Transition to a renewable economy

The good news is that many businesses have started seeing growth opportunities in the green economy, and the bad news is that the urgency of transiting to a renewable resource-based economy is still at a distance from making a credible impact. Given the current pace of transition to renewable economy, it may seem a matter of two steps forward and one step back.  But Steven Cohen remains optimistic about the glass getting full as the transition passes the tipping point of popular acceptance. Such is the urgency that politically polarized countries may have little reason to avoid a unified response. 

Environmentally Sustainable Growth focuses on how the maintenance of material wealth without jeopardizing natural ecosystems in the United States has run apace, as a model in ecological leadership for the developing countries. Quoting the environmental sustainability initiatives by over a hundred leading private companies, Cohen makes it clear that government’s proactive role is critical for on-the-ground action by the private sector. Can use of smartphone technologies to invent products that consume fewer resources than traditional business models be reason enough to be valued in this transition? Often discounted, wealth accumulation by the tech-giants rarely generates enough income opportunities for the society to actively contribute to the transition. This is likely to be a stumbling block in the proposed transition to the renewable economy.    

New technologies, new services, new knowledge and new jobs are emerging, but there remain plenty of unsustainable business practices in the world. And the people who benefit from those businesses do not shy about defending it. No wonder, therefore, that those whose jobs are under threat offer resistance to sustainability everywhere. Given the fact that the transition to renewable economy will mainly take place in the private sector, developing robust and non-partisan regulatory mechanism by the government is critical to ensure that the benefits get equitable shared across the society. Cohen describes a range of public policy and infrastructure initiatives that can encourage cleaner production but doesn’t emphasize its impact on socio-economic realities of the participating societies.

The director of the Earth Institute’s Research Program on Sustainability Policy and Management at the Columbia University, Steven Cohen offers a pragmatic approach on how societies can transform themselves to become more sustainable. Written with rigor and concern, Cohen proposes a set of inter-related pragmatic responses to environmental challenges but cautions that the transition to environmental sustainability will only take place in stages. Optimistic expectations are that the transition in the United States will be well underway by 2030, and largely completed by mid-century. The book depicts an appealing and equitable future that assures quality of life while protecting the planet.

Environmentally Sustainable Growth is an ambitious and optimistic undertaking to trigger credible response from governments, institutions and the society to survive and thrive. Counting inherent goodness in people, Cohen lays stress on breaking through ignorance, blind ideology and misplaced priorities to make the planet a valuable habitat for all living creatures, now and in future. It is a multidisciplinary book that will be informative for students, practitioners, analysts, and academics whose work focuses on environmental sustainability.

Cohen counts environmental crises as an opportunity to forge our collective wisdom to transit into another way of living possibility.  

Environmentally Sustainable Growth 
by Steven Cohen

Columbia University Press, New York

Extent: 216 pages, Price: US$ 30 

First published in the Hindustan Times (Premium), Oct 8, 2024.

Road building has a never-ending future

For Gandhi, roads were an instrument of oppression.

Road building has caught peoples’ imagination as a harbinger of change, and nothing suits any politician better than to turn it into a reality. No wonder, roadbuilding has been naturalized to the point of common sense in recent times, integrating roadbuilding into a system of governance as part of the development imperative that promotes politics of power. Modern roads are paved versions of age-old pathways which are being promoted and sold to people like any other commodity. Roads have turned out to be an enchanted form of infrastructure that is celebrated to the extent that there is no room for asking dissenting questions. 

Social anthropologist Edward Simpson, a professor at the University of London, has taken on the road to ask discomforting questions on roadbuilding to the roadmen of South Asia. Exploring the political economy of road building, the author questions: Why are so many roads being built in an era of human-induced climate change? What do the roadmen think about their work and the future of the planet? And how did these become central to the region's nationalist and developmental agenda in the first place? Answers aren’t easy to come by, but it is certain that the project of road building is a sure way to win currency and power. 

Roads do transform ways of life and are therefore a self-reproducing system that demands expansion and growth all the time. Consequently, roads have become important sites for inauguration ceremonies and campaign trails. Combining the politics and poetics of road infrastructure, Simpson follows the money to provide a geopolitical narrative that puts road building as a never-ending future. Such is the desire to stay connected that the uncomfortable complicities of roads to impact climate change holds little relevance. Road building from the realm of ideas, discourse, and rhetoric presents an interesting, but controversial story.

