THE WHITE SKIN OBSESSION
``So… you are set to visit land of Ravana?’’ asked my friend ``He is my hero in Ramayana,’’ I just replied
``Why so?’’
``He kidnapped Seetha to avenge his sister’s humiliation. Though Seetha was beautiful and he had opportunities to do anything, he treated her with respect. He was such an ardent lover of Lord Shiva, that he dared to take Athma Linga from Shiva for his mother. How can I take a person as a hero, who distrusted his wife time and again, subjecting her to Agnipravesha and banishing her to forest just after hearing gossips?’’ I replied.
``I will tell you one more story. Rama was looking for a learned scholar to give `Diksha’ for war. Learning that, Ravan himself offered him `Diksha’ and blessed Rama with victory,’’ he said.
``That makes him nobler,’’ I just laughed.
``Remember, you may not meet many Ravana’s in present Lanka,’’ he laughed.
In my second visit to Sri Lanka, I was accompanying my wildlife Guru K M Chinnappa, his wife Radha aunty and friend HNA Prasad. I am youngest in the group and took responsibility of organizing the trip. As we landed in Colombo at 4.30 am, I was mostly dependent on the cab driver Lalu, who picked us up. Since we added Wilpattu wildlife sanctuary in the last minute, we started driving directly, without even freshening up.
Though Lalu said it was five hours drive, even with a breakfast stop, we had reached Wilpattu at 10.30 am. Lalu got into action and booked a vehicle for taking us inside the forests. I just told Lalu and the vehicle driver that it was wrong time to go for wildlife safari, as animals would be resting. When both tried convincing that there was no such thing as time for safari, I realized I had a tough task during rest of the tour. Just booking through tourist operators does not lessen your burden of managing things, if your tour has to go according to your plan.
I told Lalu that we would start for safari only by 2.30 pm, so that we could try and sight some animals. Both Lalu and another driver tried to give some lecture on animal behavior to me. With a smile I told him that I would be taking a room at Leopard Den resort, just opposite to the place where we were talking and rest till lunch. The safari would start after the lunch.
As I walked into the resort office, I noticed it was basic, but very nicely done. Owner cum manger was a lady, who agreed to give us a room for couple of hours. I told her that we would also have lunch at around 1.30 pm and went to room.
As we four walked into dining area at 1.30 pm, couple of tourist vehicles also arrived. Almost all the guests were white people. We placed our orders before them and began discussing about Wilpattu wildlife sanctuary. It is one of the largest protected areas for leopards in Sri Lanka. Leopards are persecuted so much in Sri Lanka that it is endangered.
I just asked Chinnappa as to why there were no tigers in Sri Lanka and laughed that how Sri Lanka has Lion on its National flag, though there were no Lions in that country.
Chinnappa explained me how tigers migrated from Siberia to other regions in the Asia and by the time it could reach Sri Lanka, the sea had separated two countries. That was much before history and during process of evolution and migration of species period.
Half an hour passed and the hotel people had supplied food to everyone in the dining area, except us. No one even took notice of our presence and we could not even draw attention of anyone in the hotel. First, we thought our dishes were getting late and after another 15 minutes, the hotel people started collecting bills from the customers. I called the waiter who took our order and asked about our food. He went inside and was followed by another person. He plainly said that fish was over and if we wanted, he could prepare some chicken.
By then, Prasad had lost his cool and went to the office. He confronted the owner woman and wanted to know what was happening and demanded explanation for not supplying food for over an hour. She just said that there was some delay and would try and do something about it. The laxity made me lose my cool also and just shot at her: ``Look madam, I thought only Indians had this obsession for white skin people. I was wrong and it is universal in Asia and Africa. You should remember that I have given you bigger business than them. This is not done.’’
The lady was taken aback and hurried into the kitchen. Next 15 minutes, our food was on our table. Even Chinnappa and Radha aunty had lost their cool. We ate without a word, paid the bill and left the place.
In the safari, we realized that our guide had scant knowledge about forest. However, he was confidently explaining us about the forest, which beat the logics of even Chinnappa’s five decades of experience with forest and wildlife. Every time he opened his mouth, we smiled at each other. Chinnappa pointed at some animal foot mark and wanted to know to which animal it belonged to. The driver, without hesitation said it belonged to spotted deer, when we burst into laughter. Chinnappa pointed out that it was round and large…. Almost looked like camel hooves mark. The driver thought for a while and said it might be of wild buffalos.
Though we were surprised at that moment, later we sighted a herd of wild buffalos near a water hole. It is same as our domestic buffalos, but live in wild throughout in herds life Indian Gaur and African Buffalos.
Our discussion was mainly around how preventing forest fire has helped the local species of plants to fight Lantana destroying them. It was more technical and comparison with our forests in Karnataka. Though we could not sight leopard, we had good sightings of red mongoose, monitor lizard and star tortoise.
When we returned to the resort to pick our vehicle, the owner was enthusiastically showing her bird collection to the tourists and answering their queries about the place. She avoided eye contact with us, but we did not feel bad about it. In the late evening, we had a long journey to reach Dambulla…. Our next destination.
