1. What triggered your interest in the field of wildlife?
So basically my passion for wild animals started at a very young age, in late 90s. My father had a government job. He got transferred to a small town called Dahanu, we built a home in the outskirts of the city, which was surrounded by forest, and it was the place where I saw a real snake for the first time in my life, I felt in love with that reptile, my curiosity and interest started growing for these reptile’s. But, I had no access to books. There was no internet to learn more about these reptiles. Luckily, we got cable TV and I started watching TV documentaries, which became my source of information. I caught my first snake on my own. It was a cobra that was a fascinating experience and slowly I started understanding that these animals are not as dangerous as we believe they are, since then I started educating myself from every possible source to understand these reptiles and to share that knowledge in society to create a positive impact about these animals.
2. What is your educational background, and why did you choose YouTube as a career rather than any traditional office job?
I am not an indoor guy. I can’t sit in an air-condition office running my fingers on the keyboard. Making videos is the only thing that I can do best. Ever since I remember, I always wanted to have my own TV show where I explore places and execute adventurous expeditions. However, I had no idea how to achieve this dream, so I completed my Masters degree in English literature, which is very contrast to what I do now, and then started to figure
out ways to execute my dream. Later Internet was rising in our country and I learned about YouTube. I thought its a best platform to create content, and the best part is that YouTube is going to pay you for this. so then I built a team of like-minded people and put a lot of sweat equity to create the content and soon we got attention from people.
3. People often compare your videos to TV shows or documentaries. Have you ever thought of shifting to Television?
I had this thought in the back of my mind and we had been in conversation with two of the biggest television channels. unfortunately, we did not come to a deal that would be mutually beneficial for both of us, I would never compromise creative control of my show for a tv deal because then in that case, if the show doesn’t work, the blame will be on my shoulders, so in near future, if we agree on equal terms, we would love to do that, apart from that Indian TV channels are far away from trying new stuff. They are stuck in creating the same category of shows and they are not open to explore new genre. I also believe today people are watching more YouTube or OTT stuff as compared to TV, because
there is variety of content available on these distribution platforms, the best part of YouTube is that it just gives you a complete creative control of your own content.
4. Your channel display’s several Snake videos than other animals. What is the reason behind that and Which has been the deadliest animal encounter till now?
I really like to work with variety of
animals, but surprisingly Indian
viewers are more intereste in
watching snakes. snakes have been fascinating us for centuries. They are mentioned in our history, mythology, everywhere. India is diverse in wildlife but snakes have always been the centre of attraction. At the end of the day, we have to make Videos that people want to see not what we want to see. On the other hand snakes are the animals that humans face more conflicts than any other animal. Every year more than 50,000 people in India die due to snakebites and lakhs of snakes are killed due to people’s fear. That means there is wall in society between fact and belief, a wall of lack of education and that wall can be broken by the weapon of knowledge. Therefore, I think it’s relevant to keep making snake videos to bring a positive impact in society. And Speaking about my deadly encounters, it would make a big list.
5. How many years you have been working with snakes and have you ever gotten bitten by any?
It’s almost 22 years I have been working with these animals and even today, if I see one, my affection towards them has not decreased. Lucky, I am not bitten by any snake in my career and it is because I believe in keeping a fine line of respect between, me and the reptile. They have survived on earth way earlier than even humans existed so they deserve respect. If we are careless while interacting with them, then you might get bitten. Fun fact is that a lot of snake catchers claim to be an expert but they all have got bitten by snakes.I think the real expert is the one who does not injure the animal and the one who does not take any injury from the animal.
6. Speaking about snake rescuers, YouTube has a lot of rescuers. What do you think about their efforts and impact they put on the society?
From human perspective, it’s good because people get to learn and they get to see, but from animal perspective, it’s bad because these so called rescuers exploit animals for videos and views. There is a fine line between a rescuer and catcher. What you see on YouTube, majority of them are snake catchers, they create rescue calls where a guy rescues 10 snakes from a well which is stupid. It’s unreal. They provoke these animals to catch their aggression on camera to prove that these so-called rescuers are daredevil. Conservation is there secondary priority and fame is their primary priority.
The exploitation of these animals on YouTube is increasing day by day.
7. How can Humans make lives of animals easy? How do you involve people in your tasks?
I think there are lot of things that need to be fixed. First of all, we need to target tribal people & educate them and make them understand why conservation is important. I see a lot of organisations conduct awareness programs in corporates and school and colleges located in cities, but that wont work. People in cities may not face any animal conflicts, but people in rural areas they do. So they need to be taught why conservation is important. People in cities don’t cut trees, they don’t hunt animals, but people in rural areas they do, and they do it carelessly. Trust me, I have visited a lot of unexplored locations and I have seen some ridiculous stuff like illegal hunting and smuggling trees. Those things need to be fixed. I have also observed that everyday group of children from rural areas visit forest to hunt small animals and group of adults visit to hunt big animals. They don’t do this because they need to, instead they do this just for fun.
8. Do you have any plans to visit schools and interact with kids to create awareness about wildlife?
Absolutely! however, I know these efforts are not going to make any impact because there is one thing that I hate about our law is that law does not allow anybody to show live wild animals. You are not permitted to allow anyone to touch any harmless wild animal, which I think is ridiculous because until unless you touch these animals, you won’t understand them.
20 years ago someone in my locality allowed me to touch a snake and the animal lover in my soul was born.If I want to create animal lovers like me, then I will have to allow children to touch these animals but the law doesn’t allow, which is hilarious. In foreign countries, that’s not the case, but here we can only show pictures and videos of animals and try to create affection into the hearts of young generation, that’s very difficult.
9. What are your future plans like snake park or snake anti-venom centre?
I wish I could create a park where animals would live in their natural habitat and visitors could visit to see them. Something similar to Jurassic Park, but unfortunately now it is not possible because Indian law does not allow you to keep wildlife in captivity. Except for those zoos which are present from many decades. Apart from that I don’t visit zoos or encouraging people to do so because zoo is a jail for animals, they spend their entire life in a cage. I recommend, you should never visit any zoo. They are torturous. Apart from that, India has enough centres where anti-snake venom is created in sufficient quantity to help snake bite victims.
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