'if a man cannot hear the arguments of the frogs ..'

Sanctuary runs a years old green column by green friend Bittu Sahgal; have read many; the August 2016 column starts with a Chief Seattle quote: ' What is there to life...if man cannot hear the arguments of the frogs around a pond at night?' Sahgal runs on: ' While people like you worry about tigers, right under your nose, Rana Tigrina is vanishing,' thundered the late Humayun Abdulali, as only he could at a Bombay Natural History Society Conservation Committee meeting we both attended in the early 1980s. How right he was. How right he still is.' Coming from Bittu Sahgal, a confessed tiger lover. Today, frogs are away faster than tigers. Tiger has a constituency. Frog legs are tasty. Exception, my dear old Varad Giri who took me to frogs in Amboli on pouring nights. When there was no Adinath Marg near Dharma Nagar Housing Society, watched frogs, snails and one day two snakes braided... Now there is nothing; none misses the love songs of Rana Tigrina. And today the Indian Express carries an Economist obituary on Luc Hoffman, dead on July 21, 2016, aged 93. 'When it came to birds, Luc Hoffman was no elitist. Every species was precious to him,' writes Economist. He argued for wetlands tracking crowds of greater flamingos of the Camargue in south-eastern France. (The Maharashtra government is set to do away Sewri flats, for a bridge, where many and me meet up greater and lesser flamingos every year). His grandfather founded pharma firm Hoffman-La Roche; Luc had cash; wrote cheques for World Wildlife Fund; presided over the global treaty protecting wetlands in 1971 at Ramsar in Iran. Says the Economist: He was no militant, seeing the cause of conservation as going far beyond partisan politics or the shock tactics of Greenpeace; but in old age he shared much of their frustration. Small successes had been notched up here and there; not much more. Like the bee-eaters battling the wind, he was grateful to have caught a few flies on the wing; but his real ambition had been to change the wind itself.' Do not know if  Bittu Sahgal feels alone; he sure has not been able to change the wind going by Bahar Dutt in today's Mint on drunk and noisy city trekkers ruining forests, birds and animals. Should night treks be allowed in the forest, she asks. A firm NO. Let trekkers walk and run highways skating the country; ruin cities; trekkers and runners are supremely selfish. Setting out on morning walks in August mornings, watch and stand still beside hibiscus and gandharajans; haikus; on the walk back, they are no more; plucked by ladies and gents for bhagwan ki pooja ke liye. No arguments.