The Jumbled Mumblings

Morning in the Mountains

2011-11-04T13:24:00.000+05:30

It's been just about five years now since I shot this picture in the Siruvani hills of Coimbatore. I've put it up on my flickr stream, my website, various online photography fora and whatnots, but no one has ever noticed it. No one has ever said, "Woah, wait a minute, I know that from somewhere." I guess nature/landscape photographers today don't know their art history like they used to. Or that this was a lousy execution at trying to copy a great romantic landscape painting. Meh. Anyway, on its fifth anniversary, here is why I personally like it.

Caspar Friedrich: Morning in the Mountains (1821-23?)

The Momaya Classification of Market Participants

2011-10-03T23:46:00.002+05:30

Investor: 2000 points tomorrow are better than 20 points today
Trader: 20 points today are better than 200 points tomorrow
Degenerate Trader: Minus 100 points today are better than no profit/no loss.
Penny Stock Investor: How much worse can it get? (Followed by markets proving that bankruptcy is quite easily attained for a mismanaged company.)

Form over Content? Blasphemy! (?)

2011-08-01T01:20:00.004+05:30

I followed a friend's link to this page on Blake Andrews' blog and was a little miffed that the winner of the Form vs Content poll (in a photograph) was, in fact, form. Iconic images of our times immediately jumped to my mind (man blocking tank in Tiananmen, little Vietnamese girl running from her village being napalm'd, the recent picture of a couple kissing during the Vancouver riots, McCurry's Afghan girl, ...), but before I could mentally send a flurry of vile words in some of the choicest language I know to all the voters, my brain hammered sense into me. The above pictures, iconic though they may be, aren't 'great' images. When it comes to the great, the buck stops at Monsieur Cartier-Bresson. Aquila from 1952; Behind St. Lazare station, Paris; Brasserie Lipp 1969; are all 'everyday' images with only the photographer's composition elevating them to greatness. Even many of Ansel Adams' works are these 'everyday' images (Jeffrey's Pine and Church in Mexico come to mind immediately).

Continuing with this train of thought, I realised that painters can get away with getting truly captivating scenes of everyday sights whereas photographers have to work quite hard at finding that something 'extra' that really catapults the image. (Of course, painters do have the harder job in the first place by nature of their work.) I can't find a finer example of this than Johannes Vermeer's "Street in Delft". A true masterpiece which in photograph form would simply be relegated to the 'good' pile. I would put Albrecht Durer's "Large Turf", Vermeer's (again) "View of Delft" and Correggio's "Portrait of a Man" in the same pile as masterpieces with no amazing/awesome/stupendous shit happening in them. I'm sure I could come up with a tonne of other stuff that support the form argument if I cared to run more web searches, but I don't, so there.

Johannes Vermeer Van Delft - Street in Delft
Can you picture yourself caught staring at the brick-work if this were a photograph?

Damn, I wish I could paint like that.

Indian Forest Service

2011-06-09T02:06:00.000+05:30

Too many times, we hear complaints that the Forest Department is just another governmental department, totally disattached from what it has to do, and completely at the mercy of the polity and vested interests. Too many times, I have seen honest and well-meaning officers left unpromoted and tossed from one place to another because they angered the ruling ministers and MLAs by doing their jobs. Isn't the solution simple? Disconnect the FD from the polity and make it answerable only to an independent body of jurors randomly selected from the citizenry.

Temple elephants

2011-05-28T15:01:00.000+05:30

I first saw an elephant at age seven. It was a temple elephant (from the Perur temple) that was taken house to house, and it was visiting ours. The idea was to donate some money to the temple, give the elephant a banana or sugarcane, and receive the blessings of lord Ganesha. I was a little scared but was mostly astounded by the animal's size, and I still remember looking into her eyes and wondering what she was thinking. When she dropped a load of dung right outside our gates, all the village kids immediately set upon trampling it with their bare feet because it was said to increase your intelligence! My next interaction with another temple elephant happened much later in Vellore during 2008. I handed her a banana and a five-rupee coin. She ate the banana and stretched out her trunk to hand the coin over to her mahout. When the mahout reached out to take the coin from her, she swiped it back. She did this three more times before the mahout lost his patience and shouted at her, and then she obliged.

The (Il)legality of suing the file-sharing masses

2011-05-16T01:45:00.001+05:30

If an internet connection is classified as a means of personal communication (as it justly should be), just like a phone line or the snail mail, it would be illegal for the MPIAA, the RIAA, the ISP or the po-lice to go snooping about monitoring the data that is exchanged without a warrant, which would mean all those cases they have against individual downloaders/file-sharers of copyright content would be thrown out of court. Why isn't this happening? (Yeah, yeah, the US legal system has sold out to all the corporates and all that BS, but my point still stands: isn't it a violation of the privacy act, due process and an unlawful interception if an internet connection is monitored without a warrant? That would certainly turn the tables between plaintiffs and defendants in my book.)

List of unfulfilled professions (in no particular order)

2011-05-14T10:26:00.000+05:30

Book cover designer

Architect/mason/electrician/plumber

Typeface designer

Detective (a la Mr. Holmes)

Professional napper

Salad chef

Fighter jet pilot

Sky diving instructor

WRC driver

Farmer

The guy responsible for pushing the bungee jumpers off

Wine, tea, coffee and cheese taster/quality controller

Professional ski jumper

Expeditioner into unknown lands (in a Landy 110 of course!)

Screenwriter/director/producer/actor/director of photography

Outdoor gear tester

Bounty hunter

Cartoon voice talent

Army sniper

The guy who will bring about world peace and human depopulation

Darth Vader

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Landscape artist (watercolours)

Professional large format landscape photographer

Discoverer and describer of flora and fauna new to science

Elephant whisperer

Moonshine maker and bootlegger

Vintner

Portable lighting wholesaler

Real estate undeveloper

Theatre owner

Used bookshop owner

These are it for now. :o)

Packing for multi-day hikes

2011-05-02T21:45:00.002+05:30

Lots of folk have shown interest in the way I pack and have switched to a similar style with personal changes. For future seekers of backpacking wisdom, I thought I'd write a few lines (very considerate of me, no?). Nothing I have to say is "mine" so to speak: it has all been amalgamated from veteran hikers, backpacking.net boards and the weirdos at Red Chilli Adventure in Rishikesh (running for cover).

Packing is always about sorting and compartmentalisation. When on a hike, you need to pack so that things that are most essential for survival are on you as much as possible so that you can survive with some level of comfort in case you lose most of your gear. (Simple, no? ;) Without further ado, here's the deal.

* My pockets have two folding pocket knives (one for rough work, one with a sharp blade, a Photon flashlight and a flattened and shortened roll of toilet paper wrapped in plastic (great to use as a bandage, tinder to start fire in the wet, napkin and you know what else).

* Hip-pouch: Bic lighter (I can't have enough of these: they light up even after being dunked underwater for a few hours!), 1xAAA-torch, map, one sachet of Electral and P&S camera go into a hip-pouch looped through my belt. That way all this stuff goes where I go. Always.

* Waist pouch: contains notepad+pencil, compass, 2xAA torch, 3xAAA headlamp, water-proof firestarting kit (basically a film cannister with camphor, matches and striker), hand sanitizer, a small tape measure, more sachets of Electral, energy bars, extra pair of shoelaces, band-aids, 2 days' worth of essential medicines and an extra pair of prescription glasses. I like these tinted so they double as sunglasses.

* Daypack: My daypack is a 14-litre backpack that has lots of water bottles (I like to re-use soda bottles: they don't weigh much and don't cost much), 1-litre aluminium mug (to boil water/make tea/coffee/instant noodles), machete, sun hat, wool cap, gloves and jacket/poncho, clean underwear and hand-towel in a tupperware box (for waterproofing), first-aid kit, (use a different kit for daily medicines if you need them) and 600g of instant noodles. Daypack goes into big backpack.

