[Music]
[Applause]
how long the work is the long work I ask
myself the same question and ended up
walking thousands of kilometres across
India following India’s rivers
documenting the life of the river life
of the people of the river documenting
the environment and in the thousands of
kilometers of walking across this
country it was often the case that
people would suddenly come up and start
interrogating would start questioning it
feels weird in the beginning and then
later you realize that these people
would not have asked these same
questions if I would have arrived in
that location in a car or any other
vehicle and this is self-administer the
people and talking about I think this is
an achievement I think this is something
to learn from because this happening
signifies that we have been able to
break down some boundaries that we have
been able to break down some social
dynamics that restrict people from
sharing their ideas and stories walking
this simple act it’s a one-two one-two
beat the most commonplace of human
activities conscious human activities it
has the power to dissolve boundaries of
space and time it has the power to
dissolve social structures social
boundaries and it is this simplicity
that I want to share with you walking
eventually is just symbolic of the act
of slowing down it could be any act it
is any simple act that you could
undertake that helps slow down helps
observe and absorb the knowledge or
information that lies around us not
necessary exclusive but more intimate
and my work has been primarily
inclined towards the environment so
that’s what I’m going to talk about and
these stories that I’m going to share
with you stories that were collected in
a slow process were collected in
interacting with the people who live
alongside these rivers while walking
along the Ganga in autre Han we saw
these phases of daily wage laborers
working on the road and it was apparent
that these folks were not from local
area and we ended up speaking to them
got to know that they were from sharpen
and working here to build a road which
is part of the charm highway project now
we got to know this information from
them and then we moved on and we reached
this village called tsuki which
literally translates as happiness or
satisfaction we met this person called
Mohan Rana now I really love my sleep I
do not like anyone disturbing my sleep
and Mohan didi tells me that you know
apple trees also like to sleep apple
trees like to sleep 1,200 to 1,500
dollars in a year and that sleep is
awarded to them by the window when it
snows and the apple tree is laden with
snow that is when the apple tree
actually sleeps now the apple tree does
not get enough sleep and does not have
that 1200 to 1500 hours of sleep the
Apple does not mature the apple tree
does not mature there is no taste to the
Apple now why am I telling you the story
is because with the road that we’re
trying to build passes through some ESDS
that is ecologically sensitive zones
where it’s strictly forbidden to have
any construction activities of this
scale
violating all of this including cutting
off eight thousand trees numbered to be
cut down for building this highway now
what will that I we do
this highway is supposed to take you to
a pilgrimage this pilgrimage was
supposed to be done on foot it’s
supposed to give you enough time to
introspect while you take enough time to
reach a pilgrimage the pilgrimage is not
about the destination it’s about the
journey but we want to vine through
valleys fast in our cars in buses and
reach these pilgrimages on these
highways that will hurt the apple trees
that will hurt the local environment and
eventually eventually and in some cases
that is happening already start to hurt
us here in the cities and that is not
all the receding glaciers in the
Himalayas in India result of global
climate change effects has already
started reducing the amount of water
that we receive the water cycle has been
affected and that is directly directly
affecting the Ganga basins approach 500
million people in this country and that
is the number at stake if we do not do
not slow down just slow down and see
what’s happening I generally do not take
selfies but I had to take this one
because I met Bablu by walking along the
Ganga and this guy just came up to me
and he wanted to pay my bill and
eventually ended up walking with me and
taking me to his village his village is
locally called people hungry and almost
every house has a metal workshop but
what is strange was a statement that
Bablu made to me he said hamare now a
COPI Gauri Chandni like Raja Soho
tractor Lake in Akina Rachael Agartha
which translates as if anybody in our
village becomes capable of driving a car
they take a tractor and head to the
river and I was curious as to why this
is why
his house is next to the Solon River and
this is an image of a boat laden with
sand so much sand that it is literally
dragging the board into the water it’s
the boat is just 1 feet away from
sinking this weight I think is
metaphorical to the burden that this
statistic mentions that where is this
sand going the sand is going for
economic developmental processes for
construction activities which will in
turn increase the economic output of the
country but is it really if we look at
these figures if we look at the numbers
where is this money going or where is
this sand going and this is not enough
the or this is not the only effect of
this the sand that has been taken out
both by individuals organizations
contractors legally and illegally has
resulted in the so I took this picture
from a bridge and the bridge is now
structurally weak because we’ve taken
way out way too much sand out of the
river and now the river is hungry so the
river wants to eat away the structure as
well this bridge that I’m talking about
is the only link between the national
capital Delhi and Kolkata and all Raja
honey’s under on those travel over this
bridge and there was a time in 2002 and
then again in 2005 when this issue was
raised that this bridge could fall any
time we’ve had similar incidents happen
