 31,000 ornithological
publications for the South Asian region. A writer on the subject, he has
published several articles and papers on Indian birds and edits the bi-monthly
journal Indian BIRDS. He recently completed his monumental work on the historic
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, thus adding to his work on the
archival Stray Feathers, the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society and
Ibis, and the more recent Newsletter for Birdwatchers, Indian BIRDS, now in its
13th year of publication, and Forktail. We spoke to Pittie about his
fascination with birds, the state of conservation in India, challenges posed by
urbanisation, and the lessons he has learnt from the flying beauties. Read the
excerpt below.
Can
you recall the moment that you decided to be an ornithologist?
Long ago, when I was gifted a copy of Salim
Ali’s Book of Indian birds, I took it and a clunky pair of binoculars to a
house that overlooked some rocks and sat down to wait for birds. The monsoon
was setting in and it threatened to rain. A Red-wattled Lapwing came onto a
rock and shaking with excitement, I raised the binoculars and noted its
details. Then came a green bee-eater upon an overhead wire with its long
central tail feathers. It began to drizzle but I could not get up. The book
helped me identify and name the two species, but their absolutely amazing
physical presence was overwhelming. Something shifted within me that day. I
have never regretted becoming a birder.
Take
us through your journey as a birder.
Over the years I have developed a special fondness
for birds, but I am enthralled by all of natural life. Practicality is a major
reason for choosing birds. They are everywhere and in abundance, unlike most
other life forms. Then they are easily visible and audible. I suppose the charm
and character that birds exude are among their abiding qualities that I find so
endearing. To me, birds are primarily an abundant, vibrant, non-human life form
that I can get close to, and celebrate our co-existence because of my sentient
conscience. I understand that it’s a one-way ‘relationship’, if I may call it
that, as there is no communication between birds and man. Yet I revel in their
ability of flight, their beauty, charm, song, dance, character, power,
delicacy, tolerance, stamina, etc. characteristics I aspire to, as does every
human being. Birds do not know these terms; they are our way of understanding
them, limited by our lexicon. I paint on them emotions in trying to understand
my own.
Due to the nature
of my work, I have not been able to travel much for birding. So I began to try
and make it easier for birders, both amateur and professional, to search the
vast literature of the field easily, and find out what has been published, say,
about the Indian Roller in Maharashtra. Towards this, I have spent hundreds of man-hours
in libraries, indexing 300 years of ornithological literature so that with the
help of keywords, people can ferret out papers that might contain information
they are searching. I have also been fortunate to edit various newsletters, and
journals along this journey into ornithology.
What
is the current state of birding and conservation in India?
Birding, as a pastime, is booming, fuelled
by the new-found fad for bird-photography. Birding as a tool for conservation
is picking up speed through various citizen-science projects and individual or
collective (organised/organisation-based) activism. There is a pretty large
community of birders in India. The exciting part is that it is growing rapidly
every day. Most major cities have groups that go out birding at least on
weekends. Social media has played a pivotal role in the huge popularisation of
birding. There are Facebook groups that boast of over one-lakh members – Indian
Birds. The versatility of the smartphone in perpetuating this phenomenon is
used in so many different ways. Photos of birds, birding groups, habitats,
etc., are uploaded easily; opinions upon correct identification of species are
exchanged and applied; birding trips are organised, and threats to habitats
such as wetlands or urban trees, highlighted. Someone invariably takes up the
cause to educate the government, muster local or countywide support, and try
and save such areas. The social media also informs people abouting poaching,
the unethical behaviour of over enthusiastic photographers and birders, and
acts as an SOS sounding-board where people ask about methods of handling lost
fledgelings, storm-blown sea birds, or injured birds.
The power of
citizen-science in collecting raw data is immense though it is in its nascent
stage across most of India. An early effort to use amateur birders to collect
data was the Asian Waterbird Census, which started in 1987 and still occurs in
Dec-Jan every year. Subsequently, several participatory programmes have sprung
up for the citizen-scientists so much so there is now a calendar of events. The
recent upsurge in documenting, and analysing birding data is due to the
fantastic online database portal called eBird, where birders can upload their
field lists, notes, and photographs to be checked by experts and accepted.
Various types of analyses are possible from the data.
So, on the amateur
birder level, the birding scene in India is pretty rosy. Professional
ornithology still has a long way to go, not so much for the lack of personnel
as institutional support. Conservation in India is largely controlled by the
State. Citizens have no control over the State’s whimsical fragmentation of
wilderness areas. Many times, rudimentary or even erroneous environmental
impact assessments are prepared by incompetent agencies and based on them,
developmental projects are fast tracked for implementation. This is a
high-handed, myopic, and discouraging trend that undermines the vital role of
wilderness areas in the way our planet functions.
