Some days are set aside for inspection and invention. First the fruits on the table. They had all shriveled up. What a waste of plums and jamun. If I had some liver or bheja I would have added these nearly dry fruits to them. But all I had was big steaks of rawas. We’d harvested some intensely flavourful ajwain leaves a few days ago. We have the Plectranthus amboinicus plant in the balcony. It grows very fast, and every now and then has to be pruned back. I’d put some of the leaves in a salad, converted a large part into an ajwain-and-olive chutney/tapenade, and left the remainder for flavouring other food with.
Coat the rawas steaks with a garlic and ginger paste. Let it stand for a while. Then sprinkle it with Himalayan salt and crushed pepper. Slather the steaming trays with sesame oil. Lay out the steaks on the trays. I wanted only one layer of fish on each tray, so I had to use two of the stackable trays. On a last minute whim I crushed some walnuts over them to give a crunchy added texture. Finally I covered them with ajwain leaves, closed the steamer, and steamed them for seven minutes. It turned out that we ate the fish a day later. The day in the fridge had intensified the flavour. The Family decided to warm it on a tawa. The slight roast gave the surface a crisper texture, and made an interesting contrast between the crisp surface layer and the juicy inner flesh.
Watching elephants is a pleasure. There are the tuskers, large and lonely, sometimes aggressive, but generally walking about the jungle doing his own thing. Then there are the matriarchal herds, incredibly social, but completely focused on bringing up the young. It’s a completely different social grouping than that of the apes and monkeys, but it works well enough.
The baby that you see in the featured photo caught my eye because of the grassy mud on its back. I’d not seen grass on an elephant’s back before. I looked at the others in the group. They all seemed to have it. I’m sure it helps to keep them cool, but will this innovation stick? It’ll take several visits to Dhikala range in Corbett to see the fate of this invention.
Early in the morning, a couple of days before, I’d seen a group of elephants suddenly tense. They immediately assume a protective stance around the youngest. It turned out that there was a tiger in the grass nearby. When it passed, they went back to grazing. Notice the opportunistic myna hunting the insects displaced by the elephants.
When I first came to this family group I was surprised to see a bull tusker with them. It turned out to be a chance meeting. As you can see, the group had dropped into a protective formation around the cub. In formation, they crossed the road in front of us. The bull moved away from them. Only when the bull was far enough did some signal pass between them, and the cub was allowed to move away from protection.
The bull was headed for water. We saw it move in a straight line. These lords of the jungle do not change their line of travel for any lesser creature. I watched it as it crossed the vast landscape towards a tiny pond which was invisible for us. It knew its territory very well, probably carried a map inside its head.
Once it reached the small pond in the middle of the wide open expanse, it got all the fun that it could. It drank water, squirted jets all around it, rested its trunk on its tusks, and then just lay down on the wet grass. For more than an hour I kept turning around to watch what it was doing. Eventually, as the morning got warmer it moved away.
The previous evening we’d been bullied by another tusker. We’d driven on to a path when we saw a tusker coming down it. It moved at a steady pace. There were no warning calls, no displays of threat. But the pace was relentless. The message was clear. We had to back up until a crossing, and then move to the side. In these grasslands tigers and elephants are co-equal. They give each other a a wary respect, and do not meddle.
Monsoon light is special. In many parts of the world you get spectacular sunsets and sunrises when there’s smoke and dust in the air. Here we can see that kind of special light because of small droplets of moisture suspended in the air. At least, we can see it at the change of season between grishma and varsha, summer and monsoon, before the sky is completely overcast.
The Family has been going for a walk by the sea to take photos. Being more of a couch potato, I take them from our balcony. The added advantage to this placement (add-vantage, to make a bad pun) is that I can get a view of the canopy below me, covered with the last flowers of the Flame of the Forest (Delonix regia).
In another neck of the woods a spreading banyan tree, the adult form of a strangler fig, has become host to a dense growth of epiphytic Pothos. I’ve never seen another specimen with such large leaves. In the fading light of the evening the green seems greener than usual.
There are other strange effects of light in this season. In the middle of the afternoon a dense mass of clouds can begin to obscure the sun, producing a watery light like the sunset. The sky and the sea can be beautiful now.
At the last possible minute I managed to see an exhibition of sculptures by a friend. We were students, more or less at the same time, when he was doing physics. But, according to an interview he gave recently, he had already been very invested in art. I liked the work he’d done earlier, some in pen and ink, others digitally. When Sukant told me over a beer some weeks back that he was going to show his clay sculptures, I made up my mind to see them. The piece that you see in the featured photo seemed like it had a glazed surface. But no, he actually hand-polished the clay using glass beads; he has an interesting point of view about firing clay which he makes in his interview. The piece represents a stage in the evolution of a fractal curve that can be thought of as growing to cover the surface of a sphere while still remaining a line. It would be a terribly convoluted line, but one which, at every stage of its growth, could be drawn with a thin-enough nib never leaving the surface, or crossing itself.
