June 24, 2025 • 56 mins
What if the key to environmental action isn’t outrage, but observation? And what if the real climate crisis is a crisis of attention?
In this powerful conversation, nature writer and activist Yuvan Aves talks about his lyrical and politically urgent book Intertidal. Set along Chennai’s disappearing coasts and wetlands, the book prompts readers to notice, remember, and reconnect with the living world around them.
Yuvan shares how he teaches children to fall in love with their local ecologies by example rather than instruction and how Indian nature writing cannot be separated from caste, class, and climate politics.
This episode reminds us that nature is not a distant wilderness but something alive in our cities, streets, and schools, and to simply pay attention.
Books, shows, and films mentioned in this episode:
- Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane
- Tiger Lessons by Sannapureddy Venkatarami Reddy
- Marginlands by Arati Kumar-Rao
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You will take part in 100 hours of live online sessions, led by over 40 experienced industry professionals. The course moves from foundational learning to specialised career tracks through live simulations, in-class exercises, and assignments. This hands-on approach is supported by career-focused guidance, such as resume workshops and interview preparation, and culminates in a Capstone Project.
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‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:02):
Un Welcome to Books and Beyond. With bound I'm Tara
Khandelwal and I'm Michelled'cota, in this podcast, we talk
to India's finest authors anduncover the stories behind the
best written book and dissecthow these books shape our lives
and worldviews today. So let'sdive in.
Tara Khandelwal (00:22):
So today we're heading into the marshes of
Chennai, but we're here not justto admire nature. We're here to
question how we've been taughtto see it, and the book that we
going to be talking about isintertidal, which isn't about
just wetlands or insects or theocean. It's about how nature can
be a refuge, a teacher and evena protest. The book shows us how
(00:44):
deeply human survival is tied tothe natural world, and that's
something that we all knowintuitively, but this really
brings it to the forefront, andhow much we can lose culturally,
emotionally and evenspiritually, when we ignore
that. So really sort of, for me,brought that alive in a way. And
this is a naturalist diarywritten by one Avis, who's here
(01:05):
with me today. I picked up thisbook because it reminds me that
nature isn't just a backdrop.
Living in a city. Sometimes itcan feel like it is, but it's
alive. It speaks and it's underthreat. So thank you, Ivan, and
really looking forward toexplore this moment.
Yuvan Aves (01:21):
Hey, Tara, thank you. Thank you for having
Tara Khandelwal (01:23):
you know, I really like the beginning of the
book because it was a little bitpersonal as well. And your life
has been anything but ordinary.
And in the book, you chroniclesome really tough times, like in
the PROLOG of your book, youknow, you talk about your
abusive stepfather, some of thethings that you went through,
and then how you ran away fromhome at 16, and that's when you
(01:45):
sort of made your way to nature,and you kept learning, and now
you're doing such inspiringwork, like leading the farm
Environment and Society Programat abacus Montessori or and
building Earth focusededucation, starting the valuer
trust. So I just wanted to askfor you sort of, you know, how
(02:07):
did that transition happen fromthat little boy who ran away to,
you know, what you are now, andhow does, how did that
connection to nature help you inthose tough times?
Yuvan Aves (02:20):
Yeah, I shared my personal story, not to ask the
world to look at it, but as anexample, among a lot of
examples, of how our connectionwith a multi species world,
which is how inherently we areas humans who have evolved in
(02:42):
touch with all kinds of otherbeings can be very inwardly
transformative, and to sort oftrack that arc for the reader,
before going into the heart ofthe book, it's Not that you know
perhaps in a middle class, upperclass, socio economic sense,
(03:06):
reading the PROLOG might bestrange, disturbing, even some
people have got back to mesaying, You need to put a
trigger warning there. I did notwant to put a trigger warning
there. Domestic violence isvery, very common, uh, rural
scenarios, obviously, I have,I've chosen to treat it
(03:28):
something out of the ordinary inthe way I write about it,
perhaps, but it is, I think,inherently part of most Indian
households. So, so in thatsense, it's not special. And
what, what I wanted tocommunicate was the sense that
our suffering acquires certainkinds of meanings and pathways
(03:53):
in in words, when we when ourcell food occupies, let's say
our landscape, rivers, trees,other species. I explore that
briefly in one of the chapters,the detritive meditation, where
looking at beings which turn theshit of life into something
(04:15):
useful, offers a powerfulmetaphor. Metaphor, I think, is
a survival need. We make meaningalways through the meanings in
terms of other things. So, sothat was, that was the idea to
look at, to look at suffering,look at how it it has completely
transformed. I would say,connection with the living world
(04:35):
has has healed or expanded, or,in fact, made me feel grateful
for the suffering I have becauseof its transformative power,
psychologically, spiritually,transformative power.
Tara Khandelwal (04:47):
I think nature does. He'll definitely, and
they've been, it's scientific.
They've been studies about thevalue of that for all human
beings to go out and be nature.
And something as simple as, youknow, people say, Oh, why don't
you? Go for a walk. And I thinkthose kind of things really
help, even for me in Bombay, youknow, just going for a walk,
(05:07):
observing the trees, the plants,I have a few plants in my house,
something as small as that alsofeels is has a grounding factor.
Okay? So I really liked how thestructure of the book comes
about, right? It's like a partjournal. It's a part nature
documentary. It's a love letterto Earth. And there's a lot of
(05:28):
detailed observations, you know,like the bees nesting on your
balcony and how they build homeswithout a hierarchy, to moments
of deep reflection and evenguided meditations. And then
there are the stories from thefield. So your visits to coastal
communities, learning about thetribes in the Andaman Islands,
(05:49):
and I found it reallyinteresting that they have words
to describe different texturesof waves, because our language
tells us so much about how weview the world. And you know,
you said in the book, you knowthat they mentioned they moved
uphill during the Indian Oceantsunami, because they said, Oh,
the ocean is angry with us. Wemust move up in repentance. And
(06:11):
that, I thought that was reallypowerful. It gave me goosebumps.
You know, such a unique way oflistening to nature. So I'm
curious, how did you land onthis mix of memoir, research and
reflection for the
Yuvan Aves (06:23):
book. This book has its genesis in a specific
movement which has gatheredmomentum and has remained
successful. It was protestingagainst a mega quote by the
Adani group on the pulitzLagoon, which is the second
(06:44):
largest brackish water lagoon inIndia, and the fact that public
mobilization was really, reallydifficult without stories. So
when we started that movement,lots of people were involved.
Significantly, my activistmentor, Nithyananda Raman, uh,
(07:05):
Chennai Climate Action Group,the Fisher folk there, we needed
to manipulate people'sattention. I think our our
practice, each of us have ourspecific practice of attention,
and usually, uh, capitalistforce tries to channel it, focus
it, steal it in specificstreams. And as activists, we
(07:31):
try to create counter streams tothat. So, you know, look at that
advertisement, and we aresaying, no, look, look at the
ghost crap, because ourattention is finite, and it
matters to us and to the world,where as individuals and as
groups where we put it. So aspart of that campaign, we
created field guides, ways ofusing the coast as a learning
(07:56):
space. I wrote a children's bookbased on it, and that sort of
emerged into an idea to evoke abeach, which was in, for
instance, let's say thegovernment of India released
wasteland Atlas in 2018 19,which classified beaches as
(08:16):
wastelands because you wantedNot economize it in the in the
traditional sense, you couldn'tcultivate it, couldn't do other
things. But then we find that inNorth Chennai, which is the
industrialized area of Chennai,the beach has eroded away, and
therefore salt water is enteringfrom beneath and up to 12
(08:41):
kilometers. So to sort of look,to sort of counter these
narratives create a sort ofpublic interest close to heart
and something which is personal,that's the genesis of the book,
I think,
Tara Khandelwal (08:55):
yeah. And then the book that you, you said that
you know, you have the mentor,Nithyananda, who is your, who is
your first exposure to standingup to corporate crime, because
he also looked at the mercurypoisoning in Cody. And we
actually interviewed the author,who wrote a book called heavy
metal, which is about that. So,yeah, I would love to know a
(09:18):
little bit more about how youfirst came in contact with this
gentleman, and you know, yourfirst exposure to corporate
crime, and then how sort of thatled you to becoming an activist
for this movement. And I thinkrehaja had called attention to
this pulitz campaign, which iswhen I think people like me also
(09:38):
hadn't gotten aware of it.
Yuvan Aves (09:40):
Rega is my partner.
Oh, we live together now, andthanks to Mr. Adani, we got to
meet. Wow. I studied in aKrishnamurthy school whose
philosophical foundation wasquestion, every answer when.
Hurting nature, you're hurtingyourself. Be a no path can lead
(10:01):
you to the truth. You have to bea light onto yourself. This was
the philosophical foundation.
And when I was in grade five,Niti Nithyananda jaraman came to
the school and he made apresentation about so you can
(10:22):
imagine how long ago that was.
And campaigns go on for decades.
Communities fight for justicefor very long times. And he
showed this, what HindustanUnilever had done to the pura
Lake and mercury poisoning, whatit can do to workers and human
(10:44):
beings, and the fact that thecorporate could legally fight,
politically, manipulate, get outof trouble, and this and this
sense of, you know, at The timewe name isms. You know, we say
capitalism socialism is and itwas very useful for me to look
(11:08):
at isms as emotions, because,because it's easy to taxonomize,
usually isms are made toincarcerate. You know, in the
current political regime, if Iwere to substitute capitalism
with emotion, that would begreed. I don't know what else to
(11:28):
you know, substitute that. Sothese were things I was exposed
to through Niti and then later,maybe in grade seven, grade
eight people from the Bhopal GasTragedy. I think it was maybe
the 25th year, 30th year, womenwith deformed children, about
(11:49):
1520, of them came and sat inthe assembly, and they spoke in
Hindi. I did not understand aword of it. I was utterly moved
and devastated and in tears. Andof what can be done and what you
can get away with. You know,after killing 20,000 people,
mostly overnight, throughthrough negligence and
(12:13):
underfunding and all kinds ofother violations of law and
human rights, rich dudes can getaway with what they do. So these
were important early exposures,and they were facilitated by
Niti and later after, afterspending, you know, five years
(12:36):
in Pakistan, educating myself,after I left home at 16, coming
back, I sought them out again. Isaid, Listen, this is what I
want to do. And he said, Youknow what? There's a port being
built. Please help us. Let's dosomething.
