In the dry season, wallows and tunnels dug by crocs provide essential water for other animals, turtles and fish. Many animals depend upon crocs for food for e.g. the sacred Ibis and monitor lizard will eat the eggs of the Nile crocodile. Crocs are also exceptionally resistant to disease and thus may be of great use in medical research.
January brought fresh experience for me and it happened entirely because of Hartman de Souza. I was to return to Goa via Bangalore and since our good friends, Hartman and Ujwala, live in Bangalore and had expressed willingness to accommodate me, should I need a place to stay for a while during my sabbatical, my parents suggested that I spend a few days there before returning home. I was to stay at their place, sight-see Bangalore if I liked and inform my parents as soon as I was ready to return. This then was the general plan.
I reached Bangalore at 1.40 p.m. on the 7th of January. Bing (that's how we all call Hartman) was at the bus-stand to pick me up, with his car. We drove to his house, me chatting away in reply to all his questions. At home there was Ujwala and their kids, Zuri and her younger brother, Zaeer. Also living with them at the time was Mrs Kalai who was Bing's colleague at the India Foundation for the Arts.
After settling down to a good meal and generally relaxing, Bing told me that he had in mind a few people and institutions connected with my interest i.e., wildlife and that I should use my time in Bangalore to meet them. I agreed to his suggestion, little realizing that the people he suggested I meet would make their own suggestions about other people I should meet and when I would report this information to Bing, he would insist that I go and meet them as well. So I spent quite a few days meeting, or writing to, various persons connected with wildlife in Bangalore.
Bing is quite a hard taskmaster and he would not let me off easily; if the people were not in station at that time or, if the names suggested were not from Bangalore, I had to write to them instead. I wrote numerous letters as a result. The general purpose of this activity was that I should get an idea of what options were there for me if I decided to pursue a career in wildlife eventually. Bing also suggested that I should try to find out how and why these people decided to take to environment and wildlife studies, whether they were happy in their choices and so on.