The increased
awareness about the environment has resulted in a greater vigilance amongst the
birders and wildlifers. Every detrimental project of the State is quickly
flagged and we see a lot of participation in various types of protests. So
birders are gradually getting to the tipping point where their collective voice
would be heard by the administrations.
But
beyond the hobby or activism, is there a lot of on-going research in
ornithology?
Most ornithological research in India is
species-specific, which is fine as it builds our knowledge base about birds.
But it cannot be forgotten that we stand on the shoulders of giants and that
there is a vast and extant literature. What is required is a deeper research
that sees the role of species in the larger perspective of their environment so
that a more holistic view of land and the wilderness is formed. Currently,
there is a concentration of studying threatened species. I only wish that
today’s common species are also studied. With the rate of habitat destruction
and other pressures, many may end up threatened in a decade or two.
But there are
several ornithologists in the country today doing great work. The work of V. V.
Robin and his team comes to mind. Their deep study of the ‘Sky Islands’ of the
Western Ghats is breaking new ground in the fields of landscape ecology, on
species, biodiversity, and the effects of habitat fragmentation. Another worthy
effort in north-eastern India is by Aparajita Datta’s team which works with
local communities on the conservation of hornbills.
Team
of birders are also venturing into coastal waters of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and
Kerala in search of pelagic birds.
Can
you take us through the issues faced by birds, especially in Southern India?
I have a feeling, though I may be wrong,
that the birds of the five southern Indian states are better studied than those
of the rest of the country. Through the phenomenon of eBird, the distribution
data pouring in is amazing, and at least Kerala has taken up the task of
compiling a bird atlas. Birders from the city of Mysore have created an atlas
of bird distribution for two consecutive years. This contagion will only
spread.
Habitat
fragmentation, land, air, and water pollution, and man-made situations like
wind farms are some of the problems birds face. Some of these will return to
haunt us, if not affecting us already, for birds are a mere strand in the web
of ecology that binds all life on earth. Ultimately, these problems will affect
the way we live for they will result in water shortages, toxic poisoning, catastrophic
climate change phenomena, etc.
So
in what direction do we look for solutions?
A sure-fire way to ensure a more secure
future for our environment, the birds and other wildlife, and ourselves as a
consequence is universal education. It empowers people with knowledge and the
ability to take right decisions.
There is a
movement towards organic agriculture, and if its footprint were to increase,
the land near critical wild habitat would become safer to their denizens.
Government should stop clearing wilderness areas and furthering mono-culture in
the name of reafforestation. What they deem non-productive land has remained so
over millennia and plays a role in stabilising local landscapes (geography and
hydrology).
We also need to
preserve pristine water bodies. Commercialising all of them ultimately pollutes
them and reduces their biodiversity.
Further, urban
spaces should be de-congested into smaller satellite towns, ultimately reducing
the need for mega-hydro projects for irrigation, power, and potable water –
making way for smaller, less disruptive projects.
Stemming
from this, you seem to feel quite strongly about birds and urban spaces.
Bird life in urban India is pretty diverse.
In the pockets of congenial habitats that survive in the concrete jungles that
our cities have become, wildlife clings on tenaciously, adapting to the rapidly
changing habitats. Their presence or absence and abundance or rarity of species
in urban areas is a reflection of their adaptability to changing environments
and microhabitats. The reason one commensal of man (the house sparrow)
struggles to cope while another (the feral pigeon) thrives is a direct
reflection of this adaptability.
Feral pigeon
populations have exploded in urban areas because conditions are conducive for
them. They have virtually no predators, ample nesting spaces, and an abundance
of food. They have adapted to using high-rise buildings for nesting and as
perches. Their predators in the wilderness, generally falcons, are uncommon in
urban Indian skies; feral, or pet cats might comprise their sole nemesis. But
their propensity to breed year-round and the senseless largess of people who
feed them ensure their successful colonisation of our urban spaces. We tolerate
the mess they create, assume divine blessing in the feeding of them, and
couldn’t care less that they spread disease. If municipalities made feeding
pigeons a punishable offence, as many Western towns’ municipalities have, the
menace of these flying rats will be curtailed.
World over, more
people live in urban spaces than they do in the countryside. Urban spaces, if
planned diligently, can become havens for wildlife. Diversity will be limited,
as ecological riches are restricted, but there will be surprises due to the
great variety of habitats. There is a concept gaining traction in the West,
wherein a city is considered a fragmented protected area. Planners connect
urban parks to each other via corridors of avenue trees and embrace private
gardens into this grid. If such a concept were to be adopted, and
municipalities envision habitats created of local or endemic rather than exotic
flora, we could see an urban environment emerging that would benefit the people
living in it. A life devoid of natural surroundings, which break the anarchy of
man-made lines, withers our souls. And if we are restricted to artificial
sound, our capacity to enjoy natural bird song and the subconscious euphoria it
creates will diminish and impoverish us.
We’re
sure you’ve had some fascinating adventures, be it on your solo birding trips
or bird counts. Please share some stories.
