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GUWAHATISATURDAYNOVEMBER 28, 2009

Altruism inACTION

MANY a time one person’s dream is tied tothe destiny of millionsothers. When thatman’s philanthropic

dream helps blossom smiles in manyhelpless homes the world salutes thedreamer for his altruism. When an em-phatic heart feels the agonies of thethousands around, and takes a sol-emn vow to add hope to their lives,an institution like this is born. Stand-ing tall amidst an ocean of humandespair this is an altar where all reli-gion, caste and creed melt just intohumanity; and yes, the buck, there,is not your identity.

These are the summed up observa-tions made by a cross-section of peo-ple with whom I talked about the HajiAbdul Majid Memorial Hospital andResearch Centre (HAMMH) and oth-er allied charitable activities of the HajiAbdul Majid Memorial Public Trust dur-ing my visit to the hospital on Octo-ber 24 as an invitee to the 20th an-nual conference of the Association

Simanta Bhagawatiwrites about a

charitable Hojaihospital hoping that

others wouldemulate some of its

compassionateactivities for the

benefit of thedeprived.

of Surgeons of Assam & NE zonalCME (ASACON 2009) held at Hojaiunder the aegis of the HAMMH.

Some of the known surgeons ofthe State including veteran surgeonDr Sarat Chandra Dutta attended theconference. Meeting him at the Ho-jai railway station after alighting theJanshatabdi Express was a pleasantsurprise as he said in his usual smile:“I just finished your article on BholaSaikia; it made interesting reading.”He was referring to an article in theHorizon on October 24. It’s nice tohear such compliments from a fatherlyfigure and a renowned surgeon likehim, who is over 80 now and stillgoing strong. Such gestures, even ifsuperficial, help encourage the striv-ing lots to improve upon and give theirbest to the society.

Renowned surgeons from AIIMS,New Delhi and others also attendedthe ASACON 2009 which was ele-gantly managed at a place like Hojaiby the organising committee underthe leadership of Dr Chaidul Islam.Dr Islam has made an enviable sortof record by performing over 10,000surgical operations in just over a dec-ade. He also presented a paper onhis experiences in single incision lapar-oscopic surgery (SILS), the latest in-novation in laparoscopic surgery anda revolutionary procedure in health-care today for its many advantages.

During a candid talk he informedthat in just about a year he has per-formed 67 surgeries through the SILSprocedure. Small wonder that Dr Is-lam has carved a very special nichefor himself in the field of laparoscop-ic surgery countrywide.

Executive trustee of HAMM PublicTrust Shaheed Hussain, while inform-ing about the sustenance of the hos-pital and other allied charitable activ-ities of the Trust said that, ‘had it notbeen for the generosity and sincerityof purpose, we would not have been

able to continue with the noble mis-sion of late Haji Ajmal Ali, who es-tablished the hospital in memory ofhis father Haji Abdul Majid, to servethe deprived section of society in get-ting the right healthcare facilities weare offering now’. The spirit and zealfor philanthropy in all his five sonsreflect the legacy left behind by theirillustrious father Haji Ajmal Ali.

Basically an entrepreneur who runsa decent fabrication unit, Shaheed hasa knack for innovation to make thingscost-effective. He further said that “we

try to maintain strict austerity meas-ures to minimise the cost, even byinnovating in different ways, and makethe system as cost-effective as possi-ble. “Being a charitable hospital, in-augurated by none other than Moth-er Teresa after being fully convincedof its aims and objectives, the treat-ment, including surgeries are free forthe poor and needy,” Shaheed said.Going a little bit more in detail, hesaid, “out of twenty surgical proce-dures for child birth, gall bladder, her-nia and other such operations, we getpayment from about seven patientson an average, and that too very nom-inally charged.”

Shaheed also informed about indi-vidual cases, where, not to speak ofany charge, patients and their fami-lies are given amounts consideringtheir inability to maintain the post-operative cost, or during sustenanceof the recuperating period.

“All these have been possible dueto the genuine will to serve the poor,service to whom amounts to serviceto the Almighty, as championed bythe patriarch in Seth Sahab, as HajiAjmal Ali is adorably called,” said Nu-rul Hoque, executive secretary of man-aging trustee Sirajuddin Ajmal.

Let’s hope that other centres alsotake a leaf or two of such compas-sion and service which would makethem feel more worthy.

TIGER, perhaps the most charismatic ofall animals are a treat to the eyes ofmost of the animal lovers. It is also asymbol of strength and courage. Its pres-ence says it all. It has inspired many writ-

ings and phrases. Tiger by William Blake is onesuch with the immortal catch line “Tiger tiger, burn-ing bright...” But unfortunately the fate of thismajestic animal is no brighter. At present thereare only about 1,500 tigers left in India.

Tigers are believed to have evolved over onemillion years ago in Asia. From there the tigerspread north to the Amur region of easternRussia, south to the islands of Indonesia, andsouthwest to Indochina and the Indian sub-continent. The presence of eight subspe-cies of tiger was known worldwide of whichthree have already been extinct. In India,we have the Royal Bengal Tiger, the mostthreatened large carnivore in India and theWhite Tiger which is a mutant of the Ben-gal tiger itself. At the turn of the 19th cen-tury, an estimate of the tiger population inIndia placed the figure at 45,000. In 1972,the first official census of tigers was conduct-ed in India which revealed the existence ofonly 1,827 tigers. With such a drop in thetiger population in India, the government wasforced to set up a special task force in 1972.