Tara Khandelwal (12:48):
Wow. And I think that's very interesting,
that your school also sort ofexposed you to all of these
things. I mean, I certainlynever had this kind of exposure
in my school. And I think it'sso important, I think, for
children to know about all ofthese things that are happening
so that they can also affectchange. I One of the things that
really struck me, you know,because we live in cities and
(13:11):
Chennai, and I have few friends,also very good friends, who live
in Chennai. And you say howcities emerge around hydrologies
and how things have changed inChennai, which is, it's now from
80% wetland to now only 15% andthat coincides with floods
cyclones, and that just made methink as well about the
(13:32):
reclamation in Mumbai, and allof these statistics that say
that, you know, by 2035 A largearea of Mumbai will be under
flooding. And it just made mewonder, what will be the
implication about that
Yuvan Aves (13:47):
there is a sort of really dangerous hydrological
amnesia in a city like Chennai,which grew cities come around
rivers and wetlands. Chennai,existence owes itself to the
khostala River and the Adyar andthe Koum, which is off shoot of
the khosta Laya. And one canexplain the coming up of cities
(14:12):
as well as civilizations throughthe existence of rivers we could
ever only live in a watershedand urbanization seems to cross
a critical threshold ofconvenience, which then enables
us to forget this and and ithits us back. And human history
(14:34):
is full of this when riverschange their course, the Indus
civilization, you know, otherother Mesopotamia, or they had
to move that to either migrate,or they had to vanish. And we've
seen this in other kinds ofcities, you know, whether it be,
(14:54):
you know, parts of the Cholakingdom, let's say Kanchipuram
thirupu. Sure it's sad that onecan track human history as
coming around water bodies,forgetting moving away or facing
demise. And I think the quickestform of that is the current
(15:15):
industrial urbanizationparadigm. It's quite sad,
because Tamil Nadu is known forits its hydro hydro wisdom, its
hydro culture. We have only onlysecond to Rajasthan. We have
maximum number of water bodies.
You take any map, it's a sort ofscatter of half circles, and
(15:37):
these structures are calledAries. Aries don't have a word
in English. It's a U shaped bundopposing the gradient of water
flow. And people knew that theonly way to live here was to
allow water to catch water andmake it percolate and allow it
(16:00):
to float. If you had any otherway of living here, you would
either starve or be flooded.
Because, I mean, unlike Mumbai,which is facing the southwest
monsoon, largely the Northeastmonsoon, which comes to Chennai
and much of the eastern coast,is a fickle, whimsical thing you
(16:22):
will have suddenly one yearwhich is 2000 plus mm of
rainfall, another year will be600 mm. Another year will be
three years of consistent 800mm. You don't know what kind of
water you will get. Andtherefore the respect for water,
especially in a place likeChennai, was extremely high,
(16:45):
extremely conscious, and we arelosing it, which means our
future is quite bleak. I mean,another way of looking at that,
however, is that floods come in.
When 2015 the floods came, itwas one of the biggest economic
disasters. 12,000 crores worthof infrastructure was was
destroyed and and thengovernments are waking up
(17:08):
saying, you know, let's haveflood irrigation channels, let's
reclaim our lakes, let's moveout encroachment. How that sort
of environmental action is alsodiscriminating five star hotel
called Leela Palace is sittingon the Adi R estuary. Arihant or
mayat hospital is sitting on theflood plains of the Arya river.
(17:29):
They will not be moved all, eventhough they've been called out
by the control Auditor GeneralReport government will come move
people living in sheds who aredoing nothing to damage the
river, to show some sort ofoptics. So this is the hydro
politics we are dealing with,
Tara Khandelwal (17:49):
I think, as a teacher, you know, in the book,
you speak about your work as ateacher. And I think you know
you are that's so important,because you know it starts from
there and molding young minds, Iam always amazed, you know, when
I see people throwing litter,and then I just wonder, okay,
you know, they it was, it wasn'tsort of taught to them at a
(18:11):
young age like that, you know?
And if everybody was just taughtfrom a young age not to do that,
then things will be sodifferent. You wouldn't see all
of this everywhere. And you talkabout, you know, as part of your
teaching practice, you talkabout the concept of these toxic
tours, and how you took yourstudents on toxic tours where
they meet. You know, displacedFisher women, people whose
(18:32):
families, you know, have passedaway because of oil spills. And,
you know, dead olive ridleyturtles. I mean, it's quite
heartbreaking. So as a teacher,sort of, I wanted to ask you,
what kinds of things you know,do you put into practice, and
what you know? What are thelessons and how, how you
(18:53):
imparting them to your students?
Yuvan Aves (18:57):
I don't mind if children throw later. Actually,
it's, I think it's totally fine,really. It's very important,
because the market wants to pushus into a corner where our only
power is individualistic actionof some form of consumption.
Okay, buy this or buy that. Yougo pick up trash from the beach.
(19:21):
I am interested in teachingchildren about structural
action. How do you organizethat? That is the only kind of
Environmental Action somebodywent and picked up little
somebody did not use plastictheir entire lives. Doesn't mean
jack for the environment. Let usnot profess to each other or
teach other people aboutindividualism, because, because
(19:43):
that is the corner we mustrefuse to be pushed towards.
Somebody throws a plasticoutside. There's all, you know,
I think, I think it's fine,whatever, as a sense of personal
hygiene, as a sense of, youknow, civic, civic duty. You do
it. It. Don't do it. It's fine,but I it's important that
(20:04):
children feel connection,because connection comes before
care, and this is something Icome upon time and again. You
try to hammer down care intopeople before there is
connection, they turn away fromthe cause. So if we do a very
robust public engagement programthrough Pallavi trust, with the
(20:28):
organization of Iran, weactually directly engage with
almost 2000 people a year. Wetake them on walks and go on
shore walks. We understand howthe intertidal zone works. We
understand the functions of thebeach, the dolphins, the ghost
crabs, the currents, howfisherfolks have been living
(20:49):
there. I don't have to tell younot to throw garbage there,
because there's love, there'sconcern, there's fascination,
that that's what needs to bedone. And then there's community
building around, around thisspace. This is very important
fact, there's some veryinteresting research by a you
know, nature educationresearcher named David sober,
(21:09):
where, if you hammer downclimate crisis, you know climate
action before children can feelconnection. Because I think that
is fundamentally what theinterconnectedness of of an
immediate local ecology allowsfor people turn away from the
purpose. So, so, so, so that'sthat's it. That's an important
(21:32):
nuance to register for us. Toxictours, again, something I
learned from Nithyananda Raman.
He has been my greatest activistmentor. I've been grateful to
have a long list of mentors, youknow, through my life, and I
think that's been life savingfor me. What we do is we go
(21:52):
cities, urbanized places havetheir sacrifice zones, and
usually the sacrifice zones areplaced where, not necessarily
because they they are suitablefor it, but it's because the
people living there are do nothave the political economic
power to resist it. So forinstance, just historically,
(22:14):
this would be true of Mumbai.
This would be true of Delhi, anyMetropolis you take in Chennai.
The South Chennai is where theupper caste, the Brahmins, the
landlords, lived. And North,Chennai is where the Dalit fork,
the Fisher folk, British,brought a whole bunch of labor
(22:38):
from other states, put themthere. And so ever since before
independence. And after all, thered category industries, which
means industries will producelethal waste, kill life and
human life oppose that. It's, infact, highly populated area, and
(22:59):
therefore to take childrenthrough this place and to say,
Listen, this is our cityfunctions. This is the sacrifice
zone. This is where yourelectricity comes from. This is
where your you know, whether itbe fertilizer, pesticide,
petrol, diesel. Here's refinery,and we look at the impact this
has on on people, on ecologies,on on other landscapes. Very
(23:23):
interestingly, this specificstretch of notch, and if it's
called the kartupalli Island,it's a sand barrier island where
there are major rivers, riverswhich bring sediment for
millennia and dump it in theocean. Sand barrier islands
form. It's our most importantclimate barrier, and we've been
abusing it for centuries now,and that has a profound impact
(23:47):
on children. In fact, for class11 children, for many years, we
would do something called aclass campaign. We would take up
an issue, study very deeply, anddo something which causes has a
real world impact. So in 2020,after lockdown opened up. During
lockdown, I was struggling toconnect with children over the
(24:09):
Adani port issue, because itwas, it was an abstract concept
to them. And then as soon asthings opened up, I took the
children, put them in front ofthe official ladies, who've been
evicted thrice in theirlifetimes from erosion, from
industrialization, twice, andthen now for the fourth time.
And they they shouted and criedand just told their life
(24:30):
stories. And children came backso empowered. And they held a
press conference, in fact, withthe official ladies and the
public hearing, which wasscheduled that we got canceled.
It had such a big rapport.
Tara Khandelwal (24:43):
Oh, that's quite profound. And I can just
imagine the reaction, you know,of these children. And I mean, I
obviously don't have as manyframeworks as you from whatever
little I've been exposed andread, but I just think also
about how bails and I wasreading a book about sort of
like the land. And they are andhow, you know, people living
(25:03):
next to that really have a lotof issues where even and the
doctors sometimes are evencomplicit, so they don't really
do much to help, and they'rejust so sad when you pass by all
of these things, because it'slike, why is this happening? I
mean, don't the people, sort ofwho you know, have the money to
(25:24):
affect change, don't they alsowant to live in an earth which
is beautiful and and lovely. Butanyway, coming back to the book,
you know, you've met so manyfascinating people on your
journey, like Maya favkatupalikupam, she's been fighting for
years to protect her coastline,palaya Anna, who you call the
(25:45):
greatest teacher of the coastand ocean, and of course, your
mentor, who we've already spokenabout, and each of them brings a
different kind of wisdom, whichyou've put into the book. So can
you tell our listeners, maybe astory from one of these people,
or could you tell us about amoment from someone you met, or
(26:06):
a conversation that has reallystayed with you?
Yuvan Aves (26:09):
I speak about parliament, he's among the many,
many fisherfolk. I mean, beforethis book, we were surveying
about 200 kilometers, of course,to document biodiversity, Fisher
livelihoods, practices, in orderto be understood that. And we, I
(26:30):
mean, you know, groups likeMadras, nationalist society,
Climate Action Group, we want todocument this place because
we're increasingly under threat.
There is the Sagarmala plan,which is disastrous.
