yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Museums as learning spaces This piece is published in the November 2017 issue of Teacher Plus here . Thanks are due to the team at Teacher Plus and the museums all over for allowing my love for history to not only stay alive but flourish.  ‘ She is not interested in museums ’, a friend said, of his daughter. He left me wondering. The history lover in me was not very happy. I frequent museums and try to savour those at places I visit. Here I speak not just of large and exquisite collections like the ones  at the Prince of Wales Museum in Bombay o r the National Museum in New Delhi. I have learnt of Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland from museums in their capitals. They have taught me about the homes and festivals of people there, the clothes they once wove and wore, their fishing and cultivation practices and more. Today we also have a range of private museums. Some of these like the textile  and vessel museums  at Ahmedabad boast of very focused and nove...

Published at The Citizen here . Thanks are due to Aishwarya Adhikari and Gayeti Singh at The Citizen and  Priya Singh for comments on the draft. The unedited version below. ‘ Only 10% of 31 lakh NGOs in the country submitted mandatory reports to the authorities ’ and ‘ The Central Government has cancelled foreign funding registration of select NGOs for alleged violation of law ’. On the one hand press has highlighted these issues pertaining to not-for-profits and on the other they are today being questioned and critiqued, like seldom before. It is not uncommon to come across references like ‘ are getting less dynamic and more bureaucratic’ and ‘ have lost the plot ’ for not-for-profits; sub-optimal output or not delivering as promised too is an oft-heard complaint. For this discussion I look beyond both these issues – state and mediocrity. Mediocrity , ‘ our greatest bane ’ , is as much an issue here as it elsewhere in our society while state’s interaction ...

The joy of doing absolutely nothing is simply priceless. Published at The Quint here . Thanks are due to the team at The Quint.  The unedited version below. “ Mere paas bahut khali samay hai, bahut doopherein aur shamein maine nitant akelepan me guzari hain ”. I have a lot of free time, many afternoons and evenings I have enjoyed being alone, absolutely alone. This line, by Manav Kaul during a session at Jaipur Literature Festival - 2017, Kitna Kuch Jeevan , hit hard. When last did one hear friends, forget celebrities, say that s/he has lot of time or is free? Of the taboo lines today’s society has – this one is right up the list. This - I do not have time – line has always had me perplexed. All of us have the same time – 24 hours – so is it not then about priorities? About the option or options we choose? Life, after all, is a series of trade-offs. So, if our priority is go to place X we act accordingly. It does not indicate that we do not have the time to go...

A year since the fun time at Manas with friends and rains share of the planning workshop.  The paper presented at CEE Amdavad -  here .  Education for change - online version - here  and  print version - here .  The text here talks of the same event albeit using a different tone and lens.  Thanks are due to all the participants and Aaranyak.  Should we, should we not, we discussed, and then suddenly, one by one, in a file, most of the participants walked out. Out towards the gushing river, amidst the deafening rains, with water all around us, including in the paddy fields. Later during the evening they would return to the paddy fields to listen to the symphony played by frogs. Earlier during the day the participants had gone spotting birds and the list included the Bengal Florican! They had come together to deliberate on a plausible and realistic plan for conservation education (CE) in the Manas Landscape, Assam. A long-term pl...

Exploring Green Patches in Urban Areas. Published in Spectrum – Deccan Herald on 4th July, 2017. Thanks are due to the team at Decccan Herald. The piece on their website here . Unedited text below. I listened to the sound of tyres caressing sand. The music as if changed tunes with the strength I put into my pedaling and thickness of the sand layer. In the silence of a winter afternoon these tunes went in sync with the gentle slopes the cycle manoeuvred and every once in a while, as the tyres hit a stone or a fallen branch, got happily disrupted. As I paused near a bend in the path I listen to undesigned and welcome sounds, of bamboo bending to touch another bamboo and a squirrel moving over leaves resting on ground. I was in the heart of one of our metros and savouring one of our larger University campuses. My exposure to the campus began with walks along the black roads and over the weeks I moved along the brown paths as well. Trees touched these roads and pat...

A book review published at goodbooks  on 22nd June, 2017. Book   Title: Eighteen tides and a tiger Author: Anjana Basu Details   Language: English Pages: 140 Price: Rs 250/- ISBN: 978-81 - 7993 - 649 - 8 Publisher: The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), 2017 The text on Goodbooks here . Thanks are due to the team at goodbooks.  Review Text   Sunderbans is today one of the few tiger reserves, if not the only, which retains an air of mystery. This is not only on account of its landscape – ecologically distinct from other tiger reserves in the country – but also on account of absence of the intensive jeep safaris (tourism) and extensive camera-trapping (research) that one has begun to associate tiger reserves with. Historically too it appears not to have been a hunting ground unlike some of its well-known counterparts. April 2017 brought the news of Indian Wolf having been photographed here for the first time! On the...

Environment Day: Of tokenism and ironies Published at The Citizen on 5th June 2017 here . Thanks are due to the team at The Citizen Suddenly everyone around seemed to have reignited their love for their mothers, realized that their mothers were the best ( whatever it means ) and rekindled their memories of pleasant incidents with mothers. Preceding the Mother’s Day was Women’s Day , a day to celebrate women, as if half the population on planet does not exist otherwise. After a point even the mainstream media had had enough. A Hindustan Times ’ article stated “ While I do appreciate the free manicures, drinks and air miles this Women’s Day, let’s aim to stop the tokenism. It means nothing. Instead, let’s aim for deeper, long-lasting and more substantial solutions ”. While an editorial in The Hindu said “ What have we reduced International Women’s Day to? It’s nothing short of a jamboree. Events aplenty are organised around March 8 to demonstrate our admiration for ‘woma...

Plastic is there to stay and the onus is on us to change our lifestyles and protect the environment. Published on First Post on 6 th June 2017 here .  Thanks are due to the team at First Post. An unedited version below. Images of turtles, albatrosses and other marine species dying on account of plastic in our oceans have been doing rounds in recent years. Many of us have been pained but most of us seem to have done little. Two shocking incidents this year not only underscored this but also gave us a final warning. A warning to act now or to face a future not very different from that of these species . The first is a whale on the Norwegian shore which was so sick it had to be euthanized; 30 plastic bags (besides other garbage) were found in its stomach. The second is the publication of a report on Henderson Island. More than 37 million pieces of waste plastic were found on an uninhabited island recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its ecology! Plastic ...