Chronicles of an Eclectic Life: nature

Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts

Showing posts with label nature. Show all posts

Monday, February 06, 2017

Field Recording Itch

Of late, I've directed thoughts often towards birds. That continuity led to today's thoughts - much exclusively towards assembling a field recording kit, so that the birdsongs aren't a mere fleeting memory. And yet again, I have concluded that choosing a reliable/stable/effective kit is a bit complicated. Earlier, I have browsed over hours, to come to similar conclusions.
Each time I get a bit wiser, but many questions still remain open-ended - Do I go for a shotgun or a parabolic mic? Would DIY-ism get me better field recordings? Is a separate recorder necessary? Is a deadcat must? Where in Delhi do audiophiles go (having been to Daryaganj, I've been disappointed)? Where can the field recordists/soundscapers be found in my part of the world? Would starting with soundscapes (hence a XY setup) be better as it is the ulterior intent?

Another annoying part is seeing the immediately-available-in-vicinity prices being much higher than what the same things sell for on Amazon (US). To be limited to a few options, which are priced so as to leave no scope to experimentation, is conflicting. What is the beef the audio manufacturers have with our government, to deserve such jacked up prices? This takes me back to last decade when anything electronic would blindly be a much better deal if a friend/relative was returning from the US or Emirates.

As of the moment of logging this, some bird's very unique calls intrude the airspace. Only if I'd have something to hook into it... gah!

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Saturday, February 04, 2017

Oil spills, wetlands, and Flamingos

It happened a few days back (Jan 28), but only today does the news of a massive oil spill on the Indian coasts trickle down to my eyes through conventional news channels. A cleanup effort ensued, which has taken care of the most of it. It is good to see volunteers in action - would've liked be one meself.

So it happened off the Kamarajhar Port (Ennore coast), off the coast of Chennai, in Tamil Nadu the southernmost Indian state (title shared with Kerala state).

A massive clean-up operation was launched in Tiruvallur, Chennai and Kancheepuram Districts by engaging more than 2000 persons at various sites including Ernavur, Chennai Fishing Harbour, Marine Beach, Besant Nagar, Kottivakkam, Palavakkam, Neelankarai and Injambakkam beaches.

Merchant shipping fail, this. The spillage exceeds 200 tonnes, and has been under-reported to be around 20 tonnes.The general mode of our business is evasive/thrifty/lying. Being honest is the least they could do in this case. A proportional (legally instituted) fine is the most nominal punishment, for we do not realize to what extent of damage such events have on the nature. There is no way or no amount of money that can thwart the ecological cascade that might ensue.

Just a day back, we celebrated the World Wetlands Day 2017 , which wasn't really celebrated anywhere but had a few articles written about it. No representation among the masses for valuable, massive ecological zones providing our communities with sustenance - by the way of fresh water, food, flood control - for generations - called Ramsar sites - under threat because of (who but) us.

For those who don’t know what a wetland is, it is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem.
They are also very important for animals and plants to survive. Actually, they are one of the most vital and productive ecosystems on the planet. Unfortunately, this valuable asset of the planet are slowly getting lost at an alarming rate in many regions of the Earth. According to a report, at least 64 per cent of wetlands have diminished since 1990.

In the month of November, I found myself very lucky to be in Begusarai for some survey work. Lucky, because Begusarai district was home to the Kanwar Bird Lake Sanctuary, housing Asia's largest oxbow lake - 3 times that of Bharatpur, where I had already been to and returned impressed at its immensity. Super eager, I asked around for directions, to come to know that it was only a small lake, and nothing much was to be enjoyed there. Being a skeptic about other's perceptions (esp when it comes to natural wealth), I looked it up online, to find that the place really was now an unimpressive waterhole, far from what it once was.

As a 2008 study by Pollution Research states

In the present study the pollution of a major North Bihar lake, the Kawar Wetland was studied with special reference to their effects on flora, fauna and local human population. The water of the lake is turbid, acidic and is having higher conductivity. The dissolved oxygen level was estimated as 7.6 mg/L, free CO2 6.3 mg/L, bicarbonate 80 mg/L, hardness 90 mg/L, chloride 17.0 mg/L.

