Quigley looks into the eye of the tiger

There are many reasons why Phil Quigley has a spring in his step. His passion for India, his home of the last four years, surely tops the list. For this American, India is an incredible rush. What’s more, his enthusiasm is contagious.

Quigley first came to India in 2000. That was to recruit a hardcore engineering group. Thence commenced the beginning of a passionate love affair with the country. His work as the head of Learning and Development at Yahoo! had him visiting India frequently and he shifted base to Bangalore in 2006.

The “unbelievable geography” of India has him gushing. “There are jungles, deserts, beaches, mountains…India’s got everything. It’s better than any other country when it comes to its natural attributes,” he says with unconcealed awe.

Quigley has been travelling to different corners of India – Hampi, Jaipur, Kerala, Srinagar – and none have failed to overwhelm him. He has probably seen much more India than the average well-travelled Indian. “Yeah, maybe. But I have barely scratched the surface. There’s so much more to see.” It is a very under-marketed country, he says shaking his head in disbelief.  India is not for everyone, he says. “It grows on you.”

The rapid progress under way here alarms him though. He is miffed that the forests and wildlife are unfairly paying the price for it. His complaint often meets with an argument that people are dying out of poverty and related ills, and they need to be saved before the wildlife.

“I can’t really refute it,” he says. But India’s allure to the rest of the world is its abundant natural resources. And if it is to grow as an attractive destination, wildlife has to be preserved – that he is sure of. Understandably, the Save the Tiger campaign is close to his heart.

That the last few tigers are precariously close to ending up as ceremonious Tibetan dress pants or Chinese tonics incenses, he says. He follows the tiger conservation efforts closely and is indignant that the Indian authorities had, until recently, followed a pug mark count as the official tiger census. He is of part of a couple of international organisations for wildlife and is batting for some urgent action to save the Indian tigers.

Quigley’s other big passion is history. He worked with the US military for 10 years and ever since, has been hooked to history. He spends a lot of time reading historical non-fiction. He is overjoyed by the history in India. Lucknow thrills him precisely for this reason. “That’s where, for the first time, natives defeated the Imperial Army – the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857,” he says. Amritsar is another favourite. The show of respect by the Indian and Pakistani soldiers at the Wagah border had him thinking. Why can’t “we” settle “our” differences with some kind of simulated match?
Probably a shouting match or something, he is wistful.

Well, Bangalore is another story. He hasn’t found much time, yet, to explore the city completely. His work day starts at 8am and ends at 8pm, he says sheepishly. The rest of the time, he prefers to “crash at home”, reading by his pool. He lives alone and says that the only “Indian dish” that he cooks is Maggi. “I must say I cook it extremely well.”

He has very good things to say about his neighbourhood bakery, Thom’s. “Their chocolate doughnuts are the best.” He collects model fighter planes and builds them too. He is also an avid golfer.

“I think Bangalore has a lot of charm. Tree-lined streets, buzz of a growing city, very talented people – many leading corporations in the world. It’s a boom town, growing almost too fast.”
It’s kind of a microcosm of India, he says.