A torch, a camera and an umbrella

School Thota, Coorg.

Picture this. It's a dark rainy night in the monsoon in Coorg. Outside a 160 year old bungalow in the middle of a huge coffee estate, there's a curious shape on the lawn. It's part umbrella and part drenched human backside, lit by the glow of a torch, and the occasional flash.

Well, that's me... kneeling on the lawn, juggling a torch, a camera and an umbrella, trying to take a photograph of a nocturnal frog in the rain. The frog turned out to be rhacophorus lateralis, an endangered nest building frog, endemic to the Western Ghats.

For the two days I spent at School Thota, I was pampered by Mrs. Saraswathi Aiyappa with the best of Coorgi cuisine. Pandi curry, of course, with kadumbuttu and papputtu. Kai puli (bitter orange) squash, chutney, and the fresh, and extremely sour, fruit. Bamboo shoot curry with akki roti. I explored the estate in the rain, grinned maniacally at the few cars I happened to see, watched sunbirds fight each other for the best hibiscus blooms and vernal hanging parrots messily eat guavas from the tree.

Oh yes, thank you Amara! What wouldn't I give to be seven again!

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Loose Ends

Time seems to be flashing by at an ever increasing pace. There are so many threads that started along the way, some of them becoming thick ropes, strong bonds that you can count on. And there are others that end as wisps almost as soon as they started, lost forever.

And then there are those that haven't quite disappeared, those that you imagine would be there when you reach for them. Do I dare reach out and test them?

Or do I prefer loose ends?

The N Family

Coorg.

Last year's visit to the Synthesis Homestay made me a new friend, Namratha. Her parents, Naresh and Namita, took such excellent care of us that when she said she was going home for the holidays, I offered to drive her home. And in the process, I invited myself to their estate again.

Since it was the monsoon, I expected it to be raining heavily and constantly for the entire weekend, so I planned to sit in the patio with cups of tea getting my fill of dripping green. As it turned out, the rains stayed away, mostly, and I ended up with a bunch of highlights: Blue bearded bee-eater, what a blue! Pork for every meal. Shield tail snake, Uropeltidae, while walking at night. Crested Serpent Eagle sitting close enough to identify without binoculars. Buff-striped keelback at my feet. Namratha as a guide to the estate.

And then when I got back to town, I learned that Shield-tailed snakes are only found in the Western Ghats! And what I've spent my life calling hammerhead leeches are really terrestrial planaria, or flatworms! There's still so much to learn.

Oh, and the Ns are seriously wonderful hosts!

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Same, Same, but Different

Vietnam.

Same coffee, but whitened with condensed milk, sometimes iced. Thoroughly enjoyable either way.

Same spring rolls, but wrapped in rice paper.

Same stalactites and stalagmites, but so much bigger than I've ever seen, in caves named 'Amazing' and 'Surprise'. The surprise was the source of humankind.

Same Latin script, but not a single recognizable word. Well, recognizable if pronounced, but what would 'Bich Lap' or 'Phuoc Long' mean?

Same pieces of paper, but spent in millions of dongs. A significant amount of time went into wondering if we were actually paying a reasonable amount of something we were buying - I mean, is it reasonable for dinner to cost millions?

Same sounds of war (probably), but now made by tourists shooting AK-47s and M-16s.

Same tunnels, but no longer used by rebels, just by well-fed visitors.

Same taxis, but some of them have meters that run at five times the speed. I think we were taking for a ride in just one of those.

Same ancient Hindu temples, but pockmarked with bullet holes. The ruins at My Son are relics of a Cham civilization that thrived for many hundreds of years.

Same communism, but you wouldn't know it, apart from the blocking of facebook.

Same international apparel brands, but available at two different prices - the brand price, and the locally made price. The quality is still excellent though.

Same songs, but covered in an undecipherable accent.

Same secret war strategy room, but now a family shrine to the man who ran 'Pho Binh' right under the American noses through the war. The chairs on which the leaders of the Viet Cong planned their attacks on the Americans are still there.

Same En Chiang though. No matter that they thought I was Vietnamee.

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Root Beer and Bubble Tea

Malaysia.

When Air Asia added Bangalore to its list of destinations early this year and offered cheap introductory fares to Kuala Lumpur, a bunch of us made a spur of the moment decision to visit the country that was 'truly Asia' during the Diwali break. We didn't realize then that early November is the beginning of the monsoon off-season. It turned out to be quite a blessing because the hotels and resorts were all offering low season discounts.

