Episode 6: From The Marginlands
Where our featured guest is naturalist and author Yuvan Aves
Heartening, and also daunting, to see an influx of new subscribers. Welcome on board, folks — this is a participative Substack, where your experiences and comments are as valuable, and valued, as whatever I have to say.
Below, please find the latest episode of From the Marginlands, the fortnightly podcast that Arati Kumar-Rao and I co-host.
Arati and I discuss environmental issues in Indian cities, highlighting repetitive flooding, poor urban planning, and the lack of cogent narratives on these issues.
Our guest this fortnight is writer and naturalist Yuvan Aves. Together, we explore the disconnect between human actions and ecological realities, the importance of direct experience with nature for fostering care and action, and the challenges of changing perspectives rooted in privilege and anthropocentrism.
Yuvan, a good friend to both of us, is a prominent part of Robert Macfarlane’s latest book, Is A River Alive? We discuss the experience of taking Macfarlane around Chennai’s at-risk landscape, and also his views on ecological coexistence, and the future of environmental activism and understanding in India. Here is the episode; the show notes provide more depth and information. And as always, we look forward to your comments and suggestions:
Loved it. That question "what is loss"? is still haunting me. Immediate reaction? Lump in throat. Response? Still processing. Going to go back and watch all of the episodes especially Zenrainman. Thank you and Aarti. I missed her talk at BIC, but heard her on TSATU. Will be buying her book too. Heard this today on waking up. So feeling kind of emotional, you know, "the way we were" kind of perspective? Anyway. Thank you. And more power to young minds like Yuvan.