A life changing incident in the heart of Sunderbans, makes me question my comparison of tigers to adorable cats as opposed to the formidable predators that they are. Furthermore, the turmoil in Vedavyasa’s personal life acts as another eye opener. I realize that chasing fame and glory in an attempt to escape perceived failures in personal and professional life does not provide a long-term solution. Therefore, I begin to question this commodity fetishism around Bengal Tigers.
After my Nameri trip in December 2018, I embarked for a train trip from Dhaka to Khulna district of Bangladesh by train, with an intention to explore Bangladeshi Sundarbans, something unfortunate had happened during that train journey, which had forced me to abort my Sundarbans trip. I don’t want to give away much here, as that story is there in my book.
But all I can say that because of that incident I got stuck in Bangladesh for some time, and that created an opportunity for me to further introspect my hobby. Which had compelled me to think, why we urban affluent folks pick up hobby in spite of having a well-paid and decent day job.
There could be many reasons behind that, but one reason emerged as very obvious in front of me was our desire for fame and glory. That doesn’t mean we don’t achieve fame and glory in our corporate day job. But that corporate yardstick of fame and glory doesn’t satisfy our natural self.
Once, the editor of my book drew my attention towards a book on history of ethic. In that book, there was mention of a theory from Sophists – a teacher from 500 BC Greece. That was, “within every conventional man lies a natural man… The Natural man has no moral standards of his own. He is therefore free from all constraints upon him by others. All men are by nature either wolves or sheep, they either prey or are preyed upon”
This natural self of human put them in dilemma. The dilemma between what they are achieving in their corporate job and what they want to achieve as their natural self. This dilemma gradually makes them obsessed for nature and non-human life forms. I witnessed this dilemma and obsession in some of the characters which I illustrated in my book, including myself. I have also witnessed how the fame and glory achieved through this obsession can create arrogance among humans. Arrogance which makes human think they are the ruler of nature. And I also witnessed this human arrogance getting shattered by non-human life forms.
Exactly one year after my aborted Bangladeshi Sundarbans trip, in November 2019, I witnessed another horrific incident in Indian Sundarbans. Again, without giving away anything, as this incident is also narrated in my book, I only want to say that “the human are just another life forms in nature”. That emerged as a harsh reality in front of me.
To know what happened during my train trip to Bangladesh Sundarbans and during my exploration of India Sundarbans, read my book Pseudo Ecotourism in the Shadow of the Bengal Tiger.
Sundarbans (pronounced /sʌnˈdɑːrbənz/) is a mangrove area in the delta formed by the confluence of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna Rivers in the Bay of Bengal. Spread across parts of India and Bangladesh, this forest is the largest mangrove forest in the world. It spans the area from the Baleswar River in Bangladesh‘s division of Khulna to the Hooghly River in India‘s state of West Bengal. It comprises closed and open mangrove forests, land used for agricultural purpose, mudflats and barren land, and is intersected by multiple tidal streams and channels. Sundarbans is home to the world’s largest area of mangrove forests. Four protected areas in the Sundarbans are enlisted as UNESCO World Heritage Sites, viz. Sundarbans West (Bangladesh), Sundarbans South (Bangladesh), Sundarbans East (Bangladesh) and Sundarbans National Park (India).
Despite the protected status, the Indian Sundarbans were considered endangered in a 2020 assessment under the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems framework. The Sundarbans mangrove forest covers an area of about 10,277 km2 (3,968 sq mi), of which forests in Bangladesh’s Khulna Division extend over 6,017 km2 (2,323 sq mi)[1] and in West Bengal’s Presidency division, they extend over 4,260 km2 (1,640 sq mi) across the South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas districts.[2][3] The most abundant tree species are sundri (Heritiera fomes) and gewa (Excoecaria agallocha). The forests provide habitat to 453 fauna wildlife, including 290 bird, 120 fish, 42 mammal, 35 reptile and eight amphibian species. Despite a total ban on all killing or capture of wildlife other than fish and some invertebrates, there has been a consistent pattern of depleted biodiversity or loss of species in the 20th century, with the ecological quality of the forest declining.
Source of Information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundarbans
Photo by Author
To know more about Bengal Tigers and Mangrove forests of Sundarbans in both countries read my book.
Pseudo Ecotourism 