Highways to the End of the World digs into the history of road building, how it passed through technological phases and became part of ideological projects. What makes this book absorbing reading is the ethnographic account of the road as a way of telling a story, that cuts a route through landscapes, lives and times. ‘I was interested in learning what people say when they look at road’, quips Simpson, ‘as roads raise fundamental questions about the world and the way we relate to one another’. Gandhi had described roads as instruments of oppression, while for Nehru roads evoked modern amenities and methods. However, over the years roads have become comparative national identity projects in both India and Pakistan, giving birth to political strategies of none other than Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif and India’s Nitin Gadkari. It is hard not to agree with the author’s contention that both of them exploited the moral and anticipatory potential of roads for their popularity and electoral success.    

The ethnographic account on roads is illustrative of the broader processes and thought politics that promote a form of market that positions roads as a commodity. Isn’t road part of the economy of elite? Hasn’t levels of corruption in road building been something of a national joke? Despite John Kennedy’s claim that ‘America is rich because American roads are good’, the roadbuilding in the US is not without its share of criticism. Picking up on his longer-term critique of planned obsolesce in his book ‘A Nation of Strangers’, journalist Vance Packard has stated that ‘the mobility enabled by roads and cars is the root of social isolation and loneliness.’ Eventually roads are part of a Faustian bargain, the sacrifice of everything to satisfy desire. 

Simpson’s multi-layered assessment of roads helps realize that road building is more than just the cost of land, working manpower, and inert materials. The narrative on roads asserts that there is nothing better as roads are the only way to address gross inequality and support common responsibility for the future. Travelling across highways in the sub-continent, Simpson found much to the contrary with the highways facilitating drug trafficking, encouraging sex trade, and for connecting land mafia. Not without reason had Gandhi found that the road and its machines enslave people, not only by exploiting their labor but also by binding them to particular forms of consumption. One might wonder if roads contribute to the long-term betterment of the world.

Highways to the End of the World provides a panoramic but contentious view on road building. It is an important anthropological study that examines history, sociology, economy and ecology of road building. It is an inter-disciplinary scrutiny on the process of road building that runs through an unequal world in which scale, friction and speed take the reader along invisible routes ridden with global debt, money laundering, and political conspiracy. It is a must-read book for those who consider road building as a burden on the economy and ecology.   

Highways To the End of The World
by Edward Simpson
Hurst, London
Extent: 351, Price: Rs. 3052.

First published in the Hindustan Times on Feb 5, 2024.

Towards net zero emission

Over reliance on coal as a source of energy and commitment to attain net zero emission by 2070 is delivering contradicting picture.

India’s environmental crises remains unaddressed partly because the expanding middle class focuses on search for private solutions that are at a cost to the environment, and the poor. For a majority of them, diesel generators secure reliable source of energy; groundwater pumps ensure water supply; air purifiers counter air pollution, and air conditioners work against summer heat. The prevalence of these market-led private solutions reduces political pressure to act. No surprise, the institutions that govern environmental matters continue to remain weak. The fact that a growing economy with the world’s largest population has yet to square up with global per capita energy use, which when achieved will have unimaginable impact on carbon budget and consequent climate change. Should that be the likely scenario, India would be both a major contributor to and a potential victim of climate change. This the world would not desire the most populous country to stand out for. Replacing the vicious cycle with a virtuous one may not be easy though. 

India’s energy consumption pattern is no longer a domestic issue, it has implications far and wide at the global level. Its over reliance on coal as a source of energy and its commitment to attain net zero emission by 2070 deliver contradicting picture. Transition from a coal-based power sector to a renewables-based energy sector is both feasible and desirable to mitigate climate change while delivering energy security and reducing air pollution. However, regional variations in energy production and consumption are too huge to provide a clear response. Johannes Urpelainen, a Professor of Energy, Resources, and Environment at the John Hopkins School of Advanced Internation Studies, draws a comprehensive picture on country’s complicated environmental situation to assert that only by reinforcing current policies can sizeable gains be reaped by 2030. Curiously and somewhat paradoxically, India has laws but lacks order to implement them.     

India has started on a low-carbon pathway but any approach to accelerate it at the cost of economic development is off the table. In this thin volume, Urpelainen has painted the complex environmental scenario of a country that is both full of potential as well as is afflicted by greater problems. However, within it lies the scope for the country to claim leadership role in global environmental politics. For such a distinction to be achieved, the country will need to ensure that its reduced water and carbon footprints become the guiding spirit of sustainable development, with a strong equity focus.  

