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“We each survive in our own way.”
― Sarah J. Maas
“Innocence is a kind of insanity”
― Graham Greene
“The fool does think he is wise, but the wise
man knows himself to be a fool.”
― William Shakespeare
Sarah Janet Maas is an American fantasy author
known for her series Throne of Glass, A Court of Thorns and Roses, and Crescent
City. As of 2024, she has sold more than 75 million copies of her books and her
work has been translated into 40 languages. Henry Graham Greene was an English writer and
journalist regarded by many as one of the leading novelists of the 20th
century. And the third name i.e. Mr Shakespeare, well plz google, rather if you
have started reading this piece & don't know about him then a big salute
from me! Ok, sharing is about survival so needless to say wildlife is part of
it (and Tadoba also, lol) but it’s not about how wonderful forest is & why
we must save wildlife & that blahblah… (sorry, that was for those who
doesn’t like overdose of wildlife) but it’s about things forest teaches us
(read as taught me) & ways of teaching! Guys, apart from beauty &
adventure & conservation etc if you remember then best of tour childhood
stories were from Isap Niti & Panchatantra & if you haven’t read it
(God plz forgive such people as they don’t know what sin they have done again
lol) then plz, plz, do read it now, as to gain wisdom age is never a criterion!
Ok, those who have read it then who were the main characters of all these
stories, they were animals & mostly from wildlife & if I am not wrong
then Panchatantra is even part of many B-schools syllabus also! So, what's the
common link between forests, Panchatantra, learnings of survival which is part
or say by-product of survival, it is wild animals & what they teach us by
their behaviour! Hushhh, hope I tried my best to make you realize the gist of
the sharing in the best possible words so you can choose whether to read ahead
or not!
Ok, recently one video got viral about a Honey
Badger getting killed by tigress from tadoba & it’s very rare footage which
either you can get from years (yes, years not days or months) waiting &
camera traps at your service or simply you have to be super lucky to witness
such action. In this case the tourists were of a later case & not only he
got lucky to witness this drama but made us also lucky by being able to click
the whole action! In buffers of tadoba, a honey badger came across tiger sub
adult cubs of a tigress named Choti Madhu & the footage shows the way tiger
cubs reacted to honey badger’s sighting & vice versa, eventually the scene
ended with the tiger killing honey badger! I thought of writing poor
honey badger but then realized there is no such thing as poor or rich or luck
or bad luck in the forest, it’s all about what you have learned to survive
& how you use what you have learned! This is practical side of
wisdom but we are living thing & we have emotions, & I too am no
exception so without shame I accept I felt sad while watching that video &
silently cried the way honey badger confronted with the tiger & I consider
myself a hard, tough person yet I couldn’t watch the clip even second time
though watching it just one time has made me realize so many things about
survival, which I wanted to share along with few other such incidences which I
have personally experienced in the forests & has taught me some real
important lessons. As well there are few lessons which we at large must adopt
or one day we will suffer due to not learning from our own ignorance, which is
the gist of my sharing!
Ok, about the honey badger thing, I am sure
not many have seen one in actual ever this animal which is the size of a small
pug (breed of dog shown in an advertisement of Vodafone). Though it has thick
skin but by height it must be hardly nine to ten inch tall which doesn’t even
come to the three fourth height of a tiger sub adult cub. Honey badger is
nocturnal animal & to my knowledge even can’t properly see also in day
light, always moves in darkness which is one reason of its very rare sighting
in the wilds. So, this honey badger was in the open in daylight & must be
practically blind or clueless where to go & when the tiger cubs saw it
first, they also were confused about what it is & kept a safe distance. The
honey badger must have smelled it & it is an aggressive animal & it
charged literally on one of the cubs while it even can’t see what it is
charging on! At first the tiger took a step back & when it realized honey
badger is not at all a threat then in one stroke killed it & that's the end
of the story. Lesson, I learnt is, if I am a honey badger then I must not
venture into zones which are unknown to me such as daylight. At the same time a
forest where bigger predators such as tigers & leopards or wild dogs roam
then I must avoid open areas while the honey badger was in open on a road where
there was no cover to hide & became an easy target for any predator! And
it hasn’t been trained to identify its enemies such as tiger as it hasn’t never
encountered one & this is very important lesson, because when you don’t
know your enemy then you are most vulnerable, so if I have to survive, I must
know my enemy well then only I can decide right strategy in-case I get
confronted with one such, even by accident, is the what honey badger taught me.