Simultaneously, we were fightingmultiple campaigns. I was
appellant in the National GreenTribunal against a harbor which
(26:51):
proposed in a place called KaliValley, story 100 kilometers
south of Chennai, the turtlenesting ground. You know, sperm
whales come to breed just, youknow, within a short distance in
the sea where the harbor wasproposed. And so multiple of
these campaigns were going on,and we were trying to evoke
(27:15):
these spaces differently, as Isaid earlier, and pale mana
taught me other ways of sensingthese landscapes. I'm quite
shaken by his animal memory. Youknow, as somebody who goes out
into the sea, you need to beextremely sensitive to the wind.
(27:36):
So he'll be telling me storieslike, you know, 30 years ago,
when I took my khatamara withhook and line to with a plan to
catch a sailfish, the wind wasblowing southward. I'm like,
why? I don't remember what thewind was blowing yesterday, man.
(27:58):
And, you know, once we had thisvery interesting sort of
educational discussion where hewas teaching me wind directions,
and it was like he was tellingme the Tamil name. So when
kachang, you know, Iran, in allthese, you know, crucial words,
and, you know, is asking me totell it back, and I was making
(28:21):
mistakes. Now I'm pretty good.
And he said, listen, because youare a city guy, I'm leaving you,
if it was my official guy, andI'm teaching him, I'll back you
with a stick. I'm like, listen,is this how you teach? You know,
have this sort of philosophicalretort saying, you know, causing
(28:41):
fear in a learning space, whatit can do is where all that, all
that is fine, you are a landteacher. Here you can talk all
this philosophy. Once you comeinto the sea, you have to attach
your fear to the right thing.
Knowing the correct wind is thedifference between life and
death. So fear is very importantin learning. He said, Just and
he was like, You're a landteacher, I'm a sea teacher. So
(29:02):
remember that difference? Isaid, Okay, thank you.
Tara Khandelwal (29:08):
Yeah, I like that part in the book. Also, he
says that, you know, landteacher and sea teacher, and
that fear is really important.
And I don't think I ever thinkabout the wind Russia. Maybe now
I'll start noticing it, havinglearned so much from nature and
people who are deeply attuned toit. What's the one teaching
practice that you follow thatmight not be the most
(29:29):
conventional, but you found itto be a really good way of
teaching.
Yuvan Aves (29:34):
We have a pedagogy we follow in Pallavi trust. And
I mean, this is not somethingspecial to us. I think all good
teachers have come upon this. Wewere asking this question, we
have two hours with children,sometimes two years. How do we
create maximum impact? I mean,the deeper question is, how do
(29:55):
we turn them into activists? Byactivism, I mean falling in love
with the living. World, andbeing able to feel for, care,
for, defend your home, you know.
You know, having, having afeeling for the living world, is
what I mean by activism, whichis not necessarily an ism. It is
just a very fundamental qualityof being alive. You you defend
who you are and your identity,your home, you know, and we came
(30:19):
upon the fact that unless thereis direct engagement, you know,
there's a there's a tree,there's a forest, there's a
wetland, there needs to be someform of direct engagement. I
think direct engagement, we havefound, time and again, is
fundamental to creatingconnection. So we built this
pedagogy in conversation with awonderful educational theorist,
(30:45):
Louis Chawla, who, for the pastfour decades has been asking,
Okay, who becomes anenvironmental steward, you know,
who becomes somebody will standup for something, not just speak
a whole bunch of trash and justwalk away. They will not they
will not put their body oreffort on the line. And this
(31:08):
kept coming up directengagement, and some of her
research is very interesting.
She looks at students who havebeen taught a whole year of a
course worth on climate scienceand impacts. And then another
sample where people have justvisited a wetland several times.
(31:32):
You know, watch the birds. Thesecond group stands up the first
group, it's almost 00, impact.
So the it's a extremelyproblematic thing that this John
Holt said, the great educatorsaid, Knowing does not mean
anything. Just to knowsomething. The intellect is
given so much importance ineducation, it does not turn into
any kind of action. So I think,I think that's the pedagogy
(31:57):
which conventional educationdoes not follow. And in our
curriculum planning, whether itbe engagement public, we work
with a lot of schools. We workwith the greatest Corporation
schools. We have three pillars.
One is all all learning shouldbe direct engagement. I'm not
going to sit inside and speakabout an abstract concept. It
(32:20):
needs to be locally relevant,because the locally local is the
arena of action. And the thirdthing, and this very important,
is that learning should alwaysbe social, socially,
politically, ecologicallyintermingled, because one cannot
be separated from the other, andwhen you separate it, you
actually stifle action. It'slike this. I was, I was actually
(32:42):
called in for observation for achemistry teacher's class, and
she was teaching in a school Iwork with, and she was teaching
fractional distillation, wherecrude oil is mined from the
ocean or from other sources. Andthen she was making it seem all
extremely sexy to the grade ninestudents, jet fuel is taken out
from here, and then tar is takenout from here, from these, these
(33:05):
products. Then I asked herlater, is like, where is the
violence of evicting Adivasicommunities or trashing the
ocean or siloing is not bychance. It's systemically
planned. Because if you putthese things together, our way
of being in the world would betotally different. So we so we
(33:28):
create cracks around topics inorder to further a specific
industrial agenda.
Tara Khandelwal (33:35):
I never thought about education like that. I
don't think I had a very goodeducation, and I look back at my
schooling, but I think, yeah,because I love to read, maybe
that makes up for a little bitof it. But I do agree with what
you're saying. You know, onceyou experience something, that
is when it really sticks. Ithink all human beings are made
(33:56):
in that way, in the same way.
And I really hope that you knowwhat you're doing. Kind of
reaches more and more schools.
And I don't know is it? Is it inMumbai as well, Mumbai has
Yuvan Aves (34:07):
some extra marine life of Mumbai group which have
made tide pooling a culture inMumbai, Abhishek, jamalabad,
Sejal, Mehta, shanak, Modi, whatthey've been from.
Tara Khandelwal (34:21):
There are certain movements, okay, I'm not
that aware. But after this, Ithink I probably
Yuvan Aves (34:28):
if, if you mixed David Attenborough with Eminem,
you'd get a Saher Doshi fromMumbai. Oh, wow. Of course, he's
amazing.
Tara Khandelwal (34:37):
Wow, I definitely would, uh, check him
out. That's that's really cool.
You've been an activist. Youknow, you've called out so many
people. You've spoken out, youeven raised your voice against
them. What is the most difficultfight you've been a part of?
What is the most difficult partof being an activist? It cannot
be easy.
Yuvan Aves (34:58):
Calling out is. But I'm not sure activist work is to
call out or to cancel. I thinkan activist work is to question
and reimagine culture. You know,I think the heart of activism is
questioning in, you know, Modi'sIndia, being an activist. We
(35:21):
know that from, you know, UnitedNations reports that being an
environmental different. I thinkit's India comes only after
Mexico is second or third mostdangerous country for activists.
And we've had, we are a countryof lynchings, and, you know,
murders of activists, whether itbe Gauri Lankesh, Narendra
(35:43):
bulkar, you know, those are justthe big names. Um, I mean, there
have been lot of big fights.
There have been times where, youknow, there have been threats.
There have been, I think, a morefundamental challenge an
activist face is not slippinginto this location of moral
(36:03):
superiority. And as a youngactivist, I had that a lot, and
sometimes you see that, okay,you're doing this, there's a
sense of I'm doing somethingmuch more morally credible than
than all of you around me, andthat's a very dangerous place to
be, because that is also thelocation of the Brahmin priest
or the location of the CEO andthe billionaire. It's extremely
(36:28):
important to question even one'sown commitment constantly. TM
Krishna put this the best herein a talk, he defines Goodness.
Goodness is something which isconstantly open to questioning.
Nothing becomes edifice. Nothingis put permanently on a
(36:52):
pedestal. I think, at apsychological and spiritual
level, that is the fundamentalchallenge of activism is that we
should not slip into this spaceof moral superiority and then it
becomes a kind of moralcapitalism which is then just
another form of the rest of thethings which is happening. Yeah,
Tara Khandelwal (37:15):
I've seen that a lot on social media, this kind
of moral superiority, and I dofeel I agree with that, because
it's a little alienating, youknow, maybe you have somebody
that is a little bit interestedand wants to know but doesn't
quite know or is stillparticipating. You know, I think
conversation like this is very,very useful, because I myself
(37:37):
have learned so much, you know.
And I may have said certainthings that, you know, the
litter, example, certain thingsand the way that you've also
sort of, you know, brought yourpoint of view is not from a
place of moral superiority. It'sjust your point of view that
also makes somebody else learn.
So I definitely think thatthat's very important. So I
think,
Yuvan Aves (37:57):
you know, if I sat and looked at your work, I
would, I would learn a wholedeal. And you have been speaking
to a whole bunch of writers, anddefinitely, you know, by
runnings where you've read morethan me, you know that that
gives a insight, which is that,you know, movements are
ecologies. You know differentkinds of people need to come
together. And we see this timeand again. You take any
(38:21):
successful movement in India,whether it be silent Valley, or
the RTI movement, or evenmovements which have not found
success, but which have shapedculture, find that they are
ecologies, all kinds of strangeand different people have put
aside their differences and cometogether. An alienation is
(38:43):
simply not on the cards. Islike, Oh, I'm a scientist. I'm,
you know, I'm but oh, I'm ajournalist. I've done no way
like, Forget about all that wedo not exist as individuals. So
often in a campaign, we aretrying to make these strange and
new connections we are tryingto. For instance, you know,
(39:05):
school children and Fisher folkcould be artists and writers,
but you get the sense we aretrying to, yeah, movements are
successful when all kinds ofunlikely people come together
and put their strengthstogether, which, which is
exactly how a forest functions,or real ecology
Tara Khandelwal (39:24):
functions.
Yeah, I recently went tomukteswar, which is on the
hills. And over there a friendof mine, he's kind of, you know,
very into nature. He is a CheeseCompany, and he took us into
this forest, and we were justsort of lying down on the grass,
and I was observing the grassitself. I was like, Oh, this is
(39:45):
a forest within a forest.
There's so much happening injust a little square of space.
And then when you take that andyou extrapolate to the larger
forest, I mean, it is just sorich. And I think definitely. In
India, city, people, everybodyshould experience this. What is
the one thing that you hope youknow because you presented a lot
(40:07):
in the book? What is the onething that you hope your readers
will take away from your book?
