To start with a few words about myself, I am a conservationist serving the rainforests of the Western Ghats in India. It has been my lifelong inquiry to look at how a biome can recover from assault—from colonial-neocolonial-capitalistic-civilizational assault. I know, and the biome knows, that it can heal from most travesties and injuries, and that it will do its[Read More…]
During an extermination event – the first and only ever such event in the universe’s life – it is difficult to contemplate the relations between humans and the rest of nature. In 2021, Meral Cicek invited me to do precisely this through an essay for Jineoloji magazine, a publication of the women’s movement of Kurdistan. The pandemic, lethal as it[Read More…]
The streets of Jayanagar, a residential area in Bengaluru are strewn with spring flowers. Yellow copper pods, lilac crape myrtles, pink-and-white honges and orange gulmohurs blaze overhead and underfoot; vitality and senescence mirroring each other. The normally hard surfaces – kerb, pavement, road and concrete – are softened by fallen petals and the duff of stamens from rain trees. Every[Read More…]
I am witness to the murder of forests. To be silent in the face of this is unconscionable. I am witness to the birth of forests. To be silent in the face of this is unconscionable. I am witness to… nay… I’m beholden to…. nay…. I’m alive and breathing and who I am because of the work of forests. To be silent in the face[Read More…]
To survive the holocaust of planetary proportions that is upon us, one must defend her or get out of the way. I live across a small stream from an ancient rainforest in Wayanad, Kerala. It has a constancy that’s baffling, appearing more or less the same to me, for all the years I’ve been here. The forest sustains. As do[Read More…]
Lit by chlorophyll and the conjurations of trees, there’s a trail through a forest along the Stone River where the light never repeats. Slender and winding, this is a generous trail; always bearing gifts. Some days it offers melodies; other days, stories. Often it offers ideas and memories. It does this, I’ve now come to understand, through streams of sensory ticklings. Paintings:[Read More…]
The world in which each of us lives does not necessarily yield the world in which we all live together. Where does your world end and mine begin? I live in a world grown from tall trees, tiny tender plants and a scintillating diversity of creatures, which is covered in cloud and drenched in rain for a greater part of[Read More…]
It was a bright morning in late October, with a light breeze and no mist. Crinkled woody seeds of todayan, a beautiful tree with upturned leaves, cracked open underfoot as I walked through a rainforest at the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary in Wayanad district, Kerala, where I live and work. Balsam capsules sprung open on touch. In the course of a few minutes,[Read More…]
Field notes from a botanical sanctuary: changing weather patterns are causing havoc to plants. I love being at home, in Wayanad, when the south-west monsoon arrives. This hilly district of northern Kerala is still full of tall trees and myriad creatures, and drenched in rain for several months in a year. From my window, I see Banasuramala, a beautiful mountain[Read More…]
First published through EarthLines Magazine, Issue 16 I sing to elephants. It’s what I do. I sing because I like to, and because I believe my elephant neighbours are comfortable in my singing presence. I sing all the time, and it’s when I sing that I know more precisely how I feel. My own speech never does justice to my[Read More…]
Let us begin with theettam. Or if you prefer, with Leelamma’s kitchen, where thee (fire) burns. Between the wood-burning stove and the community pit-loo, an ecological picaresque unfolds. Perhaps this is why, in Malayalam, theettam (excretum) and thee’tta (food) are near-homonyms.Newcomers to the language, whose ears (and tongues) cannot distinguish between ‘tt and tt (slight upward flick of[Read More…]
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My Amma (Malayalam word for Mother) passed away on August 22, 2023 at 3.10 AM. It is always difficult to deal with the passing of a parent, that too one’s mother. I thought the grief would go away. No it didn’t. All those bitter sweet memories won’t go away. At night I lie awake for hours. My friend, guide and[Read More…]
