the inside man

              

Heroes are not hard to find ,when you work for an organization like Greenpeace.People who put themselves between a whale and a harpoon. People who hang a banner from a 1000 ft height. People who , at a grave risk of personal injury, decide to draw a line somewhere, for the planet.

3 days ago , I found yet another kind. 

The photo above was taken in Agra , where searing temperatures reach 45 degrees celsius in the afternoon.

In a false fur covered polar bear suit , you can comfortably add another 20 degrees to it. 65 degrees. It is not that far from being in a furnace. 

 The young man in the suit is Chirag, who is one of our new volunteers, He is 20 years old and an engineering student. He has been with Greenpeace for the whole of 2 weeks. I met him for the first time on 17th June, around midnight and the first question he asked me was whether he could wear the polar bear suit. I warned him , explaining how hot the Polar bear suit could get . He insisted , And I am so glad he did. 

   Over the course of the 3 days that it took to get those photos that you see sprawled across social media today, Chirag must have worn that suit 30 times. In the middle of a field. On the rooftop of a village house. In front of the Taj Mahal. In the morning . The afternoon .and when we were lucky, in the cool (that means 35 degrees) evening.  

And you could see the effort it took , every single time he took off the suit, to put it back on. 

But he did. without a word of complaint. Every .single. time. 

He even found the strength to smile when the mask came off. 

 The one thing that Chirag demanded from me, was a Greenpeace t-shirt.,” One is nice, two is better and three is great ,” Is what he tells me the last time we speak on the phone. 

Sometimes its not what is on the t-shirt that matters, but who wears it. And I think I am really glad that this young man sports a Greenpeace t-shirt (and yes, I will get him 3 of those.). As the Rio +20 Conference draws to a sad end. And world leaders fail to inspire the millions , yet again, Small inspirations like Chirag (whose name aptly means “the lamp”) light up the path to a better tomorrow. 

Maybe with a few more like him, we might stand a chance. 

          

Audacity

This image was taken on 18th may 2012, 15 km from  adoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR), Chandrapur, Maharashtra, India. The poachers carried its head and paws and left the remaining body in little pieces.
    On the 23 rd of May the Government of Maharashtra issued 'shoot-at-sight' orders to the forest guards if they saw any poacher hunting or laying traps in tiger reserves. And more importantly, the Forest guards will not be persecuted.
You question the morality of the decision? The life of a man over the tiger.
Or you froth in anger, wondering what took them so long to enforce the shoot at sight orders?
Its a difficult question, a man's life over a tigers. Especially for someone who lives in civilized society.
Civilized.
What a word.
If ever they find one word that has destroyed this planets endless diversity and cultural wealth , it would be this one.
Civilized.
The word that inspired the Europeans rape and plunder the planet and its cultural and natural diversity for centuries.
Civilized.
You think I oversimplify it too much. Maybe I do. However, more destruction has been cause to the people and this planet in the name of progress and civilization that any other cause. Progress towards capitalism. Progress towards science. Progress towards Religion . Progress. Civilization. Hah.
Sorry I digress. Coming back to the tigers . Its ridiculously clear that the tiger over the years has come to symbolize something. In an ever industrializing society , we need such symbols which connect us to the larger natural world. To save the tiger, is therefore nor just saving the majestic carnivore that occupied the top of the food chain probably till the Chinese discovered  the boom powder.
Its saving that symbol which we have glorified for years.
For that failure will prick our majestic egos till time immemorial. 
and that we simply cannot have.
I only hope that this will be enough to protect little pieces of this planet.
little pieces like tigers.

a short story on love

Mr.Furry took aim and let go. The arrow flew and found its mark, just barely though. Surprisingly, the unfortunate recipient of the arrow did not exhibit any signs of pain or discomfort, for the moment. Mr. Furry admired his handiwork and prepared for the second volley. With the target in sight , he let go of his projectile. Unfortunately , a little roll of the sea ( Poseidon had been having some indigestion) caused the supposed recipient of the arrow to move . And move she did, just out of the way of the arrow, which just grazed the little frown on her forehead, and disappeared into the unknown.

",Shit," thought Mr. Furry, as he reached for another one and found his little palm close around nothingness.

             un- oh.

 no more arrows.

  Oh, well he thought, shit happens. And paused to view the spectacle unfolding for a little while. (At this point it would be better to explain to the reader that time moved differently for mr.Furry than it did for the recipients of his arrows) After playing spectator for a bit (and across at least 2 continents, and 3 countries), Mr .Furry grew bored and decided to go home. He pulled the arrow from his first recipient and returned to his own dimension. Where Mrs Furry would have (hopefully..) prepared some lovely soup for him. It was with thoughts of delicious hot soup that Mr.Furry disappeared off this planet and into the great unknown.

