This story first appeared in thethirdpole.net

Living close to the natural gas well that is still ablaze, Deborshee Gogoi believes humour has the power to inspire conservation, and is trying to save the unique wildlife of north-east India one comic strip at a time

A forlorn tiger, the king of the jungle, wonders how the same jungle has been sold off without his permission. The wry humour, sadness and perplexity at the strangeness of the world are all characteristic of the style of cartoonist Deborshee Gogoi.

An academic by profession – he is an assistant professor in the Department of Commerce at Digboi College in Assam – the 37-year-old turned to cartoons as a way to illustrate the devastation humans have caused to his beloved wilderness.

Gogoi grew up near the Bherjan reserve forest in Tinsukia, Assam’s easternmost district. As a child, he cycled with his friends in the rainforests near his house. Once he tried to re-enact the role of Mowgli from The Jungle Book by swinging from a tree and ended up with multiple fractures in his right hand. “In fact, I would never open the gates to enter our house. I would always jump the wall. I was always wild,” he said with a smile during a phone call with The Third Pole.

An incident during his schooldays sowed the seeds of what he would later become. His father had a printing press. One day, a man who worked in the press took his brother for a walk and they saw an exotic bird. The man hit the bird with a stone, injuring it. There was a furore as people from an NGO and local journalists came to Gogoi’s house to assess the animal. They told him that it was a migratory bird from Siberia. Gogoi was intrigued when he realised that birds from faraway countries came so close to his house, sparking his interest in the fauna around him.

Gogoi was introduced to the world of art as a child by his neighbour Bipin Chetia, who at the time was the vice-principal of Tinsukia College. “He was a very good artist and created many sketchbooks. I was inspired by him,” he said. As a child, Gogoi used to imitate and draw cartoon characters like Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. Later, when he was at college and university, he started making cartoons about social issues.

He found that humour was an effective medium to translate his thoughts and create awareness about nature. To him, cartoons and comic strips are a way to give a voice to voiceless animals. “I can make an elephant or a rhinoceros talk,” Gogoi said.

In 2000, at the age of 17, Gogoi came first in a district-wide cartoon competition. He ran his college’s wall magazine and drew cartoons based on his life. In 2018 he started Wildscapes, his venture to promote environmental awareness through cartoons, illustrations and comics.

An avid birdwatcher and photographer, Gogoi has explored the fauna in and around Assam’s Dibru-Saikhowa National Park and the Maguri-Motapung wetland (locally called Beel). This is near the site of the recent devastating oil well explosion in Baghjan, Tinsukia. He said the wetland is like his second home and he learnt birdwatching there.

“It is just 7 kilometres from my house. Whenever I get time I go there, to see the sunrise or the sunset. In fact, it is the best spot to gaze at the stars. Since it’s a rural area, people sleep early and the night is still. The sky is clear and serene. We sit on a bamboo bench and listen to the birds, insects and nature around us,” he said. He has made a comic strip about the wetland, and co-authored a coffee-table book called Birds of Maguri-Motapung with photographs of 36 species of birds. And in 2016 he and his friend Porag Jyoti Phukan recorded a bird called a white-browed crake for the first time in the Indian subcontinent.

There was a time when the wetland was a killing field for hunters of migratory birds. In the early years of his birding life, Gogoi and a group of friends tried to raise awareness about this biodiversity hotspot through social media. Then, when tourism started to grow, local people turned into conservationists. Some local boys became birding guides. Gogoi said, “We were successful in creating a model in which tourism and conservation could go hand in hand. It is an example for the world. A genre of tourism grew here – birdwatching tourism. It is an important destination for the international birdwatching community. You won’t get this kind of bird diversity in all of Europe.”

The recent explosion in Baghjan, a man-made disaster, burned a huge patch of grassland and many endemic species have disappeared. But Gogoi is hopeful. “If fresh floods come, the grassland might regenerate. The uniqueness of the grassland will make the birds come back. But it is just an assumption. We will have to wait and watch. The land here is very fertile and the grassland will hopefully recover. If this habitat is destroyed, a whole environmental and socio-economic cycle will be disrupted,” he said. He said he could not imagine life without his second home.

As well as going birding in unexplored parts of north-east India, Gogoi’s place of work keeps him busy. The town of Digboi shares a border with the Dehing Patkai rainforest, and the area is rich in biodiversity. Digboi College has started a fruit garden for animals and birds, and barking deer and sambar deer roam the 25-acre campus. Leopards also visit, and the college has recorded 177 species of rare birds, five species of squirrels, seven species of primates and a lot of snakes. Gogoi has made many cartoons and caricatures to illustrate the richness of the biodiversity of Dehing Patkai and to campaign against the proposed coal mining in and around the rainforest.

This self-taught artist is one of the few wildlife cartoonists from the region. His cartoons, caricatures, illustrations and comic strips are based only on the species of north-east India. In a bid to take them to the world he has set up an online shop, where admirers of his work can buy items like mugs, T-shirts, posters, greeting cards and notebooks.

After a busy day at college, he works on his cartoons until late at night. “I keep thinking even when I go to sleep. I remember conversations and try to put them down in the form of cartoons,” he said. One such conversation was with one of his teachers. Gogoi asked him if he had seen the critically endangered Bengal florican during his childhood, describing the bird in detail. His teacher asked him several things about it and then said something that left Gogoi both aghast and amused: “It’s not very tasty.” This became the basis of several of his cartoons.

His work is also based on the experiences of wildlife photographers. Some situations are funny, such as one showing photographers intruding into the privacy of animals. Others are more sombre; one shows the destruction caused by mining, with tombstones of extinct species strewn across an area. “They are now paying for it,” he says.

