I met in January 2005; he had just quit his I T job and was a volunteer naturalist with JLR in K.Gudi then. I did not know, then, that we were seeing a young man at the beginning of a long and momentous journey.

Recently, my friend Radha Rangarajan mentioned a blog-interview of Kalyan

here

I then started hunting for a link to the very first interview of him that I had done, which appeared in the Deccan Herald. I was worried as the link I had was returning a 404 (not found) message, but promptly helped me out with a valid link:

click here

to see the article, heavily edited to conform to the length required.

In 2006, I had not even held a camera in my hands…nor did I know a Prinia from a Munia. I’m glad that I have been learning since those days!

I must save my old articles; it will show me how my writing has developed. I still don’t think of my writing as a career in any way (if I depended on it for a living, I’d starve to death, or have to start writing far more often, which would take away the joy of it all!)

Here is some more coverage of Kalyan:

INW (India Nature Watch), 0601107:

here

His first photography workshop, 290508:

here

and the keynote address at FOSS.in, 291108:

here

I do wish I could interview him again, at this stage in his life, when he is on the national and international stage…..let me see when I can meet this very busy celebrity :)