Seeing Beyond Pheasants

My time in the forest impacted me in a deep, life-changing way that a blog with short stories and photographs will never be able to fully capture. This frustrates me, but I will do my best to express the lessons I learned. This post contains a brief summary of my overall experiences. The following posts are excerpts from my journal and photographs to tell the story more vividly. Enjoy, and please give me comments on what you find most captivating.



Three days ago I returned to the land of hot water, toilets and advanced technology. As the car carried my exhausted, dirty and sunburned body through the winding hills and descended into the valley of Dehradun, I felt a mixture of relief and shock that this trying experience is finally over.

The past two months have been one of the most challenging times in my life. The fieldwork was much more physically demanding than I expected; somehow when I agreed to the project, I didn’t fully register that I would be working in THE Himalayas, the steepest mountain range in the world. For each of our eight trips into the park, we accessed the study sites by initially hiking narrow switchbacks that ascended to elevations of between 3,200 and 6,500 feet (1,000 to 2,000m) in 2 hours. I slipped and fell constantly over the rocky terrain, while my assistant Pritham, a local 34-year old man who has lived on these trails his whole life, walked daintily and steadily behind me, making me feel clumsy and inadequate.



My fieldwork team consisted of myself, Pritham and two porters who helped us carry our bags, cooked and attended the morning call counts with us (for additional protection against night time predators, such as bears and leopards). Dhani Ram, a 42-year old Forest Department assistant, worked as our porter for the full two months, whereas we hired a new man to be our second porter for each trip. The men were very courteous and hardworking but needless to say, I have not encountered many women over the past two months.


Pritham and Dhani setting up my tent at Shilt, one of our camp sites.

Our typical daily schedule was as follows: rise at 4am and walk 30 minutes in the dark to a call count station, then sit until 5:45am in the cold and listen for bird calls. Return to camp and eat breakfast (warm cereal - dahlia or halawa - or potato pancake – aloo parantha), then leave at 7am to hike a trail and count birds along the way. Since the birds are most active in the morning, fieldwork finished by 10:30am, leaving the entire day to hike the surrounding area, read, write, paint, take photographs, and count down the hours until sunset. For lunch we ate lentil soup (daal) and rice (chawal) every day. Dinner consisted of mixed vegetables and bread (chipati), which I learned to make myself. I headed to bed in my personal tent around 8:30pm and slept restlessly, waking every few hours to check the weather and time.


Learning to make chipotis with Dhani. He adds water to flour and forms the chipotis by throwing them from hand to hand, a skill that I have yet to master.

The mountains were stunning. Snow-capped and stark against the blue sky, they formed a landscape that never failed to impress me. Ominous dark clouds often serenaded us for hours with booming thunder, followed by frequent rain and hail. Although beautiful, the rain and cold temperature seeped into my clothing, my bones and my spirit. The long hours in the afternoon were primarily spent in solitude, since my porters could speak little English and Pritham (who knew decent English) was shy and preferred to speak Hindi with the other men.


The view from Koilipoi, a camp site that we shared with many brown bears and leopards.

After 4-6 days in the park, we returned home to to rest in Kharongcha, Pritham’s village which I used as my base camp for the 2 months. Only 15 minutes walk outside the park, Kharongcha is a quaint village composed of 3 families, 7 houses, 30 people and 2 English speakers (Pritham and his sister-in law, Bimla). My accommodations were lovely; I stayed in Pritham’s new house that is still under construction, yet he managed to finish building one room for me and furnished it with furniture he built himself. His family lived in another house, so I lived alone. Pritham cooked all meals for me in a make-shift kitchen in one of the unfinished rooms on the bottom floor.


A view of Kharongcha from the trail leading into the village. In front center is Pritham's new home, where I stayed in a room on the second floor.


My room.

Since Kharongcha is extremely remote, none of the homes have toilets or warm running water. One central tap with cold river water serves the entire village. Electricity is inconsistent; the wires were broken for the first 3 weeks of my stay, so we cooked and ate by candlelight in the evenings. I bathed and answered “nature’s call” (as they call it in India) near the river, which just so happens to be fresh, pure, glacial runoff. My first few baths were so cold that I had to force myself to breathe, after which I focused on washing only the important parts. This made my infrequent trips into town (occasionally we stayed at Sai Ropa, the Forest Department range office where they have bathrooms, when we traveled to Banjar) all the more momentous.


My bathroom in Kharongcha.

Kharongcha is inaccessible by road, so we walked 1 hour on a mountain trail to reach Gushani, the nearest town, where we would buy wilted vegetables and packaged food each week. Occasionally we would travel to Banjar, which was an additional 30 minutes away by bus, to purchase non-moldy vegetables, English newspapers, and sweets. We carried all our purchases back with us to Kharongcha, a trip that usually took 2 hours since it was mostly uphill.


The grocery store in Gushani where we purchased most of our food. The owners were very sweet brothers who often gave me tea as I sat on the bench to the front left of the store.


Pritham buying vegetables from a stall in Banjar.

My greatest challenges were both physical and mental. The steep terrain, early mornings and poor weather. My inability to communicate with the people around me. The isolation and challenge of reaching mainstream society. The shortage of stimuli in the peaceful village, which came as a shock to my urban-raised mind. The lack of bathroom facilities and awkwardness I felt whenever I walked past the villagers to “my part” of the river. The culture shock I felt as I attempted to live among a culture that I could not interact with, only observe.

Living in Kharongcha gave me a unique experience to see first-hand how “local people” utilize the natural resources around them. As a scientist, this view is very important, because I no longer think of the villagers as naïve, impersonal individuals. They are vibrant and hardworking communities that happen to live in a valley so remote that they are forced to rely on agriculture and wild mushrooms for their livelihood. They are also my friends.


Pritham's wife, Sita, with some of the children and kids of Kharongcha.

This trip truly has helped me move beyond the pheasants. I am now able to clearly see the broader picture on an intimate level and understand more of the complications behind conservation and local communities.