I am not a particularly adventurous type,
and so cannot boast of spectacular escapades in the wilderness. But in the
restricted birding I have done, I have found moments of great beauty and grace
that are sufficient to soothe a soul. On an outing with my birding group one
winter morning, we were watching some ducks on a small wetland, when an Osprey
appeared out of nowhere and dove for fish in front of an astonished birding
audience, disappearing below the water and then, in a trice, emerging and
lifting off with a large squirming fish in its talons. Mid-flight, it shook its
body to rid its feathers of water in an halo of spray and flew away with the
morning’s catch. It was a spectacular moment.
Another time,
another place, again a water body. A few of us sat on a bund, watching ducks
flying in to land on the water. As some came in, a few turned turtle in flight
and then uprighted before landing. What an unbelievable sight that was! No one
knows why they do it. It was so quiet, we could hear the wind in their wings –
a sound of tearing fabric – as they descended at high speed.
In birding, the
question to ask when looking at the bird is whether one is seeing it. To truly
do so, one has to be sensitive, discerning, patient, quiet, and still. Birds
will allow you into their world and the joys of watching birds are great,
wherever you are. I have gasped at the clever House Crow that dropped crisped
papad into waters so it did not splinter when eaten; at the song and dance of a
male lora trying to impress a visiting female; at the crazy monotone of the
Coppersmith Barbet; at the frenzy of male Baya Weavers when a female visits to
inspect the housing facilities before accepting her mate; at the ability of young
Pheasant-tailed Jacanas to sink into water when an adult cries ‘ware hawk’—in
alarm; in the comical but perfect ruse of plovers to lure away predators from
their young by the broken-wing (injured bird) display; by the awesome spectacle
of tens of thousand of flamingos staining a wetland like an algal bloom; by the
flocking of wagtails and pipits as they came to roost in a clump of reeds. All
these encounters were close to urban agglomerations. People often ask ‘Where do
you go to watch birds? Surely none but a few exist in cities?” But they are
ignorant. Cities have a thriving birdlife though it may be limited. And I am
not among those who wander the world with a shopping list of birds to be seen.
Once ticked, they’re done with it, and move on to the next one. I am happy in
my patch and with the birds found on it.
From
your understanding, does birding provide a legit means of income?
There are several avenues for creating a
livelihood for persons who do not have an academic degree in ornithology but
are avid birders. What should be kept in mind by such people is that their
interest in birds should be expanded to include the bird’s environment to get a
more holistic picture of what is involved.
A person with a
degree in ornithology could pursue an academic career in teaching, curating
museum collections, join the government through the forest service, or other
positions that require qualified people. Even large corporates with extensive
campuses may need environmental experts. They may join environmental assessment
agencies or international or national conservation organisations that run
projects across the world. They could join or form their own tour companies to
plan, execute, and lead niche itineraries for the adventure-hungry tourist.
Amateurs would perhaps
have to work harder. But they could also professionalise their passion in
writing books, in taking up photography, or even leading specialised tours on
their own. The idea is to capitalise on your speciality and tap the niche
market that searches for such a specialist. It all depends on how enterprising
one is.
Being
the bibliophile that you are, would you say there are high quality books on
birds being published in India?
Indian publishers are hitching their wagons
to the birding books phenomenon but invariably piggy backing on international
publishers who have already put out books in the world market. The Bombay
Natural History Society is perhaps the only organisation that in collaboration
with Oxford University Press produces high quality natural history work. Other
Indian publishers like Permanent Black, Orient Blackswan, and Aleph have begun
their own imprints that cater to works on wildlife. But it is a mark of the
state of affairs when the two most popular birding field guides have non-Indian
authors. Except for Salim Ali’s large body of bird books and his incomparable
beginner’s guide Book of Indian Birds, very few original standalone volumes
have been published from a country with our 1200 species of birds, which have
made a resounding splash. Notable exceptions in recent years have been Rishad
Naoroji’s Birds of prey of the Indian Subcontinent, and Birds of Kerala by
Sashikumar Praveen, Palot & Nameer.
Nature writing as
a genre has not caught on in India though there are several anthologies in the
market containing articles from various sources. But there is the glimmer of a
silver lining showing since a couple of years, even though the works I allude
to deal with larger environmental issues.
What
was your process of getting into your first book Birds In Books, a bibliography
of books on South Asian Ornithology?
The book covers a small portion of the vast
library of published literature from this part of the world since 1750 – the
time of scientific ornithology, comprising over 30,000 papers. I realised early
on that there was no easy way to search through historical publications for
pertinent literature on any one species or place. So I compiled a database that
enables users do this at www.southasiaornith.in.
Keeping it up to date is a full time job.
What
would be your general advice to anyone interested in pursuing birding?
