Home Patch - 1

I had a tree cut down today.

Years in the making, an hour to take down. It was saddening but it had to be done. It was stealing sunlight, apart from being a highly aggressive being, sold into self propagation. It had previously strangled a pomegranate tree out of existence. While I was remorseful, at least I did not hesitate in ordering its removal. 

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The Tickell's Blue Flycatcher came by this morning and investigated the bird bath. It was almost dry. I had been remiss about adding water and it went away disappointed. 

In recent weeks, I have fallen out of the habit of doing this myself. My maid Lakshmamma sweeps out the yard every day. She is an erratic personality, this one. She has trouble understanding or sticking to the simplest protocols (such as putting away the detergent dabba after use) but will voluntarily take on a few things just for the love of it. She is something of an animal lover - one of the manifestations of this love being letting in the dogs on the street. She loves them, they adore her and wait for her in the mornings with eager faces and wagging tails. Yes, very sweet, but I do object to her opening the gates wide for them and saying 'da!' and watching indulgently as they race to the terrace for a morning siesta. In any case they jump over the wall, poop here and there, bring in salvaged food packets and make a horrid mess - I can turn a blind eye to what I cannot help but I draw the line at encouragement, see?

But tempting though the prospect is, this must not turn into a diatribe about Lakshmamma. The bird bath, yes! She had first assumed the shallow pot of water was for her beloved mongrels, but I told her it was in fact meant as an invitation to our local birds. Since she apparently finds room in her heart for other wildlife as well, she was very approving of this arrangement. So she has been assiduous in refilling the shallow earthen pot every day. But I discovered that the bath was not as popular as it should be, because Lakshmamma not only fills it to the brim (which the smaller birds find a bit scary) but also cleans it out of all leafy and wormy debris (which my visitors love). So I told the lady I'd fill the bath myself, hoping to lure the wintering warblers to this spot.

I added half a mug after the Tickell's had zoomed off this morning. Happily, he came back soon after, and cautiously waded in for a rapturous bath.

 

 

This is a picture from another time.

Full throttle

एक लम्हे में सिमट आया है सदियों का सफर
ज़िन्दगी तेज़ बोहत तेज़ चली हो जैसे

That is how it feels. Life is whizzing past - a new thing every day, every week, every fortnight... a month seems like an age for all the stuff that has happened through it. The themes change. Colours, drapes, scenery... entire concepts. The complexion of each phase is different, the focus varies... and I am trying through it all to stay on an even keel... not rising and dipping with the ebb and flow of events.

It becomes somewhat easy to discern in such a state that things happen, that they come and go as I stay constant.

बाज़ीचा-ए-अत्फाल है दुनिया मेरे आगे
होता है शब-ओ-रोज़ तमाशा मेरे आगे

I never appreciated that sher so well before.

Fursat ke raat din*

It has been a fairly hectic fortnight, one way and the other. Sadhana has been somewhat time and energy-consuming – at least compared to the pace I tend to keep.

So today, quite consciously, has been relaxed. A nothing-day. I ate a lunch of masala oats and salad, washed up conscientiously, which left me feeling virtuous. This winter afternoon, the surroundings are quietish but for a land-mower in the distance. I have been sitting at the balcony door, sprawled out in the accommodative bean bag, doing nothing more strenuous than reaching for the binoculars when a bird happens into my ambit. My rules don’t permit me to haul myself out and totter up to the railing even... even if the passerine in question happens to dart below the view span.

My window of opportunity

In this desultory manner, I have spied white-headed babblers, house sparrows, bee-eaters, sunbirds, sundry LBJs, a white bellied drongo and bounding squirrels. The sparrow in particular flitted within view for several minutes, and therefore, I watched him for as long as he stayed. Shweta’s excellent binoculars allows for a 16x zoom, which is handy indeed if you can find a stable prop for the elbows.

Every now and then, I swing the lens towards a small clearing in the thicket. This is a bit like dropping your keys on a moonlit night and then looking for them only in patches where the light falls. But silly or not, this brown patch draws my attention because this was where Shweta fortuitously saw a leopard once, sauntering majestically into her binoculared field of vision.

There is a Brown Wood Owl that comes to this spot but I haven’t seen it yet. And no elephants either, this visit. But the thing that is most exciting about this perch, as, I daresay, with life, is that it teems with possibilities.

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* The title of this post is from Ghalib's sher:
jee dhoondta hai fir wahi fursat ke raat din
baiTHe  rahain  tasavvur-e-jaanaan  kiye  hue

जी ढूंढता है फिर वही फुर्सत के रात दिन
बैठे रहें तसव्वुर ए जानां किये हुए

The heart seeks again those days and nights of restfulness,
Once more, simply sitting, contemplating the beloved

When the cuckoo sings

It’s been a Japan kind of month. Months after I travelled there, I was called upon to file the story, and the days of August went in remembering, reading, dwelling... and it seemed fitting to have a haiku by the master himself on my header. Matsuo Basho was the man who created the three-lined haiku as we know it today. With the country so much on my mind, I picked up to read Jane Hirshfield’s The Heart of Haiku, and then a long piece on Basho in the National Geographic... it was poignant.

