Sunday, September 19, 2010

Tremors , Tigers and Tommy

1.  Latur was my first and Friday night was my second experience with night earth quake tremors.First time, i felt it was a dream and a big rat is moving my bed vigorously (you know a kid i was then).We ran downstairs .
This time it wasn't thaaat shaky  and i wondered - is it  those newly married couple moved in below flat  or is it  heavy duty trucks passing by the main road , triggering.
We didn't ran  ( do not invest in skimpy night wear , never know when you gotta run for your life)  and sat with my handbag ready  and eventually crashed into sleep.

2.  Save tigers and spread awareness .Fine, how ? by liking pages on FB , wearing "Aircel" sponsored t-shirts ,interviewing celebrities who talk page 3 crap "Ya we should all  join hands against it ",   talk big words , post fancy posters  , show senti videos... etc etc and spread cognizance. Bullshit !
Yeah, i did the same without actually being aware,went with the flow.
Where are stats? where is actual  information ? Is it  reaching the people who can do something about it? Forest officials , law makers and traders .They don't  use the same channels through which we usually  campaign.Sigh

The Indian add campaigns though highly creative and touchy are not demographic(just look at Nat Geo videos).Here the irony is ,to appeal  and to reach  the masses they are tailored to be more  emotional than informative .Vicious!
The intention is genuine and right and may be working to certain extent -to reach out in numbers , but with all this noise  in the media and networks  i still felt  ignorant  until i saw this AWESOME National  Geography  documentary  on TV where an undercover agency EIA busted the whole trade .Now this is what i call awareness to the point.The idea is to make the right noise.

Tiger population dropped more than 70 % in a decade because of  poaching  for below quoted illegal trading reasons , carried out in enlarged scale.
So what exactly are they being  killed for beyond food chain cycle norms?
  •  Tiger skin- sought for  home decor, taxidermy, bribery and as  traditional clothing by  Chinese  and Tibet communities .Single skin can cost from 12000 to  20,000 $
  • Tiger bones - used in ancient Chinese medicine .In spite of ban  flows freely in the markets  .
  • Tiger tooth - For Astrological myths.
  • The most shocking - again tiger skin - used as official dress in some regiments of Chinese military .Apparently military officials are their top customers.
 Maximum percentage of consumer countries belong to  Mekong region . Middle agents revealed 95% of supplies are imported  illegally from India.One Middle man  quoted "India is a poor country and law here is easy to break . We find it easier to sneak in and leverage locals to get the suff ".

A lot more.Unfortunately  i am unable  to find the film on net :(

3.  So what was i sooo happy to see on my return to Bangalore?
RV apartment fellows have  got two sniffer Labradors  for security .They nest in front of the gate so i get to see them day and night from my balcony.In two days i have already visited them  6 times and secretly fed them :D
Introducing Tommy and Shibu .

2 comments:

dp said...

totally totally boring post!!
**DISLIKE**

Abhinaw Sachan said...

1. Intellectual topics do not go down well with your public-image, Shilpa ;-)...though Keep-writing, I liked it :-)

2. Your life starts and ends with doggies...Always Dogs!!....when were you last time happy see a young-boy !!...that's the reason you are still single ;-)

3. Tommy is a very unique and unconventional name, heard it for the first time :-)

4. Shibu reminded me of Shibu Soren, the great Jharkhand CM...I could directly connect both, though I have more hatred for the later one :-)

In Good Faith,
Abhinaw :-)