* Big backpack: A generic 70-litre internal frame backpack. Carries the daypack, 10C sleeping bag (with warm and dry clothes on I've been comfortable sleeping in -6 C with this; pretty sure it'll go colder still with a hot water bottle inside and/or a liner), sleeping pad (gets tied outside the backpack if I'm carrying a tent), 2.5L aluminium cookpot with handle, woodstove, spatula, 1L steel thermos flask, change of clothes if preferred, a small repair kit (multitool, duct-tape, hot-melt glue), more water, food, some paracord, toiletries, floaters and a bath towel. (The last three are on the outside pockets for easy reach in case, like me, you like stopping for a dip at streams/lakes en route. I have a carabiner attached to a D-ring on the main straps so I can attach my main wide-mouth "drinking water bottle" to it.

Now, when it comes to backpacking food, I love rice (150g per person per meal YMMV). One can have only so many meals of instant noodles. Rice is easy to carry, easy to cook, makes a tasty and nutritious meal, is cheap, I could go on and on. Some cooking oil, a few veggies and you're all set. Among the veggies I carry, I'm partial to carrots, potatoes and onions because they have little water content hence are light to carry and they keep for quite a few days. I have another little tupperware box that has small film cannisters with spices and other condiments. Cashew nuts and groundnuts are also good to carry - both as a snack and to add to rice or other dishes. Dehydrated dessicated coconut is another thing that I love to carry.

Snacks carried are usually groundnut chikkis (kadlai burfi: toffees made with groundnuts and jaggery). Biscuits leave me dehydrated and thirsty. Dehydrated fruit is also great.

As far as possible, I like to cook on a small open fire. Despite all the claims from manufacturers of ultralight cooking gear, wood is usually the most eco-friendly method of cooking and personal heating even. Add a couple of green twigs into the fire and the smoke will also drive insects away. Not to mention the food tastes great. Except if you're hiking above the treeline, I don't see why one should ever have to use a manufactured fuel to cook with. The inputs and energies needed for its making and transportation are way more than a few twigs and fallen branches needed to run a small woodstove or fire-in-a-pit. All rules regarding responsible use of fire apply here. If you don't know, look it up. And use common sense.

Now, all you folks from the western world will be wondering about my water purification method. It's boiling. Doesn't cost anything, doesn't weigh anything. :)

Weight of Daypack + Backpack (with food) for a 6-day hike is usually around 16 kg. I usually carry at least 6L of water for the first day so it comes to around 22 kg. All that without much being spent on "ultralight" hiking gear.

Invisibility

2011-04-27T22:58:00.001+05:30

Whenever I go to a national park, I see many tourists (especially photographers) dressed up in camouflage pants, camo shirts, camo hats and camo scarves (even a camo handkerchief, in one marvelously entertaining case). One can understand the need to "blend in" with the environment (come to think of it, their environment is limited to the seats of their safari jeeps, so shouldn't they wear clothes that match their seats?), but I think some take things too far. The point I'm trying to make is, while blending in has its bonuses if you're stalking birds and monkeys, it's a completely wasted exercise when you're dealing with most other mammals who lack colour vision (in favour of better vision in the dark) from a safari vehicle. All one has to do is make sure the general tone of your clothes doesn't stand out against the environment (including the safari ride!).

Forest fire management

2011-04-17T01:41:00.000+05:30

In forest-fire management circles, controlled annual burns are generally considered good practices because they apparently decrease the fuel load as it builds, preventing large build-ups and then large, uncontrolled fires. My question is, why would there be a large buildup of fuel loads if they weren't burnt? Wouldn't the decomposers (termites, wood boring beetles, etc) be doing their jobs and returning deadwood to nutrients in the soil and carbon?

Whose lake is it anyway?

2010-09-03T20:11:00.004+05:30

Coimbatore, the third largest city of Tamil Nadu is situated on the banks of the river Noyyal and has a network of natural and man-made wetlands interconnected to each other and the river Noyyal dating back to 1200 AD. Some of these are under the authority of the Public Works Department, while 8 lakes that fall under the Coimbatore Corporation limits have recently been leased by the Coimbatore Municipal Corporation from the PWD. Traditionally, these lakes were sources of fresh water for domestic and agricultural use but in recent years due to rapid urbanisation they are being used only by marginalised people living in the vicinity for domestic use, as grazing grounds for subsistence herders, by farmers for irrigation seasonally and also for fishing. They still play a very important role in regulating the water levels in the Noyyal and preventing floods during excess rains in the city apart from underground aquifier recharge. Due to the unregulated and unsustainable extraction of groundwater in the city in recent years, their roles as water-table rechargers is one of the most important today. These wetlands and their drains are also serving as ad-hoc sewage drains (untreated domestic and industrial effluents) resulting in moderate to heavy pollution levels.

Anthropogenic uses apart, these lakes are also used by resident and migratory birds throughout the year. Large congregations (>300 individuals) of Threatened birds like the Spot-billed Pelican and Near Threatened birds like the Painted Stork regularly use these lakes for feeding, breeding, roosting and nesting. A study conducted jointly by researchers from SACON, Bharathiar University and PSG College of Arts and Science from June 2004 to September 2006 reports 116 species of birds using the Singanallur Tank alone.

In a public meeting held on 14th August 2010 at the Coimbatore Collectorate with attendance of the Mayor of Coimbatore Corporation, District Collector of Coimbatore and Commissioner - Coimbatore Corporation, a presentation was made by Scott Wilson India Pvt Ltd and Almondz Global Securities Ltd that proposed privatisation of the eight lakes that fall in the city limits (Narsampathy, Krishnampathy, Selvampathy, Kumaraswamy, Selvachinthamani, Coimbatore big tank, Valankulam and Singanallur) along with a rejuvenation proposal. Also proposed under this Build-Operate-Transfer scheme are construction projects like urban health resorts and spas, food courts, water theme parks, aquarium, planetarium, bird park, etc., in and around the wetlands.

It is questionable in the first place for the Corporation to even consider privatisation of a common public resource that is essential to the livelihood of many marginalised people. It also seems ill-advised to hand over the 'rejuvenation' and maintenance of these wetlands - crucial wildlife habitat and ecologically fragile and valuable areas - to a private corporation with no history of such successful projects without any public or governmental checks and balances. Some of the proposed 'rejuvenation' activities include draining, dredging and desilting of the wetlands to increase water storage capacities. This will destroy the aquatic fauna and flora, disturb the migratory birds and result in the transformation of the wetland from an ecosystem to a sterile water storage tank. Furthermore, the large construction projects proposed will have to rely on huge footfalls to be commercially viable, well beyond the carrying capacity of these wetlands, putting immense pressure on the ecosystem and the biodiversity it harbours and will contribute to irreversible damage, not just in terms of ecology, but even economy as the two are one and the same.

Tanks, Lakes and Wetlands of Coimbatore City

2010-09-03T02:59:00.005+05:30

Just a Google map outlining Coimbatore's water bodies: artificial and natural. I used to treat the wetlands of Coimbatore simply as places one had to go to watch water birds. That view has changed and different feelings have emerged since it came to light in a public meeting that our dear city administration is planning to auction off the rights to eight of our lakes to private corporations who will do all they can to sterilise the lakes of all life and then charge the good citizens of Coimbatore (and others who happen to drop by) an entry fee to see the 'beautiful' bird park (just one of the mega construction projects they've proposed) after they've driven away all the natural, wild, migratory and threatened bird life from them (to say nothing of the plants, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, insects, spiders and small mammals). If only I could huff and puff and blow them away.

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Do you like the thing that holds you back?

