Sahyadrica

A tigress looking at a bird taking off in a meadow of Kanha. After months of musing over whether a writing break at the onset of winter was affordable, I went for it and in the process extended the writing break by writing about it. In my defence, there is a very good reason to do so, for after nearly a decade of planning and rescheduling and budgeting, my family visited Kanha Tiger Reserve with me, giving shape to this piece about showing a tiger in the global age of wildlife tourism of India. The leisure that wildlife tourism – particularly tiger tourism – in India affords is a subject that I take no comfort in discussing. On the one hand, it offers an opportunity for citizens to cherish nature in isolation and on the other hand, it is a high-cost venture that is not afforded to every citizen. It’s the reason for the success of species-centric exclusionist-model of conservation and at the same time it is the reason for further alienating a large mass of people from benefitting from...

Thoreau’s writings, especially Walking and Walden, have been crucial parts of my young adult life; I longed to be in the woods, alone, left to my own thoughts amidst nature – well, doing exactly as Thoreau now comes at a ginormous financial investment, so I did what I could and continue to do. Over the last ten years since I first read Walden, I have had plenty of such opportunities – I would add the timeless lock-up of eight months of 2020 which I thankfully spent reading and rereading Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five. It’s a long stretch between the two, but for me, Walden’s cabin or Vonnegut’s slaughterhouse are linked in more ways than one. Left: Walden; or, life in the woods by Henry D. Thoreau; available here , Right: Slaughterhouse-Five OR The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.; available here ; these are the early (first ed) covers. Lately, I am lost on titles, I cannot stick to one; if that is how Thoreau and Vonnegut decided upon theirs, alt...

A dried-up leaf. A rolled-up leaf. A blotchy leaf. A pooped-upon leaf. After seven months of no respite, I found myself looking at these enthusiastically. Everything moved. Everything was something. Something resembled something else. Sometimes, something tried to be something else. I may have been imagining things, who am I to blame? The soggy boughs, cloud-diffused skies, a slight mist, a faint song of the birds. Add to that the huddled trees, clustered canopies, a subtle breeze. I perceived things differently. Who am I to blame? A leaf tumbled up a tree in front of my eyes. Another flew off. One burst into ridiculous shades of colours. The extravagant - or ridiculously colourful - Orange Oak Leaf ( Kallima inachus ) butterfly of Kanha Tiger Reserve. Someone, somewhere, imagined that this butterfly looks like the leaf of an oak. Somewhere long before, something perceived a limbless leaf to be a safer bet than donning ridiculous colours. And then it decided, hey, why not have the best...

This long-form article covers roughly 500 years of history of wild Asian elephants in the central Indian highlands – a history that is still being written. It is an excerpt of a larger piece on central India I am working on. Given the recent happenings on wild elephants in India – and particularly central India – it is time we revisited our history to see how far we have come and where we’re headed. No Country For Wild Elephants That is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees – Those dying generations – at their song, The salmon‐falls, the mackerel‐crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect. -- Sailing to Byzantium (1928) by William Butler Yeats This article is a part of a book on Central India, titled Our Roots Run Wild. It is available on Amazon India:  https://amzn.in/d/cvF8d60

A sow takes her stance as her sub-adult cubs scamper behind her for protection in Pench Tiger Reserve " What I portray here is a picture of a sloth bear that is not different than Baloo – a wild Baloo – the last to be free to come and go as he pleases; who relishes nuts and roots and honey; whose necessities are indeed bare; who does not wish to cross paths with humans. Who – and I say this picturing a dark cloud looming over his brooding face – wishes humans would be a little more considerate with his jungle. Equipped with the right intentions and actions — both social and ecological – an era of coexistence is comprehensible. " -- I studied the parameters of human-sloth bear interactions in the Kanha-Pench corridor between 2016 and 2017, here are some publications of that study: Cover story in Sanctuary Asia's 2018 issue:  http://www.sanctuaryasia.com/magazines/cover-story/10766-bear-necessities-reimagining-baloo-of-central-india Full-length scientif...