Yuvan Aves (40:12):
The one thing I hope readers will take which you know
from feedback, I think alreadythe book has achieved to some
sense is that people are readinga few pages and going out onto
the beach or going out andlooking at things. It's, you
know, that was sort of like thesubconscious, tacit intention of
(40:35):
writing. Say, it's not that youread this, but you there's a
shift in perception. There's athere's a change in one's
practice of attention to thingswhich actually matter. You know,
there is this field ofextraordinary field of called
agnotology, which is the studyof ignorance. And you know, they
(40:58):
actually classify our attentionin different ways. One is, you
know, to simply put things whichare important, say, for
instance, bees as pollinators,millipedes as Detective was,
trees as weather makers and soilmakers, important, but we don't
know of them. We don't, we don'treally pay attention, and then
(41:20):
absolutely unimportant. Buteverybody knows. You know, I
sometimes ask students who isKim Kardashian, ex husband, full
hands up. Full hands up. I'mlike, Man shameful, like, not,
not of them specifically, butjust of how culture is made, and
usually forces are trying towarp our attention into, you
(41:43):
know, matters which are not in avery material and alive sense,
important to us, but but create,you know, spheres of ignorance,
where things which we if we paidattention to, we would have more
control over our own lives andlives which matter. So in that
(42:03):
sense, I think people arereading it, going and watching
outside. Teachers are using bitsof it and rethinking how they'll
do their own curriculum. Thatwould be, that would be it. The
idea is not to be obsessed bythe book, even if people read
five pages and and build apractice of seeing, walking,
(42:24):
connecting with their localecology. That's, that's the
desire,
Tara Khandelwal (42:29):
yeah, I think, yeah. Because a book is so
observant and it goes into themind. You take it's, it's also
hard to read it in one book.
It's not one of those books, butit is one of those books that
you can keep coming back to. Andit does feel like a guided
meditation, because it, youknow, when you want to be
reflective, this is somethingthat you can definitely pick up.
And it does give you that pushto go into nature and to just
(42:51):
observe. You know, even your ownlocality, I live in a very
crowded area, like, I mean, Ilive in Mumbai, so my
neighborhood is very, verycrowded, but I do go on walk
sometimes, you know, and justsimple things, like, I've always
managed just simple things likeobserving what are the trees or
just looking up sometimes, youknow, really helps to connect
(43:15):
one as well. I think just thepower of observation is very,
very important. So what was thepublishing process like? You
know, the editing process withBloomsbury. I saw that Shiva
Priya is your editor, and she'sa fantastic editor, and such a
great fit for a book like this.
(43:36):
So can you tell me what was yourpublishing process and the
editing process of writing thisbook,
Yuvan Aves (43:41):
a lot of people to thank for the Supriya reached
out to me, having sort ofvaguely read me here and there,
and just like, can you writesomething for us? And I told
her, there's something I'minterested in, and it's, it's
amazing. The kinds of bookssurpriya brings into being,
quite recently, she works on alot of translations. She works
(44:04):
on a lot of politicallycourageous titles. Recently, the
tiger lessons, translated fromTelugu into English, is a
fantastic book about shepherdsin in going into the Nala Mala
hills to graze their sheep,highly drought prone region, and
(44:25):
the sort of intermixture ofcaste and politics and
environment, wildlife conflict.
So she's been it was amazing towork with her the kind of
detail, and, you know, Undertowsand sub currents of the book,
she picks up and puts back toyou for the for the slightly
undisciplined. She can bechallenging. She will make you
(44:50):
do draft after draft. And thatwas that, that that built
character, and I was willing todo it. But. And then my agent,
Kanishka, who took the book, soright now, internal is doing
really well in the UK. Also,also thanks to my my friend and
very important mentor, RobertMcFarlane, who who's written the
(45:16):
forward to the UK
Tara Khandelwal (45:22):
version. Why do you think the book is doing
really well in the UK? It's,that's quite interesting.
Yuvan Aves (45:28):
My publishers in the UK, thanks to Kanishka, and they
shot the numbers. And it's, it'sequal to India and the Allied
reason is, right now there isthis amazing action writing book
which has come out called is ariver alive, by Robert
McFarlane. And the middlechapter is set in Chennai and
(45:51):
our work. And I think people arereading that and also going into
this, but it is a river alivejust by itself. It it looks at
complex Earth entities, rivers,forests, mountains and movements
around it as complexly anddifferently alive and and the
(46:13):
various campaigns which enliventhem. You know, from New Zealand
to India to Ecuador to Canada.
So, so, yeah, these are threepeople who are extremely
indebted to Supriya Kanishka andRob to a very great extent,
because Rob, I started readingwhen I was 16, and the sense of
dreaming to want to be a naturewriter when there's not a real
(46:36):
market, you know, since mKrishna and Kenneth Anderson,
Jim COVID, you know, naturewriting right now, speaking up
in India, there is Neha Sinha aswild and willful Arthi Kumaras
margin lands, says Al Mehtasuperpowers on the shore, set in
Mumbai. Indian Pitta bookscoming out with some wonderful
(46:57):
titles.
Tara Khandelwal (47:02):
Yeah, yeah, I've been seeing a lot of lot
more nature writing. I've beenmeaning to read margin lands as
well. So coming to naturewriting, that was actually a
question of mine, because Ithink this book is a really like
a master class in nature writingas well. Right? What are some
tips that you have for writerswho want to write about nature,
(47:23):
to be
Yuvan Aves (47:24):
a nature writer in India, it's, it's, it's a very
specific position. It's, andit's a unique position. You look
at Europe, you look at America,its shelves are flooded with
nature writing and and itallowed a certain kind of
relation with nature, out ofbeing a colonial force. So this
having externalized themessiness and exploitation and
(47:49):
complexity, you know, stateshave with nature out onto other
countries, and then this reallysort of romantic, or the grass
is green, the sky is blue. Sortof writing, sort of marks, I
think most of European naturewriting, literature, of course,
there are that's changing, andthere's huge exceptions to that,
(48:13):
including Robert McFarlane,trots, outran and much of others
India, you you do not have thatoption of of romanticizing
nature is messy. It's in theinterstices. It's in your face.
It's complicating your life, andit's utterly under threat, and
(48:37):
you cannot separate it from thepolitics. Often, I've been told,
Do nature, not politics? I'mlike, tell me how to, you know,
how do you, how do you situateyourself in any Indian
landscape, and not talk aboutforms of political violence and
it's or other forms ofcomplexities, which which nature
(49:02):
is intermingled with indigenousresistance. You know, Ambedkar
puts it quite interestingly. Hementions that the caste system
in India necessitates a specifickind of relation the Dalit has
with water. Water is seen as anoppressor because I cannot touch
(49:24):
it. I cannot drink from it. Yousee it as a water is sort of
politically toxic to the lowercaste person. This is what we
are enmeshed in as naturewriters in India and and I think
it has something very importantto offer the world from a nature
(49:45):
writing perspective. And I hopelot of more people take take
this up. It has a strange it'simportant to see nature writing
in its historicity. You had thewhite men going out into the
forest to shoot Tigers leopardsand. Birds includes your Jim
Cobb at Kenneth Anderson,Malcolm, McDonald, Vinh Hume,
(50:07):
and then that being passed onto, for instance, and changed by
Salim Ali Kailash, sankala mKrishnan, Tagore. Tagore is full
of nature writing. I, I wasresearching butterflies
recently, and just dozens ofreferences to to the most
(50:28):
obscure of creatures. And thennow in in the current paradigm
of climate crisis, biodiversitycrisis, how do you how do you be
a nature writer.
Tara Khandelwal (50:42):
I think even Amitabh Ghosh is a really great
example
Yuvan Aves (50:45):
for those. Amitabh Ghosh, I would not put as a
nature writer. His work isabsolutely important in India.
But Amitabh Ghosh, RamachandraGuha has Yeah, Mahesh
Rangarajan, all of these peoplewho written a lot about nature
are have done archival work andone, one way to define nature
writing would be directengagement. It is a form of
(51:07):
action writing so that thatdistinction and produces a
different kind of literaturewhen it's not purely archival.
Though archival work isextremely
Tara Khandelwal (51:19):
important, and in terms of technique, do you
have any tips for naturewriters?
Yuvan Aves (51:25):
The form of repeated direct engagement and action,
allows for new language, allowsfor different articulations and
meeting different kinds ofpeople and and even writing in
that landscape. Often my I seekmy new language in of course,
(51:47):
you know, reading other writers,but also in the landscape
itself, because neuronally, thebrain becomes differently
connected in ways of directengagement.
Tara Khandelwal (52:02):
I like that, that you seek language from the
landscape. That's lovely. Sowhat book are you? Are you
working on another book
Yuvan Aves (52:09):
I'm working on, a book called incendance, and it's
about Indian insects and howthey how they are absolutely
important for our ecologies, howthey are ignored, vilified.
Pesticide and also, it's alsoabout the violence of the
(52:30):
agrochemical industry. Pesticidemaking in India, it's about the
decline of pollinators, and italso travels the entire
geography of India and evokesdifferent species in the
specific places and practices.
Tara Khandelwal (52:48):
Sounds very, very fascinating. My cousin was
telling me recently that thesingle most important solution
to climate change is bees, andshe's thinking of, you know,
keeping a beehive. And I said,No, no, no, don't do that. Maybe
it was a good idea, after
Yuvan Aves (53:07):
all. So one narrative which has not come out
of you know, we had the largestever farmers protest in the
world in 2020 2021, it wasaround one part of it was around
MSP, minimum support price, thefact that farmers are saying,
Give us economic safety nets togrow all kinds of crops, because
(53:28):
food security is not the realproblem in India. It's
nutritional security. And onceyou care about Nutritional
Security, you care about bees,you care about pollinators,
because you can't eatvegetables, you can't eat
pulses. However, it's easy tojust focus on rice for an
agrochemical corporate because agrass is largely being
(53:50):
pollinated. And you can controlthe market, control the capital
investments farmers have to putin, as well as douse the soil in
chemicals. It's a very specificpolitic of forcing Paddy and
(54:10):
wheat. The Green Revolution justdid this because we can't just
eat rice, you know, we will bemalnourished utterly so, I mean,
those are connections, and whichI'm trying to explore again, I
don't think enough part in thepublic
Tara Khandelwal (54:27):
discourse. I very much look forward to
reading that book, and thank youso much for this conversation.