2010-05-07T00:45:00.005+05:30

Would you like to be on a leash, for instance? (BDSM jokes apart!). Isn't it amazing how human society and its norms change the behaviour of animals—dogs especially? Everyone's come across the dog who is overjoyed on seeing its 'owner' reach for the leash: that could only mean it's walky time! The leash, made for the very purpose of restricting freedom of movement, sends a dog into a fit of joy and hard tail-wagging because it means freedom from the restricted environs of its home. But while the dog is free to do what it wants to at home, on the leash its movement is quite restricted and dependent on the person in control of that leash. Yet, it chooses the leash over freedom at home. So do we. Governments, institutions and the society at large, almost always give individuals the leash treatment. One step forward and five back. Some petty allowances here and there in exchange for taking away some really important rights. And we're usually happy and thankful for this.

Come, join the SPBA!

2010-01-15T13:27:00.005+05:30

Have you noticed, that ever since the economic liberalisation in the nineties, slowly but surely, public toilets in India have gone from the "Indian" style to western ceramic potty affairs. I think us Indians are great at aping all the bad things from the west and ignoring all the good things they have to offer. Bad thing: Western toilets. Good thing: If you're gonna have western toilets, you might as well have toilet paper. But, no. We just refuse to use toilet paper (spicy food?). Result: The public loos are sloshed floor to ceiling with water and so are the toilet seats as a result of the mug-and-water method. All this water is a dirt magnet with people walking in and out from all sorts of places with all sorts of stuff stuck to their footwear soles. When you really have to go, you're left debating whether to brave holding on or face the dirty loos. A great solution to this paper vs water problem would be a bidet. Bidets (or pichkari in North India; not pichakari in South India) are the best invention ever in the history of humankind after fire, wheels and running water. Such a simble solution, but no takers. Come, help in the ridding of this social evil by joining the Society for the Propagation of Bidet Adoption. It's a noble cause, and your karma shall be given positive credits, redeemable not only in your afterlife, but every time you use a public loo.

A bright and shiny winter's day!

2010-01-07T12:08:00.000+05:30

The WABA (Wear A BeArd) Foundation

2009-11-18T09:41:00.000+05:30

People everywhere keep asking me why I have a beard. My extended family, friends I haven't met since high school and even new acquintances, all wonder about it. The answer is I have a beard because most men naturally have a beard! What's so complicated about that to understand? It's just like hair on your head; it's already there, one doesn't have to do anything for it. Why don't people shave their heads as well, as a corollary? The beard, being a great insulator, also keeps my face warm during winters and cool during the heat. It's also totally eco-friendly because it can be maintained simply with a pair of scissors, without having to use and dispose metal and plastic razors. Also, it makes me look wise beyond my years. (I think!) :-)

Of forest dwellers and such...

2009-10-03T17:11:00.005+05:30

The talk about 'alternative development' or 'sustainable development' is quite interesting these days. The NGOs that usually make recommendations to governments about what can be done so that rural communities continue to lead their relatively simpler lifestyles that are directly dependent on the wilderness areas around them as a means of promoting the protection of these wilderness areas through stakeholdership will recommend that funds be donated/allotted and/or legislation be passed to secure that community's way of life, and they will lobby for rights to the community over the forest that they are stakeholders of. The point that they miss completely is that even though current stakeholders might be interested in safeguarding their forests and making sure only sustainable quanta of non-timber forest produce (NTFP) is harvested from them, there's no guarantee that future generations who inherit this stakeholdership will do the same. Another moot point is also that if an ad-hoc village committee is in charge of the forest around their village, it is a possibility that bad management decisions can be made with the best of intentions. Unlike the evolved system of centralised and state-owned forest management, village committies will not have access to research and data to base their decisions on (this is not to say the centre doesn't screw up. They do, and big time at that. But there are certain safeguards and corrections can be made with higher intervention). And even if they do manage to set limits to NTFP harvests in the name of sustainability, it is only so that humans can continue to sustainably harvest material with nary a care for the wildlife inhabiting the forest. (A good example would be honey collection from wild beehives in southern India. Even though there are ancient laws passed on from father to son about what kind of hive to harvest and what kind to leave untouched, most of the extractable honey is collected and sold into the free market with little of it left to bears - whose main diet during the nonfruiting season happens to be honey. Bears are also further affected by collection of deadwood. Deadwood is essential for the existence of termites in a forest. Termites feed on the dead and fallen wood and return organic matter back into the soil. Termites also happen to be another major part of bear diet. No deadwood, no termites, no bears. Only a small example.)

Beyond all this talk of sustainability, one also forgets about the people concerned. Do they want to continue with their way of living or do they want healthcare, schools, electricity, food and water security, toilets, pukka roofs that don't need to be replaced every year, insurance, access to the internet and telecommunications, news, information and entertainment? Why should someone who has access to (and is a user of) all this make recommendations that basically dictate the absence of these very things from a community of people who happen to be physically and financially far off from these things? Why not ask them what they'd like first? As long as human communities continue to have access to the 'free' market of the open world (most 'tribals' do, only a few like the Jarawas of the Andamans continue to live disconnected from all but the most primitive technology - one reason why their population hasn't exploded like the rest of the world and they can actually be said to be living 'with' nature), continue to change their environment to raise animals and crops, get diseases and need cures, get bitten by snakes and need antivenin, they cannot be given special permissions and rights to the forests they live in. With the little forest we have remaining, we cannot continue to add infrastructure and services into it. People can adapt to a change in lifestyle but animals and the forest cannot. I sit in a coffee shop as I write this, a place where I can buy the cheapest item on the menu and meet with a dozen of my friends until it's closing time and use the internet for free. I can walk down a few blocks into a multiplex and expose myself to a plethora of cinema from various corners of my country and the world. Why would I not want the 'tribal' people to have access to the same if they chose so?

Ideally, sustainable societies would not have advanced technology such as computers and the internet, because 'jobs' in sustainable societies would be directly linked to the environment. I can only imagine "technological advancement" being made under capitalism because it calls for bigger, better, faster of everything. But considering where we are currently, it'd be imprudent to call for forest-dwelling peoples to "go back to nature" and avoid what the current world has to offer. Today, the right to internet access is equivalent to the right to information. We cannot keep asking them to be where they are and continue their 'sustainable' (but impoverished and meagre) existence. It would be both, impudent and imprudent of us to ask them to go back to using their traditional systems of medicine for the diseases created by contact with the rest of the world. It would be equally imprudent and impudent to ask them to skip the 'modern' education system and stick to their traditional knowledge, for that would leave future populations at a huge disadvantage versus the rest of the world. What would work best in today's scenario is a system that gives the right to forest dwelling communities to keep ownership of their land (governed by strict land use regulations curbing any commercial activity and/or serious landscape modification) while at the same time providing for them residence and services in nearby towns and cities. It is the only way their children will be brought up at minimal disadvantage vis-a-vis children from towns and cities, while at the same time, exposing them to their homeland (the forests) and making sure they never get alienated from it. This, I think, is much better than the system we use today where we give them 'jobs' in the name of NREGS and other trivial jobs with the hospitality/tourism industry which only makes them reliant on an outsider (a capitalistic outsider!) to continue living in their homeland.

Management of the forests, on the other hand, needs to be taken away from the exclusive domain of the Forest Department (Because, seriously, the FD does not consist of conservation biologists or police. The forests need a combination of the two for proper management and protection.) and must be shared by a committee/board consisting of stakeholders (i.e, the people, not corporations), the Forest Department (whose role would be limited to protection) and conservation biologists who would present all management options. No management decisions would be made without hearings, with opinions drawn from peers and public. That would be my ideal forest.

Tallying pollution

2009-10-03T17:09:00.001+05:30

When calculating total greenhouse gas emissions of a country, (the majority of which are emitted by industry), the emissions by export oriented industries have to be debited from the emitting country and credited to the countries who are importing these products. Perhaps they should seriously start thinking about the stuff they consume and the quantity in which they do so, these 'developed' nations.

