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Sudarshan Shaw:Breaking Definitions of Art & Nature.

~ Lalitha Krishnan ~ Leave a comment

Ep#30 Season 4 Heart of Conservation Transcript (Edited)

Read or Listen. All paintings-photos courtesy Sudarshan Shaw.

0:05

Lalitha Krishnan:  I’m Lalitha Krishnan and you’re listening to episode #30, season 4 of Heart of Conservation. I bring you stories from the wild that keep us all connected to the natural world.

For someone who has no sense of direction and couldn’t probably read a map to save her life, I have to say I practically drooled over one visually delightful map that I came across on Instagram.  It conveyed a spectacular visually-rich story of a place, its people and art and biodiversity on a single sheet.  This is one, I would easily put up on my wall permanently. I will be putting them up on my blog, Earthy Matters very soon, so do have a look.

My guest today is not a cartographer by profession but a young, extremely talented visual artist from NIFT, whose keen sense of perception and belonging, passion for depicting, and preserving local art, and love for natural history is tangible in his stunning artworks which go way beyond creating maps. I am speaking to one of India’s rising young, inspiring artists and authors, Sudarshan Shaw. Welcome to Heart of Conservation Sudarshan. Thank you for joining me.

1:19

Sudarshan Shaw:  Thank you so much for having me on Heart of Conservation Lalitha. It’s an absolute honour to be here.

Lalitha Krishnan:  My pleasure. Sudarshan why don’t we start by you telling us a little bit about yourself and what influences your work?

Sudarshan Shaw:  I was born and brought up in the culturally rich cities of Bhubaneshwar and Kolkata. And I grew up feeding on art forms and colours of all types. And, I have always been a history buff so… all of which came together after I discovered my calling towards wildlife while I pursuing my final year of college. That’s when I visited Ranthambore National Park which was my first ever formal introduction to the wild world. It was also for my graduation project and while the forest look all great and beautiful, I always felt that connection was missing; some sort of connection. Thus, I started to explore more and more regions to understand myself and the situation better and have a better understanding of the wider world.

2:25

Lalitha Krishnan:   Nice. Let’s talk briefly about all the maps you created. You created more than one for Orissa, biodiversity maps for Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan and West Bengal, a special Elephant corridor one for Kerala and other clients like the one for the Shiv Nadar University etc.  The first one which is the wildlife map of Orissa- your home state was self-funded. Am I right? What I love about that map is how you incorporated the local tribes and hotspots in the traditional pattachitra style of Orissa. It almost feels like a tribute. So, what made you create this one?

3:13

Sudarshan Shaw: Yes, it is a tribute indeed. It’s a tribute to the land, the wild and the cultural heritage of my state. It’s also a tribute to the strong relationship among them that enhances their meaning of each other. I always felt a huge disjoint in the natural and cultural heritage of India and the kind of graphic language the young communicators use in the country. I feel it is heavily influenced by the west and does not have that connection with the native land and hence it’s not acceptable to the masses in a certain way. So, the vibrance and diversity that folk arts have in store have disappeared from the contemporary visual language that we used to in recent time used to communicate our stories. This was my humble attempt to bring it back with all dignity and pride. Another reason would be Odisha itself. Odisha has an abundance of wildlife. We almost know all the stories regarding Odisha but it never found a place, I mean materially in our surroundings.

What I saw is the pattachitra paintings which are quite prevalent in Odisha -which is the folk-art form in Odisha – and it has a place in our homes over here. There are depictions of gods and goddesses and many other folklores on the walls. I thought this could give me an important platform if I drew it in that style and I depicted wildlife in that style. Eventually, it worked out well and the wildlife map found a place in people’s homes. So, they put it up where they used to put pattachitra paintings.

5:00

Lalitha Krishnan:  That’s such an honour. That’s fantastic. What is your creative process? How do you create a map-I don’t mean technically- but I want to know how you think you know, and how long it takes, who commissions these maps. How does it work?

