29th June 2023
About 6 years into a major career switch, my journey can be
summarized as below.
Writing and a wish to take it up on a professional basis did
not happen on a whim. To me, making this transition was a logical next step. I
am a writer. In retrospect, I have always been.
I must stress that I did not move out of engineering because I
hated it. It is just that I liked writing more. I continue to be fond of engineering,
the many talented colleagues, and amazing friends that it brought my way. I am also
immensely grateful for the cross-cultural professional experiences, on-the-spot
problem solving opportunities and the financial stability that it offered me in
the midst of my daydreams of pursuing “something else”. All my travel around India,
the USA, Canada, and Cambodia, not to mention the complete transformation and deep-seated
confidence that (often solo) travel brings, I owe completely to my 11-year engineering
stint (2006-2017).
Along the way, my national writing competition wins with the Indian
Express (2008), Outlook Traveller (2017), and the Wildlife Institute of India (2017)
gave me a little self-belief that I might be able to make a fist of it if I were
to try to write for a living. Turns out that I was able to talk myself into
taking that leap of faith.
I began with an editorial internship in May 2018 at the Wildlife
Institute of India, Dehradun where I was tasked to co-edit (with Dr. Sonali
Ghosh and Ms. Prerna Bindra) an anthology of nature writing “Wild Treasures”.
By the time it saw publication in April 2019, it had given me opportunities to
read through the best of naturalists and wordsmiths on nature spanning 200
years. Their words on wild places in the Asia Pacific were a fair reminder of
how much work remained if I were to REALLY call myself a writer. Coming across my
“Wild Treasures” parked next to Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapiens” at a local bookstore
assured me that I had at least taken that tiniest of first steps.
From August to December 2018, I was privileged to work as Program
Manager, Outreach, for the Centre for Wildlife Studies in Bangalore, a pioneering
conservation organization undergoing a rebuilding phase at that point of time.
With their legacy of historic conservation initiatives and a small driven team projecting
a start-up vibe, those few months were packed with intense activity with my
role spanning press releases for scientific papers; building up social media
presence and their website from scratch; book launches; donation drives all the
way to managing the nuts and bolts of office infrastructure as needed by our
beautiful bungalow turned office.
In January 2019, I was back at the foothills of the Himalayas
as the 30-km motorcycle ride that separated the Wildlife Institute of India in
Dehradun from the greatest mountain range in the world drew me back. As I found
myself in the role of World Heritage Assistant (March 2019 – Present) at the
UNESCO Category 2 Centre for World Natural Heritage Management, it was time for
a deeper immersion into the world of heritage which while editing “Wild Treasures”
I had already dipped my toes into.
In the process of shaping, promoting, and implementing the UNESCO
World Heritage Convention as the Centre is required to do, I found myself at
the wonderful intersection of history, conservation, politics, psychology, and
communication that the field of heritage conservation represents. “What is
heritage?” (valuable enough passed down to the next generation) is not a simple
question as follow-up subjective questions of who defines value and how many
others agree follow. Why indeed must anything be saved at all? Everything from
a school assembly song to millennia old ruins spread across hundreds of square
kilometres can fall under the ambit of heritage, as can snowy mountains distantly
seen and the deepest seas never swum alongside their denizens – all valuable in
their own manner and subject to the same grindstone of change that bears down
on us all.
In pursuit of answers, I have had the chance to co-parent an
inaugural MSc in Heritage Conservation & Management as Assistant Course
Director, walk the forests of Mt. Fuji learning of the nature-culture continuum
as it exists in Japan, cruise the narrower channels of the Sundarbans in search
of the creature that Bon Bibi protects us from in that transient world of sea
and land, work with forest department staff of some of the most stunning
wildscapes training and learning from them. From wildlife biologists and community
researchers with whom I share a wild and wonderful campus with, I now know of
cicadas that sound like gunning Yamaha engines and elephants that may (or may
not) be secretly using a beach island in the depths of the blue Andaman Sea.
Not to sugarcoat the challenges, conservation (or heritage
conservation) seems to be an incessantly uphill and lonely struggle for those
who are in it for the long run. Years of dedicated record keeping and meticulous
science often lead to blunt bureaucratic denials and political exclusion. Forests
long loved and taboo mountains worshipped can still vanish in a snap. That makes
passion for the objects of study an almost non-negotiable necessity. In the face
of shrinking funds, unstable career tracks and casually thrown accusations of “impracticality”,
it is only the truly dedicated that can soldier on, side-stepping cynicism, and
frequently embracing compromise as conservation makes you do.
That said, the ceaseless energy that permeates life infects many
that walk this road. The chance to wander least trodden trails swapping stories,
as the gears of the brain whir merging all manner of skills – technical, soft,
and expedient – to craft a solution that works in these most challenging of circumstances
is the incentive that keeps on giving. Still rather new to this world, the
possibility of answer(s) being out there waiting to be found is what drives me
on. As a person with a deep interest in communication, I find it irresistible that
every artifact in this wonderfully under-explored field, from a map of the
world to the structure of a fig flower, has a story to tell.
[https://virtual-inksanity.blogspot.com/2023/06/a-trip-wip.html]