Even in Kyoto,
how I long for Kyoto
when the cuckoo sings
–Matsuo Basho (trans. Sam Hamill)

This haiku, however, has haunted me for a while. What is to be done with this nameless angst? Even in Kyoto the poet longs for Kyoto... what then is Kyoto? Is it an amalgam of every single sight, smell, taste experienced here? Is it an idea, a memory? How does one merge with Kyoto, how to slake this longing? How to hug all of Kyoto?

It happened to me once in Sikkim. We were winding down the hill with the river Teesta flowing by. We wanted pictures and the driver was obliged to drive on for a few kilometres before we came to a suitable vantage point. One spot that gave us a decent glimpse of the hills, the forests and the winding river. I was suddenly so impatient with it. I wanted to soar over the landscape, merge with every blade and drop... I wanted to become the valley and here I was, frustrated, limited to one little fenced off spot, straining to absorb it all.

This, I imagine, is the limitation of our sense perceptions. We can see the tree, but only one side of it, not what’s behind it. We cannot know it, we cannot become it – with this apparatus. We cannot know the tree, even if we have every cell of it under a microscope; we cannot know it in this way.

And so, although content with our little pockets of life, once in a while, when the cuckoo sings, we long for Kyoto.

Two of me

I’ve been wondering what triggered it off. Has the direction of the sunlight changed, giving the birds a more reflective view; or was there a peculiar cloud cover that enhanced visibility? Because the car stands exactly where it has stood for years. Or perhaps it’s just this one narcissistic bulbul who finds his own image fascinating.

He has been making loving noises to himself all morning and oh, goodness, there is bird poop all over my rear window mirror.

Edited to add:

Aasheesh Pittie from Indian Courser is telling me the noises my bulbul makes are far from loving - this is territorial aggression, except, of course, mistakenly directed at his own image.
I think I'll dust off some 'raqueeb' shers.

In Twos and Threes

As always, stuff comes in twos and threes.

Earlier this week, I was reminded of Shiv Kumar Batalvi’s heart-wrenching Maaye ni maaye main shikra yaar banaya. I had read an excerpt from the much-praised H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald’s account of a goshawk she raised. It sounds fascinating and I can’t wait to read it.

Batalvi, experienced perhaps in loving wild things and having them leave him, is enamoured of the hawk in this poem. He says:

Choori kuTaaN
Te o khaaNda naaheeN
Uhnu dil da maas khavaaiya
Ik uDaari aesi maari
O muR vatani na aaiya

I crushed choori, but he would not eat it.
So I fed him the flesh of my heart...
He took flight, and such a flight it was
That he never turned this way again...
Oh, I befriended a hawk, mother!

Jagjit Singh sings a melancholy version of this poem here:



And while on this, I found something else. Jagjit Singh singing Batalvi again and this one, the utterly pathetic Maaye ni maaye mere geetan ne nainan vich...
I clung to this song for a while, when I was grieving my mother’s death so intensely a few years ago.

Aakh su ni kha laye Tuk
HijaraaN da pahkiya,
LekhaaN de ni puTHaRe tave!
Chat laye tarel looni
GhamaaN de gulaab toN ni,
Kaalaje nu hausala rave!

Tell him, mother, to swallow the bread
Of separation.
He is fated to mourn.
Tell him to lick the salty dew
On the roses of sorrow,
And stay strong.

Although I still love Nusrat’s version best, here is (a very young) Jagjit Singh giving it a shot:



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Translations are from Suman Kashyap, or based on her translations.

Terrace survey

So fatigued by my social network timelines, the various issues, the stridency and the hullabaloo. Have we become even more chronically agitated than we used to be a decade ago? It feels that way.

Tired of being cooped up, I went upstairs to my terrace just now, hoping to spot the golden oriole that comes to sit on the cotton tree some evenings. It didn't put in an appearance but a shikra gave me the fly-by, and I saw green bee-eaters do that winter thing they do.

Overhead, I sensed small whirrs, and saw two shiny kites amicably whizzing about. Being held on a roof somewhere two or three houses to our right. I was glad it was two and not one - flying a kite by oneself is such a lonely business.

The coconuts are doing well. The tree drops one or two at judicious intervals (and considerately, when no one is underneath). Happily, the next crop is being readied too. We had two coconut trees at one time and when they did nothing interesting at all, someone decided they needed a fillip. Some fertiliser was introduced and they both reacted rather drastically. One died and the other shot up by a few feet in a month.

As I looked down to see if there were any lemons on the shrub that I'd missed from ground level, a frond of jasmine put its tentacles on my arm in the most friendly way. No buds or flowers at this time, but you know, just saying hello.

Then the mosquitoes came out and I came down. That's all.