5:23

Sudarshan Shaw: The process usually starts with intense research, which is both online and in the field. It’s quite impossible to do justice to ….(lost in translation)  with short timelines or deadlines. So, I try my best to gather as much as I can; so more of essence than information. I must say, the internet has negligent information on this so most of the interaction and interpretations have travelled orally with tradition or in folk art forms. So, the idea is to go through and explore as many of these. The next step is where Is it down to innovate a graphic style which is more often inspired but local art and traditions. Then, I design a layout and then spend about one to two months to complete/render it depending on the amount of details. Most of these maps have been funded by the forest departments of various states or other wildlife NGOs if not other private institutions.

Lalitha Krishnan:   Great. Being from Odisha, does practising the traditional art of Odisha come naturally to you? Is it something you learnt as a child or is it something that you learnt in art school?

6:45

Sudarshan Shaw: Naturally it was in my subconscious because we’d always be looking at these art forms on stone sculptures, wall paintings of different buildings in Odisha and also in homes, as I said earlier. But, consciously I started practising and grasping it after I visited Ranthambore wherein I first had that interaction with Phad paintings of Rajasthan. There are these common folk paintings of Rajasthan, wherein they had drawn stories from the wild in their artworks. For example, in the story of ‘Machhli’ the Tiger, wherein they had depicted the tiger in a very beautiful style in stories from its birth to its death and everything. This was the main reason why I started grasping art forms more and this is how I implemented it. I get a story from one place and try to incorporate the folk-art of that place into it (the art).

Lalitha Krishnan: O.K. That’s very sensitive and thoughtful of you to do that. You have depicted wildlife, for example, the striped hyena, otters etc that are also listed as endangered or vulnerable by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Tell us something about these. I love the little camera trap you have put along with the ‘Black tiger’, the pseudo-melanistic black tiger painting of yours. I don’t know if the Fishing cat’ (see podcast cover) is part of this series but that too just caught my eye.


8:27
Sudarshan Shaw: The Fishing cat was the first painting that I did for this series but that was also a self-funded one. The main idea always starts with a self-funded one and the Fishing cat was one of those. The idea behind drawing the Fishing cat was–which is also a mud painting by the way—during that time, I heard a lot about fishing cats. You know they are found on the outskirts of my hometown. It was very interesting to know that these kinds of creatures live nearby. So, I started looking at images of fishing cats in Odisha and West Bengal and other regions of India. I found images of fishing cats which are mostly nocturnal. The images were quite similar. Once I got a glimpse of a fishing cat drawn in the Kalighat form of painting in Bengal, and I saw a very distinct flavour to it. That cat was depicted holding a fish, it had a stance of its own and it almost looked like that fishing cat is Bengal and it was very different from that of Odisha or any other region of the world. So, a depiction of that species in that art form you know helped in sensitising the people of that particular region regarding that species. That was my whole idea. To incorporate that style and show the world that all these creatures have their distinct characters from the places that they belong to. That was my main idea behind that. The other artworks: the Smooth-coated (otters), the (striped) hyena, you know, they tagged along, people understood my reasoning behind the Fishing cat and they wanted similar species to be shown in their own characters so that they would help in spreading awareness and in sensitising people about the species.


10:30
Lalitha Krishnan: It’s true when you say, (species) have their own stance, their own character of the place. That’s an interesting take. You know, tigers have been part of the Indian psyche forever and they feature a lot in your paintings. I saw one of The 9 Tigers depicted in different folk styles which tells us so much in one go.
I also want to talk about the ‘Tiger Boundary’ piece which is nothing short of mesmerising.
I like that you said somewhere that the boundary in the frame instead of blocking in gives you the artist and the subject, in this case, the tiger, free reign. Did I get that right? What do you mean by that? And what draws to the tiger?