He plans to show children his work so that they understand the importance of biodiversity. “Earlier when a child cried, we showed them a bird or a dragonfly. Now, we hand them the mobile phone,” he said with regret. Gogoi argues that a thriving economy cannot decide whether a country is rich. “We can be rich only if our biodiversity is rich,” he said.

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It wasn’t until the elderly lady on the driver’s seat gave a disarming smile and called out, “Hi. Good morning!” that I heaved a sigh of relief. I marvelled at the charming lady. Atleast I had never seen a female school bus driver in India. Her winning smile set the instant connect. I beamed at her. Deep within, I let go. I let go of my fears and insecurities in a new time zone.

It was an anxious night before the first day of school in the US. We barely slept that night. It was around 6.15 am in the morning. My daughter about to start her innings at Roth Junior High School under Rush Henrietta School District in Rochester, New York. We were waiting for the school bus to arrive. It was still dark and  I could feel the warm breeze. She was tensed too. It was a foreign country. Everything was new. She was about to start her seventh grade. Just then I saw the bus arrive at a distance. I held my daughter’s hands and reassured her. I told her that this is going to be a new experience and an opportunity to learn novel things in a different country.

The bus swerved at a turning and came to a stop. My daughter gave me an anxious look. As the door opened, the bus driver looked beautiful in her blonde hair and a yellow shirt. I smiled, “Please take care of her. It’s her first day. And she’s very nervous.”I was surprised when the genial lady chuckled, “Oh, C’mon honey. It’s my first day too. I am nervous too.” Instantaneously, I was at ease. I smiled back. I saw my daughter get on the bus. I closed my eyes and heaved a sigh of relief. I no longer worried about the safety of my daughter!

Ever since I embarked on this year-long journey to the US accompanying my husband who is a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Rochester and my two school going daughters, I had nursed unknown fears. I was more worried about my daughters and wondered if they will be able to adjust to the new surroundings. After settling in an apartment, we faced the daunting prospect of readying the kids for school.

The first step was finding a school. And we were amazed how the entire process was such a smooth affair at the school district office. Every time I dealt with the public institutions, I was pleasantly surprised to see how everything was exceedingly child friendly. The first day at the school office again was a pleasant affair. My daughters were given colour pencils and asked to sit at a corner and draw while we were asked few random questions. That was it! Then there was an email calling us for an English language test, that my elder daughter cleared without hiccups. The younger one, who is second grade, however was slotted for extra ESL (English as a Standard Language) class in school. We were around 10 minutes late for the test and the lady called us. We realised how Americans value time and are committed to the work they do. The lady who took the test was extraordinarily dedicated and caring while dealing with my daughters. I could see many other students from different nationalities waiting for their turn and she was equally patient with them.

Next came the ordeal of taking some more vaccination shots for my daughters in order to start school. The very thought of vaccination and needles sounded like an ordeal for most Indians. We were advised to go to the vaccination centre. As soon as we stepped into the centre, the pleasant lady on the counter gave colouring sheets and a bunch of crayons to my daughters. A counsellor called us to a room and told us that my older daughter would be getting six shots and the younger one four shots. Then came two nurses who spoke so lovingly to my daughters that they agreed to the shots without any complaints. They were given stickers and a key ring for their patience in taking the shots. In fact, my daughters loved the place so much that they often talk about it and want to go there again!

School began. The initial few days had hiccups. However, after the transition, it was a stage of evolution. The younger one at Crane Elementary School battled with the language while the older one was awe-struck by the new system in an American Public School. Unlike in India, a seventh-grader had to go from one class to the other for different subjects. (In India, we do that in college). And instead of school textbooks, they had to use a chrome book. As someone growing up with traditional style of education, it seemed too much for me to swallow. But then, I realised that probably that is the future of education!

My little interaction with their school teachers fill me with a swirl of emotions — most often I was overwhelmed. My younger daughter started loving school and her home teacher. He responded to my concerns by writing a mail, “She is adjusting nicely.  She is very quiet and shy but we have some very kind kids in class that are including her in activities.  I am even getting her to participate in class and she seems to be much more comfortable to share out during math. I am happy to have her in my class.  She’s a nice little girl and I see her confidence growing a little each day.” What could be more assuring for a mother!

As I was shuffling through my older daughter’s backpack, I realised that she carried all her folders back. She confided that she was having trouble opening her locker and got late for her classes as she struggled with it. Lockers on the hallways are a quintessential symbol of the American High School where students stored everything from books, sports shoes, stuffed toys, trinkets etc. There was a bewildering system of opening the lock. I wrote to her home teacher that she carried all her folders around and even brought them home as she had difficulty opening her locker. I was wondering if anybody could help her as she wasted a lot of time in it. And I was touched when her home teacher wrote back, “At the end of each day I will meet her in the hallway and help her with her locker, until she can do it all by herself.”

Public school in the US is a wonder. Learning has been fun for my daughters. The dedication of its workers — right from the school bus drivers, teachers, office assistants and its Principal — a level of excellence and efficiency I never seemed to achieve on my own — also inspired me. I realised that a society that values and respects children is a truly evolved and civilised society. I discussed the size of the tiny bookshelves, tables and chairs meant for children — in schools and in public libraries with a friend in India. And she rightly said, “No wonder, America gave us Disneyland.”

The real value of this write-up rests in the fact that someday in the distant future, when my daughters crave for the lady bus driver’s voice or the mailbox in their elementary class, they can make a trip back memory lane.

Source : http://www.thethumbprintmag.com