Mission Impossible Rouge Nation : My review

So then Tom Cruise never gets old, and he is back again with the impossible mission at his hands! From the first installment of 1996; Mission impossible I to Mission impossible 5^th, the rouge nation he has only gotten younger; energy wise. And that’s expressed in the first few minutes of the movie when he jumps up on a running plane and then hangs on the door of the plane, which just took off with full speed, if it was other movies, people would be like, What the actual fuck! But its “Tom Cruise”, and he just makes it so easy and doable. Not only that, if you think that was unrealistic for you, few seconds later he is forced into the moving plane with the rear door open, and bangs his head on the metal, and just dusts himself and rises up, just like that!

The movie reflects an American version of “James Bond” franchise, (only that he doesn’t go introuducing himself as, Hunt, Ethan Hunt)  but with high tech gadgets and top notch action, might be a bit unrealistic for most of the audience, but it’s realistic enough, Because “Tom Cruise”. The overall story is pretty good compared to the previous editions, while Ethan Hunt is busy chasing an anti IMF group called the Syndicate led by and ex-MI6 agent, CIA director is on back of the IMF, and successfully dissolves the IMF. With his new mission being, brining Ethan Hunt back to the states, but Cruise is one hard guy to find.  Though technically he is a fugitive on the run, and on the eyes of the ever seeing CIA, that very CIA that can supposedly to the unthinkable and have eyes everywhere, and can track faces of moving people, but not Ethan, Because “Ethan Hunt”.  Plus, the fugitive, who is a subject of primary concern of the CIA, apparently can travel all over the world, without any disguise and not being in the radar of CIA, who apparently can track anyone they want but not the Protagonist. The plot is pretty interesting and keeps you going, definitely few humors on the way. Ilsa Faurst, played by Rebecca Ferguson, has crazy role, a triple agent or similar, who goes on from being a heroine to villain and back to heroine and villain and so on for multiple times, finally settling down to become a…..well I leave that for you to find.

The man of steel, Ethan Hunt, delivers his best! Tom Cruise never underperforms, at least in MI series. One moment, he drives a motorbike, probably at speed higher than 80kmph and bangs his knee on the road and just gets away with a facial expression, if that wasn’t enough, few minutes later he falls of the same bike while riding at speed higher than that, and gets up, dusts himself up, with nothing but torn up clothes, and not even a single scar in his face! Because “Tom Cruise”. Apart from these things, the movie is pretty good in  overall aspect, worth your time and money. 

Vehicle of Evolution: A Microbus Analogy

Imagine a bus. A bus filled with passengers, tones of them! 

I was in jam packed bus this morning, barely had an inch to move, though I was in a seat, and not standing, it was still very hard to move. Few hours ago I was talking to a professor about what I want to do for my PhD research. I was thinking about something related to Evolution, something about Evolutionary stable state or the questions of Tinbergen. I was trying my best to think of a Topic! But of course I wasn’t able to do that. Then I started playing with ideas in my head and it struck me!

An Ecosystem is like a bus, it has various components, various factors and most of all it species interacting with each other. There's an Ecologically or Evolutionary stable state inside and unstable ones. There's struggle, way too much of it, the struggle is not for survival but for the seat, the seat, hereby, can be analogous to survivor. And the struggle begins before anyone occupies the seats. 

Let’s say we're at RNAC (NAC at present) in rush hour!! You have to fight your way through at least 30 passengers to just get into the micro bus! Forget about getting the seat! It doesn't fit into the evolutionary state in my analogy, I mentioned it just to show that the struggle of the fittest beings way before they're into a system. The race to get into the microbus is like the race of the sperm to reach the eggs! The fastest one gets in and the slower ones are left behind. The struggle doesn’t end there, the beings! The genes now have a platform to stay secure for as long as they are programmed to, well technically it doesn't happen so here, it gets mixed! 

Most of you must be bored by now and started to wonder where the hell am I headed? Well it’s a bit complex and I guess complete wrong, but it’s just my imagination so for those who don't get it, take it as a fiction work, but for those who understand what I'm saying, it’s just Science in arts.