11:17

Sudarshan Shaw: Absolutely. Apart from being as popular as ‘T’ for Tiger, and one of the epic predators of the forest systems in India, I feel tigers are truly beautiful beings in all senses. They are as gentle as they are fierce, the air of pride and mystery around the creature makes them much larger than their actual size -which is both inside the forest and outside. So, what draws me and the whole forest and nation to the tiger are that it’s like another mystery. I never met a tiger in the wild. But fortunately, I met so many in folk art and in my imagination and they are all different from each other.
So, yes, as an artist I always felt conflicted about having boundaries around my artworks. On the face, the borders look like confinements, a kind of limitation but they are very common, if you observe, in all the folk-art forms of India. So, one fine day, during an interaction with a pattachitra folk artist, he was explaining to me why they drew borders on the canvas before they started the painting inside. That was the instance when I thought that is how tigers also mark the territories for themselves in the forest and both the artist and tiger would then paint their minds and live inside it. I could then understand how boundaries set by self, bring a sense of safety, depth of connection and commitment to our responsibility. All of which actually sets us free.


12:56
Lalitha Krishnan: Wow. That’s all I can say. You authored your first children’s book called “When a Forest Wakes up”. Congratulations. The name itself evokes a visual flood but the book is also very magical. Your interpretation of nature… where trees are antlers sending messages and elephants block out the sun and birds fly to flowers in gratitude for the colours and where hills are sleeping rhinos…it’s so wonderous and I can just imagine the wonder and oneness that any child will love. I believe you said, “The basic idea of the book is ‘breaking definitions”. Yes?

13:41

Sudarshan Shaw: yes, one of the ideas behind the book was to see beyond rigid definitions that we have set for ourselves. To dive into a world of imagination and the endless possibilities that it has for us. So, another idea behind the book was actually inspired by animism. A belief system by the various ancient indigenous communities in India, according to which everything from the stones to the mountains to the trees and rivers are living forces and beings bigger than us or just like us. All of these live in relation to each other.

I remember how we were taught in our school days that nature is full of resources and had multiple uses for us humans. And the distinction between biotic and abiotic, the living and non-living things. We have been told to see a river or soil as a non-living resource it would be very difficult to respect and have a relationship with them. This book is an attempt to change that perception from a very young age.

14:47

If I give you another example, of it, when we ask a child to see towards the sky and the clouds, they would always say the clouds look like different animals or objects and everything. Suddenly, with time, you’d see how the animals and the various objects turn towards being a single cloud. When you ask an adult, what is that they would say, “That’s a cloud. Either it’s going to rain or not going to rain. But when you ask the child, “That is a tiger”. “That’s a leopard…that’s a dinosaur” and whatnot. All those imaginations with time are suppressed and you know, along with the coming of rigid definitions, that ends it for us. So, I wanted to break that stereotype fear out of understanding and definitions.

15:38

Lalitha Krishnan:  You’re freeing my mind as you speak. So, I believe you have travelled to Uttarakhand–that’s where I live mostly–and walking in the forests there impacted you. How was it different and is that where you got your studio name. ‘Kyari’ from?

15:56

Sudarshan Shaw: Yes. Uttarakhand has been like a second home. I have travelled to Uttarakhand quite frequently as much as I could. You know, I was in college in Delhi so Uttarakhand wasn’t so far from there. Living there, you can totally understand how special the land is. It is almost beaming with life and beauty, to say the least, and ‘Kyari’ is a very small village near Ram Nagar in Uttarakhand and my studio name lends its name from it and the meaning of it; you know how kyari is a small nursery kind of thing where in they put up small plants and flowers. Then they grow wild from it. That’s the main philosophy of starting my studio wherein I’d be experimenting with different forms and art styles, and stories and those would be going into the wide world.

16:52

Lalitha Krishnan: A nursery of ideas. Lovely

16:54

Sudarshan Shaw:  A nursery I would say is one of my best teachers of all the ways I see the world and understand the world the studio is a lifelong tribute to that.

17:05   

Lalitha Krishnan:  I’d like to know briefly about the ‘My Pictures of Divinity’ series your visual stories about the turtle and sea, and the vulture and the dead e.g. though steeped in lore and also educating us about the animals’ role in the world and their vulnerability today.

