Kobbari
Namita Davey
Imagining our collective climate future can feel like gazing down upon a vast forest of possibilities. In Kobbari, I explore the small moments of care existing in the underbrush and uncover the hope found in the sprouts growing on fallen trees. I wrote this piece while staring up at the skyscrapers of New York City and at the old-growth spruce trees of the Tongass National Forest; the place most touched by humans and a place mostly untouched. Yet whales swim in the Sitka Sound and the East River alike.
Confronted with this dichotomy, Kobbari emerged from a premise that the broken systems we have today trace back to the disconnect between humanity and the rest of the natural world. The story explores how we can heal that relationship and begin to reintroduce ourselves back into the wild. This healing process is mirrored through the struggles of a young girl and her great-grandmother, a relationship hindered by a language and cultural barrier prevalent in the South Asian diaspora.
Kobbari is ultimately about what it means to be a daughter–of a family, of a culture, and of the Earth.
Namita Davey
24, New York, NY
Namita is a writer, technologist, and naturalist exploring paths to a sustainable future and crafting stories that center the South Asian diaspora.
As a computer scientist, she learned to think about systems. How do you construct something around or in place of existing, imperfect architecture? How can you build while leaving sufficient space to incorporate future growth and iteration? She applied the same way of thinking when she returned to the academic world to study climate change, focusing on the relationship between humanity and nature and technology.
As she began working as a naturalist and expedition guide in Alaska, she found herself analyzing and marveling at the universe’s greatest case study in complex systems: nature. Connecting the salmon jumping up out of the water to the old-growth forest, the root networks of forest to the glacially-carved mountains rising up in the distance, the mountains to the flourishing kelp forests, and the kelp back to the salmon preparing for their run upriver. As a student of systems in various forms, she can’t help but imagine better ones for the world around her. Her speculative fiction work focuses on the intersection of technology and traditional ecological knowledge to foster a sustainable and regenerative future.
The essence of this work is a microscopic look at the mundane; a speculative climate future anchored in the daily moments and struggles of normal people. Her understanding of ecological stewardship, animal welfare, and the importance of community-building have been heavily influenced by her Indian heritage and experience as a daughter of immigrants.
Kobbari is an attempt to shout out into the despairing world that no path is fixed in steel, no feeling etched in gold. That relationships can be nurtured into flourishing once more, whether between humanity and nature, or a girl and her great-grandmother.