Tryst with the Wild

For centuries, the great outdoors was a male bastion. Here are some women who have put that in the past tense

AN EARLY morning tryst with a lion, a ride in the river with crocodiles and chance encounters with wild elephants—these are just some of the thrills that form part of the daily lives of this unique group of women. While some of them guard the jungle with their lives as foresters, others are striving hard to raise awareness about the wild and its inhabitants in their day-time jobs, working as tour guides and wildlife photographers. What makes these ladies even more remarkable is the fact they had the courage to follow their heart and carve a name for themselves in this male dominated field. This league of extraordinary women has surely had some incredible experiences in unusual places.

Ratna Singh is 28, and no stranger to the jungle. Having grown up near Bandhavgarh National Park, she has always had a special bond with the wild. “My grandfather and father used to do shikar, but later they turned into conservationists. So there used to be a lot of jungle talk at home,” she says. And hence, pursuing a career which allowed her to be close to nature was the most natural thing in the world for her.

So, in 2006, she applied for a job with Taj Safaris, and was trained as a naturalist—it was a rigorous process—to become one of the few women wildlife tour guides in the country. Ratna’s first posting was 330 km south of her home, at Pench National Park, Madhya Pradesh. She found herself surrounded by men. It came with the turf. “At first they looked at me as an oddity,” she says, “Park guides wouldn’t even look at me, as it was extremely unusual for them to have a woman in their midst. But soon, they got to know me and the stiffness in their attitude melted away.”

The unpredictability of the job serves as an adrenalin rush for her. “Once I was taking around a group of visitors, when we came across a rocky area where we usually sight leopards. I got out of the car, pointed to a cave and said that if I were a leopard I would take shelter in that. At that precise moment, as if on cue, a leopard came out. You should have seen the tourists’ jaws drop,” she laughs. Ratna is currently the head naturalist at the Panna Lodge, some 50 km from Khajuraho. She has to walk the 200-acre property nearly twice a day to keep track of sloth bear traces and other indications of animal movement.

It was during one of these walks that she had an encounter that nearly moved her to tears. “I chanced upon a bull which had been attacked by a leopard,” she says, “It was bleeding profusely and was infested with maggots.” She knew instinctively that turpentine oil would be a sure cure. “I had to put my hand inside its rotting flesh to rub in the oil. I just couldn’t bear the thought of its pain,” she adds. It took a month-and-a-half for the bull to recover. “I have named it Nandi and have even found it a new home. This has been one of the most emotionally fulfilling experiences of my life,” she smiles.

Deep in the forest, a scared six-year-old girl cowered in a corner of a mud hut. Outside, there was a tiger she could hear scraping the walls. Thankfully, the local Adivasis sensed danger soon enough and rushed to the spot. The tiger beat a hasty retreat. This was Kahini Ghosh Mehta’s first encounter with the striped predator. She remembers it vividly.

“My love affair with the wild started at a very young age,” she says of a childhood that featured frequent visits to the jungle with her engineer father. Now 28, Kahini belongs to that rare breed of women who are wildlife filmmakers and photographers. This sensitivity towards wildlife conservation was sparked off by another incident which took place when she was very young: “A tiger that had strayed into Chhindwara had been shot and put on display. It nearly broke my heart. After all, why couldn’t the beast have been captured and then set loose in the wild? Why do innocent animals have to fight for their space?”

Kahini’s tryst with nature was put on hold, though, when she took up a corporate job in Delhi. It didn’t last long. Though the money was good, the job wasn’t satisfying. “I pursued the job for three years, but itched to be out in the wild. I also wanted to do something on my own,” she says. She was encouraged by her husband, Shivang, to follow her heart. “He is also interested in nature and wildlife. We would always go on these trips to places like Corbett where I would take loads of pictures,” adds Kahini.

A lot of people began to express interest in her pictures and soon began buying them as well. So, three years ago, she adopted wildlife photography and filmmaking as a profession. “Though I am not trained in filmmaking, I have picked up the nuances on the job. My second film, Wild Saga of Corbett, has come out this year. The 35-minute travelogue is loaded with information that will be useful for tourists preparing for a perfect Corbett Safari,” she says.

The recognition has started coming. Last year, she had the privilege of being the only non-forest department member to be part of the leopard census held at Corbett in May 2008.

If you visit Sasan Gir in Gujarat or Tadoba in Maharashtra, don’t be surprised to find women roughing it out in the woods. These wildlife parks host India’s first women rangers employed by the forest department. Housewives, teachers and engineers have joined hands to answer the call of the wild—2007 was a magical year for them all. While the Gujarat government threw open doors of the forest department to them, the Central Forest Rangers College in Chandrapur, Maharashtra, had its first batch of women foresters graduate that year.

“Of 400 to 500 people recruited at the forester level, 3-5 per cent were women. They were given practical as well as theoretical training at the Gujarat Forest Rangers College in Rajpipla. We even trained them in arms and legal matters,” says Amit Kumar, deputy conservator of forests, Gir West Division, Junagadh.

Rasilaben Wadher can’t stop gushing about her luck at being recruited. “A year back, I was a forest guard. I have taken on the duties of a forester in the Sasan Gir sanctuary division only six months ago, and am loving it,” she chirps. As part of a rescue team, she adds, “I have three to four guards working under me, and we have to be present wherever there is any kind of animal distress. For instance, if an animal has strayed into a human inhabited area or fallen into a well, we have to take care of such situations.” Once she had gone with her team to rescue an injured lion when it almost attacked them. “We had to maintain our cool and slowly edge back into the car,” she says.

It is love of the wild that unites all these women. Keyuri Khambda, who joined the forest department in Gujarat recently, opted for the job because of her concern for the fate of the Gir lion. “I work with the assistant conservator of forests on patrolling and raids,” she says.

Others, such as the women graduates of Chandrapur’s Central Forest Rangers College, have environmental concerns. “Only planting more trees and taking care of our wildlife can help resolve these problems,” says Amrapalli Khobragade, who wanted to be a journalist but is now happy being a forester.

Professional pride is evident in their tone as they detail the rigorous selection procedure they had to go through. “There were more than 40,000 applicants for this course. Out of the 33 who were selected, 11 were ladies,” says Surekha Dahikar, a civil engineer from Nagpur. Marriage brought her to Chandrapur, and is now glad to earn a monthly Rs 10,000 indulging a passion.

There are many in the field who feel ecstatic about the increasing involvement of women in wildlife. Aradhana Sahu, deputy conservator of forests in Mehsana, thanks education at the grassroots level for this. “Though we have had women IFS officers since the mid 1970s, there have never been women foresters or forest rangers in the department. Usually a lot of these ladies have family members working in the forest department who expose them to the nuances of the job. Besides education, this is another factor which leads them to it.”

Job reservation for women in the forest department has also led to an increase in the number of women applying for these positions. “This is making the job lucrative for them, especially in areas fraught with rampant unemployment,” observes Satish Wadaskar, principal, Central Forest Rangers College, Chandrapur. It’s no wonder that the number of women enrolled with the college has gone up to 32 this year. “Lots of ladies come to me nowadays to enquire about the course,” says Sheetal Karnase, a student of the 2008 batch.

Veteran wildlife filmmaker and naturalist Shekar Dattatri, meanwhile, would like more women getting behind the cameras as well. “Given that women routinely fly out to space, excel in athletics and many other endeavours once thought to be the domain of men, there is absolutely nothing to stop them from excelling at wildlife photography,” he says.

That would set the stage for a rediscovery of India’s wildlife heritage, rich as it naturally is, from a women’s perspective.

environmentforesterphotographytour guidewildlife