While jobs in engineering, medicine, law etc have been popular with Indian students, challenges such as climate change demand a new skillset. With a growing green economy projected to add 3.7 million jobs by 2025, students should not only be exposed to green career options but also understand how popular choices such as artists, content creators, lawyers, photographers, architects, entrepreneurs, and so on can be green. Beginning a new fortnightly series by WWF-India that highlights niche and unconventional green careers through the stories of well-known personalities from the field of environment and conservation.
I don’t consider myself a wildlife conservationist. I am merely a cartoonist and illustrator who draws about wildlife and conservation. I have always loved both wildlife and cartooning but, in my initial years, I drew everything from politicians to celebrities, never really getting anywhere. Only after I started drawing about wildlife did my cartooning find its identity. Naturally, every day when I set out to draw, I feel like I owe my muse a debt!
My career has been a like a meandering tree snake. After graduating as a dentist and realising it is not for me, I worked as an animation designer for a film studio, while developing my comic series on the side. When my series got picked up by publishers, I quit my job and plunged into cartooning full-time.
The turning point that drove me into the field of conservation was my first wild tiger sighting at Nagzira, a tiger reserve in my home state of Maharashtra. This inspired my wildlife cartoon and illustration series, ‘Green Humour’. Now half of my day goes in ideating on paper, and the rest in executing the idea. As with any other creative profession, a lot of coffee is also involved.
What excites me most about my work is the fact that Nature is an inexhaustible canvas, and that there is a new subject and a creative challenge every day. It’s all about the thrill of making my own little explorations. I could be drawing the Tickell’s blue flycatcher in my yard today and an Arctic ground squirrel I have never yet had the pleasure of meeting tomorrow!
During a field visit for one of my recent projects, a habitat illustration of the Great African Seaforest, I got the opportunity to snorkel in South Africa’s False Bay with the team behind the Oscar-winning documentary film ‘My Octopus Teacher’. I had two life-changing experiences during this adventure: one was when I put a snorkel on and jumped into water that froze every strand of hair on my body into icicles; the other was when I held in my hands a Mermaid’s Purse: a shark’s egg case!
Apart from these exciting projects, I derive inspiration from innumerable artists, storytellers, and conservationists. As an artist, I have been heavily influenced by the work of Genndy Tartakovsky, Gary Larson, Bill Patterson, and Nina Paley. A lot of my work relies on science journalism, and I must name young Indian science journalists who have inspired so much of my work: Aathira Perinchery, Vaishnavi Rathore, and Supriya Vohra. Dr. Nandini Velho, a prolific conservation biologist, has been a guiding light throughout my career. As an illustrator, I derive inspiration from the work of Charley Harper, Brendan Wenzel, Priya Kuriyan, Rajiv Eipe, and Kripa Raghavan.
But no matter how widely you are published as a cartoonist, one faces a blank page when you start work every morning! The creative block is a daily challenge and singing, cooking, long walks with my pets, and birdwatching always come to my rescue. What also helps me to keep going is saying no to uninspiring works, trusting my instincts, and drawing a lot of circles!
When I think of evolving in my career, the most important thing I plan to do is to slow down and prioritise the kind of projects and endeavours with respect to the story-telling that I believe in but I have been neglecting investing time and effort due to my freelance commitments. In the near future, I hope to tell more stories that explore the intricate links between human communities and wildlife.
To all readers, I would just like to say: making an environmental contribution is possible no matter which line of work you’re in, EVEN if you are an official in the MoEFCC!