Monsoon raga

This...

scent of
night-blooming jasmine
words get
in the way

...makes way for this:

slow rain —
losing myself in
birdbath circles

It has been an uncommonly persistent rainy season – many long days of incessant, slow rain, many days when the washing hasn’t dried at all, many occasions when we haven’t seen the sun in two or three days altogether... I’ve found kambli poochis (Red hairy caterpillars) on my curtains, virulent-green crawlies in the wash basin, and all the world seems to be thriving on this nourishment.

So Ann K Schwader’s haiku that so hauntingly captures the monsoon mood.

Gadbad, Gadbad!

I mentioned recently my travel to the coast of Karnataka? It was for this story, published in Outlook Traveller, December 2012.

Incidentally I was supposed to go to the other coast but Cyclone Nilam had her say and suddenly altered plans saw me doing this wonderful jaunt. All good.

 

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All Pretty On The Western Front

 

Apart from the wonderful Udupi food and the marvellous array of seafood that the western coast of India is known for, there is another kind of culinary offering – one that had escaped my notice till I actually landed there. It mystified me at first. If an ice cream proclaimed itself to be ‘Gadbad’ Ice Cream, what might it do to my insides? With a six-day trip ahead of me, I let it go in Mangalore (regret!), eyed it again on Kaup Beach and then gave in to sample it in Karwar.

This is a vertical sundae, a concoction invented in Mangalore. In a tall glass, they lay a bed of fruit salad, pile up three scoops of ice cream in any flavours you fancy, sprinkle it with dry fruits and tutti-frutti and, to finish up, pour some honey and vividly coloured syrup all around. A bit of everything. It occurred as I was eating it that it wasn’t a half-bad description of my own jaunt up the coast of Karnataka. With Mangalore at the base, a dollop each of Udupi, Murudeshwara and Gokarna, garnished with beaches and temples, flavoured everywhere with the salt of sea breeze. It was very gadbad.

Mangalore was full of contrasts. Wearing the look of a blasé city but a scratch or two reveals the town – and its history. First we decided to be obeisance to Goddess Mangala Devi, who gives the city its name. An old temple (some say 9^th, some say 10^th century) still half-wearing its Dussehra finery – festivities this temple is famous for. Then a visit to Lord Kadri Manjunatha was called for. This is an 11^th century temple built over in several layers. On the side, through the slats in the window, I peeped at a truly magnificent bronze idol of Trilokeshwara. Should it be in a museum, lit and well displayed, or better thus, viewed through a narrow aperture, preserving a quaint mystery and installed in a consecrated space?

The sun dipped and we headed to the shores at Panambur beach, where the Mangalore Port is located. Children squealed in delight, young men thundered up and down the sand on hired ponies, and gaggles of girls dunked each other in the water. I bought myself a cone of bhel puri and saw the sun off.

The next day was devoted to the temple town of Udupi, the history and lore of which are steeped with references to Madhvacharya, the 13^th century philosopher-saint who propounded the Dvaita school of Indian philosophy. This was hallowed turf for me; a veritable Mecca for the community I hail from, and I’d never been. So basking under what I hoped was the benign approval of now-deceased grandparents, I went.

Car Street Road is where it’s all at. In a close cluster – amidst a bustling market selling everything from flowers to cool drinks, puja essentials to curios – the temples. The ancient Chandramoulishwara temple and the Ananteshwara temples are traditionally understood to have first dibs on your attention – you must visit these before you visit the main Krishna temple. There are stories and legends told about everything, and there is the curious case of the west-facing idol. The story goes that the poet-saint Kanakadasa was not allowed entry into the shrine by the upper-class priests and so stood outside singing songs of praise. Pleased with his devotion, Krishna turned west to face him even as the wall developed a crack. So darshan here is sought through a small window called Kanakana kindi. A rather splendid view it is too: a small idol adorned with a ‘vajra kavacha’, armour studded with diamonds.  Around the temples stand the eight muttas – temple administrative systems, if you will – that take care of the Krishna temple in turn. The whole street is redolent with a culture that is now shrinking.

Free lunch is offered at the temple and I found my way to the large dining room at lunch time. Long rows of people seated on the floor for a lovely meal of rice, chutney, sambhar, saaru and buttermilk. A massive container of rice came pushed in a trolley, huge vats of liquid carried up and down the line by two men, efficiently dispensing the broth. “Yellinda ma neevu?” I got asked again and again, “where are you from?” The curiosity deepened to friendliness every time I responded in Kannada. My neighbours guided me through the meal, assuring me there was saaru to come when I wondered how to allocate my rice, and graciously took their leave as I still lingered over my plate.

The temples visited, we headed to the sea at Malpe Beach. At the entrance, a large statue of Mahatma Gandhi loomed on the horizon. In the afternoon light, the Mahatma looked forlorn – but no doubt I was letting my own pessimism about the state of the nation carry me away. Sufficient numbers of enthusiastic locals gambolled in the water but we left them to take a ferry 6km across to St Mary’s Island, one of four small uninhabited islands that are geologically very significant. Huge columns of basaltic lava are strewn across the island and are stunning indeed. Vasco da Gama is supposed to have stopped here on his way from Portugal to Kozhikode and given it its name.

