Joita Das

Interview Summary (0:00) Early Life and Education Jayshree Vencatesan spent much of her childhood in Andhra Pradesh in the cities of Guntur and Rajahmundry. Her father worked for Hindustan Lever. Her mother, before getting married to Vencatesan’s father, was a teacher and after that, a home-maker. She has two younger brothers. She describes her household as “typical” and “middle-class.” Vencatesan moved around schools a lot because of the kind of transferable job her father had. She went to a Catholic...

Interview Summary (00:00:00) Early Life Born in Bombay on April 28th, 1951, Norma Alvares was the second of four children. Her mother was a teacher and ran a kindergarten school, while her father worked in clerical sales in a firm in Bombay. Alvares said she came from a middle-class family. In school, Alvares said that she was a very diligent worker and always stood ‘top of the class.’ She said even today her younger son teased her about her rank in school, calling Alvares ‘selfish,’ for not giving up her...

Interview Summary (00:00:00) Inside the Courtroom When asked to describe a typical courtroom, Alvares talked about her experience working in the Bombay High Court. She described the courtroom as being ‘large,’ with a separate space where the public could sit in during hearings. There was a table and a lectern for the lawyers. The judges always sat on a raised platform, she added. The court master would handle the files and paper work. Usually lawyers were supposed to address the judge as ‘My Lord,’ but...

Interview Summary (00:00:00) Early Life and Education V. Santharam was born in Cochin but moved to Chennai at the age of nine, where he spent much of his childhood. He became interested in birds through a relative of his who used to frequently take him bird watching in Chennai. Santharam remembered visiting the Vedanthangal Bird Sanctuary in the 1970s. He continued these bird watching expeditions when he visited Kerala too, he said. He had never seriously considered pursuing Bird Studies as a...