Susan Sharma
News………
We at IndianWildlifeClub.com strive to communicate with as many people as possible through as many media as possible. E-magazine, e-mail, online chat, photography, film…all
these are media to share the beauty of India's natural hertage and to help conserve it for future generations.
Our e-zine 'WildBytes' goes by mail to about 1000 registered users, 53% of whom are from India and the others, from various other nations. As a niche portal on Indian wildlife
we need to include more and more people in our club. Help us reach out and hear from more like minded people- Use the 'recommend it ' button on our homepage and invite your friends and acquaintances to join in as registered members.
Online chat, which we introduced in July 2002 as an exclusive chat room on our site ( the chat does not ride on popular chat facilities of yahoo, msn etc. ), has not yet
been taken advantage off by our members. This was started as a forum for exchange of views. We believe this has great potential to facilitate learning and sharing. You can read the transcripts of our chat sessions in August in this e-zine. Mr. Mahendra Vyas,
dedicated environment lawyer, will be available between 7.30 pm and 8.30 pm (Indian Standard Time) on 18th of every month to answer our queries. The chat room will be open only during this time.
There is more good news on ' WildScapes', our photography initiative. Our gallery is undergoing a change to include all the acclaimed photographs exhibited by us. Fifteen
of these photographs have been selected by FujiFilm ( India) to be put up in their stall at 'Photo Kina', which is an international exhibition of photographs and images taking place at Kolm, Germany from 20th September to 25th September, 2002.
Our commitment to wildlife film makers of India is evident from the growing number of films listed under the video section of our Library Page. Ideally we would like our
members to be notified whenever any of these films are screened any where. To start with here are some screenings taking place in Delhi, organized by World Wide Fund for Nature-India.
Wings of Kokkre Bellur
( English) 45 min.
September 15, 2002 Sunday -10.45 am at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi.
Manas and Buxsa Tiger Reserve(
Hindi) 25 min.
September 21, 2002 Saturday - 6.30 pm at India International Centre, New Delhi
Wild Dog Whistling Hunters
(English) 30 min.
September 21, 2002 Saturday - 6.30 pm at India International Centre, New Delhi
Sarang-The Peacock
(English/23 min)
September 27, 2002, Friday- 7.30 am on GyanDarshan ( Educational TV channel of India)
(You can read brief synopsis of these films by clicking on the title)
DO NOT MISS - Poem "Screams Etched in Stone'' by Vinita Agrawal in this issue.
......& Views
(Heard in an online club)
Jeff Hush
Subject: artist and polar bear
" I'm an independent filmmaker, originally from NYC, now living in Prague. About three years ago a Czech artist I had met, Veronika Bromova, transformed her own life and
work by falling in love with a captive polar bear, Gus, in the Central Park Zoo in NYC.
My first reaction, I admit, was that Veronika was exaggerating, making a temporary infatuation into a lifestirring event. As the weeks and months passed, however, I began
to reflect on Veronika's experiences with the polar bear in NYC. She had been totally alone in NY, far from her beloved dog Nostro and family and friends, and as a child she had grown up in a closed society, Communist Czechoslovakia.
Being alone in NYC had thrown Veronika into a totally new mental and spiritual place, and the polar bear in his aquarium, swimming back and forth endlessly, seemed to her
the only creature in NY who sympathized with her, who understood her condition. Then I read J.M. Coetzee's "The Lives of Animals," and I was able to get in touch with my own feelings, nothing particularly shocking or revolutionary--simply, that animals are
as deserving of rights and life as I or any other human.
The clarity of this thought has stuck with me ever since. It's not a question of whether animals are as "advanced" as humans or whether they "think" or "have souls"--again,
it's simply that they feel pain like you or me. That's enough. .......... Don't get me wrong, I've been a vegetarian for more than twenty years, but the simplicity of animals' rights had never become so clear to me before I reflected on Veronika's surprising
experience in NYC. I realized also that animals had been infantilized in mainstream human thought (they are not as "developed" or as "mature" as humans, supposedly) in almost exactly the same way as dark-skinned peoples and women over the previous few centuries.
This infantilizing has been a favorite technique to try to claim that some group (women, dark-skinned peoples, animals) can't really handle the responsibilities of their
own lives without the guidance of the group in authority, whatever that controlling group might be.
I realize that by saying these things here I am simply preaching to the converted. However, my film, when it's finished in a few months, should be able to take Veronika's
experience with the polar bear and make it touchable by people far outside the normal animal rights' channels. The word should spread. But my film is a work of art, not a piece of propaganda."
Jeff Hush