The Hindu Business Line : Time to make nature study fun item for kids

A fair way to measure the enthusiasm of city folk for the environment is to attend a Kids for Tigers programme run by Sanctuary Asia and sponsored by Complan. One never thought Indore will have so many green teachers despite the restraints placed by headmasters of schools and the curriculum. Last week, one was at a meet at the Ganesh Vidya Mandir, Palsikar Colony collectorate, where some 40 teachers (mostly females) from 25 schools met up to discuss the programme. My friend Dinesh Kothari has been heading the show for the last three years and at his behest, one met some of them. One lady teacher explained that at her school, there was little time to take children out on a field trip. Kids are taught by books and not many have been helped to observe a common sparrow build its nest under the window sill of a home. One thought of the times when one learnt botany and zoology from a few text books to get totally disgusted with any form of life, animal, plant or human. Children hate botany and zoology at schools being rarely taken to the nearest park, if any.

At least, Indore has a Residency Park and one wondered why the Kids for Tigers programme was not taken up there. One does not see children at such meetings with the teachers doing what they do in classrooms. It would have been more to the point to get a few children speak their minds and their teachers to listen. Can the Kids for Tigers programme run its present course without the school managements offering a free hour every week (the minimum) for children to roam bare feet in the nearest park or lake? The Kids for Tigers idea has now spread across 14 cities and over 500 schools and a press note says: "As always - at no cost to your school — in the year ahead, we hope to conduct a series of activities for the benefit of your students that will help them better understand the new environmental sciences syllabus that is part of their academic life. This will be through nature education communications, a dedicated Web site helpline, audiovisual presentations, save the tiger campaigns, tiger fests, classroom and notice board aids and advice and assistance for the school nature club." Possibly, the Kids for Tigers could be delinked from any school syllabus and nature study made a fun item. Let the school children be helped to observe a donkey plodding on the city roads or a crow cawing outside the classroom. One recalls Khushwant Singh writing somewhere that it is best to start with the trees (if there are any) near one's home. Nearing Indore, the train halted at a signal and one watched six small girls and boys loaded with outsized school bags on their backs trudging to school across a field. For a few minutes, they dropped their bags and played catch-me-if-you-can on the fresh grass with gusto when the train started moving. School was forgotten for some free fun. That image remained with me (it still is with me) when we drove to the grasslands of Sailana to have a glimpse of the Lesser Florican (kharmor in Hindi). Kheema, the trekker, who is the only expert on the bird for the last 25 years, had informed Dinesh the birds had started flying in to breed. In the morning at around 6, with a thin rain on our heads, we sighted one bird some 25 ft away from our vehicle. It was jaywalking, trying to find an appropriate bump in the field to perform its up-and-down dance to snare a female. We saw the bird many times through the day in the same area. By August, more should come and that has been made possible by Vivek Jain, Divisional Forest Officer. Grazing and public disturbance have stopped leaving the grasslands for the Lesser Florican. That's the best news from Sailana.

There is a broken-down red sandstone structure far away in the grasslands and Kheema said it had belonged to some maharaja. "Idhar bade ped the aur main sambhar dekha hoon (There were big trees here at one time. I have seen sambhars in this area)," Kheema remarked. "The vegetation would have been unique at that time," added Kishor Rithe. But now, there is good grass. If that was not enough, one saw from close the chick of the Red-wattled Lapwing. We saw three chicks (about 8-day old) moving in the area when the worried parent birds started hurling harsh cries from the air. The chicks froze and it was after some search that Kishor spotted one chick cowering under a palas bush. It had gone still warned of danger by its parents. The parents kept up the calls till we moved away. Their nesting season starts in March and ends in August. Writing of their nest, Dr Salim Ali says the eggs are laid on "bare ground in open waste land, occasionally with the depression ringed around with a few pebbles. They match the soil to perfection and are difficult to find." At three more spots, we saw grown-up chicks moving with their parents in search of food. Rounding up the trip, we were at the edge of the grasslands when we spotted a crow pecking hard at the left hind leg of a bull frog to immobilise it. For about five minutes, the crow played with the frog and then placed it on a stone to break its hind leg. Work done, the crow took a break and we did not wait to see the end of the frog.

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