The door is closed, the normal seats are taken and an additional 8 people are inside the bus, more than the proper seats of the of bus. Those people sitting in seat comfortably are in stable state, they feel no pressure from the Nature. Nature in this case is the driving force, or the driver! Who stays comfortably in his chairs and drives the genes, the humans, to their destination, which is natural selection in real world. So the comfortable ones, specially the front seat'ers and the last seat'ers, who get to sit there most comfortably, face no pressure from the external factors driven by the Nature (Mr Driver) not lets go towards the first front row, the first seat'ers, the one on the right side faces a little trouble but the one right has to go through adaptive radiation to adapt to a situation where he/she has to turn their legs in a different direction just because of peer pressure of factor of the driving force, the conductor in this scenario, he can be genetic drift in my analogy. The left one on the first seat has to modify itself in order to be accepted in the place. If not, he/she is not accepted. These are the animals that are facultative resistant. I know it’s not a word but what I mean is when faced with struggle they can be resistant to the factors affecting them, unlike the vulnerable ones, they can make changes and adapt to the scenarios. The Obligatory resistant but within a comfortable zone are those sitting behind the driver’s seat, they are the alters, because they're facing the wrong direction. They are the alter species with weird characteristics fast adapting and with ability of rapidly changing

Now we're left with Vulnerable ones, who are the people who have to stand crouched up against 7 other people, the most struggling species, the most vulnerable ones in a regard that they must go through all the challenges within the system, they need to grasp on to the state, remain stable or they'll fail, and a new species, a new person here, who comes into the system will be a vulnerable one because he will find very little space and lots of competitors. But gradually with time, the new species will either be adapted and will get a seat or gets extinct i.e. gets off the bus without getting a seat. And the cycle runs when an established species goes and gets replaced by a new species. Some survive and some die off. And the species can be arranged hierarchically the most comfortable ones being on the top of the food chain and the lowers ones on lower side, but I think it requires a new article with some changes! Will think about it later! 

What I think about Talakjung vs Tulke

Talakjung vs Tulke, directed by Nishcal Basnet, the Director of super hit 2012 Nepali movie “Loot”  is dark comedy. The movie is set in a village of the  protagonist, who is a commoner, a sort of  innocent idiot who constantly fools around with the villages and gets in trouble a lot. The movie starts with early funny scene’s and a gradual buildup of the  plot as well the cast.

Talakjung aka Tulke, played by Khagendra Lamichhane, who was previously supposed to be from well to do family having being stripped of his land and wealth by the chieftain he now lives as commoner doing any work he gets his hands on and fighting with almost everyone in the village with few of the friends from his circle. Tulke, who hates being called Tulke has a cursh on Fuli, played by Richa Sharma. For the first half an hour the movie revolves around the life of protagonist, the first half of the movie is pretty funny , the story line starts when one of the Contractors who’s working on brining the roads to the village is kidnapped by rebels.  Slowly the darker side of the comedy is built up when an insurgency starts hitting the village. Talks about a revolutionaries taking over the village is on the rise, when Tulke finds out that one of his close friends in joining the force as well, he gets interested in it as well and starts talking about it with everyone. After hearing about the revolution going around the village the chieftain is scared that he might be over thrown, then he tricks Tulke into telling him about the revolutionaries. Fuli, who works for the Chieftain, tricks him and then sets him up for an attempted rape on her which leads to exile of Tulke from the village. Tulke then runs away from the village and goes to the city, meets a small time criminal and then starts his criminal life by robbing people around the city using a fake political party’s letterhead. His glory days are short lived as his leader is shot dead in police encounter. By chance he escape the encounter and leaves the city with five hundred thousand rupees that he took form a shopkeeper.  When tulke returns to the village, the village has changed.  His friend, Hanuman is dead, all of his friends are missing. Rebels are running around the village in almost full control of it. Tulke learns about the real story behind the death of his friend Hanuman. The story takes a different turn after that.

As for the end of the movie, I better no spoil it for you guys!

