"Try experiencing it once, and you'll see, Bihar is actually 'Vihar'!"
Today, in the first stop of our Central-North India tour, we got the opportunity to interact with the higher officials of the Bihar Forest Department. This is our third study tour of India. Before this, we have done other states of Assam, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal, Orissa, Jharkhand, Sikkim etc.
During our last visit to Eastern India, the way, Jharkhand Forest Department took care of us, it was unforgettable. By the way, it is a very good tradition of Forest Department that even if you go to any corner of the country, being an officer of Forest Department, you will be greeted warmly, but still, if you get better treatment than expected at some places, you will definitely feel very happy. Something similar happened with us during our last tour in Jharkhand and on the opening day of this tour our hearts were touched by the hospitality of the Bihar Forest Department.
Seeing the senior most officers of the forest department and its top management team together under one roof and listening to their encouragement and guidance, we were elated and started thanking our college management from the bottom of our hearts for the wonderful tour program they have made for us.
Our tour in-charge, Rahman sir's students, are widely available all over India, and it is possible that due to this reason we get better response than expected in many places. However, our sir's personality is such that upon hearing his name or merely seeing him, the person in front becomes spellbound and full of reverence.
Today, with the program of visiting the Patna Zoo, our one month tour duly started. We were informed about many nuances of zoo management, in which most of the things were completely new to us. Indian Forest Service officers and the director of Patna Zoo, Mr. Satyajit Kumar, provided us with detailed presentations and introduced us to a wealth of valuable information. We also had the opportunity to interact with the key members of his team, including Mr. Anand Kumar (Animal Section), Mr. Arvind Kumar Verma (Plant Section - Range Officer), and Mr. SP Singh (Veterinary Officer).
We were told here that Patna Zoo is the second residence of Rhino after Kaziranga in the whole of India. most of us might not have known about this fact. After learning this fact and witnessing the success of the rhino breeding program here, many of our colleagues will surely realize the importance of such study tours. The total number of rhinos here has reached 14.
Additionally, witnessing the Hoolock Gibbon and giraffe here gave us a unique and profound experience. We had seen these two wild animals during our early days of the course when we visited Guwahati Zoo. The officials here informed us that the Hoolock Gibbon pair at this zoo was brought through an animal exchange program from Guwahati Zoo. Furthermore, we also had the opportunity to see a black panther in the zoo, which was also brought from Guwahati Zoo.
After the zoo visit, we were given information about snake handling and were also shown holding two snakes of rat snake and king cobra species. During this time, some of our fellow officers might have felt compelled to showcase their bravery by taking photos while holding the rat snake in their hands and posting them as their WhatsApp status. They might have successfully impressed some of their friends with such daring act.
We were already informed earlier that the rat snake species is not venomous. As for the King Cobra, it was deemed appropriate to observe it from a distance because everyone knows that this snake species is highly venomous.
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The Forest Department sponsored delicious breakfast, lunch, snacks, and dinner for us today. Besides that, for the first time, we received so many gifts all together. In the past, we would occasionally get small gifts like caps or pens, but here we also got relatively expensive gifts like bags, t-shirts.
In the evening, we got the opportunity to visit a large park in the city, which was developed by the Forest Department. The Forest Department has developed hundreds of parks in the state of Bihar, and in Patna city, there is a separate forest division called "Parks Division" created by the Forest Department to manage the parks.
It is JDA's job to develop parks, but looking at the encroachment of forest department in this work too, it can be easily guessed that how good work Bihar state forest department is doing at present. From the outside, we feel that this is the case, but even if there is some secret hidden behind it, our instinctive mind has no idea about it!!
By the way, today will be unforgettable in many ways. We didn't expect of hearing from or meeting a high-ranking officer like PCCF(HoFF).
However, when we got the chance to meet him in person, it was as if he was eagerly looking forward to meeting us, just like a family member would be excited to see you.
The experience was almost similar to what we had during our previous visit to Alipurduar. However, the District Magistrate (DM) there was a native of our own state, and the respect and hospitality they showed us didn't seem as strange because in Rajasthan's culture, guests are treated with the reverence given to gods. 'Attithi Devo bhavo' means to treat your guests like as you would treat God. This principle is a part of the Rajasthani Culture. A popular folk song 'Padharo Mhare Desh' literary means 'Welcome to my country'.
Rajasthan Hospitality is famous all over the world. However, during this visit, the experience was even more remarkable as the PCCF (HoFF Saheb) had no direct connection to Rajasthan. Furthermore, all the other senior IFS officers spoke in a very precise and quickly understandable communication style, without any pretentiousness or artificial behavior being evident.
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Until yesterday, some fellow officers from the other CASFOS academy, seeing the name of Bihar in our tour, were making curt comments on us. Our message to them is that..
एक बार करके तो देख तू विचार! .....बिहार तो असल में विहार है!!
