Performing arts of embodied refusal amid anthropogenic climate change: the Salim Ali Biodiversity Park and Bird Sanctuary, Pune, India
URN:NBN:fi:tsv-oa120219
DOI: 10.11143/fennia.120219
Special issue: Practising refusal as relating otherwise: engagements with knowledge
production, ‘activist’ praxis, and borders
Performing arts of embodied refusal amid anthropogenic
climate change: the Salim Ali Biodiversity Park and Bird
Sanctuary, Pune, India
MICHELE LOBO, ABHA BHAGWAT AND DHARMARAJ PATIL
Lobo, M., Bhagwat, A. & Patil, D. (2023) Performing arts of embodied
refusal amid anthropogenic climate change: the Salim Ali Biodiversity
Park and Bird Sanctuary, Pune, India. Fennia 201(2) 229–242.
https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.120219
Birds twitter, flap their wings or wade in the gurgling water of the
Mula-Mutha river in a special place, named after Salim Ali, the
world famous, award-winning ornithologist and ‘Birdman of
India’ (1896–1987). Yet, bird habitat, migratory routes, species diversity
and songs are affected by the slow violence of global warming and
environmental pollution. Urban citizens or Punekars including artists,
women, children and ornithologists refuse the brutality of this slow
violence by enacting forms of activism that centre birdlife and affirm
thriving more-than-human worlds. This co-authored piece focuses on the
embodied performances of refusal at the Salim Ali Biodiversity Park and
Bird Sanctuary, Pune, a rapidly growing city in the western state of
Maharashtra, India. Activism takes the form of poetry, city walks,
participatory mural art and other forms of resistance by the Save Salim Ali
Sanctuary Action Group (SSASAG). Our co-authorship collective consists
of an activist/ornithologist of the SSASAG, an internationally acclaimed
mural artist, and an Australian geographer of Indian heritage who went on
daily ‘nature walks’ while visiting family in Pune. We craft this piece as a
continuation of our activist refusals of anthropogenic climate change and
toxic environmental pollution, and to illuminate solidarity with the
brilliance of human and more-than-human worlds in and beyond Pune.
Keywords: biodiversity, conservation, urban nature, embodied refusal,
solidarity
Michele Lobo (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7733-666X), School of Humanities
and Social Sciences, Deakin University, Australia. E-mail: michele.lobo@
deakin.edu.au
Abha Bhagwat, Independent Artist, India. E-mail: abha.bhagwat@gmail.com
Dharmaraj Patil, Save Salim Ali Sanctuary Action Group (SSASAG), India.
© 2023 by the author. This open access article is licensed under
a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
https://doi.org/10.11143/fennia.120219
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7733-666X
230 FENNIA 201(2) (2023)Reviews and Essays
Refusing world-endings: synergies across worlds
Creative endeavours, collaborations, co-resistance and solidarities across worlds is central to our
politics of refusal. This collective piece illuminates embodied refusal of anthropogenic climate change
and toxic environmental pollution in the Global South through a focus on the Salim Ali Biodiversity
Park and Bird Sanctuary in Pune, a rapidly growing city in the western state of Maharashtra, India. This
green zone along the banks of the Mula-Mutha river in eastern Pune was gifted to the Forest
Department in 1978 by the Wadia family, Parsi business owners and philanthropists. The Sanctuary
attracts more than 130 bird species, is named after Salim Ali (1896–1987), the world famous, award-
winning ornithologist and has been the site of environmental activism since 2018 by the Save Salim Ali
Sanctuary Action Group (SSASAG). This activism by Punekars or urban citizens of Pune who are often
relatively privileged, is a response to global warming, the thundering sound of machinery from the
Pune metro construction site just beyond the park boundary, tree felling, the dumping of toxic waste
and state-corporate collusions that support “western, anthropocentric growth-oriented models of
development” (Lobo & Hine 2022, 12) and riverfront placemaking.
