Singly and together, our emotions and needs focused. By the time we reached the spot where we estimated that the leopards had entered the scrub, they had disappeared. We move another twenty or so metres down the track and park the jeep. We notice the silence. The driver and guide are as excited as we are. It is rare to see Leopards, and rarer again to see two together, as they are solitary animals except for the three weeks they get together to mate. There’s a sense that we need to be extra alert – if we are all focussed on the one thing we may put ourselves in danger.

Andrew, Sarah and the guide grab their photographic gear and creep expectantly back along the track, their body language portraying their excitement and caution. As we watch them from near the jeep we notice their sudden, animated gestures that say simultaneously ‘Be quiet’ and ‘Look up there’.

One of the leopards is draped in the Y-fork of a tree some four or five metres above the ground, about twenty-five metres into the scrub. The paw of its leading leg is tapping the air as it rolls its head in time with its low growls. Movements just like a domestic cat playing with a ball of wool in the loungeroom.

Where’s the other leopard? The question bites everyone at the same time. Levels of alertness regroup, as zoom lenses stay trained on the leopard in the tree. After several minutes it lithely drops to ground level. The photographers take this cue to quickly move back to the vehicle. Their bodies are orientated so that they can look back over their shoulders and yet move forward toward safety. They look like kids who have just had their first scary ride at a fun park.

A small herd of Gaur eye us warily.

As Prue and I reflect upon our travels with Sarah and Andrew now, some months later, we truly value the roles they played as diplomats and mentors in showing us how to deal with the people, customs and bureaucracies in India.

Robyn Davidson, in her book ‘Desert Places’, about her travels in Gujarat, captures a sense of the bafflement of many western visitors to India:
“[It] was like being in a room full of mirrors. Just when you think you have worked out what reality is, you bump your head on glass.” (p. 32)

We were also aware that despite their earlier travels in India, Sarah’s and Andrew’s patience and determination in dealing with the necessities of every-day life were tested during this trip. Things such as seeking information, dealing with contradictory instructions, buying or changing train tickets, negotiating prices with auto-rickshaw drivers, queuing for service or suffering apparent indifference to your needs (‘I have a train to catch in five minutes!’). And, of course, gaining access to National Parks to make recordings in places where the sound of human activity would not infiltrate.

All of us were often left feeling worn down because it seemed harder than it needed to be to get things done. Again, as Robyn Davidson puts it:
“Why don’t people go mad; why don’t they stab and shoot each other as they do in America; why didn’t they pick petty bureaucrats up by the scruff of the neck and beat their brains out?” (Ibid p. 45)
An overstatement no doubt, but close to the mark.

Perhaps it’s because Indians regard ‘being’ as important as ‘doing’. Rather like the way Sarah and Andrew engage in their work at Listening Earth. It’s both their living and their life.

Our listening and watching with Sarah and Andrew in India was a great gift from them to us. It took the form of a reminder to do what you love no matter what sort of muddles and puddles you get into. And, especially, an invitation to listen to the world – it’s amazing what you hear and learn.

Two weeks after Sarah and Andrew finally returned home in Australia, we were all shocked to hear of the death of our friend KN, in an accident on his estate. We were privileged and honoured to stay with KN and his wife Shoba at their forest estate near Bangalore. Part of this privilege was to hear KN speak about his life, how he educated himself and became the ebullient, determined and visionary social ecologist that he was. It seemed in character that we learned how he had survived not one, but two, near-fatal cobra attacks. KN was larger than life, and his memorial will be the inspiration his life leaves for others, and the national parks he established in his home state of Karnataka.

As we head out into the Park in the safari jeep, Sarah, wearing her trademark Annie Hall hat, rides next to the driver as forward spotter, camera at the ready. Andrew stands with the guide on the tailboard, alert as a tailgunner, rapid-fire zoom lens on call. We move through open grassy woodland past huge clumps of bamboo that loom like ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’, providing shelter for herds of roaming chital. Climbing over sparsely wooded hills along a two-wheel track that dodges exposed granite boulders, we wind our way into a sheltered valley.

We stop at a place above a small stream, where Andrew hopes to be able to record varied birdsong as the sun rises over the ridge. Nobody speaks; the sound equipment is handled carefully and quietly as Andrew sets up where the cleared area near the road meets the jungle. A tall hill behind us echoes any sounds we make and yet masks distant village and road sounds.