A coupla years back, in the February of 2015, I had suffered a similar setback on a morning, when after adventurously breaking a journey (a roadtrip in a Tata Sumo with a friend) next to a huge lake, imagining creatures and phenomenon unseen, we woke up to find that the massive lake was now an empty trough, all its water drained for construction projects (esp a massive college complex in vicinity) - I best enjoyed that morning exploring a graveyard next to the lake that separated it from a village, a symbolic image to take back in my state of shock and mourning. This was near Hyderabad, in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Population pressures on the Indian ecosystem are colossal. Things are already depressing, and we make no efforts to change. Bangalore and Chennai are prime examples of destruction of wetlands, to the extent that they (the related wetland ecosystems) have disappeared. Corruption - by the way of bribes and complacency - is rampant everywhere. In this state of affairs, the nature is no way on the track of winning.

This is the range of flamingos across our planet. See that strip on the left - that's the Indian subcontinent. The bird is supposed to exist everywhere along our western coastline in the migratory season. Yet, now it is only left with a few spots to camp at, namely in the state of Gujarat (like the RoK). This morning, I was surprised to find Mumbai on the map as well through a cousin, learning the existence of Sewri Flamingo Point, which I would've been to had I known during my stay there. Now I wait for an opportunity.

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Thursday, September 01, 2016

Gender Roles across Evolution

As animals, we share the codified sexual dimorphism, which evolved for reproductive advantage. Consequently, our males are bigger than our females. What this helps in, is sexual coercion - males display harassment, intimidation, grasping, and even infanticide - to get the desired females. Males attempt to maximize their offspring; females try to minimize the same (as they invest heavily in childbearing).

A possible explanation for aggressive behaviors in primates is that it is a way for males to train females to be afraid of them and be more likely to surrender to future sexual advances.

Species where the males tend to be larger than females, exhibit promiscuity. Ones where the females tend to be larger, exhibit monogamy.

As humans, we have differentiated from other species, by a rather unique adaptation - of letting go of all adaptations. Our bodies are colorless, featureless, defenceless. Other species invest a lot in their features, but not us.

Being the intelligent species, we endorsed minimalism. If there were a God person in existence, then an imagined conversation would be such

"Do you need horns?"

"Nope."

"How about some crazy colors?"

"Nope."

"Hey try this new glandular excretion to ward predators"

"Nope."

"How about a tail?"

"Nope."

"Chemoluminescence?"

"Nope."

"Wattles?"

"Nope."

"What is wrong with you?!"

"I can't invest so much energy on individual features. I got brains, I'll figure out ways to stay minimal, or at least externalize the features."

"Huh, I wonder how far you'll go"

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Thursday, August 25, 2016

complex matings 101

Bursa Copula - nice name for an online avatar. What does it mean? "sperm digestion organ"
Reading into snail reproduction (pulmonates) and its mating strategy, has been the bizzare experience of the day. At some point in the past, I had decided to make a tee explaining their lovemaking (in Limax) , but never came around to it; and since, the information has been much forgotten, reduced to its essentials of - "snails mate funny", and "everted penis must be difficult".
It becomes difficult to converse with parents when one's head is trying to grasp the mating of gastropods.

The terrestrial gastropods are mostly simultaneous hermaphrodites (monoecious i.e. containing both reproductive parts on the same organism). Their entire reproductive system is a consuming read.
A coupla interesting features, that I got to learn about:

1. bursa copulatrix

aka the common oviduct
a depression around the genital aperture of insects which receives the male organ during copulation.
a thin fan or bell-shaped expansion of the cuticle of the tail of many male nematode worms that functions as a copulatory structure

2. The Love Dart
aka the Gypsobelum
This is a chitinous (sometimes calcerous or cartiliginous) harpoon-like structure that is formed inside the reproductive tract of gastropods. It resides in the stylophore, or the dart sac. During mating, at the epic moment when the two genital openings come into contact, the dart is fired into the other. Funny, that virgin snails will never have this structure, but it grows after the first mating - that, I think, is the most obvious sign of a nonvirgin, which sadly is a feature not present in humans.

