Lunch with BS: Vivek Menon

Work on the wild side

In many ways, I think my lunch guest is India's answer to Gerald Durrell. He's rescued and rehabilitated captive bears in the North East; all but stopped the cruel practice of Shahtoosh extraction and weaving in the Himalayas; saved whale sharks from being slaughtered off the coast of Odisha; revived Manas National Park in Assam to some of its former glory and more. Having been a wildlife buff for as long as I remember, I'm greatly looking forward to lunching with Vivek Menon - executive director of Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), who's just released his latest book, Indian Mammals: A Field Guide. At Indian Accent, one of the few Indian restaurants voted among Asia's top 50, I nibble at the delicious blue cheese naans that have been brought gratis to the table, waiting for him to arrive.

Just then, he does. I tell him I've followed his work with great interest, especially WTI's bear rescue campaign in Arunachal Pradesh, in which trained handlers rear orphaned cubs and then rehabilitate them into the wild. It seems so quixotic, I say, to spend so much money on a few little bears instead of using it to benefit the greater good. "Not at all!" he exclaims. "This rehabilitation gives us hope that in future, we'll be able to save endangered species. In Manas, three rehabilitated rhinos have just given birth in the wild. As conservationists, we couldn't have hoped for a better outcome…"

It's time for us to peruse the menus. Indian Accent is an elegant venue, and the dishes on offer all sound irresistible. The odds that my guest is vegetarian are high, I speculate. Instead, he irreverently declares that he eats everything ("as long as it's not endangered," he adds). We share a starter of Ghee Roast Mutton Boti, served exactly as Peking Duck is, with bite-size rotis and a trio of chutneys. It is delicious, with the mutton virtually falling off the bone. As we dig in with no further ado, he tells me of his childhood spent in Delhi and Chandigarh. "I always kept animals - monkeys, birds, snakes and more. So studying zoology was a foregone conclusion," he says. He went on to found, not one or two, but five environmental organisations in India, the best known among which is WTI (which incidentally began in his spare bedroom with two others).

Over the years, Menon says, he has realised that saving animals is only a small part of conservation. "Conservation requires community development, education, developing alternatives, cleaning up natural habitats and much more," he says. He cites the example of whale sharks being slaughtered in Gujarat by fishermen to waterproof their boats. "We realised we had to change community attitudes towards the fish (by the way, it's the largest fish in the world)," he says. Appetisers over, palate cleansers - phalsa sorbets piquantly served in miniature pressure cookers - arrive at the table. They're delicious, but I'm hungry for the rest of his story.

"We convinced the popular religious icon Morari Bapu to help us save whale sharks. He told his immense following that killing whale sharks was akin to deicide, devhatya. He also likened the fish to a beloved daughter returning to her parents' home to give birth." The response was immediate. Gujarati fishermen willingly began cutting their nets and releasing whale sharks that had been accidentally caught. To reimburse them for the loss of their nets, WTI provided around 300 cameras to fishermen, so that they could document the release of the whale sharks and claim compensation for their cut nets from the local forest department.

For main course, Menon opts for Rice Crusted John Dory Moilee, a crisp fish fillet with sauce on the side. I decide on Pork Belly, served with a tangy curry sauce made of raisins and dried dates. I ask Menon about his role in the conservation of Tibetan Antelopes, Chiru and the banning of Shahtoosh, the wool cruelly extracted after slaughtering them. "I realised that Chiru conservation could never succeed as long as fashionistas continued to covet Shahtoosh shawls," he said. Also, he realised, banning Shahtoosh would put 20,000-odd workers in strife-torn Kashmir out of jobs. WTI set up a centre in Srinagar to weave super-fine Pashmina with the help of some of these out-of-work artisans. Then Menon roped in fashion designer Ritu Kumar to design apparel with this fabric. "We participated in four consecutive Lakme Fashion Weeks, had the reigning beauties of the time to model our Pashmina, and generated awareness about Shahtoosh amongst the glitterati," he says. "And so it came to pass that a man who started out working with animals is here before you, selling shawls!" Before I can laugh, he adds, "Now we are working to set up the production of Eri silk in Manas… so soon, I'll be selling saris and scarves too! But finding alternate livelihoods for communities dependent on forests, is critical for conservation…"

Just then, chef Manish Malhotra walks out of the kitchen, fusses over us a little, pronounces our food too cold to eat and sends us hot curry from the kitchen. The service at Indian Accent is indeed fantastic, but I don't have time to savour it as Menon talks about another aspect of conservation close to his heart - education. His latest book, full of colour photographs and painstakingly researched, is priced at only Rs 850 (further discounted to Rs 650 on WTI's website). "I explained to Hachette, my publishers, that I wanted to keep the price as low as possible to make the book accessible to a larger audience," he says.

We order coffee to wash down the big lunch. Soon after we finish, the server places a dainty assortment of churans, mouth fresheners and rose petal chikki on a miniature charpai. Menon is enthralled, and insists on a photograph of us with the table for his Twitter account (he's a self-confessed Twitter freak). Over coffee, Menon talks about elephants, his favourite animals. "They're intelligent, have memories, emotions and feelings. In front of them, the tiger is just a big cat!" he says. "In fact, elephants are an important keystone species, for their presence indicates that their habitat is in good health." Although elephants seem ubiquitous in the spread across the country, they're facing grave risk of endangerment. "Their habitat is shrinking and degrading drastically," says Menon. WTI has been working to protect elephant corridors, currently threatened by railway lines, highways, deforestation, mining and increased human activity in general. "Their unimpeded movement is imperative as it prevents the isolation of herds, enhancing species survival and birth rates," he says. Currently, only 22.8 per cent of the existing corridors in India (88 according to WTI figures) are free of major human settlements. "The single biggest challenge that conservation faces today is of land availability," he says ruefully. "There just isn't enough of it!"

It must be occasionally frustrating, I comment as we get up to leave, to bat for what seems to be, the losing side. Menon laughingly disagrees, especially about being on the losing side. "I'm an optimistic man," he says. "In spite of rapid urbanisation, a billion-plus population and industrial growth, we remain one of the most bio-diverse nations in the world. Our laws are stringent, and contrary to what you may think, they actually do get implemented!" There's plenty of good news about conservation in India, but bad news gets better press, says Menon. As a parting shot, he adds, "As a nation, we tend to flagellate ourselves for our mistakes. Shouldn't we celebrate our little victories too?"