This morning I awoke and pretended that I was still asleep. I stayed curled, snug and in full alertness listening to the morning sounds. Something was not right - I did not hear the squirrels. I listened with my antennas extending farther and farther, in the darkness of closed eyes, thinking, "where are the squirrels?" I could make out a variety of bird calls under sounds of revving cars, moving humans, kitchen sounds etc. Maybe I awoke too late and the squirrels were fed and quietened?
With some urgency, I wandered into my garden this morning. I was looking for squirrels. I saw a pack of dogs in hard chase after a monkey, I saw a tiny frog (barely an inch long)hop out of the way, and I heard the squirrels - in a distance. Maybe they realised that I had stopped looking at them, and were driven away by my inattention?
So, today I spent listening to peripheries of silences in my everyday life - some shallow, some deep enough to realise that there is no real absolute quiet. I listened and found the sounds that keep my world sane - sounds of nature buried in the noise of man made bustle. And, I let this sanity drip into insanity of my days, in round crystal drops of silent clarity - drip, silence, drip...silence expanding vaccuously into confusion of my chattering head.
I am glad I heard the squirrels today.
Showing posts with label wildlife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wildlife. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Orissa Images
There are places embedded in the deep recesses on my memories; places not known except in myths associated with first awakenings of early childhood. Orissa is part of my earliest memories and for years I have resisted stepping into dream haunts.
I remember vividly a long corridor and walking to a doorway to stand in front of glass jars - one of them contains raisins. A big person in orange reaches out and hands me these raisins. My parents tell me I was just 2 years then and what I recount is in Ramakrisha Muth in Puri where they stayed when I was little. And, yes, I was very taken with raisins that I was fed by a 'sant' in the ashram. This person predicted that I would become a judge, when I grew up - very far from truth actually, except that I have often been advised not to judge people or events too harshly.
Then there are a whole lot of imagined memories from stories of 'Bhaskar' - a man servant who worked in the joint-family when I was very young. He was from Orissa and his stories revolved around his fields, his family, his woman left behind in order to earn a better living in Kolkatta. Here Orissa was in water-color greens, earthern browns of the land, brown people in brown homes. These images were permeated with his sorrow, his awaiting his next trip home.
And finally Orissa was painted with sounds of a flute. He was young. I forget his name. I was older - and I thought he was beautiful. Again a man servant in the family home, who got to use the area of the coal storage(we called it a 'khancha') for his space. It was barely two and a half feet wide, about 10 feet deep, and at the end there was an area for coal. He got to use the passage as his home. Late in the afternoon, when all the work was done, he bathed, got into clean clothes, ate the leftovers set aside for his meal and then he propped himself 3 feet off ground, between the walls of his tubular home and played his 'bansuri'. I was usually in my room, after college, reading. Sometimes I would go and stand, watching him play. He merely smiled and continued playing. He painted Orissa in undeciphered longing with slow, long notes, dark brilliant eyes. I remember asking him, only once, whether he would marry. He laughed and said, yes. His folks were looking for a match for him. Would he still work in the city. Again, another Yes - someone had to send money home.
I recall his face clearly as I type - yet a name escapes me.
Orissa has since played a recent havoc in my life. Its part of what I am, and what I think needs to be done. POSCO, Vedanta, mining rights, forceful evictions, police firing, and strings of promises from MoEF - undelivered.Orissa has also been on my wish list as an avid traveller - I wished to witness the annual migration of Olive Rideleys to Orissa coastline, the birds on Chilka lake, the ancient temples, and cave monasteries. I left my conscience behind when I visited Orissa, avoided those - whose rights occupy my days. I went as a spectator, a foot loose traveler with my daughter and a friend to wander its coast, lakes, temples, caves, watch weavers create masterpieces and dancers seduce Gods...I saw all this and experienced much much more...and found all of it worth fighting for.
I remember vividly a long corridor and walking to a doorway to stand in front of glass jars - one of them contains raisins. A big person in orange reaches out and hands me these raisins. My parents tell me I was just 2 years then and what I recount is in Ramakrisha Muth in Puri where they stayed when I was little. And, yes, I was very taken with raisins that I was fed by a 'sant' in the ashram. This person predicted that I would become a judge, when I grew up - very far from truth actually, except that I have often been advised not to judge people or events too harshly.
