Parashuram Mahadev Lad (December 29, 1934 – January 17, 2018)

P. M. Lad was a legend in his lifetime. A member of the Indian Forest Service, he spent a lifetime defending wildlife and the forests he loved. Kishor Rithe writes about this passionate birder, who  visited every Indian state, save for Tripura, to study and enjoy the avians of the Indian subcontinent.

“P. M. Lad is no more.” The message was so stark, so difficult to digest that I actually contemplated dialling his cell number to confirm the news! He was not just close to my heart, but was a man I admired. He taught me much about life and the wildernesses I am sworn to defend. I spoke to him at least once a week, sometimes more often, our conversations ranging from his latest birding trip to conservation issues of national importance. Now he is gone… and I carry both the joy and the burden of being the sole beneficiary of some of the vast field experiences he shared with me. When he went, a vital and very unique repository of knowledge built over years of detailed observations in the field went with him.

After a lifetime of work, I was sad to see how unhappy he was about the state of wildlife conservation in India. In 2017, I found myself at a loss for words when he asked me hard questions about how the Chief Secretary of Madhya Pradesh could endanger Lesser Floricans by imposing a ban of sale of private agricultural lands inside the boundary of the Sailana Sanctuary. This, he knew, would anger the farmers, who owned the land (few use to cultivate, mostly kept untilled). I shared his pain, but hated the fact that he had to confront the unthinkable… that wildlife conservation was floundering in India. I did what I could, for I too wanted to protect this elusive bird species. I wanted to give him the comfort of knowing that the effort to protect what was precious to him would not be abandoned. I introduced him to legal experts and to my close friend Praveen Singh Pardeshi, Additional Chief Secretary, in the Office of the Chief Minister of Maharashtra. But his anger and disappointment with the slide in wildlife governance could not be assuaged because the truth is there was no concrete outcome that he, or I for that matter, could see.