Back at Malpe, I called for a chai and a fortifying sandwich, and we also made time for one other stop – the extremely beautiful Kaup beach. I don’t know if the beach coloured the mood or if it was the mood that enriched the beach – but it seems now to be painted in my memories with hues of gold, blue and purple. There is a noble lighthouse here that was built in 1901 and it carries layers of memory. On the rocks, young people sat quietly appreciative, talking in low tones and walked down the rough stairs before it became too dark to see.

We were doing a longish haul the following day and heading all the way to Murudeshwara, 165km from Mangalore. The erstwhile NH 17 is now called NH 66 – not quite the legend its American counterpart is but an interesting enough road. The highway goes from Kochi to Mumbai and serves the entire coast of Karnataka. Scenic mostly… dotted by a series of bridges over canals formed by the backwaters, lined with coconut trees, paddy fields and broad leaved sal. The road does not, for the most part, hug the coast – although the tang of the sea is never far away.

But a little beyond halfway, suddenly the blue comes into view and you know you’re in the very beautiful Maravanthe stretch. We stopped for lunch at a resort here, which gave us the advantages of open views of the water along as well as a thatched roof over our heads. A little further, fisherfolk busied themselves with their nets, their colourful boats lined up high on the sand. I was squinting in the hot afternoon sun, feeling a little sorry that we should not have come upon this peaceful spot when it was a bit cooler. But that was only till I hitched up my trousers and let the waves come to me, caressing as they retreated. The sea has that quality, I find, of altering your perspective. It was no longer too hot, and with thousands of crabs milling about their hidey holes and sandpipers roosting in the rocks, it was absolutely the perfect time to be in Maravanthe.

Along the road, we came upon a dramatic picture frame – the waves crashed to the left and to the right, winding her way in languorous bends, the Souparnika river. An auspicious river that supposedly absorbs the goodness of 64 medicinal plants and herbs as it flows – a dip in these waters, therefore, is believed to be marvellously curative. I remember my mother insisting that her skin turned a beautiful golden when she bathed in the Souparnika… but there was no easy access to the water at this point and I regretfully gave up the idea of bringing home one bottle of its magic.

Soon we were at the bustling temple town of Murudeshwara. Dozens of buses at the local bus stop, taxi stands in the narrow main street, shops, tourists, eateries, lodges. The beach isn’t the cleanest by any means – the tourists keep to one side and the fisherfolk occupy the other. However, there are two features that tower over the town – one, the 20-storied raja gopuram to the Murudeshwara temple, about 237ft tall that needs you to crane your neck all the way if you’re standing at the entrance; and two, a 123ft sculpture of Shiva that dominates the landscape from miles away. The Murudeshwara shrine itself is old, linked to the convoluted legend of Ravana and the atma linga, but the temple has been constructed over the past decades through the efforts of local businessman and philanthropist R.N. Shetty; the sculpture, one of the tallest in India, is his vision as well.

There is a wonderful opportunity for underwater adventure at Murudeshwara. The lovely dive site of Netrani is 20km off the coast from here – and the lure was irresistible. The next morning saw us chugging along in the motor boat listening to a basic primer on scuba diving. The coral island of Netrani is a beautiful spot with a visibility of 15-20m and I was excited. Soon I was kitted out with the cylinder fastened to my back and I learned to my dismay that I was expected to fall into the water with a back flip – oddly enough, the aspect that scared me the most. Still, that was accomplished without a hiccup, and my instructor and I descended slowly. It didn’t seem so drastically different from snorkelling at first but the pressure started building in my ears and I knew I was definitely under water. We went down to about 12m. Vast schools of fish, fascinatingly coloured, marine life along the floor, corals, anemone… I saw other divers, hand-signalled ok for the underwater cameras and looked about avidly. A mere half-hour in a completely different element. I loved it but it did make me appreciate air and the fact that I was designed for it.

We moved up north to Gokarna next – which seemed to be the point where, culturally,  Karnataka melded into Goa. The beach shacks were more geared to the European palate, the beach shops had an eye firmly on the foreign tourist market. We stayed at an interesting little place called Namasta Yoga Farm, which is run by German Oliver Miguel. My cottage had a gorgeous yoga deck framed by orange curtains and I succumbed at once to the temptation of twelve rounds of Surya Namaskars.

The beaches here are beautiful: Om, with its undulating shape, and Kudle, so popular with the foreign tourists. Perhaps the name bestows a certain quietude to people who visit Om, because towards evening even the gambollers sauntered over to the rocks and fell to quiet meditation. Journey’s end but I fear it’s given me a taste for the sea that my land-locked city will struggle to assuage.

 

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The story, with additional information, is also up here.

