Making the world a "Stripe Paradise"

Hi,

We’re really glad you’ve stopped by; it means the tiger still has friends it can count on.

And if you’re here because you’ve misspelled the title in search for er… other kinds of clubs, we’re glad anyway.

Welcome.

Sometime last year, we got tired of opening the newspaper every morning. All of them had at least one sad story to tell… the tiger is dying, the rhino’s getting poached, forests are being felled, the climate is changing and basically we’re getting fried!

October 2006, Mumbai

We decided to “do” something. What that something was, we had no clue. So we emailed our pals and they emailed theirs and a bunch of us got together in Mumbai. As some great ideas do, it fizzled out.

October 2007, India

We woke up and remembered that the tiger is still dying, the rhino’s still getting poached, forests continue to be felled, the climate’s changing alarmingly and we’re still getting fried.

This time, the three of us — Manish, Sejal and Bijal (no, not related, no, not twins, just names that rhyme) — have kick-started The Stripe Club blog (the way Manish’s perverse mind works actually gave us this title! We loved it immediately. Go figure). We focus on the immediate threat—the almost inevitable extinction of the tiger—but we will also talk about the environment, wildlife, experiences, thoughts.

Why should we make tiger conservation a priority?

• Tigers rock; it’s our national animal
• We love Calvin & Hobbes
• Rang De and Munna Bhai 2 made me want to DO something I believe in.
• Blah blah blah
• Yada yada yada

We say: Stop wanting reasons to save the tiger. If you care, help out.

Let’s face it... We’re not going to save ANY tigers by walking into the jungle, transforming into power rangers and battling it out with the evil poachers and the nasty land grabbers.

But let’s not twiddle our thumbs and do nothing about it either. While the rallies, the talks, the awareness programs are great, the situation calls for bigger things.

We need the public’s attention. And seeing how self-involved the average Indian (all of us guilty as charged) is, we need something more than small talk to get attention. We need a hammer to hit them on the head with.

That’s your cue. That’s where you come in. We need to fashion that hammer. We’ve started with this blog. But we need your help. The battle is too colossal and our army, pitifully miniscule.

Let’s talk tigers. Yes, talk is cheap. But it seems like a good enough way to start. Leave comments, send us links, information, even an indication of your support. Keep clicking here. The wildlife-enviro-animal movement needs all the help it can get.

So come.

Let’s put our heads together.

Let’s save the most beautiful cat in the world.

Let’s at least try.