Energy and Environment in India is an excellent reference book, that has profound reflections to trigger fresh debate on the subject. Urpelainen wonders if there are easy answers to most entrenched social and environmental challenges. What he instead does is to present possible qualitative scenarios. The first may see India as a giant with clay feet governed by authoritarian populism, wherein disappointing economic growth and environmental destruction drives a billion people into despair. The second and most likely scenario may be that the country charts an unabated economic growth that fuels inequality but lacks much-needed investments in climate-proofing. The third scenario is utopian that strikes a balance between poverty reduction, climate adaptation, and reduction in environmental footprints of the economy. Each of the three scenarios are discussed in detail for their potentials and possibilities. What comes clear is the compelling need for the political leadership to formulate effective policies, and to resist the temptation to exempt the mighty corporations from strict environmental rules.

What makes this volume distinct is its assessment of the energy and environmental problems from within the complex social, political, and historical settings. The book convincingly argues that to produce fair, equitable, and sustainable outcomes for almost two billion argumentative Indians, the country must strive for a sustainable future through democratic norms. Rarely have democracy and environment being dealt with in the same breath.  

Energy and Environment in India
by Johannes Urpelainen
Columbia University Press, New York
Extent: 220, Price: US$ 30.

First published in The Hindu on Dec 17, 2023.

Inside the wilds of curiosity

Literature has stayed aloof in generating environmental consciousness, leading to inter-generational disconnect in transferring the subtleties of inter-dependence on nature and myriad other life forms.

Whether auspicious or propitious, the bee-stung protagonist from village Mudigree in Chickamaglur district takes the reader on an exploration of many worlds of human existence, both natural and exogenous, in the pristine forest ecosystems of the Western Ghats. Known for his astute observations, curious reflections, imaginative narrative, and unpretentious writing, K P Purnachandra Tejaswi weaves a simple but imaginative story that interconnects nature with human follies, inquisitiveness and wisdom. Carvalho, the self-effacing scientist, connects dots in the enticing story through Mandana, the bee keeper; Raami, his lady love; Kariappa, the born tree-climber; and Kiwi, the Golden Spaniel; towards reconfirming nature as a living laboratory where evolutionary forces are still at work. Laced with wit and humour, the multi-layered narrative unleashes the power of insightful observations as the guiding spirit for being in harmony with nature. 

Three decades since it was first published, the novella has not lost out on its popularity for its style and simplicity in creating narrative engagement that helps the curious, observant and indulging child come to life in each of its readers. It is only as a child that one begins to make learning a reality. To this effect, Tejaswi adopts the role of both as a participant and narrator in pursuing his childlike curiosity in creating a literary form that remains non-judgemental but perceptive and persuasive nonetheless. Carvalho helps the reader face the perils of modernity with the right mix of native beliefs and wisdom. 

Language and literature have curiously stayed aloof in generating environmental consciousness, leading to inter-generational disconnect in transferring the subtleties of our inter-dependence on nature and myriad other life forms. In the words of author Amitav Ghosh, an absence of serious literature on the subject has contributed to society’s collective failure in getting a sense of the imminent ecological crises. Western Ghats region has imprints of ecological callousness like none other but without much anxiety reflected by its inhabitants. Further, the conventional cause-effect narrative on the emerging environmental catastrophe rarely engages many.

Carvalho ought to be read in light of such reality. As a storyteller, the narrator doesn’t lay undue emphasis on environment but leaves it to the reader’s imagination to create possibilities in his or her own depth of understanding. Neither obtrusive nor preachy, the story in search of the elusive flying lizard is a narrative axiom that has environment as its central character. Engaging in both concept and setting, the reader is taken through real-life experiences in the wild as a lived reality. What’s more, it is an effortless ease with which the power of prose creates an enduring relationship between the reader and the human/non-human characters. 

By fusing the evolutionary processes with contemporary realities, the writer provokes his readers to contemplate ‘why has nature transformed humans into quadrupeds while the likes of flying lizard remains unchanged’. There are not many like Tejaswi who have immersed themselves into deep intellectual pursuit in getting closer to our current state of being. The author shares his fascination for nature’s beauty reflected in the subtle composition of colours and the structure in beetles, butterflies and grasshoppers which convinces him to let them be an observer’s delight.  

Carvalho is a remarkable story that acts as a non-imposing guide to observing nature in its pristine state without losing on the feelings of excitement and wonderment. Packed with humour and rustic wisdom, the story evokes the awe of the unknown as an emotion that can ignite the imagination of children and adults alike. Tejaswi is clear that it is only through such writings that literature can move closer to meeting its primary responsibility towards society. In doing so, he calls upon his contemporary writers to move away from self-serving modernist writing of the early seventies. Not many could emulate the Sahitya Akademi laureate though. 

