The Ramayana characters are Ramchandra, Sita, and Laxman. They were on a 14-year exile. Some dogs from the palace accompanied them. The dogs got lost. Ram and Laxman searched for them as much as they could but couldn't find them. Finally, Ram gave them a boon: 'May you be able to survive on your own. Eat everything you find except humans. No matter where you are, live by your own efforts.' When 70-year-old Devi Bishta from Furumbuk, Taplejung, was narrating this legend, the young man Ambika Prasad Khatiwada, who was returning from a search for dogs, was astonished. He realized that the subject he was researching was also connected to a mythological tale.
After he returned, he didn't feel like
eating. He felt weak. Bishta, who was busy with rituals and exorcisms, didn't
stop there. 'That Milke was a real menace,' he said. 'It probably would have
killed me, thank God I survived.' A pack of wild dogs had killed one of his
goats when he was at the shed. He saw them immediately and hurled a piece of
firewood at them. It hit a cub, and the force of the blow ended the cub's life.
The pack of dogs got angry and surrounded him. He crawled on all fours into the
herd of goats and shouted, 'Help, help, the dogs are going to kill me! Help!'
When the other herders arrived, the pack of dogs fled. The slightly hunched,
dark-skinned Bishta, with a wrinkled face, said, 'I survived back then. I was a
young man. After that, I never encountered them again.'
***
The writings of Bishta's legends, who had
come to Khatiwada's house in Phungling to perform a ritual, are not found
anywhere. Pandit Krishna Prasad Guragain, a teacher at Gayatri Sanskrit School
in Biratnagar, says, 'There is no mention in Valmiki's Ramayana that dogs
accompanied Ram during his exile.' It's not that domestic and wild animals are
never connected with humans in mythological stories. 'The Ramayana read in
Nepal and India has been translated into many languages. There are 121
languages,' he says. 'The Ramayanas read in China, Cambodia, and Indonesia have
some different episodes than ours.' Guragain claims that based on his knowledge
of all current studies, there is no mention of dogs accompanying Ram during his
exile.
A legend does not need a credible basis.
But the subject of 29-year-old Ambika's search in various villages of Taplejung
is the animal known by locals as 'Van Kukur' (wild dog), 'Thadakane'
(pointy-eared), 'Milke,' and in English, 'Dhole' or 'Asiatic Wild Dog.' Born in
Nangkhongyang, a northern hilly district of Mechi zone, this young man came
back to the rugged slopes and forests above his own house, out of sight, to
complete his studies. He chose this subject for his final year master's thesis
at the Institute of Forestry in Pokhara.
'My son just came home and said he wanted
to go to the forest, I was so worried,' says his 54-year-old mother, Sushila,
recalling those days. 'People were getting kidnapped, robbed, and the radio
kept saying people were being killed, so wouldn't I be scared?' Ambika had not
been completely open with his mother about his thesis topic initially. Three
years ago when he came home, he had said he was interested in studying tigers.
'It's the month of Saun, it's constantly raining, there are landslides
everywhere, and the rivers are swollen,' she adds. 'Who would want their child
to suffer to achieve something? I didn't think it was a good idea for him to
go.'
Khatiwada's father is a teacher by
profession. Devinath, who retired after teaching for 23 years at a primary
school in Nangkhongyang, says, 'What can we do in front of his insistence! It's
a matter of his career.' Only after his parents agreed did preparations for
Ambika's journey begin at home. Corn was roasted and ground into Sattu (a
flour). With pre-made lemon pickle, Gundruk, and Sattu, 30 kg of rice, some
packets of biscuits, and noodles were also packed from the market. For the
trip, Ambika had arranged a GPS, one autofocus camera, and 16 camera traps
(automatic cameras) a few days earlier. The camera traps were provided by the
Biodiversity Conservation Center in Sauraha, Chitwan, through the initiative of
the National Trust for Nature Conservation to help him with his study. With two
porters leading the way, his journey went through Suketar, Deurali, Phawakhola,
and reached Kadebhanjyang in Sikaicha. The journey, which started at 8 a.m. on
July 11, ended at 7 p.m. when they reached the settlement where travelers rest
for the night.
The team, heading for Yamphudin, consisted
of Ambika, his environmental studies friend Rajesh Jha, Resham Limbu, a porter
from Tapethok VDC, and another person. The second day's journey, ascending and
descending, went through Tellok, Pedang, Phumphedada, and reached near Laxmi
Secondary School in Mamankhe. Mamankhe, located at an altitude of 1797 meters,
is a small village that experiences snow in the winter. 'There was a cold wind
blowing, and it started to drizzle,' says Ambika. 'It was the second day. I
felt very tired and hungry.'
The porters quenched their thirst with
tongba (millet beer). For the two students, green corn was roasted and eaten.
