A collection of faces - 100 to be exact

E89: Meet Ishan Shanavas, Graduation, Friends & Family IRL 6 - Boston

Dear Tribe Tilt

This week’s edition comes to you from Boston where we are attending our youngest child’s university graduation. I have been working on this graduation essay for a few weeks. And it has been an emotional journey.

If you read it below, then I found the time between my travels to tie the bows on all my thoughts as I wanted. If it is missing, and you are reading the auto-publish edition, then my focus was on savouring this week-long celebration with our family who are joining us at this special moment in our lifetime journey.

Next week, we will be back to regular programming! See you then. Meanwhile, stay healthy. From there, all else becomes possible.

Karena

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This week’s edition:

• Graduation edition

• Meet a Member: Ishan Shanavas

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Meet a member: Ishan Shanavas

Introducing you to one of the younger members of our Tribe, Ishan Shanavas. Ishan is GenZ. Not yet 20, he is a student at Ashoka University near New Delhi, India. He grew up in Bangalore.

I have been waiting to do a profile on Ishan since I first met him and his inquisitive eye on the world in the last cohort of Write of Passage (WoP9). (You may recall his essays in previous editions of this newsletter.)

You see, he is a wildlife photographer. He photographs tigers and toads. Snakes and birds. And people.

He has just completed one of his most expansive projects - curating 100 faces from across India. Each face comes with a little story.

It is called:

Heros in a 100 faces

One in particular called to me:

© Ishan Shanavas

Here is his excerpt:

Kozhikode, Kerala.

Our ancestral home in Kerala has several coconut trees in its compound. When coconuts are ripe, they can fall down and greatly injure people who stand underneath.

To tackle this, a Koyilettakkaaran, a coconut tree climber (Paravanmaar in southern Kerala), comes and chops the ripe coconuts off the stalk, sending them plummeting down. Gripping the trunk tightly, they climb the 60 ft tall tree.

They also hack off the dry leaves so that they do not accumulate at the top.

Watching them scramble upwards, one’s heart pounds. One misstep and they could fall to their deaths. 

But this does not deter them. They are seasoned professionals, after all. Their toughened hands and feet speak for the years spent in this profession. They defy death every day for a living.

The cost of trimming one tree is a nominal 70 rupees (≅ 1 USD). In addition, they receive a bonus of 2 coconuts per tree.

This is a dying profession. As fewer locals take this job, migrant workers fill their position.

It awes me that they would choose such a dangerous profession. There are many risks involved; paralysis at the very least. As the sole breadwinners, losing their mobility would greatly impact their families’ lives.

They are courageous and yet so humble. I salute them.

I loved the way Ishan described this special profession.

His description spoke loudly to me. Reading it, I am immediately transported back to my first day back in my own village with my own three children. The coconut plucker is one of my kids favourite Goa memories. My cousin took them along as the coconut plucker (Paddekar in Konkani, my regional dialect) skimmed up so many trees, returning with a bounty of ripe and tender coconuts.

As they sipped the cool liquid from the tender coconuts, they started describing their “adventure” to me. I remember the awe, mystery and joy on their faces as they searched for the right vocabulary to describe the speed and agility with which these men shimmy up those trees, using a contraption of coconut coir rope around their feet to give them the traction to go up.

Later, my mother told them how these same men would tap the coconut trees early in the morning, returning with a sweet juice. It was a pleasure to drink at 8am. But by 10am, the liquid would start to ferment - and was used as a rising agent in a number of local dishes. In a different version, I remember my grandmother taking jars of this coconut toddy and dropping a hot clay tile in the liquid to turn it into coconut vinegar used in all our Goan recipes.

Thank you, Ishan, for bringing back that special memory!

Here is the direct link to the full project: https://ishanshanavas.com/portfolio/heroes-in-a-100-faces/

I fully recommend you finding a cozy corner, settling into a comfy chair, grabbing one of your favourite drinks - a coffee or cold drink and savouring each photo. Enjoy the detail he draws out - the wrinkles, the shine in a little boy’s eye, the pride in chopping onions, the detail in a turban, the cultural and religious nuances.

Don’t stop there.

Ishan is an avid wild life photographer and chooses to use this path to in his own climate/conservation journey. I love his black and white photography - left to me I would have him make that his trademark. He also does amazing pencil drawings. And he augments all this visual motherlode with his rich descriptions in words.

If you like his work, please reach out and tell him so. And if you can share his work, ask his permission (as I did) to expose his work to your network.

He is an amazing photographer. But more importantly, he does work such as this to raise the profile on the natural diversity across the world - flora, fauna and folk - and our concerted conservation efforts.

For more on

Ishan Shanavas

visit and subscribe to his weekly newsletter

The Owlet

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Member profiles:

For our many new Tilt Tribe members, welcome!

I often get to be a panel member talking to young students, teachers and school superintendents on the Future of Work. Invariably, the conversation turns to career choices. In my discussions with our Tribe members, I see such a spectrum of ages, professions, careers pivots.

I started profiling our diverse collection of Tribe members a year ago to showcase that we may start in one place, and by following our instincts and interests, end up in another. Or we may have a lifetime career in the field of our passions. Both work.

Previous profiles:

Leo Ariel, Entrepreneur, World Traveller E81
Christin Chong, Chaplain & Kindness Camp E77
Terri Lonier, Solopreneur, Authority by Design E48
David Dvorkin, Edupreneur, Hire Cause E39
Sam Knowlton, Soil Agronomist E37
Kathy Karn, Wildlife Photographer E36
Karena de Souza, Future of Work strategist E35

Can I profile you next?

Thank you for traveling with me, Tribe Tilt. Soon we will return to regular programming.

Till then, stay healthy. From there all else becomes possible.
Karena