Humour to the aid of unsettling questions

Gaurav Kanthwal

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What is the relation between environmental research, Indian patriarchy and human-animal conflict? Read ‘Patriarchy and the Pangolin’ to see how an attempt has been made to connect three diverse fields of interest.

Environmental researcher Aditi Patil has tried to correlate the three, and some more, in her book based on six months’ field research related to the National Agroforestry Policy in Gujarat.

Slotted in the natural history/travelogue/feminism category, Patil projects her work as an effort to share farmers’, and particularly women folk’s, lives and views in a way that are never recorded in research data.

In plain words, the book conveys that the humans, knowingly or unknowingly, harm the animal world, which acts as their biggest ally in survival. Similarly, the patriarchal system marginalises its women, who are in fact their force multipliers.

Noted economist and social scientist Jean Dreze, in the blurb, endorses the book, “Under the cover of irresistible humour, it ambushes the reader with unsettling questions about Indian society and the world of research. A bittersweet delight.”

Whether the humour is irresistible or just ordinary, a reader can find out in the beginning itself. There are hardly any unsettling questions which are being asked for the first time, but a lot of effort has gone into making the anecdotes bittersweet with wit and satire. As far as delight is concerned, the reader will be a better judge.

The author tries to build an atmosphere of juvenile bliss with phrases like “the intoxicating smell of damp soil” and “butterflies gently hopping on my unruly curls and examining my nose-pin”.

William Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway and George Bernard Shaw, too, find a mention in a book on natural history. The narrative of 216 pages is recurrently blotched by the bitterness of a researcher, citizen disgruntled with the government of the day.

In sum, a book for those who have a lot of leisure time.