shahtoosh...

...is the under fleece of the endangered Tibetan antelope chiru. Shahtoosh cannot be sheared like sheep wool because the length of the sheared fiber is not enough to spin it into a yarn. It can only be plucked out of the pelt of a dead animal. So large herds of chiru are machine gunned in Tibet, and then skinned to get about 150 gms of shahtoosh each. It takes about 3 dead chirus to make a ladies shawl, for a men's shawl it takes about 5-6 dead chirus. The shahtoosh is smuggled across the border into J&K where skilled shahtoosh weavers knit the yarn and finished shawls reach the cities of India where the khandaani rich pay ridiculous price to own them. A shahtoosh shawl is like a symbol of wealth and royalty. And there are many a wealthy royals in India.

Question is, do I want to own a shawl that is drenched in blood?

kaisi aawaaz?

On my way back home when I was reading about the Tibetan antelope and the illegal "shahtoosh" trade, I got reminded of this little incident, kind of unrelated, and it made me laugh, almost aloud.

It was a february night and we were returning back to our base camp through the forest. The jeep had to take a turn to the right onto a kachcha road. I was enjoying everything - the forest, the slight chill in the air and ofcourse the familiar anticipation of a sighting that never leaves you when you are in a forest. So just as the jeep slowed down to take the turn, I turned to my colleague who was driving and said, "yeh aawaaz kaisi hai?" and he asked, "kaisi awaaz?", and I said, "waisi jaise jab hawa nikalti hai..." and before I could finish, I looked at him and he looked at me, we immediately got out to find the rear tyre flat - nikal gayi hawa. :)

It was then a well co-ordinated ten minute effort by four people to replace the tyre, of which my contribution was to focus the already faint and fastly fainting torch light where the action was, and at the same time stealing anticipatory glances this way and that, hoping(and dreading) something might just pass by! :)