The Hindu : New Delhi News : Nurturing a passion for birds

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Monday, May 19, 2008
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Nurturing a passion for birds

Bikram Grewal

Famous bird-watcher Bikram Grewal not only relishes the sport but also publishes the fruits of his explorations to produce treaures of information on the flying creatures. He talks to Bindu Shajan Perappadan about the conservation scenario of birds in India.

He burst onto the Indian ornithology scene with little warning and quickly earned the reputation of being the “bad boy of ornithology”. Bikram Grewal now a world-famous bird-watcher, author and publisher began as a “closet bird-watcher” and it took a sort of record breaking sale of his book “Birds of India” to be finally accepted as someone who is serious about birds.

“As a child I would spend all of my holidays in the forests of the then undivided Assam, from where my mother came. My grandmother Rani Niharbala Barua of Gauripur had tremendous knowledge of birds of that area and she was the first to inculcate this passion that has lasted till today. I was sent to a boarding school in Himachal at a very early age. I was tremendously unhappy. The ethos there was that a person who read a book was a ‘sissy’, but those who beat others to pulp in boxing were true heroes. Though the school was full of hill birds, there was no way I could openly watch birds, so I became a kind of ‘closet’ bird-watcher! Getting out of school was like getting out of jail, but once out I indulged in my passion openly,” recalls Mr. Grewal about how it all started for him.

But having drifted into publishing as a career he soon realised that the books on Indian birds that were available, though good, were horribly old-fashioned and terribly designed.

“So I decided to use what little knowledge of birds I had along with my publishing experience to publish a book that would at least look modern. I had no money, so I begged, borrowed and stole material and photographs and finally in the early Eighties, the book came out. The reception it got was terrible, particularly from the establishment. I was accused of being a usurper, an upstart, an amateur to boot with no professional degrees. Mind you most of it was correct! I was very disheartened and depressed, but the book sold and sold, going into many reprints and at least four editions. Slowly this opposition dwindled, but never totally disappeared, and my later books got much better reactions and today I live with some sort of tenuous cease-fire with the establishment,” claims Mr. Grewal.

Also a self-confessed compulsive writer, Mr. Grewal has written 25-odd books till date. “I have lost count, but most have done well, and that is good for the ego, but never for the purse! My recent work includes books on the Sundarbans, Corbett and Bharatpur. There are several works in progress including a history of ornithology in India. Let us see how many see the light of day,” says Mr. Grewal.

The bird-watcher also has fun “travelling to obscure parts of the country, finding new information and seeing how much India has to offer and how little we actually know about birds”.

Mr. Grewal, a virtual insider who can give us a birds-eye view of the conservation scenario for birds in India, says that he doesn’t think that there is a lack of experts in the field. “On the contrary there are too many ‘experts’, but what is important is what they do with their expertise. There is not much point in doing huge research within the confines of a library, unless you transfer it to the field and share your knowledge with others.”

“On the other hand, I find that the knowledge, no matter how amateurish, that is being disseminated by e-groups is much more important. Almost every major city has an e-group or a thriving birding club. The foremost of which is kolkatabirds.com. It is the sixth largest bird website in the world and gets several thousand hits a day and has become the repository of information on birds of this country,” adds Mr. Grewal.

Expressing his concern about how tiger conservation in India “hogs most of the news and the money”, Mr. Grewal says: “The tiger no doubt is a beautiful animal, but unfortunately the overemphasis on it has been at the cost of other life forms. I have often asked this question why is the Bengal florican, of which there are only 400 left in the world, should be any less important than the tiger.”

He also believes that people are trying their best with their limited resources to do their bit for the birds in India “but that is never enough,” says Mr. Grewal. He adds that it’s also the job of the government to take charge of the nation’s environment.

“But they are too busy trying to stay in power. Since Indira Gandhi died, the situation has plummeted. But even during her time the emphasis was mostly on the big cats. Environmental activists and scientist are not doing enough for our birds, not by a long shot,” he says.

Speaking about the involvement of the common man to protect the birds in this country, he says: “There are bodies like the Oriental Bird Club and Birdlife Asia, which are making some effort, but they work through semi-governmental non-government organisations, and so their reach is very limited, and never through the common man. Therefore the rise of the e-groups takes pre-eminent importance. It is the best, not to mention the cheapest way, to spread information. Most of these are, however, privately funded by concerned individuals, and that is not a good way to go forward. The government is just not interested. It is sad but true.”

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