We do not move too far from the vehicle. We are aware of the alertness of our driver and guide to the presence of big animals, and the possibility that we may need to evacuate the area quickly. Andrew and Sarah are also cautious, and act accordingly. The driver has shown us tiger paw-marks on the track earlier that morning – marks bigger than an adult man’s handprint. We had also noticed fresh, steaming dollops of elephant dung beside the track.

Our recent experience in the jungle at KN’s estate outside Bangalore made it clear that elephants – and by association, leopards, tigers and gaur – can move more quietly and quickly than we might expect for such big animals: During a walk on his estate, KN pointed out fresh dung and damaged vegetation near the track, and told us this showed that elephants had been in this spot not five minutes ago. The only thing we could hear were the early morning breezes and the sporadic sounds of small birds.

The quietness of the place Andrew has chosen to record makes us listen and watch. The bird and cricket song begins; surround sound. The high-rate tapping of a woodpecker. A loud gulping sound of a hidden and unidentified bird or animal. The ‘whistling-the-dog’ calls of an oriole. The low incessant, ‘zippers-being-opened-and-closed’ sounds of crickets: an orchestra without a conductor. The sound of a group of birds taking off, accompanied by the alarm calls from other birds. The bird songs have now settled into a sort of chatty conversation that has a Morse-code-like rhythm. Birds moving through this habitat seem to make considered comments about these conversations as they pass by. We hear the deep, almost guttural, ‘gowhooing, gowhooing’ of langurs further down the valley. I try to make up a symbol system to codify the birdsongs I’m hearing. Dot, dot, dash; dot, dot, dash; up, down, up, down, dot, dot, dot … up, up, down down … Olivier Messiaen, where are you? Later, as Andrew bemusedly listens to my descriptions of my codes, he accurately mimics the bird calls he has heard that morning and his accompanying gestures tell me he has heard a lyricism in the sounds that transcend the binary code I had heard.

We hear the sound of a large animal below on the opposite side of the gully before we can see it is an elephant. The sound is like a determined clearing of nose or throat rather than an attempt to trumpet. The sound changes to match the jerky movements of its head and trunk as it snacks on the vegetation around it, snorts and grunts of exertion. These movements contrast with the slow, rolling, ambling gait of its body. It’s shock absorber footpads muffle the sounds of its feet trampling the jungle floor. It appears to be alone. Gradually it disappears into the jungle at its own pace. No predators other than man and age. The sun is now warming our faces; it’s 7.30 am.

Bandipur Soundscape

Birds seem to be on-song as soon as they sing. They don’t seem to need to warm or tune-up, or clear their throats. As we pack up around 9 am Andrew tells us that we have heard Bulbuls, Kingfishers, Parakeets, a Jungle Owlet, Babblers, and announces, in typical fashion, that ‘there might be some nice stuff in there’ nodding towards his small field recorder. He puts on his earphones and replays parts of his recordings, selecting snippets to share with the driver and the guide. The glances shared between them convey their pleasant surprise that the sounds they are hearing are so clear, and their joy that they can recognise and perhaps imagine the sources of these sounds.

It was remarkable to Prue and I, observing on many occasions how Andrew gained the respect of local naturalists for his knowledge of Indian birds. His curiosity indicated that he was learning all the while. Nevertheless, he seemed to be able to predict with reasonable accuracy which species were likely to be present in any particular habitat, and identify each by their sounds, even when there were many species ‘on the airwaves’.

Now we move off in the jeep to follow a circuit that leads back to the Park office. We stop to photograph wildlife as they appear intermittently, including Peacocks, Grey Jungle Fowl (related to our domestic chooks), bison-like Gaur, shy Sambar, skittish Chital, dragonflies weaving in unpredictable flight paths, and gorgeous butterflies. An Indian Monitor Lizard… a magnificent Malabar Giant Squirrel. Two elephants cross the track about eighty metres ahead. By the time we get to the spot they’ve disappeared along a narrow path through the dense criss-cross of lantana branches that form the mid-story vegetation in this part of the forest. We are amazed at the quality of the photos that Sarah and Andrew take with their sophisticated equipment compared with those we take with our point-and-shoot digital.

Further along the ridge we get out and clamber over granite boulders that are like the backs of blue whales, a good vantage point for photos of the mist and clouds that hover and drift across the mountains to the south. These ranges, the Madumalai Hills, signify the border between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Breakfast beckons. We can imagine the thick, alluring sweet taste of Indian coffee already. Back at the Park office Andrew outlines to the driver and the guide his plans for our next excursion into the Park. He knows he will need to return to the office later in the afternoon to confirm these arrangements. Plans can change quickly in India.

