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Capturing the wild

Satyen Wanchoo.

From filming the trans-Himalayan wildlife to telling stories about the endangered flora and fauna of Manipur, documentary filmmaker Satyen Wanchoo has been a passionate worker. Madhur Tankha shares more about him…

As a child he had an undiminished passion for wildlife. Little wonder then that Satyen Wanchoo chose documentary filmmaking as a career. An alumnus of Delhi University’s Hindu College, Satyen has filmed on a wide range of subjects from destruction of habitat to threats posed by climatic change and development of environment-friendly solutions and technologies.

“After completing my History (Honours) in 1993, I did a course in direction and documentary filmmaking from Commonwealth Broadcasting Association. I joined NDTV in 1995 where I worked as a feature correspondent for nine years. For two years I did a show ‘Zoo Watch’ on ‘Good Morning India’ in which I visited all the zoological parks across the country. I also broke a story on disappearance of vultures from North India,” he says.

After quitting his television job, Satyen made a documentary “Lime Buildings Breathe” that unravelled the complex relationship between historical buildings and communities in Gurdaspur in Punjab. “The film was about restoration of three historical buildings by conservationist Gurmeet Rai to heal the wounds inflicted by Partition and militancy.”

Satyen’s other important documentary “Gilded Mirror” was on the Loktak lake of Manipur. “I also filmed the rare Sangai deer or brow antlered deer that lives around the Loktak lake. The lake is known for its floating mats of vegetation. It is a great reservoir of fish and serves as the winter home for waterfowl. This huge bio-wealth makes it one of the bio-diversity hotspots of the world but its existence is under threat from the construction of a barrage for hydropower generation. .”

Describing his latest documentary “The Good Shepherd” as a labour of love, Satyen says the film explores the complex relationship between trans-Himalayan wildlife and the immediate community of shepherds and herdsmen in the Kanji Wildlife Sanctuary of the Kargil district and the Trikuta Wildlife Sanctuary in Jammu and Kashmir. Produced by the Films Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the 30-minute film in English will be screened at India International Centre on June 4.

Satyen says he chose to focus on the good old shepherd as they are often the key to conservation of nature and are most often misunderstood.

“It may sound unbelievable but the shepherds share their living space with wildlife. In fact, this interaction may decide the survival of a host of vulnerable plant and animal species. While a lot has been said about the negative impact of overgrazing by shepherds and even their cruel practices of trapping predators like the wolves in Ladakh, I wanted to focus on the positives.”

Stating that winter was the most opportune time to film snow leopards as both the prey and the predator descend to lower altitudes, Satyen says: “We were extremely lucky to spot the most elusive member of the cat family. This almost mythical creature is so rarely sighted that little is known about it. In fact, within the first 40 minutes of moderate climbing at Rumbak, in the Hemis National Park, we came across a snow leopard kill.”

As soon as he stepped out of the Leh airport on a chilly late November morning in 2006 the surge in the altitude and the dip in temperature was palpable.

“Getting to Kanji with filming equipment and personal gear was a logistical nightmare. All passes were snowbound and the last 15 kilometres were done on foot through glaciers and sheets of ice and snow. Weather was up to -30 degrees in December. Even indoors, in the Kanji village a glass of boiled water would freeze before we could finish it.”

Satyen will soon be making a documentary on climate change in Kashmir and penning a book on the Amarnath Yatra.

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