The Paradiso Bed and Breakfast in Bukit Bintang is a clean, comfortable, backpacker's hostel, which is, interestingly, and initially frighteningly, located above an 'unprofessional' foot massage parlour. The narrow staircase is guarded till the wee hours by overly made-up women in short-skirts hawking their wares making every return to the hotel vaguely embarrassing. The proprietor and the employees of Paradiso more than make up for this inconvenience with friendly service, a convenient breakfast, and useful suggestions about how to spend time in Malaysia.

The first suggestion was a walk through the more interesting parts of Kuala Lumpur. The Islamic Art Museum apart from their regular exhibits was hosting a display on Islamic architecture in India. For me, the fascinating part was the discovery of how big an influence Islam has had in China. Actually, I should have known; after all, the Mongols were all Khans!

At the Bird Park we sheltered from the giant raindrops in the Hornbill Restaurant. This restaurant's balcony is within the walk-in aviary of the Bird Park, so we had three species of hornbill, a hill myna and some really greedy, beady-eyed egrets for company over lunch.

Petaling Street, on the way back in China Town, has all the designers that I have heard of and plenty that I haven't, all made locally. Oh, and I love bubble tea - the original milk tea flavour.

Bukit Bintang is a fascinating place. There was something happening every evening on the sidewalk just across the road from our hotel - a BMX biking competition, a Brazilian martial arts demonstration - on Halloween there was a Count Dracula, two vampires, five Stormtroopers and an assortment of night creatures walking about the street. Oh, and I love root beer.

If Bukit Bintang is the place where things happen, then Tioman Island in November is the place where nothing happens. Colourful fish in clear blue water, white sand beaches leading steeply up forested slopes, lonely waterfalls - paradise. We met a man there who's probably living the retired life that most people just dream of. This man of Punjabi and Malay descent retired from KL to be the caretaker of a shack on Juara Beach, spending his days bumming around one of the most beautiful places in the world.

From one of the world's most beautiful islands, we went to one of the world's oldest tropical rainforests in Taman Negara. The journey to Taman Negara was a three hour bus ride through rubber and palm plantations followed by a two hour panoramic boat ride up the Tembeling River. We had a huge dorm room to ourselves. The pair of tapir we saw on the first night were probably the highlight of the trip. The forest floor is alive with scorpions and centipedes and the trees are hung with webs in innumerable patterns. Actually, maybe the highlight was the tarantula we saw. Or maybe the barred kingfisher or maybe swinging from a tree into the river or maybe the walk through the canopy. Or... sigh! Or maybe it was just the company of Sylvie and Jean-Loup and the plans we made of exploring Nice and Cannes with them.

And then there was Melaka. The best part of Melaka was Jonker's Walk and the visit to the Baba Nyonya museum (the guide, Sabrina, was full of loud, innuendo-laden advice about the matters between the sexes). Of course, there was the Hakka artist whose home studio we walked into. One look at me and he says in Hakka, "You have long earlobes, just like the Buddha. You will live long." There's something comforting about finding someone that speaks the same language that you do in an unfamiliar place.

My visa's valid for a year.... Langkawi, Penang, Borneo!

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Peace be...

There's an eerie stillness in the air. Or is it just the trepidation in my heart? I hope this beautiful day is not the calm before the storm. Just the day that India chose the higher road.

Do I believe that the voices calling for calm will be heeded? I pray they will.

There will be peace, I know.

Strains On The Kapila

Shishila.

The first little rapid on the Kapila, and 'supplies!', my oar snaps in half, I hit a strainer, my ducky flips over and I get a serious arse-whupping from the rocks. Quite an introduction to kayaking, wouldn't you say? As I was tipped into the racing water, I wondered if I should have stuck to my plan of going hiking. But as quick as the thought came, it was gone and I enjoyed a thrilling swim down the rapid.

With my slightly painfully gained respect for the river, I got back in the ducky with a fresh oar, and spent an exhilarating six hours paddling over rapids, wave-trains and pools back to the 'Stream of Joy', the home-stay where we were put up. We practiced tossing the throw-bag at people body-surfing down one of the larger rapids. Sohan, Manik and Vijay practiced their rolls in the pools between rapids with varying degrees of success. It is amazing how quickly breakfast is digested when one is paddling. The packet of dates and chikki didn't last very long at all.

