Conservation has driven the king of the jungle out of his kingdom, as the first film on the life of a pride of Asiatic lions shows
Substitute the roar with an occasional grunt. Substitute the kingdom with a fast-diminishing territory. Substitute, in fact, all the trappings of royalty with an endangered apparatus of survival.
Only then will you begin to perceive the pathos of the lions of Gir Sanctuary and National Park in Gujarat. In this last habitat of the Asiatic lion, the male is just a hungry beast, the female is a mother and provider, and the cubs are just babies to be fed frequently and protected all the time.
Thanks to conservation efforts, their number has grown from 20 to more than 300 over time, but the lions of Gir are paying too high a price for the success of conservation efforts. They are being forced out of their habitat, often to the sea front on the western coast. Sadly, that is quite literally the end of the road for the most majestic resident of the Indian wilderness.
The Lions of Gir, screened at New Delhi
