Ammamma

Ammamma in Pragathi resort

Ammamma was a strong woman, always energetic, caring, and had been a best provider all through her life. I always feel blessed to have spent my childhood days with ammamma in Guntur. With all the love and affection of ammamma and Jani pinni I never felt the dearth of my parents. In fact I never wanted to go back to Kurnool with my parents when it was time. Such was the foster that I experienced which left a deep imprint of memories of ammamma and I still cherish them.     

I strongly remember the moments I spent with ammamma although I was only around 2 years old. Watching ‘Giant Robot’ on TV every evening at 5 pm followed by gazing at the train through the living room window with ammamma on my side, those outdoor baths when she used to put rock salt in my mouth to soothe the eye inflammation by soap nuts, backing me when I destroyed the clay Brahmin toy by soaking it in the rain and hit the carpenter ants with the broom, collected all the paper train tickets for me to play the train game with neighbor’s kids, her panic when I locked myself in the bathroom and cried, sneaking gavvalu into my mouth when I was punished by Jani pinni for not reciting the Telugu rhymes, backing me when I hid under the bedsheet and played sick, sleeping on ammamma’s side under the stars during power outages,  praising me though I peeled almost half of the mango along with the skin for avakaya, squeezing fresh orange juice for me from the naarinjas of the backyard tree, helping me collect the ice from hail storms, scolding Kumar annayya for pulling my trousers down, protecting me possessively when someone said I was looking cute are only a few sweet memories among many others. 

      

To me, childhood and early 20s are the only times when you 
find close knit friends or experience emotional relationships and I was again lucky to spend 4 more years with ammamma and tatayya during my bachelors. They were in late 60s at that time but ammamma never let that limit her actions. As always she did everything to me what a mom does to her son. My day wouldn’t pass unless I slept by her side and held her hand for a few minutes after waking up every morning. She would prepare coffee for me and hot water for shower followed by a two-course breakfast. During semester exams she prepared sunnundalu and gave me one for each exam wishing me good luck. She would send me off every morning by standing on the porch until I was beyond vicinity and waved at me. Just to see her one more time I used to take the longer route, looked back and waved at her. In the evenings she constantly fed both me and my friends while we were studying. Though she hates eggs she wouldn’t hesitate to scramble them for me when I didn’t like the dinner menu. 

Me with ammamma in 2002

 All through her life she only knew how to love, care and provide for tatayya and others. But she remained strong after tatayya’s loss. She loved tatayya so much that it left reminders of tatayya on her subconscious mind. Her thoughts about him dominated her master conscious mind that led to her occasional inquiry about him. It was a very confused state as she neither understood why tatayya is not coming back nor had an answer on when he will return.  She burrowed her heartfelt pain, never expressed to anyone and proved strong once again. I cannot imagine myself in her place and handle such immense stress.  This is my interpretation of her feelings when I put myself in her situation. On the other hand, both ammamma and tatayya were very fortunate to have caring, devoted and affectionate sons and daughters. I feel that they lived their full life in the luxury of love and comfort without illness. With utmost respect I bow down to peddamamayya and peddattha for taking such good care of ammamma and tatayya. They will always stand as ideal son and daughter-in-law in my heart. I’m confident that I won’t find anyone else who can be better than them. 

Ammamma and Tatayya

I gathered so many unforgettable memories of ammamma. However I still feel her lack. Whenever I spoke to her on a video call she asked me to visit her. I regret for not being able to spend more time with her and the regret will remain with me forever. All I can do now is to cherish the precious memories that I amassed. My request to our family’s Generation Z grandkids is to spend quality time with your grandparents whenever you get a chance whether you are living together or vacationing. Talk to them, feel and observe them, kiss and hug them, express your love, document their childhood memories through audio, video or photo albums, ask what they did when they were your age, let them feed you to your mouth or do whatever you think will connect you together. The power of love will reach a distant shore and touch a heart. And that is all the grandparents wish from their grandkids. This might sound filmy to you but trust me, you cannot bring back time and if you don’t utilize this opportunity you will have to feel the regret for the rest of your lives. And it speaks out from my own experience.

I cannot get over the thought of ammamma’s loss. But ammamma always wanted everyone to be happy, healthy and wealthy. I cannot bring her back. So I will try to cherish her memories and celebrate her happy life going forward.

My Hero of the day - Dr. K. Ullas Karanth

During my bachelors in 2002, I was passing by the PWD grounds in Vijayawada, India with one of my classmates and saw people with the circus wrapping up all their stuff and caging all the animals after their summer season show. At that time, I saw tigers resting in their cages. I flickered whether to go closer to them or not for a while and at last I dared to go near the tiger's cage. I slowly walked to the front of the cage and I was not noticed by the tiger. I went closer to look the tiger in the eye. The tiger turned at me and that was the moment of excitement, panic and furor. I felt tremors all over my body and shed sweat. We both are still looking at each other and I didn't move an inch. After a few seconds, my body started to cool down and all my emotions gave me goose bumps. That was the moment when I experienced the mighty power, the grandeur and the charisma of the tiger by looking at its bulged and bright yellow irises. And my heart said that this big elegant cat should not become a page or a picture in our history books.