All pursuits have their own unique codes of
ethical conduct. So does birding, e.g, the bird and its safety always comes
first No matter how important it is to see it or photograph it, if in doing so,
its very survival is threatened, one must back off. Birders must realise they
are dealing with life forms that cannot comprehend them and vice versa; so
taking situations for granted as if it were a human situation may not work with
birds.
Over time, as
one’s interest in birds grows, it is natural that one reads deeply about them
and the environment they live in; one will finally realise it is a common
environment we share. Through birds, we learn about our habitat and our role in
shaping (or destroying) it. I would advise people to enjoy birds. Follow rules
and the birders code of ethics. To advance ornithology, become a
citizen-scientist and post your lists on eBird. Stay alert about environmental
issues and participate in protecting wilderness areas. Read widely and spread
the art and joy of birding.
Last
one. Which is your dream bird you’ve been in the pursuit of?
I would love to answer “ the one I see
next” for that is how much I like watching them. But over time, some birds
become embedded in one’s imagination for various reasons. The endemic Bugun
Liocichla of Arunachal Pradesh is one such. It is an entirely new species that
was discovered as recently as 2006 by Raman Athreya and described to the world
though Indian BIRDS, a journal I edit. I would also like to witness the
spectacle of Amur Falcons flocking before their migration to Africa.
But frankly, I am
happy visiting the same places again and again, and watching the same species
repeatedly for if one gazes long enough, it is never the same place nor
species. Just like one does not step into the same river twice, you always
return to a different situation of habitat and life cycle of birds in your
patch.
Monday, September 12, 2016
Thursday, August 13, 2015
A plague of pigeons
It is
difficult to imagine our iconic symbol of peace, the dove, metamorphose into an
emissary of death. That’s just what’s happening in our burgeoning and congested
urban areas. This is not some Hitchcockian vendetta. Indeed, the birds are
innocent and ignorant, but they have help—from us.
I am talking of the apparently innocent, slyly endearing
feral Rock Pigeon Columba livia, aka
‘kabootar’, or ‘pavuram’ (in Telugu). Before elaborating upon my seriously
accusatory beginning, let me fleetingly touch upon antecedents of pigeon-human
interactions. These birds originally inhabited rocks, and cliffs, where they
nested, and eked out their lives. But their association with mankind has
evolved over aeons. They’ve been a part of the weave of worldwide civilizations
and cultures.[1]
With the formation of towns and cities, they became our commensals, adapting to
the facilities our clustered environments provided them. It was a more involved
relationship in the past when we used them for sport and pastime, for service
(pigeon post), and as food. With the advance of our civilization, and the
diminution of leisure, kabootarbazi
has all but disappeared; technological advance in communications has retrenched
the messenger pigeons; and the poultry industry has removed the roast squab
from our menus.
Our
spiritual inclinations too have fanned expansive pigeon colonization. The
Prophet Mohammed (AD 570–632) is thought to have received divine messages from
a dove sitting on his shoulder; the pigeon / dove is mentioned in the Rig Veda
(1500–2000 BC); for the Sikhs it is a bird of peace, always depicted with Guru
Gobind Singh, symbolizing amity and peace in fractious times; and had the dove
not returned at eventide with a fresh sprig in its beak, poor Noah would have
had a hard time of it [Source: www.pigeoncontrolresourcecentre.org/html/about-pigeons.html]. Rationality
has seldom been religion’s strength. The nuance and symbolism of religion and
history have become gospel, and human acts related to them, even if irrational,
assume the invisible sanction of communities at large, and the faithful in
particular. In a world torn apart by fractious sectarian strife, we ‘worship’ this
symbol of peace, pandering a mere icon, and ignoring the message in real life
situations. Such misguided whims radiate through communities and congeal into deceptive
folly. Blind faith can be a Trojan horse. The explosion of rock pigeon
populations in our cities is a direct result of this conundrum.
The
compassionate act of feeding pigeons has become an overzealous absurdity that
supposedly imparts spiritually elevated feelings of benevolence. In our religious
fervor we feed feral pigeons vast quantities of grain. We strew it charitably
in public places and enjoy emotions of well being from this act of ‘piety’, but
spilt grain brings not peace, only huge quantities of poop from booming pigeon
populations! No scripture desires the faithful to feed pigeons enmasse, though
they warn of the folly of excess, which we conveniently forget.
Meanwhile,
the birds have become emboldened beyond redemption. Their Pavlovian instincts
are easy to train. With an unending, year-round supply of grain, and water,
they need only breed and perpetuate their kind. Our beehive-dense urban agglomerations
provide a plethora of ideal nesting places where pigeons breed unhindered.
Their traditional predators, Peregrine Falcons, are migrants to India,
preferring to patrol coastal areas. Few come inland. Their resident cousin, the
Shaheen, is a forest dweller. Feral cats are simply too few, and have easier
food available to them, from our garbage, to bother expending energy hunting
pigeons. Feral pigeons prosper in this heavenly urbania.