It has a very complicated function that has mystified researchers - until now, that is. Newer research has given us an understanding that the mucus of the dart contains an allohormone (a hormone-like substance) that suppress (or mitigates) the digestive function of the Bursa Copula, and hence allows a greater amount of sperm to make its way through the tract. Why do they need more sperm they can handle at a time, because this sperm can be stored for a long time (in the spermathecae), and used for fertilization later on.
If a snail can fire this successfully, the reproductive outcome is highly favored. If not, the other party has the risk of internal damage, even leading to death!

The mating dance is also an interesting read.

The genital pore (from which comes out the entire reproductive paraphernalia during reproduction) of snails is positioned on the right side of the body, very close to the head. A mating ritual has the snails stimulating regions close to each other's heads, to draw out the genital apparatus (which is a white globby mass).

Most species have a single dart, while some of the Urocyclidae family have upto 70!

In a nutshell

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Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Nature's Kleptomaniacs

Yesterday I came across a mean scene - of the big profiting off the efforts of the small. It was a scene in the insect world, best seen with a magnifying glass. It introduced me to a term I didn't know before - Kleptoparasitism.

A file of ants moved on a (pheromone) trail across the bench ('meen') in the frontyard, some of them carrying food. They didn't realize they were being 'watched'. A gang of house flies, each positioned a coupla feet apart from each other along the ant trail, stood watching, in stillness. When an ant with food got close, the fly would get animated, and start "stalking" the ant. In short hops and skips, it (the fly) would block the ant's march, and repeatedly do so, until the ant got startled, tired, isolated, and wandered off-course. Then it would attempt grabbing the food, jabbing the food with its proboscis, and a short tug-of-war would ensue - the battle of the proboscis (fly) vs the pedipalps (ants).

The tug would span over multiple wounds until one gave up. Mind you that the ants, though small, are very strong, and it is not so easy for the flies. In the four incidents I observed, the split was 50-50. In one incident, where the ant won, the fly tried thrice, but failed.

Some flies are kleptoparasites, this being especially common in the subfamily Miltogramminae of the family Sarcophagidae. Some adult milichiids, for example, visit spider webs where they scavenge on half-eatenstink bugs. Others are associated with robber flies (Asilidae), or Crematogasterants.^[7] Flies in the genus Bengalia (Calliphoridae) steal food and pupae transported by ants and are often found beside their foraging trails.^[8]

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Monday, August 17, 2015

Modus Majzoobiyat

Just woke up from a deserving lap of sleep, following yesterday, that was dense with action - much like the entire weekend. The actions were dense with lightness, which seemed to act to my modus majzoobiyat. So much shit flew, and yet none struck or stuck; and paradoxically they made for experiences of a unique sort that does validate a growing up of 30-or-so years (an awareness of about 10 years).

Briefly put, the highlights:
- drive to and back from Gethia,
- in monsoons,
- meeting accident with (one political heaveyweight) mr. bitta's brother-operated truck (apparently) at Brajghat,
- few hrs at the police station,
- driving through kanwari traffic (sorta like an annual endurance test for hindu pilgrims in this season),
- through potholed roads,
- then fogbound Gethia,
- a visit to Sattal and a band of women bringing out everything that's wrong with 'women'
- hostilities from the dead,
- my velociraptor attack wound,
- finding ferric deposits leaching from the rocks on a morning reccee,
- driving back in record time feeling much like a realistic video game,
- then delhi at its flooded worst whetting my apetite to get wet

The weekend kinda proved that life is like a dancing leprechaun that pulls out a mini machine gun and opens fire at you. I've to keep it at bay for this week; there's work to do.

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Wednesday, August 05, 2015

merosity verbosity

Stepping out at J, I notice the sickle stick at action, lopping off overhanging tree branches at the junction, keeping Delhi's favorite hangout of CP prim and away from any liability claims. Things are done pretty old school - sickles are put into similar use even in Indian villages.

