Game of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau on rescuing snakes, tying rakhis and eating mirchi bajji in India
When Coster-Waldau and I reconnect to Zoom about two weeks later, he is in Kanpur, the last stage of his tour in India, including how Phool, a start-up of Indian biomaterials, translates the waste from the Temple in the soft incense. Before that, he witnessed a conservation team at Visakhapatnam rescue a King Cobra of a village residence. “At 12 feet, it was the largest cobra that the team saw. I really understood why there is fear, the way it moves is another world, “he said, adding that 50,000 people in India are killed each year from snake bites, which signals the need for a better relationship between man and nature.
Fortunately, the actor’s time in Bhitarkarnika d’Odisha’s National Park was heavy with reptiles. He was there to replant mangrove plants which once held the sea of flood on land. Since this has coincided with Rakshabandhan, the inhabitants have even made him attach what he calls a “strip of protective friendship” on small plants.
With his return to Denmark scheduled for the next day, I ask if he takes memories of India. “I have a bottle of water from the Ganges”, he shares, and no, it is not to eliminate his sins or win karmic points. “We were in the high Andes, filming an episode on the replanting of these trees which survive on the water of the glaciers. My wife and I brought a small tree with us in Denmark, and we are very very strong to keep it alive. So I hope that a part of this magic water can help him grow.”