17:26

Sudarshan Shaw:  Yes, I strongly believe that existence has its meaning in relation and not in isolation. So, my picture of divinity is the search for that godliness that lies in the relationship between the humble life forms that we see and the magnificent ecosystems of sustenance that surround them.  So, it is an attempt to override conventional portraits of God that centralised humans while all the legendary powers that they invented were inspired by the ways of the wild. So, it’s a tribute to our true ancestors, the teachers, the deities of the art of thriving and surviving. So, e.g.

I’d say, Uttarakhand and Odisha have been my main source for drawing this series. One story would be the Olive Ridley Turtles of the Odisha coast. If people talk about the species, they talk about the species in isolation but if you actually get to experience that place, you would see how the species is actually a connection between the land and the sea. It’s tying both of them together. That’s the beauty of seeing things in relation and not in isolation. –Sudarshan Shaw

18:40

Lalitha Krishnan: Beautifully put. Coming to my last question, could you share a word, concept or something you believe is important—you’ve mentioned a lot of things—something for all of us to know or imbibe.

18:59

Sudarshan Shaw:  Sure. So, being an artist, I’ll say a few lines on how we understand art and nature. For me, art and nature are two sisters of the same fate. Nature has been an inseparable part of native peoples’ being. Folk art has also been practised routinely by all in different ways and forms. So once, the colonial influences came, they alienated our art as a speciality which was quite pristine, exclusive and polished and very far away from us. They did the same to nature and wilderness which became (lost in translation). Art is the nature of all living beings; we must understand this. And, separating them in our words and worlds may have separated us from our true selves and denied us access to the strongest relations which are nature and art. So, I believe we can turn folk art for the reunion and reassurance for everybody, which is free too, we must draw, sing and dance to ourselves and our surroundings better.

20:14 So true, Sudarshan, thank you so much. You’re going to go a long way and all the best for your journey ahead.  I am so touched by everything you’ve said and everything you do. Thank you

20:29

Sudarshan Shaw: Thank you so much Lalitha.

Lalitha Krishnan: I hope you enjoyed this episode of Heart of Conservation. Do check out Sudarshan’s artworks. You might want to buy, commission it or gift it to somebody else or yourself. The transcript for this show will be out very soon on Earthy Matters (my blog). You can listen to Heart of Conservation on several platforms so check it out and spread the word, guys. Thanks.

Birdsong by hillside resident, the collared owlet.

All photos courtesy Sudarshan Shaw including Fishing Cat. Podcast cover artwork by Lalitha Krishnan

Disclaimer: Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the podcast and show notes belong solely to the guest featured in the episode, and not necessarily to the host of this podcast/blog or the guest’s employer, organization, committee or other group or individual.

Behind the Scenes, Wildlife Rehabilitation: Jayanthi Kallam (ARRC).

~ Lalitha Krishnan ~ Leave a comment

Heart of Conservation Podcast. Ep #27 Part 2 Show notes (Edited)

Listen to Episode 27, Part 2 on many platforms or read on this blog.

Introduction:

Hi there, I’m Lalitha Krishnan and you’re listening to Season 4, part 2 of Episode 27 of Heart of Conservation. I bring you stories from the wild that keep us all connected to our natural world. Today, I continue my conversation with Jayanthi Kallam, Executive Director of Avian and Reptile Rehabilitation Centre in Bangalore and part of her amazing team including Subeksha, Ranjana, Samiiha and Veerababu to find out what it takes to make a wildlife rehabilitation centre an efficient and successful one.

0:36

Subeksha: Hi, my name is Subeksha. I am the Rescue Coordinator here; I am also an Animal Rehabilitator and I have been working here for a year and a half now. My role involves coordinating rescues, managing the place a little bit as well. I do work with the animals directly.

Lalitha Krishnan: I understand ‘co-ordinator’ but how exactly does it work?

1:04

Subeksha: The first step to that is dealing with outside people when they call you, answering calls, giving them basic instructions on how to handle the situation till the rescue team arrives and then planning out how to go about the rescue. Which person to send, what equipment will be needed for the rescue, figuring all of that out… How to optimize so that…on some days we do get a whole lot of rescues.