Creature Comforts

Another deadline stares me in the face and since I cannot yet meet its eyes, my attention darts here and there. Let me put up this story of a river (and continent) I loved very much.

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Creature Comforts

There is something about great rivers, and there is something particularly special about the Zambezi. Wide, life-giving, embracing but also ferocious, and imperious in that manner of sweeping all before it. It is impossible to know – or love – a river such as this too well. And certainly not on the basis of a two-day acquaintance. But then, as lovers everywhere know, it depends on the two days.

Oddly, what I found most impressive was the fact that Zambezi, which traverses a distance of 3,540 km, and crosses seven countries to empty into the Indian Ocean, is only the fourth-longest river in Africa. It duly takes its place after Nile, Zaire and Niger – a little comparative study that brought home to me, firsthand, the magnitude of this land. I had read of colonial travellers’ term for the vast swathes of this continent. MMBA, they had called it, in part awe, part rueful frustration – Miles and Miles of Bloody Africa. I could see it now.

Our headquarters in Livingstone, Zambia, was the Royal Livingstone, a hotel located at a particularly well appointed spot on the banks, with a view of the Zambezi just before it hurtles down a chasm to form the magnificent Victoria Falls. The hotel’s lobby is designed to make most of this vantage: you walk in and gaze not upon the room (which is tasteful) but through the other archway which frames the blue-grey expanse of the water. Everywhere, in the dining areas, the charming rooms with their open verandas, the architecture employs an intelligent, pitch-perfect permeability between indoor and outdoor spaces.



Our very first item on the sightseeing list was, naturally, the Victoria Falls, ‘the largest sheet of falling water’ on the planet. Actually we’d been seeing it for miles. On the flight in, the flight attendant’s plummy tones had directed us to look out of our windows to the mist rising off ‘Vic Falls.’ Then as we drove from the airport with the river a constant presence on our right, we pulled up to see a soaring froth in the distance and a brilliant rainbow caught in its snare. From the hotel’s deck, again, in the distance, the spray. It was, without question, the centrepiece.

We moved closer now and the sound of cascading water deafened us. Mosi-oa-tunya, the Makololo people call it: ‘the smoke that thunders’. It does indeed. As we approached the eastern cataract, Francis, our guide, pointed into the water. A black rotund sleekness surfaced slowly - a young hippo marooned by the swirling currents, not strong enough to wade to the other side, clinging to the less turbulent shallows by the reeds. He could be there for days, we were told.

We donned raingear, protected our cameras and lenses in plastic covers and started walking to the other side of the fissure. And around a corner, our first frontal view of the waterfall. Through shrubbery at first and then, as we picked our way along the edge of the gorge, getting wetter and wetter from the needle spray, the whole amazing expanse of it. It is a breathtaking sight, one neither our cameras nor our exclamations could do justice to. Let’s put it this way: it’s bigger than us.



We went the next morning on a quintessential African activity – a game drive. The Mosi-o-tunya National Park is a small one (66sq km) but it gave us a full morning’s sightings. How astonishing it is to set out to see fauna in Africa – there is no lurking, hiding; no strained glimpses through shaded shrubbery… there’re all out there, in the open, crossing your path with impunity. So we saw herds of Impala, Bushback antelope, Wildebeest, Zebra posing this way and that. A Southern Red-billed Hornbill honoured us with multiple sightings, a warthog ambled our way and we encountered a large troop of baboons. I brought my binoculars out to get a good look at a Saddle-billed stork and the strange Hamerkop bird. We came then to a completely denuded tree on which perched an appropriately sinister gathering: a venue of White-backed vultures. We pulled up again at another point – majestic elephants, a small herd of five, would have right of way. Of course.

We didn’t see any big cats but I was delighted enough with my first sighting of a giraffe. What a strange looking animal it is. Put together like an assortment of other creatures and that bizarre neck with a touch of fur all the way down! Our specimen nibbled placidly at the upper leaves, his marbled skin pattern catching the light beautifully. Just like they said in the nature documentaries.
Next, I had a choice of activities. The first, to go by boat to Livingstone Island, to the spot where the explorer David Livingstone first discovered the falls in 1855. I was tempted but I opted for the other item on offer: to jump off the Victoria Falls Bridge.

After the falls, the Zambezi gushes into this narrow scenic gorge which has this historic bridge across it – a no-man’s land that connects Zambia with Zimbabwe. I was excited about this bungee jump. My very first, and so pleasing to do such a celebrated one!  As we drew to the bridge, however, the anticipation turned into dry-mouthed dread. I looked down and saw… way, way down… the teal blue waters swirl and churn. Around me jumpers were getting into harness and taking off to plummet 111m towards the river. My turn came. I was having my feet bound with padding and the bungee cord, and was asked to move, hopping, to the edge… the very edge of the platform. I twitched nervously but with the jump master blocking my passage backwards, there was no way but forward – into thin air.

