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The thrill of Amazon in Corbett
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An evening with a tiger. A night with a jaguar. Wildlife filmmaker Nick Gordon has done all this and more as SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY discovers in the course of a chat at the Jim Corbett National Park.
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IT BECOMES intriguing when celebrated wildlife filmmaker Nick Gordon says a film on snakes took him to the Amazon for four weeks and he ended up romancing this South American rainforest, the world's largest, for 20 years.
"After the initial one month of shooting in the Amazon forest, I returned to Britain and told my employers, Anglia TV, I am going back to where I just came from. They were all amazed," Nick recalls. With a self-built canoe and a hut 50 metres up on a tree, Nick had to stay in the thick of the woods for days together, waiting for rare shots. One film on jaguars, he informs, took him seven years to complete! And, in the process of making films for National Geographic, Granada Television, Survival Anglia, British Broadcasting Corporation and Multi Media Arts, United Kingdom, he became one of those rare folks living for extended periods on location, thus blending with the indigenous people seamlessly, even in his food habits.
"Occasionally, I need to bite into a burger or a pizza. I do that when I come out of the forest to develop my negatives," the award-winning adventure storyteller of natural history chuckles. Relaxing after conducting a workshop for young wildlife filmmakers organised by the British Council at the Claridges Corbett Hideaway, seven kilometres from the tiger hub Jim Corbett National Park, Nick broaches the subject of the jaguar, the animal he trailed the most. The closest he came to a jaguar, he says, was when once it peeped through his camera lens as he was filming! This time though both Nick and his expensive camera were given a pass by the generous predator, a similar incident later cost him his 30,000-pound apparatus!
"I saw the jaguar coming and fixed my camera on a tree trunk nearby, knowing that it would climb it. I wanted some real shots, but I did not know what to do when it decided to attack the camera," he says, adding with a laugh that when he called up his insurance office in London and told them about it, they did not believe it. "Luckily, I was photographing the incident with another camera from a distance. With a treasure trove of films and stills - from snakes, giant otters and dolphins to goliath tarantulas, marmosets and crocodiles, endangered birds to jaguars - vouching for his eventful 10 years in Brazil, nine in Madagascar, two each in Guyana and Sierra Leone, one in Venezuela and six months each in China, the Caribbean, Alaska and South Africa, Nick has also written two volumes - "Heart of the Amazon" and "Wild Amazon" - which give readers glimpses into territory not many venture into.
At Corbett for the first time, the British filmmaker, on his second visit to India after a long gap, came close to two tigers on an elephant safari. He admires the big cat: "Jaguars and tigers are similar. They are charismatic animals. Jaguars are much more like leopards actually." Calling the tiger "the symbol of India", he calls for much more effort to preserve the animal. "In fact, meeting the young crowd of filmmakers here was a rich experience. I should say they have inspired me. I shall come back here," Nick promises. With a Brazilian wife, though, he adds that he has to go back to the Amazon first.
"After all, I have to save my marriage too," he grins as he walks up to the car to take him to his next stop Delhi.
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