-Subeksha (Animal coordinator at ARRC)

1:30

Lalitha Krishnan: What is a whole lot?

1:32

Subeksha: Depends on the season. Right now we are getting into the season where we are getting a lot of baby animals coming in. We also have a lot of Manja (kite string with glued-on glass) cases coming in so some days rescues may go up from 15-20 rescues a day. So I’m making sure it’s all done efficiently and animals get rescued on time. So I’m coordinating that.

1:54

Lalitha Krishnan: And when you speak about making a plan, how long does that take to make a plan when you get a rescue call?

2:01

Subeksha: It is very dynamic. So, a rescuer may be assigned for something else but if a situation comes up which needs more immediate attention, they will be redirected there and another person will be sent for this. So, it (the plan) has to be immediate so that it’s based on the situation. Which one gets more priority? So, yes, it’s instantaneous. It’s very dynamic.

2:22

Ranjana: My name is Ranjana. I’ve also been here for about a year and a half. I’m under training for rescue coordination and currently, I’m mainly working with animals, the rehabilitation and caretaking part with respect to feeds. One of the things we are prioritizing right now are nestlings-like you saw over there. It’s the season for kite nestlings that are coming in. So, we are prioritizing that at the moment and I also handle the social media part of it for our centre.

2:58

Lalitha Krishnan: OK. What is a typical day like for you?

3:01

Ranjana: A typical day as a rehabilitator…we mainly start about 6:00 am. We do a check on all the animals that are currently at the centre. Any critical animal will get immediate care/intervention. Post that, we get on to feeds. Each animal has to be reviewed with respect to what feeds they are on. If they’re weak, they’re put on fluids and things like that. So, that has to be taken care of. So once the feeds are done, we get on to two different things at the moment. One is the ICU where we have animals like kites and crows and the other section is the neonatal part where we have younger, smaller birds and squirrels and animals like that.

3:43

Ranjana: The schedule varies a lot with respect to both sections. So, then we have our ICU where the critical animals are attended to. Animals with wounds and medications are checked about twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening. Dressings, if they have to be done. If animals are eating properly. Things like that are taken care of. Post that, we also have feeds. Again, to ensure the young ones are growing well, they’re eating, if they need any intervention in case they’re not eating. And also. being able to monitor their health if they’re not looking as great, we have to intervene asap. So, this happens throughout the day and in the evening it’s more focused on the nocturnal animals. We also have a lot of owls and bats and animals like that. So, they get a little more priority.

4:40

Sameha: Hi, I’m Samiha Zele. So my daily schedule is feedings when I come in; weighing the meat that needs to be fed. So, most neonatal birds, don’t eat meats. It’s mostly fruits and seeds and the kites and crows get meat. The crows also get papaya. And then, we also have bats. They devour fruit plates. So I chop up fruits in the evening for them and then I work on filling up fluids, medicine, helping with other small duties at the same time in-between.

5:23

Lalitha Krishnan: What backgrounds are you’ll coming from? What did you do before this? Or is this your first job?

5:33

Ranjana: No, I actually studied architecture. Midway through that is when I realized that this is kind of what I wanted to do. There was a period when I was trying to combine both passions because I wasn’t ready to let go of either. So, I was working on habitat design and enclosure designs for a while at my last job and then during the beginning of Corona is when I heard about the opening and I applied for this job.

6:02

Subeksha: I actually did my Masters’s in Wildlife Science from Amity University, Noida. So, for a while, I kind of had my eyes on a rehabilitation kind of setting for a long time since that’s where I feel I fit in, in a way because that’s what I want to contribute to.

There’s a lot more to rehab than what most people think. It’s not just about rescuing animals and putting them out there. There’s a whole lot that goes into it. You have to take things like ecology and disease management…there’s so much to the field.

So, yes, I felt like this was something where I could contribute. My main focus before that was on research and I said, “Hey this would be nice to do”. At some point during my Masters, I really wanted to pursue this. That’s when I reached out and started working here. Yes, this is my first job.

