It’s not so bad to be Wild, Wilful and Peaceful

In a warming, frequently hostile world, we are confronted by another ‘nuisance’ – elephants in crop fields, tigresses in industrial areas, mugger crocodiles that take away arms, birds that fly straight into powerlines.

Wild and Wilful suggests wild animals have agency, and understanding that agency can help us plan a finer, more sustainable world. This talk will begin with what is often concealed from us. Elephant herds moving through railway lines. Great Indian Bustards facing their greatest threat not on the land, but in a sky that is cut through with wires. A tigress failing to conceive, attracting the kind of stray remarks ‘infertile’ women get. A leopard tiptoeing into the National Capital. The Gangetic River dolphin falling silent as the National Riverways Act reverberates through the Ganga. Then, we move towards what is more easily seen: butterflies finding the most magical spots in cities, migratory birds that conjoin continents even as we are cut away in recurring pandemics. Wild and Wilful addresses animal sentience, the remarkable love some humans have for non-humans, and the biodiversity crisis, and this talk argues that understanding the wilful animal is a means of understanding our own place in the world.

About the speaker  

Neha Sinha is a conservation biologist and author. She heads Conservation and Policy at the Bombay Natural History Society.

Her first book, Wild and Wilful, (HarperCollins India) explores the lives of 15 iconic Indian species. The book was a semifinalist in the Siskiyou Prize for New Environmental Literatures, a global, biennial prize.

Neha is a noted columnist, contributing environmental commentary for The Hindu, The Hindustan Times, BloombergQuint, The Telegraph, and others. Neha tweets at nehaa_sinha.


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