Chapter 10: Zoo Ka Maatam (The Zoo's Mourning)

The Metro Zoo in Rajiv Gandhi Zoological Park — Pune's zoo, the zoo that sat on eighty acres of land that had once been the Katraj forest's edge and that the edge was now the zoo's boundary and the boundary containing: 150 species, 800 individual animals, the animals being the zoo's residents and the residents being: affected.

Bhushan received the call from the zoo's veterinarian — Dr. Prerna Mehta, a woman whose voice on the phone carried the particular flatness that veterinarians produced when animals were dying and the dying was: multiple, simultaneous, unexplained.

"Dr. Kulkarni, aapko aana padega. Hamari animals — behavioural changes ho rahe hain. Kuch animals kha nahi rahe. Kuch reproduce nahi kar rahe. Aur — do deaths hua hai is hafte. Unexplained."

Dr. Kulkarni, you need to come. Our animals — behavioural changes are happening. Some animals aren't eating. Some aren't reproducing. And — there have been two deaths this week. Unexplained.

Two deaths. The two-deaths being: the zoo's particular alarm, the alarm that the zoo sounded when animals died without diagnosis because the without-diagnosis was the veterinarian's failure and the failure was: not acceptable.

Bhushan went. He took Tarun — the taking being the decision that the investigation required documentation and the documentation being the reporter's function.

The zoo at 9 AM — the zoo that should have been: noisy. Indian zoos at morning were the particular concert of awakening animals — macaws calling, elephants trumpeting, the nocturnal house residents settling, the diurnal residents rising. The concert being the zoo's daily overture and the overture being: life.

The zoo was quiet. Not silent (the zoo still had sound — the maintenance staff, the keepers, the mechanical systems) but quiet in the way that the forest had been quiet: the animal sounds absent, the absent-animal-sounds being the void that the human sounds could not fill.

Dr. Mehta met them at the administrative building. Her face carrying the exhaustion that veterinarians carried when the dying exceeded the treating — the exceeding being: the overwhelm, the overwhelm of a doctor whose patients could not tell her what was wrong.

"Pehle reptile house chalte hain," she said. Let's go to the reptile house first.

The reptile house — the building that contained the zoo's collection of Indian reptiles: King Cobra, Spectacled Cobra, Russell's Viper, Indian Python, the collection being the educational mandate that the zoo fulfilled: showing India's reptilian diversity to visitors.

The King Cobra's enclosure. The enclosure that contained: the King Cobra — or that should have contained the King Cobra. The cobra was present — coiled in the far corner of the enclosure, motionless. Not the stillness of a resting snake (resting snakes maintained the particular posture that indicated alertness, the alertness being the snake's default because the default was: survival). This was: the stillness of a snake that had stopped being a snake. The snake was present but the snake-ness — the alertness, the readiness, the coiled-spring tension that was the King Cobra's identity — was absent.

"Yeh teen din se move nahi kiya. Food refuse kar raha hai. Core temperature — elevated. Same as your trees." Dr. Mehta's observation — the observation that connected the zoo to the forest: the trees had fever, the snakes had fever, the fever being the common symptom.

It hasn't moved in three days. Refusing food. Core temperature — elevated. Same as your trees.

Bhushan pressed his face to the glass. The pressing being the ecologist's instinct — get close, observe, the observing being the fundamental act. The cobra's eyes were open. The open-eyes being: the snake was alive, the snake was conscious, but the snake was not responding. Comatose. The same word that Bhushan had used for the forest.

They moved through the zoo. Each enclosure producing the same observation: animals present but suppressed. The elephants — standing, motionless, the trunk-swaying that was the elephant's constant motion absent. The leopard — lying, eyes open, the pacing that was the caged-leopard's default absent. The deer — clustered together, not grazing, the not-grazing being the refusal of food that Dr. Mehta had reported.

The two deaths: a Sloth Bear (female, twelve years old, found dead in enclosure at 6 AM, no visible injuries) and a Nilgiri Langur (male, eight years old, found dead in the nocturnal house, no visible injuries).

"Post-mortem results?" Bhushan asked.

"Sloth Bear — organ failure. Multiple organs. Simultaneously. Heart, liver, kidneys — all showed signs of acute failure. No toxicology results yet. Langur — same. Multiple organ failure."