The problem
The problem
with feral pigeons is that they produce major antigens from their droppings,
feathers, and blood that cause diseases in humans. This is a known historical
fact amongst pigeon fanciers—those who indulge in ‘kabootarbazee’. People who have dovecotes, who race pigeons, or
once used them to carry messages, are prone to the malady called
‘pigeon-fancier’s lung’; a pulmonary condition. Pigeons, along with other birds
like parakeets, and ducks also cause a number of other zoonotic diseases:
Histoplasmosis (caused by the airborne fungus Histoplasma capsulatum, which grows in the bird’s droppings.),
Cryptococcosis (another fungus, Cryptococcus
neoformans); Psittacosis, Toxoplasmosis, etc. When pigeons are concentrated
in large numbers, and live in close proximity to us, the chances of infection increases
alarmingly.
The
grave concern about the relationship between feral pigeons and human health is the
bird’s unrestricted population explosion in congested urban built up areas. We
live in dangerously close contact with them, given the number of diseases they
cause. We pamper them with food and water, we accept them as neighbours, we tolerate
their droppings, their feathers, the mess of their nests, and their
vocalisations. We accept all this because living in unsanitary surrounds does
not seem to bother us. We are a tolerant lot. As long as the garbage is outside
our homes, our compounds, it’s not our problem. We don’t also complain to civic
authorities for the result of that is, invariably, a series of unwanted
headaches; not the desired remedy. We also tend to ignore the fact that
epidemics explode in congested areas in which the causative antigen-producing agent
is also included.
The disease
In recent
years it has been established that pigeons are one of the causes of a somewhat mysterious
lung disease, Hypersensitive Pneumonitis (‘HP’), which is one of the several forms
of Pulmonary Fibrosis. HP suggests itself on a chest X-ray and produces a
distinctive pattern on a CT scan. The threat is so serious, that Pulmonologists
frequently advise their patients to rid their environs of pigeons, or even change
their neighborhoods!
To
be fair to the bird, there are nearly 150 other identified causes for Pulmonary
Fibrosis, related in one way or another largely to moldy substances, or the presence
of dust in the various forms of work that men and women do. Contaminated water,
extremely humid work conditions, and various chemicals are also suspect. Given
this variety of causes, implicating the pigeon may prove difficult—and indeed, seem
a tad extreme to some people. Yet, it cannot be denied that the pigeon is one
of the commonest offenders in the propagation of HP, and doctors find it
difficult to ignore such a patently obvious aetiological agent—especially one
that can be ‘eliminated’ easily (see below).
We
don’t know yet why Pulmonary Fibrosis strikes, and we don’t know yet how to
cure it. Till a cure is found, we need to tackle what’s known: Whether this
involves giving up some habits, curbing irrational pseudo-religious activities,
or reducing unnaturally burgeoning wild animal / bird populations. Our
addictions, even to vague religious sentiments, make us overwhelmingly selfish.
We crave satiety at any cost—until the addiction catches up with the addict, or
a loved one. (Tobacco ravages mankind like a scourge; yet it is sustained by
the economies it spawns.) But the feral pigeon is no longer a commercial option.
It merrily thrives on our gullibility.
Meanwhile,
Pulmonary Fibrosis is making rapid and catastrophic progress in our urban
areas. People working in certain professions, or atmospheric conditions, are
more prone to it historically. But the urban pigeon problem has now created a
‘new’ source of the disease, which now strikes unchallenged across the spectrum
of our social orders. A majority of its tragic victims remain unknown, but
there are some it has struck, or felled that we have held in high esteem:
Marlon Brando, Nawab Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, Laurance Rockefeller, James
Doohan (Star Trek), Peter Benchley (author of Jaws), and many others.[2]
Once afflicted,[3]
a patient is prescribed cortico-steroidal drugs, which have the potential to suppress
the natural immune defenses of the body. The soft tissue of the lungs gradually
stiffens like cardboard, effectively dying, shrinking the tissue that helps absorb
the life-giving oxygen into the blood.[4]
Breathing becomes an ordeal for the patient. Simple actions like talking,
sitting down, standing up, sleeping and turning in bed, eating, drinking, all result
in erratic levels of breathlessness, becoming moments of discomfort and adversity,
and indeed, even fear and apprehension. Gradually even the personal dignity of
privacy in toilets is compromised. No one should suffer this if we can help it,
or even mitigate it.
A solution
All is not
lost. There is at least a partial solution to the problem. We have encouraged
and allowed the feral pigeon to expand its populations without bounds. It is in
our hands to reduce its numbers. The remedy is simple; it involves no action,
and saves money all around, a win-win situation really. Let us resolve to stop feeding pigeons. Stop scattering grain in
public places, in open spaces, on rooftops, on pavements, in compounds, and
around places of worship (disease knows no religion). Pigeon populations will
automatically collapse. Let us make the feeding of pigeons in public places a
punishable offence (by imposing fines), as has been done with resounding
success around Trafalgar Square in London, and in several other cities,
including San Francisco, Venice, Albuquerque, New Jersey, Ontario, etc. The
Municipal Commissioner of Greater Hyderabad should take action under Section
565 of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Act, 1955.