2009-10-02T08:44:00.002+05:30

Waiting at the Ramnagar railway station for my train to Delhi. I'm in the waiting lounge, facing the door with my back against one wall that has been decorated with a 12x8-foot print of a tiger. (It's very obvious that Corbett is the reason for Ramnagar's current state of finances.) The tiger has me in its claws and it's hard to escape.

The toilets for men and women are right next to each other with only 'stree' and 'purush' written in Devnagri script on their doors. If I couldn't read Hindi, it'd not be unlikely to find me walking into the women's loo, only to be chased out by overweight sardarnis brandishing sharp stilettos.

Do they want me to register or not?

2009-04-25T17:05:00.002+05:30

Was trying to register at Mail.com and this is what I got. Tried refreshing the captcha image but it kept spewing out incorrigible ones like this. I'm sure it's a not very subtle way to say they're not accepting new registrations right now.

Of fools and gold

2009-04-18T09:16:00.002+05:30

If an alien civilisation were to visit earth and observe our goings on, they'd be quite amused by the fact that all trade and finance on earth happens on the basis of gold - a metal quite useless apart from some limited use in the electronics industry. It's amazing how gold developed as the de rigueur measure of monetary exchange across various peoples all over the globe, all independent of each other. Shouldn't we be elevating the value of something else to the level of gold, something that is much more precious? Say, clean air, clean water, fertile soil, healthy forests and freedom of speech, thought and being?

Anamalais mammal census trip report

2009-03-08T00:11:00.005+05:30

February/March 2009

http://dmomaya.com/as0209/grasshills_survey_0209.html

If pictures don't seem to load completely/are blurred, please refresh the page.

Comments welcome!

Shendurney bird census, February 2009

2009-02-22T17:30:00.009+05:30

Found out quite late about the census, but luckily for me Waders and Warblers of Trivandrum had co-organised this census with the forest department staff, so I got in thanks to Susanth sir. Reached Shendurney close to eight in the evening on Friday, 6th of February 2009. Used the dorm there to sleep overnight and everyone got split up into groups. I got allotted to the Dharbhakulam range of Shendurney WLS. Team members were Rohith, Baiju sir, and Ninad Manjure. We were taken to a range called Rosemala by Jeep from Shendurney early the next morning. The ride was approximately 30km but took nearly 2 hours. The road is an off-road enthusiast's dream come true, river crossings included. Dharbhakulam is about 2.5km from Rosemala but the trek there took nearly 3 hours. It's the closest I've been to climbing nearly vertical.

The forest canopy between Rosemala and Dharbhakulam

The accommodation at Dharbhakulam is unmatched. A green tin-sheet shed stands in a 20x20 metre patch of land facing an emerald green lake surrounded by mountains on 3-1/2 sides. You could almost mistake it for a volcanic crater lake. The shed is surrounded by a 10-foot-deep moat. One crosses the moat using a makeshift timber-log bridge. The local guides who assisted us were from Rosemala and were excellent cooks. All meals were vegetarian, made in coconut oil with plenty of grated coconut added. Rice was brown and paraboiled.

Dharbhakulam shed

View from Dharbhakulam shed

This was the first time Dhrabhakulam was allotted a place in the census and it felt great to be pioneers, albeit not very big ones. Habitat was a mix of dense evergreen, mixed deciduous and degraded grassland/dry deciduous towards the Tamilnadu side, 3km north-west of the shed. Bird-wise there were no surprises. Of note were plenty of Vernal Hanging Parrots Loriculus vernalis flying about noisily and also plenty of Black-crested Bulbuls Pycnonotus melanicterus gularis (a.k.a. Ruby-throated Bulbul), Malabar Grey Hornbill, Orange-headed Ground Thrush, Malabar Trogon (we spotted a female at very close range), Blue-faced Malkoha Phaenicophaeus viridirostris, Black Eagle, Common Kestrel, Great-eared Nightjar Eurostropodus macrotis, Grey Nightjar Caprimulgus indicus, Blossom-headed Parakeet Psittacula roseata, Emerald Dove, Forest Wagtail Dendronanthus indicus, Tickell's Blue Flycatcher, an unidentified Brown Flycatcher, Shikra Accipiter badius, Black-Shouldered Kite Elanus caeruleus (we spotted a sub-adult flying over a gorge), Booted Warbler Hippolaias caligata, Blyth's Reed Warbler Acrocephalus dumetorum, Little Cormorant, Cattle Egret, White-breasted Waterhen, Greenish Warbler Phyloscopus trochiloides, Edible-nest Swiftlet Collocalia fuciphaga, plenty of Asian Fairy Bluebirds Irena puella (m and f), Golden-fronted Leafbird Chloropsis aurifons, Grey Junglefowl, Common Iora, Black Drongo, Rufous Babbler Turdoides subrufus, Hill Myna, Common Myna, Puff-throated Babbler Pellorneum ruficeps, Indian Scimitar Babbler Pomatorhinus horsfieldii, Jungle Babbler, White-bellied Blue Flycatcher, Brown Hawk Owl Ninox scutulata, Purple Sunbird, Purple-rumped Sunbird, Little Spiderhunter Arachnothera longirostra, Plain/Nilgiri Flowerpecker (?) and Black-rumped Flameback Dinopium benghalense.

Snakes spotted were the Malabar Pit Viper Trimeresurus malabaricus and the Nilgiri Keelback Amphiesma beddomei, which was a lifer for me. It's a beautiful snake with dark brown colouration that transluscends to golden brown when backlit. It's the forest equivalent of the Checkered Keelback and is found along forest streams and wet, rocky banks. Diet is mostly toads and is largely terrestrial.

The Beddome's Keelback or Nilgiri Keelback Amphiesma beddomei

A. beddomei in a defensive position

Backlit body

The Nilgiri Keelback moving in habitat

Malabar Pit Viper T. malabaricus on a twig

Other reptiles spotted were a few sightings of Roux's Forest Lizard Calotes rouxii, plenty of Otocryptis beddomii Kangaroo Lizards in various colourations (see montage below), a Hemidactylus frenatus (Asian House Gecko) in an abandoned house, and an unidentified gecko belonging to the Cnemaspis genus from a patch of forest with dense evergreen cover, ferns and a stream running close by. Plenty of Mabuya skinks too.

Roux's Forest Lizard, Calotes rouxii

Unidentified Cnemaspis gecko

Closeup of the Kangaroo Lizard O. beddomii

O. beddomii for size

A montage of different individuals of the Western Ghats Kangaroo Lizard Otocryptis beddomii, also known as the Indian Kangaroo Lizard.

Butterflies we got to see were plenty of Southern Birdwings including a mating pair; Tamil Lacewing; Malabar Rose; Red-spot Duke male basking; a few Clipper sightings; Bamboo Treebrown; Blackvein Sergeant; Suffused, Immaculate and Water Snow Flats; Fulvous Pied Flat; unidentified palm darts; Red Helen; Commander; Cruiser; Tamil Yeoman; Common Albatross; Gram Blue; Angled Pierrot; Common Cerulean; Tiny Grass Blue; Southern Rustic and Common Evening Brown. Common Rose, Blue Tiger, Glassy Tiger, Dark Blue Tiger, Double-branded Crow, Common Crow, et al were also commonly seen.

Gram Blue Euchrysops cnejus mudpuddling

Tiny Grass Blue Zizula gaika

Unidentified Flash

An unidentified species of crab was also seen in a shallow, fast stream. Also sighted was a Bottle-green Scorpion, about 15cm in length.

One unidentified frog near a marshy pond.

Baccaurea courtalensis (mooti pazham in Malayalam). The fruit is edible and is harvested by the Rosemala dwellers.

