‘Our excesses are the root cause of destruction elsewhere’: Arati Kumar-Rao

The environmental photographer, writer, and artist’s book, Marginlands, brings us stories from the forgotten fringes of the subcontinent.

Marginlands captures Arati Kumar-Rao’s journey into the heart of landscapes that lie marginalised, and here, she immerses herself, and captures—through words, photographs, and sketches—the tenuous lives of people: people of the Thar desert, the mangroves of Sundarbans, the coastline of Kerala.

There is an onomatopoeic term in Marwari that describes the shimmering surface of a lake, pond or river: palar paani. The shepherds of Rajasthan’s Thar desert have a name for cirrocumulus clouds, teetar pankhi, as they resemble the pattern on a partridge’s wings. And ghutyo refers to the asphyxiatingly still clouds that blanket the sky but never yield rain. We learn of this richly evocative—and dying—lexicon, coined by people who inhabit the fringes of the subcontinent in the glossary of Marginlands: Indian Landscapes on the Brink by Arati Kumar-Rao. The environmental photographer, writer and artist’s book has won Publishing Next’s Best Printed Book of the Year Award. Marginlands captures Rao’s journey into the heart of landscapes that lie marginalised, and here, she immerses herself, and captures—through words, photographs and sketches—the tenuous lives of people: people of the Thar desert, the mangroves of Sundarbans, the coastline of Kerala. The personalities she gets to know reflect both astonishing resilience and acute vulnerability as their environment is rocked by development projects and climate change. Excerpts from an interview:

What does the award mean to you? Will it help spotlight these forgotten lands and people?

I am tremendously grateful for the award and I do hope this means the book gets spotlighted in circles beyond the “choir.” I do hope the book reaches more folks, and, especially, people who craft policy or make decisions that directly affect landscapes and livelihoods. However, I am under no delusion: this is a tall order, and we live in a climate where priorities seem to be vastly different. However, we are also living through a heatwave. One that is so debilitating for us cushioned by our privilege, I cannot even begin to imagine how it must be for those out on the streets, in daily wage work under this searing, unforgiving sun. And these are people who have migrated from their lands—some forcibly—and are now wont to eke out a living doing whatever they can in our ill-equipped cities.

Marginlands begins with an epigraph. “I don’t try to fool myself that the stories of individuals are themselves arguments. I just believe that better arguments, maybe even better policies, get formulated when we know more about ordinary lives.”—Katherine Boo. My hope for the book is exactly what Katherine Boo says here. We are disconnected from how things are deep in rural India. We imagine we know what is right… and yet, what we do only undermines the innate resilience of those landscapes that hundreds of thousands of people and highly biodiverse creatures depend upon. And given what we are facing in the form of completely unpredictable weather systems, that resilience is paramount. And yet we are on the path to determinedly shoot ourselves in the foot. That even a faint echo of the import of the stories in Marginlands reaches the hallowed halls of policy makers is my wish.

Coast | Photo Credit: Arati Kumar-Rao

You write, you sketch, you photograph. But soundscapes are also an integral part of your storytelling. How does this dimension lend itself to documenting the places you visit?

We have five senses with which to experience everything. Each sense brings into the story a layer of information. And when put together, the whole is more than the sum of its parts… each layer is crucial in informing us about the world around us. So yes, I sketch what I cannot photograph or which is better seen than read. I photograph that which makes sense for the story, for the viewer to see and, hopefully, be transported into the thick of the story. When I am out there, I hear so much. The fact that there is a bird singing in the centre of a city, or that a jackhammer is drowning out that birdsong, are both crucial parts of the story of that city, of that bird. Soundscapes add a huge amount of information to stories.

I remember listening to Hayao Miyazaki, whose work I absolutely adore, where he compares a scene with a background score of music with the same scene with ambient sounds alone. My goodness, the difference in the comprehension and effect in the latter scene is tremendous. That said, silence too speaks volumes. Conveying this important component of our lived experience, I feel, is important. This is why I include soundscapes wherever I can: either via sound files, or, at a minimum through words describing them to the best of my ability.

Over 50 people are killed by tigers in the Sundarbans every year. Vilified as bad omens ‘tiger widows’ struggle to make ends meet. | Photo Credit: Arati Kumar-Rao

You have said the changes you observe in these neglected landscapes—whether limestone mining in Rajasthan, the destructive barrage across the Ganga in West Bengal, or the ravages of climate change in Ladakh—whose inhabitants you have come to know, affect you personally…

It is always hard for me to leave places I have immersed myself in, and come back to my own milieu. I have become acutely aware of my privilege. Of the very fact that I can leave. People I write about, I speak with, I live with, and empathise deeply with, cannot. Often, I return to social commitments in the city that are diametrically opposite to what I have shared or the devastation I have witnessed. Music, a spread on someone’s table, bright lights and tinkling glasses begin to feel surreal. I feel bereft, aloof, not able to connect with that life, not able to share in those conversations. I feel an intense sadness and an acute sense of guilt. Our excesses are often the root cause of destruction elsewhere.

Ursula K. Le Guin’s story ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’ comes back to haunt me often. When I see the beauty of Ladakh and know how the people are suffering, how the animals are suffering, it hurts deeply, mostly from knowing that there is so little I seem to be able to do to effect change.

In spite of receiving just forty cloudy days a year, the pastoralists in the Thar desert have forty names for clouds. | Photo Credit: Arati Kumar-Rao

Tell us about the transect you are embarking upon now, across the breadth of India, for the National Geographic Society.

The National Geographic grant is to document forced human migration due to environmental degradation. I wanted to build on the reportage in Marginlands to see what happens to the people who have to give up their traditional livelihoods and move to cities. I had planned the transect thinking I would be able to achieve those goals via that method. But after spending 20 days on the road in rural India, I realised that the people I want to document—I need to document—for the grant work are in our cities. And so, I have pivoted away from the transect to documenting migrants who are building our cities. Are our cities supporting them? What lies ahead for the millions who are being left high and dry with failing agriculture, fisheries, and pastoralism, with desiccation and untimely precipitation? It is a humongous project, I have realised… it will probably take many years before I can make sense of what is happening. But I have started the probe.

Chhattar Singh, the shepherd who churns water from Thar’s sand dunes, and one of the last custodians of local lexicon that includes names for each type of cloud in the searing sky, features across two chapters. How has he particularly inspired you?

Chhattar Singh is my philosopher, guide, and friend in the deep Thar. I have learned so much from him, mostly, how to read a landscape and the art of moving at nature’s pace. As Emerson has said, “Nature never hurries: atom by atom, little by little, she achieves her work. The lesson one learns from yachting or planting is the manners of Nature; patience with the delays of wind and sun, delays of the seasons, bad weather, excess or lack of water.” So it is with him. Even if someone refuses to listen to him, he is abundantly patient, until they come around. And more often than not, they do come around because his work speaks for itself. It has been a wonderful education under him. I owe him so much. The best part is that we are still in touch and there are so many instances when I am in the field, and I see something, I think of him, and write to him. Come July, I ask him about the rains there and if the khadeens are filled. His voice is always rich with pride when he speaks of the water harvesting structures of the desert. I love hearing that.

If only Bengaluru would listen to its own Chhattar Singhs (for there are a few) and do right by the land for this city. We would not face water scarcity ever.