Meeting George Monbiot..& the Dodo in Oxford

Oxford Daze


Actually, only one glorious day, November 19, 2014. Here is a very brief account.

My day started with a perfect cup of coffee in a cafe (Zappi’s Bike Café) that my brother, would love (Jaspreet is a biker-and used to bike to office -a mere 35 kms--on the roads and Highways in Delhi & Gurgaon. Yeah, you heard me right. Right there with the trucks et al. 

Till i told him, that his attempt to do good to himself -and the planet-was not doing me, or my blood pressure any good.

Anyway, back to Oxford.

There are many things to do in Oxford. See the university, the umpteen museums, the gardens, the river. Shopping.

I, however, had a simple agenda.

The first was a meeting with George Monbiot. Who is he? You couldn't be reading me, and asking that. Columnist with The Guardian, bestselling author, environmentalist, Fellow with universities such as Oxford, Bristol-to name a few. And much more. If you haven't read him, you have a treat awaiting you. Go, right now, and get yourself Feral (and then work your way down his other books-i am still scouting around for some of the others).

I met him for about an hour, maybe less.  We talked nature, forests, politics, the rise of right-wing politics, ecological crimes, social injustice, extinction--and rewildling. 

Sample this: “The world lives within us, we live within the world. By damaging the living planet we have diminished our existence.”

Did I say we talked? Let me correct that. I kept grilling the brilliant Mr Monbiot, and he graciously answered each one of my queries, clarified doubts, explained concepts...while I never gave the poor man a chance to have his say.

My only excuse is that I was fascinated…

I do hope I did not appear like a floozy meeting with Amitabh Bachchan or a George Clooney, as the case may be.

Read Monbiot’s latest article here: http://www.bbc.com/earth/bespoke/story/20141203-back-to-nature/index.html

And await my piece on him!

Necessity they say is the mother of invention.

And Oxford is where (& when) I learnt to click selfies.

Yeah. After the whole world and their brother does it, after a whole industry runs on it (selfie phones is just one example).

Makes me a dinosaur? Not that i care. 

And fitting, don’t you think for a conservationist, and one who would rather reside in a forest, then the madness of the urban jungle.

Anyway, here is the first ever selfie of yours truly.  Right outside that mecca called the Oxford University, and the Natural History Museum. 

Aah, the sheer joy of being at a place of such history.  This is the Natural History Museum, where the worthies debated Charles Darwin's theory of Origin of Species.

Befitting that with the day starting with thinking, discussing extinction (and rewildling) is also the day that I see the Dodo, that famous symbol of creatures extinct. The large, ungainly flightless and foolishly trustworthy bird beaten-and eaten to extinction within years of its discovery from the lovely island of Mauritius.

The painting  of the dodo (at the Oxford Natural History Museum) is an original, dating back to 1651 by the Flemish artist, Jan Savery.

And though the dodo appears fat here  (in the painting), the bird would like to say in its defence that it is not fat, but much slimmer, while not really a size zero. Really, science says so too. This fat depiction was just artistic license. 

The museum also has some ‘remains’ of the dodo. Bones of a bird long gone.

I cannot describe the emotions that overcame when I ‘met’ the dodo. Such intense  shame and regret that we, humans, caused this creature to go extinct. That we were responsible for wiping them of the face of the earth.

How do we live down this fact? How do we look it in the eye, and still continue to do the same, merrily knocking off species and fellow creatures on the path to self-destruction.

How can you say you are sorry, for you know that you are still at , and with renewed vigour?

(this one is at Jersy, at the Durrell wildlife Conservation Trust-a super place i visited. a must-do. and yes, i will write on this too.)

There was more to do at Oxford. But I didn’t 'do'.  Didn't knock off things of my list. 

I merely wandered around, coming across this beautiful wall of colour.

and another...

I went and sat on a bench (lovely, thing to do) in one of the college gardens (beautiful, and ablaze with colours of autumn)and had a sandwich. Then I thought. And pondered on extinction and despair, life and hope…and there is. As long as nature thrives and paints her colours...

PS: if you want to read something i wrote on extinction read:http://prernabindra.com/2009/05/14/extinction/