The first half is pretty good, with lots of funny scenes and dialogues. The second half of the movie, takes a different turn and most of the small parts shown in the movie is completely out of context or not related to the rest of the movie. The director has tried to incorporate different aspect of a commoners life and the state of insurgency. The movie is good direction wise and with a very good Cinematography, but lacks a clear theme or a story. The part where tulke goes to the city has no effect on the move whatsoever, as supposed by any audience, it was supposed to show over growth of Tulke’s strength or behavior but he returns as the same guy, without any effective change on the movie plot.  Even the name of the movies doesn’t seem appropriate as the per the plot.

A river, a bridge a climb and a flat road

A river, a bridge a climb and a flat road

Almost 5000 meters high, tried and panting like a dog, sweating like a pig, on an endless trail, almost as if the road would never end. I’m used to it, I mean I've done this many times, well not this trail but different other trails. But why is it that this one is testing my endurance, testing my limit. I’m fine, not tired at all and fit and fine, just heavy breathing. That’s why I’m trying to equalize it with slow walking, but the further I go, the farther it looks. The road/trail never seem to end, I never had such low will power to climb anything, it was plain torture, 3 hours of plain torture. May be it was because of careless walking for the 4 days before that and taking a challenge of doing a 2 days walk on a single day but I had its toll. As l lay down a cold stone on a landscape which seems far more a dream than reality, the lack of will stopped me to take my camera out and take a photo of it. I looked down, as down as I could see, almost 2000 meters below us was road that we took, where we were 2 days ago.  I glanced as far as I could see may be in a hope of seeing every road that we had walked which reminded me of how I ended up in one of the remotest part from one of the most Urbanized.

Back in Kathmandu

I was planning a trip for a very long time, specifically Annapurna Circuit Trek. Always been a dream to travel to Tilicho lake and cross the Thorang La. Out of no where a great opportunity hit me and then I had a chance to go there, as a part of my work. Going alone, though not hard would have been tiring as per my work so I took a friend with me, at least I thought there would be two of us. But  2 days before the trip I learned that a friend of mine from Peru had friend who was visiting Nepal. So we met with him and told him that we were doing the ACAP circuit trek and he crazy enough to say that he’d join us. I guess he thought it was an easy trek, which it was, well most of it. We arranged his permit, and parted and decided to meet at the bus park next morning! So we did and learned that he brought another friend, who was France. So it was four of us, taking on the challenge of Tilicho and Thorang La Pass. We took a micro bus to Beshisahar, which was supposed to take 5-6 hours, but it took us around 7-8 hours to reach Besisahar and after that it was a crazy crazy road on a jeep up to a small village called Chyaamche. We met 3 beautiful girls on the jeep one was gorgeous, and they didn't have a guide with them so they decided to join our crew as well, so we ended up at the same hotel that day and decided to start walking at 7, together, the all of us, at least we did that for 2 hours may be? Quoting one of those girls “ You guys are too fast for us”. In fact I asked them to join us up to the Tilicho lake, which they weren't doing, but if I had convinced them to walk up to the Lake, I swear they would have killed me there!

The trail is pretty easy as a whole, but we had to take a different road because of massive landslide, so we took a trekking trail which was better but came with a price, the price being plenty of leeches. Which we realized 2 hours or so after getting bitten.  The trail pretty awesome, as we walk beside the River Marsyangdhi, cross few suspension bridges. The first days walk was pretty awesome, everyone was fresh and fit enough. The highlight of the first day’s trip has to be the Daal Bhaat. I convinced my friend from Peru that Daal Bhaat is the best food ever, and asked him to have a Daal bhaat as well. Little did we know that the daal bhaat we were about to have was the second worst daal bhaat I ever had in my life, the first one has to be the one I had in Kalinchowk. We were crazy hungry as we had walked for almost 5 hours on just light breakfast. And the guy took about one hour and half to cook it and there was nothing other dhan plain rice, daal and few potatoes, yes just few there wasn't even a refill and the potatoes were as salty as anything ever could be. He was pretty mad at me for that! But it was just a bad luck that we had the food at the wrong place!