Sohan managed to get everybody out of bed and eating breakfast by seven the next morning. The local food wasn't doing my stomach any favours, and it was only at the last minute that I decided to run the river again. Naren, Jaggi and Chetan decided not to join us so that they could head back to Bangalore early, but they did come along to the put-in. We caught up with them at the temple where they were feeding the Mahseer that live protected in that stretch of the Kapila. The second run down the river was quicker but not without incident. Just as we approached the largest rapid on the stretch, Sid floated into an overhanging branch which tipped him over. Vijay and Kiran had to scramble to retrieve his boat and paddle. Then while surfing one of the holes a little further downriver, Kiran's paddle broke and he ended up sitting on a rock in the middle of the river with his boat beached on the bank. That same rapid saw Sid's paddle break as well.

Back at the home-stay, we loaded the equipment into Naveen's van so that they would be able to get back to Bangalore before it got too late. Sohan, Kiran, Sid and I then hired a jeep to go the the Neriya river to recce a Class IV rapid. One look at the crashing water, and I knew that I would have to spend a whole lot more time studying rivers and rapids before I would be ready to take the rapid on. On the way back, we stopped at a point that is downstream of the 'Stream of Joy' on the Kapila where there is a waterfall and a gorge. It's a beautiful stretch of the river and one that I probably would not take on even if I had a lifetime of studying rivers behind me!

And in the manner of all birders, I must mention that there are a large number of Stork-billed Kingfishers on the river, apart from the White-breasted and Small Blue. Pied and Grey Wagtails and some variety of Sandpiper. One Malabar Pied Hornbill and two different species of large raptor. Rufous Treepies, Racket-tailed Drongos and Coucals. And Cormorants aplenty. Oh, and two Rat Snakes crossing the road for those more reptilian in interest.

Row, row, row your boat, gently..... Oops! Splash!

One Not-so-rainy Monsoon Weekend

Dandeli.

The long awaited monsoon trip to Dandeli finally happened. The Friday evening traffic did give us a scare but Ajmal knows his way around and after waiting a longish while under a cloud of passing fruit bats, we made it to Yesvantpur well in time for our train to Hubli.

The short walk from the Dandeli bus stop to the Kali Adventure camp passes over the Kali river. Cinnamon Bitterns and Little Herons aplenty roost on the banks and on the little rock islands under the bridge. The surprise of the morning was the huge White-bellied Sea Eagle that flew gracefully over us as it headed upstream. The Brahminy Kite looked so small in comparison. At the camp gate, we spotted a Rufous Woodpecker and a Black Rumped Flameback. When we finally made it to the camp, all of us had neckaches from lugging our bags along while peering through our binoculars.

Malabar Grey Hornbills and Malabar Pied Hornbills argued raucously in the trees above our tents as we washed the unsanitary smell of the Indian Railways from our nasal memories. The rest of the morning was spent walking through the forest department nursery and the forest beyond. An uneventful safari in the Dandeli National Park after lunch resulted in us wondering if there really were any mammals in the forest. We didn't see anything at all! No deer, no bison... nothing for any invisible black panthers to prey on.

Back at camp, darkness came along with calling frogs and glowing worms. The view from our tents was of the paper mill spewing smoke into the orange-hued sky above the trees. The guides told us that no one had been to the Cavala caves since the monsoons began and that there would be leeches and that it was King Cobra breeding season - reasons for us steer clear of the caves - and so we decided that that would be our destination in the morning.

The walk to the Cavala caves starts from the end of one of the safari paths in the Dandeli forest. The intrepid couple that accompanied us on this hike soon found us stopping for every little creature along the forest floor - frogs, spiders, ants, mushrooms, caterpillars, millipedes - each one got its turn in front of our cameras. Suddenly, there was the sound not unlike the rotors of a helicopter accompanied by a loud buzz. I ducked thinking that someone had disturbed a beehive, but the guide grabbed me by the shoulder and pointed into the canopy. Above me, I saw the sunlight shining through the yellow stripe in the wings of a Great Indian Hornbill. And I was left gaping in wonder as it flapped and buzzed its way over the valley to the opposite ridge. And I gaped some more as three more of these huge, beautiful birds that inhabit this patch of forest took off into the distance. Only when they were gone did I realize that I had not even pointed my camera at the hornbills! Oh well, photos in the mind.... photos in the mind....

It took us four hours to make it to the stairs that led down to the caves. The algae on the stairs and the sudden appearance of a steeply diving hornbill resulted in Shreeram landing on his rather substantial backside which in turn resulted in a raft of poor jokes about the invention of chapatis and other such flattened preparations. The ceiling of the cave is covered in thousands of bats (false vampires, perhaps) and while we were examining the bats through our binoculars, Suma spotted a snake up amongst them. On closer examination, it turned to be a Forsten's cat snake in the act of swallowing one of the bats! And from its distended stomach, it looked like the bat was the third in the line. We found one more cat snake coiled in the holes in the limestone ceiling. The walk back to the jeep took just a little more than an hour.

