Jim Corbett Museum, Kaladhungi and Memories of Arba Minch

This month when we visited the Jim Corbett National Park I made sure that we visited his museum, located in a bungalow that he probably lived in. I first came to know about this legendary hunter and tiger conservationist from my father when we were living in Arba Minch, in Ethiopia, a town surrounded by dense forests and the favourite haunt of African Lions, hyenas, pythons, and all sorts of predators that were attracted to the town because of the domesticated cattle that were to be found. I could somehow relate to Jim Corbett because my dad often took us on post-dinner drives into the thick forest that surrounded the town. More often we drove down the ArbaMinch Addis Abeba highway close to the Cooperative farm popularly known as Lemat. Those were the years preceding the Socialist revolution that took place in 1975. Somehow my memories go back to the days when, on our evening drives we would come across Mr Delville, an American with Native Red-Indian ancestry who dared to roam the forests armed with a bow and quiver of arrows, and not much else!

My father would often be able to tell from the behaviour of the deer baboons and other denizens of the forest that a lion was in the vicinity! Apparently, this was not rocket science for him because it seemed as if the deer and the baboons appeared more nervous and scared, and then there were those warning cries that my father recognized for what they were. Jim Corbett too must have gone through the same experience although he would have confronted tigers and not lions. Tigers talk and attack with the least of warning while lions are more likely to give a warning, more likely to attack from the front. In terms of equipment too, Jim Corbett was limited to a form of a lantern that burnt kerosene oil while today we have mobile phones and powerful battery-operated flashlight.

Our visit to the Jim Corbett museum about forty kilometres from our resort in Dhikuli transported us to the times when we lived in Arba Minch in the Gamugoffa province of Ethiopia. The quaint Charpoy and the rickety cane furniture simply belonged to an age long gone by! The present generation will never experience the thrill of looking at wildlife and nature as closely as we once did, and people like Jim Corbett were an inspiration for us! Of course, I would often step out of my school in Arbaminch in those days and take a stroll in the jungle that started right after the boundary walls, no barbed-wire fence of the school (This is something I never told my parents or they would have given me a piece of their mind!). The bungalow housing the museum reminds me of the kind of houses we had in Arbaminch, adobe houses with tin roofs, and cornice ceilings and no cement except for the flooring!

The above warning rings true, not just for tigers but for nearly everything that nature has given to us! Disappearing wetlands, grasslands, forests, and even the damage being done to the Aravali mountains in Gurgaon is a cause for concern. Tigers, migratory birds, even the now rarely seen sparrows are markers that indicate damage being done to the environment! Jim Corbett was a great man, a writer, a carpenter, a gentleman, and greatest of all, one of the greatest conservationists that India has had the honour to have. This gentleman had a strong conviction that the extermination of the tiger would rob the nation of its finest animal. Unplanned development, greed for money, selfishness and apathy, both the seen in the common man and the administration has led to the loss of valuable forest cover. We need to educate the common man about how important it is to conserve nature, flora and fauna.It is the duty of all the elected members of the Parliament to protect not only the rights of the citizens living in this country but also to protect the interests of wildlife and thereby the habitats they live in.

Today we maintain museums and relics of great people, we enjoy visiting such places, places which have become 'A Must See,' but we turn a blind eye to our existing valuable natural resources. The Aravalis, the Mangar Bani forest, the Basai Wetland, in Gurgaon, all are under the axe of rampant and unplanned development in a region that is headed towards an ecological disaster!

I hope that the light of reason coupled with better technology will help all of us see sense in conserving our environment. Jim Corbett used a relatively primitive kind of light source seen in the snap above, but we today have better light sources, halogen torches, LED-powered torches, mobiles, and laptops, and wifi, and internet, but then I wonder if all this technology has made us better than people like Jim Corbett!

