the inside man

              

Heroes are not hard to find ,when you work for an organization like Greenpeace.People who put themselves between a whale and a harpoon. People who hang a banner from a 1000 ft height. People who , at a grave risk of personal injury, decide to draw a line somewhere, for the planet.

3 days ago , I found yet another kind. 

The photo above was taken in Agra , where searing temperatures reach 45 degrees celsius in the afternoon.

In a false fur covered polar bear suit , you can comfortably add another 20 degrees to it. 65 degrees. It is not that far from being in a furnace. 

 The young man in the suit is Chirag, who is one of our new volunteers, He is 20 years old and an engineering student. He has been with Greenpeace for the whole of 2 weeks. I met him for the first time on 17th June, around midnight and the first question he asked me was whether he could wear the polar bear suit. I warned him , explaining how hot the Polar bear suit could get . He insisted , And I am so glad he did. 

   Over the course of the 3 days that it took to get those photos that you see sprawled across social media today, Chirag must have worn that suit 30 times. In the middle of a field. On the rooftop of a village house. In front of the Taj Mahal. In the morning . The afternoon .and when we were lucky, in the cool (that means 35 degrees) evening.  

And you could see the effort it took , every single time he took off the suit, to put it back on. 

But he did. without a word of complaint. Every .single. time. 

He even found the strength to smile when the mask came off. 

 The one thing that Chirag demanded from me, was a Greenpeace t-shirt.,” One is nice, two is better and three is great ,” Is what he tells me the last time we speak on the phone. 

Sometimes its not what is on the t-shirt that matters, but who wears it. And I think I am really glad that this young man sports a Greenpeace t-shirt (and yes, I will get him 3 of those.). As the Rio +20 Conference draws to a sad end. And world leaders fail to inspire the millions , yet again, Small inspirations like Chirag (whose name aptly means “the lamp”) light up the path to a better tomorrow. 

Maybe with a few more like him, we might stand a chance. 

          

Audacity

This image was taken on 18th may 2012, 15 km from  adoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR), Chandrapur, Maharashtra, India. The poachers carried its head and paws and left the remaining body in little pieces.
    On the 23 rd of May the Government of Maharashtra issued 'shoot-at-sight' orders to the forest guards if they saw any poacher hunting or laying traps in tiger reserves. And more importantly, the Forest guards will not be persecuted.
You question the morality of the decision? The life of a man over the tiger.
Or you froth in anger, wondering what took them so long to enforce the shoot at sight orders?
Its a difficult question, a man's life over a tigers. Especially for someone who lives in civilized society.
Civilized.
What a word.
If ever they find one word that has destroyed this planets endless diversity and cultural wealth , it would be this one.
Civilized.
The word that inspired the Europeans rape and plunder the planet and its cultural and natural diversity for centuries.
Civilized.
You think I oversimplify it too much. Maybe I do. However, more destruction has been cause to the people and this planet in the name of progress and civilization that any other cause. Progress towards capitalism. Progress towards science. Progress towards Religion . Progress. Civilization. Hah.
Sorry I digress. Coming back to the tigers . Its ridiculously clear that the tiger over the years has come to symbolize something. In an ever industrializing society , we need such symbols which connect us to the larger natural world. To save the tiger, is therefore nor just saving the majestic carnivore that occupied the top of the food chain probably till the Chinese discovered  the boom powder.
Its saving that symbol which we have glorified for years.
For that failure will prick our majestic egos till time immemorial. 
and that we simply cannot have.
I only hope that this will be enough to protect little pieces of this planet.
little pieces like tigers.