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休息一下……
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精讀|翻譯|片語
Obituary | Burning bright
訃告 | 光芒永存
英文部分選自經濟學人20250615期訃告板塊
Obituary | Burning bright
Valmik Thapar was in love with all the tigers of India
深愛著印度每一隻虎的瓦爾米克·塔帕爾
The convervationist and ardent campaignerdied on May 31st, aged 73
這位自然保護主義者、熱忱的活動家於5月31日辭世，享年73歲
Once seen, he was not easily forgotten. In his kingdom, the national tiger reserve of Ranthambore in Rajasthan, he patrolled night and day, solitary, guarding what was his. His shoulders were broad, his girth impressive; he exuded power and purpose. A thick ruff of hair grew on his cheeks, and his eyes bored and blazed. No one registered more intently the trail of pug-marks or the flocking of vultures; the deer sucking up water-plants from the shallows of RajbaghLake, their antlers flat among the lotus flowers, and the crocodiles that pulled them under; each piglet-rustle in the tall grass. His speed, when he charged, was terrifying. Many of his kind were lazy, but not he; day and night he paced his territory, fearless and often roaring.
一旦見過他，你就很難把他從記憶中抹去。倫滕波爾（Ranthambore）國家老虎保護區位於印度拉賈斯坦邦（Rajasthan）,這是一片屬於他的王國，他日夜在此巡邏，孤獨地守護著自己的領地。他肩大腰圓，意志堅定，渾身散發著力量。一頭濃密的捲髮與臉頰上的鬍鬚連成一片，眼神銳利，目光如炬。沒有人比他更專注和敏銳，留意到動物的足跡或禿鷲的聚集；觀察到在拉傑巴格湖（Rajbagh Lake）淺灘啃食水草的鹿群，鹿角低垂於荷花間，以及將它們拖入水下的鱷魚；捕捉到仔豬在高草叢裡穿行的窸窣聲。他衝鋒時的速度令人膽寒。多數同類懶散，他卻不然。他晝夜巡視自己的領地，無所畏懼，時而怒喝咆哮。
His name was Genghis. But anyone who mistook him for Valmik Thapar would not have been wrong. Mr Thapar admitted that he was obsessed with him; from their first mutual glance, he moved in his skin. The Ranthambore reserve was indeed his domain, all 392 square kilometres of it, and his life was completely entangled with the tigers who, for five decades, he fought to protect. Throughout India (for his love encompassed all its tigers) he was known as “Tiger Man”. In almost 30 books and TV documentaries he spoke in the tiger’s booming voice. And many were the government ministers, the forest wardens and the state jobsworths who, at some encounter or another, had felt the furious glare of those eyes and dreaded the inevitable charge.
他的名字叫成吉思(一頭著名雄虎)。但若人們誤以為“他”是瓦爾米克·塔帕爾，倒也情有可原。塔帕爾承認自己十分痴迷於成吉思，從他們第一次對視時，他就感受到來自內心的觸動。倫滕波爾保護區確實是他的領地，392平方公里的土地皆屬於他，他的生命也完全與這些老虎繫結在了一起，他為了保護它們奮鬥了五十餘載。在印度，（因為他對於所有老虎的熱愛）他被稱作“虎人”。在近30本書及電視紀錄片中，他為老虎嘹亮發聲。在各種場合中，許多政府高官、森林管理員和小官小吏都真切地感受過他虎目中蘊含的憤怒，畏懼避無可避的交鋒。
The urgency of his campaign was obvious. In 1900 around 100,000 tigers had roamed India. By 1973, through a combination of plunder, agriculture and maharajas’ shooting sprees, their numbers had fallen to 1,800. That year Indira Gandhi, then prime minister, set up Project Tiger, establishing nine national reserves manned with guards. As a result the population had stabilised, but still at a desperately low level. Poachers continued to raid the reserves for lucrative tiger pelts, bones and bits to send as medicine to China. Local villagers and tribal people, deprived now of access to ancestral grazing land, wood and water, saw tigers as their enemy. India took great pride in tigers; they were the national animal. But relations between them and humans were often dire.
