Mumbai: The conventional measures of legacy usually have material and career success centred firmly in their sights. Aditya ‘Dicky’ Singh, former bureaucrat turned legendary wildlife photographer, tiger expert, author and conservationist had that in spades. The tributes that poured in from the wildlife and photography communities across the world at his untimely passing at the age of 57 were ample proof of this.
Yet, a truer measure of legacy is the people who value memories from shared times of empty pockets and unknown futures. On 14 January, Dicky’s classmates, the Batch of ’84 from Modern School, Barakhamba Road, gathered to pay tribute to their batchmate by contributing to the release of a special edition of Wildlife Today magazine at the National Sports Club of India, on his visionary work and activism in shaping future thinking on conservation and wildlife.
Entitled Wildlife Maestro: Dicky’s Legacy, the special edition was released by his mother Mrs Aruna Singh amongst the legion of friends and family who had gathered for an emotional homage. Several classmates shared personal anecdotes about Dicky’s larger-than-life personality, his sharp humour and his generosity. His father Brigadier N.B. Singh spoke with feeling about how Dicky took his ‘permission’ to give up the civil services and plunge into an unknown future in Ranthambore National Park, driven only by his passion for the wild. No one could predict it would be his home for the rest of his life.
The special edition edited by Sudhir Kumar, captures Dicky’s visionary tale. His name was synonymous with Ranthambore, the tiger land that inspired him to breezily chuck a weighty bureaucratic career overnight to plunge into a passionate affair with wildlife that took him from observer to guide to host to builder and finally, fittingly; preserver and defender of the land he so cherished. It outlines the extraordinary initiative he and his lifelong companion in arms, wife Poonam, took up in buying land around their Ranthambore home and rewilding it, his outspokenness on and dedication to the preservation of the wild, his anti-poaching initiatives and his sheer passion for nature.
It offers glimpses of his photography not just as an astonishingly close-up photographic record of his beloved tiger land but one that visually captured the high intellectual debate of development vs natural resources and the balance between human and animal, winning him both the coveted Carl Zeiss Award and the Sanctuary Wild Life Photographer along the way.
Dicky Singh is survived by his wife Poonam, daughter Nyra and the beautiful forest full of wild beings that will live on long after him. His absence leaves a massive void in the conservation and wildlife community that needs every hero it can get.