I'm late yet again. Then I find my friend's gonna be late-r. My tendencies bring me to examine the trash, that is the cluster of freshly-pruned branches. My interests has gone into plant structures of late - merosity, whorls, and phylotaxy were found interesting, concepts that are easier and more interesting for someone of a mathematical bend, and no biological background. So there I was, outside SB, down on the pavement, examining branches.

those nodules were enticing

Small things get people talking. A middle-aged gentleman in red tee came up to me, and expressed curiosity in what I was upto. (I'd noticed him step out of his Indica with a curious eye). Since such reasons are incoherent and messy to explain, I faked by telling him it was for my coursework (generation algorithms must learn from plants, so biology is still a connected domain that could enter my discipline anyday). I did give him sane reasons for doing whatever I was, though. He seemed more moved than before. He gave a long introduction of how he had been very pro- person about plants, and nature in general. How he had moved to Ghaziabad, from a home in Moti Nagar that nobody wanted to give away, to nurse his ailing mother. I complimented him - genuinely - that his age seemed to fool people for the same reasons; and he, a 56-year-old, liked hearing that so much that he asked again, and I elaborated that he even betrayed a father's looks.

Then I got to hear about his son, something about my age, and into all random crap of the world, on professional terms! We had a lot in common - being Delhi-educated folks, IPU-worn folks (his was BVP), that had a lot of 'alternate' going. His son had stepped into politics, in a way, through dance, and organized flashdance-mobs for the now-ruling Aam Aadmi Party during their election campaign.

He (son) was also a part of Greenpeace, which I have coincidentally been thinking of (a bit obsessively) in the past 3 days. Again felt it was a small world, indeed, a one where I am around, but maybe not tapped in.

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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The Hornet and the Ant

Found this hornet [Vespa Orientalis] in the garden. It had been crawling in the grass long enough to compel a closer look. Turns out there was an ant clung to its right wing, making flight impossible (imagine barbell tied to a bird's wing). The ant had dug its claws real deep, in some strange frenzy, and had locked itself.

Initially, I assumed some predatory maneuver on the ant's part, and decided to not interfere with nature. But it wasn't so - for some reason it just clung on; no progress was made, neither did any other ants join it. Some day the hornet was having. Some day the ant was having, too. I imagined that both would've died this way.

I stepped in, and after repeated attempts, managed to get the ant off with the help of holding the hornet down with a stick and using another one as a pick to lightly scrape the ant off. The hornet took flight immediately, much to my relief. Both the insects survived.

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Tuesday, October 02, 2012

G ecosystem

Found: some post-monsoonal residents of the fields, where I presently am.

If last night was a tiring and embarrassing affair, today was quite the opposite. The sounds of nature are so intoxicating that I need no other drug. I'm floored by the collective cacophony of the cicadas that is now my favorite sound, and also makes me wanna be a sound engineer who can preserve these for the future - the death of some of my favorite insect species will need suitable elegies.
I can't recall seeing such dominance of insect species over the avian species earlier, especially from an aesthete's PoV. The spiders are at their most flamboyant. So are the crickets - I got rare (macro) footage of one munching on a petunia.
Talking about petunias... don't even let me come to flowers - they are in abundance, one for each of my lady likes ;)

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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Wrong Shoe Size

A cicada sets off in the willow above me, and its song travels through such a wide tonal range that I momentarily mistake it for a jet either raiding or surveying the skies
(with the recent (re)viewing of Grave of the Fireflies, it doesn't take long to figure out my delusion).

A murmur set up in the leaves of a Poplar tree behind me by its swaying branches also raises an alarm, as if something's slowly rumbling in.

Through these distractions, I am actually being solicited by nature to see the dreamy rustic scene of the valley - soaked in rains, lush flora carpets the chain of hills in all directions; the flat monochrome walls of homes bear a saturation and sheen (also thanks to the zero haze) one finds - if at all - in paintings (and photoshopped flickr pics); the clouds mesh a dreadful fiber above that will tear open to surprise meeklings anytime; the sun works in installments, much annoyed by the train of traveling clouds; orange, black, blue, and white beaks shuffle among the branches, landing blows on tree bark and earth to knock out some unlucky worm, and they also fill the noisescape with a cheery honey trill; ants march under by boots (and some even make through alive) savouring breadcrumbs from the last of my lot that I just finished.

I feel so badly hooked to this scene that to get out of these I won't without mutilating myself. I realize a lot more things await me to the city I will land back into later tonight, but its like stepping out of your good shoes into something 3 sizes smaller.