The thing is, the road to Manang is quite  easy comparatively with other trails, such as Gosaikunda or Langtang. The road is almost flat, but the funny thing is, where ever you stop, I mean the end of the days walk, when you’re about and hour away from the stop there’s a climb. So that means you walk on a flat road for 5 6 hours, which you think is easy and you walk fast and after you're all tired and beaten up you have to climb. I could sense the tiredness in every one so I had to lie to them about how the trail ahead of us is. So I just told them, to motivate them to walk that there’s a river few minutes ahead of us and a bridge and a climb and we meet the road and its done. And the funny thing is, there’s always a river, a bridge and a climb and we meet a road. That was the theme for most of the trip, and its always five minutes to go. But finally we reached out destination after crossing the river, climbing for 5 minutes which took about 45 minutes may be, and then we met road.

The next day’s walk was similar, walking along a flat road for 5-6 hours and then when were near the stop climbing for another 30 minutes which again had a bridge, a river, a climb and we met the road. But then we did what Robert Frost does, we took the road less traveled by, it was a crazy climb but it was fun. The next day’s trek was supposed to be good one because so far, all we saw was hills and rivers, no sighting of the mountains, but at then end of the 3^rd day we were walking in Himalayan territory having crossed trans Himalayan boundary.

Manang- unliked Mustang, Manang is pretty green and awesome, I'm not saying Mustang is not good, Mustang is heaven, but Manang is different!! Both places are equally amazing but unique as well. The landscape are different and so is the culture and everything, though bordering with each other they’re just two different dimensions. The road to Manang , after Pisang is the best one, it’s a flat road for may be 3 4 hours until you reach Manang, it all depends upon how fast you can walk. And if black pitched, the road to Manang would look similar to any roads on Terai highway.

After reaching Manang, we had our lunch and started walking up to the Tilicho lake, well to the place where we would reach before trekking to the lake.  I was working along the trail, watching birds and any other animals that could be seen.  On the way to a place called Khangsaar, I found a new species, to my list that is, and I was taking a photo but it flew away few hundred meters below me. So I looking down hoping to see it again and then get a good photo, I started waking looking below and out of no where I tripped on this huge stone and fell down in the direction of the slope that was way over than 1000 meters drop. I don’t know how but I was able to get back to my feet, somehow, I had blacked out for a second there and thought that I was going to die! I took a photo of that place to remind me that I didn't fall there! The walk after that was pretty crazy, crazy in terms that we had to climb and climb and again there was river, a bridge a climb but sadly there were no road, just a small trail where barely two people can fit.  

We were walking pretty fast for the 3 days before we did the Tilicho lake, had walked for about 7 8 hours every day. We had skipped a day and reached there before a day. Furthermore we decided to go to the Lake and come back down to the place where were resting, that was doable, because we did it, but it was hard, meant walking all day long.  But we took the challenge and did it, which turned out to be a little pain in the back. We started early in the morning, had breakfast, took some Rotis with us and then the journey to Tilicho began. The first few hours of walk was a normal one, till we reached the Landslide area where the fun began!

The road to Tilicho, at least the landslide are, its crazy!! It’s a slope with a landslide, where small stones keep on falling regularly, and may with 1000 meters drop below, not sure about it being a 1000 meters but is pretty high.  We saw some blue sheeps high up in the hills as well. We were having lots of fun, at least till then. After we reached the Tilicho Base Camp, the torture began. For the first climb it was easy just a small climb, but then after that it was just climbing up and up. To be honest its not that hard, but since we did the trek from a stop way before the Base Camp and had walked almost 3 hours before doing that climb it turned out to be a tough one. If you start from the base camp the climb may not be that hard. It will be hard but not that hard! Thus the climb was torture, as for the altitude sickness we didn't feel anything at all, apart from heaving breathing, which happens even if you rest in that altitude.

I took a rest on stone and looked back the place where we came from, which all of you know already. I looked back and remembered all that Ive written above, and as I looked up, my friends were way ahead of me and I had to walk to the top that crazy Jig-Zag trail. I just took all the short cut there was to meet with them. Then finally we reached a place which said, Tilicho Lake 35 minutes! Finally I was motivated enough to walk fast to the lake, and every torture and pain we felt while walking up to the lake was washed away with a single glance of the lake as if the water passed through our bodies and cleansed us from the suffering! The view there was worth every single step and would have been worth it if there more climbing to it. The blue color of the lake shines on a background of white clouds and looks as if there’s no end to it, or as if the sky and the lake meet at that very spot. The lake sits silently below huge mountains . Its seriously beyond me to describe how it exaclty feels to be there!! I was speechless for a moment there, and breathless too as the point from where we can see the lake is at around 5020 meters. 

To be continued !!

Langtang: A brief Wildlife watch

Langtang National Park, one of the most trekked destination in Nepal. Langtang Himalayan range is shortest distance from Kathmandu for any Himalayan trekking destination. The trek starts at Syafrubesi, or you can alternately start from Dhunche to trek up to Thulo Syafru then down to Bamboo.

The easiest way to reach Syafru is to get a bus from Machchhaa Pokhari Balaju. You might want to book the tickets a day ahead as there are few buses and lots of people travelling daily. Syafrubesi is a small town with plenty of hotels, many more under construction and the resting place for the first day's travel. Next day the trek starts from Syafru as you cross Kerung River and then join Langtang river basin on the right side as you walk below the rocky cliff, the trail is awesome!

We started off with Breakfast at small bakery right after crossing the bridge in the old part of Syafrubesi. Good place to have tea and breads at a normal price. After that there's no normal price. The trail is pretty easy for about an hour just plain and slightly up and down with zig-zag terrain.After you reach Domen, then the trail goes up hill gradually gaining height. Up to domen, you the common  birds, Sparrows, Crows, Bulbuls, Mynas. After domen you reach Pairo (Landslide -  Pairo in Nepali). The place is named so because there's a massive landside on the right side blocking the flow of Lantang river on the left side of your trail. Wildlife wise you can see Assamese Macaque's, cliff or rock bees colonizing on the debris of landslide. After passing through landslide the  trail continues in is regular fashion until you reach Bamboo which is a beautiful place. You can see Himalayan Langurs, Assamese Macaque's lots of birds species , Fly catchers, Bulbuls, White tailed Ruby throat, Thrushes, warblers. The most tiresome walk of the whole trek lies few hours after bamboo, the hill of Rimche (I found a beautiful Snake in the hill of Rimche)  it manages to depress lots of people. After climbing Rimche hill then the trail is pretty easy and you drop down few hundred meters and reach the days pit stop, but if you can walk fast then you can reach Langtang in a day but it might be hard but not impossible.

The first days rest is at Lama hotel, with plenty of places to stay. You can see Snow Pigeons apart from above mentioned birds and 5 species that I couldn't identify. The next morning, as we left Lama hotel climbing up the hill for sometime then dropping down right into the Langtang river and then climbing up again, and mostly the first day of trek is right through the forest with just  a view of Langtang river on the left or right which changes after Rimche to left there's nothing much to see but the second day's trek show's you the glimpse of Langtang Lirung which give you energy to walk fast.The next destination is beautiful place called riverside, few small tea houses on the bank of Langtang river, after crossing Riverside, you see lots of Squirrels up to Ghodatabela, we did see Pika  in between as well. There are lots of Squirrels, saw Whistling thrush. Ecologically, as you pass ghodatabela  you see a clear distinction on the two slopes, South facing with small trees and less vegetation and North facing with plenty of Pines. I saw Barking deer around ghodatabela, its a good spot to look for Barking deer. You can see Yellow billed Chough and Red billed chough, saw few yellow billed blue magpie. The trail is beautiful, best trails start from there, and as you climb up a small hill and reach Thyangsyaap you start to see the Langtang valley up ahead in the distance, but its not that close at it looks. Langtang valley has lots of hotels, plenty of places to stay, but a quick suggestion for Nepali travelers, if you're travelling in group then pre booking might help because, they dont give Nepali's room if there are few groups of foreigners living in the hotel, as they say "Nepali halla garchhan bideshi risaauchha - Nepali's make noises and the foreigners get irritated".

