Officer Vasu, only because he seemed the friendlier of the two. Through Ravi, I asked him about the giant rifle that hung from his shoulder, how often he’d had to use it against poachers. Officer Vasu received each question with a bashful smile and a lift of his nearly hairless eyebrows. “Once or twice,” he said. “But not directly at a poacher.”
“Why not?”
“If we kill someone, the media gets involved, then the Human Rights Commission. We can lose our jobs. There are many barriers for us.”
Without elaborating on the barriers, Officer Vasu walked on. I noted the laces of his shoes were tied haphazardly, woven through random holes and wrapped threefold around the ankles so they wouldn’t slip off. What did a poacher have to fear from a guy with oversized camo shoes and putty lumps for brows?
Farther along, Officer Soman pointed out the leaning wreckage of bamboo, thick as elephant bones, thirty years old and weeks away from decay. “Elephants love the bamboo,” Ravi added, “so the shortage is drawing them to the farms. And the Forest Department isn’t replanting, so—”
What followed was a volley of heated voices, passing so rapid fire we could only film and ask for translation later:
SOMAN: Everyone blames the Forest Department.
RAVI: I’m not blaming—
SOMAN: You know well as I do any decision like that must come from Trivandrum.
RAVI: I just say how I see it. The farmers say the same thing about the bamboo.
SOMAN: Hah! Bunch of IIT geniuses, those people! They also say we should build a Great Wall of China around the park. What is this—a zoo?
VASU: Calm yourself, Soman. They’re filming.
SOMAN: They don’t care what we say. We won’t be in their film.
VASU: Why not?
SOMAN: People like them don’t make movies about people like us.
VASU: How would you know? You don’t even watch movies.
SOMAN: I know that piece of grass in your mouth doesn’t make you Sunil Shetty.
VASU: People can cry and fight all they want, but there will come a time when the bamboo will disappear, then the elephants, then us, and all will be as it was before we arrived. Or maybe it will be something different.
SOMAN: So?
VASU: The world is changing. If it was not changing, it would not be the world.
(Silence.)
SOMAN: Someone give this man a Filmfare Award.
After the hike, our hosts took us to rest at their quarters, a two-level bamboo dwelling on stilts. An officer was perched in the lookout tower. We passed by a small garden, displaying neat rows of beans, curry leaves, and cabbages, staked in the center with a strung-up can of Shakti mustard oil, bouncing sunlight as it swung.
Officer Vasu led the tour. Here were the mosquito nets rolled up over the cots; here were the beige shirts hanging from thewall pegs, the bullet shells on the bed, the walkie-talkies spitting sounds, the calendar on the wall with a young girl shyly fondling her braid. And here was the small shrine by the doorway, on a shelf nailed to the wall, with propped pictures of Ganesh and a blue cherubic Krishna, boxes of incense and burnt matches planted in balls of wax. Here they prayed before entering the forest.
As we filmed, it came out that Officer Vasu was from a poor family, same as Officer Soman, who saw his own family once a month. Officer Vasu pulled out a wafer-thin wallet, and from it he extracted what seemed to be a single puzzle piece.
“Me,” he said.
And it was him, albeit a younger him, trim and proud in his beige uniform, his foot hitched on the bumper of a jeep. He had cut around his own shape and that of the jeep attached to his foot, as if they were one. I pulled focus on the photo, held delicately in his fingers, dirt under the nails. There was something so humble, so heartwarming, about both Vasus, large and small, now and then, neither of whom seemed capable of harm. Yet two days later, Officer Vasu would shoot a poacher dead. At first I wouldn’t believe it; the shooter had to be some other Vasu, not our
“Why not?”
“If we kill someone, the media gets involved, then the Human Rights Commission. We can lose our jobs. There are many barriers for us.”
Without elaborating on the barriers, Officer Vasu walked on. I noted the laces of his shoes were tied haphazardly, woven through random holes and wrapped threefold around the ankles so they wouldn’t slip off. What did a poacher have to fear from a guy with oversized camo shoes and putty lumps for brows?
Farther along, Officer Soman pointed out the leaning wreckage of bamboo, thick as elephant bones, thirty years old and weeks away from decay. “Elephants love the bamboo,” Ravi added, “so the shortage is drawing them to the farms. And the Forest Department isn’t replanting, so—”
What followed was a volley of heated voices, passing so rapid fire we could only film and ask for translation later:
SOMAN: Everyone blames the Forest Department.
RAVI: I’m not blaming—
SOMAN: You know well as I do any decision like that must come from Trivandrum.
RAVI: I just say how I see it. The farmers say the same thing about the bamboo.
SOMAN: Hah! Bunch of IIT geniuses, those people! They also say we should build a Great Wall of China around the park. What is this—a zoo?
VASU: Calm yourself, Soman. They’re filming.
SOMAN: They don’t care what we say. We won’t be in their film.
VASU: Why not?
SOMAN: People like them don’t make movies about people like us.
VASU: How would you know? You don’t even watch movies.
SOMAN: I know that piece of grass in your mouth doesn’t make you Sunil Shetty.
VASU: People can cry and fight all they want, but there will come a time when the bamboo will disappear, then the elephants, then us, and all will be as it was before we arrived. Or maybe it will be something different.
SOMAN: So?
VASU: The world is changing. If it was not changing, it would not be the world.
(Silence.)
SOMAN: Someone give this man a Filmfare Award.
After the hike, our hosts took us to rest at their quarters, a two-level bamboo dwelling on stilts. An officer was perched in the lookout tower. We passed by a small garden, displaying neat rows of beans, curry leaves, and cabbages, staked in the center with a strung-up can of Shakti mustard oil, bouncing sunlight as it swung.
Officer Vasu led the tour. Here were the mosquito nets rolled up over the cots; here were the beige shirts hanging from thewall pegs, the bullet shells on the bed, the walkie-talkies spitting sounds, the calendar on the wall with a young girl shyly fondling her braid. And here was the small shrine by the doorway, on a shelf nailed to the wall, with propped pictures of Ganesh and a blue cherubic Krishna, boxes of incense and burnt matches planted in balls of wax. Here they prayed before entering the forest.
As we filmed, it came out that Officer Vasu was from a poor family, same as Officer Soman, who saw his own family once a month. Officer Vasu pulled out a wafer-thin wallet, and from it he extracted what seemed to be a single puzzle piece.
“Me,” he said.
And it was him, albeit a younger him, trim and proud in his beige uniform, his foot hitched on the bumper of a jeep. He had cut around his own shape and that of the jeep attached to his foot, as if they were one. I pulled focus on the photo, held delicately in his fingers, dirt under the nails. There was something so humble, so heartwarming, about both Vasus, large and small, now and then, neither of whom seemed capable of harm. Yet two days later, Officer Vasu would shoot a poacher dead. At first I wouldn’t believe it; the shooter had to be some other Vasu, not our
Similar Books