Without
food pigeon populations will crash. The birds will not breed. They will
gradually thin out, and disperse into an increasingly wider geographical area.
The processes of nature will take over, forcing them to forage for
themselves—as it should be.
Human
suffering will reduce, lives, and money will be saved—no more expense on grain,
on sanitation, and no more filthy buildings. Those with charitable inclinations
might even reorient their largess towards destitute and poor people. Let us
restore this fallen dove of death to its rightful place as an icon of amity and
goodwill.
[1] Cocker, M.,
& Tipling, D., 2013. Birds and people. 1st ed. London: Jonathan
Cape. Pp. 1–592.
[3] Statically
data is lacking, but anecdotal impressions of pulmonologists indicate scores of
new cases of ILD every week just in Hyderabad. Projections for the country
boggle the mind. There cannot be a more compelling reason to tackle the pigeon
problem swiftly and resolutely.
[4] ILD affects
the interstitium, a lace-like network of tissue, which is a part of the lungs’
anatomical structure. This gets scarred, causing, what is called, Idiopathic
[=the cause of which is unknown] Pulmonary Fibrosis [=scarring].
Monday, April 27, 2015
S is for Shikra[1]
Siraj Ahmed Taher (1942–2010).
President Emeritus, Birdwatchers' Society of Andhra Pradesh.
Portrait courtesy the Taher family.
In 2010 I lost
two people who were very dear to me. They had studied in the same school, lived
out their lives in the same city, had many common friends, at least one common
hobby, and both died, within two months of each other, in the same hospital. Both
were paterfamilias of more than one ‘family’—philately, and ornithology. Both
had a tremendous impact on my life. Their journey into the sun was uphill.
Siraj sahib was passionate about birds. That is how we met the first
time, at a meeting of the fledgling Birdwatcher’s Club of Andhra Pradesh [BCAP].
The fact that he was a generation older than me was never discussed between us,
while everything else was. The Hyderabad he grew up in, the social culture of tehzeeb that made him what he was, has
now vanished. He came to birds in the best way possible: First, pursuing them
for sport, once a gentlemanly pastime, played to exacting rules; then swerving
towards conservation, like so many of his enlightened contemporaries. I pressed
him once, to tell me why he gave up his gun. He’d shot a sambhar once, a poor
shot, he confessed. The injured stag blundered off into the forest. Raised in a
tradition that valued a pricked conscience, he decided to follow the stricken
animal and put out its agony. But the sambhar fought the inevitable for several
hours, staying either unsighted, or out of range from its pursuer. When finally
he caught up with it, the profusely bleeding animal was finished. The sight of
the dead animal, and the realization that here was a living being that need not
have died, had indeed tried to escape death, moved him immensely. With the
bursting of its heart, that sambhar converted its nemesis forever towards
conservation.
After a couple of outings together as part of the BCAP, we began to
hit it off. To this too, there was a quirky angle, which showed the apnapan of those days.
One evening he met an old school friend of his in Riyazath Husain’s
iconic bookshop on Abid Road, A. A. Husain & Co. After the pleasantries and
backslapping subsided, under the convivial eye of the senior Mr Husain, Siraj
sahib asked him, “Arre, ek bachcha ata
hai hamare chidiyon ke club mein. Tu
jaanta kya?” In a city steeped in social niceties, the use of the “tu” was reserved for those that were dear
to one; unlike the rough meaning it is ascribed today.
“Apna hi bachcha hai, Siraj,”
chuckled my father. Again that tehzeeb—not
the grasping “mera bachcha”, but the
inclusive, “apna”.
In the next outing, he stumped me with a loud, “Arrey, tum bolaich nahin ki Murari ke bete hain”. Seeing me taken aback, he chortled the bookshop
episode. After that, my birding outings had no querulous or disapproving looks
at home. I was going out with shareef log.
Thus began a life-long association with one of the finest people I’ve known. In
some matters he took me under his wing, in some we did things together.
