The Sanctuary Interview - Meet Pankaj Sharma

It would be an understatement to say that Pankaj Sharma is a brave and unassuming man. Part of a crack defence team that quite literally entrusted their lives with each other, they hit back at rhino poachers who had taken to killing rhinos in Kaziranga, virtually unchallenged, in the late 1980s. Rhino deaths dropped dramatically and the Kaziranga we see today was in no small measure a result of their do-or-die determination.

A stickler for the law, he was content to stay a Forest Ranger for decades, unwilling to trade forest life for a desk job in Guwahati. Still a field man, he is currently the Divisional Forest Officer in charge of the Nameri Tiger Reserve. Bittu Sahgal met him recently at Nameri and had to quite literally coerce this quiet, self-effacing man to speak about himself.

- Bittu Sahgal

Pankaj, we have known each other for ages but I still know so little about you.

(Smiling) What is there to know? I was born and brought up in Guwahati. My father was an educationist and worked as a State Social Education Officer of undivided Assam. His life was dedicated to educating rural communities and he wanted little more than to help uplift society. I am the youngest of six brothers and sisters. My wife is a homemaker and my daughter will soon appear for her 12th year final exams.

Your schooling? And did you know you were going to be who you are today… a hero for all who want our wildlife saved?

Nothing so dramatic. I studied at the Cotton Collegiate Higher Secondary School in Guwahati. When I was young, all I wanted to be was a doctor or engineer… what every parent wished for their children back then. The trouble is I was really lousy at studies, so that ambition soon died. But I did end up graduating with a Botany major from the B. Borooah College, Guwahati.

And then?

Then I joined the Forest Service, at which point my late brother sat me down and explained that if I wanted to live with dignity, I would need to develop a passion around one or other subject that dealt with forests, which he knew had already taken over my life. An engineer with a passion for birds, he introduced me to avians. Later, a tiny little nine-year-old boy, Maan Barua, whose obsession with birds was beyond ordinary, wrapped me in the sheer joy of birding. In my view, he is one of India’s finest ornithologists today and is currently an Assistant Professor at Cambridge University. I owe my abiding love and fascination for birds to Maan. Down the years, we spent time birding in the wilds of Assam and this ended up in our publishing two checklists of the birds of the Kaziranga and Nameri National Parks.

And who were your heroes? Who inspired you?