In my personal taxonomy of wildlife biologist memoirs, there have so far been only two species. The first is the Indiana Jones variety where an intrepid explorer (usually white and male) marches deep into the jungles of Africa/Asia and “discovers” not only natives living inside these allegedly impenetrable forests but also wild species that are known to everyone except taxonomists. The second is the Florence Nightingale variety where a dedicated academic (usually white and female) spends years studying a species (usually in Africa or Asia) only to find that everything is going south and needs urgent saving.
In neither of these do the bland or frankly ignominious parts of studying or saving wildlife find much mention, let alone be foregrounded and even joked about.
Running Away from Elephants, a many-tentacled account by Rauf Ali of his encounters and experiences as (possibly) India’s first wildlife biologist and later as a conservationist, has caused me to add a third and hitherto unknown species to the taxonomic tree – the Rauf Ali variety, where self-deprecation, failures and a wee bit of gossip, all find a place. Sample this:
“I was given a crash course in identifying trees. I confess that I didn’t learn very much, being too busy jumping around, avoiding the leeches. Somewhere I recall reading a well-known science writer writing about the rainforest: wittering on about the trees, the layers of vegetation, the diversity of life and the millions of years of evolution in front of his eyes. I suspect the man was a liar. The rest of us concentrate on very little besides what we have to, the leeches occupy most of our time!”
The book tries to be largely chronological, but many tributaries and distributaries emerge; there are at least three instances where Ali says “more on this later” but, like many uncles on an afternoon of raconteurs, may forget to close that thread. We get a glimpse into a less-than-common childhood in India’s First Family of ornithologists, in which a “primary occupation” on holidays was the entire extended family being out birdwatching.
His summary of Salim Ali, the most famous of his well-known relatives, is a single sentence: He wrote books on birds. But Salim’s influence on the young Rauf is large and begins early – at the age of 12, the author is already accompanying his uncle on research trips. He writes about the famous ornithologist as only a nephew can – affectionately but unsentimentally and with much good humour about the older man’s many eccentricities:
“An incident from early childhood comes to mind. Salim, my cousin Shama, who was about twelve at the time, and I had gone birdwatching. An Indian robin flew out of a hedge. Look, said Shama, it has a nest there. This provoked a tirade: Indian robins don’t nest in places like that, learn how to be scientific and stop making these inane remarks. After listening to this with wide eyes, Shama walked up to the hedge and pointed out the nest. This sparked off a bitter denunciation of both of us, and how we had set him up just to embarrass him!”
A short chapter on life as an undergraduate student at BITS in Pilani is gotten out of the way before diving into the meat of the narrative: life as a pioneering wildlife researcher in the 1970s, followed by years spent teaching, building institutions and, hardest of all, trying to create sensible, evidence-based policies and projects for conservation.
Running Away from Elephants
Speaking Tiger Books, 2018
Several close shaves with elephants feature in these pages, and also with government officials, local people and as well as a few, well, ghosts. The first are numerous, and run the entire length of the book, from the 1970s, right up to a few years before Ali’s untimely passing in 2016.
Any recounting of interactions with bureaucracy in India can be amusing, even hilarious, provided it is told years after the ensuring vexations have cooled. Ali’s memory throws up plenty of stories of misunderstandings, needless obstruction, even vindictiveness, including one instance of an Indian official blocking a US visa for a researcher who was guilty of “embarrassing the government because of his views on sea turtle conservation”.
Happily, in this case, the matter is resolved relatively easily. The story reminds one of equally malign behaviour displayed by more recent dispensations, with the difference being how much further up such vindictiveness originates, and the consequent powerlessness of citizens to resist.
But Ali is a fair narrator and in a few brief anecdotes shows that researchers have as poor an understanding of the constraints and challenges of being a government functionary, as the officials do of the requirements and logic of scientific inquiry. Many a researcher has written (perfectly justified) exposés of forest department corruption and ineptness, but rarely does one encounter as empathetic and uncomplicated an understanding of the other side as Ali provides.
However, neither camp comes out looking terribly good when it comes to evidence or commonsense-based action: Bastar’s forests are lost to researchers’ refusal to try unusual conservation methods, Andaman’s forests are lost to bureaucratic inability to comprehend that biological boundaries are not the same as national boundaries. One particularly outlandish conservation idea stumps even the seemingly indefatigable Ali: “Luckily, at least on this issue I was able to keep my mouth shut.”
But the repeated frustrations do not leave Ali either without humour or hope. His optimism springs eternal, aided, quite often, by whatever local brew is available. After a stormy exit from Pondicherry University’s ecological sciences department (named after his illustrious uncle, against Ali’s advice to the contrary), he returns to teach again, and is thwarted again. Yet, he continues to supervise and mentor numerous students, and details their work and achievements in a chapter dedicated entirely to their histories.
Through it all, Ali’s eye for the absurd as well as for the banal, never blinks. He reports on existence of a large showroom dedicated to suitcases, at the entrance of his beloved Kalakkad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve with the same deadpan tone he uses to describe a committee at Auroville (where he lived) boycotting itself.
Several luminaries of Indian wildlife research and conservation crossed paths with Ali, and many find mention in the book. Nearly none are spared his dry digs. Some are named, many are not. One suspects that previous drafts of the book were edited gently but firmly to avoid the libel and defamation suits that would have followed.
Pavithra Sankaran is a communications consultant for environment and conservation non-profits. She also occasionally writes for children.