7:01

Samiha: I completed high school in California and during that time, I worked in a parrot shelter. I’ve been working at a lot of different things related to conservation like little different fields in that which also include…I did a little bit of customer service and retail during certain periods. When I moved back to India in 2019, I started working as a Wildlife Education Assistant. Then, I was working in elephant research; then I was working on an independent project with another advisor in entrepreneurship during 2021. And, I just started working here in 2022 in February.

7:46

Lalitha Krishnan: Jayanthi, it’s been a tough two years for everyone with the pandemic. I want to know if the number of rescues decreased with everyone at home.

7:57:

Jayanthi Kallam: Actually no. Quite unexpectedly, post-Covid, after the lockdowns, the numbers of certain rescues cases have skyrocketed. Two things have happened that have increased our rescues. One, which applies to Bangalore particularly, is Manja (kite string) cases. A lot of people during lockdown…their contact sports were limited. Children could not go out. They didn’t have school and people were looking at ways to engage the kids as they stayed together as a family so kite flying as a sport got picked up unexpectedly because people could do that from their terraces and things like that. And suddenly, we have seen these Manja cases skyrocket post the first lockdown. And it continued to increase. And, in the second lockdown last year, it became quite worse. Just to give you an example, in July of last year, 2021, we did 910 rescues out of which close to 600 were Manjarescues. All these birds hang to these kite flying threads that get left out after people fly them. So that in fact has increased the load. On one side there was this lockdown and we had quarantine protocols you know. People’s movements were restricted and we didn’t have all of our staff available to us. On the other side, there is an increasing number of rescues that were coming our way. We could not hire new staff during that time. So, that was a challenge to go through.

9:34

The second type of challenge we faced is a lot of people in the beginning part of the pandemic assumed that bats were the reason for Corona and suddenly we started getting so many calls to remove bats from neighbourhoods. People who were tolerant of bats before—and we have worked with them-but post-pandemic they were like, “No, we don’t want bats, please remove them”. That became a lot of work… trying to convince them. In some cases, provide alternatives in some other cases. Of course, we would never get involved in the removal of a wild animal because that goes against our objective in the first place. But we had to counsel all these people who are calling and do our best to convince them to try and coexist with bats and tell them that’s not the reason… and make them understand about Covid and the bats in general and try and disassociate that connection from bats and covid. In these ways, and many other ways actually, the lockdown has brought us increasing rescue calls. And, a lot of wildlife because the roads were all free and there was no movement from people. One spotted peacocks everywhere in Bangalore; on the roads, on the terraces and things like that. So even those rescue calls have increased. Lockdown had been a double whammy for us during covid because we had to make sure we, our animals and our employees are safe with all disrupted supply chains, a disrupted workforce and at the same time, we had to attend to increasing rescue calls. But we had a great team, we got through sound and safe on the other side. So we’re very glad about that.

11:26

Lalitha Krishnan: Hats off to you and your team. It’s so strange. One doesn’t think of all these things. One is so self-occupied. Most of the time, we only care about our next meal, our this and our that.

11:41

Jayanthi Kallam: That is the purpose of a wildlife rehabilitation centre according to me. See, if there is no wildlife rehabilitation centre, all these connections that we have with the animals around us, how we impact them, how they impact us, these connections get missed and we don’t think about it unless we see an animal. So, what happens if a community has a wildlife rescue centre? They are connecting with people… they get all these different calls or encounters with wildlife. There are different things, these stories go on and on and we don’t have time to go through 10% of it now. Now, as a rescue centre, we are specializing in looking at conflict in an urban environment between wild animals and humans. We gain a lot of understanding in how to mitigate these, figure out what the real issues are, how to go forward and things like that. So, that is the purpose of a rehabilitation centre. It’s not just the animals that benefit but in a way, the community gets the benefit because now the community has a place to go to if they have any questions, issues or they want to do something for wildlife/animals around them. You know, they have a place to go to now. That’s in some ways a service to the community also I feel and not just for the animals that come through our door.