in some other states because of similar
reasons but then I don’t know if the
value of those people traveling on those
trains which are people who live in
urban areas a lot of them is important
enough or is this important
or maybe we need to slow down and think
about it think about where we going
think about what what we are doing this
is some food for thought and then after
walking along the Ganga I in the process
of documenting India’s rivers ended up
walking along the Ken River that starts
in madhya pradesh and flows into 3rd
position means the yamuna somewhere
there there’s a bridge if you can see
while walking along this river we met a
lot of things or people from a special
man we met people who are herders and
sand miners again both legal and illegal
the one thing that all of them told us
was that there’s been a lot of change in
the local climate
extenders in the two times that I
visited this river both after the sowing
season in the next two weeks that is
when the seed needs to germinate both
times the seeds did not germinate this
is a direct conflict from how the
farmers study the climate according to
the science that they see in the local
environment the signs the between the
stars and that is traditional knowledge
that we forgetting but anyway not
regressing this is again a view of the
Ken River people taking outside for
their own usage you can see a bunch of
sorrow’ screens flying over and the area
is the biodiversity of this area is I am
not sure fantastic but definitely good
and when we were speaking with the
locals we asked them a question that we
are talking about climate change and how
the local climate is changing and that’s
affecting the daily livelihoods but are
they aware of a landscape change or a
reverse cave change that is about to
happen in that area and this is going to
happen because of a proposed project
called the can wait forever linking
program which proposes a dam to be built
inside the Panda National Park now I am
talking about 50 hundred villages that
are going to be affected by this program
of which people knew nothing or maybe a
statement about what’s going to happen
with a strange I think because if you
are going to affect the lives of people
you might as well tell them that are
going to do that now why is it important
or why is it that I am telling you the
story is that unless I would have taken
journey along the river on foot I don’t
think the fact of the matter would have
come out it was V as people walking on
foot storytellers somehow who had taken
this information for the first time to
these villages that this is what is
happening and that is what got villagers
to start thinking about what actions
they should take to at least receive
information about what’s going to happen
now this is something that I clicked
while driving inside the hearts of the
pana National Park it says that we still
have like stop think there are still
some tigers left in the pond a national
park and we should try our best to save
it
the Puna National Park is a miracle in
worry conservation because in 2009 we
had zero Tigers in the pond a national
park from which we went to about 34 in
2014 and the current proposal of the dam
is inside the National Park in a place
where it’s known that 50% of the
tigresses actually breed
vultures which are almost extinct today
have nesting sites within this National
Park which are also being getting
affected and beyond all of this there
are about twenty three lakh trees that
are going to get submerged inside this
National Park because of the dam
according to the project design the
government promises that it will
irrigate lakhs of hectares of land in
Banda athan and give drinking water
supply to a lot of people which is great
but the question to ask is in area which
is already facing extreme climate change
in an in an age where we are facing
extreme climate change events whether it
be in there or America or Australia
defense is to conserve these forests our
best defense is to grow more of these
forests is to take care of these forests
and if we are going to submerge trains
we like trees I don’t think these two
activities are in sync but anyway it is
easy to sell this idea to all of us in
economic terms because we’re not looking
we are not observing we’re not thinking
if
we have to take away anything from the
recent events that have happened in
Chennai Delhi Mumbai and a lot of other
Indian cities I don’t think the
statement that it will come back to bite
us at some point is any more true
because it is already here the effects
of climate change are already here we
are facing these effects every day in
our lives today
but how do we take on this issue how do
we think about this issue I think the
first thing that we need to do is to
slow down in the organization that I run
we’ve tried to engage more young people
to be able to engage with these issues
to understand these issues people have
gone on walks with us hundreds of
kilometres and something changed
something changed for a lot of them and
which is why I implore that all of us
all of us this generation the up
generation above us below us we need to
slow down we need to slow down give
things enough time so that
in this whole barrage of information
that’s coming in like constant
information the age of information that
we’re living in it’s not important that
we understand each and every bit of this
information but it is important that we
make sense of some of it and we stop
think because today if you look around
you the mainstream media peddles a lot
of information constant information what
we need to think about is what is behind
this information is the information the
end of it or is there something behind
this veil of information and thinkers
and doers since always have used slow
methods sometimes like walking to invoke
solidarity amongst people to challenge
the status quo and these acts are simple
these acts are not complex these acts
something that any of us any of us can
undertake so I invite you to maybe take
a walk but definitely slow down thank
you
[Applause]
[Applause]
