THE BOOK CLUB
The Last Wave –
Pankaj Sekhsaria; a meeting with the author at The Book Club, U
S Library, Poona Club on 24th November 2014.
Pankaj introduced himself as an activist with Kalpavruksha ,
a Delhi based NGO working in the field of
environment. He says he was
‘smitten’ with the islands of the Andaman and Nicobar and whatever anyone might say, his
book is ‘strongly grounded’ in the islands. He first visited them in 1993-94
but revisited them as a more committed activist with the SC’s intervention on
the rights of indigenous people. While the orders on the rights were passed way
back as 2002, to date they have not been implemented. The book, Pankaj clams is
a result of the non implementation of the Court’s orders.
Pankaj maintains that while the broader issues of the islands
are known to all, there are several micro but equally pressing issues in need of
attention . The major issues can be listed as the Cellular jail, the Jarawa
tribes, the local born people, the settlers. These are woven into a story.
The islands are quite far from mainland India & much
closer to Indonesia and Burma. Few on the mainland of India know much about
them except what they are shown as tourists. While the islands suffered
destruction, paradoxically, the endangered Jarawa community remained unharmed
by the mighty tsunami. The book, the author claims is a failure of his activism
against the onslaught of ‘development’ , ‘the metaphorical wave’ against the
real tsunami wave. It was a result of the author’s need to reach
a wider audience to convey this.
Questions such as what do the Jarawa’s want ( like other
indigenous peoples), who are we to
define their lives for them’ made for lively discussion. The author felt
he had no answers to the many questions that emerged, and more areas of grey emerged in the process of his writing and during his
stay there. More questions than answers were thrown up.
He concluded by saying that all places have ‘unknown
recesses’ of history – stories that have been untouched. The book ‘is a canvas
for reflection’ he concluded.
Asked if it was autobiographical he said some parts were.
Ms. Mukul Ahmed
No comments:
Post a Comment