In the evening, we visited Syntheri Rock, a large monolith being slowly worn away by the raging Kali River. The whistling schoolboy, the Malabar Whistling Thrush was hopping on the rocks by the water. The rocks, where they were wet, had little tadpoles with bluish spots heading off to become frogs. The rock face has nesting swifts and the hives of rock bees and fruiting wild banana trees.

The last morning, we visited the Old Magazine House at Ganeshgudi where the guide said we would see many birds, but by the time we got there, the sun was already high in the sky and apart from a Ruby-throated Bulbul and a soaring pair of Crested Serpent Eagles we didn't see much in the way of birds. However, we found a huge Tarantula nest in the mud near one of the huts at the Old Magazine House, but we'd have had to have been there at night to catch a sight of the spider. We did spot a rat snake by the road and Romit saw another one high up on a bamboo.

Back at the camp, we relaxed until it was time to catch the bus to Hubli and the train back to Bangalore. It was a trip with much to remember, the snakes in the bat cave, the Great Indian Hornbills, the White-bellied Sea Eagle, but mainly, it was memorable because of the meeting of so many curious minds.

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Far From The Madding Goa

Goa.

It was almost too late to catch the 9.30pm bus when I finally decided that the twelve hour bus-ride would be worth enduring for three days in sunny Goa. That sentence eventually ended up being truthful in just one aspect - that the bus-ride would be worth it, though even that was a close thing.

For starters, the bus left only at 10.30pm. And, the cyclone Phyan in the Arabian sea clouded up the sun for all but a few minutes of my stay. And, twelve hours... well, the Seabird Travels bus broke down at Ranebennur which is about halfway to Panaji. The conductor then tells me that they would arrange for another bus, but that would take four hours, maybe. The passengers were encouraged to make their own way, and so I did - from Ranebennur to Hubli and then on to Panaji, enduring a massive traffic jam close to Ponda. And so I made it to Panaji at 4.30pm instead of the scheduled 9.45am effectively making my stay two days only. The journey has one magnificent memory for me though - the first rays of the sun, lighting up the cotton clouds from below, hitting the faces of huge fields of blooming yellow sunflower. This sight, somewhere between Ranebennur and Hubli, lit up my entire journey.

Saturday was almost gone by the time I bathed the dust of the road off me so all Abhi and I could fit in was a walk on Miramar beach in the dark. There were hundreds of jellyfish beached on the sand and another unusual anemone-like creature attached to the outside of a discarded shell. We must have looked quite suspicious searching the sand meticulously in the dark with the dim light from my cellphone torch. But then it was time for a dinner of excellent pork balchao at Mum's Kitchen. This mum of mine sure does charge a lot for her cooking!

We woke Jyothika early on Sunday to take us to the Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary on the island of Chorao showing her her first Goan sunrise in the process. The mangrove forest had Abhi and I mesmerised. The habitat is so different from the forests of the western ghats which we'd explored together. There were fiddler crabs duelling in the mud with their single large pincers, mudskippers hopping around with their fins and Little Herons skulking around in the shadows. We saw Greenshanks and Redshanks and Common Sandpipers aplenty. Oh, and the ferry ride to the island is free if you're not taking your car!

Back in Panjim, we explored Fontainhas, the old Latin quarter with brightly coloured bungalows and white churches. Goan sausages and prawn curry for lunch at Panjim Inn. And then we caught the ferry (another free ride!) from near the Basilica of Bom Jesus in Old Goa to Divar Island, taking our rental bikes this time. The ride up the wooded hill on the island passed many beautiful homes that I would love to live in. There's a beautiful church, the Church of Our Lady of Compassion, on top of the hill and plenty of birds in the trees. Small Minivets darted through the sky above us as we explored the church grounds. Back on the mainland, we passed the Viceroy's Arch, which, in my head, is the Portuguese equivalent of the Gateway of India and visited the Church of St. Cajetan. I was quite captivated by the inside of this church. The paintings mounted on its walls are magnificent! And, apparently, the dome of this church is modelled on the one in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

Abhi and I spent Monday morning wandering first around Fort Aguada where I saw the Grey Headed Bulbul for the first time, and then around Baga Hill and Baga Creek. There was absolutely no one on Baga Hill apart from some frustratingly evasive birds and a patrolling plainclothes cop who warned us to be careful as there had been many "incidents" there. It's really peaceful up there in the dancing gold grass. Back down the hill and across Baga Creek is the Xavier Retreat House, and once we had walked beyond that, there was one last shack and then just the Arabian Sea washing up against the shore. We sat on a rocky promontory and watched it drizzle on the waves.