Then there are a whole lot of imagined memories from stories of 'Bhaskar' - a man servant who worked in the joint-family when I was very young. He was from Orissa and his stories revolved around his fields, his family, his woman left behind in order to earn a better living in Kolkatta. Here Orissa was in water-color greens, earthern browns of the land, brown people in brown homes. These images were permeated with his sorrow, his awaiting his next trip home.
And finally Orissa was painted with sounds of a flute. He was young. I forget his name. I was older - and I thought he was beautiful. Again a man servant in the family home, who got to use the area of the coal storage(we called it a 'khancha') for his space. It was barely two and a half feet wide, about 10 feet deep, and at the end there was an area for coal. He got to use the passage as his home. Late in the afternoon, when all the work was done, he bathed, got into clean clothes, ate the leftovers set aside for his meal and then he propped himself 3 feet off ground, between the walls of his tubular home and played his 'bansuri'. I was usually in my room, after college, reading. Sometimes I would go and stand, watching him play. He merely smiled and continued playing. He painted Orissa in undeciphered longing with slow, long notes, dark brilliant eyes. I remember asking him, only once, whether he would marry. He laughed and said, yes. His folks were looking for a match for him. Would he still work in the city. Again, another Yes - someone had to send money home.
I recall his face clearly as I type - yet a name escapes me.
Orissa has since played a recent havoc in my life. Its part of what I am, and what I think needs to be done. POSCO, Vedanta, mining rights, forceful evictions, police firing, and strings of promises from MoEF - undelivered.Orissa has also been on my wish list as an avid traveller - I wished to witness the annual migration of Olive Rideleys to Orissa coastline, the birds on Chilka lake, the ancient temples, and cave monasteries. I left my conscience behind when I visited Orissa, avoided those - whose rights occupy my days. I went as a spectator, a foot loose traveler with my daughter and a friend to wander its coast, lakes, temples, caves, watch weavers create masterpieces and dancers seduce Gods...I saw all this and experienced much much more...and found all of it worth fighting for.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
A Walk
For several days now I have been on a search...to search for hope, that invisible tenous thread that holds one's place in universe, a wispy idea that validates this journey. I have looked for it everywhere - in children's laughter, the rays of sun, the flowers that still bloom. And...it has been futile! I have been filled with gloom -that this is all transitory - this innocence, the rain filled clear light, earth on which flowers can bloom.
Usually I thrive on impermanence - lunge at fleeing moments, grab disappearing rainbows - to live on peak of pinnacles - in perfect poised balance of now. This time the monsoons dragged me in deeper- to their lightless, prussian, dense, dark depths. I have hung on teetering, striving balance on swinging see-saws, jumping between ends - between colossal falls, looking towards heavens for a smile.
And yesterday, the Gods smiled...
I was taking a forced, fast walk through our campus. It was late dusk, the dark period before night, before the lamps were turned on. The road was silent, damp, under canopies of trees with clumps of bamboos, and jungles of bushes on either side. It was then that I saw them - two Slender Loris moving with ease on a bent long bamboo. I stood still, in shocked delight. They were so tiny, so fragile and so sure! One of them quickly moved away, to hide and stare - the other was cocky, assured that I meant no harm...how did he know?? I had been granted a gift!
As I made my way home, with now a silly grin on my face, I saw in spotlight under a street lamp - a tiny beautiful owl. Barely 8", with a flat white face, huge glowy eyes...and definitely an attitude. The rains have seen swarms of moths canopying the street lights - they very quickly loose their transparent wings and fall on ground where they become dinners for birds, termites, other creatures. The owl looked at me in reproach and flew to a safe branch on a nearby tree. From here it played a 'blink' game with me, bobbing it head absurdly all the time. I tried imitating its hoot, approaching closer to see if I could pass off for a fellow friendly owl - only to send it to even higher branches...I had been granted a second gift!
Suddenly, Hope was a clear, visible thread, connecting me to all of life - to Slender Loris, Owl, children, rainbows, flowers, light, and yes, even the darkest monsoon clouds!
Usually I thrive on impermanence - lunge at fleeing moments, grab disappearing rainbows - to live on peak of pinnacles - in perfect poised balance of now. This time the monsoons dragged me in deeper- to their lightless, prussian, dense, dark depths. I have hung on teetering, striving balance on swinging see-saws, jumping between ends - between colossal falls, looking towards heavens for a smile.
