The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Preserving a link to culture and wildlife through local language

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 01, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Preserving a link to culture and wildlife through local language

Alladi Jayasri

They are all endangered, warns naturalist S. Theodore Baskaran

NEW STAMPS: Chief Postmaster-General Meera Datta; S. Theodore Baskaran, Trustee, WWF-India; and K. Prakash, Director of Postal Service, South Karnataka Region, at the release of commemorative stamps on National Parks of India, in Bangalore on Thursda y. — Photo: K. Gopinathan

BANGALORE: Even as we read and write about and celebrate the wildlife of India in English, we could be losing a vital link to the flora and fauna along with languages and cultures that are also endangered, warns naturalist and writer S. Theodore Baskaran.

And he should know. As the author of eight books on birds and animals in Tamil for children, apart from several books about wildlife in Tamil Nadu, Mr. Baskaran, who started writing a column for The Hindu in 1969, says, "Let's not forget that for more than three millennia our people have had their own names for flora and fauna and the ecosystem that have become a part of the lexicon."

Alien discourse

Speaking on the sidelines of a function to release five commemorative stamps on the theme "National Parks of India", Mr. Baskaran said it was lamentable that the discourse on the environment was not in the local language. "Why is bird-watching restricted to the English-speaking community? Have you ever wondered about that?"

Explaining why going back to the local language can save wildlife and the language itself, he says language immediately connects the village and the "English-speaking bird-watcher". This marries the science of conservation with the desire of the local man to protect the creatures in his own environment.

Documenting birds and animals for a project of the WWF-India some years ago, Mr. Baskaran became fascinated with the names that the local people had for the fauna around them. The sunbird, which feeds on a parasitic plant of the mango tree, is known as "the mistress of the mango".

Literary allusions in ancient and medieval texts are replete with references to birds and animals, many of which are extinct, while some are tottering on the brink of extinction, like the Great Indian Bustard, which was known as the Kana Mail.

Initiatives of this kind are mostly the passionate pursuits of people like Mr. Baskaran, who is engaged in documenting birds and animals in both English and Tamil, a project that he is obsessed with.

Stamps released

At the function to release the commemorative stamps, Chief Postmaster-General Meera Datta said the five stamps released on Thursday on Bandhavgarh, Bandipur, Kaziranga, Mudulamai and Periyar National Parks were an initiative from the Department of Posts to celebrate the natural wealth of India.

Speaking nostalgically of the time when many of her generation collected matchbox labels from Sivakasi that featured pictures of tigers and other wildlife, Ms. Datta said these stamps would be a very valuable addition to any philatelist's collection

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