Thankfully the ride back to Bangalore wasn't as eventful as the ride to Goa.

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Without A Care

Manchinbele Dam.

The setting sun reflected off the water in pink and purple. I leaned back in the gently bobbing kayak and watched the dark specks in the water grow slowly larger, listening to the calming sound of the water lapping against the boat. I was almost afraid to breathe in case my breath disturbed this peaceful world that I had wandered into.

The figures of my friends were still visible as I reluctantly dug my oar into the ripples and headed back to shore. Behind me, a full moon had risen into the sky turning the pink into silver. The grey heron stood motionless in the reeds as I floated on by.

We grilled bacon and sausages, ate feta and tomatoes, laughed and danced. The moon was high in the sky by the time we ran out of stories. The fire was doused, the garbage was collected, and we left, promising to be back another day.

Loosing My Mind

Another year's flashed on by and still the elevators tell me that I might loose my hand. I guess long ago I was all right, but now it's ok to be alright. I'm so loost that I'm not sure whether I'm seperating or separating. Another ten-fifteen years, and I'll definately be in an asylum.

Perhaps English is moving on and I'm getting left behind. Or is it that the world's moving on and I've gotten off?

Bittersweet Galle Kandy

Colombo, Kandy and Galle.

After much arithmetic gymnastics, I managed to convince myself that I could afford the four days off that I needed to make the Sri Lankan holiday. Once that was sorted, the realization dawned that four days to explore a country was not even remotely possible and the dropping of things off the agenda began. No Sigiriya, no Yala National Park.

The Hornbill Homestay was a pleasant surprise, providing excellent air-conditioned digs for US $27. Arriving in Colombo at two in the morning had us producing our passports every few kilometres at the police checkposts that reminded us that Sri Lanka was just about done warring. The other reminders of recent disaster were the signboards near the homestay showing us the evacuation routes in case of a tsunami.

I'm not the most enthusiastic shopper, but feedback from many corners had me imagining a nice Lowepro bag for my camera at half the Indian price and other such magnificent bargains, but after Odel and House of Fashion though, I was ready to move on to more familiar forms of entertainment. A lucky visit to the promenade opposite the Galle Face Hotel at sunset and we were witness to the Sri Lankan flag being ceremonially taken down for the day. And then it was time for some devilled (they devil almost anything) calamari and parotas from one of the roadside stalls across from the oldest hotel east of the Suez Canal.

Instead of staying a day at Kandy, we opted to go on a day tour that would take us to some of the places worth seeing in the hills. The first stop, after breakfast at a beautiful colonial bungalow, was the elephant orphanage at Pinnawale where the store sold elephant dung paper and all seventy eight elephants paraded across the small town to the river for a bath watched by hundreds of tourist voyeurs. At the spice garden I finally saw the plants and trees from which the spices which I've eaten for most of my life come from. The two enthusiastic Bangalore boys, Kenny and Preetham who'd joined us on the tour, volunteered for face massages and a little hair-removal (just Kenny for that one). There was also a back rub with a spice oil to encourage me to splurge on some of the ayurvedic concoctions on sale there. I resisted. For me, the star of the magnificent botanical garden with its palm avenues, orchid garden and japanese garden was the huge weeping fig (Ficus Benjamina) in the middle of a large grass field. The Temple of the Tooth Relic, on the bank of the Kandy Lake, is where the Lord Buddha's left canine is housed after being taken from his funeral pyre and smuggled into Sri Lanka in Princess Hemamali's hair when her father's kingdom was under attack. The walk around the lake has some beautiful trees and bungalows. And then, just before the drive back to Colombo, I witnessed the tail-end of the famous Kandyan cultural show with the performers eating and walking through fire.

The road down to Galle goes along the coast and at some points is just metres away from the water. What I found amusing was that each town along this road, even though you can see the water from your seat in the bus, has a signboard declaring its height above MSL (mean sea level). This, by the way, is, on an average, 3.5m!

