Perhaps, it was in character. The filmmaker, craggy in his outdoor clothes, looked slightly out of place under the glittering chandelier. Frankly, he appeared more at home in the film's backdrop, his hair matching the grey sand as he stood talking to the fishermen. "For years, I trudged up there, looking for the whale shark, finding out how it was hunted by the local people, of which people were hardly aware. Even experts were dismissive of the existence of the whale shark, a harmless species, on the Indian coast. There was a money problem and it took three long years to make the film," Pandey recalled. There were other problems as well, logistical and life-threatening. The film outraged environmentalists, who campaigned for the preservation of the shark, already endangered in many habitats. It won the Wildscreen Panda Award, also known as the Green Oscar, at the Wildscreen International Film Festival for Environment and Conservation in 2000. The government sat up and whale shark killing was banned under the Wildlife Protection Act in 2001. Pandey's earlier work The Last Migration-Wild Elephant Capture at Sarguja was the first Asian film to win a Green Oscar (1994). It focused on the sorry plight of India's once-venerated animal. It later bagged five other international awards. Another film Honey Hunters of the Blue Mountains also received an award at the Earth Vision 2000 Festival in the USA. At present, he is keeping a tryst with tigers in the Bandhavgarh Sanctuary.

It takes a lot of coaxing to make the reticent Pandey talk about himself. But there is a treasure of experiences to be drawn out from this intrepid conservationist whose m`E9tier is the moving picture. "My profession is a happy combination of my love for wildlife and photography. I got my first camera at the age of seven. From then on, I've found that pictures speak more than words," he says. His love affair with the wild actually began in the jungles of Africa where his grandfather had migrated in colonial times. His father used to work in the police department in Kenya. Now retired, with a handsome pension, he tends to his acres of sugarcane plantation in Kishengunj in Bihar. "My middle name 'H' stands for Hari, by the way. We used to come to India by ship during the holidays. On way to Porbundar, I saw these huge fishes accompanying us all the way. I thought they were whales. That vague memory stuck with me. Then an old fisherman led me to the whale shark."

The encounter was not a happy one. He saw its merciless slaughter by local fishermen, who had lately discovered the lucre its meat, fat and fin could fetch, from export to other countries. It is not consumed in India. The local fishermen go for the liver, the oil from which is used for waterproofing boats. Earlier too, it was being killed, but never in such an organised, large-scale manner, Pandey was informed by older fishermen. "Natural extinction is a part of evolution. But unnatural extinction by humans has become a sign of our times," he laments.

Pandey has in his kitty a Diploma in Film Direction and Cinematography from The London Film School, Euston, and a Diploma in Sound Engineering and Special Effects Photography from The Regent Street Polytechnic, London. He has also specialised in special effects and sound effects from Universal and MGM Studios in Hollywood. But it was nature that beckoned him and thus was born the Riverbank Studios in Delhi more than 25 years ago, to make films on India's fragile environment and endangered wildlife. The non-profit organisation, Earth Matters Foundation, is an extension of his efforts to pursue issues linked to the country's flora and fauna. About 300 films have till now been churned out from the studio, each focusing on an aspect of India's diverse ecology in a bid "to demystify nature" for the common people.

Pandey gets angry when he talks of human greed. "There's a lack of concerted will. People talk about the millions of rupees Veerappan has made from killing the elephants for their tusks but they don't know that the brigand has also seriously disturbed the male-female ratio of the elephants in the forests of south India. The adverse effect on the gene pool will be evident in the near future," he warns. He has also serious reservation about the much-touted project for linking the river waters in India. "Water of each river has its own character, the PH factor is different. Ignoring these characteristics can only mean disaster."

Pandey has no patience for the debates on approaches to conservation by different agencies, sometimes on the same subject. " Today, talking about wildlife or environment preservation has become fashionable with many people without them possessing basic knowledge. Good words or seminars galore don't bring about conservation. It's time to start it from the grassroots. We've to go to the sources. And work from there. And no romantic notions, please!" TWF