how long the work is the long work I ask
myself the same question and ended up
walking thousands of kilometres across
India following India’s rivers
documenting the life of the river life
of the people of the river documenting
the environment and in the thousands of
kilometers of walking across this
country it was often the case that
people would suddenly come up and start
interrogating would start questioning it
feels weird in the beginning and then
later you realize that these people
would not have asked these same
questions if I would have arrived in
that location in a car or any other
vehicle and this is self-administer the
people and talking about I think this is
an achievement I think this is something
to learn from because this happening
signifies that we have been able to
break down some boundaries that we have
been able to break down some social
dynamics that restrict people from
sharing their ideas and stories walking
this simple act it’s a one-two one-two
beat the most commonplace of human
activities conscious human activities it
has the power to dissolve boundaries of
space and time it has the power to
dissolve social structures social
boundaries and it is this simplicity
that I want to share with you walking
eventually is just symbolic of the act
of slowing down it could be any act it
is any simple act that you could
undertake that helps slow down helps
observe and absorb the knowledge or
information that lies around us not
necessary exclusive but more intimate
and my work has been primarily
inclined towards the environment so
that’s what I’m going to talk about and
these stories that I’m going to share
with you stories that were collected in
a slow process were collected in
interacting with the people who live
alongside these rivers while walking
along the Ganga in autre Han we saw
these phases of daily wage laborers
working on the road and it was apparent
that these folks were not from local
area and we ended up speaking to them
got to know that they were from sharpen
and working here to build a road which
is part of the charm highway project now
we got to know this information from
them and then we moved on and we reached
this village called tsuki which
literally translates as happiness or
satisfaction we met this person called
Mohan Rana now I really love my sleep I
do not like anyone disturbing my sleep
and Mohan didi tells me that you know
apple trees also like to sleep apple
trees like to sleep 1,200 to 1,500
dollars in a year and that sleep is
awarded to them by the window when it
snows and the apple tree is laden with
snow that is when the apple tree
actually sleeps now the apple tree does
not get enough sleep and does not have
that 1200 to 1500 hours of sleep the
Apple does not mature the apple tree
does not mature there is no taste to the
Apple now why am I telling you the story
is because with the road that we’re
trying to build passes through some ESDS
that is ecologically sensitive zones
where it’s strictly forbidden to have
any construction activities of this
scale
violating all of this including cutting
off eight thousand trees numbered to be
cut down for building this highway now
what will that I we do
this highway is supposed to take you to
a pilgrimage this pilgrimage was
supposed to be done on foot it’s
supposed to give you enough time to
introspect while you take enough time to
reach a pilgrimage the pilgrimage is not
about the destination it’s about the
journey but we want to vine through
valleys fast in our cars in buses and
reach these pilgrimages on these
highways that will hurt the apple trees
that will hurt the local environment and
eventually eventually and in some cases
that is happening already start to hurt
us here in the cities and that is not
all the receding glaciers in the
Himalayas in India result of global
climate change effects has already
started reducing the amount of water
that we receive the water cycle has been
affected and that is directly directly
affecting the Ganga basins approach 500
million people in this country and that
is the number at stake if we do not do
not slow down just slow down and see
what’s happening I generally do not take
selfies but I had to take this one
because I met Bablu by walking along the
Ganga and this guy just came up to me
and he wanted to pay my bill and
eventually ended up walking with me and
taking me to his village his village is
locally called people hungry and almost
every house has a metal workshop but
what is strange was a statement that
Bablu made to me he said hamare now a
COPI Gauri Chandni like Raja Soho
tractor Lake in Akina Rachael Agartha
which translates as if anybody in our
village becomes capable of driving a car
they take a tractor and head to the
river and I was curious as to why this
is why
his house is next to the Solon River and
this is an image of a boat laden with
sand so much sand that it is literally
dragging the board into the water it’s
the boat is just 1 feet away from
sinking this weight I think is
metaphorical to the burden that this
statistic mentions that where is this
sand going the sand is going for
economic developmental processes for
construction activities which will in
turn increase the economic output of the
country but is it really if we look at
these figures if we look at the numbers
where is this money going or where is
this sand going and this is not enough
the or this is not the only effect of
this the sand that has been taken out
both by individuals organizations
contractors legally and illegally has
resulted in the so I took this picture
from a bridge and the bridge is now
structurally weak because we’ve taken
way out way too much sand out of the
river and now the river is hungry so the
river wants to eat away the structure as
well this bridge that I’m talking about
is the only link between the national
capital Delhi and Kolkata and all Raja
honey’s under on those travel over this
bridge and there was a time in 2002 and
then again in 2005 when this issue was
raised that this bridge could fall any
time we’ve had similar incidents happen
in some other states because of similar
