Spotting stripes

And other tales from India

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Spotting stripes – and other tales from India

A moment in Rajasthan.

Dear NE-One

Extraordinary stories often have the most ordinary beginnings, and this one starts early one evening near a village called Khandar when Amarsingh Gurjar, a subsistence farmer with a carefully crafted moustache, made a bed beside his wheat field. He’d slept there ever since he ploughed the land because sambar deer, nilgai and wild boar are a menace out here in rural Rajasthan, and could ruin his gehu crop overnight.

The nights are uncomfortably cold in December so Amarsingh wrapped a blanket high around his shoulders and, before climbing into bed, walked a few hundred metres to check on a camera trap he’d set up that afternoon. It was working fine so he patrolled with a torch as he retraced his steps and at around 9.30pm, satisfied his crops were safe for the time being, Amarsingh lay down and pulled the heavy blanket over his body. The camera trap might have been part of Amarsingh’s moonlighting job as a tiger tracker, but he wasn’t at all worried about sleeping under the Indian skies; he had always been safe.