I've learned a lot, and I thinkit's such a great introduction
to this very rich world, andalso a reminder to us to observe
very minutely and go out andengage. I think that's the one
thing that I have learned fromthis book, is that as every
(54:49):
individual, we can sort of goout and become more aware and
experience so thank you so much.
I really, really enjoyed this
Yuvan Aves (54:56):
conversation. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.
You.
Unknown (55:00):
Hope you enjoyed this episode of Books and Beyond with
bound. This podcast is createdby bound, a company that helps
you grow through stories. Findus at bound India on all social
media platforms. Tune in everyWednesday as we peek into the
lives and minds of somebrilliant authors from India and
South Asia. You.
Un Welcome to Books and Beyond. With bound I'm Tara
Khandelwal and I'm Michelled'cota, in this podcast, we talk
to India's finest authors anduncover the stories behind the
best written book and dissecthow these books shape our lives
and worldviews today. So let'sdive in.
Tara Khandelwal (00:22):
So today we're heading into the marshes of
Chennai, but we're here not justto admire nature. We're here to
question how we've been taughtto see it, and the book that we
going to be talking about isintertidal, which isn't about
just wetlands or insects or theocean. It's about how nature can
be a refuge, a teacher and evena protest. The book shows us how
(00:44):
deeply human survival is tied tothe natural world, and that's
something that we all knowintuitively, but this really
brings it to the forefront, andhow much we can lose culturally,
emotionally and evenspiritually, when we ignore
that. So really sort of, for me,brought that alive in a way. And
this is a naturalist diarywritten by one Avis, who's here
(01:05):
with me today. I picked up thisbook because it reminds me that
nature isn't just a backdrop.
Living in a city. Sometimes itcan feel like it is, but it's
alive. It speaks and it's underthreat. So thank you, Ivan, and
really looking forward toexplore this moment.
Yuvan Aves (01:21):
Hey, Tara, thank you. Thank you for having
Tara Khandelwal (01:23):
you know, I really like the beginning of the
book because it was a little bitpersonal as well. And your life
has been anything but ordinary.
And in the book, you chroniclesome really tough times, like in
the PROLOG of your book, youknow, you talk about your
abusive stepfather, some of thethings that you went through,
and then how you ran away fromhome at 16, and that's when you
(01:45):
sort of made your way to nature,and you kept learning, and now
you're doing such inspiringwork, like leading the farm
Environment and Society Programat abacus Montessori or and
building Earth focusededucation, starting the valuer
trust. So I just wanted to askfor you sort of, you know, how
(02:07):
did that transition happen fromthat little boy who ran away to,
you know, what you are now, andhow does, how did that
connection to nature help you inthose tough times?
Yuvan Aves (02:20):
Yeah, I shared my personal story, not to ask the
world to look at it, but as anexample, among a lot of
examples, of how our connectionwith a multi species world,
which is how inherently we areas humans who have evolved in
(02:42):
touch with all kinds of otherbeings can be very inwardly
transformative, and to sort oftrack that arc for the reader,
before going into the heart ofthe book, it's Not that you know
perhaps in a middle class, upperclass, socio economic sense,
(03:06):
reading the PROLOG might bestrange, disturbing, even some
people have got back to mesaying, You need to put a
trigger warning there. I did notwant to put a trigger warning
there. Domestic violence isvery, very common, uh, rural
scenarios, obviously, I have,I've chosen to treat it
(03:28):
something out of the ordinary inthe way I write about it,
perhaps, but it is, I think,inherently part of most Indian
households. So, so in thatsense, it's not special. And
what, what I wanted tocommunicate was the sense that
our suffering acquires certainkinds of meanings and pathways
(03:53):
in in words, when we when ourcell food occupies, let's say
our landscape, rivers, trees,other species. I explore that
briefly in one of the chapters,the detritive meditation, where
looking at beings which turn theshit of life into something
(04:15):
useful, offers a powerfulmetaphor. Metaphor, I think, is
a survival need. We make meaningalways through the meanings in
terms of other things. So, sothat was, that was the idea to
look at, to look at suffering,look at how it it has completely
transformed. I would say,connection with the living world
(04:35):
has has healed or expanded, or,in fact, made me feel grateful
for the suffering I have becauseof its transformative power,
psychologically, spiritually,transformative power.
Tara Khandelwal (04:47):
I think nature does. He'll definitely, and
they've been, it's scientific.
They've been studies about thevalue of that for all human
beings to go out and be nature.
And something as simple as, youknow, people say, Oh, why don't
you? Go for a walk. And I thinkthose kind of things really
help, even for me in Bombay, youknow, just going for a walk,
(05:07):
observing the trees, the plants,I have a few plants in my house,
something as small as that alsofeels is has a grounding factor.
Okay? So I really liked how thestructure of the book comes
about, right? It's like a partjournal. It's a part nature
documentary. It's a love letterto Earth. And there's a lot of
(05:28):
detailed observations, you know,like the bees nesting on your
balcony and how they build homeswithout a hierarchy, to moments
of deep reflection and evenguided meditations. And then
there are the stories from thefield. So your visits to coastal
communities, learning about thetribes in the Andaman Islands,
(05:49):
and I found it reallyinteresting that they have words
to describe different texturesof waves, because our language
tells us so much about how weview the world. And you know,
you said in the book, you knowthat they mentioned they moved
uphill during the Indian Oceantsunami, because they said, Oh,
the ocean is angry with us. Wemust move up in repentance. And
(06:11):
that, I thought that was reallypowerful. It gave me goosebumps.
You know, such a unique way oflistening to nature. So I'm
curious, how did you land onthis mix of memoir, research and
reflection for the
Yuvan Aves (06:23):
book. This book has its genesis in a specific
movement which has gatheredmomentum and has remained
successful. It was protestingagainst a mega quote by the
Adani group on the pulitzLagoon, which is the second
(06:44):
largest brackish water lagoon inIndia, and the fact that public
mobilization was really, reallydifficult without stories. So
when we started that movement,lots of people were involved.
Significantly, my activistmentor, Nithyananda Raman, uh,
(07:05):
Chennai Climate Action Group,the Fisher folk there, we needed
to manipulate people'sattention. I think our our
practice, each of us have ourspecific practice of attention,
and usually, uh, capitalistforce tries to channel it, focus
it, steal it in specificstreams. And as activists, we
(07:31):
try to create counter streams tothat. So, you know, look at that
advertisement, and we aresaying, no, look, look at the
ghost crap, because ourattention is finite, and it
matters to us and to the world,where as individuals and as
groups where we put it. So aspart of that campaign, we
created field guides, ways ofusing the coast as a learning
(07:56):
space. I wrote a children's bookbased on it, and that sort of
emerged into an idea to evoke abeach, which was in, for
instance, let's say thegovernment of India released
wasteland Atlas in 2018 19,which classified beaches as
(08:16):
wastelands because you wantedNot economize it in the in the
traditional sense, you couldn'tcultivate it, couldn't do other
things. But then we find that inNorth Chennai, which is the
industrialized area of Chennai,the beach has eroded away, and
therefore salt water is enteringfrom beneath and up to 12
(08:41):
kilometers. So to sort of look,to sort of counter these
narratives create a sort ofpublic interest close to heart
and something which is personal,that's the genesis of the book,
I think,
Tara Khandelwal (08:55):
yeah. And then the book that you, you said that
you know, you have the mentor,Nithyananda, who is your, who is
your first exposure to standingup to corporate crime, because
he also looked at the mercurypoisoning in Cody. And we
actually interviewed the author,who wrote a book called heavy
metal, which is about that. So,yeah, I would love to know a
(09:18):
little bit more about how youfirst came in contact with this
gentleman, and you know, yourfirst exposure to corporate
crime, and then how sort of thatled you to becoming an activist
for this movement. And I thinkrehaja had called attention to
this pulitz campaign, which iswhen I think people like me also
(09:38):
hadn't gotten aware of it.
Yuvan Aves (09:40):
Rega is my partner.
Oh, we live together now, andthanks to Mr. Adani, we got to
meet. Wow. I studied in aKrishnamurthy school whose
philosophical foundation wasquestion, every answer when.
Hurting nature, you're hurtingyourself. Be a no path can lead
(10:01):
you to the truth. You have to bea light onto yourself. This was
the philosophical foundation.
And when I was in grade five,Niti Nithyananda jaraman came to
the school and he made apresentation about so you can
(10:22):
imagine how long ago that was.
And campaigns go on for decades.
Communities fight for justicefor very long times. And he
showed this, what HindustanUnilever had done to the pura
Lake and mercury poisoning, whatit can do to workers and human
(10:44):
beings, and the fact that thecorporate could legally fight,
politically, manipulate, get outof trouble, and this and this
sense of, you know, at The timewe name isms. You know, we say
capitalism socialism is and itwas very useful for me to look
(11:08):
at isms as emotions, because,because it's easy to taxonomize,
usually isms are made toincarcerate. You know, in the
current political regime, if Iwere to substitute capitalism
with emotion, that would begreed. I don't know what else to
(11:28):
you know, substitute that. Sothese were things I was exposed
to through Niti and then later,maybe in grade seven, grade
eight people from the Bhopal GasTragedy. I think it was maybe
the 25th year, 30th year, womenwith deformed children, about
(11:49):
1520, of them came and sat inthe assembly, and they spoke in
Hindi. I did not understand aword of it. I was utterly moved
and devastated and in tears. Andof what can be done and what you
can get away with. You know,after killing 20,000 people,
mostly overnight, throughthrough negligence and
(12:13):
underfunding and all kinds ofother violations of law and
human rights, rich dudes can getaway with what they do. So these
were important early exposures,and they were facilitated by
Niti and later after, afterspending, you know, five years
(12:36):
in Pakistan, educating myself,after I left home at 16, coming
back, I sought them out again. Isaid, Listen, this is what I
want to do. And he said, Youknow what? There's a port being
built. Please help us. Let's dosomething.