That shareef quality of the
man, I think, was ultimately what drew so many people to the BCAP, which was
rechristened the Birdwatchers’ Society of Andhra Pradesh [BSAP] upon its
registration. The hierarchy of the organization was never apparent to any of
the participants. Except for Mr Pushp Kumar, top gun in the Andhra Pradesh
Forest Department, who was thus accorded a genteel deference by the elderly
birders, the subtle unsavouriness of implied superiority, whether of rank, or
knowledge, never left its residue on any of us youngsters. Everyone travelled
together in the forest department’s jeeps, all walked to where the birds were,
victuals were mutually partaken, and the day’s count discussed later in a much-anticipated
circle of friendship. Topical and irreverent banter, and repartee, were the
norm. This was an exceptional illustration of the altruistic spirit of those
who planned, promoted, popularized, and participated in this pastime. And to my
mind, the single factor that contributed to the organisation’s successful
promotion of an undoubtedly new concept of outdoor activity for the citizenry
of Hyderabad. Plus, who could deny that element of thrill, shrouded in the past
of fondly recalled boyhood days, of a Boy Scout’s revving adrenalin, of a golden
nostalgia that tugs adults to another shot at nirvana? The wilderness, and its
wildlings, does such things to men.
Every specialized activity has its own terminology, and ornithology
was replete with enough to confound a polyglot; its lexicon spanned classical
European languages, English, Sanskrit, and the immense mythologies of the
world’s cultures! This hurdle notwithstanding, our motley group soon cobbled
together a bristling argot of nicknames, abbreviated codes, hand and eye
signage, and often, a whistled mimicry of surprising drollness, pulsating with
distinct onomatopoeic bemusement. Newcomers stood stupefied by this bunch of
loonies telling time on a tree while trying to locate a bird! Siraj sahib was privy
to this notorious gang, and thoroughly enjoyed the perplexity of the
uninitiated. Being accepted into the group was considered a rite of passage.
His sense of fun was legendary. It often kept in good humour a tired,
flagging group returning after a day of slim pickings. A master raconteur, he spiced
tea breaks with stories from vintage days. In turns becoming
moist-eyed-sentimental for the Days of
the Beloved, or rasping street-slang Hyderabadi
in his baritone.
The
BSAP ‘pavilion’ at the first Pan-Asian Ornithological Conference in Coimbatore,
9–16 November 1996. L to R: Siraj Taher, M. S. Kulkarni, Noritaka Ichida
(Vice-President of BirdLife International, and Chairman, BirdLife Asia Council),
Tim Inskipp, and Maj. Ahmed Abdul Aziz. Photo: Aasheesh Pittie.
For Siraj sahib, every birder was special, and welcome to his home. I
met many heavyweights of the birding world there, and cannot recall even one
person who was not at as much ease, as he would be in his own drawing room. The
city’s birding lads walked in and out as if they were visiting their own homes.
To me it was always a special place. I went there for all the reasons that a
deepening friendship draws two people to spend time together. Our discussions
ranged from ornithology, to social behavior, politics, the philosophy of
morality, and ethics; the nuances of Urdu shayari;
the importance of art in comprehending the world; the unceasing turmoil that
was the status of our environment; the way to take the Society forward—several
ideas springing up spontaneously during conversation, which we worked on and
made something of. But the deepest moments were the silences we lapsed into
between words, ruminating, pondering, or simply savouring thoughts that rush in
at the end of a satisfying flow of words. I always took away the comforting
thought that here was someone who I could speak with about subjects that shone
with clarity once the polishing strokes of give and take had burnished their
cantankerous edges.
L
to R: Siraj Taher, Richard Grimmett, and Aasheesh Pittie (1996). Photo:
Aasheesh Pittie
The heady plan of collating our own checklist of the birds of Andhra
Pradesh was cast during one such evening. Why could we not do it? It was the
first step to more comprehensive ornithologies—but this was achievable by just
the two of us. As often happens, the force with which an idea hits one, it also
pushes out and lays bare methodologies for fructifying it in the same instant.
I do not think it took us more than half an hour to decide our workflow and
apportion our responsibilities. Subsequently, there must have been innumerable meetings
to iron out creases, to enjoy quaint discoveries in published accounts from the
past, to streamline every step so that both were on the same page with regard
to content, presentation, citation, taxonomy, etc. But there was no major
change; no rollback of methods; no U-turn on our road map.
Release
of the Checklist in 1989, in the
corridor of the A. P. Forest Dept., building. L to R: Maj. Ahmed Abdul Aziz,
Pushp Kumar IFS, S. Ashok Kumar. I am talking about the work, a stack of which
can be seen on the bottom left of the picture. Photo: Aasheesh Pittie.
