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Surviving In The Wild

Discovery Channel's program Man Vs Wild is a useful collection of such survival skills which just might get you through in case you are ever stranded in a remote and seemingly uninhabitable wilderness like the Zambian bush in Africa or remote Siberia. What are the chances of that happening, you ask? Very less. Of course in 1972 some passengers of the Uruguayan Air Flight 571 had to face a somewhat similar battle when their plane crashed in the Andes, and they lived in the wild for over two months.

This particular production's survivor, his name is Bear Grylls, displays and describes various unpleasant acts like how to find and eat protein-rich larvae, how to catch and cook a frog, how to barbecue leftover carcass, among others. There is a lot of useful information too - for example how to decide which rock is worth climbing if you ever need to get out of a canyon which has a good chance of flash floods, how to decide where to stand if you suddenly come across a pack of wild African elephants and how to filter muddy stream water using wood charcoal to make it drinkable.

Here is a link to Discovery's Man Vs Wild fan site.

Here is the link to the Wikipedia story of Uruguayan Flight 571. In order to spice up your interest just a bit - the wiki article also mentions that some of the survivors resorted to cannibalism in order to save themselves. And that is the definition of a Human Being - social, yet so very animal.

On a related note there is an interesting story of the young man, only 20 something years old, who left his home, survived in the wild and ultimately met his death in the Alaskan wild. Sean Penn's film, Into The Wild, is based upon that story. I did not get a chance to see the film but I did hear Pearl Jam's OST on it; for me Hard Sun was the most notable track.

My Boy Jack

“Have you news of my boy Jack?”
Not this tide.
“When d’you think that he’ll come back?”
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.
“Has any one else had word of him?”
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

“Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?”
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind—
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

~Rudyard Kipling, 1915

Kipling wrote this poem titled "My Boy Jack" when his 18 year old son Jack (John) went missing in the Battle of Loos during World War I. I recently saw David Haig's adapted play based on that particular time of Kipling's life. In the play, David Haig himself plays Rudyard Kipling and Daniel Radcliffe plays young John Kipling.

There are several places where, I feel, the playwright has clearly gone overboard in dramatizing the story. Even if we do make an allowance that the play is a work of fiction, and thus deserves some artistic freedom, there are more than a few things that appear out of place. Rudyard Kipling is portrayed as a rather pompous, energetic man who does not seem to think twice before launching into a scathing attack on anyone (or anything). The play almost goes on to show how he pushes his son into the war and ultimately almost sacrifices him for the sake of his ideals. In my mind, I am unable to imagine the character in the play as the man who wrote the poem above. Rudyard Kipling was, first and foremost, a writer par excellence and therefore clearly must have been a better thinker than what is portrayed in the play. Also it is a widely held belief that he had a unique multicultural perspective on most things, in part attributed to his upbringing in culturally diverse environments across continents. These qualities are certainly apparent in the global appeal and recognition of his work. None of these characteristics are reflected in the Rudyard Kipling created by Haig.

Moving on, the character of Jack Kipling (Daniel Radcliffe) seems to be somewhat unidimensional. Subconsciously he is primarily concerned with only one thing - being able to emulate his father in greatness. This pitiable condition is brought up repeatedly, first with his failure during the eye exam, and then with his sheepish training as a soldier. Both the navy and the army first reject him for his myopic eyes but Rudyard used his enormous influence to get him into the army as a soldier. This pity for Jack reaches its crescendo when later he loses his spectacles during the battle, gets shot and is killed. The young boy's bravery in battle, and his untimely death, are used in the play for the ultimate goal of placing the blame squarely on Rudyard. In summation, the theme of the play is slowly built up to show just one thing - Rudyard Kipling's guilt for the death of his son. The play largely succeeds in this effort. I, however, still have my reservations about the need to do that in the first place.

My Boy Jack cover