In the valley, if you look towards the North, you'll see plenty of himalayan Tahr grazing, flocks and flocks of Snow Pigeons, lots of yellow billed and red billed chough's and if you wake up early in the morning and climb one the small hills you will see the national bird of Nepal - Dhanphe (Lophophorus), I did see the Lammergeier vulture in Langtang valley. As you start the trek to Kyanjin valley early in the morning you might see the Lophophorus, and Pika's. Half way through the trek to Kyanjin I saw a Snipe, and lots of small birds that I couldn't recognize. Kyanjin valley is one of the best places I've ever been to, its almost a cup shaped area with the valley in the middle of the cup and if you're there in post winter season, it looks as though you're surrounded by mountains the whole 360 degrees. Kyanjin has to be one of the best places I've ever been to.  Even at the top of Kyanjin Ri which is almost 4900 meters I saw yellow billed chough. Plus you get to see few glaciers as well. The walk is so worth it. I'd highly recommend you all to do the trek plus stop in the destination I mentioned and look for the signs of Wildlife.

+ If you're lucky you might see Snow Leopards, Red Panda's Musk Deers!! I've added photos of few animals I saw during the trip! Langtang is famous for wildlife experience and it wont disappoint you! You'll see plenty of Birds and Wildlife!! Enjoy!

Take nothing but pictures
Kill nothing but time,
Leave nothing but footprints

                                                              Himalayan Langur

                                                                          Kyanjin

                                                                  Yellow billed blue magpie

                                                                  View from half way to Kyanjin ri

A short Itinerary :

First day : Kathmandu to Syafrubesi : About 7 hours
Second day : Syafrubesi to Lama hotel : About 5-6 hours
Third day : Lama hotel to Langtang : 5 hours , you can reach Kyanjin the same day or you can stay in Langtang but its better to walk 2 more hours to reach Kyanjin and stay there!

If anyone of you are wondering how much will cost then, the maximum rate for Daal Bhaat was 350, but depends upon your bargaining skills and rooms doesn't cost much. Tea cost a lot if you get a single cup so if you're a group then its better to get a whole thermos that way its cheaper.  

Leopard conflict : A question to conversational ethics

I’ve read an article of Conservational practice in Nepal, I don’t remember the exact title but it expressed Nepal as being a frontier in Conservation Management. To some extent it was logical, but with the recent event of Leopard conflict in Kapan, it brought to my mind that every animal apart from Tigers, Rhino’s or Snow Leopards are neglected. I bumped into the video shot by the locals of Kapan, and there was this guy, who, as I’ve read in the news must be from the Ministry of Forest. He has the Leopard completely in control, he’s hurt and there’s blood all over the floor, but the leopard was under control and he was holding it. And there’s another guy holding a dart gun right next to him! But still, instead of Tranquilizing the leopard when he is under control the first thing they do is try to kill it. Why is it so easy to Kill a leopard? Because it doesn’t fall under as exotic species as Tigers and Rhinos? Or because it doesn’t have any role in Ecosytem? The food chain? I would have understood if they’d said that it was out of control and attacking humans and all, but then it wasn’t. The leopard must have made into the city during the night time, if it really wanted to kill humans; I think it would have already killed few people. 

And this happens almost every year! If this was one time incident I would have understood. But almost every year a Leopard is killed inside the valley! We do know that international agencies pump in huge amount of fund for conservational work. Does conservational work involve only lecturing people in five star hotels or branding it? Why can’t that sum of money be used to train student from the same field, to use the dart guns, and circulate their phone numbers among different media’s or even involve the police department? Provide them with necessary training; give them an authority to dart the animal! I read somewhere that the incident with the leopard happened somewhere around 6 into morning and the officials were there around 10:30. Why is there a huge negligence when it comes to Leopards? I don’t think there’s an actual data on the population of Leopards in Kathmandu valley. Just because they are frequent visitors in the valley doesn’t mean they are common! They might be very few, and if we really kill every leopard that comes into the city, and the reason for killing them is, if we don’t they might come again then why not just wipe their population out for good? That way there won’t be any conflict! Leopards are equally important as tigers are! And the most disturbing thing is they actually parade the dead Leopard like they won’t the world cup! You can see photos of people carrying around the Leopard like a prize. They have as equal right in this Earth as every human. And just because we are somewhat superior to them doesn’t mean we have right to kill them at will.