Multiple organ failure. The diagnosis that was: the body's systems shutting down simultaneously, the simultaneously being the echo of the fireflies (all stopping at once) and the forest (all going silent at once) and the mycorrhizal networks (degrading across all sites at once). The pattern being: simultaneous, systemic, the systemic being the anomaly's signature — not targeting one thing but targeting everything, the everything being the system.

"Dr. Mehta, toxicology mein organophosphates check karvayein. Specifically. Hamare soil samples mein elevated levels mile hain." Check for organophosphates in the toxicology. Specifically. We've found elevated levels in our soil samples.

"Karenge. Results ek hafte mein aayenge." We will. Results in a week.

One week. The week that would determine: was the Malhotra connection real? Were the organophosphates the cause — or the contributing factor? Was the chemical contamination producing the organ failure that was killing the zoo's animals?

Tarun photographed. The photographing being: the motionless elephant, the unresponsive cobra, the clustered deer. The photographs that would accompany the article — the article being the story that the zoo-visit produced.

Outside the zoo, Bhushan stopped. The stopping being: the pause that the overwhelm produced — the overwhelm of a man who had spent thirty years studying ecosystems and who the studying had produced the understanding that the understanding was being violated. The ecosystems were failing. The failing being: real, observable, documented. And the documenting was not solving. The documenting was recording the failure and the recording was: insufficient.

"Tarun," Bhushan said. Standing in the zoo's parking lot, the parking lot's asphalt radiating the heat of a sun that should have been blocked by monsoon clouds and that the blocked-not-being was the anomaly. "Yeh zoo hai. Controlled environment. Animals ko proper food milta hai, proper water, proper shelter. Agar controlled environment mein bhi animals affected hain — toh yeh water contamination nahi hai. Yeh food quality nahi hai. Yeh kuch aur hai. Kuch jo air mein hai. Ya kuch jo — kuch jo har jagah hai."

This is a zoo. Controlled environment. Animals get proper food, proper water, proper shelter. If even in a controlled environment animals are affected — then it's not water contamination. It's not food quality. It's something else. Something in the air. Or something that's — something that's everywhere.

"Everywhere" being: the word that changed the investigation's frame. Not localised contamination (Malhotra's factories). Not watershed pollution (Vashishti River). Something everywhere. Something that permeated the environment at a level that the investigation had not yet identified.

"Kya everywhere hai?" Tarun asked. The reporter's question that was the investigation's question.

What is everywhere?

"Mujhe nahi pata. But main pata karunga." Bhushan — the three words repeated: "mujhe nahi pata." I don't know. The three words that the ecologist said more often now than in his entire career. The more-often being: the anomaly's particular gift to the ecologist — the gift of ignorance, the ignorance that was not the absence of knowledge but the presence of something that exceeded knowledge.

I don't know. But I'll find out.

They drove back to the university in silence. The silence being: the processing, the two men processing the zoo-visit in the particular way that shared silence produced — the shared-silence being the communication that did not require words because the words were insufficient and the insufficient being: the zoo's animals were dying and the dying was part of the pattern and the pattern was: everything.

That evening, Bhushan told Charu. The telling being: at the kitchen table, over the one chai that the water-rationing permitted, the telling producing Charu's particular response.

"Bhushan, agar animals controlled environment mein bhi affected hain — toh humein bhi hoga. Chitra — Chitra ki heart condition already compromise hai. Agar yeh jo bhi hai usse usko affect kare —"

Bhushan, if animals in a controlled environment are also affected — then it'll affect us too. Chitra — Chitra's heart condition is already a compromise. If whatever this is affects her —

The sentence that Charu did not finish. The not-finishing being: the mother's refusal to complete the thought that the completing would make real and the real was: the possibility that the anomaly could harm her daughter.

"Chitra theek hai. Abhi tak koi symptoms nahi hain." Chitra is fine. No symptoms so far.

"Abhi tak." The two words that Charu added. The two words meaning: so far. The so-far being the temporal qualifier that said: not yet, but possibly, and the possibly being the fear.

So far.

Bhushan sat with the so-far. The sitting-with-so-far being the father's particular burden: the burden of knowing that "so far" was not "forever" and that the not-forever was the space where the fear lived.