And the least expected can happen…

Read on: part 3

Bandipur NP

An Introduction (from Andrew)

Richard and Prue are both our neighbours and very good friends. Over the last seven years we have helped each other build our homes, and enjoyed the seasons of the bush together. Richard’s home-brewed beer has been raised to toast many a shared evening meal, and our ensuing discussions about life, purpose and creative expression have influenced us all deeply.

We have seen them enter a new phase of their lives. Their retirement began with the building of a small art studio, were they can now regularly be found at the printing press, sorting mosaic tiles, or exploring the possibilites of oil paints. Nature and place is a focus of this enquiry, and has taken them on their own field trips in search of inspiration, from the Australian bush to Spain and Japan.

When Sarah and I mentioned our plans for a 3 month field trip to India in 2006, they surprised us with their interest in seeing India themselves someday. So (taking a somewhat deeper breath than usual), we extended an invitation for them to join us for part of it, offering to act as guides and mentors on an adventure that we all knew would take them well beyond their ‘comfort zones’.

They were wonderful travelling companions, taking all that India had to offer with curiosity, engagement and good humour. On our return, Richard offered to draw on his journal notes and share his experiences of our time recording in Bandipur National Park…

Listening and watching with Andrew & Sarah in India.
(by Richard Sullivan)

Before we travelled to India we were aware of Sarah’s and Andrews’ deep love and respect for the natural world, and their commitment and desire for this to be the kernel of their work with Listening Earth. Their work involves much fieldwork, and it is certainly ‘work’ in the senses of effort and industry, and bringing about ‘good works’.

Andrew began this work before we departed, contacting groups in India that were interested in nature sound recording. The day after we arrived in Mumbai in October, Andrew gave a presentation about the work of Listening Earth to one of these groups. The audience not only responded warmly, but included us as new-found friends, inviting us to join them at Sanjay Ghandi National Park the following day, and introducing us to a network of fellow ‘wildlifers’. This would lead to further presentations and personal connections as our journey unfolded.

Our experiences at Bandipur National Park in Southern Karnataka, provide a vignette of our time in India with Sarah and Andrew. They capture the character of many of the relationships we experienced with people and place in India.

The land area of Bandipur forest was once the Maharaja of Mysore’s private hunting reserve. It is now one of India’s premier wildlife refuges, administered under Project Tiger which protects special breeding areas for tigers in twenty-three of India’s National Parks.

Whilst Project Tiger has been a success for wildlife conservation, we found that it posed special problems for wildlife sound recordists. Because of the threats of poaching and the impact of visitors, Project Tiger reserves are very strictly administered, with a night-time curfew that precludes pre-dawn entry to the park. How were we then to set up for recording before the ’song rise’ with the sun, and before the noises of people and traffic in the distance could infiltrate Andrew’s very sensitive microphones?

Andrew had to work very hard with the park’s officers to get them to understand what was necessary for nature sound recording. While they were friendly and co-operative, at first they regarded Andrew and Sarah as they might any foreign tourists. But it was the connections Andrew had made with Indian wildlife enthusiasts and conservationists that opened the doors. Andrew also explained that the work of Listening Earth supported and promoted the ecological work being done by Indians who are great benefactors of National Parks – people whose aegis had led us to Bandipur.

Two of these people we had met in Bangalore, and were aptly named Krishna (Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu; the Preserver and Restorer). They were spoken of as ‘KN’ and ‘KP’. They are wealthy, dedicated, and experienced in education and negotiations with people at all levels of society. They negotiate with people ranging from politicians to poor farmers, about economics, ecology and justice for people, animals and the land. They are the sort of people who were influenced by reading the stories of Jim Corbett when they were young, and who have lived through the ups and downs of Project Tiger as it flourished under Indira Ghandi’s patronage from 1973, and slackened after she was assassinated in 1984. People like KN and KP are well respected in Indian conservation circles, and have influence at the local level.

Richard interviewing Krishna Narain at his estate near Bangalore.

Andrew’s contact with KP led to an offer for us to stay at his lodge on the boundary of Bandipur NP. The lodge itself turned out to be spectacularly located, and afford us simple comfort. We were supported by a staff of three local village men who cooked and maintained the property, and were familiar with looking after people who were there to study and reflect upon the natural world.

Read on: part 2