Unawatuna is just a few kilometres further down the road and immediately reminded me of Goa with small roads and lots of beaches and seafood shacks. We put up in a guest house a two minute walk from the beach where a friend of a friend, was staying with her Sri Lankan surfer-fisherman-boyfriend. With rented bikes, we rode down the coast to a fishing village Mirissa, stopping along the way at Kogalla for a boat-ride to an island in the clear-glass backwaters. From Mirissa, we watched the sun go down over a cup of tea. We were entertained with fishing stories over a dinner of "curry and rice" and how he learnt to climb coconut trees because he had to get out of the way of the tsunami (noting that he had the perfect view of the incoming waters from his precarious perch!)

I was still sorely tempted to visit Yala, which is another 3 hours down the same coast but 6 hours on the last day was a little too much to do for a couple of hours at the park. So we opted to visit the Sinharaja rainforest instead which was supposed to be half the distance. As it turned out, we
spent 6 hours in the car anyway. But it was well worth the ride and the couple of leech bites just to see the large Green Pit Viper resting on the fronds of some fern-like plant. We also encountered hump-nosed lizards, kangaroo lizards and green garden lizards on the way to the Kekuna Falls. But the lack of time didn't allow me to 'stop and stare' at the giant trees and climbers or search the canopy for birds. On the way back, we stopped at the Galle Fort to watch the sun set. The fort is a fascinating city inside a city with Dutch cafes alongside mosques and old mediterranean-looking guesthouses.

Back at the Nirmala guest house, Sri Lanka had one last surprise for me. As I sat on the parapet with a cup of tea thinking about the journey back home, a toddy cat leapt from the roof just above my head onto the coconut palm behind me, pausing just for one disdainful glance before disappearing into the darkness.

My visit to Sri Lanka was too short. And even then, there is so much more to tell. Like how the food is similar to Tamil food - string hoppers, kotthu parotas, dodol. And that there is a dessert called Watalappam which is a dark brown eggy-coconutty custard with raisins on top. And that the ladies wear a form of the saree known as the Kandyan saree which I shamelessly enquired of the receptionist at the place we had lunch one day. And that the Sinhalese word for river is 'ganga' and for water in 'watura'. And that water monitors are quite a common sight. And that people tend to say that things are closer than they are.

Sigh. There is still much to see and do in this beautiful and hospitable country.

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At The Edge

Onake Abbe, Agumbe.

I sat on a rock with my feet dangling dizzyingly high above the dive pool. Beside me, the water rippled around my fingers and dove unhesitating over the edge. The wind gently blew the cool spray back into my face as I looked over the rain-forest far below. Behind me, the path wound through the dense, dark forest of pit vipers and leeches that I hope will deter many a monsoon trekker.

I sat on the rock and dreamed. I dreamed I was an eagle, soaring unbounded over giant trees and crystal streams. And I despaired in my heart for I knew that my being there was a sign that man was at the doorstep.

I'd rather be a forest than a street. Yes, I would. If I could, I surely would.

- Simon & Garfunkel (El Condor Pasa)

Tequila Uchila

Uchila.

Uchila is a fishing village somewhere between Mangalore and Udipi on India's western coast. And Akuna Matata (no, I haven't mis-spelt it), is the resort in Uchila where I spent an idyllic weekend.

The bus from Bangalore reached earlier that we anticipated. As soon as my morning ablutions had been completed, I headed off along the beach to where the fishing boats were coming in with the morning's catch of shark, mackerel, crab and an assortment of fish that I had never seen before. I watched as the fishermen carried the boats in from the water. And I watched as the women of the village bid for baskets of the catch, covering them with tyre-tube rubber weighed down with bags of sand to keep them safe from the brahminy kite and crow bandits.

After breakfast, the Arabian Sea, clad in its green-blue best, tempted us into its folds. The waves looked mild but perhaps the nearing monsoon winds were already lending them power. We enjoyed being tossed around for a while before a strong current out to sea convinced us to get our feet back on solid ground.

Back at the bungalow everyone was settling down for a snooze, so I decided to explore the village. The villagers watched bemused as I walked along the path in the midday heat with camera in hand. They must have wondered what it was that I saw in the bugs that inhabited the bushes on either side of the road. Anyway, I learnt very quickly that the coastal humidity can turn a fresh dry t-shirt into a soaking rag in a matter of minutes. Garden lizards scampered out of my way as I headed back to read in the relative comfort of the indoors until the day cooled a little.

The evening low-tide exposed rocks that were home to hundreds of skittish
crabs that scuttled away as we clambered up. We poked around in the cracks and pools disturbing the fish and the anemones until the returning tide sneaked up on us and had us scrambling to get back to dry land. The sun sank gently and beautifully into the sea.