And yesterday, the Gods smiled...
I was taking a forced, fast walk through our campus. It was late dusk, the dark period before night, before the lamps were turned on. The road was silent, damp, under canopies of trees with clumps of bamboos, and jungles of bushes on either side. It was then that I saw them - two Slender Loris moving with ease on a bent long bamboo. I stood still, in shocked delight. They were so tiny, so fragile and so sure! One of them quickly moved away, to hide and stare - the other was cocky, assured that I meant no harm...how did he know?? I had been granted a gift!
As I made my way home, with now a silly grin on my face, I saw in spotlight under a street lamp - a tiny beautiful owl. Barely 8", with a flat white face, huge glowy eyes...and definitely an attitude. The rains have seen swarms of moths canopying the street lights - they very quickly loose their transparent wings and fall on ground where they become dinners for birds, termites, other creatures. The owl looked at me in reproach and flew to a safe branch on a nearby tree. From here it played a 'blink' game with me, bobbing it head absurdly all the time. I tried imitating its hoot, approaching closer to see if I could pass off for a fellow friendly owl - only to send it to even higher branches...I had been granted a second gift!
Suddenly, Hope was a clear, visible thread, connecting me to all of life - to Slender Loris, Owl, children, rainbows, flowers, light, and yes, even the darkest monsoon clouds!
Friday, July 25, 2008
Coorg Diary: A Trek to Nandi Betta
In my wildest imaginations, I dream of wandering wild places, untouched or scantily touched by human presence-unspoilt, virgin landscapes of dry, golden, desert sands, dense, dark forests, high hills with round views from pinnacle, oceans turquoise to deep navy, extending to infinity.
All Coorg imaginations were green and blue, of shrouded cobalt hills, rolling lilac mists, green wet, growth, at the underfoot, besides me, around me, in my eyes, nostrils, moistness on my skin. I wanted to experience a Coorg that was non-peopled, where elephant herds roamed, wildcats ruled, a land of beasts and birds, butterflies and moths, an abundance of insect world-I wanted a forest trek.
We walked in a single file, through a narrow, beaten, barely visible path, a line of mostly strangers and I-walking a fast pace, brushing past overgrown bush, trees, ferns, stone jumping creeks, balancing logs stretched across bogs, fast, focussed, attentively moving. This was not what I had imagined, but this was real, more real, as were the leeches reaching out towards us from blades of grass, leaves, an occasional branch, ever present, ready, in their bid for survival, to grab warm blood, to suck, to live and propagate. We walked in a voiceless file, with brushes made of a particular tree bark, to flick away the suckers at every rock surface we stepped on;pausing anywhere else was out of question. And, we climbed as we walked, in short steep stretches, slippery in a wet, shiny, clayey way till the trees thinned out to tall grass and flowers, only blue-purple flowers on round bushes, all around, everywhere the eye fell. The ceiling had changed from overhanging many tiered trees and was now a dark, leaded sky-a feeling of space, our smallness, till we were at the edge-of the world. A ledge looking into a blanket, a blankness of being the sky-rolling fluff around, colorless, moist on us, and soft series of gray beyond...we were on Nandi Betta.
First things first, immediately unlacing the shoes, removing the socks, checking if the suckers had got to our insides-most of us had escaped unharmed. Tentative exploring the ledge, the edge, peering to view the beyond. A small fire to the rain gods, for the rains have been less, or should be more, to help the farmers. Huddling around, soft conversation, quiet bantering, some snacks. Then the clouds clear-we view Eden across - steep mountains, thickly forested-Brahmagiri National Park. Silver vertical lines glitter unbelievably, three waterfalls.A white river snakes below in a deep ravine, viewed in bits and pieces between torn clouds, for a glimpse, now there, now gone, of paradise lost.
All Coorg imaginations were green and blue, of shrouded cobalt hills, rolling lilac mists, green wet, growth, at the underfoot, besides me, around me, in my eyes, nostrils, moistness on my skin. I wanted to experience a Coorg that was non-peopled, where elephant herds roamed, wildcats ruled, a land of beasts and birds, butterflies and moths, an abundance of insect world-I wanted a forest trek.