My Dhikuli Diary (Jim Corbett Park)

After a seven hours drive from Gurgaon, we finally checked in at the Anand Amod Resort at Jim Corbett Park. We reached our destination at about 11:30 a.m. and so after placing our stuff in our allotted we rushed up for lunch since our jeep driver was to arrive at 2:30 p.m. But then this post is not about the safari but the stay at the resort. I would like to add, to my narrative that the Resort that we stayed in is a complete resort with enough things to do to keep the visitor occupied. A clean swimming pool combined with ample lawns walks, a spa, well-groomed gardens and last but not least the chance to visit the Kosi river flowing behind the resort make it a place worth visiting. For my extended family what mattered the most was that the Anand Amod Resort at Dhikuli is a dog- friendly resort, so Candy, our pet pug was able to have as much fun as she could have enjoyed!

My Jim Corbett National Park Diary

This time, during the Diwali break, my family decided to visit the Jim Corbett National Park in Ramnagar, Uttarakhand. The Distance from Gurgaon was 300 kilometres. We decided to stay at the Corbett Anand Amod Resort at Dhikuli. We started at 4:15 a.m. and reached at 11:30 a.m. The journey got delayed because of the Traffic Jam a couple of kilometres before the Brajghat Bridge on the Ganga River at Garh Mukhteshwar.

On reaching the resort we quickly checked in to our rooms and then rushed up for our lunch as we had booked our safari for 2:30 p.m. that very day. To our pleasant surprise, the first animal that greeted us, that too immediately after entering the park premises was a spotted deer with antlers!

The Sambur Deer is a larger kind of Antelope and the National Park is teeming with Sambur Deer. This is a relatively shy animal and I found it difficult to photograph it from a distance. The moment we tried to get close to it, it fled into the undergrowth.

Apart from the deer and monkeys, we were rewarded with sightings of Wild Roosters and Khaleej Pheasants. The Khaleej Pheasants were relatively shy and by the time we reached them, they were hidden within the foliage!

The last that I saw such handsome roosters was when I was in Ethiopia many years ago. The male roosters can be very colourful and the driver of our jeep told us that the male rooster has feathers of seven different colours!

The hen, unfortunately, is not as good looking as the male rooster. Nevertheless, I guess they both make a good pair, a loyal pair as such. I was able to take a couple of photographs of the hen from close to where the rooster was.

Apart from the birds and fowls, the grasslands are worth a view. The grasslands stretch into the horizon reminding one of how vast the world is and how small, we human beings are! There are spots in the National Park where you can alight from the jeep and walk on the ground. These are designated spots close to the watchtowers.

Towards the end of our safari in the National Park, we were able to spot one more deer, an elusive dog-sized deer known as Kakkar or Barking deer. It moved too quickly for me and the driver could not stop the jeep in time. Nevertheless, we were able to get a fleeting glimpse of one more species of deer.

Our safari in the Jim Corbett National Park had taken about two hours. We had reached the park gate at three and were out by five in the evening. It would also be advisable for visitors to carry binoculars, although the same are available on hire at the entry gates. Moreover, visitors to the park should have warm clothing on as it can become a bit cold by five in the evening in the month of October. Wearing caps and shades might help from the dust that might be caused by numerous other vehicles on the track.

Save the Basai Wetlands of Gurgaon before it is too late!

The Basai Wetlands are slowly but surely being swallowed up by development that is taking place all around it. The last remaining Wetlands of Gurgaon, the area is home to quite many migratory birds. Just recently when I visited the place, I was surprised to see that it has more birds than the much-hyped Sultanpur National Park, a few kilometres away!

Located right opposite to the water treatment plant, a mere five kilometres from Gurgaon, the Basai Wetland is accessible through a very narrow lane on the right-hand side after you get off from the flyover adjacent to the water treatment plant. My favourite companion is a V-15 bike that comes on its own while riding on loose mud. Its wide tyres and comfortable stance will not let you slip.