I didn’t… couldn’t… soar outwards like I was advised to. Instead I fell with a scream like dead weight. I went first, the body followed, the stomach joined us several minutes later. It was truly beautiful… suspended upside down, being tossed up and down in the ravine, twirling around to see a fully circular rainbow from the spray.

Yet another view of the falls was afforded me the next day, when I went up in a micro light. It’s a vehicle too flimsy to be taken seriously but miraculously, it worked. There I was, insulated like an astronaut against the morning chill, looking down this way and that. What seemed like grey boulders were strewn about abundantly – elephants! A vein of silver-blue picked out the Zambezi’s course and soon we were motoring –inevitably –towards the falls. The small plane tilted into the spray, which rises on average to about half a kilometre in the air. The cataracts sprawled across 1.7 km, thundering down over 100m. I saw the bridge I had leaped off the previous day and marvelled anew at my own daring.

It was a good way to say goodbye, and now South Africa beckoned. Rather, more specifically, Sun City. A three-hour, cramping drive from Johannesburg deposited us at the entrance of the Palace of the Lost City – which is an experience that is at once dazzling and bemusing. Opulence meets quirkiness in this wild Xanadu-like hotel – sweeping halls, tiled mosaic on the floor, ceiling… everywhere. Spires, domes, columns, sculptures, tapestries, genuine animal skin upholstery… everything at once.

Sun City is a huge hit with Indian travellers who have made their presence felt, one way or the other. And we very nearly added to it. Bart, a gametracker at the Pilanesberg Game Reserve, was scheduled to meet us at 3.00 that afternoon. But we’d had a rough day, worsened by a small accident on the Segway and consequently, it was an hour later that we trooped to the game vehicle. Our guide was furious. After informing us that punctuality was a trait much prized in South Africa, he laid down the Indian-tourist-specific rules: “This vehicle stops when I want it to, moves when I decide. So don’t ‘chalo, chalo’ me. There is no ‘chalo, chalo.’” Oops!

But the afternoon improved. Sighting a lioness in the distance as we had only just entered the park set the seal: it was going to be a good day. The Pilanesberg reserve is set in the crater of a long extinct volcano: plains fringed by mountains. The habitat is a transition between the Kalahari and the Lowveld, and so benefits from an overlap of species. To the eye, it was a vivid, dramatic panorama that changed moods every twenty minutes as the afternoon went by.

In the distance, we spied a bulky grey figure snoozing. White rhinoceros. Two impressive horns, small flappy ears and over 3,500 kg of mostly muscle. Antelopes we saw an abundance of: the smallish Steenbok and the handsome Kudu. Bart thawed towards us – clearly, tourists as lucky as we appeared to be couldn’t be that bad.

The light had started to slant when suddenly he stepped on the brakes with an excited yelp and pointed.  A leopard high up in a tree, resting delicately and yet, quite comfortably on a mass of foliage. We found the spot with the best view and settled, willing to wait as long as the leopard did. The lone tree and the panther silhouetted against the gathering dusk – it was a moment of unbelievable rightness. A few minutes later, the cat tired of his perch and clambered down, carefully negotiating his way down, clasping the trunk as he backed onto the ground. And then with a last look at us, he leapt across a small stream and melted away into the tall grass.

Elated with our encounter, we headed back to the gates. And stopped again. A brown hyena minced along the side of the road, glassy eyes staring back at our searchlights. It crossed the road and we saw it gone before we set off again. A little further, a traffic jam. Game vehicles had stopped in the middle of the road and a hushed silence – one that indicates a sighting of no ordinary significance – prevailed. Soon the object of their attention became apparent to us. Quite by the road, three lionesses at play. Caught in a pool of cross-lighting from the various game vehicles, the sisters ambled, swiped, nuzzled and gambolled. After five minutes, or perhaps ten, they walked slowly away till the darkness enveloped them. Now it seemed indeed that a visit to Africa was complete.

______
This was published in Outlook Traveller, October 2012. The link is here. 

Tailorbird Update

We were late with bringing in the clothes from the clothesline and the buckets, and I have frightened Mr India away.

Of course, you know India from here. We hadn't given him a name then, not quite realising that this was to be such a long relationship as to require these niceties. But he has been visiting regularly, putting the back verandah out of use for us every evening. The name was bestowed recently by my 7-year-old niece who caught sight of him and then asked to see the species properly in the book. 'Oh, he's green and white and orange,' she said, 'I think you should call him India.' So we do.

Today, he was alert but stayed as long as I moved about some distance away but I was too ambitious - I reached for buckets less than four feet from him and he flew off. He'll be back, of course and, what's more, bring the missus with him. (Yes, our bachelor has settled down and our hopes that he would leave to make his adventurous way about the world have evaporated, for he brings her daily, and we will probably see their fledgelings too.) Now that winter has set in, he comes earlier every day. It used to be 6.30pm, now he's settling in by 5.45pm. He gets very bashful if we catch him at him - awkwardness at this shameless infringement, no doubt - but by eight or nine, he hardly notices us unless we are very loud.

