Vishal Sabharwal

Vishal is a wildlife photographer and enthusiast. To begin lets piece out a page from his memory. He was in 5th grade, out on a school camping trip with his hostel friends.

The village that surrounded them was probably the only from where the other villagers came to fetch water, along with the villagers the water hole was shared by wild animals too. The animals were seldom chased away if they found footings through the village inhabiting the water source. The 3 nights that they housed there each morning he would awaken to find himself wanting to walk across to the small lake and he did. Keeping his distance he observed the regular visitors; a heard of elephants. Generally this heard would cross through the village late at night or wee hours of dawn as there was better grounding there. There was one elephant who would step out of the water and enjoy her sand bath. He realized there were many similarities between how we as kids enjoyed back then and the elephants, only soon to find himself being scolded for creeping too close to them, as he got agitated he could also sense the same agitation among elephants on hearing people shout behind him.

The elephants didn’t hesitate about him sharing their space, the instinctive Gentle Giants like any other wild animal showed respect for his boundaries as he did for theirs. He carried that practical knowledge along with him to this day, as he has always found it lead him to good photographs. On travels he finds himself encouraging village kids to respect and understand wild animals who share the same space, because after all we are the ones stretching our boundaries & encroaching into their space.

Do log on to his lovely www.coloursofnature.in.