We walked in a single file, through a narrow, beaten, barely visible path, a line of mostly strangers and I-walking a fast pace, brushing past overgrown bush, trees, ferns, stone jumping creeks, balancing logs stretched across bogs, fast, focussed, attentively moving. This was not what I had imagined, but this was real, more real, as were the leeches reaching out towards us from blades of grass, leaves, an occasional branch, ever present, ready, in their bid for survival, to grab warm blood, to suck, to live and propagate. We walked in a voiceless file, with brushes made of a particular tree bark, to flick away the suckers at every rock surface we stepped on;pausing anywhere else was out of question. And, we climbed as we walked, in short steep stretches, slippery in a wet, shiny, clayey way till the trees thinned out to tall grass and flowers, only blue-purple flowers on round bushes, all around, everywhere the eye fell. The ceiling had changed from overhanging many tiered trees and was now a dark, leaded sky-a feeling of space, our smallness, till we were at the edge-of the world. A ledge looking into a blanket, a blankness of being the sky-rolling fluff around, colorless, moist on us, and soft series of gray beyond...we were on Nandi Betta.
First things first, immediately unlacing the shoes, removing the socks, checking if the suckers had got to our insides-most of us had escaped unharmed. Tentative exploring the ledge, the edge, peering to view the beyond. A small fire to the rain gods, for the rains have been less, or should be more, to help the farmers. Huddling around, soft conversation, quiet bantering, some snacks. Then the clouds clear-we view Eden across - steep mountains, thickly forested-Brahmagiri National Park. Silver vertical lines glitter unbelievably, three waterfalls.A white river snakes below in a deep ravine, viewed in bits and pieces between torn clouds, for a glimpse, now there, now gone, of paradise lost.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
On the Wilder Side-in Bangalore
Last weekend, Aranyam, Bangalore, hosted a three day film festival with documentaries covering a host of topics ranging from global climate change,species extinction,wild life preservation efforts. It was an amazing effort pulled off by a group of young, energetic,motivated wild life enthusiasts from the city. The films unanimously sounded dire warnings about the rampant human domination over the natural world, current fraility of our entire eco system, threatening its very survival and consequently our own future at the top of the species pyramid.
I have come away from this three day 'necessary' shock treatment with a sense of foreboding, heavy heart and a need to attempt a more pro-active role-to don an environmental cap. Accompanied with these more obvious responses, there has been an under current of unease and discomfort that I am only now coming to acknowledge. It seemed that the burden of these 'unsavoury' human activities were by and large firmly deposited at the doors of the lesser priviledged, marginalised populations of habitants more directly dependent on natural resources for survival and also more threatened by their depletion. Is it really their burden- that they dont poach, fell trees, clear habitats to eke out a meagre subsistence? or are the larger forces that have marginalised them by laying roads, blasting mines, submerging entire valleys by dam-ing waterways, and depleting resources done more damage?
Who are the benifitters of these human developments?? If the poachers along the Indian waterways smuggle thousands of tons of river turtles to Asian markets, then its the economically priviledged that consume the turtles at the other end -who drive this trade. The man at the bottom of the ladder might only make enough to barely feed his family.So, how come the 'poor' get appointed to safekeep our natural heritage? And what is the burden of the priviledged, educated, urbanised, resource consuming?
I have come away from this three day 'necessary' shock treatment with a sense of foreboding, heavy heart and a need to attempt a more pro-active role-to don an environmental cap. Accompanied with these more obvious responses, there has been an under current of unease and discomfort that I am only now coming to acknowledge. It seemed that the burden of these 'unsavoury' human activities were by and large firmly deposited at the doors of the lesser priviledged, marginalised populations of habitants more directly dependent on natural resources for survival and also more threatened by their depletion. Is it really their burden- that they dont poach, fell trees, clear habitats to eke out a meagre subsistence? or are the larger forces that have marginalised them by laying roads, blasting mines, submerging entire valleys by dam-ing waterways, and depleting resources done more damage?
Who are the benifitters of these human developments?? If the poachers along the Indian waterways smuggle thousands of tons of river turtles to Asian markets, then its the economically priviledged that consume the turtles at the other end -who drive this trade. The man at the bottom of the ladder might only make enough to barely feed his family.So, how come the 'poor' get appointed to safekeep our natural heritage? And what is the burden of the priviledged, educated, urbanised, resource consuming?
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