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Friday, June 29, 2012

One Up on Farewells

Farewell, my valleys, soft and rolling,
And you, steep hills that I've known, exploring!
And you, ravines of Nainital, aye!
Farewell, my lovely azure sky,
Farewell, o Nature, gay and gentle!
Your quiet world I soon shall trade
For Delhi's noise, the vain parade...
Farewell, my freedom elemental!
What future am I heading for?
What secrets holds my fate in store?

All this emotion, just after a week's stay. Damn, this guy needs some sort of detachment therapy.

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Thursday, June 28, 2012

I saw a deer today

PS: No Portal involved here.

My foes, who see me as a corrupting influence on their daily routines, should be in light of the fact that this guy - in his isolated abandon - was out by 04:45, breathing in the scent of pine, and introducing to nature - alongside the morning raucous of merry avian voices - the shuffle of his feet across the soggy slopes and the hard tarmac. Only witness, perhaps, to his resolute run - yes, it wasn't a coincidental affair that he randomly started out on a run just coz he "felt like it" - were the transient truck drivers stationed along the road for the night.

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Sunday, June 24, 2012

Dying With Wings

There's a fleet of single purpose sexual missiles, briefly converting the 107.507 square inches of my laptop screen into something akin to both, a warship - crashing, landing, docking, - and also as a mating platform. In some time, a few of these sexual missiles will accomplish - in a process of quick and violent mating - the task that genetic code has entrusted them with. The prize of their victory will be death; the failures will die too - there's no escaping the law.

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Thursday, April 12, 2012

sandstorm hands on

Rich sand deposits - in my ears and under the eyes - to inconvenience me for rest of the day until I could find a wash, which, being homeless, is not as easy as it comes to you, reader. If the 'homeless'-ness got your attention, then you will be disappointed, for that is not where this paragraph leads to, and you might as well stop reading...
...
...good, I knew you could manage without it; a keen reader must learn to handle loose ends. Let me, now, lead you instead to a rooftop of a 6-storied building, where I stood a few minutes back, admiring the blackness that briefly enveloped my skyline. A growing smile occupied my face with the growing cloud of doom that approached.

A new velocity signaled its approach - velocity is something I do not generally associate with the calm air about me, but now I could, as I felt an invisible force move me in random directions. Wind, not air, this time. [often I'd find myself tipping over the edge when the wind would suddenly alter its direction, but that, luckily, never got too exciting] Under the gaze, six floors down, across the expanse of the marketplace, the existing commotion on streets turns into something uglier for a brief moment, then dies. Dupattas and pallus flag briefly, then are brought under restraint. The suits don't make their masters any Supermans, and are equally abused in that brief.

The whole of marketplace, as visible from this rooftop, reverberating with tin. Tin sheets like Shuriken move through the air, slicing things in its path, smacking people random. [was later confirmed of at least two heads being split open in this inanimate-object attack]

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Friday, January 06, 2012

First thought in the New Year

I'm stirred open from my peaceful (and much needed) slumber by somebody knocking.
"हाँ..." I exclaim, a bit startled. And the same knock repeats.
"कौन है?" I grunt as I shuffle between the sheets in annoyance, my voice hitting a different pitch with every syllable.
The right hand comes to life - independent of the body - and executes the motor skill of locating one's cellphone in vicinity in pitch dark (I believe it derives from the need to locate a gun, or knife, or hammer by the bedside in the past). Boop. The screen lights up next to my face, and one eye strains to gain focus on the display.
02:15. AM.

Briefly out of wits, I regain my composure. ... . The knocks are really taps coming from the room's rear window, and follow a natural rhythm in their decay. Tap ta t ta. Just air, then, on the window-pane. Soon the taps are accompanied with hushed sounds on the tin roof outside, as if somebody was covertly trying to introduce chaos to this part of the hills.
Another tap on the window. Few more beats on the tin.

