“Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much” – Helen Keller
Sruthi: The Boss Lady
Dr. Sruthi Atmakur-Javdekar is an architect and landscape architect with a PhD in Environmental Psychology from the CUNY Graduate Center, New York City. For over a decade, Sruthi worked as a research associate and project director with the Children’s Environments Research Group (CERG) at the Center for Human Environments (CHE), CUNY Graduate Center. Currently, Sruthi is the founder-director of founder-director of ‘GRIT: environmental design + research studio’ that bridges people and places.
For The Kindness, Sruthi is boss lady and does the final spin before we go to print! She is the sounding board and motivator to keep the team and timelines on track.
Mukul: The Backbone
Mukul Ranbhor is a post graduate in History and carries more than 10 years of experience of Marathi writing. Being the founder-editor of Akshar Maifal a monthly magazine that he curated for 2 years, Mukul is passionate about disseminating global and local wisdom in the Marathi language, for Marathi readers and has been leading a team of authors and other stakeholders for the same.
For The Kindness, Mukul is the backbone and is seeing this entire vision through by being its spine. He handles the tedious jobs of design, print, post and back end paperwork with a smile on his face.
River: The Artist
River is an 18 year old artist who casually dabbles in both traditional and digital art. Having recently graduated high school, they are now taking a year to explore the world and where they fit into it. As an activist, they speak for the trees, their people, and prioritise amplifying voices of those who need to be heard. River hopes that at the end of the day, they will leave this place better than they found it.
For The Kindness, River is the artist who is hand illustrating each piece of art you see in the publication.
Pooja: The Ideator
Pooja R Bhale, the founding director of Protecterra, the mother of The Kindness is a change maker by birth, a conservation biologist by qualification, a spiritual ecologist by experience. She has had only only one passion all her life – the Earth and her beings. She has dedicated her life since she was a young girl to raising the bar of awareness about our impact on the planet.
For The Kindness, Pooja is the ideator who has nurtured this dream for 7 years and brought the team and the vision to life. For this heart child of Pooja’s, she writes the editorial in the voice of her animal companions and also sees through all the rest that is needed for the publication.
Kalyan: The Story Teller
Kalyan Varma is an award winning wildlife filmmaker, photographer and explorer. Over the last 15 years, he has extensively explored most corners of India and has been telling stories about the animals, landscapes and the people. Most of Kalyan’s work is published in international wildlife channels and magazines.
For The Kindness, Kalyan is bring the stories from his real life experiences with those people we rarely hear about.
Vaishnavi: The Opinionator
Vaishnavi Chiddarwar is a professional sports physiotherapist. Writing is her full- time passion and she refuses to call it her hobby. She is a published author of a book titled- Fast-food for Thought. She began her romance with the world at a young age and chose the written word as her primary medium to do so.
For The Kindness, Vaishnavi is the feature writer, bringing her opinions on the theme, through her sharp wit and humour.
Sehr: The Environ-Mentalist
Sehr Raheja is an environmental activist and (good) coffee evangelist. Her day job as a researcher with the NGO Manthan Adhyayan Kendra, studies the impacts of coal fired electricity generation on people and the environment.
For The Kindness, Sehr is bringing to you the interviews and insights from people who spend their lives working on the chosen themes of the month.
Rohan: The Wordsmith
Rohan Atrawalkar moonlights as an analyst with an economic research organisation. He studied at TISS, Hyderabad and is passionate about economics, developmental studies and environment. Rohan is an avid reader and is always up for a conscious conversation on any topic.
For The Kindness, Rohan is giving reviews on content to read, watch and hear. He is also the wordsmith, bringing in the new words for the vocabulary enthusiast in you.
Rahul: The Synergist
Rahul Maniar is a part time digital marketer, full time animal snuggler and an absolute creative genius. He works with a versatile set of brands and companies and is usually the man behind the curtain. While Rahul continuously seeks deeper ways to connect with the environment and all beings, work often pulls him away from reality. He is always seeking ways to be a step closer to the environment reminding him where our allegiances truly lie.
For The Kindness, Rahul is the man who makes it tick for you all, the posts, the subscriptions, the social media, he is the one who makes us look as good virtually as we actually are in print.
A mixture of dedicated change makers based all across the world, coming from diverse backgrounds and upbringings, Team Kindness has come together to co create this piece of art.