Tara Khandelwal (12:48):
Wow. And I think that's very interesting,
that your school also sort ofexposed you to all of these
things. I mean, I certainlynever had this kind of exposure
in my school. And I think it'sso important, I think, for
children to know about all ofthese things that are happening
so that they can also affectchange. I One of the things that
really struck me, you know,because we live in cities and
(13:11):
Chennai, and I have few friends,also very good friends, who live
in Chennai. And you say howcities emerge around hydrologies
and how things have changed inChennai, which is, it's now from
80% wetland to now only 15% andthat coincides with floods
cyclones, and that just made methink as well about the
(13:32):
reclamation in Mumbai, and allof these statistics that say
that, you know, by 2035 A largearea of Mumbai will be under
flooding. And it just made mewonder, what will be the
implication about that
Yuvan Aves (13:47):
there is a sort of really dangerous hydrological
amnesia in a city like Chennai,which grew cities come around
rivers and wetlands. Chennai,existence owes itself to the
khostala River and the Adyar andthe Koum, which is off shoot of
the khosta Laya. And one canexplain the coming up of cities
(14:12):
as well as civilizations throughthe existence of rivers we could
ever only live in a watershedand urbanization seems to cross
a critical threshold ofconvenience, which then enables
us to forget this and and ithits us back. And human history
(14:34):
is full of this when riverschange their course, the Indus
civilization, you know, otherother Mesopotamia, or they had
to move that to either migrate,or they had to vanish. And we've
seen this in other kinds ofcities, you know, whether it be,
(14:54):
you know, parts of the Cholakingdom, let's say Kanchipuram
thirupu. Sure it's sad that onecan track human history as
coming around water bodies,forgetting moving away or facing
demise. And I think the quickestform of that is the current
(15:15):
industrial urbanizationparadigm. It's quite sad,
because Tamil Nadu is known forits its hydro hydro wisdom, its
hydro culture. We have only onlysecond to Rajasthan. We have
maximum number of water bodies.
You take any map, it's a sort ofscatter of half circles, and
(15:37):
these structures are calledAries. Aries don't have a word
in English. It's a U shaped bundopposing the gradient of water
flow. And people knew that theonly way to live here was to
allow water to catch water andmake it percolate and allow it
(16:00):
to float. If you had any otherway of living here, you would
either starve or be flooded.
Because, I mean, unlike Mumbai,which is facing the southwest
monsoon, largely the Northeastmonsoon, which comes to Chennai
and much of the eastern coast,is a fickle, whimsical thing you
(16:22):
will have suddenly one yearwhich is 2000 plus mm of
rainfall, another year will be600 mm. Another year will be
three years of consistent 800mm. You don't know what kind of
water you will get. Andtherefore the respect for water,
especially in a place likeChennai, was extremely high,
(16:45):
extremely conscious, and we arelosing it, which means our
future is quite bleak. I mean,another way of looking at that,
however, is that floods come in.
When 2015 the floods came, itwas one of the biggest economic
disasters. 12,000 crores worthof infrastructure was was
destroyed and and thengovernments are waking up
(17:08):
saying, you know, let's haveflood irrigation channels, let's
reclaim our lakes, let's moveout encroachment. How that sort
of environmental action is alsodiscriminating five star hotel
called Leela Palace is sittingon the Adi R estuary. Arihant or
mayat hospital is sitting on theflood plains of the Arya river.
(17:29):
They will not be moved all, eventhough they've been called out
by the control Auditor GeneralReport government will come move
people living in sheds who aredoing nothing to damage the
river, to show some sort ofoptics. So this is the hydro
politics we are dealing with,
Tara Khandelwal (17:49):
I think, as a teacher, you know, in the book,
you speak about your work as ateacher. And I think you know
you are that's so important,because you know it starts from
there and molding young minds, Iam always amazed, you know, when
I see people throwing litter,and then I just wonder, okay,
you know, they it was, it wasn'tsort of taught to them at a
(18:11):
young age like that, you know?
And if everybody was just taughtfrom a young age not to do that,
then things will be sodifferent. You wouldn't see all
of this everywhere. And you talkabout, you know, as part of your
teaching practice, you talkabout the concept of these toxic
tours, and how you took yourstudents on toxic tours where
they meet. You know, displacedFisher women, people whose
(18:32):
families, you know, have passedaway because of oil spills. And,
you know, dead olive ridleyturtles. I mean, it's quite
heartbreaking. So as a teacher,sort of, I wanted to ask you,
what kinds of things you know,do you put into practice, and
what you know? What are thelessons and how, how you
(18:53):
imparting them to your students?
Yuvan Aves (18:57):
I don't mind if children throw later. Actually,
it's, I think it's totally fine,really. It's very important,
because the market wants to pushus into a corner where our only
power is individualistic actionof some form of consumption.
Okay, buy this or buy that. Yougo pick up trash from the beach.
(19:21):
I am interested in teachingchildren about structural
action. How do you organizethat? That is the only kind of
Environmental Action somebodywent and picked up little
somebody did not use plastictheir entire lives. Doesn't mean
jack for the environment. Let usnot profess to each other or
teach other people aboutindividualism, because, because
(19:43):
that is the corner we mustrefuse to be pushed towards.
Somebody throws a plasticoutside. There's all, you know,
I think, I think it's fine,whatever, as a sense of personal
hygiene, as a sense of, youknow, civic, civic duty. You do
it. It. Don't do it. It's fine,but I it's important that
(20:04):
children feel connection,because connection comes before
care, and this is something Icome upon time and again. You
try to hammer down care intopeople before there is
connection, they turn away fromthe cause. So if we do a very
robust public engagement programthrough Pallavi trust, with the
(20:28):
organization of Iran, weactually directly engage with
almost 2000 people a year. Wetake them on walks and go on
shore walks. We understand howthe intertidal zone works. We
understand the functions of thebeach, the dolphins, the ghost
crabs, the currents, howfisherfolks have been living
(20:49):
there. I don't have to tell younot to throw garbage there,
because there's love, there'sconcern, there's fascination,
that that's what needs to bedone. And then there's community
building around, around thisspace. This is very important
fact, there's some veryinteresting research by a you
know, nature educationresearcher named David sober,
(21:09):
where, if you hammer downclimate crisis, you know climate
action before children can feelconnection. Because I think that
is fundamentally what theinterconnectedness of of an
immediate local ecology allowsfor people turn away from the
purpose. So, so, so, so that'sthat's it. That's an important
(21:32):
nuance to register for us. Toxictours, again, something I
learned from Nithyananda Raman.
He has been my greatest activistmentor. I've been grateful to
have a long list of mentors, youknow, through my life, and I
think that's been life savingfor me. What we do is we go
(21:52):
cities, urbanized places havetheir sacrifice zones, and
usually the sacrifice zones areplaced where, not necessarily
because they they are suitablefor it, but it's because the
people living there are do nothave the political economic
power to resist it. So forinstance, just historically,
(22:14):
this would be true of Mumbai.
This would be true of Delhi, anyMetropolis you take in Chennai.
The South Chennai is where theupper caste, the Brahmins, the
landlords, lived. And North,Chennai is where the Dalit fork,
the Fisher folk, British,brought a whole bunch of labor
(22:38):
from other states, put themthere. And so ever since before
independence. And after all, thered category industries, which
means industries will producelethal waste, kill life and
human life oppose that. It's, infact, highly populated area, and
(22:59):
therefore to take childrenthrough this place and to say,
Listen, this is our cityfunctions. This is the sacrifice
zone. This is where yourelectricity comes from. This is
where your you know, whether itbe fertilizer, pesticide,
petrol, diesel. Here's refinery,and we look at the impact this
has on on people, on ecologies,on on other landscapes. Very
(23:23):
interestingly, this specificstretch of notch, and if it's
called the kartupalli Island,it's a sand barrier island where
there are major rivers, riverswhich bring sediment for
millennia and dump it in theocean. Sand barrier islands
form. It's our most importantclimate barrier, and we've been
abusing it for centuries now,and that has a profound impact
(23:47):
on children. In fact, for class11 children, for many years, we
would do something called aclass campaign. We would take up
an issue, study very deeply, anddo something which causes has a
real world impact. So in 2020,after lockdown opened up. During
lockdown, I was struggling toconnect with children over the
(24:09):
Adani port issue, because itwas, it was an abstract concept
to them. And then as soon asthings opened up, I took the
children, put them in front ofthe official ladies, who've been
evicted thrice in theirlifetimes from erosion, from
industrialization, twice, andthen now for the fourth time.
And they they shouted and criedand just told their life
(24:30):
stories. And children came backso empowered. And they held a
press conference, in fact, withthe official ladies and the
public hearing, which wasscheduled that we got canceled.
It had such a big rapport.
Tara Khandelwal (24:43):
Oh, that's quite profound. And I can just
imagine the reaction, you know,of these children. And I mean, I
obviously don't have as manyframeworks as you from whatever
little I've been exposed andread, but I just think also
about how bails and I wasreading a book about sort of
like the land. And they are andhow, you know, people living
(25:03):
next to that really have a lotof issues where even and the
doctors sometimes are evencomplicit, so they don't really
do much to help, and they'rejust so sad when you pass by all
of these things, because it'slike, why is this happening? I
mean, don't the people, sort ofwho you know, have the money to
(25:24):
affect change, don't they alsowant to live in an earth which
is beautiful and and lovely. Butanyway, coming back to the book,
you know, you've met so manyfascinating people on your
journey, like Maya favkatupalikupam, she's been fighting for
years to protect her coastline,palaya Anna, who you call the
(25:45):
greatest teacher of the coastand ocean, and of course, your
mentor, who we've already spokenabout, and each of them brings a
different kind of wisdom, whichyou've put into the book. So can
you tell our listeners, maybe astory from one of these people,
or could you tell us about amoment from someone you met, or
(26:06):
a conversation that has reallystayed with you?
Yuvan Aves (26:09):
I speak about parliament, he's among the many,
many fisherfolk. I mean, beforethis book, we were surveying
about 200 kilometers, of course,to document biodiversity, Fisher
livelihoods, practices, in orderto be understood that. And we, I
(26:30):
mean, you know, groups likeMadras, nationalist society,
Climate Action Group, we want todocument this place because
we're increasingly under threat.
There is the Sagarmala plan,which is disastrous.
Simultaneously, we were fightingmultiple campaigns. I was
appellant in the National GreenTribunal against a harbor which
(26:51):
proposed in a place called KaliValley, story 100 kilometers
south of Chennai, the turtlenesting ground. You know, sperm
whales come to breed just, youknow, within a short distance in
the sea where the harbor wasproposed. And so multiple of
these campaigns were going on,and we were trying to evoke
(27:15):
these spaces differently, as Isaid earlier, and pale mana
taught me other ways of sensingthese landscapes. I'm quite
shaken by his animal memory. Youknow, as somebody who goes out
into the sea, you need to beextremely sensitive to the wind.
