Animal instinct

Lawyer and entrepreneur Nandan Kamath talks about his passion for wildlife.

Having pets and showering them with love and affection is one thing. But it’s an entirely different thing to actually feel the same towards all animals. Nandan Kamath, director, Go Sports, a Bangalore-based sports foundation which works with upcoming athletes, has belonged to the latter category for as long as he can remember.

Kamath’s love for animals is evident. He talks passionately about them. “We need to have better policies for animal rights, and they deserve a much better life,” he says.

That’s why Kamath intends to do something for them at the policy level — not just for stray animals — but also for those in the wild. “Project Tiger is one of the few causes which everyone knows about, but there are many others working for animals and yet people are unaware of them,” he says.

Kamath grew up in a family which always had pets. His late mother worked as a cartoonist but also ran an organisation called Compassion Unlimited Plus Action (CUPA) in Bangalore, which worked to ensure that stray animals got a better deal. Early in his life, Kamath learnt firsthand that working with animals can be an immensely fulfilling experience. Though he admits that he never actively worked with CUPA, he says it gave him a sense of understanding. His maternal grandfather was a civil servant and always had pets. Even his sister, who works as a journalist with a TV channel, is an animal lover. “It runs in the family,” he says.

Being a wildlife enthusiast, Kamath often makes trips to the various national parks and sanctuaries in southern India, and always comes back fascinated. He has quite a large collection of wildlife photographs as well.

Going into the jungle, setting up camps and taking photographs in the wild is something he loves to do.

Kamath studied at Harvard Law School as well as the University of Oxford before he founded his own law firm in Bangalore. His other passion being sports, he soon started Go Sports with two other sports freaks. There’s little time for him these days to make regular trips to the jungle, but he tries his best to head off into the wild once or twice a year, at least. It used to be as a tourist earlier, he says, but now it’s become a part of his life.

He absolutely adores dogs and even has a Facebook profile for his dog Tuffy. It’s the most adorable thing you will come across — both the profile and Tuffy. Don’t believe us? Check out his profile here: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=553462251.

Quiz him about Tuffy’s profile and Kamath laughs off the questions without revealing whether it’s him who updates it or someone else in his family. “It’s a secret,” he smiles. Tuffy doesn’t stay with him, as its difficult to keep a Golden Retriever in an apartment like the one Kamath occupies. The dog lives with his father, and Kamath is a regular visitor. He would like to be more than a visitor, though, and aims to change this in the future, when he plans to keep pets himself.

Kamath is quite unhappy that there are no proper animal rights and only a handful of people working towards giving them a better life. Quoting Mahatma Gandhi, he says, “You can gauge a nation’s character by the way it treats its animals.” But he says that with his hectic work schedule, he doesn’t get to devote much time towards working for them. With Go Sports a two-year-old venture which is still finding its feet, that is understandable. Kamath is adamant that his love for animals and his concern for their rights are a passion which he wants to cultivate down the line.

However, he does have a plan which he wants to put in action. Using his expertise as a lawyer, he wants to work at the policy level as well as intervene to make a difference to the lives of thousands of animals. And he doesn’t want to restrict himself only to the animals on the streets. And, unlike others, he doesn’t blame the government too much and says that it’s the responsibility of citizens to be aware of our rich wildlife. “It’s more a question of when rather than how it will happen,” he says.

There’s so much you can learn from animals, says Kamath. His idea of a perfect life involves lots of happy animals around him. “They deserve to be treated well,” he says. And he is determined to make sure that happens.

He does feel guilty for not doing enough, but wants to make up for lost time. Judging by his determination, Kamath will make sure he takes more time out in the future for something he is really passionate about.