13:09

Lalitha Krishnan: That’s true. I wouldn’t have put it that way but it’s something to think about. Thank you so much, Jayanthi. Once an animal comes to you, it’s treated and has recovered, what do you do next?

13:28

Jayanthi Kallam:

Every wildlife rehabilitation centre’s primary goal or only goal is to return the wild animal back to nature. Back to its function in the wild. With that in mind, we emphasise so much on the right rescue and the right treatment which will enable us to put that animal back. Because these animals and birds have families too. They survive well in the wild where they belong.

Black kite in rehab at ARRC photographed with permission by author.

13:59

There are two types of releases that we do. If it is an adult animal or if it is a juvenile animal, we try to put them back where they’re found. If we rescued it from your neighbourhood, I’ll try to release it about 50 metres from your house, something like that. But if it’s not an adult, if it is a young animal, which came as a baby to us, it also needs to learn critical life skills to survive. So, ‘hard releasing’ is not a good solution for the animal. We do what is called a ‘soft release’. We’re not just pushing them out there to survive. They have been in our care, in a rehabilitation-controlled setting and suddenly if you release them, they will not be able to survive in the wild. So, we go through what is called a ‘soft release’ process which is we acclimatize them in a safe environment like a cage or something like that. We acclimatize them first where we are going to release them so they get used to the sights, smell and sounds of that place and after a few days of that we try to give them access to the outside and it is up to them whether they leave. If we are doing this with five birds, two of them will leave and two of them may need a little more care so they might stay back. They will go as and when they will feel comfortable with the outside world. And, if they encounter anything they are not sure of, they will actually come back. Recently we released three tailor birds, these tiny little things and in post three days of release, in the evening, they come back to this cage that we have where they feel safe. They will be allowed to come back. Slowly, once they find themselves comfortable outside, they will release themselves. This process is called the soft release process which is important to do when these baby birds and animals grow up with us.

16:04

Lalitha Krishnan: Very interesting. Jayanthi, could you share or hold a concept that you hold dear that will improve our vocabulary or perception of the wild or wildlife rescues.

16:16

Jayanthi Kallam: The whole concept behind what we do with wildlife rescues and rehabilitation and the philosophy behind it is—at least for me –is the concept of eco-centric development. We all want to develop for sure as humans but we have a choice in which way we want to develop.

Is our development going to be egocentric or ecocentric? What is eco-centric development? Eco centric development looks at humans as a subset or a part of the environment and nature as a whole. It is based on this concept that there is value and importance of nature and every life form in it and we are also part of it. Whereas, eco-centric development focuses on the parts of nature that are useful to humans. So, our effort in doing this is to foster the connection we have with animals around us and encourage people to shift more toward this eco-centric approach by making them aware of the fact that these wild animals are also part of our neighbourhoods, nature and that our actions will have an impact on them. So, let us choose our future carefully and focus on eco-centric development realizing that that development is in what our development lies and which would be more sustainable and feasible in the long run.

18:14

Lalitha Krishnan: That is so enlightening. Thank you, Jayanthi.

18:31

Lalitha Krishnan: Veerababu, how many rescue calls do you get in a day?

18:20

Veerababu (edited): There are a lot of Manja cases coming in. Summer is the start of the Manja season. December to June. This is the big season but last year this time, we did so many rescues every day, around 20-25, 30. But now awareness is more widespread amongst children also. I always tell them not to use glass-glued kite stings. Wherever I go, I tell the children, “Hey guys don’t leave these kite strings behind, they’re very dangerous.” But now, I think things are changing a little bit. Not 100% but at least 50% change in mindset is happening I feel.

19:11

Lalitha Krishnan:

On that positive note, I’ll end this episode. I hope you enjoyed listening to Jayanthi Kallam and part of her team. Do check out the ARRC website. Heart of Conservation is available on several platforms. Do subscribe and spread the word, guys. Stay safe. Bye

Birdsong by hillside resident, the collared owlet.

Podcast cover artwork by Lalitha Krishnan

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