(IN): Wildlife filmmaker finds joy in forest

[Guest guest]

Link: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070016825

 

Wildlife filmmaker finds joy in forest

 

Pavitra Jayaraman

Tuesday, June 26, 2007 (Mudumalai)

''He was an elephant with a bullet hole in one ear and a single tusk.

He just kept staring at us for 15 minutes. He could have lifted me up

by my hair. I just decided not to look at him. I was rolling my

camera. I saw my entire life come in front of me, from my childhood to

now,'' said Ayesha Sitara, wildlife filmmaker and writer.

 

It was just one of the jungle moments that show you why the wilds and

life mean the same thing to Ayesha Sitara.

 

As a child she dreamt of being a war journalist, not the kind of

dreams a girl from an orthodox and affluent Indian Muslim family is

expected to have. A compromise was made and she moved to Chennai to

work with a newspaper but soon work politics and the noisy city life

got to her.

 

''I hated the city. I came here in 2002 for a few weeks and stayed for

eight months. This is where I should be - my attitude towards

everything has changed,'' said Ayesha.

 

While she lives here three-fourth of the year, the forest consumes her

24x7. She spends most of the money she makes as a wildlife

photographer and video filmmaker on equipment, food and shelter.

 

She gets on with a little help from friend Rohan who owns an eco lodge

near Mudumalai on the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border and the occasional

shoot for National Geographic.

 

An excellent shot, a trek through the forest, are some of the things

that Ayesha would die for, but it wasn't an easy bargain.

 

Ayesha had to give up several things that most of us hang on to such

as family and several relationships.

 

''I think my parents they have resigned themselves to say that is who

I am. They don't voice their dislike but they don't come out and

support, so they seem to have resigned themselves to it,'' said Ayesha.

 

''I have male friends who find me intimidating. I have not been very

lucky in that regard but it's not so bad as long as I have a few

people who accept me for who I am,'' she added.

 

But whatever the emotional roller coaster ride life brings her, every

evening you will find her writing about it as much as about her travel

experiences.

 

''I got married recently to this universe, to what it holds, to what

it can give. I love life and I am in love with life. In a ''normal''

social structure I am lost. The concrete jungle does not accept me, at

least in this relationship I can say the feeling is mutual. But every

place I travel to has become my home. One month out in the jungle

maybe a fraction of my life.

 

Yet it seems like this is eternity. This is where I belong. I have

found my place in this world. I have found home at last. Of course,

only until this nomadic brain sets off on another undiscovered road

ahead,'' she added.

 

''What you see and what you touch is all you will ever be and that

about sums it up for me,'' she concludes.

 

Ayesha is also co-writing a big 'thank you' note to the forest in the

shape of a book on the Nilgiri Biosphere, along with herpetologist

Jerry Martin and Rohan Mathias.