What Do I Really Want? | 3min snip from The Seen and the Unseen

Speaker 2
So, and given
Speaker 3
that you are part of the state and that you must have been in this situation where you want to tell him, keep by Bandu, sit, let's talk,
Speaker 2
you
Speaker 1
know, what are your thoughts? Yeah, no, so I agree, right? But I think that's what then makes Fu Bandu is I think that is, I think that's what I think is a practical Hoja. I think that's what I think. And we need the Bandu.
Speaker 3
And we need
Speaker 1
also Bandu is in this world. So, yeah, and also,
Speaker 4
I think what he see does is I'll
Speaker 1
not say that he'll not be practical when he also negotiates with villagers. He doesn't want villagers to turn against the animal, right? That is the challenge because he thinks once that happens, then the battle is lost. So, it's not easy for him also. So, while he take the stand, he will still find a way to work. Maybe he'll go after a few days when tempers have come down. Now, he'll try for his department, work with for his department, get some fencing there. So, animals do not cross the field or come home, get lighting done. So, he'll also do these measures, right? So, maybe immediately, you know, he has to take that stand for whatever he believes in. But he would not see of those people as anyway, because he also sees some point in what they're saying. As you said, right? And people dying, you know, people's lives are important too. You can't let that happen. So, how will he work on this? Then he'll work with the department when the tempers have come down, try and make them see the reason. Because the last thing he wants to happen is, you know, he becomes very stagnant and becomes very tough and like, no, and people the entire village is turned against him and the animal. Then why is the conservation, right? You can't conserve if your local community is not interested involved, because they are the one who have been conserving, right? Like not people like us. We've been writing, talking about us, and the tribals, you know, and the people who live in the forest, the animals have survived because, you know, they have cohabited, lived with them and worked to conjure them. So, that is also happens, but I think he probably does it shortly, he doesn't. So, the second cool is, I had not met them before. I had read about them, heard about them, and I was a provisoner in Amravati, but I had not met them in person. They have been written about and
Speaker 4
book it Bharati. They've
Speaker 1
also been given up the street. So, they're slightly
Speaker 4
no more well known than many of the people who have been who we have written about in the book.
Speaker 1
So, my first reaction when I met Smita Koleji, like I had not met a woman as fury as her ever in my life. She was so honest. She was so honest. She was like, first of nature, right? She was having conversation. She was, you know, there's nothing to travel about what she was saying, right? She also documents, talks about her own sexual harassment, you know, and I was, we were like, shall this go, should this go or not go, checked with her. So, she was the woman, right, who I had never seen or met in my life, the kind of, you know, who comes, lives in that place, has very strong, you know, belief in few things, lives where those beliefs, you know, has left behind everything, does all of that. So, I was completely mesmerized by her personality, the force of her personality, because she was the first, I mean, we met her first in the car, then we traveled with her to meet her husband, you know, for two hours. And then the way she was telling us the story, I was curious, so she would make me shut up and like, no, you please listen. I don't like talk too much. I'm the one telling the story. So, she was like, no, I'm interested, but then I meet, then we meet her as well, right, Dr. Ravindra Kole. Complete contrast, you know, small, quiet man, you know, was very, very like, one of those really loveable uncles who you go to and would smile and would only say nice things and so very different personality, right. But when you talk to him, you realize, you know, there's so much gravitas, there's so much, you know, he's seen and he's done and the humility of it. No, I don't know if you remember the line that they say towards the end, but they say, we came here, no one asked us to come. And no, we're not doing any social service. They say, what do you think?

Ep 312: Ashutosh Salil and the Challenge of Change

The Seen and the Unseen - hosted by Amit Varma

Remember Everything You Learn from Podcasts