Comparatively, the translation of the Birds of southern India, by Richard Grimmett and Tim Inskipp (2005),
into Telugu, was a minefield. Collaborations were imperative because he only
had a good working knowledge of the language, could be the ideal
Telugu-speaking ornithologist, but was not proficient enough to take on the entire
work himself. Translating the extensive lexicon of birding, into a language
that seemed to have no specific, definitive words to suit scientific
interpretations, had to be executed by a twin-nibbed pen: One, that wrote with
bold hearty strokes, delineating the work; the other, with the fine point,
working in all the telling details that illuminated the manuscript. I was the
troubleshooter who tried to unclog detritus in the workflow, to ensure smooth
progress. Not least of these was dealing with the names for the colours of
plumage, “brownish-yellow,” “blue-green”, etc. Ultimately we did get our own
Telugu colour palette! Siraj sahib worked hard and long at the manuscript, and
may have taken it through at least six proofs, after, often nerve-wracking
meetings with the translators. The fine pointed pens scratched away day and night,
and I would notice fresh stacks of papers during our daily meetings. He had
this thing for coloured inks and would mark up his sheets with differently
coloured inks, each colour linking a unique chain of thought. He wrestled with
extant Telugu bird names, which were invariably of a generic nature, and had
the distinction of coining dozens of new ones. But it was mighty frustrating
work, and often did I catch him in a reverie, absentmindedly sucking at the end
of a pencil. The lack of a consensus, the engine that could have driven this naming
work, rankled him. Invitees never bothered to respond, except a few, for which
he was so grateful. Dialect, that verbal filigree of distinctiveness within a
language, a culture, tortured him, till one day he realized the only way
forward was to ignore it. One could not please everyone. When published (2007),
it was a work that justified his sense of achievement, in that of his team, and
in his pride that the Society was a co-author.
Siraj
Taher speaking at the release function of the Telugu translation of Birds of southern India (2005) L to R:
A. K. Malhotra IFS PCCF APFD, Asad R. Rahmani (Director, Bombay Natural History
Society), and Shafaat Ulla. Photo: Aasheesh Pittie.
Siraj sahib, and indeed, Pushp Kumar, worked with an extraordinary
zeal to promote an awareness of birds among Hyderabad’s citizenry, and as a
consequence, highlighted the environment we collectively belong to. The media,
both print, and radio, smelled the potential of an unique angle to pitch
stories, and people began to discuss birds, the urban environment, and even the
activities of the BSAP! Birds have always attracted mankind, and when brought
out from the realms of literature, poetry, art, or even mythology, into the
ambit of casual conversation, they ushered delight, rekindled memory, nudged
people to look around and notice the natural world. The quiddity of our
surroundings during our growing up years is deeply ingrained in our bones,
recumbent though it may lie as we rush about our busy days. But comes a moment
when memory stirs, awakened by a petrichor sprinkled upon our passivity by
people like Siraj sahib, and a delightful facet of the natural world is
miraculously visible to us. Birds can charm the most indifferent of people!
If passion fuels altruism, the result is joyous. Siraj sahib’s
involvement with BSAP was such a phase of his life. Whether he was organizing a
field outing; writing in long hand the next month’s programme on all the post cards that he would himself
mail at the post office; correcting proofs of the Society’s publications;
sitting with the patience of a Buddha for various permissions from a forest
official; answering media persons, even when they came unprepared and posed
prosaic queries; preparing environmental assessment reports of places he deeply
cared about, like Kolleru Lake, and sending them to the concerned authorities
on behalf of the Society; speaking to students; chairing symposia—it was all
“for the birds”, as though he had an oath in heaven!
Siraj
Taher being honoured as the first President Emeritus of the Birdwatchers’
Society of Andhra Pradesh (30 August 2009). Standing L to R: K. Nanda Kumar,
Umesh Mani, Shanti Mani, Siraj Taher, K. Bhardwaj, and Shafaat Ulla. Seated L
to R: Aasheesh Pittie, J. V. D. Moorty, Sushil Kapadia, and M. S. Kulkarni.
Photo: Aasheesh Pittie.
And when his penchant for the living bird needed a rest, out would
come his philatelic collection, with birds
as its theme! He worked on it whenever he found time, and even displayed it
successfully (winning competitions) in several philatelic exhibitions. The
forest department regularly petitioned him to display it during their annual
Wildlife Week celebrations, and he would willingly oblige. After all, it
presented a fantastic opportunity to convert the visiting school kids to a
lifetime love of birds, and philately!
He took great pleasure in the company of life-long friends, in the
earthy delight of seasonal fruit, in the song of garden birds, in the pressure
of his granddaughter’s tiny hand around his finger. In a sense, he did see that
world in a grain of sand. And when the end came in the month of January of that
fateful year, he had a befitting farewell. A gentle evening descended; the
annual numaish that he enjoyed with
his dear Ayesha flung high its illuminated, rotating, giant-wheel; Mukesh’s poignant,
pathos-filled, “Jeena yahan, marna yahan”,
wafted from that direction; and as clods of his hometown earth sprinkled the
path of his onward journey, a pair of spotted owlets, his endearingly named Chakwa-Chakwi, exchanged yarns inside a
dusty tamarind.
Two months later, that other person, his friend, my father, too
passed away.
[1] The title is a reflection of Helen
Macdonald’s visceral account of coming to terms with her father’s death,
through the numbing ordeal of training a Goshawk. I’ve borrowed and changed her
book’s title, here, for recalling my time with Siraj sahib has been no less wrenching.
Too, he celebrated the shikra.
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