We, Dharmaraj Patil, an activist, ornithologist and coordinator of the Save Salim Ali Sanctuary
Action Group (SSASAG), Abha Bhagwat a Pune mural artist as well as educator, and Michele Lobo, an
Australian geographer of Indian heritage illuminate collective performances of embodied refusal
across worlds that began with a walk in the park, numerous emails and face-to-face zoom conversations
in Marathi and English from January 2022. In this article, we develop an understanding of embodied
refusal as place-based collective action and writing that is multilingual, visceral and generative in
affirming bird life and thriving more-than-human worlds – poetry, resistance, ‘nature walks’ and
participatory mural art. These collective creative practices performed by women of colour and/or
Marathi speakers in postcolonial India mobilise action across age, gender, generation, ethnicity and
class in ways that extend Nixon’s (2011, 19) understanding of slow violence conceptualised as an
occurrence that is gradual, often invisible and “dispersed across time and space”.
Critical feminist and anti-racist geographers have explored the emotional toll, inequalities and
injustices that are exacerbated by slow violence that ‘creeps’ and ‘bleeds’ through spaces – it is brutal,
structural and multi-scalar (Murrey 2016; Pain & Cahill 2021; Davies 2022; TrueLove & Ruszczyk 2022).
Black-Indigenous scholarship identifies this violence as linguicide, genocide, ecocide as well as world-
endings and responds with co-resistance, generative refusal and world building (Maynard & Simpson
2022). This response builds on the concept of refusal advanced within Native American Studies that is
‘a symptom, a practice, a possibility for doing things differently’ amid structures of injustice (Coulthard
2014; Simpson 2014, 2017). Indigenous struggles therefore question settler colonial logics, critique
the domination of a politics of recognition and refuse entrapment that renders Native peoples as
visible, knowable subjects. Within the context of multiple crises including climate change, Michi Saagiig
Nishnaabeg scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Maynard et al. 2021, 149; Maynard & Simpson
2022) argues that refusal is generative if it affirms and builds relationships, community, movements
and worlds through different ways of being and living “withinside the living ecosystems of the planet”
rather than replicate colonial and capitalist logics. Along with Canadian Black feminist scholar Robyn
Maynard, Simpson calls for generating theory from actions, shared practices, experiences, collective
struggles and synergies that might be different in other places, yet demonstrate our “potentiality
together” (Maynard & Simpson 2022, 98). This article responds to this call through a focus on forms of
embodied refusal to the slow violence of global warming and environmental pollution in Pune rather
than more widely researched Indian capital cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata in India.
Embodied refusal: poetry and SSASAG-led activism
Dharmaraj Patil
Poetry, photographs, my work as an ornithologist as well as walkathons, sit-ins, human chains, chain-
fasting, rallies, silent protests along with schoolgirls holding placards, and bird walks for children are
some of the ways I engage in activism with Punekars as the coordinator of the Save Salim Ali Sanctuary
FENNIA 201(2) (2023) 231Michele Lobo & Abha Bhagwat & Dharmaraj Patil
Action Group (SSASAG). Together we refuse global warming, river pollution and habitat loss for bird
species locally as well as globally. I regularly post details of forthcoming events, photographs and
comments on the SSASAG Facebook page.
Poem 1
कल कल करता जल कहाँ अब
टप टप करती बूँद कहाँ ...
पल पल घटता पोखर ह ैबस
जलवायु बदलाव यहाँ ...
जागो धरा के धनुध्धरों तुम
अब काल यहाँ जल पूजन का ..
ववश्ाम का समय नहीं ये
काल ह ैये श्म सृजन का
जल को मत तुम फेें को ऐसे
जल में ह ैअस्तित्व तुम्ारा
जल में ही ह ैआस जगत की
जल ही ह ैमानव का सहारा
वमलके बचाओ ...
जल बारीश का
जल पोखर का
जल झरने और जल नल का भी
जल न रह ेतो रह ेन धरती
पशु पक्ी और फफेर हम भी कहाँ
जल बचाकर कल बचाओ
और बचाओ सारा जहाँ ...
कल कल करता जल कहाँ अब
टप टप करती बूँद कहाँ ...