Tejaswi’s legacy lives on, and so has been his craft of storytelling. The distinction in his writing stems from his ability to accord equal importance to all the major and minor characters in taking the story forward. In Carvalho, he lays emphasis on inter-connectedness, between humans, animals and non-humans, as the leitmotif for understanding and appreciating nature. It makes for an interesting and absorbing read, with measure of its excellence partly resting on the translation being close to the original. In Prof. D A Shankar, Carvalho has had the benefit of an accomplished litterateur who hasn’t missed out on detailing the characters in same light as conceived by the superior craftsman. It is an enduring work of fiction with all the necessary ingredients - simplicity of language, strong imagination, and formal inventiveness. 

Carvalho by K P Puranchandra Tejaswi
Translated by: D A Shankar
Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi
Extent: 98, Price: Rs.80.

First published in Seminar, issue dated Nov 2020.

Imagination take wings

Nature, like mother, only generates musical lullaby. Ironically, we the mortals miss the lullaby for the words as we love noise and miss the embedded signal.

In her debut fiction, Kunjana Parashar creates a child’s imagery on nature that is fresh, insightful, reflective and persuasive. Syaahi, meaning ink, is a restless 9-year old girl chided as a slowpoke in class who, like most children, sticks a tongue out towards her uninteresting school building as she heads home for the vacations. Instead she finds solace in nature, amidst the garden trees and creepers, conversing with mute trees about all that she is unable to share with her grandma and the class teacher. In her little mind, trees are great listeners and respond through rustle of leaves or an occasional falling inflorescence. Much to her surprise, the old Rain Tree, under whose feet she had spent countless hours feeling the texture of its roots and bark, seeks to whisper that only she could hear and comprehend.

Lamenting a lack of interest among kids towards nature, the Rain Tree finds a discerning pupil in Syaahi, and exposes the strengths that her grandma and school teacher have not been able to discover. Erasing her of self-doubt, the rooted giant instills a sense of self-belief in the child. Reminding her to nurture good seeds of patience and care, the child is pumped up with irresistible energy to embark on a secret journey to make her vacations ‘green’.  

Kunjana, an English literature graduate, has let her imagination take wings as Syaahi begins to sway on the long aerial roots of the friendly Banyan tree from one part of the city to other. Her worldly encounters on sowing the good seeds are short, but detailed and accurate. Such innocent indulging is the narrative that one finds being flung up high with the child, only to be reminded of the follies that have been collectively committed on the ground. Syaahi’s Green Summer is about appreciating simple pleasures, and generally easing up in a society that encourages materialism and competitiveness.

At this time when people are pulled in separate directions, often directionless to say the least, Syaahi fuels life into the ecosystem with her innocent charm. Showering compassion to birds and beasts, she gets their roaring, squeaking, barking and purring in return as if the garden was but a colorful Indian wedding. The notion of co-existence, of interdependence on each other is reflected as all creatures join the tiny doll in her affable greening initiative. There are hardly any dramatics, just plain narration that catalogues every moment in detail.

In her imagination, the author creates a character in tiny Syaahi who is observant of every little thing around her. No wonder, the garden is like her secret, private den and sanctuary. It is here that she will compose lullaby of musical sounds and musical whistles – no words. She believes that if you use words in a lullaby, you would wake up the one you are trying to put to sleep. I envy Kunjana for the effortless ease with which she conveys a profound message. Nature, like mother, only generates musical lullaby. Ironically, we the mortals miss the lullaby for the words. We love noise, but miss the embedded signal.    

It is book about reconciliation, first with self and then with the surroundings. This could well be the most rudimentary takeaway from Syaahi’s Green Summer, but the central preoccupation in the book is about possibilities, and the conviction of turning simple dreams into transformative realities. This tiny gem of a book doesn’t preach but leaves a message that can inspire every discerning mind into creating his/her own set of actions. Without employing an expansive definition of ecological prudence, Kunjana nonetheless offers a simple but doable body of conscience choice with humane values.

Despite it being written from a child’s perspective, the book is a thoughtful tour in the garden that blows a layer of dust off from our clogged minds. Syaahi’s Green Summer is more for the teachers than children, a must read for evoking all round interest in understanding what we seemingly consider as given. Ignoring the disappearance of tiny sparrow from our daily lives, for instance, carries an ominous sign on our own existence. The author invites her readers to connect with her with cheeky comments and snarky witticisms. She deserves accolades!

