The year was 2020, and the pandemic was forcing musicians across the world to move away from live performances and record-production to projects centred on self-reflection and discovery. Musicians Krishna Jhaveri and Sanaya Ardeshir were no different.
Over a three-month-long journey, Jhaveri and Ardeshir travelled through the Western Ghats, armed with field recorders, and listened to the sounds of one of the world’s oldest mountain ranges. During their journey, they learned of the mountains’ unique ecology and through ‘deep listening’, were able to decipher the messages the inhabitants of the landscape were communicating to them, such as change in land use patterns, deforestation and habitat loss.
Click to hear Kerehaklu’s bird sounds by day
Through their project, ‘Ears to the Ground’ (www.ears2theground.org), Jhaveri and Ardeshir, who have been involved in the music industry for over a decade, recorded the natural sounds of the wild, and interviewed people living in the Western Ghats. They had no clear structure to the project except to find interesting ‘soundscapes’.
Krishna Jhaveri | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Human inhabitants
“All we thought was that we would record circadian rhythms. We riffed off the idea during the pandemic that if there was ever a time to travel through South India, just seeing what comes out of recording sounds, then this would be the time to do that,” says Ardeshir. The sounds of the forests, coupled with the context provided by the mountains’ human inhabitants, helped Jhaveri and Ardeshir discover the anthropogenic effects of human communities on the forests.
Sanaya Ardeshir | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
“Listening to people’s stories we could tell that the soundscape was changing, and climate change was something you could actually hear. We slowly realised that people were either speaking to us about sounds that were disappearing or new sounds emerging,” says Jhaveri.
The recordings were done through two different methods: when the duo was present, or when their field recorders were left in wild spaces.
“So you hear birds, and insects, maybe an animal occasionally and suddenly a chainsaw, or a plane flying overhead washing over the soundscape. Then you realise that the human footprint is ubiquitous, and it prompts very profound questions about what the word ‘wild’ actually means. Does it even exist?” Jhaveri ponders.
“I like the word ‘wild’ to distinguish between the natural and unnatural. I mean, is a city unnatural? It’s probably as natural as a biodiversity hotspot. The soundscape includes humans,” he says.
Attuned to listening
Visitors to the ‘Ears to the Ground’ website can listen to field recordings and interviews from five locations in the Western Ghats: Vagamon, Shoranur, Kerehaklu, Madikeri and Agumbe. But the project will continue to evolve. “The people we interviewed said they were becoming more attuned to listening. For instance, we have an audio recording of a person describing the sound of langurs suddenly appearing where they never had previously,” says Ardeshir.
The scenic Western Ghats. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
The interviews also revealed to them that interventions could minimise human impact on these landscapes. “For instance, we met Ajoy and Pranoy Thipaiah in Kerehaklu; they were growing shade-grown coffee, and have designed pathways for large animals such as elephants and gaur to make their way through their land. While in Madikeri, Abhishek Jain, an organic farmer and naturalist, has invested in a reforestation programme, and has accepted a lower yield of coffee in exchange for a healthier ecosystem,” says Jhaveri.
They are also looking at ways to contribute to the conservation of the Western Ghats through their work. “We are not conservationists. We do not have a background in working on environmental issues, but we believe that sound and art have the ability to enrich messages with a lot more impact,” says Ardeshir.
Frog sound at night, Madikeri
Reforestation programmes
The ethical questions about using sounds recorded from these locations have also been on their minds. “We are trying to involve avian ecologists and other people so that our recordings are not used in an extractive way, and the revenue we generate is directed back to the Western Ghats where they can be used, maybe in reforestation programmes,” says Jhaveri. They are now involving ecologists from Valparai, including those working with Project Dhwani, which records the sounds of biodiversity in natural, unrestored forests.
Jhaveri hopes that ultimately, Ears to the Ground would ‘switch on’ people’s listening, be it in an urban, rural or wild listening environment. “There is inherent value to listening. It has wider implications, so the main takeaway is to really listen.”
“In a very visually-dominating culture, we found that there are parallels between advertising, consumerism and a hyper fast-paced lifestyle. We hope that through the project sound connects people to themselves and to each other through compassionate listening; the idea is that sound can connect you to the environment,” says Ardeshir.
