Ghazala Shahabuddin - Session 01, 2022-07-12

(00:00:40) Early years, school life and developing an interest in nature Ghazala Shahabuddin shares that she was born in Caracas, Venezuela. Her father was a diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service and her mother was a homemaker. They moved to India in 1975 and her father became a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament. She says she has five siblings. She talks about being in Delhi till her post graduate studies, for which she went to Pondicherry University. Her earliest memories are of Algeria- a beautiful house and garden. In Delhi, she did her schooling at the Convent of Jesus and Mary. She speaks about school being a really fun place and being glad for the opportunities it provided to engage with community work. She also mentions founding a nature club with others. In school, Shahabuddin found moral science very valuable. She first became interested in wildlife, animals and nature when in Algeria, thanks to the garden and forest she had access to. Also, her father was an outdoors person and they travelled around quite a bit- something else she attributes to developing her interests. She says she became interested in bird watching and gardening from an early age, thanks to having a large garden even in Delhi, encouraging teachers, a book called Family Fun and Games and Sálim Ali's The Book of Indian Birds. She mentions the names of teachers who influenced her interest. She mentions nature related activities, learning the names of birds and trees, amongst others. She speaks about being obsessed with nature, playing with her siblings and neighbours while growing up, always having pets at home and cats in particular.

(00:14:08) Favourite authors as a child, views on wildlife documentaries and making academic choices Shahabuddin mentions the authors she read and loved as a child, such as PG Wodehouse, Daphne du Maurier, Agatha Christie, James Herriot and Gerald Durrell. She talks about what her engagement with wildlife documentaries has been like over the years and shares that she does not like them because of the feeling they give people that they know a lot about nature without them having actually experienced it in the field. She made up her mind to pursue wildlife sciences in the ninth or tenth grade, after being inspired by Gerald Durrell. She shares that she even wrote to him to inquire about learning veterinary science, but he replied saying he had no provisions for this. In the eleventh grade, Shahabuddin chose to pursue biology and her parents pressured her to prepare for the Indian civil services examination. However, after completing a Bachelor's degree in Zoology, she went to Pondicherry for a Master’s degree in Wildlife Science. Her parents were upset with the latter, given the lack of job security and potential travel involved, as she was a girl from a conservative Muslim background.

(00:22:00) Opportunities for travel growing up and involvement with Kalpavriksh Environmental Action Group Shahabuddin recounts her experiences traveling to various wild places in Kashmir and Nepal with her outdoor enthusiast father, and also protected areas like the Keoladeo Ghana National Park in Bharatpur. After class eleven, she became involved with the Kalpavriksh Environmental Action Group, which led to making many friends such as Jagdish Krishnaswamy, Mahesh Rangarajan, Ashish Kothari and Seema Bhatt. It also led to many trips and projects focused on environmental issues. She funded her own trips by proofreading for her father's magazine, Muslim India, which documented the Muslim minority’s issues in India. She shares names of those involved with the setting up of Kalpavriksh in 1979. Kalpavriksh, in the early years, she shares, did various activities like a Narmada walk, something during the Bhopal tragedy and was also involved with school quizzes. Later, the Nature Club at her school got involved with Kalpavriksh and that was how she found people from different walks of life who were interested in the environment. They looked at the social and natural sides of the environment and had a holistic approach. She was deeply affected by this and has stayed connected with the group through the years, till today.