धम्धराज
Where is the burbling water now?
And where is the dripping drop?
It’s only the puddle decreasing every moment
The climate change is here …
232 FENNIA 201(2) (2023)Reviews and Essays
Wake up the archers of the earth
It is time to worship the water
There is no time to rest
We must work hard to create
Don’t throw away the water
Your existence depends on it
Water is the only hope
The only support of mankind
Let us save rainwater together
Water in wells
Water in springs
And also tap water
Earth cannot survive without water
Even animals, birds and we cannot
Save water and secure tomorrow
And we can save the entire world
Where is the burbling water now?
And where is the dripping drop? …
(Dharmaraj Patil)
Fig. 1. Birds at the Salim Ali Biodiversity Park and Bird Sanctuary. Source: Dharmaraj Patil.
FENNIA 201(2) (2023) 233Michele Lobo & Abha Bhagwat & Dharmaraj Patil
Fig. 2. Bird walks. Source: Dharmaraj Patil.
Fig. 3. Coppersmith Barbet. Source: Dharmaraj Patil.
234 FENNIA 201(2) (2023)Reviews and Essays
My activism, photographs (Fig. 1, 2, 3) and poetry in Marathi are forms of embodied refusal to
the slow violence I see and witness everyday as a Punekar and ornithologist who feels a strong
emotional attachment to birds much like Salim Ali who wrote The Book of Indian Birds in colonial
India in 1941 (Fig. 4).
Embodied refusal: city walks
Michele Lobo
Perhaps I performed the art of embodied refusal when the contagious Omicron virus was raging in
India in December 2021, and I took the risk to fly on one of the first direct Qantas flights from
Melbourne to visit my Mum who once gasped for breath infected by the Delta variant. As I escaped
from the most locked down city in the world, I was one of few ‘sheeter pakhis’ (winter birds), a Bengali
phrase that describes diasporic peoples who visit tropical India during the cooler months. Arriving in
Pune a city in western India, birds were chirping and streets were abuzz with activity even in the early
hours of a wintry morning, much like Kolkata, the crowded megacity that once was home. Walking on
busy streets of Kolkata and Pune, the loud cawing of ‘common’ crows, their wet droppings from
overhanging tree branches and perched presence on garbage heaps where they scavenge for food
scraps, force city dwellers to acknowledge their presence as more-than-human urban citizens even
during a pandemic. In Melbourne, however, it was the stillness of the pandemic that offered
opportunities for more careful bird observations and the aesthetic appreciation of urban natures
along green walking trails in native wetlands of Australian suburbia. In my neighbourhood, pelicans,
black swans and ducks in the distance glide in the placid creeks and lakes. Egrets, herons, ibis and
ravens leave the safety of the long grass and assemble on the winding paved path.
Fig. 4. The Book of Indian Birds by Salim Ali.
Source: Michael Adams.
FENNIA 201(2) (2023) 235Michele Lobo & Abha Bhagwat & Dharmaraj Patil
I tell this transnational story that centres relatively privileged bodies, birds and patches of urban
nature in Melbourne (Narrm), a city built on Wurundjeri Country to situate my walk and arts of activism
that focus on “generative refusal” (Simpson in Maynard et al. 2021, 149) and solidarity with more-than-
humans at the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary in Pune, India. Inspired by Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s (2022) focus
on abolition as life in rehearsal, Robyn Maynard (in Maynard et al. 2021, 155) focuses on the power of
generative refusal for “liberatory futures” in the present. This politics that affirms a living planet
refuses symbolic gestures of state recognition and respectability framed by norms of white institutions
situated within the specificity and historicity of settler colonial contexts in Canada. This is the
affirmative politics of world building that Punekars (citizens of Pune) including artists, women, children
and ornithologists engage in as they refuse the slow violence of global warming, environmental
pollution and habitat loss accelerated by the expansion of transport, placemaking and housing
projects approved by the Pune Municipal Corporation.
