let’s make our planet greener!
For many of us, especially readers of this newsletter, the call of the wild is more than just an earworm; it is a constant tug at our knotted hearts and wandering minds that propels us to commit to nature one way or the other. The decision to do my bit for nature through the written word was a recent one.…
SOS was the winner of the GLF Short Story Competition for students aged 12 to 16, held in November. The winning story was chosen by celebrated author and conservationist Ishan Shanavas. Set in a dystopian future, SOS is narrated by a member of an evolved, novel species of technology-dependent humans. The story explores the gravity of the present when knowledge fails to translate into action.
Mukul Sharma is a professor of environmental studies at Ashoka University in Sonepat, Haryana. His book Dalit Ecologies: Caste and Environment Justice (2024), which is a sequel to his work Caste and Nature: Dalits and Indian Environmental Politics (2017), is shortlisted for the Green Honour Book Awards in the Fiction/Non-fiction category. Published by Cambridge University Press, it draws attention to the erasure of caste from the mainstream environmental justice discourse in India and champions Dalit perspectives to challenge “eco-casteism”. In this interview, he discusses his academic research as well as his pedagogic practice in detail.
The uniqueness of India and its Indianness lies in its natural diversity. The ancient sages and saints made efforts to bind man with nature. Since ancient times, poets have composed verses in Telugu language with nature as the focal point. In Telugu literature, animals like snakes, spiders and elephants were shown crossing the boundaries of devotion. The epic Kalahastishwara Mahatmyam Kavya, written by Dhurjati, the court poet of Sri Krishna Devaraya, is an example. Humans learnt the form of Satvik Bhakti from Shri (Spider), Kaala (snake) and Hasti (elephant), which are not domestic creatures.
The uniqueness of India and its Indianness lies in its natural diversity. The ancient sages and saints made efforts to bind man with nature. Since ancient times, poets have composed verses in Telugu language with nature as the focal point. In Telugu literature, animals like snakes, spiders and elephants were shown crossing the boundaries of devotion. The epic Kalahastishwara Mahatmyam Kavya, written by Dhurjati, the court poet of Sri Krishna Devaraya, is an example. Humans learnt the form of Satvik Bhakti from Shri (Spider), Kaala (snake) and Hasti (elephant), which are not domestic creatures.
What does it mean for a literary work to have land as the protagonist? Can land be the towering presence through which art flows? Land and its accompanying tales have contributed to the social, mental and spiritual construction of space. What role did landscapes play in the journey of societies and their understanding? Poet and philologist Kanya explores the enchanting intricacies of land in fiction.
It is high time architects, builders, and city planners make nature an integral part of design. Urban decay is largely because nature is seen as an ornamental factor. Is it high time for Rewilding cities?
By Anandajit Goswami Francis Beacon once said to know the nature outside we need to know the nature within. As a child, my quest to understand the natural world outside started with the thirst to know the nature within. While the environment within was lost in multiple conflicts of genetics, culture, conditioning, and hereditarianism, the view outside, and a bond…
By Monisha Raman When doomsday strikes, will humans find an alternate world? Will genome banks come to our rescue? Will there be missions across space to find a suitable home? How will such societies on a perpetual search be structured? Gigi Ganguly’s Biopeculiar: Stories of an Uncertain World is a collection of speculative stories that depict humanity’s complex relationship with…
By Andal Srivatsan Nature and poetry have been linked for centuries before the genesis of the term romanticism. While the proverbial connotation of romance is rooted in love, attraction, and a deep sense of belonging, romantic poets wrote about striking rural landscapes as a source of joy. Alfred Tennyson’s The Brook quotes the brook itself. It is human, delicate, undaunted…