Chinnara Vanya Darshana - II

Kids in the course of Souparnika river

Educating Indian mass has always been a great challenge, especially with topics like Environment, Nature and wildlife. These subjects have always been treated as lavish pastime for the haves in this country. Even now an average commoner thinks that life sciences are for those who have no worries of livelihood or of those who was not eligible for other lucrative courses. Initially it used to be the medicine and engineering that sucked in all the youth but now the Commerce and Management subjects have been the most sought after branches. Incidentally even apart from these subjects every stream of education has only promoted the masses into a consumer of a higher order; more resilient than the previous generation.  That is what is dangerous to Nature.

Card game in progress

 Our population has quadrupled over the past six decades and the natural resources of the country are reeling with the all sorts of abuse. Every form of extraction of every type of resource has reached unsustainable proportions. Mining of minerals and coal, quarrying for rocks and sand, cutting of wood and fishing for consumption have all reached unbelievable heights. Consequently the catches have fallen so steeply that many of the industries are already showing signs of collapsing beyond recovery.

Discussion

 Fisheries in the coastal regions are no longer fetching a decent living.  As a testimony of falling catches in the sea, hundreds of small boats lay stranded along the shores in Udapi District. Youth drawn from various corners of South India who work on these boats engage in playing cards in anticipation of the day they set sailing.  Old men with receding hope sit mending the nets. Large trawlers bring ashore fish from deep sea that is grabbed by traders who cold store it and transport it over long distance.

The children without script

When you come across such naked truths about situations of our resource base what could I speak to the children? Less than sixty kilometers away you have children living in the villages hidden the tropical evergreen forests of Mukambika Forest range. Expecting even the high school students to have visited the sea shore is asking for heaven. But there isn't any wrong in expecting them to know some inhabitants in their forests. As a prelude to the workshop I involved the children in a game in which the children had to crack a puzzle and find out what animal he was. Every body had to pick up a card which had a written clues inn it. A few had simple graphical representation of a wild animal without any label. The idea was to make the students decipher the animal by identifying the limb or tail. Though it was clearly mentioned that all the animals and birds included in the game were chosen from the forests adjoining to them, the children were largely gullible. They were asked to consult with their friends and fall in different groups based on the animals they represented. And finally it was the lesson time and every body had to individually read out their clue and justify why they thought they belonged to that group. The anchor or the teacher would have ample scope to throw light on the subject. This activity has always given a wonderful experience to me and has been well received by every group I have handled-teachers, students, foresters and so on. To my surprise in this remote corner of Karnataka I had a strange experience. My graphical representation of the Lion tailed macaque was identified as a Gorilla by a ninth grade student. I asked him to hold the card up so that the others in the class could have a look and assist him in identifying the animal. The thorough silence for a while made me have a second look at the lion tailed macaque I had drawn.  I asserted them two things- there couldn't be a Gorilla in these forests and they exist only in the forests of Central Africa. The boy immediately called out ‘it is a King-kong’. Their teachers who accompanied these children were also blank. It didn't take any long for me to realize the sorry state of these students. Like me the forest officials also had a blow not once but twice. The question of how could someone who doesn't have access to a library or television programs be inducted with a fictitious animal like king kong? That must have simply been the height of influence of Electronic media.

Group discussion

I further involved the students in more activities and tried to figure out about their future plans. Most of the boys never knew any script. Their mother tongue was Malayalam but was studying in Kannada Medium School run by the temple trust. Some wrote a mix of two South Indian Languages. As in the case of any other teen at school in this country none of them wanted to take up farming or fishing for a living. Their ambitions were simple and realistic. Reach up the tenth grade and get into driving a cab, truck or a JCB. In fact they were all children of migrant labors or small land holders pursuing rubber plantations. Their prime aim, one generation earlier was to push into the forest land as much as possible and even hunt or trap what ever was possible.  Now there is free education and stricter forest vigilance. There is ensured food and an absurd dose of education that would not sink in their life. But they were all street smart. They could relate to every environmental phenomenon in their text books-formation of rain, causes for soil erosion and the kind. Their awareness in policies and politics were also sound. When asked about what Kasturi Rangan Report meant for them they answered in unison- evacuation of poor farmers, introducing wild tigers in the region……we don’t know any thing beyond that!

Melastoma malabaricum

  Exposing children in the fringe area is the need of the hour but several questions arise with regards to how it could be taken forward across the state. Karnataka is so diverse in its habitat and the wildlife they contain. It would ask special expertise to relate the class room syllabus to the local habitat and the precious wildlife they contain.

RFO Lohith and his team in action

- Manu K