Because honey badger doesn’t knew a tiger at all it tried to charge on it first
while it couldn’t even see the whole of tiger with its limited vision &
height rather it should ran away for cover & the tiger might have left it
alone as the tiger also didn’t knew what is honey badger, one more lesson to
learn! It's no shame to run away & live one more day than to show
courage to take on an enemy which you are no match for, that’s what survival is
about! Though the scene of small honey badger showing teeth & charging on
the tiger making it to take a step back will linger in my mind for very long,
for the sad end of that scene & again I know there is no sad or happiness
in the forests, just lessons to learn & move on, rip honey badger!
This incident made me remember one story from
Panchatantra, where a deer stag with the biggest & most beautiful set of
horns used to have great pride in it & showing them off, teasing other deer
for not having such horns was the main character of the story. One day when a
tiger started chasing the herd of deer of which this stag was part, all deer
ran away, the stag was the slowest because of the heavy weight of its horns
& then he ran in the wrong direction, in the thickset while other deer ran
towards the open land. The tiger got the stag easily, because it was slower
than other deer & its horns got tangled in the bushes & creepers,
making the stag stuck still! The story ends with the stag naming its own horns
for making him vulnerable as a kill in spite of him praising them all along!
Again, a lesson of survival, when you are a deer then understand what are your
actual tools of survival than going behind false or showing things which will
land you in danger than having any use of them to you! This is why deer always
prefer plain open patches or meadows in the forests, as their main weapons of
survival are, strong sense of smell & fast speed both tools are of no use
in thick forests!
In one more incidence, while we were returning
from safari, a big, well build wild boar was standing on the edge of patch of
tall grass (in tadoba) & my guide asked me, sir photo leni hai kya (sir do
you want to click it), but it was already getting late so we decided to move on
& as we just crossed the wild boar which was so engrossed in its own-self
that it even didn’t moved to give space to our gypsy & suddenly a tigress
which was waiting in the grass nearby, leaped on the wild boar & holding it
by its neck pinned it down to kill it slowly. It was a big wild boar, the
tigress was pregnant & in normal case she wouldn’t have dared to attack
this size of wild boar on her own in open as one, she wouldn’t have been caught
hold of it & second, a grownup male wild boar is a powerful animal & in
the hunt process the tigress also could have seriously injured which she
wouldn’t have taken the risk in pregnant condition. It’s only the wild boar was
not on its guard, either too confident of its size & power or just ignorant
of capacity & speed of ambush by the tigress but in both cases, end result
was it has to pay the price of its overconfidence / ignorance & in the
forest there is only one price for your such mistakes which is, death! That day
I learned my one more lesson observing the way wild boar got killed by the
tigress & that is, never be of-guard may it be real jungle or concrete
jungle! While in business or at work, you must be always alert & know that
danger always strikes from the most unexpected direction, again may it be
business or wildlife or any work you do!
And let me tell you, the survival game is not
only for the weak or prey species, as in the forest nobody is an exception to
the vulnerability of survival, even the tiger can’t escape this game & has
to be always on guard. One will say, what's the threat to a tiger
which is the biggest & most powerful predator in the entire forest but do
understand the more powerful you are the more hated you become by all others
& this hatred or fear (whatever you call it) from others is a big hurdle in
your survival. As for tigers wherever it goes right from the birds or deer or
monkeys. Every animal which senses or sees a tiger, warns the entire forest
about the presence of the tiger & that's a big problem for hunting i.e. getting
food, for the tiger which is directly related to the survival of the tiger. So,
the tiger never roars unnecessarily or shows its power especially when it’s on
hunt rather it prefers stealth mode i.e. tries to become non-existent while
it’s hunting, as then only it can hunt without its prey being warned by all the
haters in the forest, right? What better lesson than this there can be, by
which you get to learn how to succeed in your mission without getting
distracted by flashing your so-called success or wealth around than focusing on
your target (do mind real estate guys i.e. builders, lol)! And then tiger cubs
are most vulnerable when they have yet to become a full-fledged tiger &
there have been incidents of smaller tigers being killed by wild dogs or leopards
or even by sloth bears too! Again, a lesson, you may have been born in a
powerful family or have great qualities but till the time you don’t become
perfect on your own, never venture too far on other’s support from your safe
zone!