In the years to come, the pictures that you are seeing in this blog post will be pictures only and few will remember having seen the spot-billed ducks, or the cormorants, or even the lapwings. The Haryana Government needs to do something urgently to preserve the flora and fauna of the Basai Wetlands. It is an unfortunate fact that unsustainable development, rampant clearing of forest lands, wetlands, and the destruction of the Aravali Mountain's ecosystem has cost us greatly. When these birds go, when all the wetlands go, then man too will have to go!

The kingfisher was seen fishing in the waters. It looks like there are a lot of fish in the wetlands and they are able to sustain a large number of water birds. At stake, therefore are not just the birds, migratory birds, but also the fish that dwell in the waters of the wetlands. I just hope that people wake up to the disaster that would take place if these remaining wetlands of Gurgaon were to be destroyed!

There are rumours on the grapevine that there are plans to create a waste treatment plant at the spot where the wetlands exist today. It is already a matter of concern that apparent apathy on the part of the administration combined with lack of educated awareness of the citizens things are falling apart. If only the common man, residents of Gurgaon could realise how valuable a treasure they have in the wetlands of Basai and how they could lose it forever, only then will something be done to save the wetlands! The destruction of the Basai Wetland will result in increased dust pollution in the area. Residents in that area will face a lot of problems should the wetland be destroyed. 

Sarus Cranes Serenading at the Sultanpur National Park

Just today, my brother and I had a pleasant surprise when we visited the Sultanpur Nationaal Park close to Gurgaon. The surprise came towards the latter half of our visit, on the second half, to be precise. I was leading the way and I had reached a path jutting into the lake when we heard a strange sound of perhaps a few really angry birds. We paused, wondering what could have made such a ruckus when lo and behold, a couple of Saras Cranes stepped out of their hiding places in the bushes and then they made a stately stroll towards the waters of the lake right in front of us. What was amazing was to see how synchronised their movements were. When one of them bent down to groom itself, the other mirrored it! It became clear that we had passed what had probably their nest on the ground, and they had made a noise to frighten us away. 

Saras Cranes are monogamous and they stay together for good. These cranes are characterised by their large size reaching 1.8 metres in height. and eight kilos in weight. Saras cranes are found in Australia, and parts of Asia. Their numbers are dwindling in India and very few remain. These beautiful birds have a red patch on their heads reaching down to their necks. Their habitat is close to human settlements with abundant wastelands. They build their nests on an island of weeds and grass a few inches above the water level.

I could not, unfortunately, get very good photographs of these birds as I was shooting into the rising sun and the lighting was really bad!

Are Computers Going to Replace Teachers? Just a thought

Are computers going to replace teachers? The teaching profession has undergone much change during the years. The advent of computers, digital technology and now A.I., have all fueled this change. Gone are the days when Gurus were Gurus and Eklavya gave his thumb to his Guru! The title Guru changed into Teacher and now Teacher is, Facilitator or even Supervisor! The role of the teacher has shifted from expert to facilitator, centre stage to side stage. Teachers are more expensive than computers, imagine, you could buy a computer every month for the salary that a teacher gets every month! All this change has been driven by the advent of computers into every sphere of life. Flipped classrooms, research methods, collaborative learning, online tests and surveys, like Socratic, for example, have proved the teacher is no longer the expert he once was, and he can be challenged at any time! I guess a time will soon come when computers and Artificial Intelligence will make it possible for schools to have half the number of teachers and yet run effectively! The teachers who remain will merely have a supervisory role and the work of ten teachers will be done by one supervisor/facilitator and computers. Students will have their personal computers and one facilitator will have five hundred students to supervise, thanks to the support given by A.I. and virtual classrooms. Students might not even need to come to school. There will be less traffic on the roads, you won't have to even run a school with electricity expenses, nor would you need to spend on infrastructure. This will be a sad state of affairs for a large number of teachers who do not take up the challenge of becoming future proof! They need to be well versed with the use of A.I. computers, LMS modules, ERP modules, infographics, Blogs and so on.

Dragonfly Photo by Rodrick Lal — National Geographic Your Shot

Dragonfly Photo by Rodrick Lal — National Geographic Your Shot: This is a picture of a dragonfly taken at the Sultanpur National Park recently. These insects can be found in great abundance in habitats that have rivers, lakes and ponds nearby.