After a six-hour journey on the third day, the team reached Yamphudin-8. There,
they met Tarsadeep Gurung, the nursery manager of the Kanchenjunga Conservation
Area. Since they had informed him beforehand, they found a lead related to the
'Milke' there. Gurung, being a member of the Snow Leopard Conservation
Committee, was accustomed to taking notes on wildlife incidents. The livestock
insurance program run by the committee provides compensation based on the
nature of the damage if a snow leopard kills or damages a domestic animal. That
same week, a local named Tashi Lama had filed an application for compensation,
claiming that a wild animal had killed his mother cow and a yak calf.
'Tashi's cow and yak calf were killed by a
Milke,' Gurung narrated. 'Tashi had seen its paw prints, and that's why he
filed the application.' Kumar Mabo, the principal of the local Kanchenjunga
Secondary School, supported Gurung's statement. He said, 'In this area,
incidents of wild dogs killing livestock are more common than snow leopards.'
After finding a lead, the team spent the day discussing and gathering
information from the villagers. Rajesh decided to stay there to study climate
change.
From there, both porters returned to
Phungling. For the higher-altitude journey in the Himalayan cold, the team
members changed. Now, Tarsadeep, Tashi Lama, Lakpa Sherpa, and two new porters
were with Ambika. The team stopped for two days in the Bhote village, 45
minutes further up. The next leg of the journey reached Yangmungkharka after a
day of walking. The following morning, Ambika unpacked his bag, took out the
camera traps, and placed them in different spots, one or two kilometers apart.
'We first identified the paths where the wild dogs walk,' says Ambika. 'Then we
fitted the cameras and moved on.' The rain did not stop. Shielding themselves
with umbrellas and getting wet, they moved forward, and now only Tashi and
Lakpa were with him.
The student, who was walking, staying in
sheds, and tracking the Milke's droppings, often surprised the Himalayan
villagers, Lakpa and Tashi. 'Why are you searching for this?' Tashi asked.
'Does such a study exist, searching through the jungle?' Ambika explained as
much as they could understand. The search for the wild dog is new to Nepal.
This animal doesn't come near people. It is more cunning than domestic animals
and constantly changes its habitat in the jungle. Its global population is less
than 2,500. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has
listed it as an endangered species.
The minds of the simple villagers in the
Himalayas didn't comprehend much. It was a place that was cold all year round.
People living in sheds, dealing with rain and snow, and earning a living from
yaks, sheep, cows, and goats, only understood that animals should be safe.
After the team finished placing camera
traps from Samewa Deurali to the New Jhoydani ridge and decided to return, the
path was frightening. Ambika recounts, 'The landslide at Lhase was dangerous.
It was night when we returned. It was difficult to find the way forward.' After
finishing the camera installation, we tracked the wild dog's feces and reached
Pemadin via Helkharka. The return path was different. They reached Lhase via
Radhafok, Chairam, Saisar, Andhaphedi, and Torandin, where they stayed in a
shed. 'Even though we had food, we got wet in the rain and fell. We got sick,'
he said. 'It took a long time to find a shed. I was very tired.'
Ambika and Lakpa were in a similar state in
the shed. Dilkumar, the shed owner, cooked food and made arrangements for them
to eat. They did not have the courage to venture outside the shed that day.
Twenty days had passed on the journey. Ambika recalls, 'From there, we started
returning, and we removed the camera traps.' All the cameras had 2 GB cards. As
he took them out and reviewed them on his own camera, he found that many photos
of birds and yaks had been captured. Finally, when he saw that camera trap
number 12 had captured a wild dog, he breathed a sigh of relief. This place was
Samewa Deurali, at an altitude of 3752 meters. The camera, which was fixed to
the ground at a crossroads with a stake, had been there for 18 days. Only 124
MB of memory space had been used. Out of the captured images, only three were
of the wild dog, taken within a 5-minute period starting at 1:59 p.m.
'Only one camera trap found a wild dog,'
says Ambika. 'Even though I didn't see it with my own eyes, the photo was
clear. It worked.' According to him, the camera captured a group of three wild
dogs. These are the same camera traps that are also used for tiger census from
time to time. He did not want to prioritize other wild animals that were
captured apart from his subject. But the automatic camera, which takes photos
based on footsteps, also captured many species of birds, yaks, and martens.
Now, in the final stages of his thesis, he believes that wildlife is also found
outside protected areas and that they should be studied and conserved.
The head of the Bird Conservation
Association, Dr. Hum Bahadur Gurung, has a similar opinion. He says, 'The birds
and animals found outside the declared protected areas are in the national
forests and community forests.' When people protect the forests for fodder and
firewood, it has a positive effect on wildlife as well. But he believes that
special plans are needed among community forest workers to protect them. He has
observed that the potential for the nation and the concerned community to
benefit from the information gathered by those who study the diversity of
wildlife and the environment is not being utilized. Gurung says, 'Only when the
locals know the importance of what is being studied in their area will it help
our natural balance to be maintained.'
***
(Published in Kantipur Koseli on October23, 2010) Repost @ blog, after translation in English.