Sunday morning, after the fish auction, it drizzled lightly. I walked along the beach, narrowed by the high tide, playing with the sea's ebb and flow, stopping to examine an eel here and a starfish there. It's a wonderful feeling to know that the marks you leave behind are being wiped clean by the sea and that the people who come after will have a flawless beach to walk on. I'm sure there's a beautiful moral in there somewhere!

Football on the beach is as exhilarating as it is exhausting and after fifteen minutes we gratefully stopped for a lunch of deep-fried prawns and prawn curry and rice (at least, that's what I ate). Lunch was followed by the arrival of the monsoon which we watched bear down on us from the west. It's a magnificent sight; the dark rain clouds charging in from the sea and the water being whipped up by the monsoon winds.

Another weekend went by in a flash. And what a weekend it was - Sneha's birthday, Paul popping the question, Lisa accepting, tequila cheers and Taboo!

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The High Life

Yercaud.

The bird song that woke me on Sunday was a little too loud. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the pre-dawn light and tried to remember where I was. "Ah, yes... the weekend in a tree house!" The bird sang again and I crawled across the creaking floor to the doorway and peered out at the leaves silhouetted against the grey of the morning. Covering myself with a blanket, I sat and listened as the chorus of birds greeted the rising sun.

It was still too dark to distinguish between the birds and the leaves, so I shook off the cobwebs in my head and tiptoed back into the room, washed my face in the alga-green water, grabbed my binoculars and headed down the ladder and out. I'm sure the others were awake but didn't share my feathery obsession.

As I walked through the coffee shrubs to the road, a little Jungle Owlet silently glided out of the leaves and alighted on a twig in front of me. A glance over his shoulder and he was off again. Just past the gate of the estate, an Asian Fairy Bluebird was hunting from his post on the tree by the road. The deep red eyes, in sharp contrast to his blue and black coat, ignored me as I watched him shuttle to and fro across the road.

Up the road I went, towards Pagoda Point (or Pakoda Point, depending on which sign you choose to believe) smiling happily at all I met on the road, stray dogs and humans alike. Anjali had mentioned that she'd seen some woodpeckers near the check dam that we'd walked to the day before, that's where my footsteps turned. A crowd of Jungle Babblers babbled noisily in the clump of trees caught in the turn of the road. Among them, a Brown-fronted Pygmy Woodpecker made his way up the trunk of a silver oak. A pair of Gold-fronted Leafbirds flew from tree to tree near the check dam.

By this time, my stomach was crying out for breakfast, so reluctantly I turned back. A Crested Serpent Eagle sat watching me watching him, and then regally spread his wings a flew over the valley and into the distance. The White-cheeked Barbets sang a loud chorus and the Plum-headed Parakeets screamed along. As I walked through the gate to the estate, I spotted three Greater Flameback Woodpeckers getting breakfast and I was reminded to go get my own.

'Twas quite a morning with Magpie Robins, Scarlet Minivets, Ashy Woodswallows, Coppersmith Barbets and Rufous Treepies added to my list.

After breakfast and a guided hike to the edge of the Shevaroy Hills, we drove down to Yercaud town, found some bicycles and rode some way around the lake. After lunch, we left Glenrock Estates and Yercaud behind and drove back to Bangalore. The tree house stay was too short; high in a banyan tree, it was surprisingly large, easily holding all five of us, though the bamboo partition for the bathroom is not for the shy. Perhaps I'll visit again some day and listen to the Racket-tailed drongos scream outside the window once more. And perhaps I'll pay more attention to the many butterflies that flitted through the trees.

Ten Sunny Days

It was like a scene out of an old sepia tinted movie. Just outside an abandoned railway station, a dust covered traveller steps out of a bus with just a bag on his back. The bus leaves in a cloud of dust, and every face turns around to watch the new arrival. But that's where the movie switches back to colour.

To the people of Kallidaikurichi, a chinese face is a rarity. Rare? I don't think they'd seen one in the flesh until I stepped off the bus. They have, however, seen Jackie Chan in Tamil dubbed movies sitting on mounds of sand in their open air theatres. And so, for ten days, I was Jackie, and expected to teach little kids kung-fu.