reasons but then I don’t know if the
value of those people traveling on those
trains which are people who live in
urban areas a lot of them is important
enough or is this important
or maybe we need to slow down and think
about it think about where we going
think about what what we are doing this
is some food for thought and then after
walking along the Ganga I in the process
of documenting India’s rivers ended up
walking along the Ken River that starts
in madhya pradesh and flows into 3rd
position means the yamuna somewhere
there there’s a bridge if you can see
while walking along this river we met a
lot of things or people from a special
man we met people who are herders and
sand miners again both legal and illegal
the one thing that all of them told us
was that there’s been a lot of change in
the local climate
extenders in the two times that I
visited this river both after the sowing
season in the next two weeks that is
when the seed needs to germinate both
times the seeds did not germinate this
is a direct conflict from how the
farmers study the climate according to
the science that they see in the local
environment the signs the between the
stars and that is traditional knowledge
that we forgetting but anyway not
regressing this is again a view of the
Ken River people taking outside for
their own usage you can see a bunch of
sorrow’ screens flying over and the area
is the biodiversity of this area is I am
not sure fantastic but definitely good
and when we were speaking with the
locals we asked them a question that we
are talking about climate change and how
the local climate is changing and that’s
affecting the daily livelihoods but are
they aware of a landscape change or a
reverse cave change that is about to
happen in that area and this is going to
happen because of a proposed project
called the can wait forever linking
program which proposes a dam to be built
inside the Panda National Park now I am
talking about 50 hundred villages that
are going to be affected by this program
of which people knew nothing or maybe a
statement about what’s going to happen
with a strange I think because if you
are going to affect the lives of people
you might as well tell them that are
going to do that now why is it important
or why is it that I am telling you the
story is that unless I would have taken
journey along the river on foot I don’t
think the fact of the matter would have
come out it was V as people walking on
foot storytellers somehow who had taken
this information for the first time to
these villages that this is what is
happening and that is what got villagers
to start thinking about what actions
they should take to at least receive
information about what’s going to happen
now this is something that I clicked
while driving inside the hearts of the
pana National Park it says that we still
have like stop think there are still
some tigers left in the pond a national
park and we should try our best to save
it
the Puna National Park is a miracle in
worry conservation because in 2009 we
had zero Tigers in the pond a national
park from which we went to about 34 in
2014 and the current proposal of the dam
is inside the National Park in a place
where it’s known that 50% of the
tigresses actually breed
vultures which are almost extinct today
have nesting sites within this National
Park which are also being getting
affected and beyond all of this there
are about twenty three lakh trees that
are going to get submerged inside this
National Park because of the dam
according to the project design the
government promises that it will
irrigate lakhs of hectares of land in
Banda athan and give drinking water
supply to a lot of people which is great
but the question to ask is in area which
is already facing extreme climate change
in an in an age where we are facing
extreme climate change events whether it
be in there or America or Australia
defense is to conserve these forests our
best defense is to grow more of these
forests is to take care of these forests
and if we are going to submerge trains
we like trees I don’t think these two
activities are in sync but anyway it is
easy to sell this idea to all of us in
economic terms because we’re not looking
we are not observing we’re not thinking
if
we have to take away anything from the
recent events that have happened in
Chennai Delhi Mumbai and a lot of other
Indian cities I don’t think the
statement that it will come back to bite
us at some point is any more true
because it is already here the effects
of climate change are already here we
are facing these effects every day in
our lives today
but how do we take on this issue how do
we think about this issue I think the
first thing that we need to do is to
slow down in the organization that I run
we’ve tried to engage more young people
to be able to engage with these issues
to understand these issues people have
gone on walks with us hundreds of
kilometres and something changed
something changed for a lot of them and
which is why I implore that all of us
all of us this generation the up
generation above us below us we need to
slow down we need to slow down give
things enough time so that
in this whole barrage of information
that’s coming in like constant
information the age of information that
we’re living in it’s not important that
we understand each and every bit of this
information but it is important that we
make sense of some of it and we stop
think because today if you look around
you the mainstream media peddles a lot
of information constant information what
we need to think about is what is behind
this information is the information the
end of it or is there something behind
this veil of information and thinkers
and doers since always have used slow
methods sometimes like walking to invoke
solidarity amongst people to challenge
the status quo and these acts are simple
these acts are not complex these acts
something that any of us any of us can
undertake so I invite you to maybe take
a walk but definitely slow down thank
you
[Applause]
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