Poaching tigers has been a major issue in most of our national park. There was a big cry about vanishing tigers when it was discovered that there were no tigers left in Sariska National Park. As it normally happens, new measures were taken to protect tigers after sufficient noise was made. But are the forest departments and the government really serious about the poaching issue? Aditya Singh thinks otherwise. He runs a lodge near Ranthambhore National Park, and blogs on wildlife conservation. Aditya feels that nobody, not even the NGOs are really keen on saving our wildlife.
The big boys of conservation – few well-known megalomaniac personalities who have cornered the conservation limelight/profits (believe me it is very profitable) and the Project Tiger (or NTCA) – are living in an elite dream world and are hopelessly out of touch with reality. They have a mutually beneficial relationship based on you scratch my back and I scratch yours.
Read Aditya’s take on poaching and conservation.
+ The next few posts in the Ladakh series will focus on traversing the Manali – Leh highway. These posts will cover transport options from Manali, what to see, where to stop, and everything else you would want to know when taking this route.
+ The prices mentioned here are as of 2008. Please factor in inflation!
It is the difficulty involved in traversing the road that attracts travelers to make the journey from Manali to Leh by road. Nowhere else in India do you get to drive hundreds of kilometers without seeing a single permanent habitation. The road runs above ten thousand feet for almost entire journey, and the highest point on the road is above 18,000 feet. The landscapes are unparalleled. The superb greenery on the way out of Manali will be the last stretch of abundant vegetation that you encounter until the day you return from Ladakh.
The journey is hard by itself, and very often the mode of transport chosen can make things harder.
The Delhi – Leh Bus
It took some time to register in my mind that there really is a bus that goes all the way from Delhi to Leh. It is an ordinary bus with 2+3 seats, run by Himachal Road Transport Corporation. It is the cheapest way to get to Leh, and probably the most uncomfortable. It arrives in Manali around 10am and leaves an hour later for Keylong. Reaching Keylong by 5pm, the bus continues towards Leh next morning, arriving at the destination in the evening. Most of the time it will be crowded when it arrives in Manali. If you are lucky, you might find a few seats unoccupied in the last row when the bus leaves Keylong.
I had heard a little about Devadasi system in northern parts of Karnataka. Often it was in deeper sections of newspapers and was usually about some matters of government policies. Nevertheless I did not know much about the practice. William Dalrymple’s informative story on The New Yorker speaks about the Devadasis of South India, and explores some history and mythology of the tradition. Dalrymple visits some Devadasis and describes their life in the story.
I got a glimpse of the tensions in the devadasi’s life when we arrived in Saundatti. We had gone to a tea shop near the lake, at my suggestion. Devadasis are a common sight in Saundatti, where they often beg in the bazaars on Yellamma’s holy days of Tuesday and Friday. But they don’t usually brave the tea shops on the main street.
Read Letters from India: Serving the goddess