Soon this infrequent affair takes a more orchestrated form as the tin roof starts to pulse with the wind and the rear window starts to crackle with the falling raindrops. There is a curiosity to learn of this concert outside, and a wish to stumble into a chance snowfall this first day (and third hour) of the new year - I'm at 6100ft, after all, so it isn't all that far-fetched. Plus, it is liberating making friends with the darkness wherever I go - helps restructure certain psychological priorities; darkness could even feature in the ending titles to my life (under "coping-with-fear", or "confidence cultivators").

With the phone's aid, I locate my headlamp (that is also lying on the bed), and rip through the cocoon of a cover I'd fashioned from the twin blankets. The night is cold, but that is partly offset by my curiosity. As I fumble with the steel latch of the verandah's door, an alert Kalu downstairs responds with muffled growls, both trusting and questioning his senses at the same time.

The latch finally gives in - some rust, general disuse, and sad carpentry revealed in the process. Petrichor first hits me as I sniffle in the air outside - first precipitation of the season, indeed. I don't feel that much a chill in the wind. Some survey reveals that this is mere rain, not snowfall, which is a bit dismaying. Then I recall that through yesterday I had been watching this gradual pileup of clouds, which I was sure wasn't a normal feature on a winter day. Finding them pouring down now only meant that it was correct observation on my part. Win.

I linger on in the verandah - for a mere minute or so. Visual component is negligible at this hour in a rural landscape - 3 lightbulbs on the opposite hill are the only feature, barring which these hills and its cluster of villages form a dark space. Aurally, however, I'm as receptive indoors as outdoors, so with the added incentive of warmth and comfort that my bed would offer, I head back in and start scribbling under the blankets in the glow from my headlamp.

Kind-of symbolic, that my first prosaic outpour in this new year begins with the first downpour of the season in these hills. New crop would take roots, and spread their arms open towards the sun, which in this part of the hills still remains the only benchmark for a content life, the dividing line between success and failure.
What we cultivate in the coming season for a content life remains to be seen.

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Friday, April 22, 2011

Shimbeleth

The yellow Bulbul that'll never come back
the way it was this morning,
ballet-dancing among the gardens and kyaaris
sending the flowers and shrubs themselves in a joyous dance - but nothing that would catch the eye of Grandmaster Mithun.
Lush breeze adds to the happiness
and the entire flora dances in sync,
to same tune
of the ocean and mother Earth.

A cicada chirps on by,
his lament out there for a lover to pick;
in short quivering replies she replies back and now
the lonesome cicada slips into morning bliss.

The sparrow flits by
between the strikingly odd - like the few strands of hair on a bald man odd - branches,
and puff and swell in the chase and run game they play in the morning.
It is nice to see the sparrow return,
much like somebody's younger sister that I knew.
And so I also wish that the T-rex may return back b'coz tat would be fucken cool.

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FIrst sensations of being back

I find a cool spot under the shade of one of the few young pines dotting Montpellier, overlooking the entire chain of this sinusoidal mountainside, then the road snaking down to Gethia, the blue tin roof of my home at the edge of the hillside that further opens into valeys void of settlements and finally ending into a flourish of the Gaula plains at Kgm and Hld.
This is my first appropriation of Alookhet's geography, and also an exploration to what really was 'up there' - the narrow track climbing up along one of the bends shortly after Alookhet. What really is up here surprised me, as I carefully studied the Kumaoni gentleman garlanding and lighting incense sticks at what appeared a Mazaar - these are shrines typical to Islam. Next to this Mazaar was a small walled chamber decked with bells and strange earthenware, typical of Hindu temples. My inquiry met with an affirmation - that this really is a Mandir and a Mazaar together; the gentleman had no reservations declaring himself a 'Kumaoni Hindu', but that this observance dated so far back into their culture that they didn't see any religious divide in the dual worship... he put it to the days of his Ma, when he wasn't even born, to something around 80 years ("हम तो कुमाऊनी ब्राह्मण ठहरे, यहीं आलूखेत के, मगर ये तो हमारे माँ के टाइम से चला आ रहा है")

As I now sit watching a radiant nimbus tumor towards the South, likely over the hill of Hanuman Garhi, a brilliant orange - imagine lifejacket flourescent orange - drongo (?) flits across my panoramic horizon; I'm mesmerised at what should be put at extreme end of the brilliance scale. Sooting breeze continues to lap my face and arms. Its 1400, when v illages have retreated into their customary midday slumber. Only cows dot the hillside; now they too do a vanishing act. Even the highway lays barren of transport, same as the Gethia-Ntl road. The foxes on the adjacent hillock - not far from where I am - probably also sleep, they would step out by the evening and contrinute their high pitched harmony to the setting sun, which is when I expect to be on my return as well, and catch their glimpse.

