Vidya Athreya - Session 01, 2020-06-27

"(00:36) Childhood and family Vidya Athreya discusses her childhood and family. She was born in Mangalore which was her mother’s native place; but grew up in Bombay, and lived there till she was 21 years old. Their family lived in a row house. She recounts several examples of her parents’ love for animals, and recalls growing up surrounded by animals. Her mother was fond of cats and they had 5-6 cats around the house. They also used to stay in a one-bedroom flat in Chembur while her father worked in a factory, and he rescued a bulbul that lived with them in the house. The family spent 2 months a year in Mangalore in a house surrounded by cats, dogs and birds.

Athreya has one sister who was born when she was 11; they became closer when she was older; and Athreya says she grew up as a single kid with a lot of friends. Her mother wanted to be a doctor but was not allowed to work; Athreya considers her the ‘brightest woman’ she knows.

Athreya was schooled in a convent called St. Antony’s High School. She reflects on aspects of school life, and says she did not like that it was a girls’ school because children should be allowed to intermingle with everybody. She recalls that she went to a boarding school in Bangalore in 8th grade, but returned because she did not enjoy the experience. She was taught in English. She did her 11th and 12th in ‘SIES’ [South Indian Education Society College Of Arts, Science & Commerce] and graduated from another college.

(06:54) Engaging with nature Athreya discusses her engagement with nature in childhood. There were no opportunities to engage with nature at school, but she remembers finding and taking home some stray puppies caught in the rain in 6th grade; her father worried that their mother was probably nearby, and she recalls driving through the night in the rain to leave them back. She says that her love for animals came from her family rather than peers.

Athreya states that her first visit to a forest was a trip to Anamalai Tiger Reserve in college. She had joined the Nature Club at Ruia College [Ramnarain Ruia Autonomous College of Science and Arts] not out of a particular interest in nature, but only as an activity; she says it was on the trip to Anamalai that she decided this is what she wants to pursue in life. This trip in her memory was in 1986/1987.

Athreya also further delves into her family’s relationship with animals. They didn’t go to zoos growing up because they did not like seeing animals in captivity. She points out that normal families don't separate wild and domestic animals like biologists do. She remembered magpie robins, kingfishers, mongoose, and civet cats in her grandfather’s house; the distinction between domestic and wild animals came after the nature club. Athreya relates reading a lot as a child, but not about wildlife. She became a ‘wildlife person’ after ‘Topslip’ [Anaimalai Reserve] – she used to go to Sanjay Gandhi National Park, BNHS [Bombay Natural History Society] and watched NatGeo; she had some aspirations of being a veterinarian but says she can’t handle cutting or harming animals.

(13:01) College and Career Athreya says she chose arts for 11th and 12th out of rebellion because her parents wanted her to take Science; she had Psychology, Statistics and Mathematics as subjects; she did her BA [Bachelor of Arts] in Math because she enjoyed the subject, and could not switch back to science after having taken arts which she did not enjoy. She clarifies that she wanted to be a veterinarian before Anaimalai, as it was the only profession she knew of to work with animals. She was interested in science and math growing up and did well in both.

Athreya also states that her family was always financially stable – not rich but never feared not having money.

She had initially wanted to do an MA in Math and had enrolled in Bombay University, but she wanted to get married and her parents were opposed; so she says that her decisions were due more to personal reasons. She got married in 1989 at 21 years of age. Her husband Ramana [Ramana Athreya, birdwatcher and astronomer at IISER, Pune] was supportive of a career in wildlife because he is a naturalist and wildlifer. Athreya describes meeting Sathya Kumar at Kedarnath on a trek and finding out from him about the Salim Ali School in Pondicherry [Salim Ali School of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, University of Pondicherry] that allowed students with a BA to join the Wildlife program; she applied and was selected into the program which marked her entry into the field. There was a break between her Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree; she finished her BA in 1988 and started her Master’s in 1991.

(20:10) MSc in Ecology, University of Pondicherry; Gender in conservation; Marriage Athreya states that this was her first time away from home. She describes her experience in Pondicherry; recalls some conflict between the faculty and says that she got good exposure to different kinds of people. Athreya did her thesis with Priya Davidar who also took a course on reviewing scientific literature – she says this course ‘stuck with her’ and taught her to be very critical of experts, which is what science should be like, according to her. She describes herself as having always been ‘irreverent’ - she describes fighting with her father as the ‘root of dissent’, and living in Bombay and Davidar’s course made her even more so. She describes Davidar as being ‘hands-off’ as a Master’s adviser but giving good advice; her presence was also impactful as a woman in a very chauvinistic world.