My visit to the park was an outcome of a serendipitous encounter with Rita, a long-term Punekar at
the communal house where I was living. My eagerness as a geographer to experience the joy of
walking along the sunny riverside on a Saturday morning resonated with her desire to have another
look at the beautiful mural art at the park. Alighting from the autorickshaw, the broad, well-maintained
entry path to the Sanctuary shared with the Yerawada Smashan Bhumi (Hindu crematorium) promised
a pleasant walk away from crowded streets. I was stopped in my tracks, however, by a gigantic piece
of colourful mural art depicting the human life cycle on the crematorium wall. Rita draws me away as
she gazes at a section of a low brick wall with vibrant colours that I might have easily missed as a
visitor to the park. The wall shows several species of trees with bejewelled rings on thick brown barks,
curving brown branches, thick green foliage, colourful flowers and hanging roots (Fig. 5). The rippling
river in hues of blue is effervescent – fish frolic, wading birds perch on small rocky river islands,
butterflies flap their delicate wings in the clear sky and painted storks enjoy the gentle rain (Fig. 6, 7).
A radiant rising sun, thick green undergrowth, rain droplets and colourful rainbows hold the promise
of a vibrant dry and wet season in a city, once a colonial defence post and hill-station in the Western
Ghats, popularly known as the ‘Queen of the Deccan’ (Diddee & Gupta 2000).
Fig. 5. Bejewelled tree trunks and blooming flowers. Source: Michele Lobo.
236 FENNIA 201(2) (2023)Reviews and Essays
Fig. 6. The rippling river with frolicking fish. Source: Michele Lobo.
Fig. 7. Painted storks enjoying the rain. Source: Michele Lobo.
FENNIA 201(2) (2023) 237Michele Lobo & Abha Bhagwat & Dharmaraj Patil
The refreshing creativity of the mural art deepens the promise of seeing rare bird species, listening to
birdsong and enjoying an energising urban nature walk along the river. This place across the bridge is
away from gated mansions of the wealthy in Koregaon Park that offer walkers shady broad laneways
with ancient banyan trees. Walking along a ‘kuccha’ (unpaved) path in the thick forest Rita and I feel
like the only wanderers in this green zone along the Mula-Mutha river. As the path winds and narrows
my disappointment deepens – shards of glass, empty bottles, plastic bags, wastepaper as well as
human and animal excreta mingle with piles of construction waste. These innumerable scattered
mounds and mountains of waste lie in the shadow of large yellow cranes beyond the park boundary
wall promising rapid transit in Pune city, a ‘hill station’ that is experiencing unprecedented heat waves
with temperatures over 40 C in summer. Piles of garbage beneath trees with thick foliage, in muddy
as well as cavernous ditches and along the riverbank are interspersed with innumerable stagnant
pools and ponds that are breeding grounds for mosquitoes. We take each step with extreme care as
we look out for birds, follow their twitter and attempt to find a path to the riverbank after asking a few
park staff herding pigs and buffaloes. It is at this moment that we meet another Punekar, a walker
carrying a sophisticated camera with a powerful zoom lens (Fig. 8).
As a birdwatcher eager to photograph the diversity of species and listen to bird songs, he treaded
skilfully through shattered glass, showed us a path to the river, named migratory as well as local birds,
and pointed to wading birds in the distance – the baya weaver, painted stork, ruddy shelduck, red-
wattle lapwings and blackheaded ibis. When we were eager to know more, he alerted us to his blog/
twitter account and began to tell us about the long struggle to save the park by activists such as Save
the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary Group (SSABAG) as well as environmental conservation groups. It was by
chance then that I became aware of arts of embodied refusal by some Punekars to save the biodiversity
of the bird sanctuary and a ‘dead river’ choked with waste. I began reading about this collective
resistance and longed to meet the activists and artists who in different ways engaged in arts of
embodied refusal.
Fig. 8. The Baya Weaver bird. Source: Rafiq Somani.