(27:36):
So he'll be telling me storieslike, you know, 30 years ago,
when I took my khatamara withhook and line to with a plan to
catch a sailfish, the wind wasblowing southward. I'm like,
why? I don't remember what thewind was blowing yesterday, man.
(27:58):
And, you know, once we had thisvery interesting sort of
educational discussion where hewas teaching me wind directions,
and it was like he was tellingme the Tamil name. So when
kachang, you know, Iran, in allthese, you know, crucial words,
and, you know, is asking me totell it back, and I was making
(28:21):
mistakes. Now I'm pretty good.
And he said, listen, because youare a city guy, I'm leaving you,
if it was my official guy, andI'm teaching him, I'll back you
with a stick. I'm like, listen,is this how you teach? You know,
have this sort of philosophicalretort saying, you know, causing
(28:41):
fear in a learning space, whatit can do is where all that, all
that is fine, you are a landteacher. Here you can talk all
this philosophy. Once you comeinto the sea, you have to attach
your fear to the right thing.
Knowing the correct wind is thedifference between life and
death. So fear is very importantin learning. He said, Just and
he was like, You're a landteacher, I'm a sea teacher. So
(29:02):
remember that difference? Isaid, Okay, thank you.
Tara Khandelwal (29:08):
Yeah, I like that part in the book. Also, he
says that, you know, landteacher and sea teacher, and
that fear is really important.
And I don't think I ever thinkabout the wind Russia. Maybe now
I'll start noticing it, havinglearned so much from nature and
people who are deeply attuned toit. What's the one teaching
practice that you follow thatmight not be the most
(29:29):
conventional, but you found itto be a really good way of
teaching.
Yuvan Aves (29:34):
We have a pedagogy we follow in Pallavi trust. And
I mean, this is not somethingspecial to us. I think all good
teachers have come upon this. Wewere asking this question, we
have two hours with children,sometimes two years. How do we
create maximum impact? I mean,the deeper question is, how do
(29:55):
we turn them into activists? Byactivism, I mean falling in love
with the living. World, andbeing able to feel for, care,
for, defend your home, you know.
You know, having, having afeeling for the living world, is
what I mean by activism, whichis not necessarily an ism. It is
just a very fundamental qualityof being alive. You you defend
who you are and your identity,your home, you know, and we came
(30:19):
upon the fact that unless thereis direct engagement, you know,
there's a there's a tree,there's a forest, there's a
wetland, there needs to be someform of direct engagement. I
think direct engagement, we havefound, time and again, is
fundamental to creatingconnection. So we built this
pedagogy in conversation with awonderful educational theorist,
(30:45):
Louis Chawla, who, for the pastfour decades has been asking,
Okay, who becomes anenvironmental steward, you know,
who becomes somebody will standup for something, not just speak
a whole bunch of trash and justwalk away. They will not they
will not put their body oreffort on the line. And this
(31:08):
kept coming up directengagement, and some of her
research is very interesting.
She looks at students who havebeen taught a whole year of a
course worth on climate scienceand impacts. And then another
sample where people have justvisited a wetland several times.
(31:32):
You know, watch the birds. Thesecond group stands up the first
group, it's almost 00, impact.
So the it's a extremelyproblematic thing that this John
Holt said, the great educatorsaid, Knowing does not mean
anything. Just to knowsomething. The intellect is
given so much importance ineducation, it does not turn into
any kind of action. So I think,I think that's the pedagogy
(31:57):
which conventional educationdoes not follow. And in our
curriculum planning, whether itbe engagement public, we work
with a lot of schools. We workwith the greatest Corporation
schools. We have three pillars.
One is all all learning shouldbe direct engagement. I'm not
going to sit inside and speakabout an abstract concept. It
(32:20):
needs to be locally relevant,because the locally local is the
arena of action. And the thirdthing, and this very important,
is that learning should alwaysbe social, socially,
politically, ecologicallyintermingled, because one cannot
be separated from the other, andwhen you separate it, you
actually stifle action. It'slike this. I was, I was actually
(32:42):
called in for observation for achemistry teacher's class, and
she was teaching in a school Iwork with, and she was teaching
fractional distillation, wherecrude oil is mined from the
ocean or from other sources. Andthen she was making it seem all
extremely sexy to the grade ninestudents, jet fuel is taken out
from here, and then tar is takenout from here, from these, these
(33:05):
products. Then I asked herlater, is like, where is the
violence of evicting Adivasicommunities or trashing the
ocean or siloing is not bychance. It's systemically
planned. Because if you putthese things together, our way
of being in the world would betotally different. So we so we
(33:28):
create cracks around topics inorder to further a specific
industrial agenda.
Tara Khandelwal (33:35):
I never thought about education like that. I
don't think I had a very goodeducation, and I look back at my
schooling, but I think, yeah,because I love to read, maybe
that makes up for a little bitof it. But I do agree with what
you're saying. You know, onceyou experience something, that
is when it really sticks. Ithink all human beings are made
(33:56):
in that way, in the same way.
And I really hope that you knowwhat you're doing. Kind of
reaches more and more schools.
And I don't know is it? Is it inMumbai as well, Mumbai has
Yuvan Aves (34:07):
some extra marine life of Mumbai group which have
made tide pooling a culture inMumbai, Abhishek, jamalabad,
Sejal, Mehta, shanak, Modi, whatthey've been from.
Tara Khandelwal (34:21):
There are certain movements, okay, I'm not
that aware. But after this, Ithink I probably
Yuvan Aves (34:28):
if, if you mixed David Attenborough with Eminem,
you'd get a Saher Doshi fromMumbai. Oh, wow. Of course, he's
amazing.
Tara Khandelwal (34:37):
Wow, I definitely would, uh, check him
out. That's that's really cool.
You've been an activist. Youknow, you've called out so many
people. You've spoken out, youeven raised your voice against
them. What is the most difficultfight you've been a part of?
What is the most difficult partof being an activist? It cannot
be easy.
Yuvan Aves (34:58):
Calling out is. But I'm not sure activist work is to
call out or to cancel. I thinkan activist work is to question
and reimagine culture. You know,I think the heart of activism is
questioning in, you know, Modi'sIndia, being an activist. We
(35:21):
know that from, you know, UnitedNations reports that being an
environmental different. I thinkit's India comes only after
Mexico is second or third mostdangerous country for activists.
And we've had, we are a countryof lynchings, and, you know,
murders of activists, whether itbe Gauri Lankesh, Narendra
(35:43):
bulkar, you know, those are justthe big names. Um, I mean, there
have been lot of big fights.
There have been times where, youknow, there have been threats.
There have been, I think, a morefundamental challenge an
activist face is not slippinginto this location of moral
(36:03):
superiority. And as a youngactivist, I had that a lot, and
sometimes you see that, okay,you're doing this, there's a
sense of I'm doing somethingmuch more morally credible than
than all of you around me, andthat's a very dangerous place to
be, because that is also thelocation of the Brahmin priest
or the location of the CEO andthe billionaire. It's extremely
(36:28):
important to question even one'sown commitment constantly. TM
Krishna put this the best herein a talk, he defines Goodness.
Goodness is something which isconstantly open to questioning.
Nothing becomes edifice. Nothingis put permanently on a
(36:52):
pedestal. I think, at apsychological and spiritual
level, that is the fundamentalchallenge of activism is that we
should not slip into this spaceof moral superiority and then it
becomes a kind of moralcapitalism which is then just
another form of the rest of thethings which is happening. Yeah,
Tara Khandelwal (37:15):
I've seen that a lot on social media, this kind
of moral superiority, and I dofeel I agree with that, because
it's a little alienating, youknow, maybe you have somebody
that is a little bit interestedand wants to know but doesn't
quite know or is stillparticipating. You know, I think
conversation like this is very,very useful, because I myself
(37:37):
have learned so much, you know.
And I may have said certainthings that, you know, the
litter, example, certain thingsand the way that you've also
sort of, you know, brought yourpoint of view is not from a
place of moral superiority. It'sjust your point of view that
also makes somebody else learn.
So I definitely think thatthat's very important. So I
think,
Yuvan Aves (37:57):
you know, if I sat and looked at your work, I
would, I would learn a wholedeal. And you have been speaking
to a whole bunch of writers, anddefinitely, you know, by
runnings where you've read morethan me, you know that that
gives a insight, which is that,you know, movements are
ecologies. You know differentkinds of people need to come
together. And we see this timeand again. You take any
(38:21):
successful movement in India,whether it be silent Valley, or
the RTI movement, or evenmovements which have not found
success, but which have shapedculture, find that they are
ecologies, all kinds of strangeand different people have put
aside their differences and cometogether. An alienation is
(38:43):
simply not on the cards. Islike, Oh, I'm a scientist. I'm,
you know, I'm but oh, I'm ajournalist. I've done no way
like, Forget about all that wedo not exist as individuals. So
often in a campaign, we aretrying to make these strange and
new connections we are tryingto. For instance, you know,
(39:05):
school children and Fisher folkcould be artists and writers,
but you get the sense we aretrying to, yeah, movements are
successful when all kinds ofunlikely people come together
and put their strengthstogether, which, which is
exactly how a forest functions,or real ecology
Tara Khandelwal (39:24):
functions.
Yeah, I recently went tomukteswar, which is on the
hills. And over there a friendof mine, he's kind of, you know,
very into nature. He is a CheeseCompany, and he took us into
this forest, and we were justsort of lying down on the grass,
and I was observing the grassitself. I was like, Oh, this is
(39:45):
a forest within a forest.
There's so much happening injust a little square of space.
And then when you take that andyou extrapolate to the larger
forest, I mean, it is just sorich. And I think definitely. In
India, city, people, everybodyshould experience this. What is
the one thing that you hope youknow because you presented a lot
(40:07):
in the book? What is the onething that you hope your readers
will take away from your book?