   

             

It was a stormy day.The ship started bouncing in late hours of the evening. And we bounced , bounced and bounced all the way from   kaohsiung to keelung. Expecting bad weather, the deck team had spent hours lashing various bits and pieces to other bits and pieces. It was number 8 on the beaufort scale, with winds reaching 60-70 km/h.     Not the worst I have been through, but certainly not best time for a stroll on deck for sure. Most of the campaign team from taiwan had been decimated on arrival, the bad weather casualties being visibly missing from the lunch table. But all said and done , It is such a thrill , to feel the ship constantly move underneath your feet. To step out and hear the waves smashing against the steel hull , sending a fine mist of salty water across the ship. Its spectacular. Every time I step out on deck , I marvel , feel a smile speeding across my salt water covered face. And I remind myself that one misstep , would be the end. There is no saving anyone in this, The edge of the ship is like the edge of a cliff. to davy jones locker, as they used to say. Macabre thought, maybe, but one that brings into perspective the life we lead. There is very often no place for stupidity, or mistakes in this life. And at sea, I am full of gratitude to someone somewhere, for letting me lead it. Every time.

riding an ancient wind

The sails are out all the way and we are edging north towars Taiwan, albeit a bit slowly.
2000 years ago ancient mariners used the North East trade winds in the South China sea for transporting chinese porcelain. Eventually this wind favoured the creation of the silk route of the sea in the 9th century. Today we follow the wind from another age as we inch our way towards Taiwan. It is strange , to reconnect with history in such a way. Following timeless winds as we sail across these waters. How many battles and travels and stories and songs has this sea been privy to. It is such a human thought, to be constantly troubled with minor ailments, Of war and sickness and disease. While the universe carries on. Completely Unruffled by our great discoveries and everchanging laws.

The sea is raging a a little with 30 knots of wind, I guess she is not particularly happy. But the smashing of the waves is sometimes punctuated with the lovely splashes and clicks of dolphins and we count ourselves lucky to witness this exciting spectacle. Some of us.

The Raibow warrior is being pounded now and then by 4-6 meter waves. She will be in Taiwan by Sunday.
Thank you butterfly. For flapping your wings.

solitude

Its been 88 days since I left the confines of land. The comfort of my bed. The smell of warm earth.
On 12th September I boarded the Rainbow warrior , 6 days before I turned 24. Today is the 8th of December. 88 days.
Its interesting , to say the least, this life on the sea that fate has chosen for me . A great mix of environmental activism, extremely satisfying menial jobs, cleaning , and learning to live in a community full of brilliant and often crazy people.
Last week we had a onboard campaign training for Greenpeace campaigners from around the world. As we were anchored in Manila bay, these 12 people learnt how to use a greenpeace ship as an effective campaigning tool. Not to mention, how to clean toilets, wash up after themselves (and others) and How NOT to take showers between 7.30 and 9 AM.
The ship was busting with activity at all hours. and with smart beautiful women. sigh. And then as suddenly it had begun, It came to an end. One fine morning , all the bags were packed and put ashore, with people and beautiful memories. And off we went.
To the solitude of the sea. She really is beautiful. and I say this from 6 meter high waves. Beautiful she is.
Its strange though, after a week of having my cabin full of people . To wake up in the middle of the night, and hear nothing but the waves. No rustling of bedsheets . No rogue alarms. no tiptoeing into the room at 1.

Just the solitude of the waves.

A dream of Haruki

I was running through the maze , scared shit-less for my life.
It wasn't that I was being chased, but I just knew that death was closing in on me.
I was completely out of options, but I just knew,instinctively, that there was a loophole somewhere.However I also knew that this 'loophole' was almost as scary as death itself. Still, out of options, I decided to take that chance.

Death reached out to me, but I was suddenly out of its grasp, I had just gone insane.Not your usual completely loony kind of insane, but just a bit. Just enough to be out of the grasp of death, away from the invader of all realms, from that stealer of princes and peasants.
.Free.
And free I was , completely. But the cost was unbelievable, to trade in your sanity for life. It is a hard bargain and a small part of me knew that something really really wrong had just happened.
It was somewhere at this juncture that I awoke from a really weird dream , completely drenched in sweat and freezing at the same time. I was immobile , my limbs were completely stuck and I realized that I had never been this scared in my life.
Now I don't live a very normal life, I climb mountains and cliffs and bridges, I drive boats at high speed while being chased by unhappy fishermen or cops (or both) in rough seas and I do a fair amount of adrenaline pumping activities on most days . So when I say scared , I use that word in every possible extreme that you can imagine.
And then as I lay in my bed trying to make sense of what the hell was going on, I heard footsteps outside my room. Now I live on the roof of a 3 storey building, the only access to the roof is a small door which I lock every night before I go to sleep. So how who in the hell is walking outside my door at 2 in the morning?
I think about looking outside my window, but suddenly , out of the blue I remember Gabriel's story ( I sailed with Gabriel for a while on the Arctic Sunrise) about how he heard an unearthly cry outside his house in San Fransisco and how he instinctively felt that whatever it was , He did not want to attract 'its' attention, and so he lay in bed for the next few minutes freezing and sweating at the same time , till sleep overtook him.
Now, I had heard this story from Gabe at least 3 months ago , and I have not once thought about it.Not once that I can remember. Now at 2 o' clock in the night, 3 months later, It came back to me out of nowhere , at least 6 times zones away from where the story was told ( in Dakar,Senegal).
So I kept my head down , didn't make a sound, and waited for this strange encounter to pass. But it didn't.
Whatever 'it' was , was already in the room and I was too fucking scared to move a muscle. So I closed my eyes and thought of every single spiritual experience I had ever had. Using my thought as a shield between me and this ' presence'.
I guess I must have drifted away to sleep because I remember waking up in the morning, extremely tired and jittery. But still very much alive. And somehow stronger.
Amrit
13th July, 2010 Bangalore