Showing posts with label explore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label explore. Show all posts

Sunday, June 07, 2015

stillness

Yesterday's ghoom was a reflection of the state of affairs on my end. A dominating stillness, that didn't go away - that is what my past 3 days have been like. No work done, little on the exploratory  front, little on the Ido or Kru front.

Moving beyong tiny low-scatter personal front: the jungles, the HHG. It was surprising to sense the holistic stillness of the jungle. Not a single bird, animal, or insect stirred, even the wind failed to produce "the wave" in the grass and trees. Me and baby bro clamored up and down slopes, and sensed nothing but the stationery. Then we rolled some Katrina and hiked onwards with the added swag. The high of our journey was reached when we joined the old canal cutting through HHG. Thereon, a traverse, then a traverse back, and a hike down, to join the road, to homebase.

The traverse along the channel took us amidst thick vegetation, and is the "easy" gateway to touch the main ravine. Alas, since it crashes into a chasm shortly thereafter, so it's only a gateway and not a complete walkthrough - one needs to climb up through dense growth to skirt through the broken section, which gets messy. We didn't feel like the latter, maybe because there was anything to scratch our imaginations tonight, hence made it the point of our return.

The only living thing we ran into were a couple of small things - the first one possibly a toxic caterpillar that clung onto my tee and left me with tiny hair that caused a rash on the dorsal side of my neck. It still stings a bit. The second, a spider, in full spread - by that I meant a large symmetric web, right in the middle of our trail. It took us a moment to figure out how to get past it. I was suggesting that we crawl through the channel, much like trench warfare. Then baby bro took a closer look and found that only a single low-lying silken strand connected to the right (the hillside was to our left); we carefully (and successfully) went around the web both the times. Note, that a given weight of spider silk is five times as strong as the same weight of steel. It was quite evident seeing how the single strand supported the magnificent web.

Well, nature, if not myself or my crashing relationship, to write loads about.

Monday, July 07, 2008

Washed away

The Yamuna, that nullah that i last remember it as, is back to being a river now. It's as odd as the resurgence of hair on a bald person. The pontoon bridges lie reduntant. Any businesses near its banks - like the juice vendors and farmers - have displaced. The banks lie desolate, but beautiful. Now that the water levels have risen and the banks are closer, I walk upto the edge, right where the land ends. I assume that the edge won't erode and continue to act sophisticated. An odd fisherman or two are the only population around, if you ignore counting in the migratory cranes that decided to break their journey for a couple of days. The water is muddy brown - which is a welcome change from the earlier shade of evil black. Countless eddies churn the waters, but to no effect. For the first time it seems that the river has the potential to support life. And I also come across things that suggests the river's affiliations to the end of life. There are tiny earthen pots lying around, which MUST be containing ashes of the dead. It is confirmed when I spot hollowed, brittle bones around one of the pots that lies smashed. The rest must have been washed away in the agressive currents The water levels are conspicuously higher.
She flows with great intensity, thanks to the torrential showers. The monsoons haven't arrived yet, I'm told. If that is so, then I can foresee the great Delhi floods of '08.

Once the rain clouds go away, Yamuna would be back to 'black greasy smelly chemicals' mode it was earlier in. I shouldn't mind - the pontoon bridge would be up again, and the sugarcane juice vendors would come back to its banks and ring cute little bells to attract their customer for another glass of refreshing juice. Blue bulls - currently living deep in the forests nearby - would move outwards, where I can see them grazing once again. But the greatest delight once it's back to being so is that I get to reminisce; reminisce over each and every artefact that ties to my memories.
The scenes today would make for reminiscence the next year. Fruition period.