238 FENNIA 201(2) (2023)Reviews and Essays
Embodied refusal: walls that talk back
Abha Bhagwat
On the eastern side of Pune city existed a rich green belt that was very well known to citizens of Pune
as a bird sanctuary. As a child I often went birding there. The quiet flowing river water, patches of
shallow water and mud surrounding small rocky islands, tree-tops of ancient trees, small rocks
peeking through the water were some of the favourite spots for birds to eat their food, dry their wings
and rest. The clear water of the river also had a large number of fish, crabs and moss, which was
unseen to the human eye, but an important food source for birds and an indicator of the oxygen-rich
river. The coolness of the air in this place and the fog on the horizon created an ethereal atmosphere.
In the rush of city life, however, citizens forgot this beautiful patch. In the last few years, the adjacent
garbage collection centre, crematorium and Pune metro project has further damaged this biodiversity
park. Recent offences like forcible tree cutting, filling up of a flowing creek with debris have threatened
this home of birds. A group in Pune under the guidance of ornithologist late Mr. Dharmaraj Patil has
been demanding the government’s urgent attention and action in protecting the sanctuary. A little ray
of hope has emerged though a movement of embodied refusal started by the Save Salim Ali Sanctuary
Action Group (SSASAG). The activist group has organised environmental education programs (expert
lectures and interviews) and involved city dwellers in bird and tree assessments/studies and bird
walks. Other forms of refusal include fasting, the formation of human chains and protest rallies.
My experience as a painter has attuned me to the tremendous personal and social outcomes of
participatory artworks, particularly with children and women. I was therefore very excited to be invited
by the SSASAG to participate in producing a collaborative painting. These paintings were inspired by
my core feeling of refusal – the refusal of political indifference, carelessness and ignorance of urban
nature. Initially it was difficult to identify the perfect wall for this mural – we selected an ‘L’ shaped
yellow stone wall built with a slant of 5 degrees near the entrance of the park. It is always more fun to
paint on a surface not meant or designed for artwork. I decided to paint the wall up to 8 or 9 feet from
the ground, that could be easily reached by everyone with small ladders. When you are expecting over
100 people as participants, you must have a big canvas so that everyone can paint according to their
available time and willingness – we used the entire length of 150 feet.
First, I made a rough sketch for the mural and selected bright colours to make the painting stand
out and look vibrant. The event was announced through mainstream as well as social media sites
(Facebook), was open to all and no prior artistic expertise was required. The response was wonderful.
I met many of the participants for the first time and many were not aware that the bird sanctuary
existed. In fact, those who visited the sanctuary for the first time were surprised to discover such a
beautiful place in the city was threatened. People from all over the city came – from schools, residential
areas, working places, offices, banks and many other places. A small group of American students, who
were visiting India on an exchange program also participated and enjoyed painting. People with
disabilities came to paint as well. I recall the youngest participant was a one-year-old baby and the
oldest was a 70-year-old grandfather. Participants spoke of collective painting as a joyful experience.
I attribute this joy to the process of producing a unique, all-inclusive artwork that thrums with the
energies and skills of citizens of diverse cultural backgrounds and age groups. To make the artwork
inclusive, I selected simple forms and textures so that everyone can select and paint the elements
they feel comfortable with. For example, even when a small baby holds the brush and paints it is
important and can be converted into a beautiful texture – that is the beauty of participatory painting.
The “subaltern child figure” (Balagopalan 2019, 231) who balances labouring with schooling, lives in
slums and orphanages was able to participate through the efforts of an elderly teacher who works in
these places. When children come together and use their hands and bodies in artistic work, perhaps
they come to understand the importance of shrama pratishtha or the dignity of labour that is necessary
to refuse injustice and affirm world building.
We faced some challenges in completing the artwork. For example, dirty, putrid water from the
crematorium powerhouse above rolls down and has left black marks on the wall. We ignored or
refused to see these black blotches and responded by painting beautiful trees over it. We painted the
FENNIA 201(2) (2023) 239Michele Lobo & Abha Bhagwat & Dharmaraj Patil
beautiful, clean flowing river and birds including the sunbird, fantail, painted stork, grey hornbill,
jacana, magpie-robin, spotted owlet, cormorant, red-wattled lapwing and sandpiper. Since the
diversity of tree species contributes to richness of forests, we painted each tree using different sizes,
shapes, colours and styles. We also created a space on the wall for species of fish, snakes and
butterflies who once called this place home.