Teach Students to be Good Digital Citizens

The mere introduction of digital technology does not a school better make! Rather, it is a combination of technology and the training of how to use it that makes for a more effective teaching and learning process. The technology standards of any good school will be determined by how effectively it uses technology. Optimisation of technology can be achieved only when the use of technology is complemented by a curriculum on Good Digital Citizenship. In the words of Jill Felty, a Technology Integration Facilitator, Paradise Valley School District, "Good citizenship in person needs to flow over into good citizenship online. It has a lot of the same principles: respect, being kind and meeting expectations." The above quote is taken from an article by Dan Tynan, titled Educators Offer Advice About Teaching Good Digital Citizenship / Ed Tech Magazine. The use of digital technology should also reflect kindness and respect for others.
The use of technology, and in this case, digital technology comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. The use of Digital Technology in everyday classroom transactions in schools has gone up to a great extent, what with students doing research on the internet for their projects, research papers, and term papers. Students in most of the schools have created Whatsapp groups to share homework questions and other important messages. Students and teachers today use Facebook to post polls, surveys, and questionnaires. However, what most policymakers ignore is that students need to be taught to be good Digital Citizens before they are even introduced or encouraged to use this technology.

The ease of access to social networking sites, and the almost omniscient reach of the internet, however, has exposed students and their teachers to certain risks that can only be mitigated through an awareness about the meaning of Good Digital Citizenship, along with an idea of what proper online ethics and etiquettes constitute. Schools all over the country need to develop a curriculum that addresses the issues of Cyberethics, proper online behavior, and ultimately Good Digital Citizenship. Some of the elements of Good Citizenship would, of course, include how to use the hardware in the computer lab, shutting down the system after its use, how to use the keyboard and not to eat or drink water in the computer lab!

But then Good Citizenship goes beyond just how to use the keyboard or even switching off the system after use. It is also about keeping one's privacy safe while working from a shared platform in school, it would also include avoiding posting personal comments on others (which could be defined as being nasty) and of course not visiting restricted sites.Good Citizenship, besides including the aforementioned elements is also about not plagiarising ideas, written content, respecting intellectual property rights and attributing content to its rightful author.
Integrating technology into the learning process in schools is a good idea, but then introducing the concept of Digital Citizenship, Cyberethics, and sound Digital Practices would enhance the learning process even further. Content attribution: teaching students to use the correct format in the bibliography, whether the MLA format or the APA format, teaching students the right way to quote a source, teaching students to summarise a passage, or perhaps even teaching students how to paraphrase another paragraph is just one more trait of good Digital Citizenship.
E-mail etiquettes, use of proper language online, and the observance of the common etiquettes  of day to day social transactions need to be observed even more strictly when one is online!

Encounters of a close kind at the Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary

Today when I visited the Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary, Gurgaon, after it opened I had expected to see a lot of migratory birds! Sadly, however, there were fewer birds and there was barely any water in the lake. However what made my day was a spotting of a large number of black dragonflies (Anisoptera) that I had never seen before. My brother Sanjay also had a close encounter with a calf of the Asian Antelope.

I was also able to spot a colorful dragonfly that I have not seen before. The colors are simply mesmerizing. 

Apart from the dragonflies, there were also quite a few butterflies and I was able to get a nice shot of one of them that was trying to hang on to a grass stalk. I guess that was why I was able to get enough time to take a shot!

Of the birds, there were a few that I was able to photograph, that is when I was done with the insects!

Besides egrets and teals and coots, there were also cormorants. The painted storks were, however, few in number, although I did see a few of the painted storks on the Basai Wetlands!

At the rate at which the lake is drying up, it is clear that the bird sanctuary will lose the essence of a Bird Sanctuary as birds turn to other, better wetlands than the Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary. A lot needs to be done in order to preserve the habitat of this bird sanctuary.