Bulbuls again

More on the bulbuls. They've taken to bathing every day and are increasingly at home. Of course, this means that the robin who liked to come and sip has been shunted out, and one beautiful ashy prinia lurks furtively. Anyway, these chaps are comfortable. I haven't got pictures of the bath itself because the activity is usually so charming, I stand rooted! Next time, if you can bear another post on this.

The stronger bulbul

The siblings huddle sometimes

Ek thi bulbul

Some non-human drama outside our window yesterday. There are two new bulbul fledgelings learning their way around the world, starting with our jasmine creeper. One is bigger, stronger and has a crest poking out already but the other one is very unsure and only makes small tentative hops along the branch. Parent bulbul is utterly utterly sweet and marvelously competent. Many mysterious pellets and worms are brought - she pays a tad more attention to the weaker fellow but then also darts off in search of the other one to make sure he gets fed as well.

Mom bulbul

The weak fledgeling (Sorry for the bad photo but he'd assumed that position by the time I dug out the camera.)

Creatures, great and small

I have said once or twice before how flattered the Vyases feel when wild creatures come visiting. We like stray cats and dogs to stay in the yard but we had a parrot swagger into our drawing room once and we nearly kept it.

Some part of our delight must’ve been due to this Enid Blyton that Shweta and I read over and over again as children. The Children of the Cherry Tree Farm had four city kids visit the English countryside. There they meet a wild man called Tammylan who introduces them to the wild. I’ve blogged about Tammylan before, here.

Blyton gets a lot of rap these days for very many reasons but as millions of our generation know, she gave us oh, so much joy and excitement. She held up all manner of traits we could emulate – if she made the aggressive Elizabeth Allen her protagonist in the Naughtiest Girl series, she could make an ideal of the shy, retiring sorts as well. In this book, Benjy is a timid, dreamy type of lad… unremarkable, except he has a deep quietude about him. He has “the low voice and the quiet hands of those who love the wild creatures”, and it is Benjy whom Tammylan first invites to come and meet his wild friends – rabbits, hares, snakes and badgers.

I suppose for children like me - susceptible to that sort of appeal - the capacity for being still became a virtue, reining in of unruly energy became a matter of discipline. We put our spins on what we receive but that was a good lesson, I’ve always thought. Needless to say, I longed to be Benjy. I have never succeeded with getting a squirrel to come to hand but I must tell you about this tailorbird.

He has been coming to roost in our back verandah everyday for more than a week now. It was spring-like weather and surely all god’s creatures must be out there, wooing and mating, building and breeding. And here was this fellow, coming to bed at 6.30 pm daily. He sits at the edge of this washing line, holding onto the wire, wedged tight against the roof and his head snug under the wing.

At first we were delighted. Shweta theorised that nest-building work was ongoing and that our tailorbird was here on a temporary basis. Now it does not appear to be the case – our bird has the air of someone who has found excellent living quarters going very cheap and does not mean to vacate it. Then worry struck. Was this tailorbird of a slacker ‘kaljugi’ generation… you know, just lazy? Had he not inherited the skills necessary to be ahead with the world? Preeti, who came by one day and caught sight of him by torchlight has been worried and seeking regular updates.

We have other problems also. For fear of disturbing this bird, we have been forced to forego use of the verandah every evening. Unfortunately, since he is perched just above the washbasin, it is very inconvenient.

However, we are now a little relieved of our concerns. The Wikipedia entry (which should have been consulted sooner) says:

“The birds roost alone during the non-breeding season but may roost side-by-side during the breeding season, sometimes with the newly fledged juvenile sandwiched between the adults. The roost sites chosen are thin twigs on trees with cover above them and were often close to human habitation and lights.”

So our guest is probably a carefree bachelor who has made do with a clothesline and roof – what’s life without a little jugaad? He likes the lights, so we don’t have to tiptoe around him. And he likes us, so that is a very, very good thing.

Through the grill

We've had a couple of bird baths in the garden this summer and happy to say they've been a huge success. It has been murderously hot and wildlife of all sorts seem to appreciate the troughs. Needless to say, we appreciate the view and the constant stream of Discovery Channel outside our windows.
At first the troughs were greeted with some suspicion. But they stayed there doing nothing more drastic than acquiring patinas of moss and being magically refilled. When they had blended into the surroundings, looking as scruffy as everything else, they began to be accepted.


The smallest birds are the most wary and make a huge production of descending bough after bough before they sip very quickly and dart away. This sunbird was actually quite zen in her non-fluttering and allowed me one neat frame.


This is our resident Robin, and quite the only one who actually dives in without any compuction at all. Once he got into the trough briefly and flew to sit on a branch shaking and drying himself. Then clearly thinking that there was no need to be done quite so soon, he breezed down and stepped in again for this rather frolicky bath.





The babblers, when they come, are enormous fun. They don't actually bathe but they like to dip their tails in, chatter incessantly and make a huge communal thing of it. But then everything is a huge communal thing with these fellows.