Syaahi’s Green Summer
by Kunjana Parashar
APK Publishers, Pune
Extent: 84, Price: Rs 150

First published in monthly Civil Society magazine, issue dated April 2019.

All smoke, no fire

Could environmental issues be left to the call of the politicians and technocrats when the issue is essentially linked to people and their daily survival? 

Need it be said that integrating environmental concerns into the mainstream of economic growth is beset with unresolved complexities, leading to unwarranted conflicts. No surprise, therefore, that for the present-day growth-obsessed state politics, ecological concerns are no more than middle-class ‘lifestyle environmentalism’ aimed at stalling economic progress, which the growth-jihadis have unhesitatingly started calling a conspiracy to keep the country in a state of perpetual poverty.

Notwithstanding the fact that successive governments have been hostile to the environmentalism of its times albeit selectively, during his 25-month tenure as the minister of environment, Jairam Ramesh remained firm in acknowledging that the dissenting voices of non-governmental organisations were essential to the democratic processes, and not part of some foreign plot to destabilize the country. Could environmental issues be left to the call of the politicians and technocrats when the issue was essentially linked to people and their daily survival?

Green Signals chronicles the time spent by the author behind the “transparent door” (he apparently installed transparent doors wherever he had been a minister) which led to the transformation of an enviro-agnostic into an enviro-believer minister, and Ramesh doesn’t seem to have any regrets on this unintended conversion because he was tasked to rid the ministry of its “corrupt” and “managed” image. To this end, and much to the displeasure of his cabinet colleagues, the minister not only heard every word of dissent, but engaged with multiple stakeholders to let them into the policy-making process.

Far from scoring any brownie points from among competing interests, Ramesh was at the receiving end of their wrath instead. While the growth zealots dubbed him as anti-development, the conservationists accused him of not backing intent into action. By his own admission, the rate of environment clearances could only be reduced by about five per cent, from a high of nearly 99.99 per cent in the past. Holding public hearings on controversial Bt Brinjal, saying “no” to bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri Hills, and setting up the Madhav Gadgil Committee on Western Ghats didn’t add-up to conjure an eco-friendly image for the minister. 

This was bound to happen given the precarious balancing act the minister was trapped into, between contradictory pulls and pushes. Green Signals can be easily read as an exercise in self-defence by the then environment minister, but it could also be seen as an unfinished agenda of change that Ramesh had embarked upon. That his short-tenure evoked strong responses stands testimony to his out-of-the-box approach in putting in place a system within the ministry that made choices on the basis of hard facts and information without losing on transparency and accountability, the key anchors of the new approach in decision-making. 

Within a democratic system, trade-off between environment and development is determined by the political economy of growth. No wonder, the environment ministry cannot act at his own behest without taking the chief ministers, the cabinet ministers and the prime minister on board. Quite often, Ramesh had ended-up rubbing the wrong side of his colleagues in other ministries which were entrusted with the task of taking the country high on the growth trajectory. Green Signals is an honest record of a minister negotiating the twists and turns involved in trying to ensure ecological security amidst growth fundamentalism. 

It is clear that Ramesh was not keen on keeping diverse stakeholders, both within and outside the government, in good humour. Instead, he tried to find ways to make high economic growth ecologically sustainable. In doing so, he sought to move away from the binary approach to green clearances for projects to a three-way classification — ‘yes’, ‘yes, but’, and ‘no’. Such an approach warranted a need for acknowledging diverse perspectives and for appreciating good science within the framework of constitutional provisions, such that predictability of outcome and possibility of conflict could be avoided. 

Ramesh was seized of the fact that hard choices by the state will lead to public grievances, for which he played an important role in setting up the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The functioning of NGT indicates that it will take a lot of doing on the part of subsequent governments to “undo” the institutional changes he could bring about in his short but momentous tenure. Conservationists ought to be kind to him because the impacts of his decisions are likely to last longer than his short stint with the environment ministry. 

Green Signals is a rare gesture of honouring the democratic obligation of reporting back to the people about what went behind the “transparent door”, which will go a long way in writing the history of environmental decision-making in the country. 

Green Signals: Ecology, Growth and Democracy in India 
by Jairam Ramesh
Oxford University Press, New Delhi
Extent: 616, Price: Rs. 850 

This review was first published in Deccan Herald on June 14, 2015

The Limits to Extraction

The Club of Rome had shot into fame with its first authoritative report The Limits to Growth, released in 1972 The seminal report on the future of mankind had not only triggered a hot debate but degenerated in all-out smear campaign.. The public perception on the report was nothing more than a series of wrong predictions made by a group of deluded scientists. So much so, subsequent reports by this global think tank did not merit much attention.

