officer lansdowne forest division when we go on field trips we are often asked why how would india suffer if there are no elephants or deer the answer is linked to the content of the anthem if a forest has tiger presence it signifies that the ecosystem is healthy from a blade of grass to the mighty elephant abhishek explains india is an agriculturedriven nation dependent on rivers few people know that 80 of these rivers flow out of tiger forests the tiger is at the pinnacle of natures pyramid of life if there is no tiger it means that humans have degraded the forest and the effect is obvious most of all mighty rivers of india have shrunk by 50 in volume in the last 10 years in the absence of tigers humans will move in followed by builders rivers will shrink further and where does that leave us to cut a long story short tiger population is an indicator of the monsoon cycle and oxygen levels he points out the big cat is the guardian of indias green system they are low on the governments agenda as they are not voters encroachment is mostly done by people who constitute a votebank and are backed by one party or the other we are creeping into their land and whenever they are spotted theyre reduced to demons but all the while we have gone tracking we have found tigers avoid humans and must i remind you that india has already lost its cheetah the leopards are dwindling with hundreds of them being killed every year he fumes musically abhishek has also transcended borders between ghazal to pop and from folk to classical fusion it was 2002 and i was travelling from delhi to mumbai i saw gulzar at the airport i did pranam and told him im a great admirer i also had a cassette of my piano recital which i naively gave him and asked him to listen to two days later i got a call i was dumbfounded when gulzar saab said he liked my compositions we discussed and that plan culminated in udaas paani it was at a time when dj remix culture had reached a crescendo but this album did so well that times music approached us for another album that was raat chandni aur main since then there has been no looking back coincidentally abhishek made his bollywood debut with dhulia with whom he had worked for for tv we started our film journey with haasil where i did one track and the background score do tiger tracks inspire his title tracks i couldnt have created music for paan singh had i been an urban composer in an ac studio india lives in its raw rural form he signs off