Narcondam: A Garden of Eden in a Pit of Hell

Found only on one tiny 6.8sqkm island, the Narcondam hornbill is still as much of an enigma as it was in 1873 when it was first described. It was a dream to visit Narcondam. This island gives new meaning to the word 'remote'. Isolated from all other landmasses for at least 70 miles in any direction, Narcondam is essentially a dense green mountain peeking out of the deep blue sea. Its sinister name—which translates to 'pit of hell’—is most likely owed to its volcanic origins. To date, only a handful of scientists and natural history photographers have set foot on its uninhabited beaches, situated 90 miles east of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, in the Indian Ocean. We saw our first pair of Narcondam hornbills flying across the beach as soon as we hit land. Having seen the Great Hornbill of mainland India myself, these hornbills were smaller than I had expected but nonetheless stunning. Its closest extant relative is the Blyth's Hornbill, found far away in Papua New Guinea, at the edge of the Pacific Ocean. How many of them exist and what factors encourage their abundance were some of the critical questions that the team aimed to understand in its two-month sojourn. If you want to know what they found, head to the story link that I wrote for The New York Times

The Snow Leopard

For years, the Snow leopard has a reputation of being extremely elusive, living in the isolated high mountains in the world away from humans. Although known to be rare, the sightings of the Snow Leopards have become routine in small pockets within its range in the recent past. This has resulted in a perception that the populations of these big cats are doing reasonably well, but that's not entirely true. In reality, our understanding and knowledge about the populations of snow leopards and its prey species are incredibly sparse, and it comes from less than two percent of its global distribution. This story attempts to show that although elusive and charismatic, Snow Leopards are facing the same issues due to human presence as any other big cat in the world like Tiger, Lion, or Jaguar. This story was documented over a period of two years following a few specific individual snow Leopards in the landscape. Produced in collaboration with the Snow Leopard Trust ( Seattle), Nature Conservation Foundation ( Mysore), Himachal Forest Department, and was partially supported by the National Geographic Society Grant. This story was published in National Geographic magazine July Issue of 2020

Living Root Bridges of Meghalaya, India

'JingKiengJri' is a local name for these fascinating living root bridges. Found in the northeastern state of India's Meghalaya, these bridges are located in Garo and Khasi hills at the foothills of the Himalayas. These bridges are a force of nature and human ingenuity, and I was humbled to learn about these intertwined root structures from people whose ancestors crafted them.

The SkyIslands of India

The sky Islands of the Western Ghats in south India are unique both in its geography and biodiversity.  For this story, we explored this landscape to understand the role these mountains play in the formation of new species, with a focus on the Shortwing, a small bird endemic to the sky islands.  This story was part of my National Geographic young explorers project which was essentially to photo document the beauty, ecology, and biodiversity of these Sky-islands. You can read the complete story featured on the National Geographic on the link below

Islands of Rock

Anything and everything in excess destabilizes the balance of nature. Wind energy is considered to be green but unfortunately there is no policy regulation on how many windmills a landscape can sustain. This might turn out to be hazardous in future and definitely raises a question on its sustainability. Windmills have changed the area around Satara in Maharashtra dramatically. Asia’s largest wind farm is located in and around the Chalkewadi plateau in the northern Western Ghats. The lateritic rocks of the region are broken down to construct more windmills and other structures that accompany them. This photo story is about this unique ecosystem, the biodiversity that survives on these isolated plateau islands and the conservation issues associated with it

Marvin & Wendy

This story was created as part of Missouri photojournalism workshop at a small town of Cuba, Missouri. Marvin and Wendy Holland are a couple in their fifties and together they are parents to 16 children. Six biological and ten foster kids and this story is about their life which is surrounded by these children. 

Grasslands OR Wastelands

The high elevation montane grasslands of the western ghats of India are under enormous threat from commercial plantation such as tea, coffee & timber. This story looks at the extent of this threat and the potential way ahead.