(00:27:57) Bachelor’s degree in Zoology, interaction with wildlife conservationists and opportunities/projects through Kalpavriksh She talks about pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Zoology (Honours) from Delhi University and her reasons at the time for doing so. Growing up, Shahabuddin shares that she did not interact with many people involved in wildlife conservation. In 1990, through Rauf Ali, she started meeting biologists and people from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) when they were in Pondicherry. In school, even though some friends were, she was not involved with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) camps and she only started traveling while pursuing her Bachelor’s degree. During her undergraduate degree years, even though the teaching of zoology was mostly lab-oriented, there were wildlife trips and an entomology course that required insect collection. These experiences fostered her interests in insects and thanks to a professor, Pradeep Kumar, in wildlife photography. Outside of college, Shahabuddin spent time at Kalpavriksh’s office, helping out with newsletters, planning trips and bird counts in Delhi and Sultanpur Jheel. She speaks about other projects that Kalpavriksh was involved with as well. Through various projects, she not only had the opportunity to meet others in the field, but also to travel around India. On a visit to the submergence zones of the Omkareshwar and Maheshwar Dams in the Narmada Valley and the villages there, she gained a better understanding of their socio-economic and ecological impacts. She also went on numerous birdwatching trips with Kalpavriksh and read more widely during this time. [Archivist's note: Shahabuddin refers to the place as ‘Sultanpur Jheel’, and this is retained in the summary. However, the index term uses the authority record name, ‘Sultanpur National Park’.] [00:32:49 - 00:32:51 - Restricted Access. Contact archives@ncbs.res.in for details]

(00:40:37) Master’s degree Shahabuddin wanted to study ecology abroad but found it too expensive. She realised she would not get the same training in India but her parents could not afford a Master’s degree abroad. She then decided to do choose a Master’s programme in Pondicherry she had heard about during an internship with Development Alternatives in Delhi, because of its focus on fieldwork and good teachers. It was Shahabuddin's first time traveling to southern India, but she was not overwhelmed as others she knew also came along. She speaks about what the selection process for the course entailed. She shares that she had a broad interest in ecology and the environment, with a specific focus on wildlife- animals and birds, and was less interested in pollution and environmental humanities at the time. She recalls her experiences studying ecology and the environment and good teachers such as Rauf Ali, Priya Davidar and N Parthasarthy. They inspired her and taught her about fieldwork, natural history, plant and animal interactions, and ecological thought. She also learned from seniors, batchmates, about new ecosystems and developed skills in computer programmes. Her Master’s thesis was set in a small village in Palni Hills and she went on to later work on a conservation project there. She emphasises the importance of doing fieldwork and understanding local issues in conservation.

(00:50:35) Access to global literature, Master’s thesis, and work post dissertation While recalling that resources were limited when studying at Pondicherry University, she was encouraged by professors to read outside of Indian journals and books. Despite not having access to the internet, she was able to obtain up-to-date literature and was exposed to the larger world of ecological sciences. She talks about how her Master’s project came about in a village called Siruvattukadu Kombei in the Palni Hills and says it focussed on how land use change may affect biodiversity, assessed using butterflies as indicators for habitat change. The project also looked into how communities respond to these changes. While the initial phase of project was fun, exploring and documenting species, the systematic sampling got monotonous later, but was still enjoyable. She talks about feeling homesick at the time and submitting the thesis a year late, in 1993, because of getting involved with other projects of the Palni Hills Conservation Council. Post fieldwork for the dissertation, Shahabuddin shares that she learned about the Palni area and provided inputs for wildlife conservation. She also developed a bird list for the area, wrote papers and thought about doing a PhD to gain more training and exposure to ecological sciences. [00:59:27 - 00:59:37 - Restricted Access. Contact archives@ncbs.res.in for details]

(01:01:10) Projects post Master’s degree, application for PhD and parents’ views on acceptance to Duke University After going back to Delhi in 1993, and doing some projects with Vivek Menon and Ashok Kumar at WWF, and on the Sultanpur Jheel with people from Kalpavriksh, Shahabuddin applied for a PhD at ten universities in the United States of America. She also applied to WII and shares her reasons for not applying elsewhere in India. She was especially interested in working with John Terborgh at Duke University on tropical topics [interviewee correction post interview: specifically tropical ecology]. She shares that she had also applied to work with other professors, such as Melvin Sunquist, but funding was not available at the time. Ultimately, she chose to go to Duke University when she got accepted there, because of the better learning opportunities and lack of rigorous education in India. She talks about what selection to the programme involved and publications she had at that time. Shahabuddin says that her father was happy about her admission to Duke University, as he believed that anything abroad was better than studying in India. He had a positive view of PhDs abroad, as three of her siblings were also pursuing them. Her mother too was happy. [01:10:33 - 01:10:50 - Restricted Access. Contact archives@ncbs.res.in for details]