Conservation

New Project – Second Nature

New Project – Second Nature

My engagement with Nature began with a fascination for wildlife and with remote areas far from the chaos of the city. This led me, almost exactly a decade ago, to the BR Hills in Karnataka, and since then I have criss-crossed India exploring, learning, documenting, photographing and filming. My search for ‘wild’ places and virgin forests led to two life-changing experiences. The first was when I met communities leading lives that seemed so much a part of Nature; these people had hearts as giving as Nature itself. Living in and off the forests was Second Nature to them; they had…

Conserving in India

Conserving in India

The two aerial photographs above best describe why conservation in India is so hard. As per government records, some 350-400 million people depend on the forests and yet about 22% of India is still under forest cover.  

Photo-essay: Shadows on the Grass

Photo-essay: Shadows on the Grass

There is one group of plants, which supports the largest masses of wildlife in the world and also supports most of our human populations: grasses. This remarkable plant group covers a fourth of all the land on the earth. Almost 70% of our daily diet is derived from grasses. Rice, wheat, maize, barley, are all species of grass which have been cultivated since the advent of agriculture and selectively bred over the last 10000 years by humans. Today, grasslands are under assault. They are among the most endangered natural habitats on earth and India is just about holding on to…

Broken

I am just a poor boy Though my story’s seldom told I have squandered my resistance For a pocket full of mumbles such are promises All lies and jests Still a man hears what he wants to hear And disregards the rest … In the clearing stands a boxer And a fighter by his trade And he carries the reminders Of ev’ry glove that layed him down Or cut him till he cried out In his anger and his shame “I am leaving, I am leaving” But the fighter still remains – Simon And Garfunkel | The Boxer Another day,…

Living with elephants

In case you were wondering, I’m still alive and kicking. It just has been hectic last the few months and have not had time to write things down. I’m currently working on a small documentary film with Anand Kumar on elephants and conflict in a plantation landscape (Anamalais) in the Western Ghats. Elephants use this landscape–the tea estates, the coffee, the swamps and riverine vegetation, and the remnant forests–as part of their annual ranges. However, every year, between September and February, these elephants spend a substantial part of their time out of the surrounding reserves and in the plantations. The…

Land scrapes – A photo essay

India has more than a billion people and we have very little land area to support such a large population. This, therefore, does not leave much room for free land or wildnerness areas and every part of the country is used for production or extraction. Most fertile lands are used for agriculture which is the lifeline of the country. Everything else is used for something or the other. Where there are rocks, we quarry granite; where there are minerals in the soil, it is dug and blasted; and where there is neither of these, we modify the remnant natural landscapes…