顯而易見，他的保護老虎運動當時已迫在眉睫。20世紀初，印度約有10萬頭老虎。但由於非法捕獵、農業發展和王公們的射獵狂歡，截止1973年，老虎的數量下降到了1800頭。同年，時任總理英迪拉·甘地（Indira Gandhi）啟動了“老虎計劃”，建立了9個配備守衛的國家級保護區。老虎的數量因此穩定了下來，但仍然處於非常低的水平。偷獵者仍然侵入保護區，將利潤豐厚的皮毛、骨骼和其它部位當作藥材運往某東方大國。當地村民和部落居民也因為被剝奪了祖傳牧場、木材以及水源，而將老虎看成是自己的敵人。印度以老虎為傲，將其視為國寶。但老虎與人類的關係卻經常很糟糕。
Mr Thapar had no idea he would take on such a role. His family were part of the Punjabi elite in New Delhi, intellectuals, army officers and friends of the Gandhis; he saw his first tiger, at ten, when majestically astride an elephant. His next sighting, though, was under very different circumstances. His first marriage had gone wrong, attempts at a career were stalling, and he went to Ranthambore to try to find healing. It came in the sprightly form of Fateh Singh Rathore, the wildlife warden, with his Stetson hat and elegant moustache, who introduced him to the delights of a life spent largely in a jeep, keeping as quiet as possible, waiting for the sheer joy of a glimpse of stripe, a tip of an ear above the grass, or a flicker of a tail: tiger-watching.
塔帕爾從未想過自己會肩負這般使命。他的家族是新德里旁遮普邦的精英階層，成員多為知識分子、軍官，也是甘地家族的友人；十歲那年，他威風凜凜地騎在大象背上，第一次目睹虎影。然而，他再次見到老虎卻是在截然不同的境遇下。他的第一次婚姻觸礁，事業發展也屢屢受挫，於是來到倫滕波爾尋求療愈。這份慰藉來自於充滿活力的法塔赫·辛格·拉索爾（Fateh Singh Rathore）——這位頭戴斯泰森牛仔帽(美國西部牛仔標誌性寬簷帽）、蓄著優雅鬍鬚的野生動物管理員，引領他領略了一種長時間待在吉普車裡的生活，儘可能保持安靜，只為等待瞥見一抹斑紋、草尖上露出的耳尖，或是尾尖一閃的瞬間——這便是觀察老虎的純粹喜悅。
This was love from the beginning. The rarity of sightings—perhaps one every two weeks—added to the allure. For most of the day the tigers slept, perfectly camouflaged by tall grass and tree-shadows. At sundown they were on the move. In time he could sense them before he saw them, partly from the highly accurate panic-cries of peacocks but also from his own instinct, grown keen as an animal’s. He observed and recorded the activities of 125 tigers, but some were family. Calm, elegant Padmini, the Queen Mother of the jungle; Akbar, a confident risk-taker; Noon, who spread her favours between two males; Nasty, who threatened to attack each jeep as it passed her. And Ghengis, whose imperiousness included refusing to be watched while he ate.
這份熱愛從最初就萌芽了。老虎難得一見——或許每兩週才能看到一次——正因稀罕而更添魅力。白日里，它們隱身於高草與樹影中酣睡。日落時分，方才出動。久而久之，他甚至在看見老虎之前就能感知到它們的存在，一部分是因為孔雀高度準確的驚懼尖叫，也因為他逐漸培養出瞭如動物般敏銳的直覺。他觀察並記錄了125只老虎的活動，其中一些視若家人：沉靜優雅的叢林王太后“帕德米尼”（Padmini）、自信無畏的冒險家“阿克巴”（Akbar）、左擁右抱兩隻雄虎的“努恩”（Noon）、每逢吉普駛過便怒目欲撲的“納斯蒂”（Nasty），以及威嚴得連進食也不容旁觀的“成吉思”。
Some of Mr Thapar’s findings surprised him. He saw male tigers bringing up motherless cubs, rather than devouring them, and making successful deer-kills in water. He also saw them (Ghengis again) sparring over carcasses with crocodiles, and usually winning. As the years passed he could draw closer and closer to tigresses with young, watching the little ones roll stones or chase after butterflies. The beauty of these creatures never failed to move and amaze him.
塔帕爾的一些發現令他自己也感到意外：他見到雄虎撫養失去母親的幼虎，而非將其吞食；看到它們在水裡成功獵鹿；看到它們（又是“成吉思”）與鱷魚爭奪食物，並屢屢獲勝。隨著歲月流逝，他得以愈發靠近那些帶著幼崽的雌虎，觀察幼虎滾石嬉戲或追逐蝴蝶。虎之美麗靈動，總能讓他感動和驚歎。
His task, then, was to spread the word in his writings and documentaries (”Land of the Tiger”, for the BBC in 1997, was the best known) and to keep their plight in India’s eye. Whenever he was not in the forest he tended to be prowling the corridors and anterooms of government, looking for prey. He reckoned he had sat on 150 committees, almost all rife with sloth and indifference. His action plan was small and sharp: inviolate space for tigers, far from noise and humans; properly armed local wardens who would enforce the law; and forest services run at state, not national, level.
