A journey from rocks to oceans, via lost penguins in Antarctica
Sugata Hazra graduated in geology and began his career with the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. In 1991, he joined Jadavpur University as a teacher, and went on to complete a PhD. Then he headed to Antarctica in 1996, to study this unique landmass that was connected to India before the breakup of Gondwanaland.
“I experienced the endless ocean for 22 days. So much was new to me, from the albatross to penguins. It struck me that here was this vast part of the world I knew very little about. The seas were uncharted territory and that excited me,” he says.
Upon his return, he switched focus from rocks to the seas. Hazra immersed himself in the related interdisciplinary area of oceanography. He is now a professor of oceanography at Jadavpur University.
His inclination to follow one passion and then another, as well as his curiosity about the world, he says, come from his time at the Patha Bhavana school at Santiniketan, the education town established by poet, philosopher and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore in West Bengal in 1901.
The school runs on Tagore’s philosophy of education driven by joy of learning. “As there were no boundaries, we could explore the nature all around us,” Hazra says.
Now 63, his area of focus has shifted again, going beyond oceans to the impact of climate change on coasts and coastal populations too. “Rising sea levels are starting to affect a lot of people on the coasts and life in the sea,” he says. “How the health of the Sundarban delta is affected by salinity and cyclones is also part of my field of study.”
In Purulia district, for instance, he is studying the impact of shifting monsoon cycles and resultant floods and droughts on the yields and livelihoods of marginal farmers. “They are harvesting water, planning crops accordingly and we are aiding and observing this adjustment,” Hazra says.
He still thinks back often to his fourmonth stay in Antarctica. There were unusual lessons he learnt there, he adds.
“The most fascinating but harsh experience was when I once found a penguin that had strayed into the mainland and was starving. I wasn’t allowed to save it. We were not supposed to interfere with the natural cycle there,” Hazra says. “There were birds that survived on lost penguins, so all of it was part of the ecological balance.”