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Sunday, April 10, 2011

the sport of long jump

Feel great gravity pulling me down and away from the 'board. Slow soft hymnal Gladiator music floats me up for a while. Then the bright fluorescent light enters my consciousness and freezes my posture. Even the tongue crosses its slurping threshold and now that the roasted kaju crumbs are cleaned up it slaps in desperation and rolls up blanks. The head slowly empties out of the unnecessary, and now I lift up from my mask of abstraction and reveal the actual self to no other audience but myself. Rivers break out, golden pagodas spring up, and Odissi dancer girls decked in more gold dance on the staircase that lead to somebody - probably you. 'You' completely change the context.

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Monday, February 14, 2011

कशिद का समुद्री किनारा

अपने ही घावों पर नमक छिड़कना | यह इक तरीके से प्रदर्शित होता है मेरी इस सुबह में, जिसने इस बुद्धिजीवी को प्रातः ८ बजे फनसाड के जंगलों का रुख करते, तथा वापसी पर - थका, और जंगलों के पगडंडियों, पत्थरों, कांटेदार झाड़ों के प्रेम मिलन से प्राप्त खरोंचों तथा चीरों से सजा - समुन्दर के ख़ारे पानी में पाया| जंगल से सभ्यता में लौटने के इन चंद घंटों में मैंने अपना मुआयना किया, इक बार भरपूर खुशनुमा उल्टी की (रात की दारू), थोड़ी बहुत तैराकी सीखी (मोहनीश की बदौलत), गेंद से खेला, तथा धूप में अपना शरीर खूब सेंका |

अभी १३०० बजे हैं; हमारा उद्देश्य मुरुड जज़ीरा की दीदार करना है, जिसके उपरान्त हम शाम की आखिरी बस लेकर बम्बई वापसी करेंगे (अगर समय की रजामंदी रही)|

सागर की लहरों का शोर दिल में बस सा गया है| यह लहरें अपने में कितना इतिहास समेत कर रखती होंगी| कशिद की रेत पर कई यादगार लम्हे जुड़ गए हैं|समुन्दर और जंगल साथ ही मिल गए, मेरा नसीब|

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Highly high in the heights

Could I even imagine myself
Even half-there again?
Shivering, as I toss about
sandwitched between Saum's rale
and Ronnie's uneasy snores.
Shivering, as I reach for the headlamp
and flood Aadhar's contorted face with bright white -
the unorganic shapes that constitute his whole
protest and gesture, seething in anger, warning in pain.

Fidgeting with my bag, fighting with my hair
stuck among the zipper's teeth
finally wrenched free for a minor sacrifice of a few strands.
A cosmic lust takes over, and,
shivering even more I step out into those neverlands that are
a distant conception briefly manifest at this hour.

Shivering, as I trudge blindly on the soft mossy soil,
swept away, as the arms of nature
grip and lift me, high like a child,
raising me to the breasts,
and the mental machinery sets into motion
as the rest of me lapses into a stasis
that forewarns of hypothermia.

This could be the last I breathe.

Like on a deathbed, my head slowly tilts either side
only to study the obscurity of the terrain and the faraway lonely lights of Manali, when
whispers of a freshwater stream nearby comes to console your senses.
Then the head turns skywards, accompanied by deeper breathing and shorter spasmodic shivers:
the sky draped round my shoulders illuminated by an infinitesimal stars that
compel my heart to break into a song while
their the mute, affirming stare awakens inside the concept of pure being.
The ears still listen intently through the skullcap to pick upon the sounds of some forest creature, but finds none -
Even the foxes on the adjacent hill playing into last minutes of dusk have retired into a slumber.

"Couldn't do better on this day, could you?"
you tell yourself at 3800m,
that you must follow such spirit with more of the same.

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