It was during a visit to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya that Gaikwad, an associate professor of anatomy at the Bombay Veterinary College (BVC), developed an interest in the rare art of taxidermy. “The animal specimens on display were so realistic. I was restless to know how they were made,” he says. On a mission to learn the process, Gaikwad, who has been teaching for 12 years, would return home with dead chicken or fish, preserve them and meticulously practice the art till he had grasped it.
There are no formal training programmes for taxidermy, so the 39-year-old set out on his own, identifying and acquiring the skills required for making specimens that can be preserved for 50 to 60 years. The art combines the know-how of five subjects — carpentry, cobbling, painting, sculpting and an understanding of anatomy. In taxidermy, Gaikwad found a way to unite his education in science with his love for the fine arts. He frequented leather workshops in Dharavi to discover how skins were protected from decomposition and befriended Ganesha idol-makers to get tips on sculpting and painting.
The veterinarian, who first tested his skills on birds and fish, also began working on mammals. In 2009, Gaikwad, who is one of the very few practitioners of the art in India, helped set up the Wildlife Taxidermy Centre — the only one of its kind in the country — at the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) in north Mumbai. There, he has revived the fading practice for educational use and makes specimens of those wild creatures that die of natural causes in zoos and forests.
It is easy to discern that Gaikwad is a teacher when he describes the process of taxidermy, extending a finger as he lists each step. First, the body is collected and preserved. Then, the skin is separated by performing a ‘mid-ventral’ incision. After traces of fat are removed from the skin, it is immersed in a combination of chemicals. A model of the skeleton is then made and used to create a mould on which the skin is mounted. It takes up to two months to perform taxidermy on a large mammal. Lack of time and skilled assistance prolongs the procedure and Gaikwad needs eight or nine months to finish a specimen.
‘Taxi’ means ‘arrangement’ and ‘dermy’ comes from the Latin word for ‘skin’. The doctor has now been able to study anatomy more closely and appreciate the elevations and depressions of muscles in various animals — “like the folds that appear on a tiger’s skin when it snarls and how its whiskers stick out,” observes the bespectacled man with neatly-parted hair. High resolution images on Google and Discovery channel shows also act as guides.
As part of his PhD, Gaikwad studied cloning, but when it came to choosing a second profession, he picked taxidermy over research. He also gave up his regular veterinary practice to make time. “Veterinary science is all about rehabilitation. I think taxidermy gives life after death.”
With the support of BVC’s associate dean, Ashish Paturkar, and head of the anatomy department, P L Dhande, he approached SGNP to open a centre for taxidermy. Within a year, Chief Conservator of Forests Sunil Limaye helped convert a space that was used as a garage for three mini-vans at the park into the taxidermy centre.
Animal specimens peer from various corners of the centre. They don’t bat an eyelid or move a muscle, yet the effect is menacing, making the place seem like the hideout of an ’80s film villain. After some finishing touches, these models will be dispatched to interpretation centres at zoos, museums and wildlife parks. Gaikwad is currently working on a Himalayan black bear and rosy pelican, both from the Jijamata Udyan. He goes to the centre occasionally on weekdays and almost every Sunday.
“Taxidermy is largely unknown and those who have heard of the art know it as ‘stuffing’,” he rues. The art, which is common in other nations, was not always unusual in India. Mysore-based Van Ingen & Van Ingen catered to international royalty as well as maharajas, preparing trophies out of their hunting spoils right from the early 1900s. Van Ingen models were known for lifelike poses, beauty and painstaking detail. Their flourishing business, however, began to flag around the 1970s, when the government brought in The Wildlife Protection Act to crack down on hunting. The operation was shut down in 1999.
Gaikwad is wary of spreading the art as there is a risk of it being misused. It should be learned and practised by a select set of people, preferably forest officials, he says. The practice, he says, must be kept alive to enable observation of endangered species. “Nobody cares to read now. If you have some information and a picture, it doesn’t draw as much interest as a lifelike specimen.”
His toughest assignment was working on an elephant at the Alapalli forest division in Gadchiroli, a Naxalite area, in 2009. It took him a week to procure the skin with the help of several labourers. Most recently, he finished working on India’s last Siberian tiger, Kunal, which will be exhibited at the Nainital zoo.
Some of his students who are curious about the art occasionally join him at the centre, but it is largely a lonely profession. With some skilled help, he would like to get his work up to world standards and have the specimens strike more convincing poses. The centre, which has received requests from institutions in states like Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Chhatisgarh, was a huge step in Gaikwad’s endeavour. At least now, he does not have to take his work home anymore.