他的任務是透過寫作和拍攝紀錄片（最為知名的是1997年為BBC拍攝的《虎域》），使老虎的困境始終受到印度人民的關注。他不在森林時，就在政府機構的走廊和前廳裡徘徊，尋找合適獵物。他估計自己參加過150個委員會，幾乎全都充斥著懶散和冷漠。他的行動方案簡單而明確：為老虎提供不可侵犯的棲息地，遠離喧囂和人類；為地方護林員配備精良裝備用以執行法律；在州級層面而非國家層面管理森林服務部門。
In the villages around the reserve, however, he faced fury from the people who felt they had lost out to tigers. Here his tactics were gentler. He set up a foundation to encourage conservation in 100 perimeter villages, as well as a co-operative craft society and a school of art. Eventually, admitting that “inviolate space” was too optimistic, he spoke up for properly managed tourism, and hoped to see scientists, villagers and state officials serving tigers together. The bottom line, he reminded villagers, was that without its apex predator the forest itself would not survive.
然而，他面臨了保護區周邊村民的憤怒，他們認為自己因老虎遭受了損失。在此，他採取了更溫和的策略。他設立了一個基金會用於鼓勵100個周邊村莊加強老虎保護，並建立了一個手工藝合作社和一所藝術學校。最終，他承認“不可侵犯的棲息地”過於理想化，轉而倡導受合理監管的旅遊業，並希望科學家、村民和政府官員一起來保護老虎。他提醒村民，核心關鍵是，若沒有頂層掠食者，森林也將無法存續。
The unique feature of Ranthambore was an ancient fort from which, in the past, successive rulers had controlled central India. It was in ruins now, but many of his sightings of tigers took place among its crumbling walls. His friends made dens there, and dragged their kill there to eat. He meanwhile made his den on the terrace of an adjacent temple, now a rest house, drinking whisky as the sun went down. The landscape was filled with evening calls, each one of which he knew. Soon he would begin to patrol in the deepest possible silence; but the reverberation of his roaring still echoed, both in his head and in the forest.
倫滕波爾國家公園的地標是一座古堡，歷代統治者從那裡控制著中印。如今古堡已成廢墟，但就是在這些殘垣斷壁間他多次發現老虎蹤跡。他的老虎朋友在那兒做窩，將獵物拖到那裡享用。他也在一座相鄰寺廟的露臺上安了家，現在成了一間旅舍，夕陽西下時他會在那裡喝起威士忌。傍晚的曠野虎嘯此起彼伏，這些聲音他都熟悉無比。很快，他將以極度的寂靜開始巡視領地；但是他的嘯聲依然在迴盪，即在他的腦海裡，也在森林裡。
翻譯組：
Alex，不務正業的理工男
Albert，希望一直有求知和寬闊的心
Very，男，電氣民工，經濟學人資淺愛好者
校對組：
UU，保持低調
Xia Jiehai， 創作者
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本週感想：
Vicky，少兒英語老師+筆譯新人
有使命感的人生
毫無疑問，塔帕爾是找到了此生志業的。一個人找到了自己此生最想做的事情，於是才能在別人覺得辛苦的生活狀態之下，甘之如飴，並且真的成就一番事業，為這個世界帶來真實的改變，這無疑對人生來說是珍貴以及美好的。
當一個人從事與自身價值觀高度契合的事業時，大腦會進入“心流狀態”，專注力、創造力、抗疲勞能力大幅提升，甚至能突破常規認知極限，如居里夫人4年時間裡平均每天只睡4個小時，但是依然每天精力充沛。如愛因斯坦在“奇蹟年”一口氣發了四篇顛覆物理學的論文，好多例子都在告訴我們必須要找到並從事此生志業才是不負人生。
可是真的是這樣嗎？這種認知會不會反而成為一種枷鎖，製造出無形的壓力：什麼才是我的此生志業？我如果還沒找到怎麼辦？如果我找錯了怎麼辦？我會不會在浪費自己的生命？為什麼別人都找到了，我卻還沒有？
有研究說，大概只有30%的人能明確的感知“天職感”，大多數的人，謀職也就是謀生。可是，這並不可恥。我們大多數的人無非是在每一天的生活中，為自己的生活構建意義，生活不必驚天動地，但是仍然可以豐富多彩。活在當下，認真對待每一天的人，本身就是充滿力量感的。與其追求各種宏大敘事，為了所謂更好的明天而奔波彷徨，認真堅定的過好每一天，才是更重要的事情。
最喜歡五月天的一首歌，是每每唱起都要流淚的程度，裡面說“這一生只願只要平凡快樂，誰說這樣不偉大呢？”
願我們都能活在自己的時令裡，綠也由衷，枯也從容。
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