We have a new litter of cats. This is a new family that's moved in - mother and four kittens, all striped and pointy-eared. They like the bigger trough and very much disconcerted the birds when they first came. We were afraid the birds would reject that one because cats had been sipping from it but realised that they weren't about to be so brahmanical about it - everyone will drink from the same pond... just not at the same time. Anyway, here are two of the kittens enjoying a snooze.

This kitten gave me the most attitude-y looks if only, alas, I had been able to quickly focus on him. But these twigs got in the way and my camera insisted it knew better. However, it has prodded me to finally learn these manual controls, so next time hopefully we'll focus on the cat.

Flight path

New haiku on header. I take down Robert Major's wistful poem:
Sometimes I think . . .
you would answer the phone
if I were to call

But the new one is lovely too.

into the sun
where eyes can’t follow
a red tailed hawk
~Edith Bartholomeusz

The presence of a bird, up there... somewhere. But the hawk is free to fly where it chooses, into the sun if it wants to - the watcher can gaze no more, he must look away... let the knowledge of it comfort him, when he can no longer sight it.

Hazaar baar

Plaintive,
again this summer,
the cuckoo.

A dash of blue

The thrillingest thing!
I had no idea they even KNEW we existed, but evidently they do! Our humble garden, or rather Radha Aunty's excellent shrubbery, which is the same thing, has been flattered, exalted, ennobled by the presence of a Tickell's Blue Flycatcher! Yes, yes, but I have photographic proof.

Clearly digiscoping is not my talent but of the lot I have just two, may be three pictures that are reasonably clear. Yes they do come to gardens but of all the gardens, in all the world...!


This place buzzes with Red-vented Bulbuls, Tailorbirds, sunbirds, White-headed Babblers... but never before have we seen a flycatcher. Perhaps this little patch is gaining a reputation. The word, I fancy, is going around that there are lemon bushes here, and flowers, flies, juicy worms, and the odd predatory cat to add spice. Alas, this is not the first time I have let such hopes soar when vagrants come a'callin'. Why let that stop us be aux anges.

Hyderabad BirdRace

Sorry for the hasty post but it's BirdRace time again. We had one last year and it was terrific fun!
It's on 2 December this year - do do come. You'll need to register with Siraj Taher (32936937) or Sushil Kapadia (9393319333) of the Birdwatchers' Society of Andhra Pradesh. The official site is here and Ludwig has all the details here.

Monsoons, Maredumilli

Occurs belatedly that I said I was going to Maredumilli, went, had a wonderful time and never said anything about it.

It was just as I had predicted. We were moving straight into the path of the depression exactly on the day it crossed the coast and we spent a considerable part of the three days either getting wet or trying not to.

Rajahmundry was mostly spent at the train station, organising tarpaulins for the luggage. A brief glimpse of the Godavari and the famous bridges across it and soon we were hurtling along to Maredumilli. The tarpaulins were well worth the wait, because soon enough the heavens opened. Car windows were rolled up but fat droplets sneaked in anyway.

This patch of Andhra has some of the finest forests in the state and they look unbelievably beautiful in the rain… we sighed at every turn. The camp site was a lovely spot. On a slight hillock with the Valamuru stream curling around it. About a dozen tents neatly arranged. The facilities however were rudimentary and every meal was brought in from elsewhere. Not having coffee – or failing that, tea – first thing in the morning is more basic than I like.

Dry enough to begin with, the tents got progressively damper around the edges; and what with all our sodden stuff hanging from tent openings or draped over packs… well, it was wet. Then there were meals. There was no concrete structure at the camp site, and meals were had under this lovely machaan built around a Mangifera indica. Here we stood huddled as we ate, being dripped on from between the planks above us. The generator lights attracted insects but we tucked in generously, casually plucking out insects from our food as we went.

The stream I mentioned had a little low bridge over it. Two days of incessant rain later, the water had risen and sloshed cheerfully over the bridge. We, who had just pulled on our socks and shoes, sat down to take them off again to cross over. Incredibly nice to walk the bridge with water swirling around the ankles, though. Good we didn’t know it when we dangled our feet in its waters but the stream is supposed to have quite a few crocodiles.

Birding in these circumstances was surprisingly good, because when it did stop raining for even half hour stretches, the birds came out in plentiful numbers. At least five lifers for me: the Large Yellow-naped Woodpecker, Crimson Sunbird, the Orange-throated Green Pigeon, the Lorikeet and the Chestnut-bellied Nuthatch. As we settled ourselves in our jeeps to head back to Rajahmundry, the sun came out. Of course it would!

People back home were worried, we learnt later, because there was flooding in Kurnool and elsewhere, with loss of lives and property. Families exchanged phone calls for news and everyone wondered at our sanity in going off to the wild at such a time. Fortunately we encountered no such troubles and came back in blithe ignorance of what was happening elsewhere. Much fun came.