Save the Tiger!!! How???
I still remember the day I saw the “save the tiger initiative by aircel” advertisement first time on television; my heart went out for the little cub or stripey as he is referred to in the ad. I felt sad for the cub which was taken over by anger over the fools who decide to kill such beautiful creatures* (although I realize that on close encounter with stripey’s mother beauty would be the last thing that would come to one’s mind) which was overtaken by a zeal to do something for the national animal, so like a true emotional follower I logged on to the website which asked me to ROAR!!! I wondered what good that would do to any potential tiger a minimum of 100-200 kms from where I stay in Bangalore. Anyhow hopes still high I started digging deep into the website to find out how I could help. Being a forest officer’s son and being brought up very close to national parks I felt that belongingness and that emotional connect which further pushed me to contribute towards any help that I could offer only to find ROAR!! ROAR!! & some more ROAR!! on the website with my only favorite Indian footballer Bhai Chung Bhutia. So the website asks you to blog, write (read ROAR) on social networking sites, donate (the money to be used to distribute better equipments to forest guards) and nothing else.

A few days later it was all over internet with people pleading (including me) with each other to save the tigers, the only thing missing here was to suggest how?? You could hear the ROAR from every where, a couple of friends from Russia wanted to ROAR badly whom I had to stop thinking it would make the Siberian cousins of our tigers confused about their future. In a confused state of mind I decided to look at the ad more carefully and do a little dissection with my limited knowledge. Mahindra Singh Dhoni and a host of other celebrities claim there are only 1411 tigers left in India. There is no basis to validate this figure as:-

(1) 70% of the tiger belt in India is infected by Maoists.
(2) There are only two methods of Tiger counting
(a) Clay mould method where pug marks are molded in white cement and counted.
(b) Camera method where cameras are installed and counting done on spotting tigers.
Both these methods are not accurate enough to calculate the number of tigers and due to the Maoists people don’t venture into forests even if it is for counting tigers; so how did a US based WWF arrive at this figure unless off course they took a roll call and the tigers promptly replied “present sir”

I totally support the cause but have serious questions about the effect or reach of such initiatives other than providing a good brand association to a regional player with national dreams “Aircel”. ROARING is not going to help our stripey because unfortunately he would never be able to see it on face book or any other networking site, the only thing that would help stripey is stricter laws which are already in place and even stricter implementation of these laws against poachers, our law system which takes 15-20 years to sentence a criminal accused of killing humans would take a life time to punish someone whoz killed a tiger, as no body from the tiger’s family can hold a candle and protest neither would Arnab Goswami invite them on frankly speaking. The two fastest ways to get justice now-a day.

I think I got a bit heavy and emotional in the paragraph above..can’t help gave u guys a warning about my emotional connect with anything and everything related to jungles, so going ahead don’t you think India has suddenly transformed itself into a superman/ superwomen country ?? no Iam not going off topic just think every other day we are asked to save some thing I could hardly get over the stripey saving emotional outburst when I saw a few more celebrities asking us to save “Indian Hockey” another of my weak points. So as in retrospect when I now decide about how I could help Indian Hockey I still wonder if stripey’s mother came back?? Or would aircel send her a sms to get back!!!!