Rooted (1/2)
My memoir of experiences that altered the fabric of my being. These are some of my bitter-sweet tales while working with Wildlife Conservation Foundation (WCF) in Nagarhole Tiger Reserve.
The Seed
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0dc46c00-38f1-46ec-9529-9bcded61acda_1275x812.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1505e74a-571a-4e4f-9a95-0d907a88f31a_1275x854.jpeg)
The story begins with a 10-year-old me, waking up to a foggy window in the discomfort of a Sumo car, navigating through the thickets of the central forest. My family and I were on our way to my father’s company off-site location—Kanha National Park.
I was in the forest, and I was in love.
From that moment on, I made it a point to travel across some of the most diverse landscapes in the Indian subcontinent, exploring the natural world.
Little did I know, this random childhood experience would shape some of the most monumental decisions of my life—from what you're about to read, to quitting my job, to building my first startup.
The Sapling
It was 2015. For the freshmen at the Symbiosis School of Economics, like myself, the curriculum mandates a social impact internship after the second semester. The beauty of studying Economics is its malleability. It’s a discipline that evolves and shapes itself based on observation, narrative, and unseen societal forces. By that definition, anything I learned in the classroom could (theoretically) be applied across any other discipline, provided I made a reasonable case for it.
Since starting university, I was eager to work with an organization that focused on either Anthrozoology or Anthropology, eager to test how I could contribute as an Economics student. My insatiable hunger for adventure, travel, and knowledge led me to consider an internship at one of India's Tiger Reserves. Once the idea took root, I had to have elaborate discussions with my dean and professors about the project's scope, my personal safety, and who would accompany me. Towards the end of my first semester, I began scouting opportunities in some of the finest wildlife NGOs in India, like The Corbett Foundation, Tiger Watch, Wildlife Conservation Foundation (WCF), Nature in Focus, etc.
By October 2015, my enthusiastic batchmate and dear friend, Inderjeet, and I knew we would be traveling to Nagarhole Tiger Reserve to work on man-animal conflict with the WCF in the summer of 2016.
The Forest
My rationale behind choosing to work with WCF was straightforward. The Trustee of WCF and wildlife veteran, Mr. Rajkumar, was one of the key individuals behind the study that led The Supreme Court of India to ban vehicle movement from 6 AM to 6 PM on National Highway 766 in 2004—a road slicing through the pristine wildlife corridor of Bandipur Tiger Reserve.
He was the man I wanted to work with.
In early April, Inderjeet and I found ourselves planning out the next two months at the Conservator of Forests, H. C. Kantharaju’s desk in Hunsur with Mr. Rajkumar. Up until that point, my perspective on wildlife had been through the lens of a tourist and enthusiast, but that changed after entering the COF’s office. The office housed an entire library where we had access to volumes of documented natural history—the extent and variety of Nagarhole’s flora and fauna in one room.
It took us two whole days in Hunsur to map out the plan before we were dispatched to the park. Our job was to cover over 144 villages and tribes around the 700 sq. km. circumference of the Tiger Reserve and document every single case of man-animal conflict. We would be posted in two different zones of the park, Veeranahosalli and Karapura, for a month each. Once the plan was ready, we were assigned the least suitable car for rugged terrains—a Tata Nano. For the next eight weeks, that tiny matchbox of a car served as our portable workstation and a place to rest on some of my most tiresome days.
And so, we began our journey.