But that wasn't why I was in this sun-scorched village in south India. Abhi was looking for someone to help with her survey of waterbirds in the tanks on the border of Kalakkad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, and I wasn't about to let such an opportunity pass me by. And so we visited the tanks and counted birds by the hundreds - egrets, herons, storks, moorhens, jacanas and kingfishers. The birds that were the highlight of my stay though were the Cinnamon Bitterns and a Red Collared Dove. And the Ashy Woodswallows chattering animatedly in the Palmyra trees silhouetted by the sunset.

There were Bark Geckos and the Fan-throated Lizards aplenty, and a walk by the canal showed us a few baby Checkered keelbacks.

The heat prevented us from venturing out most of the day, and so I spent a lot of time in the nursery helping Ruthamma with the saplings. It's a joy communicating with someone without words. We spoke sans words about butterflies and trees and slugs and mosquitoes.

It was fascinating to hear the story of the tilted lingam of the 1200 year old Thirupudaimaruthur Temple from one of the priests. The temple is named because the lingam was found in the hollow of an Ashoka tree by the king who built the temple. Legend has it that a sage was coming from a long way for a darshan, and found the river near the temple in spate. Unable to get to the temple, he prayed and the water subsided. When he got there, he found the lingam tilted to one side and he asked god why, and the god replied that he had tilted his head to hear his call. And that's the story of the idol in the temple.

Atree, the organization that was playing host to me, has various programmes to get the local people involved in conservation. One of them is the flying fox census that the kids of the village participate in. And so, one evening we set off to this temple compound with huge trees where the bats roost and waited for them to take off to their feeding grounds and then counted them as they flew by. The kids have been doing this once a month for the last two years for this particular population of 2000-3000 bats.

Ten days went by in a flash washed in sunshine and lemon juice. Ten days of eating breakfast, lunch and dinner off banana leaves with my hands. Ten days of trying not to spoil Jackie Chan's name. Ten days of birds. Ten days of stalking the insects and frogs in the garden with the 105mm. Ten days of stories that would fill volumes!

And then it was time to say goodbye and time to get Ruthamma to smile for the camera.



More photos...

Stand Up For Your Back

After exercising my franchise for the first time, I decided to take the public transport home. Six years of fearing the Bangalore crowds had just been overcome by watching my retired parents tame the Kannada boards on the buses.

The first bus I jumped on was headed in the wrong direction, so off I hopped extremely proud that I didn't stumble when I leapt off the accelerating bus. Then, guided by a grey-haired gentleman, I boarded the appropriate bus and found myself a comfy seat away from the burning sun. It took just a little more time than driving to get home.

Ah, but you must be wondering what the title's got to do with anything. Well, on the way, while the bus was toodling along at a pace not very friendly to the bikes on the road, suddenly, all the passengers towards the rear of the bus stood up without making a move towards the exit. Hmm, I thought, that's odd. And then it struck me... the realisation, as well as the jolt up my spine! Bloody speedbreakers!

Holi Colours

From beneath the flowering Persian Lilac (Melia Azedarach) tree, I looked up and saw a sky of the truest blue through the fresh green leaves of spring. White clouds sailed across the blue, silhouetting a pair of crows in shiny black.

The sun went down painting the clouds pink and purple, leaving behind a soft golden glow. Behind the hibiscus, the full moon rose fading from yellow to white, till finally, the world was just different shades of grey.

Happiness Rains

Paper boats racing down the storm drain with four kids cheering them on sheltered from the lightning and the pouring rain by a tin roof.

Returning home soaking wet after winning a football match we should have lost since we were playing with most of the regulars banned for poor academic performance.

Continuing the Founder's display as the lights blew, one by one, in the summer storm.

Riding an auto through the gates of a green Pune University through the drizzle of the monsoon.

Stuck in the middle of nowhere in a downpour with darkness upon us, singing.

Sprinting up to Cheena Peak in a drizzle stopping only to pull leeches off our ankles.

Spending an hour in a village home not understanding a word of the conversation, invited in from the pouring rain.

Wandering through the Himachal hills, splashing each other by jumping in the puddles, not wanting to get home.

Discarding umbrellas and walking barefoot through paddy fields looking for frogs and mushrooms.

Scrambling for higher ground in the middle of the night as the swollen Alaknanda washed the sand away from under our tents.

Is it any wonder that I love the rain so?

Adios, Amigo

You made your way quietly into my world, accompanying me on walks, sitting with me by the pond, sharing my meals. You welcomed me into yours, with all its quirky inhabitants. You made me laugh with your dances in the water, with your games of tag and the wrinkles on your forehead.

And now you're gone, my guardian from snakes in the grass and elephants in the night. Tears come unbidden.

And I will miss you.