Country notebook:m.krishnan

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

" I REMEMBER watching a display by India's first jet-propelled aircraft, along with a milling crowd. There was a little boy by my side who was most informative- he told us the difference in flight and motive power between these planes and ordinary ones with propellers, pointed out peculiarities and explained the relative speeds of light and sound to a dear old lady. Thanks to the young scholar, we all knew at what speed the jet-fighters tore through heavens, looped loops and zoomed high again, and I joined in the general expression of wonder and applause.

But now, well away from this little boy and arithmetically-minded crowd to whom 600 mph meant so much, I don't mind confessing that I was not thrilled, specially. Yes, it was a fun watching those planes perfom those evolutions, and no doubt they were faster than the ones I have seen before, but they conveyed no sense of magnificient achievement of space to me. For one thing, their speed, as they went far above, was an abstruct thing that needed thought, even sophistry, for its appreciation; and even when they came near and were patently dynamic- well, they were engines, just big, loud engines, and their power and speed was mechanical, chemical and inhuman.

It is the living, mascular speed of animals that impresses me, even a squirrel dashes for safety. That is a speed I can appreciate, a quickness I can envy and marvel at. If you like speed, and want to see something sustained in its effortless, rythmic impetuocity, you should watch a herd of black buck going all out for a few miles- there is tangible real speed for you.

Black buck are the fastest things on legs in India, and perhaps anywhere in the world. As Dunbar Brander points out, even the now extinct hunting leopard can not match the buck for speed, though swifter from a standing start and for the first few furlongs, the hunting leopard is purely a sprinter and soon get spent. Black buck can keep their pace for 10 miles or more and when going flat out can attain 60 mph- a superb speed, not reached by any motor vehicle so far over the ground they inhabit. The muscles of black buck is like catapult rubber, and its hooves are not hard but elastic, its wind is almost inexhaustible and its vitality amazing.

No other animal I know of can keep going with such ghastly injuries, not even the great cats. In particular I recall a gravid doe (does are usually faster thn their overlords)that had lagged behind, and had a leg blown clean away by a bullet meant for the buck. The gun and I got into a jeep and went after the wretched thing to put it out of its misery. The black-cotton soil was very flat and permitted a very fair speed, but for two miles the crippled doe kept running far ahead, while our pity turned to wonder and admiration, before it fell exhausted and was shot.

The buck have a curious habit that is often their undoing. After outdistancing the chasing enemy easily, they turn at an angle and run across the path of the pursuer, so that by anticipating the mood and changing his direction slightly the gun can frequently get to within range, as they cross in front. Dunbar Brander suggests that this habit might be due to the desire of the buck to prove that they "have the legs of the enemy". Quite a likely explanation, but at times I have seen chased buck turn, not across the line of pursuit, but away from it. They seem to run in a curve, once they are clear of immediate danger, and they persist in their curved course once they are set on it. Naturally, this explanation leads to the question: Why do they have this running in a curve? That is also a habit shared by certain other animals, and a circuitous explanation occurs to me- but let's not have it.

Black buck are unquestionably among the most beautiful of world's beasts, and are exclusively Indian. Once they lived in vast herds all over the country, but are fewer and more local now. In certain places in South India for example, they are dwindling steadily and must soon be extinct unless immediate help is accorded. It is true that the slaughter of buck by "sportsman", irrespective of sex, numbers, or laws, is largely responsible for this dwindling, but there is a more pernicious though less immediate cause. Black buck live in open country, always, and such terrain is most easily cultivable and, so,most cultivated. Buck do not take to desert conditions: they must have green fodder.

A substantial part of their diet consists of grasses and plants like the wild bitter gourd (whose fruits they love), but living in the midst of crops (their original homes having been brought so largely under plough), they often help themselves to food crops. This, while providing a ready excuse for shooting the crop-raiders, leaves them to nowhere to go. The animals of the open will, I think, be the last to receive any recognition from those interested in the saving of our wonderful, vanishing wildlife, one of our richest national assets.

The fauna of flat country require plenty of living space, adequate grazing and a certain remoteness from cultivation if they are not to be tempted. These conditions are unlikely of realisation in India today, when every acre of land is held precious, though sometimes left fallow and often so poorly tended that it yields a negligible return. In any case, I think the beasts and birds of open country must look to the black buck for their salvation, for it is one claimant for protection among them whose arresting looks and swift charm might succeed in attracting notice."- M. Krishnan

*The sketch of fleeting black buck not reproduced here.
This was first published on 22 June 1952 in The Sunday Statesman