India's Snake Man: Snakebites, Tigers & Saving the Western Ghats | Nirmal Kulkarni | EP-24

You shared the story which changed everything for you.

So what changed?

So what was

the one thing that was immediately recognizable? And in hindsight, when you look back at it, is it still the same or what changed?

So I think my looking at wildlife as I mean, you know, at that time, point of time as a young teenager, you're looking at something to be identified with.

You know, you either play good football, so people identify you as a good.

I was trying to use wildlife for a long time to basically get some people to identify it with, you know, which is.

which is that eventually people, you know, do identify you with that.

But I don't use it anymore.

You know, you start then getting very accountable for what you do.

It is not at all about glamour anymore.

It is about what you can do for nature or what you can do for conservation.

It also moved this entire aspect of doing, which I learned a whole lot with, of course, Dr. Karan's work is, That you are then not looking at an individual.

You are not looking at rescuing an individual snake.

You are looking at trying to work for the entire species.

You are not looking at trying to save one tiger.

You are trying to work for tigers and their habitats.

And you are trying to look at landscape level work.

So that comes when one of the most amazing, in fact, something that you are probably doing is getting to listen to a whole lot of people, getting to learn from a whole lot of people and then try and figure out on how you want to do it.

You know, that I think happened to me earlier in life and continues to happen actually.

But now I learn a lot from communities, which is a complete other aspect of learning that comes from the ground, which is uh which is not research oriented but comes from years of experience and living in the forest and amongst forest beings so um i think that changed quite a lot for me the way i looked at uh you know wild spaces um and the opportunity i mean it is we are so lucky to have been born in a country which has everything you know indian ecologists or indian conservationists are have almost all landscapes you know we write from deserts to island ecology to himalayas to coastal landscapes to tropical forests you know we we almost we have everything you know one decides to work in any stream you first get exposed to a whole lot of different landscapes within your country there's a bunch of colleagues who work across you know but they have to go to another country to you know probably look at either deserts or islands but we've got everything That is a very positive and strong factor for Indian researchers working, you know, in India if you are doing this as a full-time career.