Yuvan Aves (40:12):
The one thing I hope readers will take which you know
from feedback, I think alreadythe book has achieved to some
sense is that people are readinga few pages and going out onto
the beach or going out andlooking at things. It's, you
know, that was sort of like thesubconscious, tacit intention of
(40:35):
writing. Say, it's not that youread this, but you there's a
shift in perception. There's athere's a change in one's
practice of attention to thingswhich actually matter. You know,
there is this field ofextraordinary field of called
agnotology, which is the studyof ignorance. And you know, they
(40:58):
actually classify our attentionin different ways. One is, you
know, to simply put things whichare important, say, for
instance, bees as pollinators,millipedes as Detective was,
trees as weather makers and soilmakers, important, but we don't
know of them. We don't, we don'treally pay attention, and then
(41:20):
absolutely unimportant. Buteverybody knows. You know, I
sometimes ask students who isKim Kardashian, ex husband, full
hands up. Full hands up. I'mlike, Man shameful, like, not,
not of them specifically, butjust of how culture is made, and
usually forces are trying towarp our attention into, you
(41:43):
know, matters which are not in avery material and alive sense,
important to us, but but create,you know, spheres of ignorance,
where things which we if we paidattention to, we would have more
control over our own lives andlives which matter. So in that
(42:03):
sense, I think people arereading it, going and watching
outside. Teachers are using bitsof it and rethinking how they'll
do their own curriculum. Thatwould be, that would be it. The
idea is not to be obsessed bythe book, even if people read
five pages and and build apractice of seeing, walking,
(42:24):
connecting with their localecology. That's, that's the
desire,
Tara Khandelwal (42:29):
yeah, I think, yeah. Because a book is so
observant and it goes into themind. You take it's, it's also
hard to read it in one book.
It's not one of those books, butit is one of those books that
you can keep coming back to. Andit does feel like a guided
meditation, because it, youknow, when you want to be
reflective, this is somethingthat you can definitely pick up.
And it does give you that pushto go into nature and to just
(42:51):
observe. You know, even your ownlocality, I live in a very
crowded area, like, I mean, Ilive in Mumbai, so my
neighborhood is very, verycrowded, but I do go on walk
sometimes, you know, and justsimple things, like, I've always
managed just simple things likeobserving what are the trees or
just looking up sometimes, youknow, really helps to connect
(43:15):
one as well. I think just thepower of observation is very,
very important. So what was thepublishing process like? You
know, the editing process withBloomsbury. I saw that Shiva
Priya is your editor, and she'sa fantastic editor, and such a
great fit for a book like this.
(43:36):
So can you tell me what was yourpublishing process and the
editing process of writing thisbook,
Yuvan Aves (43:41):
a lot of people to thank for the Supriya reached
out to me, having sort ofvaguely read me here and there,
and just like, can you writesomething for us? And I told
her, there's something I'minterested in, and it's, it's
amazing. The kinds of bookssurpriya brings into being,
quite recently, she works on alot of translations. She works
(44:04):
on a lot of politicallycourageous titles. Recently, the
tiger lessons, translated fromTelugu into English, is a
fantastic book about shepherdsin in going into the Nala Mala
hills to graze their sheep,highly drought prone region, and
(44:25):
the sort of intermixture ofcaste and politics and
environment, wildlife conflict.
So she's been it was amazing towork with her the kind of
detail, and, you know, Undertowsand sub currents of the book,
she picks up and puts back toyou for the for the slightly
undisciplined. She can bechallenging. She will make you
(44:50):
do draft after draft. And thatwas that, that that built
character, and I was willing todo it. But. And then my agent,
Kanishka, who took the book, soright now, internal is doing
really well in the UK. Also,also thanks to my my friend and
very important mentor, RobertMcFarlane, who who's written the
(45:16):
forward to the UK
Tara Khandelwal (45:22):
version. Why do you think the book is doing
really well in the UK? It's,that's quite interesting.
Yuvan Aves (45:28):
My publishers in the UK, thanks to Kanishka, and they
shot the numbers. And it's, it'sequal to India and the Allied
reason is, right now there isthis amazing action writing book
which has come out called is ariver alive, by Robert
McFarlane. And the middlechapter is set in Chennai and
(45:51):
our work. And I think people arereading that and also going into
this, but it is a river alivejust by itself. It it looks at
complex Earth entities, rivers,forests, mountains and movements
around it as complexly anddifferently alive and and the
(46:13):
various campaigns which enliventhem. You know, from New Zealand
to India to Ecuador to Canada.
So, so, yeah, these are threepeople who are extremely
indebted to Supriya Kanishka andRob to a very great extent,
because Rob, I started readingwhen I was 16, and the sense of
dreaming to want to be a naturewriter when there's not a real
(46:36):
market, you know, since mKrishna and Kenneth Anderson,
Jim COVID, you know, naturewriting right now, speaking up
in India, there is Neha Sinha aswild and willful Arthi Kumaras
margin lands, says Al Mehtasuperpowers on the shore, set in
Mumbai. Indian Pitta bookscoming out with some wonderful
(46:57):
titles.
Tara Khandelwal (47:02):
Yeah, yeah, I've been seeing a lot of lot
more nature writing. I've beenmeaning to read margin lands as
well. So coming to naturewriting, that was actually a
question of mine, because Ithink this book is a really like
a master class in nature writingas well. Right? What are some
tips that you have for writerswho want to write about nature,
(47:23):
to be
Yuvan Aves (47:24):
a nature writer in India, it's, it's, it's a very
specific position. It's, andit's a unique position. You look
at Europe, you look at America,its shelves are flooded with
nature writing and and itallowed a certain kind of
relation with nature, out ofbeing a colonial force. So this
having externalized themessiness and exploitation and
(47:49):
complexity, you know, stateshave with nature out onto other
countries, and then this reallysort of romantic, or the grass
is green, the sky is blue. Sortof writing, sort of marks, I
think most of European naturewriting, literature, of course,
there are that's changing, andthere's huge exceptions to that,
(48:13):
including Robert McFarlane,trots, outran and much of others
India, you you do not have thatoption of of romanticizing
nature is messy. It's in theinterstices. It's in your face.
It's complicating your life, andit's utterly under threat, and
(48:37):
you cannot separate it from thepolitics. Often, I've been told,
Do nature, not politics? I'mlike, tell me how to, you know,
how do you, how do you situateyourself in any Indian
landscape, and not talk aboutforms of political violence and
it's or other forms ofcomplexities, which which nature
(49:02):
is intermingled with indigenousresistance. You know, Ambedkar
puts it quite interestingly. Hementions that the caste system
in India necessitates a specifickind of relation the Dalit has
with water. Water is seen as anoppressor because I cannot touch
(49:24):
it. I cannot drink from it. Yousee it as a water is sort of
politically toxic to the lowercaste person. This is what we
are enmeshed in as naturewriters in India and and I think
it has something very importantto offer the world from a nature
(49:45):
writing perspective. And I hopelot of more people take take
this up. It has a strange it'simportant to see nature writing
in its historicity. You had thewhite men going out into the
forest to shoot Tigers leopardsand. Birds includes your Jim
Cobb at Kenneth Anderson,Malcolm, McDonald, Vinh Hume,
(50:07):
and then that being passed onto, for instance, and changed by
Salim Ali Kailash, sankala mKrishnan, Tagore. Tagore is full
of nature writing. I, I wasresearching butterflies
recently, and just dozens ofreferences to to the most
(50:28):
obscure of creatures. And thennow in in the current paradigm
of climate crisis, biodiversitycrisis, how do you how do you be
a nature writer.
Tara Khandelwal (50:42):
I think even Amitabh Ghosh is a really great
example
Yuvan Aves (50:45):
for those. Amitabh Ghosh, I would not put as a
nature writer. His work isabsolutely important in India.
But Amitabh Ghosh, RamachandraGuha has Yeah, Mahesh
Rangarajan, all of these peoplewho written a lot about nature
are have done archival work andone, one way to define nature
writing would be directengagement. It is a form of
(51:07):
action writing so that thatdistinction and produces a
different kind of literaturewhen it's not purely archival.
Though archival work isextremely
Tara Khandelwal (51:19):
important, and in terms of technique, do you
have any tips for naturewriters?
Yuvan Aves (51:25):
The form of repeated direct engagement and action,
allows for new language, allowsfor different articulations and
meeting different kinds ofpeople and and even writing in
that landscape. Often my I seekmy new language in of course,
(51:47):
you know, reading other writers,but also in the landscape
itself, because neuronally, thebrain becomes differently
connected in ways of directengagement.
Tara Khandelwal (52:02):
I like that, that you seek language from the
landscape. That's lovely. Sowhat book are you? Are you
working on another book
Yuvan Aves (52:09):
I'm working on, a book called incendance, and it's
about Indian insects and howthey how they are absolutely
important for our ecologies, howthey are ignored, vilified.
Pesticide and also, it's alsoabout the violence of the
(52:30):
agrochemical industry. Pesticidemaking in India, it's about the
decline of pollinators, and italso travels the entire
geography of India and evokesdifferent species in the
specific places and practices.
Tara Khandelwal (52:48):
Sounds very, very fascinating. My cousin was
telling me recently that thesingle most important solution
to climate change is bees, andshe's thinking of, you know,
keeping a beehive. And I said,No, no, no, don't do that. Maybe
it was a good idea, after
Yuvan Aves (53:07):
all. So one narrative which has not come out
of you know, we had the largestever farmers protest in the
world in 2020 2021, it wasaround one part of it was around
MSP, minimum support price, thefact that farmers are saying,
Give us economic safety nets togrow all kinds of crops, because
(53:28):
food security is not the realproblem in India. It's
nutritional security. And onceyou care about Nutritional
Security, you care about bees,you care about pollinators,
because you can't eatvegetables, you can't eat
pulses. However, it's easy tojust focus on rice for an
agrochemical corporate because agrass is largely being
(53:50):
pollinated. And you can controlthe market, control the capital
investments farmers have to putin, as well as douse the soil in
chemicals. It's a very specificpolitic of forcing Paddy and
(54:10):
wheat. The Green Revolution justdid this because we can't just
eat rice, you know, we will bemalnourished utterly so, I mean,
those are connections, and whichI'm trying to explore again, I
don't think enough part in thepublic
Tara Khandelwal (54:27):
discourse. I very much look forward to
reading that book, and thank youso much for this conversation.
I've learned a lot, and I thinkit's such a great introduction
to this very rich world, andalso a reminder to us to observe
very minutely and go out andengage. I think that's the one
thing that I have learned fromthis book, is that as every
(54:49):
individual, we can sort of goout and become more aware and
experience so thank you so much.
I really, really enjoyed this
Yuvan Aves (54:56):
conversation. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.
You.
Unknown (55:00):
Hope you enjoyed this episode of Books and Beyond with
bound. This podcast is createdby bound, a company that helps
you grow through stories. Findus at bound India on all social
media platforms. Tune in everyWednesday as we peek into the
lives and minds of somebrilliant authors from India and
South Asia. You.
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