“John left one million acres of wild, weedy wilderness”
DAVID BEBBER, PHOTOGRAPHER on many of our expeditions, referred to the image below as “the Reservoir Dogs shot”. You can see what he means: that sequence with a group of dodgy characters walking through an equivocal landscape with a sense of shared purpose and a hint of swagger. And why not? It was a moment of triumph.
I’m on the left. In the middle is Vivek Menon, executive director of the Wildlife Trust of India, declaiming, as is his wont: “Look at this land! It is ruined! And I am so happy!” And there at the end, looking a little subdued, as if his mind is already on the next challenge rather than glorying in this one, is John Burton.
If you look hard, you can make out the ghosts of dried-up and abandoned paddy fields. There’s a cluster of huts that were already falling down, and tree saplings were springing up where rice had once been harvested. The ground was littered with great loaves:
