Rohan Chakravarty’s new book ‘Green Humour for a Greying Planet’ conveys hard truths on conservation in comic strips

Be it the human-animal conflict, climate change, poaching, or hunting, author Rohan Chakravarty finds a comic character that makes us chuckle yet takes a dig at the innovative ways that man has wreaked havoc on planet earth

“I’m the grey slender lorris, a nocturnal primate found only in India and Sri Lanka,” announces the lorris himself in a comic strip that features in Rohan Chakravarty’s new book Green Humour for a Greying Planet (Penguin). The primate laments how ‘slender’ in his name refers to his chances of survival especially since his habitat is being incessantly destroyed by high rises. “Mind you. Being a smooth-coated otter is no smooth ride” cries another cartoon as it holds out a placard that spells out the list of conservation threats faced by otters from loss of habitat to dams, and destruction of wetlands for agriculture, to poaching for fun, and water pollution to name a few. Rohan conveys hard truths on ecology, conservation, sustainability, wildlife biology, and even COVID-19 in comic strips that are funny and tragic. The book is a compilation of his cartoons and comic strips that have been appearing in various columns in the print and the web over the course of his 10-year career.