Seas!

The sea.. The picture that comes to mind is that of a fish eagle soaring…and suddenly swooping down suddenly to get its much deserved prey! Then is a sudden storm of sea turtles coming on the shore to lay their eggs… Seas are indeed wonderful and intricate!

But, side by side, it is also amongst the most polluted and vulnerable places on Earth. Let me set you a couple of examples to display their intrigue and fragility.

Andaman and Nicobar Islands-One of the sea turtle breeding hotspots in India! 8 different kinds of sea turtle, including the gentle giant, the GIANT LEATHERBACK TURTLE, the olive ridley and the green sea turtle come here! These animals are very very sensitive. Once a year or so, millions of these turtles come on to the beach late at night to lay their eggs and then conveniently forget about it! The risk to them is great on this one night because sea turtles, unlike others, cannot take their heads into the shell. Thus, they fall prey to stray dogs, wolves, foxes, etc. which strangle them.

About 45-60 days later, the adorable baby turtles hatch and head for the sea. Ever wondered how they know where the sea is??? It is really mesmerizing! If you have ever noticed, particularly at night, the surface of the sea glimmers. The turtle is guided by this light and heads towards the sea. Even if you place a candle there, it will get misguided and walk inland-which will kill it. There have been instances where careless campers leave the campfire on. The poor turtle walks straight into its death.

Now, the latest problem these mysterious animals face is a port being built at Dhamra, Orissa, by the Tatas. Dhamra is a very important breeding ground for these fragile animals. Please log on to http://www.greenpeace.org/india/turtles/why-save-turtles and protest against this, for the survival of the turtle depends on you and me-the common men.

Seas also sustain mangroves… A treasure trove of life! I could write a separate article on this ecosystem which is really OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately, mindless activities on our part like the irresponsible disposal of plastic causes the seas to choke. You never know when a sea turtle or some other animal may be eating up a plastic bag, mistaking it for a jelly fish! And they really do not deserve this kind of treatment! Lets wake up before it is too late!

Here is a list of my FAVOURITE birds!!! And also the reasons why I love them!

BLACK SHOULDERED KITE

What I love about this beauty is its agility. This pretty black and white bird looks cute. It is a pale grey and black with white underparts . This is one raptor which can hover in flight. AWESOME. I saw it hunting once and I was not able to think of anything but that for a whole week after that incident!! This really athletic fellow hovers in the air, so that the prey cannot see its shadow easily and then folds its wings and dives straight into the ground and catches its prey. It is just SUPERB!!!

MUNIAS

I probably love these little chaps because they keep making nests at home. And they are adorable!! They are really sociable birds and their cute chirrups can make the most depressed person cheerful!! I remember, once, the little munias, or the silverbills, learnt how to fly before my very eyes!! They are really sweet birds!!

OSPREY

This is one REALLY ROYAL AND MAJESTIC FELLOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! More like, handsome birds!! They are simply too good!! The way they hunt is maddening. They are also amongst the most widespread bird in the world, found in 6 out of the seven continents!! They vary in colour, are mainly fish eaters and are found in ponds and areas with comparitively shallow water. They are really really magnificent birds!! I could write a whole new post about them!!!

Well, this is just a short list!!

Will expand it very soon!! And I think falcons deserve a special mention here!!! :)

Mridula, the PHILOSOPHER!! :D

One lazy afternoon, in college, I sat alone near the field, thinking. I was Thinking!! Being the kind which is totally oblivious of the sad and “deep” thoughts in this world, I was being a philosopher that afternoon…

I was watching a group of people from the neighbouring slums play cricket in the mid afternoon sun, blissfully unaware that on a working day, others would be working very hard, being the bread winners of their families. Students would be dug deep in their books, trying to battle with those monsters called text books!

Despite all this, these people were HAPPY. Though unemployed, they loved their lives!

It was the "educated" masses that really went through all the pain and suffering. Of course, this was a very silly thought considering the lives they can lead later on.

I mean a person would rather live a happy life without any troubles and mugging up text books and just being one in the rat race...

It was a very random thought, but I decided to pen it down nevertheless!

Vaarun "uncle" :D

Vaarun!

My dearest awesome brother!

Vaarun is just the perfect example of an older sibling!!

Every moment spent with him is full of energy! Be it roaming around town, visiting "Blue Dart" ;) , trekking up Sinhagad, reading, studying.... just about everything!!

He is the one I look up to for everything. The best thing about him is that he is enthusiastic about everything!! Be it the best ever trek or the worst ever exam, Vaarun is in the best of spirits!

Its great to have a brother like him.... I just can't imagine life without him!!

Particularly when everything seems really tough and impossible, Vaarun is the only person who can bring about a ray of hope....:)

The BEST thing he did was convincing Amma to get a dog home!! What I tried for close to 8 years, he did in no time!!

All in all my brother is just one unique person without whom nothing will be the same!!

I am lucky to have such a loving and wonderful brother!!

School!

School....Those were the best days!

I remember my first day at school when I threw a big tantrum, sobbing as though I was being abandoned permanently!

