Conservation's uncelebrated foot soldiers

Anil Kumar Ballavi cooking



Photographs by: Agnimirh Basu

Forest guard R L Maravi patrols a section of his beat of 700 hectares armed with a bamboo baton and a walkie talkie



Photographs by: Agnimirh Basu

Ramakant Mishra, forester at the Indri camp, traces the pugmarks



Photographs by: Agnimirh Basu

“The toughest part of the job is living alone in the forests away from our families,” said Maravi,29, here on the roof of Koppedabri camp to get a signal on the walkie-talki



Photographs by: Agnimirh Basu

Ramakant Mishra shows how to identify a male or a female tiger by the pugmark



Photographs by: Agnimirh Basu

Vinod Singh Thakur forest guard at Simti camp, has been in the service 14 years. The fear of an attack by a tiger or, worse, a bear, is always there, he said. The life of a forest guard is like “renouncing the world, like a vanvaas”



Photographs by: Agnimirh Basu

Anil Kumar Ballavi 21, joined the Kanha National Park as forest guard In August 2008, quitting an undergraduate degree in microbiology in Bhopal after two years. Ramakant Mishra is training him to



Photographs by: Agnimirh Basu