Unidentified flora:

Other critters spotted were Red Cotton Stainer bugs, shield bugs, and a species of harvestmen of brown colouration (Opilionidae).

Red Cotton Stainer bugs (nymph)

A Harvestman (class: Arachnida order: Opiliones)

No direct sightings of mammals. Elephant trumpets were heard twice, once from north-east of the shed on the 7th afternoon and from the north-west on the same evening. Dung was found in plenty, but was more than 3 weeks old in all cases. Also spotted scat of a leopard, again older than 4-5 weeks. One spot had been dug up, appearing to be the handiwork of a bear. No signs of wild boar, gaur, spotted deer. Sambar prints were found along a dry rivulet.

Misc images:

The Continuing Story of Dhingu

2009-02-11T05:01:00.005+05:30

... continued from my older post Yarn.

soon the sleep over came dhaval and, dhaval's eyes shut. when dhaval wake up all jungle gone. gone. "gone?" you ask. yes, gone. dhaval could'nt explian it. now, how could whole jungle just poof? in it's placing dhaval was middle of desert, with sand and well, sand. now dhaval thinking he in pickle. what he do in desert? but dhaval resuming journey thinking there be different kind of beest in desert. dhaval not thinking about water because dhaval hate washing face. dhaval think it waste of time. soon dhaval meet the desert llama. llama say to dhaval to walk east to go to vilage where there be lotsa beest. dhaval insist he not interested in domestified beasts, he wanna see wild beests. llama scratch his chin where he would have a beard and think for sometime. soon, light in llama head glow and llama say to dhaval to head west, to africa, where wild'beests grew in the thousands. dhaval like the sound of it so headed for nearest vilage. there dhaval mount domestified beest of the desert and make journey to nearest town. there dhaval catch bus (not easy task, but dhaval very great and adept at all things) and head to nearest city. from the nearest city dhaval head to a city far far away and then hop on to sheep (not of desert) to catch the westward wind and sail to africa. dhaval thought it be prudent to read up on the good doctor's writings. dhaval dug into his pack to find book but to his dismay found a copy of dr. zhivago instead. dhaval slap his forehead and tell to himself that next time he not entrust buying book and packing bag to his mother.

... to be continued.

Obama, Biden and Osama Bin Laden

2009-01-23T20:18:00.002+05:30

The US President, the US Vice-President (candidate?) and one of the top terrorists in the world, all have names that rhyme with each other. I'd love a numerologist's opinion on that.

2009-01-10T19:44:00.001+05:30

Catch

2008-12-17T13:32:00.001+05:30

Yarn

2008-11-03T21:12:00.003+05:30

One upon a timing, in a land not very far far away, live dhingu. dhingu was be unasuming and had small mouth too and big ear also, but possessessed untold power. one morning, dhingu go to school, and in the play ground big smely rufian steel his name and run. dhingu sad, dhingu cry, dhingu go to class and slap teacher. teacher shout 'DHAVAL!'. and dhingu get new name DHAVAL. just look at pichar of dhingu, it are mesmerizing na?

dhaval do many powerfull activity. he wash face, tie shoe lace, vanquish legions of beast. and did we mention wash face? dhaval aura have strange sound like nuclear reactor core. it haunt all cultist at night. hence reason for insomnia. but tis good. then dhaval t shirt. they having powerfull cryptic mesage, even simple 'f#%k you' writen in anshunt script. example - "awesome!". dhaval able to dodge bullet, yezdi, yamaha, jawa, sound wave, bag of puke, question in board exam exetera. do not laugh on reading above text the great one will swalow you whole.

one night dhaval being insomniac was wanting to going to explore the jungle round dhaval's home. but night being dark and dhaval not having light waiting for fool mun. so that one night, the fool mun one, dhaval gotten up and snake out of house. dhaval roamed jungles all night in hoping to watch legions of beast. but beasts know dhaval coming and scared and hiding. in searching dhaval running into litle boy from querila. little boy say he lost. he roams jungle day and night. in fact, last night he stumbling upon a temble in the jungle. the temble was having stachoos of big demon that make litle boy from querila tremble. he tremble so baad that dhaval taking pity on litle boy from querila and took home and give hote kowfee. when litel boy trembling stop dhaval resume interupted quest. soon dhaval grow tired and sitted by a stream to resting.

.. to be continued.

Performance anxiety.

2008-08-28T15:21:00.004+05:30

It was evening and the forest canopy over the national highway running through Bandipur and Mudumalai NPs provided enough shade to warrant headlights. Traffic was intermittent.

It is not unusual for people to have pulled over their cars on the side of the road to better see any wildlife that they had been lucky enough to spot. In fact, it is the norm to slow down when approaching a car that's pulled over and try and see for oneself the elusive wildlife that the first driver was fortunate to see. One stumbles upon elephants, bears, leopards and even tigers in this manner. There was one such queue of cars on the side of the road, and inherently, we too slowed down to check out what it was that had been spotted this time. We kept driving and slowly passed the three or four cars lined up behind the lead car that had stopped. Crawling up to the lead car, we realised what it was. Not a too uncommon sight usually, but getting undeserved and embarassing attention this time: the driver of the car that had stopped first had to pee, and now, unfortunately, was doing so in the glare of at least four pairs of headlights upon him.

Trip Report - Nilgiris 2nd August 2008

2008-08-07T22:05:00.003+05:30

I was having dinner with my friend Suraj Kumaar, of the DiscoverWild Foundation (www.discoverwild.in), and we were discussing how we had absolutely nothing to do on a Friday night. So, without further ado, we decided we'd hit the Nilgiris right then and there to see how our luck turned out to be. After all, unearthly hours of the morning before sunrise are always the best for wildlife viewing.

We left Coimbatore at about 11.30pm and hit the foothills of Mettupalayam around 1am of the Saturday. We proceeded up to Ooty via the Burliar-Coonoor road and made slow progress. Traffic was unbelievable at that unearthly hour with a vehicle crossing almost every 3 to 5 minutes. Sometime between 2am and 2.30am when Suraj was catching up on a nap, about 4-6km before the town of Aruvankadu (the Cordite factory) I saw a leopard cross the road in front of us, having come up from a steep slope, almost a drop, on our left. I turned the car around on the road to try and continue seeing it, but by then it had climbed the slope to our right and was making its way up through the undergrowth. Suraj awoke on feeling the car slow and only got to hear the sounds of bushes parting and leaves swaying indicating the cat's progress. This leopard was about average in size, that is all I could conclude. We didn't have a spotlight with us, so the car's headlights were our only source of light.

Continuing up towards Coonoor, we refuelled and decided to keep heading toward Ooty as originally planned. Once at Ooty, we proceeded toward the Sighur ghat road and went down all 36 hairpin bends of the 17km to Masinagudi in just over an hour. It was still only about four in the morning so we drove on toward Theppakadu and Kargudi. (The road from Masinagudi joins up the Mysore-Ooty NH at Theppakadu; on the left lie Kargudi, Gudalur, Ooty and on the right the NH goes on to Bandipur and towards Gundulpet and Mysore.) Between Theppakadu and Kargudi we spotted a male gaur and his brothel contentedly chewing grass in the clearings on either sides of the national highway. Then came a resort jeep loaded with tourists who used blinding camera flashes and spotlights to drive the herd into the trees and undergrowth. Finished with that, we turned around and headed toward Bandipur. En route, we made many sightings of Sambar, usually loners or couples. We then came across a whole herd of them, at least four juveniles and four adults and more in the bushes on either sides. At the Bandipur reception centre, it was still dark and at 5.30am, we were at least a half hour away from any kind of safari. So we decided to drive on until the end of the Bandipur NP & WLS and return in time for the first safari ride. On our return, about 30m from the Bandipur reception, a very beautiful, healthy (fat, even), shiny, young male leopard crossed the road from our left, went to a tree on our right, sniffed at it for a while and then marked it and went off into the bushes. Again, Suraj had to be shaken awake and in his sleepy excitement, he got a picture only of the leopard's aura. You wouldn't believe it but the highlighted part of the picture is the leopard, or rather, his aura. :D

I wanted to shoot and record the fellow too, but just seeing him all shiny in the headlights, going about marking his territory, paralysed my brain into sluggishness regarding anything to do with taking my eyes away from him.