And then in the forest its survival comes to
you in many ways, if for a tiger now to show off its strength is also a way of
survival then coexistence i.e. making allies with other weaker animals is also
a way of survival, which are like joint ventures or say combining strengths of
other parties! For e.g. friendship of languor (monkeys) & spotted deer,
while cheetal graze on the ground, the monkeys on the tree can keep a watch
around from the top & can warn the arrival of a tiger from distance alerting
the grazing spotted deer! At the same time spotted deer can smell the presence
of leopard which is a master of disguise or stealth attack & warn the
of-guard monkeys while they are feeding or drinking water on ground! So, by
joining hands both the prey species survive together, a system which we also
can use in our concrete jungle keeping our egos aside & accepting our
weaknesses on respective fonts of life!
Last & most important controlling greed
& living by only the needs or necessities is the prime way of surviving for
the entire wildlife which we the humans must learn! Have you ever heard of a
tiger killing ten or twelve deer at a time & storing them for next month or
selling its kills to other tigers? Well, I know you will laugh & say that’s
why they are animals & we are humans, the progressed species but trust me
that’s why the tiger survives (unless we start killing them also by our way of
living, which we are doing anyways) as in the greed of securing our future, we
are actually killing every resource & then we are fool enough to darken our
own life by things like burning firecrackers under the name of celebration
& polluting the very air which we are only going to breath & the list
of our such foolishness is unending! One most important thing observing this
survival game of forest I have learned is, discipline, as in the forest
everything is about timing & that means discipline. At the same time when
you are disciplined it means there is a system for living & it doesn’t have
space for the most common excuse which humans are so used to & that is, “I
thought”! May it be forest or city life (read as work), things don’t work
on your feelings but by the facts & the way you face them, something the
younger genre must learn & adopt
Friends, actually, this is a subject of PhD
(seriously), as everything thing in the forest has a purpose & that is
survival & with the changing values of our life its high time, we again
turn our heads toward the guru named wildlife & start learning as well
practicing the lessons by this Guru or tomorrow we ourselves will be
responsible for our extinction! Thanks to the honey badger for making me a
shade wiser by giving its own life! Btw, you may ask, if survival is a
problem, then how come human population increasing & you are not wrong but
do keep an eye on the rate with which human population is increasing while at
the same time every other species population including tiger to blue whale to
trees, even that of butterflies is decreasing because of human population
growth. There is one enemy against which no species has got any technique to
survive i.e. the humans, & the humans have got only one enemy, we
ourselves! And if you think I am joking then do mind, cancer is nothing but
overgrowth of the cells which eventually eat-up or kill each other along with
the body of which the cells are part of, mind it friends, adios with this
warning!
* You can watch some such
moments at link below
https://www.flickr.com/photos/coexistance_is_the_key/albums/72177720317550777/
-
Sanjay Deshpande
Sanjeevani Dev.
Please view my sharing about finding a Right Home/ Office in Pune, at
YouTube link below & share if liked...
https://youtu.be/27j3I3rwGPQ?si=-ODYBxVI2Dl_C345
Please do visit my blog links below to read
about real estate & home buying!
https://visonoflife.blogspot.com/2024/12/right-home-buying-in-2025.html
https://jivnachadrushtikon.blogspot.com/2024/12/2025.html
Creating Togetherness; team Sanjeevani Way (Click link below)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/65629150@N06/albums/72157627904681345
For any of your complaints about city, log in at link below
www.punecorporation.org
Think Green, Think Life
www.sanjeevanideve.com
/ https://junglebelles.in/
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