Animal kin(g)dom
Pulkit Vasudha
HER wild, wild ways bedazzle her parents, she prefers animals to sedentary pursuits, crocs, snakes outshine Sallu miya who figures in her black(buck)list! For Janvi Karwal, this animal kingdom’s her oyster.
“I like working with the animals in the zoo, not looking at them from a distance,” says the 15-year-old. “Crocodiles and snakes are my favourites, though I work in the lion and hippopotamus cages too,” she beams. For the past two years, the Kankaria zoo at Ahmedabad has found an unusual worker in Janvi who cools off at the zoo during her summer holidays by helping the workers keep the animal enclosures clean.
Giving her coaching classes the miss – unlike her friends who are readying for the class X exams next year – she prefers cleaning lions’ cages, draining the crocodile pool and scrubbing the glass panes in the snake gallery. And it’s not a first for her, for she’s been there, done that!
“My mother used to leave me at the zoo when she went to work. This is like my second home. We had seven pets in the house when I was born. Since then I have had dogs, parrots, lovebirds, cockatoos, hamsters, guinea pigs, goats, tortoises and snakes as pets,” she rattles off.
Her decision to spend her holidays at the zoo two years ago had her parents alarmed. In know of her passion for wildlife, they dreaded any untoward incident while handling the animals. “Everytime, she enters the cage, she scares the wits out of me. Yet, I know she can take care of herself,” says her father Atul Karwal.
Janvi assists the head animal keeper, Ranjit Singh Jadeja, in taking care of the zoo and its animals. She cleans animals’ cages, drains water pools and scrubs the pool floors with brooms. Jadeja is all praise for this spunky teenager. “She does all the work in the animals’ enclosures with me, whether its cleaning up algae or throwing out half-eaten fishes and dung,” he says.
“I never wanted to enter a crocodile enclosure. When Jadeja uncle realised that I was afraid, he gently urged me to touch a crocodile. He stood nearby as I crept towards a croc and felt the rugged skin near its mouth. Now I scrub pools while crocodiles play in the mud around,” she says.
One of Janvi’s favorite pets was her red sand boa, Slinky.
“I used to love watching Slinky gobble up whole rats,” she says delightedly. She explains how a snake’s heart actually moves aside to let the prey pass through the narrow food pipe. “I want to learn to handle the snake so that I can hold even poisonous ones. Now, I am only allowed to hold the non-poisonous ones,” she rues.
Apart from her ‘animal care’ routine, Janvi enjoys horse riding, photography, yoga, karate and boxing. Her punching bag at home has snaps of people she dislikes and Salman Khan tops the place.
“He killed deer,” she exclaims vehemently. “People who disturb animals in forests and at the zoo should be severely punished,” she says matter-of-factly.
Janvi eyes the zoo superintendent’s job when she grows up.
“I want to give the animals better lives at the zoo,” she says. Dr R K Sahu, zoo superintendent, says, “We need devoted people like Janvi to work with us. She never flinches from clearing animal excreta or going into enclosures of the most dangerous animals.”
Janvi’s father is fully supportive of his daughter’s unconventional choice of profession.
“It is fair to let children explore their passions and make their decisions. Even the search for a passion or profession is worthwhile,” says a proud father.
Source: Indian Express