Wildlife Whisperer

THE JOURNEY OF CHANGE FOR CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION My Peacemaking Story: The Search of Peace It is said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.  How did this journey start? Well, where we have reached now has not been where we intended to reach, but it is definitely a good place. The journey is very well connected to the expansion of my own personal understandings of what peace is and what peace work should be. I was first consciously introduced to the Peace movement in 1993-94, during my undergraduate days. In April 1994 I attended a training workshop organized by a Gandhian group Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal in Mumbai where I interacted with a whole new set of like-minded people who had devoted their life to social work. Just a year before this training I had been witness to one of the most horrifying communal conflagrations in my city, and the rest of the country had been burning too in the name of religion. These communal riots had devastated th...

A DIFFERENT KIND OF A MORNING WALK Not long ago I was a totally night person – most creative, lively and awake after 8 pm. I could work the entire night but post 8 am I had to sleep. So although I have always loved sunrises, I never had to wake up for one. I would usually stay awake for the sun to rise, and then promptly go to sleep. Life changed one fine November morning in 2008. In the middle of a workshop that I was facilitating, the venue of which was next to a beautiful beach, for two days in a row I woke up around dawn and went for a walk on the beach. Since then I have been addicted to morning walks and feel a special tinge is seeing the world wake up. Mornings are indeed special! The walk that I went for on Sunday though was a different one. Having moved to Delhi a month ago, I have been constantly comparing my current karam bhoomi Delhi to my beloved janam bhoomi Mumbai and in 9 cases out of 10 Mumbai wins all comparison’s hands down. On Sunday I discovered that...

I saw this picture first time in 2005 when Mumbai faced a kind of flooding due to torrential rains, a nightmare that caught the city totally unawares. Like lakhs of Mumbaikars I was caught in the rain too, but safe and sound, and well cared for in the Police Training School where I was in the middle of a training. Because the school was at a height, and because there was no TV in the School, we did not realize the enormity of the situation (an enormity which strikes only once you ‘see’ some things or ‘experience’ things first hand), despite the various wireless messages which went on throughout the night. Early next morning when we did venture out to gauge the damage the sight that beheld us is etched in memory. Deserted cars, dead bodies, washed out roads. It was only late that day that I had reached back home. And everyone everywhere had a story to tell – either horror ones of how some people sat in cars, with windows rolled up, waiting for the waters to reside and dying of suffocati...

In Love With God Ok. First of all no need to get alarmed. I am not devoting myself to God yet – in any religious order. And second of all I don’t know why I need to give this caveat! Any-ho trying to avoid this first pitfall all I want to say is that I had a ‘different’ experience today. I have been traveling in flights for a long time. Initially whenever I traveled I would request for a window seat at check-in, simply because I loved an aerial view of the city that I was departing / arriving to. As age caught up, I started requesting aisle, as that seemed comfortable. I guess it also denoted an attitude of seen that, done that. Today of my way to Delhi, from Bombay, when the girl at the check-in counter asked my preference, window seat came to my lips, for which I chided myself afterwards, as that is such a novice thing to do. Now people who know me know that I have a recurring habit – put me in a moving vehicle and before you know it I either am completely drowsy or have actual...

Had an interesting meeting with an amazing man today - John Richardson. John is a visiting professor from American University, spending one semester at the Institute of Water Policy at our School. I was first introduced to him at one of our lectures where he gave a presentation on system dynamics and I was completely impressed, by his knowledge, his style and his dedication. A week or two later I sought him out and had an inspiring meeting with him. Then came the phase of assignments and exams and I lost touch, but would occasionally bump into him in School. After almost a month I met him again today and now feel sad that I should have sought him out more often as I do not know when I will see him again - I leave for India this Thursday and by the time I get back in August he would have completed his term here (hopefully to return next year). Today we discussed the suitability of an activist like myself, in the field of academia. Recently I have had a lot of questions churning in my mi...

Well not actually a blast, more like a tornado which wrecked my house the last two days. Just finished cleaning :P But the tornado called NiNi calmed my soul and I feel so very grateful to have had her around when I needed a friend the most :D NiNi happens to be one of the most amazing, crazy, brave, chattery (informed :P), blunt and disorganized friends that I have. And she is also one of the best elder sister to have. I am the oldest and so have the habit of bossing people around, but she bossed me. The first thing she said to me when I picked her up at the airport was “ you look too serious and academic” (!!!), which got converted to “you were smarter at ND, you look wiser now”. And I have no idea whether to take it as a compliment or a wake-up call ;) Meeting NiNi reinforced the fact that our year at Kroc was one of the best years of my life and the relationships made there are for a lifetime. Never before, or after, have I met so many friends, from different parts of the wor...

While chatting with my ever loving and ever critically insightful sister yesterday we were reflecting what the past year has meant to me. And the conclusion we reached was that it was God sent – like everything else in life ofcourse – but a bit more special J By this time last year I had reached the pinnacle (there are many peaks in life) of my professional career and had started to get a nagging feeling that I was becoming redundant. It was my own self-evaluation though, as the others in my organization did not necessarily feel the same way. But I am a water sign and I need movement and change for survival. The love and support of my group had held me for more than 5 years, my single largest commitment to date, and I do not regret one day in that long period. That phase of my life nurtured me like nothing else in life had or ever will. But move on I had to. This was coupled with my desire for further learning and it felt that the next logical step would be to pursue a PhD. To begi...