Appreciations

Amongst many I have met while travelling the dry zone wilderness of Sri Lanka, Ravi was a remarkable man whose zest for the arid jungles never waned over time. During the late eighties and early nineties, Yala was still the place we frequented in search of that elusive cat – the leopard, and back then a younger man seated on the rear seat of Lal’s vehicle was Ravi, holding a 500 mm Sigma lens, patiently waiting for that moment.

It was later in life that I ventured on a project with him, to publish a coffee table book on the Yala wilderness with a natural bias for leopards. There were many times I travelled the Ruhuna with the late Dilrukshan, another true friend and Ravi and I spent many nights seated outside the Yala bungalows discussing the day’s work and ways we could help the dwindling conservation efforts of this country.

It was during one such evening while penning the preface of our book, I had a chat with Ravi on how his passion for the wilderness grew. He explained that while universities remained closed in 1987 for several months, a casual visit to his favourite haunts of Kalametiya and Bundala one crisp morning had a profound impact on him. The early morning sunlight filtering through the fresh shoots of a thorn shrub illuminated a myriad dew drops while colourful butterflies floated in the air which was fresh and pure.. I remember him explaining that defining moment when he realized that it was this experience that he yearned for. Hoping that someday – he would spend the better part of his life exploring the wilds of Lanka.

He soon realized that dream when he left the medical profession in 2001 venturing into full time research on leopards in Yala and elsewhere. The dedication he showed on painstaking research data gathered over the next five years was fascinating: You meet many who enjoy the wilderness but only a very few would get involved in issues to help the efforts of conservation. I always felt that it is a gift to have a beautiful mind that admires nature. But it is a greater gift to have a heart that wants to protect it.
In Ravi, we lost one such heart…