SLICE OF LIFE
Pin-up panthers
V. GANGADHAR
YOU can rely on the IIT boys to do something different. That is why they are tops in whatever they set out to do.
At the Mumbai IIT, posters of perennial favourites Pamela Anderson ("Baywatch") and Aishwarya Rai are on their way out. No, those of Preity Zinta or Julia Roberts had not replaced them. The IIT boys have a brand new, unusual pin up Panthera pardus — in simple language, the panther.
No, the IIT boys had not jumped on the "Save the Wildlife" bandwagon. Perhaps, they have developed a soft corner for the panthers, seven of which had paid a visit to the campus and were trapped by the authorities. Suddenly, the IIT and the Powai region, where it is located, have become the favourite haunting ground of the panthers.
Panthers in Mumbai? Of course, there is the Shiv Sena Tiger in the city. We also have the Dalit Panthers who produced volumes of readable poetry. The intruding panthers normally resided at the Borivili Sanjay Gandhi National Park. Housing societies were steadily encroaching upon their habitat. Naturally, the 200-odd panthers at the park found prey difficult to get and began poaching dogs and fowl from the adjoining Powai. The marauding panthers were also attacking children.
The IIT boys are a sympathetic lot and blame human greed for the panther encroachment. The savage beauty of the animal visitors, which were trapped by the Wildlife authorities and released once again in the Sanjay Gandhi Park, fascinated them. The trapped animals were photographed and the pictures made front pages of the local dailies.
Obviously, Pamela Anderson and Aishwarya Rai were not in the same class as the spotted beauties. Local dailies quoted fourth year Engineering student, Kapil Aggarwal, resident of H-4 hostel, "Given the choice between an Aishwarya Rai poster and that of a leopard, I'd go for the latter." The view was endorsed by most of the IIT hostelites. The H-4 Hostel has a new name, Panther Hostel.
The panther visits, however, are not welcome everywhere. Last week, one of them snatched a four-year old boy from the Rajeha Vihar colony, Powai and tried to carry him away. When his playmates screamed, the beast dropped the boy and ran away. But the victim, with deep gashes on his throat, died.
It is unusual for a panther to have displaced more glamorous pin ups, that too from a college hostel. Pin-up posters are popular on two fronts, college hostels and army barracks. When actor Aamir Khan visited the border areas for a television programme, he was surprised to see numerous posters of his co-star, Rani Mukherjee. The pin-up revolution became hugely popular in the United States during the World War II. Hollywood starlet, Lana Turner, was photographed in a sweater two sizes too small and the result was movie history. She became the Number One pin-up girl for the armed forces. The same was true of Betty Grable, who had her legs insured for one million dollars. There was hardly any army barrack in the U.S. without her pictures.
Pin-up photographs of beautiful, sexy film stars are traditionally popular. The IIT boys, one can presume, are brainier than soldiers and found the trapped panthers more appealing than curvaceous Bollywood stars. Anyone who lived in the concrete jungles of Mumbai, would be interested in prowling leopards in the neighbourhood provided they did not get too close. Yet, there is something pathetic in these noble animals, leaving their natural haunts and searching for food in housing societies. People in Powai often spoke of bada billa (big cats) scrounging municipality trashcans for crumbs. Acute hunger made them snatch dogs, fowl and even small kids.
The IIT students should do more than put up posters of trapped leopards. Why not launch a movement to protect the panthers, control the encroachments and see to it that the Sanjay Gandhi National Park provides enough food for the animals? The average citizen of Mumbai, though saddened by the deaths of the young boys killed by panthers, has not resorted to killing the intruders. The panthers were trapped by trained people and then released in the protected areas. If these protected areas are really protected with enough prey for the leopards, their excursions into Powai housing colonies would stop. And the IIT students can go back to pin- ups of Pamela Anderson and Rani Mukherjee!
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