Pankaj Sekhsaria is the author of ‘The Last Wave - An Island Novel’. It is a fictional take projecting the realities about the life and plight of indigenous tribes, the Jarawas in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Currently an assistant professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad, Pankaj is a mechanical engineer who has a masters in communication from Jamia Milia Islamia. An environmentalist to the core, Pankaj has been extensively involved with the Jarawa community and is also an important member of the not-for-profit, environmental organisation Kalpavriksh.
Apart from ‘The Last Wave’, Pankaj is also the author of ‘Troubled Islands - A collection of essays on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and has published a number of journals on similar topics.
‘Carpentaria’ by Alexis Wright
This is the novel I read most recently. It is based on issues of aboriginal communities in contemporary Australia and the challenges they face, for instance, because of inroads that mining is making in their region.
Not only is the story very absorbing, but what I found most amazing, was the way the author has used and innovated with the English language. There is a very creative and distinctive use that not only makes the story move at an almost breathless space but also creates images that are rich, haunting and exuberant.
‘The Hungry Tide’ by Amitav Ghosh
I read this book that is based in the Sunderbans over a decade ago and loved it for the way it takes us into a little known land and seascape, and its human and non-human denizens. It was as I was reading ‘The Hungry Tide’, that a little window opened inside my own head. If a story like ‘The Hungry Tide’ can be told of and in the Sundarbans, I realised at that point, I could attempt to tell one that is based in the Andaman Islands
‘Savaging the Civilized: Verrier
Elwin, His Tribals and India’ by Ramchandra Guha It is the biography of Verier Elwin that explores great debates of the 20th century. I love the depth and detail through which the author goes into the life of this colourful and controversial social and cultural anthropologist who made India his home.
‘The Story Teller’ by Mario Vargos Llosa
Translated from the original Spanish into English in 1989, ‘The Story Teller’ is the story of a university student who leaves civilisation and becomes a “storyteller” for a community of native Americans. It deals with the interfaces and clashes between traditional and indigenous cultures and ‘modern civilisation and one that captures the challenges very beautifully and sensitively.
‘The Naked Ape’ by Desmond Morris
This classic book looks at the human species as a zoologist would look at any other animal species; it is a book that has certainly created one of the biggest impacts on me. I read it when I was still in junior college and remember being scandalized by it. It was however the unconventional theme and approach that, I think, was at the root of its success and it certainly influenced my thoughts in myriad different ways.