Extracted is the latest report from the elite club. Had The Limits to Growth attained popularity, the title of this report could easily have been The Limits to Extraction. However, the nature of the report has remained much the same. Digging out the history of mining, from the prehistoric days to the modern age, the report suggests that mankind has almost extracted almost the entire (cheap) mineral resources alongside plundering of the earth’s ecosystems and displacement of millions in the process. It is one of the biggest global industries but the gradual depletion of low-cost minerals, including fossil fuels, is fast becoming a major limitation to economic growth. As high grade ores are extracted first, it will become much more expensive to produce most mineral commodities in future. Given the growing demand for precious metals and rare earths, a resource war is likely to emerge among countries that hold monopoly over mineral deposits.

Since everything we use cannot be grown, the same must be mined. Therefore, the political economy of mining makes it an important growth engine for most countries. China has 97 per cent of all active rare earths, including exclusive deposits of molybdenum. South Africa holds 82 per cent of global platinum. China leads countries like Chile, Australia and Argentina in global copper output. Tibet has become the new mining destination for China. Under a new regime, India intends to go full throttle to extract its mineral deposits. 

Extracted is written by a team of experts, headed by Italian scientist Ugo Bardi. The report says that deposits of many high-grade ores are running low: copper, zinc, nickel, gold, silver and others are expected to reach their productive peak within less than two decades. Not only will it affect our lifestyles but agriculture production could decline as well. By the time the world wakes up to the impact of mining, plundering of earth ecosystem would have caused lasting impact by contributing to the climate change. 

The solution, says Bardi, is to replace costly minerals with cheaper ones; recycle as much as possible, and generate energy through renewable energy sources such as sun, wind, and water. It is not far when the mining machines and the drilling rigs will disappear without corresponding decline in the demand for minerals. 

Written for the consumptive generation, Ugo Bardi has dedicated the book to his son, who is a geologist. 

Extracted
by Ugo Bardi
Chelsea Green Publishing, USA
Extent: 273, Price: US$ 24.95

A shorter version of this review has also appeared on Anthem EnviroExperts Review, coordinated by Prof. Larry Susskind of MIT  

Making sense of one's surroundings

In a predominantly growth-obsessed market-driven consumerist culture, the environment as a subject has remained at the margins of popular perception – arcane to some and obscure to others. Environment no longer registers! Even if it does, it is often from the perspective of highly polarized environment-development debates. That environment sustains all life forms rarely merit a majority concern. 

Why is modern living distanced from the environment? Could near absence of inter-generational transfer of empathy towards environment be the prime reason! Stories, both oral and written, have ceased to be the channel for transferring the subtleties of our inter-dependence on nature and myriad other life forms. Stark monetization of human existence has further reduced environment into a set of by-products and services that can be traded. No surprise therefore that environment has been pushed to the margins of social consciousness with the riches of nature being squandered for petty gains.     

Through his collection of refreshing short stories, noted Kannada writer K P Purnachandra Tejasvi connects the civilized with the wild, evoking sentience towards what is often considered ‘given’. Set amidst the forest adjoining his village Mudigere in Chickamaglur district, each of the fifteen stories are encounters in the wild, capturing the innate intelligence of various animals in interacting with humans. The strange behavior of the jungle fowl; the mythical existence of snakes; the defense mechanism of the mud tortoise; and the amazing commonsense of the simians provide compelling insights on the virtues of co-existence. 

Considered as one of the finest prose writers, Tejasvi’s stories are neither obtrusive nor preachy. Full of wit and humor, he delightfully transforms real-life incidents in the forest into stories which have environment as the central character. The storyteller doesn’t lay undue emphasis on environment, leaving it to the reader’s imagination to create possibilities in his or her own depths. These are not just stories but experiences in the wild, making the reader aware about environment even without realizing it. The stories neither compete nor negotiate an existing situation, but create an enduring relationship between the reader and the human/non-human characters. 

There is unmistakable hint of richness lurking in each of the stories in The Story of My Environment. Tejasvi has an exceptional sensitivity towards environment which together with his comic genius helps transform this collection into a work of art. As a tribute to Tejasvi’s brilliance, this collection of short stories is 'highly recommended' for readers of all age groups!

The Story of My Environment
by K P Puranachandra Tejasvi
Pustakaprakashana, Mysore
Extent: 192, Price: Rs 140