There were two other women in Athreya’s batch. Athreya states that women in her time had to fight to be in the field; she fought with her family due to their concerns about the dangers of wild animals and moreover travelling alone. Athreya describes a ‘terrible mismatch’ between men and women in the course: the women were from cities and the men were not, and Athreya also suggests that many of the men at the time got into the field because they had chosen Biology and did not get into the field of Medicine, and few were really interested in the field itself. Therefore women were ‘strong-headed’ and liberal. Athreya says she is no longer in contact with her classmates because she prefers solitude, but still thinks of them.

She also recalls that she did not have to ask her parents about her choice of Master’s because she was married and outside their influence. Her husband Ramana was supportive – they lived apart for nearly a decade as she spent two years in Pondicherry and three years at WII [WIldlife Institute of India]; then she went abroad to a different country for a PhD where she ended up doing a Masters. Athreya says it was because they married young and were still students, and says that her husband’s support meant that she ‘didn’t have to fight anymore’. After their marriage she moved from Bombay to Bangalore for a year, then to Ooty for six months and finally to Pune where her husband did his PhD. Ramana Athreya was an astrophysicist at IISER at the time of the interview with a part position in biology and physics; he is a naturalist and birdwatcher and Athreya mentions that he discovered a new bird species in Arunachal.

[00:28:12 - 00:28:17 – Restricted access. Contact archives@ncbs.res.in]

(28:32) Interest in conservation - time at Pondicherry and WII Athreya says she used to be a ‘hardcore biologist’ interested mostly in the ecology of wild species. Her interest in conservation came later on in her career; she started as a naturalist and biologist but was always interested in interactions between species. At Pondicherry she recalls doing a project on spiders in the jatropha flowers. Her Master’s thesis was on two topics: frugivory in strangler figs and host preference in strangler figs. But she also says she had always wanted to save forests and little animals, recalling an injured crow she had rescued - “any animal would have been worthy of attention”.

She was offered a Research Assistant position by Ravi Chellam in a survey for an alternate home for lions – Sathya Kumar had known she was interested in cats and told her about it – so she worked at WII for 2 years. She went on to do a six month long survey on Clouded leopards in North East India, also at WII; she had hoped to do her PhD there but left because of the chauvinistic atmosphere. Even at this stage, she says, she was not thinking about conservation. Athreya posits that it is common for wildlife biologists to only look at their species; she says that while it is alright for the purpose of research, she finds it ‘unfair’ when biologists who do it claim ecological relevance in their research projects.

(31:57) Work with strangler figs; studying abroad Athreya discusses her Master’s work with strangler figs. When she went to Topslip she had seen the strangler figs – she mentions that they are hemiepiphytes that belong to a subgenre of the figs and start out life growing on another tree. Walking around in Karian Shola she used to see these trees in other trees that sometimes became large enough to encircle the host tree and lead to its death.

(32:41-32:56; 33:11-33:22) Interruption

At the time her advisor Priya was dealing with plant animal interactions which was why she chose to do a study of frugivory in birds that came to the trees, but the choice of strangler figs was her own.

Athreya says she applied abroad because she did not like the work atmosphere at WII where she had initially gone to work towards a PhD. Despite her interest in cats, she applied for a Master’s to work on strangler figs because she had already published a paper on strangler figs, and was equally interested in them. Athreya received an offer that waived her tuition and provided a stipend, to work under an ecologist studying strangler figs in Panama, which led to her accepting the opportunity.

Athreya was in Iowa for two years, but came back with another Master’s instead of a PhD because she did not enjoy living there. She did field work in Panama on strangler figs while working with John Mason in the USA. She had chosen Mason because he had an opening and the University’s offer was better than other places to which she had applied given that she could not afford to pay to go to the US. She also recollects that Mason had published a paper in Nature and was a young and rising faculty member.

(36:36) Working at WII Athreya went to WII immediately after her Masters in Pondicherry. She describes her interest in cats from a young age to the point that she was always surrounded by them; she says that domestic cats are not very different from wild cats as they do not rely on humans for food or shelter. Given her interest, she had let it be known to people at the time that she wanted to work with wild cats, especially clouded leopards in Northeast India which is why she did the survey, hoping to follow up with a PhD. However, she recounts that she couldn’t work at WII as a junior scientist as she was ‘disillusioned’ with her colleagues and the ‘chauvinism ran really deep’ – Athreya reflects at this point that she did what she wanted to do all her life, even if that meant making mistakes, and says that it was all part of life.