It was six by now and we were issued our safari van ride tickets to a fully packed van filled with kids and wannabe wildlife photographers who wanted a crash course on nature photography in 5 minutes from us, probably fooled into thinking we were real pros and veterans simply because we were the only quiet ones on board (my pioneer beard would've helped too). After a much uneventful van ride (sightings being only of spotted dove, wild boar, spotted and sambar deer, coromandel grey langur and peacock), we came across a ruddy mongoose (who also could be comfortably termed fat), who scurried away because the van driver went too close to it. A few metres down the road, we spotted another ruddy mongoose who also scurried away because he was of the very nervous disposition kind. Then, nearly at the end of the van ride in the park's eastern parts behind the reception centre, we spotted a pack of wild dogs—eight of them —out for the hunt. They were headed west, which we didn't realize at the time. As soon as we got off the van at the end of the safari, we wanted to get out of being amidst so many noisy people and got in the car and raced off south towards Mudumalai but had to come to a complete stop in a couple of kilometres because we saw the same wild dog pack now crossing the main road, going to the western part of the park. After the crossing they decided to hang around and have a little play session on the grassy sides of the muddy park road that runs perpendicular to the main NH passing through Bandipur and Mudumalai (that tourists aren't allowed into). Mock fights ensued for a while after which I guess hunger calls couldn't be left unanswered so they resumed their hunt, walking off into the forest.

Next up on our plates was a small herd of elephants, all female, two adults and one sub-adult. One of the females was very emaciated and weak-looking, with a modified gait too. We kept a distance of about 20m and they were peaceful enough, despite fast-paced trucks crossing their paths. This herd then moved off into the eastern parts of the teak plantation about 4km south of the Mudumalai reception at Theppakadu.

Our safari ride at Mudumalai was uneventful except for one quick sighting of a male gaur, who, for some unknown reason, decided to bolt on hearing us approach, and also a lone barking deer who also bolted, as is the case usually with their kind. The van driver stopped the van at the MGR watchtower on a cliff which gave a wonderful view of the Moyar falls and river.

The rest of the day was uneventful, and as we headed back we decided to take the Manjur-Karamadai road down to Coimbatore. Before Manjur comes the village of Chamrajnagar. Chamrajnagar's claim to fame used to be its temple and boarding school but all that took a backseat when I had a sip of their most amazing Assam-blend tea at the Chamraj tea estate's official tea shop. I'm not usually a fan of Assam-blends but this one had me floored on the first sip. The tea is sold 20% cheaper than MRP at this little shop, which sits by a shola on one side and the tea factory on the other, the beautiful aroma of tea being processed wafting up at you as you wait for your tea to be served. We also spotted a Besra Sparrowhawk (probably female) that was kind enough to visit the tree opposite the tea store while we having our chai.

The rest of our journey to Manjur was uneventful except for the usual array of jungle crows, pied bushchats, indian robins, great tits, house sparrows, hill mynas, brahminy starlings and oriental white-eyes. About 10km before Manjur village we came across the body of a bonnet macaque, his skull crushed by a passing vehicle.

This is what happens when wild animals are fed by humans. And this is why speed limits in forest roads should be strictly enforced.

The road from Manjur to Karamadai takes one through a variety of habitat, starting with tea cultivation and ending with scrub jungle at Karamadai, with moist and dry deciduous patches in-between. Very uneventful all the way to Coimbatore, except for the fact that most village men we encountered on the road in Karamadai were walking in drunken stupor. It was festival time, we learnt, which explained all.

Route: Coimbatore-Mettupalayam-Coonoor-Ooty-Sighur-Mavanalla-Masinagudi-Mudumalai-Bandipur-Mudumalai-Masinagudi-Mavanalla-Sighur-Ooty-Lovedale-Chamrajnagar-Manjur-Karamadai-Coimbatore.

2008-07-24T17:58:00.000+05:30

It is unwise to pay too much, but it is worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money, that is all. When you pay too little you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the things it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot, it cannot be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better. There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell for a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only, are this man's lawful prey.

- John Ruskin

Mosquito repellent

2008-07-14T01:04:00.001+05:30

Right, so I was riding to office as usual, except it was close to seven in the evening. There's a lot of farmland that I ride past if I take a shortcut, which I did. Now, near one such farm appearing to grow what was tobacco (Coimbatore does have a few small farmers cultivating tobacco as a seasonal crop, but very limited amounts as the major crops are almost always sugarcane, paddy, bananas, coconuts and maize), I saw what was a huge bonfire with a lot of smoke coming from it outside the huts of the peasants who work on that farm. On going closer it smelt familiar, yet I couldn't put my finger on the smell. When I was upon the fire I recognised that one of the peasants was stoking it, adding more leaves into it. Tobacco leaves. When I asked him about the leaves with a look of stupendous amazement, he said green 'baccy leaves are great mosquito repellents! I didn't hang around to argue that since the whole village got high this way, a few mosquito bites wouldn't go noticed. No sir, not at all. This would be a guy who, despite being nearly at the lower end of the financial strata of society, would still have access to newspapers at his local chai and grocery store. Don't vernacular newspapers carry stuff such as how tobacco is harmful to health?

Brain infection

2008-06-09T23:14:00.004+05:30

My teenage cousins have been visiting and they've been eating my brains for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So nothing to blog for now, take a look at the evolution of the Tamil script from the anshunt times to now if you're interested.

From the government museum at Fort Vellore, Vellore, Tamilnadu, India.

The Snake Who Went To Hell And Came Back

2008-04-17T12:28:00.007+05:30

There's a great story behind this picture. It gives us an insight into the amazing conditions that can be tolerated by these amazing reptiles. Except for the destruction of habitat and killings by humans.

We were travelling down a hilly road in Nelliyampathy, a small hill town in Palakkad district of Kerala. Nelliyampathy is a plantation town with coffee and cinnamon and orange orchards and limited amounts of tea. Nelli has vast tracts of forests interspersed with this cultivation. It's also contiguous with the forests of Top Slip and Parambikulam and very much a part of the Anamalais. The north-western part, to be exact. So there we were, coasting in the car slowly amidst a terrain of mostly rock and grass with patches of moist deciduous shola in-between. The road was narrow and had room for only one vehicle. It wasn't blacktop or with any kind of pavement, just a couple of worn out mud and rock tracks with a strip of grass down the middle. All of a sudden there's a green vine snake lying in the middle of the road, seeming to be the innocuous stick broken off a green shrub. So we get off and get a brief photo session but before we can get more shots, there's a jeep approaching from the opposite side. Not only do we have to get off the road to give the jeep room to pass, we also wanted to make sure it didn't run over our green friend. So one of our group members who is a professional herpetologist tried to catch Mr. Green to relocate him to a safer place. Before that could be done, the approaching jeep and it's horn scared the snake away somewhere. Once the jeep had passed we looked all over but couldn't locate him, it seemed like he'd just disappeared. We resumed our journey greatly disappointed and headed downhill, back to the town of Nemmara which is the jump-off point for accessing Nelli from Palakkad/Thrissur. On the way down, about 30km into the journey, Mr. Green decides to make himself visible again. He's just gotten out of the wheel arch and is making his way up to the windshield/bonnet junction, where the wipers are at. All this, while we have been running the car downhill! So we stop the car and by that time this fella is scared of all the commotion (the exclamations) we're making and tries to get into the panel gap between the sides of the car and the bonnet lid. Our daring herpetologist comes to its rescue and frees him from that dangerous spot. We have a field day with the cams on the snake since he's being handled, he can't run! After about 20 harrying minutes for the green fella we're done and let him go into the shrubbery near a stream.