``Why so?’’
``He kidnapped Seetha to avenge his sister’s humiliation. Though Seetha was beautiful and he had opportunities to do anything, he treated her with respect. He was such an ardent lover of Lord Shiva, that he dared to take Athma Linga from Shiva for his mother. How can I take a person as a hero, who distrusted his wife time and again, subjecting her to Agnipravesha and banishing her to forest just after hearing gossips?’’ I replied.``I will tell you one more story. Rama was looking for a learned scholar to give `Diksha’ for war. Learning that, Ravan himself offered him `Diksha’ and blessed Rama with victory,’’ he said.
``That makes him nobler,’’ I just laughed.
``Remember, you may not meet many Ravana’s in present Lanka,’’ he laughed.
In my second visit to Sri Lanka, I was accompanying my wildlife Guru K M Chinnappa, his wife Radha aunty and friend HNA Prasad. I am youngest in the group and took responsibility of organizing the trip. As we landed in Colombo at 4.30 am, I was mostly dependent on the cab driver Lalu, who picked us up. Since we added Wilpattu wildlife sanctuary in the last minute, we started driving directly, without even freshening up.
Though Lalu said it was five hours drive, even with a breakfast stop, we had reached Wilpattu at 10.30 am. Lalu got into action and booked a vehicle for taking us inside the forests. I just told Lalu and the vehicle driver that it was wrong time to go for wildlife safari, as animals would be resting. When both tried convincing that there was no such thing as time for safari, I realized I had a tough task during rest of the tour. Just booking through tourist operators does not lessen your burden of managing things, if your tour has to go according to your plan.
I told Lalu that we would start for safari only by 2.30 pm, so that we could try and sight some animals. Both Lalu and another driver tried to give some lecture on animal behavior to me. With a smile I told him that I would be taking a room at Leopard Den resort, just opposite to the place where we were talking and rest till lunch. The safari would start after the lunch.
As I walked into the resort office, I noticed it was basic, but very nicely done. Owner cum manger was a lady, who agreed to give us a room for couple of hours. I told her that we would also have lunch at around 1.30 pm and went to room.
As we four walked into dining area at 1.30 pm, couple of tourist vehicles also arrived. Almost all the guests were white people. We placed our orders before them and began discussing about Wilpattu wildlife sanctuary. It is one of the largest protected areas for leopards in Sri Lanka. Leopards are persecuted so much in Sri Lanka that it is endangered.I just asked Chinnappa as to why there were no tigers in Sri Lanka and laughed that how Sri Lanka has Lion on its National flag, though there were no Lions in that country.
Chinnappa explained me how tigers migrated from Siberia to other regions in the Asia and by the time it could reach Sri Lanka, the sea had separated two countries. That was much before history and during process of evolution and migration of species period.
Half an hour passed and the hotel people had supplied food to everyone in the dining area, except us. No one even took notice of our presence and we could not even draw attention of anyone in the hotel. First, we thought our dishes were getting late and after another 15 minutes, the hotel people started collecting bills from the customers. I called the waiter who took our order and asked about our food. He went inside and was followed by another person. He plainly said that fish was over and if we wanted, he could prepare some chicken.
By then, Prasad had lost his cool and went to the office. He confronted the owner woman and wanted to know what was happening and demanded explanation for not supplying food for over an hour. She just said that there was some delay and would try and do something about it. The laxity made me lose my cool also and just shot at her: ``Look madam, I thought only Indians had this obsession for white skin people. I was wrong and it is universal in Asia and Africa. You should remember that I have given you bigger business than them. This is not done.’’
The lady was taken aback and hurried into the kitchen. Next 15 minutes, our food was on our table. Even Chinnappa and Radha aunty had lost their cool. We ate without a word, paid the bill and left the place.
In the safari, we realized that our guide had scant knowledge about forest. However, he was confidently explaining us about the forest, which beat the logics of even Chinnappa’s five decades of experience with forest and wildlife. Every time he opened his mouth, we smiled at each other. Chinnappa pointed at some animal foot mark and wanted to know to which animal it belonged to. The driver, without hesitation said it belonged to spotted deer, when we burst into laughter. Chinnappa pointed out that it was round and large…. Almost looked like camel hooves mark. The driver thought for a while and said it might be of wild buffalos.
Though we were surprised at that moment, later we sighted a herd of wild buffalos near a water hole. It is same as our domestic buffalos, but live in wild throughout in herds life Indian Gaur and African Buffalos.
Our discussion was mainly around how preventing forest fire has helped the local species of plants to fight Lantana destroying them. It was more technical and comparison with our forests in Karnataka. Though we could not sight leopard, we had good sightings of red mongoose, monitor lizard and star tortoise.When we returned to the resort to pick our vehicle, the owner was enthusiastically showing her bird collection to the tourists and answering their queries about the place. She avoided eye contact with us, but we did not feel bad about it. In the late evening, we had a long journey to reach Dambulla…. Our next destination.
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