 Is that what intelligence and superiority mean? We marched into their homes, destroyed their habitat and then we blame them for coming in to our “homes?” it’s us who walked into their homes! We; who killed their habitat, the reason they are driven into the city is us! And we feel so superior about killing a Leopard from a long range with a gun, and then prove our worthiness by parading a dead animal? Is that what conservation is? Just because the Leopard doesn’t bring in hundreds and thousands of Tourist’s to our country every mean that it’s not important to the ecosystem? If this was the first case, may be I’d fine because things might have gone out of control if it wasn’t “Shot dead” but this happens every time a Leopard comes into the city. Where’s the conservation then? I don’t think conservation means just talking about the efforts to save the animals when Leopards are getting killed every year! And if the government is not fine about giving the authority of darting to the local people or students why can’t they train the Police officer for those particular situations? Why can’t they train them at the academy and separate a batch for wildlife conservation and wildlife trade related division? Or why can’t the ministry make such effort to join hands with the police department to train them. Should be not think about this? Or should we just kill every Leopard that comes into the city? I don’t really know what’s lacking here, a proper management or trained officials. I do understand the local citizen’s fear of having a Leopard in their house, isn’t there any way to work this out? 

We do have enough forest, mostly trees and still people wonder why do the Leopards come into the city? Well, first thing first they don’t eat trees, and the next thing is, whatever the feed on don’t feed on trees. May be, instead of just planting trees continuously, we must look in to a better alternative and plant those plants which a deer can feed on and then maintain a good habitat for Deer’s, only then will the Leopard stop coming into the city. We’ve all got to eat don’t we? And hunger is what drives the Leopard’s into the city, so should we kill them in our homes or make a sustainable place inside their home to feed them? 

Photo source (Google images) 

Being a Zoologist

The question I get a lot is
"So you're a Zoologist" Is it GEO or ZOO logist?
"Ohh Zoologist, so what does a Zoologist do?"

And I think for a while before telling them what a Zoologist does, basically I act as if I think, but the only thing comes to my mind is this photo:

So, what's it like being a Zoologist then? Do I ever do things as mentioned in the picture above? Or its just playing around with toy's as the girl is doing? 

I'd love to be like Jeff Crowin though! Big fan!! Used to watch him on TV, always thought I wish I could be this guy! I loved the episode where he came to Nepal, he went to Chitwan and rode an Elephant, I remembered his documentary when I was inside the jungle! He was my childhood inspiration on becoming a Zoologist 

Basically to start with, if you have enough grants or personal financial source to fund your trips then Zoology is the best subject in this universe! All you ever do is travel here and there looking for animals! Most of you, well all of you have seen the documentaries in Natgeo or Discovery and wondered I wish I had a life like that. And when were in the field, We, the Zoologist do have that life. Its exciting and frighting at the same time, depending upon where you are!

Its exciting as long as you get to travel do some bird watching, some photography on the side walks, trek to the Himalayas but then you actually start to work on your desired species its pain in the back.

I've got this beautiful butterfly shot, every one compliments me on that photo being good, the shot was just a fraction of seconds short but that butterfly dragged me on its random dancing trails for more than 20 minutes! Same with the dragonfly, both are equally mobile. It not just that, even with less mobile species as the Himalayan Langurs along the Langtang river, you observe one, and one small mistake and the whole group moves and then you're left with nothing.

                                  This guy gave me a hard time
I remember when we reached Langtang, we were taking rest, and far ahead into the largest rock in front of us, a small rock was moving. I thought it was debris falling down, but there were lots of them, it just looked like a small rock falling, we were far from that, almost 20 minutes walking distance, but then one of the friend handed me the Binoculars and once I looked through it I realized it wasn't a rock but it was a Himalayan Tahr. We were so excited, for almost every one it was first time seeing a Tahr in the wild. Few of us, who weren't tired of two days walk decided to get closer, the closer we got the farther they started to move. So we started to hide behind every bush and tried getting closer but those tahr who have been surviving Snow Leopard attack were far to good for us, they knew that we were coming, we chased them away. We crawled towards them and it was like one of those shows on tv where the cameraman and presenter crawling up on their knees, may be they're better because they get a good shot, we weren't, a rookie mistake somewhere may be. But then we had lost all hope of seeing one closer, suddenly we heard something towards our right, there were more than 15 Tahr grazing, and one of them saw us and started to run again, but did see one from a pretty close distance, the best surprise of that was, a Beautiful Male Danphe (Lophophorus). To finally see the National Bird of Nepal was quite a treat.