Athreya further discusses chauvinism at WII. She says that she did not encounter chauvinism enough to have it bother her in Bombay and that the city made her who she is. However at WII she found that senior faculty were very ‘patriarchal’. Comparing the same to the USA she asserts that the boundaries between professional and personal behaviour were better maintained there. She refrains from making a general statement about the culture at WII and clarifies that she did not like working with the people she worked with.

(42:10) Fieldwork at Kuno and in the North East Athreya did fieldwork in the Kuno relocation project under Ravi Chellam where she worked in a team of 3; she describes driving to do faunal and floral surveys to assess sites for reintroduction of lions across 3 sites, of which she names Kuno-Palpur and Sitamata. Athreya enjoyed the tour, except for the heat.

She moved on to do an independent survey of clouded leopards – where she carried 110 kg of equipment from Delhi to Guwahati during the Assam insurgency. Athreya describes her trip to Arunachal – even though she was advised against going she found it to be a beautiful place and enjoyed meeting local people; she stayed in Arunachal and walked from the border with Burma through the Namdapha tiger reserve with a few tribal people, a 150 km walk that she completed in 10 days. She also went to Meghalaya and Western Arunachal; did not see many clouded leopards, but remembers seeing canines, a pet in Meghalaya and skin on the wall in Western Arunachal. She says that during her Masters in Karian Shola and fieldwork in Kuno she enjoyed the solitude of being out in the field but also her interactions with local people which granted her ‘different perspectives’ into their lives and created lasting relationships.

[43:09-43:14 – Restricted access. Contact archives@ncbs.res.in]

(46:37) Choosing between cats and strangler figs for her PhD Athreya says that her CV was stronger in strangler figs because she had a published paper and a good recommendation from Davidar, and was unwilling to reach out to WII for the same. As she was as interested in strangler figs and had a stronger application profile, she chose to work with figs rather than cats in the US.

Athreya also posits that ‘cats are a terribly contested world’ and that it is difficult to get to work with cats without support within the field; she found this to be especially true as a woman in a field dominated by men. Further, she was advised by senior faculty that publication helped with admissions.

(48:53) Work in Panama; leaving the US Athreya worked in Panama for six months while at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute [STRI]. She describes her time there as good – she got a boating license and met Panamanians and others at STRI at the Barro Colorado island. It was her first time living outside the country, at 29 years of age.

She discusses several reasons for not finishing a PhD at the time: her husband was in South America for his postdoc; in the meantime she had trouble living in the US where it could be quite debilitatingly lonely; she also missed the ‘chaos and humanity’ of India compared to Iowa which was much more isolated. When her Professor was shifting to another University in Iowa, she chose to come back to India instead of moving with him. She joined her husband in Chile.

Athreya was in Chile for 3 years where she had her daughter; they came back to India in 2001 [Archivists’s note: She corrects this date to 2002], to a radio telescope in a rural area 75 km from Pune where her husband was joining as faculty [Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), Junnar]. While in Chile she had tried to work on the Andean cat but could not do so; when she became a parent she consciously stepped away from work for 5 years.

(53:03) Interest in leopards and conservation; Project Waghoba Her interest in leopards began in 2003, after moving to Junnar. Athreya recollects that even in Chile in 2001-02, faculty from [GMRT} had been reaching out to them about a series of leopard attacks on humans; she was familiar to them because of her talk at the institute after her clouded leopard survey. At the time she had given them the contact information of a friend but did not directly intervene because she was busy with her daughter.

She says that in 2002, Sanjay Thakur came up to her in Pune requesting her help with the Junnar situation; she offered to help with managing the project if Thakur could do fieldwork; recalls that she started getting interested over the phone. They also got in touch with Sujoy Chaudhuri who was interested in GIS; and the veterinarian Anirudhha Belsare. By the time she moved to Junnar in 2003 attacks had waned but Athreya says as she was living in the conflict zone the project began. Athreya describes the ‘unusual conflict’ in Junnar: leopards were being trapped in unexpected places despite living in a human dominated landscape; there were 50 attacks each year for 2 years, from 3-4 attacks before; and there were several ‘strange’ cases – she cites the example of stories of leopards attacking children sleeping between parents.

Athreya discusses the operation of the Project independently, without affiliation to an NGO. She recalls that they used the letterhead of Chaudhuri’s NGO. She also mentions her now-defunct NGO set up with Ramana Athreya called Kaati Trust, when he started working in the North East. She joined CWS [Centre for Wildlife Studies] in 2007 as a PhD scholar."