Click the thumbnails for full-sized photos
I found the exhibition very interesting. Clay comes in various colours, and he’d worked with several different sorts. One set of pieces was inspired by the development of fetuses, and was just lightly interpretive. Some of the pieces were intricately folded shapes, others had interesting contrasts of texture. There are disadvantages and advantages when you turn up so late for an exhibition. He was a little upset with me, but the years of association meant that he could be very grumpy, but still give me a tour of his sculptures. The delay meant that I was the last person in the exhibition, and had his full attention. When he explained how he obtained the texture of the second piece in the panel above I was amazed by the effort that went into it.
Click the thumbnails for full-sized images
The pieces that you see in this carousel represent abstract concepts of physics: the interactions of particles in space-time, and quantum fluctuations of the vacuum. Some maths gives rise to definite forms, the precision and clarity of geometric and algebra are definite. But physics is different. It is rooted in the concrete but leads into abstraction that can be pictured differently by each person. I found Sukant’s visualisation very beautiful. The intricate texturing of the first one, built from the inside out, reminded me of a piece of coral that I’d seen. The form of the last one is hypnotizing. You can look at it from different angles and see different things, perhaps a little like the science it represents.
“Is it okay if I take photos?” I asked. “No one can stop it these days,” he said, “I’m sure many people already have. Go ahead.” He looked quizzically at the results and then said, “I like them. Please share them with me.” That gave me the courage to ask, “Can I blog them?” “Go ahead,” he allowed. So thanks to the artist’s generosity, you get to look at scientific abstractions filtered through the mind of someone who works with images.
Bamboos are a diverse group (Bambusoidaea) of evergreen flowering plants in the grass family (Pocaea), to paraphrase the start of the relevant article in Wikipedia. I’ve seen sentences like this ever since I became interested in mass flowerings. But somehow, my mind never grappled with the idea. I continued to think of all bamboos as the same. So, when I couldn’t get a nice photo of bamboo flowers in Tadoba Tiger Reserve last November, I continued to take photos in the next months. Even after I got a good photo in Kanha NP in May, it took some time before I began to examine it.
Click for larger photos
Comparing the photos, it becomes clear that the flowers do not belong to the same species. The silhouette in the center was taken in November in Tadoba, the first photo (and the featured image) was of bamboo flowering in May in Kanha, and the third photo was of bamboo flowering in early April in a garden in Lonavala. I wish I’d bothered to do the due diligence that every botanist chides me about: photograph the plant, not just the flower. I suppose the only way to redeem myself is by learning to recognize bamboos a little better. It would work best if there were a geographically appropriate field guide, but until I find one something like this generic guide will have to do.
Before a mad doctor convinced a majority of my neighbours that our gardens should be saturated with pesticide, we could see many Green bee-eaters (Merops orientalis) outside our window. Now I have to travel to jungles to see this auld acquaintance. They are easy to photograph, since they like to perch in the open and keep an eye on flying prey. They make quick forays to catch a passing insect and come back to their perch.
I caught this particular one in Kanha NP, cocking its head before a flight. I’ve noticed this movement before. I think it moves its head to improve its fix on the prey just before pushing off its perch. Binocular vision has its limit for birds, because of the relatively small size of head. Moving the eye gives it better depth perception through parallax. I superposed the two separate shots to give a sense of how much head movement it makes in order to get a fix. I think it more than doubles the parallax that it would have if it didn’t do this.
Merops philippinusNyctyornis athertoniMerops leschenaultiClick for larger versions
Corbett NP in May turns out to be a great place for spotting several different kinds of bee eaters. I completed a checklist of three more of them. The Chestnut-headed bee-eater (Merops leschenaulti) is perhaps the second most widespread, being visible in the Terai grasslands and the lower Himalayas, both coasts of India, all through Bengal and the north-east, and eastwards through Myanmar all the way to Vietnam, south to Malayasia and, strangely, of all the islands of Indonesia, only in Java. I probably have several other photos of it from other places, but this was the only shot I have from Corbett NP.
I’ve seen the Blue-tailed bee-eater (Merops philippinus) less often, although it has a larger range: all of India south of Jammu and all of Punjab, including in Pakistan, eastwards into the Philippines and Papua New-Guinea. I remember seeing it in Kerala, Odisha, Uttarakhand, and Assam. The photo above comes from just outside Corbett NP.
The Blue-bearded bee-eater (Nyctyornis athertoni) is the least common of these, and I have only a couple of photos. The photo in the triptych above comes from Manas NP. It is visible in the Nilgiris and the two coasts around it, the jungles of Odisha and central India, and in the Terai grasslands. Further east also, its range is fairly restricted: North-east of India, and Bangladesh up to Vietnam and the north of Malayasia. Unlike the other three, perhaps it shuns gardens and tended forests. Since the last September I managed to spot all the six bee-eaters that can be seen in India. I find the Blue-bearded the most interesting of the lot, not only because it is less common, but also because it is the only bee-eater seen in India which is not in the genus Merops.
Each and every time when the plane begins its descent into Mumbai I feel excited about it. Coming back to the city I live in is always exciting, whether I’m back from a weekend in the deep jungles of Central India, a holiday in a big city in some other part of the world, a relaxing time in the middle heights of the Himalayas watching the sun rise over the world’s highest peaks, or the fussiest week of work away from home. Not for me the ennui that comes from the realization that I can have only four hours of sleep before I have to get in for a meeting. On the first day back in Mumbai even that work seems exciting.
