MARGINLANDS

An Indian writer documents troubling ecological conditions throughout the subcontinent.

Kumar-Rao grew up in 1980s Mumbai at a time when investment in economic growth tended to eclipse all other interests. Bucking this trend, her father was an environmentalist. Years later, while suffering through a bout of paratyphoid, Kumar-Rao recalled her father’s convictions and realized that she needed to change the direction of her life. She writes, “I asked myself over and over: ‘When will you stop doing what you can do and start doing what you really want to do?’” Once recovered, she quit her “well-paying corporate job [to] venture into the uncertain world of environmental storytelling.” Her decision leads to fantastic adventures in which she accompanies fishermen who “hunt” fish alongside Gangetic river dolphins, watches the southwestern monsoon land on Kerala’s shores, searches for traditional water sources while hiking the sand dunes bordering India and Pakistan, and is overcome with emotion on a mountain peak near the Yamne river valley. Her lyrical prose and accompanying illustrations capture the pathos and beauty of some of India’s most stunning landscapes. Kumar-Rao also offers thoughtful profiles of indigenous people, telling of ecological devastation brought on by shortsighted government policies focused on immediate economic growth rather than long-term environmental sustainability. The peril ahead is palpable: “By some projections,” she writes, “over 200 million people are on the move in South Asia, displaced from their traditional lands, pin-balling from one city to the next. Imagine their progeny, our future generations, growing up with no knowledge of the traditional livelihoods that have sustained their ancestors, nor suited for any meaningful urban employment. We are on the cusp of a humanitarian disaster of colossal proportions.”

A heartfelt, observant chronicle of India’s wilderness.