After the completion of the painting, there was wider support for saving the sanctuary and the
movement was energised. As an artist, it was a unique experience for me to work for an environmental
cause. A few days later, we noticed some disturbing events around the painting that made us feel as
if the efforts of artists and citizens are of no significance. Somebody had dumped debris and waste
right in front of the painting. A low relief sculpture was installed in front of the painting hiding some
of its important aspects. An information board was installed hiding the corner piece of the painting. I
felt sad that the value of pure joy, beauty and environmental awareness produced through our
collective effort was ignored, but more mainstream/scientific ways of disseminating information and
‘saving’ the birds and trees are privileged. I rarely paused to think about the marginalised lives of
construction workers or crematorium workers who never engage in bird watching and often labour at
night to advance metropolitan and state development agendas. I kept wondering about ways I could
continue to work with children so that we as a society can move away from being numb, indifferent
and apathetic towards art and the environment. Through my ongoing participatory paintings with
children, I try and build respect for artists and environmentalists who play a very big role in bringing
us all together! We cherish art creations in ancient caves, but it is more difficult to respect and
appreciate contemporary artists and collective artwork in India! Art is the inner nature of human
beings. If we are unable to take care of nature within, how can we protect nature outside? Are we
expecting too much?
The joy and pain of embodied refusal
Michele Lobo and Abha Bhagwat
The buoyancy of joy and optimism as well as the emotional burden of pain and frustration coexists as
we write alongside and with each other to refuse the slow violence of anthropogenic climate change
and toxic environmental pollution. Dharmaraj passed away suddenly in March 2022, but the energy
of his embodied refusal lives on through his poetry and ongoing activism visible on the Facebook page
of the SSASAG, twitter accounts of the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary and Pune activists. He was mourned as
a friend, leader, educator, poet, writer, conservationist, and ornithologist. A prayer meeting held amid
the piles of waste in the park during the Coronavirus pandemic celebrated his life and the fight to save
the sanctuary as well as restore the Mula-Mutha river. A photo shows him defiantly holding a placard
saying “Metro not at the cost of birds abode”, but another captures the joy in his face as he feels the
touch of a black, orange and yellow butterfly (Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary Pune 2022). Wearing his mask
during the pandemic Dharmaraj worked with environmental NGOs such as Raintree foundation and
Jeevitanadi (“Living Rivers”). Speaking in Marathi and English at one of the protests he powerfully
reminded us: “The movement can only become successful when common men participate and take
the lead”. In February 2022 a bird walk was planned but was ultimately cancelled due to a rise in
coronavirus infections. Since then, the Environment Minister visited the park and clean-up drives have
been initiated. A report in Hindustan Times, a national daily newspaper, claimed that 13,000 tonnes of
debris had been removed from the 2-acre park that attracts more than 130 different bird species
including migratory birds (Palkhiwala 2022).
In a newspaper article Dharmaraj said “many bird species like grey francolin, baya weaver, citrine
wagtail and pied kingfisher have lost their habitat due to illegal dumping. These are very sensitive
birds and they leave a site even with a slight disturbance” (Chandra 2022). We feel this loss when bird
breath and songs fail to ring out. Simpson (2017, 90) draws on her exchange with writer and poet M
NourbSe Philip who “makes sense of the senseless”. NourbSe links language with breath and sound,
through dramatized readings of poems that exceed the confines of the page, refuse taken-for-granted
English/western/academic norms but implicate and contaminate readers through ‘untelling’ the
240 FENNIA 201(2) (2023)Reviews and Essays
violence of slavery. For us the senseless is the violence of anthropogenic climate change and
environmental pollution that continues to contaminate and invade our being. Perhaps Dharmaraj
who passed away and migratory birds who fail to arrive participate in such an untelling of slow
violence. Even though bird songs are stifled and Marathi words might struggle to breathe in our
English translations the potentiality of world building seeps through.
