Bittu Sahgal

OT: Which is your favourite wildlife area in India?

Bittu Sahgal: That’s like asking a parent which his favourite child is. But through my life I have kept gravitating to Ranthambhore, Kanha, Dachigam and the Andamans, so that probably says something. One thing I do know: the fewer people I see, the better a place begins to look. So my favourites keep changing — heavily touristed areas are fantastic in the off-season. Little-known places, with or without megafauna, have a captivating air about them. If you avoid the beach and trek in the forests of Goa you would know just what I mean. Or perhaps go swimming with dolphins in the Andaman Sea, or turtle watching off the coast of Orissa.

OT: Any particularly interesting recent travel experiences?

Bittu Sahgal: When I visited Balipara in Assam with my friend Ranjit Barthakur, I sat with our family on an uninhabited island, sipping tea and watching blind river dolphins perform their ballet not 10 metres from us. Another time, I sat in the dark of Dhikala in Corbett and listened to elephants trumpet in a tropical storm. And another time, in the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, with my friend Hemendra Kothari, I sat and watched a leopard and her cub cross the road, just two minutes after seeing a tigress with her two full-grown cubs pass the same spot. I could go on forever.

OT: Do you ever take holidays which are not wildlife related? Which are your favourite destinations in India and abroad?

Bittu Sahgal: Did my wife ask you to ask that question? Non-wildlife holidays are few and far between. The last one I can remember was in 1973 when Madhu and I took our two-year-old daughter Miel across Europe, using Arthur Frommer’s Europe on 5 Dollars a Day as our travel advisor.

OT: How do you usually travel?

Bittu Sahgal: My preferred mode of travel is train and car. And nothing compares to walking in a forest (with permission and an accompanying forest guard), but all too often I find myself flying and then driving through forests.

OT: Which are your favourite creatures from India’s forests?

Bittu Sahgal: Of course the tiger jumps to mind, but I have probably spent more hours watching spiders, which hold a particular fascination for me. I remember sitting 10 metres from lions in Gir, with the world’s finest trackers. Watching 200 Spinner dolphins with Mitali Kakkar of ReefWatch in the Andaman Sea was another unforgettable experience.

OT: Which is your favourite book on India by a naturalist?

Bittu Sahgal: Again, too many. I have read every one of Jim Corbett’s published works. The late M. Krishnan, to my mind, was India’s finest nature writer. The old journals of the Bombay Natural History Society were both factual and readable. Bikram Grewal gifted me original copies of F.W. Champion’s With a Camera in Tiger-Land and Jungle in Sunlight and Shadow. To date I read and re-read this master narrator whose forests our country is trashing every day.

OT: Three things that you always take with you while traveling?

Bittu Sahgal: Good walking shoes. Binoculars. Birdbook.