As the plane glides over the densely packed apartments in the suburbs, the vast stretches of high density housing clutching desperately to hillsides (only to slide off sometimes in the monsoon) I realize that I am in a minority here. For some the four hours of sleep are a part of their daily routine. But even so, there is something miraculous about an enormous mass of people so focused on work that everything goes like clockwork. You don’t find this in Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru. So, as the plane slides over the blue tarp covered roofs on hillsides, the multi-storied acres of the suburbs, as a taxi speeds past the stalled development in mid-town, I love coming home.
But which part do I love? The calm oases of gardens, full of flowers and trees, birds and insects? Or dense crowds, sometimes a crush? Everything, I suppose. I started carrying a camera in my backpack years ago to capture every mood of the city. I’m glad that over the years that equipment has shrunk to a little phone in my pocket. Mumbai offers an unending cascade of images, if that’s what you are after.
Or, if you want, there are lovely restaurants and specialty food shops. Once upon a time, word of mouth was the uncertain means of getting to know them. Now, of course, the right new is just a thumb swipe away on your phone. There are foods, fusion of India and the world (Lebanese influenced on the left, Norwegian inspired on the right), which you cannot get elsewhere. I see a touch of this in Bengaluru too, a smidgen in Delhi, but the taste for the new is definitely more widespread in this city. It gives odd hybrids, but some really good stuff.
I know a few people who visit once a year, and love to walk the streets of Mumbai, looking for the odd and zany. One of them told me of a street vendor selling used dentures. I haven’t seen something that crazy. But the oddest of graffiti (why would you even bother to write down that particular stray thought?) or odd evidence of constant hustle (not exactly a Lincoln Lawyer, yet) can come your way even when you aren’t looking. That’s why a camera in your pocket is useful.
Hustle is the way of life in the city. The guy around the corner from your workplace, the chap who serves you the best vada-pav in town, or the bhel-puri guy setting up his stall there, they are all in the city seeking fortune. They are totally focused on it, like the cabbies who take the late night shift and have time to talk to you. They come here, thinking of making money and going back to their failing farms. But they stay. Their wives come to the city a few years later, they raise their children, who, sometimes, get the kind of job they want. But they never go back to the dust bowl they left behind. If you really look, under the blue tarp roofs you will find the Indian middle class. Everyone else in the city is the one percent, even if they spend two hours commuting to work, or think hard before buying their first phone in five years.
That’s Mumbai for you, the Mumbai of an old film song in the voice of Mohammad Rafi and Geeta Dutt. That’s the Mumbai that doesn’t stop even when terrorists attack. Hustle drives Mumbai. Everyone came here to find fortune, the Portuguese, the British East India Company, the Scotsmen who followed, the Armenians, the Baghdadi Jews, the Parsis, the Chinese traders. And it will remain the happy hunting ground of fortune seekers until the sea reclaims the city that was raised on the sea bed. It’s this transient place that I love coming back to.
Right now, as summer turns into monsoon, grishma to varsha, our table is full of red fruits: from the red-orange of ripe apricots to the darker reds of ripe plums. Just to be contrary, I put a couple of left over jamun (Syzygium cumini) in the bowl. Not only does the deep purple of its skin present a counterpoint, so does its taste. The sweetness of the apricots and plums seem bland compared to the tart turning to sweet of jamun. I think this photo could be this year’s goodbye to these fruits, now that three showers a day has announced that the monsoon winds are close to us. The weather is better, but it is the season of grey for the next four months.
Through the hottest part of May the treetops outside our window were a sea of bright red. The Flame of the Forest (Delonix regia, aka Gul mohar) was in flower. It is the one pleasure of this burning season. Between the peaks of the seasons for two major varieties of mangos, the best way to engage your senses is to stare out of the window in the morning or late afternoon, to see a golden light play on the flowers.
June is when the blooms are shed. True flowers of May, these, short lived, dropping into a red carpet on the ground at the beginning of June. It is more truly a Mayflower than that native of the Americas, the Epigaea repens, now commonly known as the Mayflower in the US, or even the original, Crataegus monogyna, after which the pilgrims’ ship, the Mayflower, was named. On World Environment Day, as I went to plant a neem tree (Azadirachta indica) in a clearing where a giant neem had stood before last year’s storm, I took these photos. That tiny green leaflet is one of the components of the multipart feathery (pinnate) leaves of the tree.
It is much easier to photograph these fallen flowers than to sight on a flower still on the branch. And a shot like this is enough to show you the five-petaled (pentameric) flowers, with one white petal streaked in red. What you don’t see is that when it is on the branch, the white petal sticks up, signalling to insects. These trees are not too far from its native Madagascar, and may well have been carried here in the natural course of migration. But since the 17th century the tree has been carried across the warmer parts of the world to serve be grown in gardens and along roads. Can’t think of a better way of preserving a species which is dying in Madagascar.
Don't hold your breath 