It's only logical that he was under the bonnet all the while right from our encounter with that jeep. For all of 30km. Temperatures in the bonnet can exceed 70 degrees C especially when you're in hilly terrain since the car has to be run in lower gears. It's a wonder and a miracle that he wasn't toasted to death or that he didn't get himself entangled with any of the mechanicals down there.

Green Vine Snakes are commonly found throughout the subcontinent and other parts of South and South East Asia. They do have venom but it isn't very potent when injected into humans, although some people develop an allergic reaction to it. There's a widespread misbelief in Tamilnadu that these snakes attack you and inject poison in your eyes which results in death. This is due to the fact that these snakes spend most of their time in the trees (arboreal snakes), hanging down many a time. So in the event of an encounter with a human, the head would naturally be in-line with the snake's head and the eyes being the most prominent part of one's geometry, would naturally be the place the snake decides to attack.

For those interested, here's a small video of Nelliyampathy:

2008-04-15T16:01:00.000+05:30

Jazz hath no memory.

Life

2008-04-08T15:04:00.003+05:30

One's activities in life should be like an elaborate French meal with wine followed by the Spanish siesta instead of the Big Mac drowned by a gallon of Coke that it is now.

Static

2008-03-18T15:39:00.002+05:30

After many sets of diapers, baby clothes and clothes, many pairs of shoes, many houses, many cars, falling for many girls, many cameras, many pairs of glasses and many years of living, I've realised that I've always gone to only one barber shop.

Commitment vs Committed

2008-03-11T23:44:00.001+05:30

When you start going steady with someone, it's called commitment. When you're sent to the nuthouse, it's called committed. Makes one wonder...

Dr. Sleeploss, or How I Learned To Stop Hallucinating And Love Paranoia

2008-01-28T18:25:00.000+05:30

Did you know you can get an amazing high by just not sleeping? It never struck me before when I was regular with missing sleep but now that I got a chance to stay awake thirty-six hours and driving all the while non-stop (it's been quite some time since I hadn't hadn't slept), I realized I was into another world after twenty-four hours of no sleep and only four from the day before. I remember being extremely happy, not with myself or with the world or with anyone in general, just happy. My speech was slurred, I stammered and broke sentences awkwardly and had bad grammar too. I'm sure my vocabulary had decreased to that of a four-year-old's but I can't vouch for it because my memory was playing up and was exaggerating my previous jungle exploits to my friend who was with me on this birding/nature-spotting trip to Mudumalai NP and Bandipur NP.

The plan, basically, was to just keep going up and down the main road of the two national parks hoping something would turn up in our headlights. But that was not to be so. The main road that runs through these parks is a national highway connecting Mysore and Ooty, and it being a weekend, a Republic Day weekend to add, traffic was heavy. Now, how heavy can traffic be on jungle roads in the middle of the night? Well, ask us. There was not a moment when we were alone on the road. There were vehicles of all kinds (bikes at three in the morning, Maruti 800's overstuffed with people, trucks overloaded with goods and what not) passing us as we were crawling around at low speed, vainly in search of elusive creatures of the night. There was either a vehicle overtaking us, or someone's headlights blinding us from the front or lights blinding me reflected off the mirrors (god, I hate people who don't dip lights in traffic). The only sightings we could manage (when we were not giving way and being overtaken) was a female Sambar with calf, a lone male Gaur (who was least bothered by our very close presence and our headlights on him), and an elephant who'd decided that he was invisible to us because his head was in thick bush and his (rather large) butt was the only thing sticking out of it.

After staring at (rather large) elephant rear anatomy for about ten minutes, we decided to get moving as we thought he wasn't exactly going to turn around for us and pose (photography being possible only with a 50mm f/1.8 lens with the camera cranked on ISO 1600 and shutter speeds being in the range of 1/16th to 1/8th of a second). Further down the road we saw an about ten-foot tall stump of a dry tree glowing with fire inside it, embers falling onto the dry grass below. Worried about our beloved haunts and with fear of losing them completely to forest fire, we hurried and made our way back to the check-post and told the guy there of it. The check-post turned out to be a police check-post not a forest one, and the guy there didn't seem to be interested in leaving his warm bonfire for some raging forest fire in all its element somewhere far off, so he said it'd be taken care of in the morning when someone would surely see it. Correction, someone else would surely see it. We persisted and finally managed to get him in the car and take us to the reception centre where a real forester would do something about it.

So, off we went to the reception centre, wheels spinning wildly and spitting out dust behind the car, to the Bandipur reception centre. It was about four in the morning, and we surely didn't expect anyone to be awake, but we were hoping to wake someone up and ask them to do something. At the reception centre, the guy from the check-post went knocking on the front door and called out an unintelligible name. Five minutes passed and nothing happened. He did it again, and I joined in on the knocking with gusto. Still nothing happened. We went around the whole building knocking on every knockable object and shouting for someone to wake up but that someone in there was soundly asleep while our much beloved forest was burning down to ash. After a fruitless fifteen minutes of screaming and knocking (the people driving past the reception centre must've thought a local mental hospital must've had a bust-out or something.), the guy from the check-post decided he'd have a look at the fire after all, and so away we went. We stopped in front of it and the guy needed pointing out as to the whereabouts of the fire. After ascertaining that what we were pointing to was indeed a fire, the guy announced, "yeh to mamooli hai. (this is insignificant.)" with the least bit of articulation and stress. Surprised more at his delivery than at the significance of his words, we returned the guy to his post and went our way, all thoughts of being awarded the National Bravery Award erased from our minds.

Highlights of the trip included a couple of Black Baza, a Besra Sparrowhawk female, some Nightjar that we couldn't ID, a field mouse, and a troop of Common Langur that always looked you in the eye when stared at. Weird, aren't they? Oh, also a male Tickell's Blue Flycatcher who was a showoff and such a schmuck that de'd get in the way of me trying hard to shoot a Malabar Whistling Thrush. As you know, MWTs are some of the hardest birds to shoot. They love to skulk in the dark bush-floor and rarely are out in the open. And being completely black does make life for a photographer harder than having ice-cream in hell. Thanks to the TBF's antics, all I got of the MWT was this:

On the way back home, it was well past the thirty-three-hours-since-sleep mark and I began to hallucinate. Twigs on the road prompted heavy braking, and when my buddy inquired as to the need for that, I said, "didn't you see that snake? We almost ran over it. Did you see what kind it was?" The black-and-white concrete posts delimiting the hill roads and preventing vehicles from falling off into deep ravines started to look like a horde of male Pied Bushchat. The squealing from the disc brakes also prompted stops to look for a never-before-heard bird call. Paranoia then set in with the drivers of vehicles being overtaken being "slow dunces" and that of those overtaking us being "mindless fools".

That '70s Show

2007-11-21T17:14:00.000+05:30

"Work is for poor people. I am a rich person with no money."

2007-11-14T23:47:00.000+05:30

"It's an overwhelming addiction, our systemic quest for 'more'; be it more ice cream, more alcohol, more drugs, more technology, more information, more knowledge, more megapxiels, more freedom, more war, more religion, more money, more whatever. It's all the same thing, it's ALL rooted in the external, as if our salvation lies there."

- Carl Donohue, www.skolaiimages.com

The above was an excerpt from one of his posts at this discussion:
http://www.naturescapes.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=115747

The Rule of Thirds

2007-11-08T03:15:00.000+05:30

As told by a friend of mine, the rule of thirds can be carried over from the visual arts to the real world and yield a more productive and pleasing life. Spend one-third of your day working, one-third playing and the final third sleeping. A simple way to a better life!

