Caricatures of a crisis

Book review of Green Humour for a Greying Planet

Climate change is the biggest challenge humankind is facing today, eclipsing even the Covid-19 pandemic. Species going extinct every day, polar ice melting and sea levels rising — the planet is greying in front of our eyes. In the midst of all this doom and gloom, Rohan Chakravarty, a dentist by profession and an artist by passion, has used a unique tool to raise awareness about climate change and animal conservation — humour. 

Green Humour for a Greying Planet is a compilation of Mr Chakravarty’s 200 cartoons on a variety of issues: Ecology, conservation, sustainability, wildlife biology, and even Covid-19. Published on several platforms between 2012 and 2020, these cartoons, satire and parodies take a light-hearted but thoughtful look at some of the biggest challenges that the natural world faces. The book has already had its share of naysayers; apparently it has taken its present shape after being rejected by six publishing houses eight years ago. In fact, the foreword was written by herpetologist Romulus Whitaker and wildlife conservation author Janaki Lenin who were, at that time among the handful of people who believed that a commentary on wildlife and conservation in the form of cartoons could actually work. 

Mr Chakravarty’s cartoons have an unexpected depth, revealing the extent of his knowledge about the natural world. Some comics were inspired by personal sightings of the wildlife, others resulted from long hours of reading both popular writing and scientific research. While the approach is light hearted, the issues the book raises are serious. Some cartoons are funny, others informative and all of them thought-provoking. For example, there is one on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s universally accepted classification of species into critical endangered, endangered, vulnerable and species of least concern. Mr Chakravarty adds another category with the human species — “least concerned”. He has also highlighted how many birds die every year due to collisions with windows through a cartoon in which two birds with laptops are sitting on a branch, wondering if moving from Windows to Mac will help.

The chapter on mammals is noteworthy for the humour with which it brings the inherent quirkiness of some of Mr Chakravarty’s favourite creatures. In a cartoon on climate change in the Arctic, he parodies the famous Christmas song in which reindeer Rudolph’s red nose turns black from an oil spill... The unique colourations around the eyes of frog species found in India make for a pithy little comment on eye fashion that, as Mr Chakravarty points out, online eyewear retailer Lenskart has not even heard of. 

Green Humour for a Greying Planet

Author:  Rohan Chakravarty

Publisher: Penguin

Pages: 232; Price: Rs 399

In a hilarious cartoon, he parodies food writing, using adjectives such as “tantalizing”, “toffee like” or “crunchy” to describe, of all the things, characteristic droppings of different Indian animals.

The humour bites more than it tickles. This makes it hard for one to read more than a few pages at a time. For example, one cartoon asks where one might find a tiger and pangolin in close proximity. In a bottle of Chinese medicine, of course. In another, Mr Chakravarty points out why rising tiger numbers are not necessarily a cause for celebration. As wild spaces shrink, when the cubs become mature, many are forced to find new territories for themselves outside the forest, and in the urban jungle.

A common theme runs through the book. Humanity is wholly responsible for the mess the planet is in. In many cartoons, wild animals observe human shenanigans with tragi-comic confusion. A pair of yellow wattled lapwings gaze at a golfer and deduce he has “elitism induced myopia” from playing one of the world’s most environmentally unsustainable sports. A turtle and seagull wonder what men use plastic straws for. In “A Tiger’s Daily To-do List”, readers see the world through the eyes of the apex predator whose daily job is to simply survive…

Readers learn a surprising amount about lesser-known creatures such as the Asian golden cat, blue bottle butterflies, slender loris and more. There is also much to be learnt about trees and plants like the neelakurinji which blooms in the Nilgiris once every 12 years. All in all, Green Humour … demonstrates how effectively humour can be used to educate and raise awareness about conservation. Quirky images and simple captions explain knotty concepts simply, making it a good read for young adults. One drawback — the paperback size does not have enough room for some of the wordier cartoons, making them hard to read.