While Pune Municipal Corporation participates in national policies that focus on placemaking
projects as part of the Smart City Mission, the Mula-Mutha River Regeneration Project and the Pune
Metro project, activism by Punekars, walls that speak and ‘nature walks’ enable us to wander beyond
this place with bleeding hearts and feet (see Poem 2). These collective political performances of
generative refusal with more-than-human worlds that acknowledge pain contribute to potentialities
for a thriving planet. This article has affirmed such thriving by centering the habitat of birds in the
Salim Ali Biodiversity Park and Bird Sanctuary that struggles to be. As Sara Ahmed (2021, 26) would
say, “to refuse what has come to be is to fight to be” through collectives that are purposeful, fluid and
willful. This is the fight for world building for and beyond humanity that seeds hope and freedom in
places of the Global South where violence is slow and invisible.
This article makes methodological and ethical contributions to extending and reworking decolonial
debates on refusal advanced by feminist and anti-racist geographers, Black-Indigenous and Native
American scholars situated in the Global North. As willful Indians/diasporic Indians we focus on the
environmental struggle for bird worlds in postcolonial cities, rather than anthropocentric river
development projects that recreate the ‘pristine’ beauty of urban nature but destroy the home of
migratory bird species. Second, we demonstrate the potential of multilingual, transnational, decolonial
ecological activism driven by embodied feelings of generative more-than-human love from the Salim
Ali Biodiversity Park and Bird Sanctuary in the Indian city of Pune that places us within urban nature
and mobilises collective refusal as ethical everyday acts.
We end with Dharmaraj’s poem written in Marathi that oscillates between grief, pain, suffering and
more-than-human love – his shadow and the ‘flowers of his trembling breath’ promise flourishing
futures if we tread carefully.
Poem 2
तू ननघून गेलीस
आणि ववस्कटलेला मी
कालच्ा वाटचे्ा शोधात आलो
जी वाट दोघांनी वमळून चालली
दोघांनी वमळून बहरली
काही क्ि का असेना
पुसटशी का असेना..
तीच मी चालत राफहलो आज ..
एकवेळा दोनवेळा दहावेळा ..
पाय आणि मन
दोन्ी रक्तबंबाळ होईपययंत चाललो
तू कुठेच नदसली नाहीस
आभासातून उठली नाहीस ..
माझ्ा थरथरत्ा श्ासांची
FENNIA 201(2) (2023) 241Michele Lobo & Abha Bhagwat & Dharmaraj Patil
दोन फुेले
आपल्ा या वाटवेर ठेऊन ननघतो आहे
अंधारात मी ठेवलेली सावली तुला नदसिारी नाही म्िून..
गेलीस तर जरूर पहा
फुेले चचरडू नयेत याची
काळजी घे..
जमल्ास ....
- धम्धराज पाटील
When you left
I was shattered
Searching for yesterday’s path
That we both walked together
And blossomed together
Though only for a few moments
And very faint…
I kept walking on it…
Once, twice and ten times…
I walked till my feet and heart bled
You were nowhere
You didn’t rise from the illusion…
I am leaving two flowers of my trembling breath
On our path
Because you cannot see the shadow that I have left in the dark …
Be sure to check it out
And make sure that flowers don’t crush
Take care…
If possible…
(Dharmaraj Patil)
Acknowledgements
This article is a tribute to Dharmaraj Patil on his First Remembrance Day in March 2023. Michele would
like to thank Dharmaraj and Abha for travelling on this journey of refusal that called for considerable
242 FENNIA 201(2) (2023)Reviews and Essays
affective labour. Abha translated Dharmaraj’s poetry from Marathi to English and liaised with his
family to access photographs after his sudden death. Special thanks to Punekars Willu Ferreira and
Rafiq Somani who provided valuable local knowledge of the Salim Ali Biodiversity Park and Bird
Sanctuary. Thanks very much Audrey Ferreira and Denis Rodrigues who assisted with Marathi
translations that were necessary in the writing process.
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