Grasslands: Soaking it up

2007-09-19T17:12:00.000+05:30

Just back from a trek to Siruvani. As you work your way up from the bottom, you have dry scrub jungle to start with which gives way to dry deciduous as you keep moving (you're not climbing much here). Dry becomes moist deciduous which after about 600m MSL is transformed into evergreen rainforest. Keep climbing and you have grasslands at about 1000m above mean sea level. Now, climbing grasslands after the rains is quite tricky. Grasslands are said to be the glaciers of the non-alpine slopes and that is so very true. The loamy soil (black, in the case of Siruvani) soaks up water from the rains like a sponge and releases it slowly into the forest (which is why the evergreen patch is right below the grasslands, first in line to receive the water), throughout the year. Now, back to climbing grasslands: the lower grasslands are quite mushy. Plant your foot and it all seems very stable until you follow it up by weight transfer and your foot sinks deeper into the muck (which was dry mud a few seconds ago), more water is released all around, the ground begins to give way and slide under your foot and you end up with your arms flailing for support (but there are no shrubs, it's a grassland, remember?) and then, disaster! You've landed nose-first into some of the cleanest muck on this planet. Welcome to Siruvani!

Rice, anyone?

2007-08-25T17:46:00.000+05:30

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel through Andhra Pradesh, starting from Chittor in south all the way up to Rajahmundry in the north, by train. Train journeys in India are slow, dirty, noisy, crowded, slow and--quite frankly--a pain in the neck. The only positive aspect is that one gets to see a lot of India, especially the countryside with all its farmland. After the south-west monsoon has shed a large part of its load by mid August, Andhra's landscape gets very monotonous. The countryside is green and farmers make use of these rains to plant paddy. So mile after mile, all you see from your train window is paddy, paddy, paddy, more paddy, (oh! look, a palm tree!), paddy, paddy, paddy, paddy, (wow, a neem tree), paddy, paddy, I mean, who eats so much rice? It could be forgiven if the terrain was undulating, a few ups and downs here and there, a different kind of crop in-between to break the monotony, but no, it's as flat as an anorexic supermodel's back with hundreds and thousands of miles of paddy. Frankly, I think it's time we ate less rice.

When in Rajahmundry don't forget to stop by the Iswarya Residency hotel just opposite the railway station. The ground floor has a restaurant called Sriram with some of the most amazing South Indian food (probably in the world) with the most amazing of all being the coconut chutney and the soft ghee dosas (five hungry stomachs unleashed after four hours of travel and the total damages came to Rs. 165!). And do finish with the filter coffee.

2007-07-17T00:42:00.000+05:30

Yesterday,
All those backups seemed a waste of pay.
Now my database has gone away.
Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,
There's not half the files there used to be,
And there's a milestone hanging over me
The system crashed so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong
What it was I could not say.
Now all my data's gone and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

Yesterday,
Need for backup seemed so far away.
Seemed my data were all here to stay,
Now I believe in yesterday.

Anonymous

Lostalgia

2006-11-29T14:01:00.000+05:30

nostalgia: 1770, "severe homesickness" (considered as a disease), Mod.L. (cf. Fr. nostalgie, 1802), coined 1668 by Johannes Hofer as a rendering of Ger. heimweh, from Gk. nostos "homecoming" + algos "pain, grief, distress." Transferred sense (the main modern one) of "wistful yearning for the past" first recorded 1920.

Take the modern meaning of yearning for the past. In severe cases, pain felt when remembering that the past is gone and will never come back. Pain felt for that which has been lost.

So in the modern sense, it is

lost + algos

= lostalgia

Britannica, are you listening?

The future of the Camera

2006-11-24T01:53:00.000+05:30

No, Mercedes is not taking over. This is just a thought I had last night. It all started with me going to bed thinking about how cameras had evolved from the ones where the shutter was your lens-cap to the 220 view cams to the 35mm rangefinders, the 35 SLRs, now digital. And since now cameras and computers have even fewer differences, what applies to computers, will (or does) apply to cameras. Now, in the field of computing, the greatest achievement we are yet to achieve is intelligence. I dunno when it's going to happen, but when it does, i.e., when computers can actually THINK (does that scare you? or too much Asimov for me?), what will happen to our cameras? Will they too think for us? Already, they do the exposure for us. Will they also compose? "A little to the left... no a bit to your right.... steady now.... you've got really shaky hands.... didn't you bring the tripod? Shall I email our GPS co-ordinates to it"? Now that we have cameras with built-in GPS navigation systems, in the future, one can expect a NASA licensed Xenon-Ion Propulsion System so you don't actually have to hold the camera or even mount it on a tripod. It'll just hover over the EXACT co-ordinates IT wants to, and take the picture.

Now wouldn't that be something?

Originally written on 15 March, 2005.

What are you rebelling against?

2006-11-24T01:48:00.000+05:30

When we were kids the sole purpose of life was to revolt against the grownups. They said, "No TV after 9." and you simply HAD to watch until 12.30. They said, "Don't have too many sweets," and you know what? You just HAD to have ONE more. They told us to remove socks the right way and we simply HAD to remove them inside out. But after you're all grown up, they stop telling you to do this or not do that. That's why there's nothing to rebel against and life turns dull and boring. Almost not worth living.

From the movie "The Wild One" (1953) starring Marlon Brando
Girl: What're you rebelling against, Johnny?
Johnny: Whaddya got?

Originally written on 2 May, 2005.

The end of evolution for us humans

2006-11-24T01:43:00.000+05:30

Yup, us humans mark the end of evolution for the great apes. To understand this (I'm not claiming to be a scientific researcher but base this on what seem to me undeniable logic. If you have differing views, please comment), one must question why evolution happened in the first place. Evolution was the only way living things could continue to exist in a changing environment on earth. If the climate got colder, most species adapted; others who could not evolve to cope with the new climate perished. Ever since we have developed this supposedly great brain and opposing thumbs, we have been modifying our environment to suit us. Get it? We "evolve" our surroundings instead of evolving ourselves to suit the surroundings. This is where the need for evolution stops. What's the point? This way it is so much easier, faster, and more importantly, under our control. Of course, if our environment changed really fast then we wouldn't have time to adapt it (or adapt to it either) and would perish. Like in the last ice age where the climate changed so quickly that mammoth fossils have been unearthed frozen with food still in their mouth!

Originally written on 7 July, 2005.

Corporate branding pioneers

2006-11-24T01:34:00.000+05:30

This morning while I was on the potty, I thought hard about the birth and evolution of corporate branding. Skipping all the thoughts that led to it, I conclude that religion, or rather religious institutions, were the pioneers in corporate branding. The cross, om, swastika, the star of david, the star on the crescent moon, et al are all corporate logos and the whole package (religion, i.e.), is absolutely "nothing" (sure, they promise you that you'll go to heaven and that your next life or re-birth will be "good", but who's come back and ever told us?) that is sold. And they have succeeded in selling people this "nothing" (selling because you pay. Donations, charity to a religious institution, are all a form of payment). So you see, these fellows are not only leaders and experts in corporate branding, they are marketing geniuses. Where does that money go? The Catholic church is the highest land owner in the world. More than the Queen of England. In some of the most expensive and posh areas in the world. Same case here in India... Tirupati... probably the largest stash of mined and processed gold in the world. Think about it, all this religion bullsheit is just a veil over your eyes, the oldest and best dupe in the world.

If you have blind faith, it's like having "flies in your eyes" to borrow from Yossarian. You can never know when you have flies in your eyes because you can't see them because you have flies in your eyes.

Originally written on 13 September, 2005.