My hero of the day is Dr. Ullas Karanth, Director of  Wildlife Conservation Society India Program as he is a conservationist and a tiger expert who helped in saving the tiger population in India. He conducted country wide surveys through innovative techniques to estimate the tiger population and their survival needs.

According to Dr. Ullas Karanth, the tiger holds him spellbound in some sense. The beauty, elegance, the power and its color combination, its hunting techniques and its mysterious existence anywhere it lives attracted him towards the tiger. A tiger is a perfect killing machine designed to hunt down any living being that is five times bigger than itself. The design of its predation machinery is amazing. The reason why tigers still exist in India is because of the work of Ullas Karanth. No one did more than him to save this species without becoming extinct.

Ullas Karanth was born in Karnataka and is the son of Sivaram Karanth, a popular Kannada writer who was also described as "Rabindranath Tagore of Modern India". He grew up in a small village where there were a lot of tiger dressed dances during festivals and this sprouted the fascination for tigers in Dr. Karanth. Dr. Karanth completed his Bachelor of Technology in Metallurgy from Regional Engineering College (now "National Institute of Technology"), Suratkal and started out working as an engineer. In 1965, he read and got inspired by an article by Dr. George Schaller called 'My Year With Tigers' that was published in the LIFE magazine on June 25, 1965. Dr. George Beals Schaller is a famous American mammalogist, naturalist, wildlife biologist and a conservationist who worked in protecting large stretches of area in the Amazon, Brazil, Hindu Kush in Pakistan and forests in Southeast Asia. 'My Year With Tigers' by George Schaller was the first ever scientific study conducted on tigers. Dr. Karanth realized what he wanted to do at that moment.

In 1967, he went to Nagarhole forest area in Karnataka and found hunters, illegal cultivation and logging and a very little wildlife and realized that the tiger population especially is on its last legs. As a matter of fact, without abundant prey, tigers cannot survive in a given place. So, the place should have a huge population of wild cattle, pigs, and large deer species as the tigers need hundreds of animal prey for their living.

Then he spent years together in studying the types of tiger's prey and designed robust strategies for protecting them as well as protecting the tigers themselves. He convinced the government officials that the tigers were endangered and started his longest project in monitoring the health of forests and biodiversity in the Nagarhole Wildlife Sanctuary and National Park in Karnataka followed by his Master's degree in Wildlife Ecology from the University of Florida in 1988 and a Doctorate in Applied Zoology from Mangalore University in 1993. He used a technique called capture-recapture sampling to identify and estimate tiger population based on the design of stripes on both sides of a tiger's body.

In one of the presentations at the Wildlife Conservation Society he mentioned about a tigress named Sundari. He studied Sundari for over 7 years and learned a lot about tigers from Sundari. Tigers need a vast land for their living and Sundari required 15 sq-km range of land for her hunting and living. He wondered how tigers will communicate with each other without any technology and learned from Sundari that the tigers will leave claw marks on the trees with their special scent and this is how other tigers can understand the surrounding situations of that place.

Tigers need to kill one large prey every week. During the year 1993, there was an extreme demand for Chinese bone trade. So local people hunted animals and exported their body parts which decreased the tiger's prey. Also tigers were hunted because every element of tiger's body is useful in numerous medicinal purposes. In 1931 Jim Corbett, a British hunter predicted that tiger population in India will be extinct by the year 1955 followed by the predictions of BBC and the TIME magazine to be by the year 2000. But Karanth proved that the prediction is wrong as they followed the primitive method of counting the tiger population by recognizing their tracks which resulted in a wrong estimation. In 1988, he came across a tripping camera method that's being used in USA to hunt big bucks. He implemented the same technique by installing cameras throughout the forest to trap tiger's pictures. To optimize his results, he collaborated with the bio-statisticians in US Geological Survey, learnt and implemented methods to estimate the tiger population.

Counting is not only the factor that helps the tiger population but also other factors such as preserving the forest area and the tiger's habitat needs are important to save the tigers. Karanth faced a lot of obstacles during his effort to save tigers. He and his team are struggling hard to minimize poachers, occupation of land by local villagers, logging of trees and cultivation of land in the forest area. He convinced a lot of villagers living in the forest area to accept the government incentives for housing and living and move their families away from the forests. In this process, he had to take care of the villagers’ livelihood and their health conditions. He had to convince a family for 10 years to relocate them to another place from the Nagarhole forest area. He produced over 80 scientific papers and several books. He estimates that by 2020 the tiger population can be bread up to 500 in India where as now there are only 250 tigers. He also estimates that there is still a lot of room to accommodate 50,000 tigers around the world. His continuing efforts and dedication toward the wildlife will always be appreciated.

His Achievements:
2006       - Sierra Club's prestigious international EarthCare Award
2007       - World Wildlife Funds J.Paul Getty Award for Conservation Leadership.
              - Sanctuary Lifetime Achievement Award
2008-09  - Salim Ali National Award for Nature Conservation
2010       - Rajyotsava Award

Content Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Ullas_Karanth
http://www.21stcenturytiger.org/index.php?pg=1213960257
http://vimeo.com/15911873
http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/gettyaward2007.html
http://www.conbio.org/bboard/view-post.cfm?Post=2928
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://www.deccanherald.com/

Photo Source:
www.flickr.com/people/ullas_23/