Based on the recommendation of this taskforce, Project Tiger was launched on April 1,1973. The project tiger now covers 28 reservesin 17 states. In northeast India there are threesuch reserves — Manas, Pakke-Nameri and Nam-dapha.

Under the project, management plans weredrawn up for each tiger reserve based on:

Elimination of all forms of human exploita-tion and biotic disturbance from the core area andrationalization of activities in the buffer zone.

Restricting the habitat management only torepair the damages done to the eco-system by hu-man and other interferences so as to facilitate re-covery of the ecosystem to its natural state.

Monitoring the faunal and floral changes overtime and carrying out research about wildlife.

The general threats to the tiger population issimilar to most of the threats faced by other or-ganisms in the present day world such as habitat

Jayaditya Purkayastha & Madhurima Daswrite about the dwindling fate of the BigCat, one of the most majestic animals in theworld, due to superstition and activitiestriggered by greed of another animal called‘man’, who ironically happens to be the onlyone to reverse the trend.

Just notburningBRIGHT

destruction, pollution of habitat, depletion of preypopulation, etc. Additionally, the tiger also faces amajor threat in form of poaching. Tigers are killedas many of their body parts are highly rated ininternational market.

“Got money, take tiger” seems to be the newcourtesy greeting in the market streets of Tibet asthey are full of peddlers selling tiger skins. It seemsthat the Indian tigers are turning out to be thelatest fashion victims. Almost every part of thismagnificent cat is sold and that too at an abomi-nable high price, i.e. around $320-$2,000. Closerhome, CBI officials estimated around Rs 60,000per tiger skin to be earned by the notorious poach-er Sansar Chand, kingpin of the Sariska tragedy.

Apart from the lucrative sums of money earnedfrom tiger trade, this animal is also killed for itspresumable healing powers. People believe thattiger bones cure rheumatism, potions made fromits whiskers evoke strength, tiger tails mixed withsoap cure skin afflictions and the list goes on.

The episode of Sansar Chand during the Sariskatragedy opened eyes wide to the inhuman activi-ties related to the tiger. It was in December, 2004,that India learnt about the disappearances of tigersfrom Sariska tiger reserve in Rajasthan. By March2005, the Wildlife Institute of India confirmed thatno tigers were indeed left in Sariska. The CBI re-ported that the disappearance of tigers was mainly

due to heinous poaching and tiger trade by middle-men, some local villagers with Sansar Chand atthe centre. The nation had hardly recovered fromthis shock that another was knocking at its door.In November 2005, it was declared that Namdaphatiger reserve in northeast India was also strippedof these majestic creatures. The Namdapha epi-sode was even more disastrous than Sariska as itboasted of 61 tigers as opposed to the 22 big catsof Sariska. All these pointed to sinister activitiesaround this animal which was steadily leading toits destruction.

The reasons for the decline of this animal seemnot only poaching and tiger trade but also lack ofproper tiger census and monitoring techniques.Earlier, tiger census was carried out mostly by pugmark count where foot impressions of tiger wereused as the source regarding various aspects of ti-ger. But many modern scientists are skeptic aboutthe method as they believe that the pug mark count-

ing process was not uniform in all the tiger re-serves. The census of tigers is not only carried outby pug mark count but sometimes also by keepingcount of their skin, hair, claws, paws and whisk-ers. This technique shows a terrifying total of 700tiger deaths between the years 1994-2004, as perWildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) figures.

Back home in Assam itself, various studies areconducted to sustain a steady population of thisillusive animal. On that regard a recent ongoingstudy of the tigers by Aaranyak in Orang NationalPark is already showing encouraging signs. One ofthe most interesting aspects of this study is theuse of modern camera trapping technique for tigercensus. For this study 27 camera traps were in-stalled and were surveyed for twenty days. Twentyphotographs were obtained in the study period ofseven individual tigers which were segregated basedon the patterns of the stripes on their body whichare unique in themselves.

Basically a camera trap is a technique where thephotograph of the animal is used as a source ofdata. For this, at first a site in the forest is selectedwhich is thought to be most frequently visited byanimals; in this case, the tiger. Then two camerasare set opposite to each other providing enoughspace for animals to pass through. Adjacent to thecameras, an infrared sensor is placed. The ray emit-ted by the sensors is collected by a receiver. The

rays actually form an invisible line in the path ofthe animal. When the animal crosses this path thecontinuous invisible beam of light is obstructed. Thistriggers the cameras on both sides to take snaps ofthe animal simultaneously. Picture of both sides ofa tiger is required to confidently identify an individ-ual. As stripes of either side are different, usingstripes on one side would be misleading and maylead to inflated number of tigers in an area.

Though in a budding phase, these studies holdthe key to the sustenance of this Big Cat. But thefact is only a handful of researchers are not goingto save a species, until and unless we realize theimportance of coexistence. Also if we humans takeit too long to realize that we are just a mere strandin this web of life and any alteration in this webwill affect us the same way as it does to others,maybe, there will be no one left to discuss or to bediscussed.

jaya_ditya@rediffmail.com

Photographs taken in Orang National Park using camera trap.