Mother and Child Reunion

First published in Sanctuary Asia, Vol. 39 No. 12, December 2019

By Bittu Sahgal

Few relationships come close to that shared between mother and child. This little pangopup doesn’t have a care in the world. His food and shelter walks on four legs and his mother’s scent, gait and the sounds of the forest all communicate one thing... security. You know the feeling. Shut your eyes. Think back to when the entire world seemed safe, just because of that all-embracing, reassuring hug you sought and got. I have felt the same comfort sitting quietly in the company of forest watcher Manglu Baiga, listening to bees, under the shade of broad-leafed trees by the waters of Kanha’s Shravan Taal.  And while lying flat on my stomach on a road in Dachigam with forest guard Qasim Wani, as we watched a Himalayan black bear mother feed her two round cubs with mulberries. Also when forest watcher Badia sat next to me in the early 1980s in Ranthambhore’s Bakola valley, with birdsong and flowing water, we watched the Bakola tigress with her cubs for hours on end. Humans need the same loving reassurance every day of their lives. Born soon after India’s Partition, my childhood was filled with just such peace and tranquillity. If there is one wish I have for my grandchildren, all children, it is for them to experience the same peace and security when I am gone. I know that every mother would give her life to offer her child such bliss, but I also know that in the days ahead they will be unable to do so unless the mother of all mothers – Mother Nature – is allowed to rebalance her planet. And it’s so very, very easy. All we humans need to do is step back, and let the biosphere reboot its system, without our inexperienced  interference.

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