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Himalayan Langur 

  Tahr 

                                                 
One time we were on bus, the area looked like a possible Vulture habitat, we were on a high alert that we might see one. But the hope was fading, by the way you guys must remember that in "every tv documentary regarding animals, the presenter looks for the animal and doesn't find one and gets hopeless and suddenly sees one and runs towards it?" That kind of happens in the field too, its pretty hard to find animals in the wild and when you do, you get so damn excited about it that you forget the basic things of tracking an animal. So we had lost hope and suddenly we saw 3 vulture on top of a rock, I asked our driver to stop the bus and got off with my camera on hand and slowly started walking up the rock, most of the others were down on the road trying to take photo. I quickly climbed up the rock and I had realized that there were other vulture behind this big rock that I was hiding against, but as I moved ahead of that rock, I saw this huge vulture flapping its wing right in front of me, it was scary but exciting at the same time. Things like this are pretty interesting.


Had chased two Assamese Macaque in Langtang as well for about 30 minutes may be, the dragged us up and down the hill but it was fun, it always is.

But the thing is, its fine as long as your in a friendly animal habitat, well there's no such things called friendly animal habitat in the wild but my point is you're good as long as there's no big cats or wild Elephant or Rhinos around. Back in Chitwan, which was the best wildlife experience I had, one that would beat mediocre documentary on Animals. Field work at its best, 15 days of field work in one the places with highest Tigers and Rhino density. The work was interesting learned lots of things regarding wildlife interaction as well as field work. One the days, when were going into one of the plots, out ranger was in front of us, we were walking on a line, as school children then ranger shouted Rhino Rhino!! All of us were crazy scared, suddenly the Rhino started chasing us for a while, how long, we have no idea because we ran with all the life's energy, it was scary, deep inside a grassland, typical Rhino territory and getting attacked by a full grown Rhino, so then we ran for a while, and since we were in Grassland there were barely any trees, we had to run the the whole field to reach the forest, and the grass was so tall that we couldn't see if there was another Rhino 10 feet ahead of us, we just ran into the oblivion. When we finally reached the forest we climbed up to the trees and look at the grassland, the Rhino was right there , we stayed in the trees, hoping that the Rhino would go away and we'll go back to the field, put down the traps, collect any animals if found one and then get back, but the Rhino had other things in mind, he was in no mood to walk away and he didn't care if we weren't able to do our work in the field. While we were on the trees, this guide came with two foreigners, we told them that there's a Rhino few meters away, they were actually excited because it was their first time seeing a Rhino in the wild so instead of getting to safety they moved towards the Rhino, the Rhino had moved almost near to the forest with few trees around, then the guide took them in front of one of the trees, it wasnt that big, then male tourist, climbed up the tree right in front of the Rhino and started taking photos, the wife (may be) , the girl went ahead of them and found another small tree as she moved the Rhino moved as well, she then hurriedly climbed that small tree it was so small that the tree couldn't hold her weight and she fell down right in front of the Rhino about 10-15 feet, she fell so violently that the Rhino was scared and charged off in another direction, if the Rhino had charged at her, she had no where to run but she was saved that day, she should have listened to us and stayed where we were, we were the expert there and scared to death of going near the animal and they walked as if they knew that animal forever. No matter how confident you are you should be cautious around the animals. One of the days, the other group were charged by an wild elephant, which destroyed the field, and most of the equipment, one of the guy hurt his legs while running away from the elephant. Its a dangerous business, not just fun, there's fun in it but its something to be serious about. You could get trampled by an Elephant, attacked by a Tiger or Rhino, on a bad day, anything can happen, the forest is crawling with snakes. Its a risky job being a Zoologist.

                       This close to a Rhino

                                       Tiger pug mark

 Its fun that you get to travel a lot and be in nature but it can go bad at the same time, but the risk is worth it!
You get to learn a lot about animals, observe them, you get a different look at life, how life works in wild, how it was for us thousands of years ago. Its Awesome being a Zoologist.