The fine art of sustainable living

From the Heart of Nature

Author: Pamela Gale-Malhotra

Publisher: Ebury Press

Pages: 592

Price: Rs 599

At a time when daily headlines scream about the loss of forests, wildlife and natural spaces and yet, no one seems to be listening, Pamela Gale Malhotra and her husband Anil’s journey gives reason for much-needed climate optimism. In 1991, the couple bought barren land in Coorg, Karnataka. Today it is a 300-acre thick sanctuary with tigers, elephants, leopards, king cobras and even the giant Malabar squirrel. Its flora include hundreds of varieties of native trees and the SAI (Save Animals Initiative) Sanctuary has been referred to as “Noah’s Ark” by the Oxford University scientist who came to study it. Demonstrating that it is not just the government, but people too (albeit those with deep pockets) who can conserve biodiversity, Ms Gale Malhotra and her husband have been widely recognised and awarded for their efforts. Naturally, there was a great deal of interest when her memoir From the Heart of Nature was published recently, merely months after her husband’s sudden death.

This is a deeply personal memoir of a woman born in New Jersey, whose Native American Osage mother and her family introduced her to nature and spirituality early on. As a young girl, summers spent with her Osage family made her aware of how much had been lost in the American quest for money, oil, land and power. Tracing her family history, Ms Gale Malhotra discovered how cruelly Native Americans were subdued by European settlers. The deliberate introduction of small pox among the tribes, the killing of elk and bison (the tribes’ primary food source) and the systematic eradication of these ancient cultures not only decimated the tribes but also ravaged their environment. Later, after she fell in love and married Anil Malhotra, at that time a local restaurant owner, the couple embarked upon a unique journey across the world, in search of a deep spirituality rooted in nature.

They found the opposite. On their honeymoon in Hawaii, they saw the cruel fate of marine mammals such as orcas, dolphins and whales because of human activity, consumerism and rising pollution. They drank the polluted tap water of New York’s Staten Island. They built a house from scratch in Uttarkashi just before the 1991 earthquake. Their desire to buy a large tract of forest to protect the planet in perpetuity, fructified in Kodagu, Karnataka, where years of illegal logging and poaching had ravaged the land and decimated the wildlife. Clumps of 700-year-old trees remained, providing habitat to countless birds and insects.

Ms Gale Malhotra’s idyllic descriptions of her intimate experiences of nature are likely to leave citybound readers with a wistful longing for greenery and wide open spaces. This disconnect is dangerous, she writes, for it is leading to nature deficit disorder, the idea that human beings, especially children, are spending less time outdoors than they have in the past, causing a wide range of behavioural problems. It must be noted here that this disorder is not recognised in accepted medical manuals for mental disorders. The author posits that this deficit is causing a nature knowledge deficit; that we now know less about nature and it cycles than our parents and their parents did. Without this understanding, she writes, we as a society are unable to live sustainably on earth, or even understand the implications of climate change.

Running through her memoir is the idea that the only sustainable way forward for humanity is to understand and even celebrate this connection as this might be the only way to ensure our, and indeed our planet’s, future. A way forward, she advocates, is for individuals and corporations to begin nurturing tracts of forest land instead of waiting for the government to do something.
 

The SAI Sanctuary could, no doubt, serve as a model to be replicated. However, there is frustratingly sparse detail about how the Malhotras have stewarded this land back to health. She writes that they let the land rest undisturbed. But many others have done this without achieving the same results. They planted local trees and shrubs, practised organic farming and replenished the land with organic nutrients. None of this is rocket science. If they faced any significant challenges, Ms Gale Malhotra has not discussed them in the book.

From the Heart of Nature would have benefited from tighter editing. It’s extremely slow start and too many details about the authors’ family history detract from its important and timely premise written on its cover: “The amazing story behind the creation of a private forest sanctuary in India”. It is not until page 376 that the story of the creation of the private forest sanctuary begins. This, again, seems to be an editorial failing — to peg an entire book on one chapter of what is essentially the author’s memoir, is misleading. A few malapropisms point to further editorial lapses. Chapter Three about the habit of composting inculcated in her since early childhood says that the process creates “hummus” (the West Asian chickpea spread) instead of “humus”, dark fertile topsoil rich in organic matter.

That said, From the Heart of Nature has some insights into the role spirituality can play in sustainable living. For readers struggling with summer heat and pollution in Indian cities, it offers a thought-provoking escape.