Bringing back the mahseer

If the mahseer could hear me, I suppose I'd say sorry. You know, for messing up its habitat." That's 19-year-old Bilal Syed delivering a collective apology as it were to the freshwater fish that was once an angler's delight and is now swimming its way back to rivers from a hatchery in Lonavla that has bred 18 million fresh fingerlings.

Clearly, Bilal, a young conservation-enthusiast from Vivekanand College, Chembur, is not the only guilty heart with an agenda. Backed by students like him, corporate giant Tata Power, has led the fight to get the mahseer back as part of its CSR (corporate social responsibility) initiative. Over 1,500 school and college students visit the hatchery every year.

If the fish folk believed in calendars, 1975 would be the year they'd fondly remember. It was when India's largest integrated power company pledged to revive a losing battle on behalf of the carp-like game fish disappearing fast from its native waters across the Indian Peninsula and southern Asia.

The name itself is a fair clue to its majestic origin – from mahi (fish) and sher (tiger), or 'tiger of fishes', one of the many nicknames the species enjoys. The status, however, acquired a wrenching irony over the years as an onslaught of water pollution, unchecked angling and dynamite fishing put the mahseer on the 'threatened' list of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Four decades on, Tata Power has managed to optimise its breeding resources at the Walwan dam in Lonavla to hatch 18 million fresh fingerlings, 13.5 million of which have been released in water bodies across India.

Of the fish's many supporters, the most enthusiastic are the younger ones. "Sometimes, we receive emails from kids who had helped with the hatching or rearing of a certain batch, asking, 'How is my lot doing?' Of course, we cannot keep track of individual shoals, but that is the level of dedication," Vivek Talwar, chief culture and sustainability officer, Tata Power, reveals with a chuckle.

So what does it take to stoke into action a generation known for its sedentary, tech-heavy, often apathetic lifestyle? "Children here experience the thrill of holding a fish in their hands. To explore nature from such close quarters, gives them a sense of ownership and responsibility – a tangible cause," explains Vivek Vishwasrao, chief of biodiversity.

It's not hard to see what he means. The mahseer, as a breed, is nothing if not engaging. The gentle water giant can grow up to 2.75 meters (9 feet) in length, and weigh between 35 to 40 kg.

This is a fish that is constantly swimming upstream in search of food and oxygen – in effect, a better life. Over the decades, anglers have travelled far and wide, teased by its tremendous life-skills.

Only this time around, the fish has attracted not idle fame or reverence, but love. This time, the mahseer's friends are, much like the fish itself, young, free and ready to plunge into the deep end of life.