A year’s worth of travel

Ever since we got our booster shots we have been taking short trips every now and then. The Family was always good at looking at the calendar and spotting lucky combinations of holidays and weekends which give us travel opportunities. I’ve become better at exploiting them. This has given us a marvelous opportunity to observe the architecture of the world around us. It has been amazing to figure out how forests regenerate with the help of termites which get rid of dead wood, how different trees work together to make a mosaic of forests and grassland, and how the character of the natural world differs at the shores of seas, in the continental interior, and in the places where the joints between continents show up as incredibly high mountains.

Baya weaver chick in Haripura reservoir

Bengal tiger in Corbett NP

Cucurbitaceae vine in Malshej Ghat

Indian bull elephant in Corbett NP

Egyptian vulture in Jorbeer sanctuary, Bikaner

Blue pansy feeding on Cannabis sativa flowers in Corbett NP

Birds feeding in the Jorbeer sanctuary, Bikaner

Malayan giant squirrel in Manas NP

White-leaf hogweed at 4700 m near Khardung La

Here is a tiny slice of a memoir. These are photos of the creatures I share it with. From the hot desert of Rajasthan to the high cold desert of Ladakh, from the forests of Assam to the grasslands of Uttarakhand, from the wild growth of plants in the monsoon in the Sahyadris to the happy weeds of the Terai, these are images of home.