Little did I know I was going to a place where I'd meet some of the most fabulous people, have SOOOO many crazy things happening all the while and just have a different experience everyday!

Particularly after the 7th, school was different altogether! I made some wonderful friends, all the while upto some kidas !

I remember, once in the 7th standard, my friend, Neha and I did something really really awful!(And fun!)

In the lunch break, both of us quickly gobbled up some food and ran to the loo, armed with.....hold your breath....a fake lizard and a fake spider!

Our fake lizard was called "Lizzie" and the spider, "Taran"!

So, we went running up to the loo, trying to save as much time as possible, considering we had a very short lunch break...

We went and stuck Lizzie on the wall near the wash basin.

We then quietly stood outside, waiting for someone to turn up! There was a group of 10th standards, the typical Maryite, GIRLY type who came there. They walked halfway and on noticing little, innocent Lizzie, started screaming their lungs out! To add to the confusion, Neha flung Taran in the midst of them. That was just pure entertainment! The two of us had a laugh of a time, watching those sophisticated seniors, who usually bullied us, standing there and yelping for dear life!

Oh boy, we had soo much fun!

Teachers have always been on our list of "To Irritate". (But not the VERY VERY VERY strict teachers....)

People have always been imitating them and our batch was no less!

Of course, our philosophy has always been, "What's life without teachers to imitate?"

My school had some drawbacks as well...There was an awful lack of extra curricular activities....It was almost as though the school motto was "Study, study, and study a bit more!"

(not that I ever obliged!)

However, I already miss school and the lunch breaks in particular when we had pure, unadulterated FUN! I plan to visit it regularly too...:)

World Environment Day!

5th June, THE BIG DAY...! World Environment Day!

It was a truly memorable day when we had a cleanup and tree plantation in the society!

We planted about 8 trees in all! Hopefully our society will be hara bhara in sometime!

We planted 1 chikoo tree, a jamun tree, a chapha tree, a mango tree and another which is called "Eed limbu" in marathi and "nartanga" in tamil and a few more!

It was great fun working along with the others in the society, though this time, the attendance was low as compared to the last cleanup!

However, the message certainly reached two young children of the local construction workers who came to help us!

Infact, they planted a tree too!

That was the real reward of the day : We had spread some awareness about the cause!

All in all,it was a wonderful learning experience and was absolutely fun-filled!

Here's the poem that I love the most....it is just so perfect in every aspect.
It was written by Rudyard Kipling for his son, telling him how to be a better human being..

Here goes!

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

My little Mascots!

Makku and Ginger!

These folks are my constanat companions!

Makku is a 7 year old canine pal and ginger is a 1 year old feline friend! They are the best pets in the world! They look really adorable and are the most reliable ever friends on earth!

They are just bursting with energy and are always upto something!

Makku accompanies me on all treks and practically everywhere! Ginger, the poor soul, isn't allowed inside the house....

Makku and Ginger are extremely pally...They get along with each other like a house on fire. They are the most fabulous ever creatures created! Infact, Makku has become the hero at home and my mother takes better care of the "two guys" than anyone else!

Everyday is an adventure with them...you never know what they will do that day....

Sometime back, there was a mongrel which was trying to attack Ginger, and Makku, like a brave warrior, went to Ginger's rescue! It was a very touching incident..

Something that I read somewhere -

If you can start the day without caffeine or pep pills,
If you can be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,
If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food everyday and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when loved ones are too busy to give you time,
If you can overlook when people take things out on you when, through no fault of yours, something goes wrong,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can face the world without lies and deceit,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can do all these things,

THEN YOU ARE PROBABLY THE FAMILY DOG

He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog.

You are his love, his life, his leader.

He will be yours, faithful and true to the last beat of his heart.

You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion.

This really defines my little, loving four legged friends!

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT by Fyodor Dostoevsky

I read this book over a span on 1 week….. It is a very interesting insight into the mind of a criminal.

The protagonist of the story, Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov (Rodya), has committed a murder. He does not know the reason why he commits it. He just does it in a state of delirium and keeps justifying it.

He is a student of law himself and having committed such a crime, keeps thinking about it, wondering how he can get away from the police and continue with a normal life. He becomes hostile to the people he loves and abandons them out of sheer stress and the psychological impact caused by what he has done. He meets several interesting people throughout the book and goes through many different scenarios and spends hours together, thinking about them. Meanwhile, the detective who is tracking down the case of the murder of Alyona Ivanovna, the old miserable pawnbroker and her simpleton sister Lizaveta Ivanovna, does keep giving hints to Raskolnikov about him being the murderer.

He also meets Sofya Semyonovna Marmedilov, his only confidante who asks him to “go to the crossroads, bow down to the people, kiss the earth, for you have sinned against it too, and say aloud to the world, ‘I am a murderer’ ” What is most ironical is that Raskolnikov couldn’t explain the reason for him committing the murder till the end. Eventually, he goes to the police station and says “It was I who killed the old pawnbroker woman and her sister Lizaveta with an axe and robbed them.”
I think this statement he made needed a lot of courage on his behalf to declare openly. Of course, he was made to pay for this crime by being put behind bars in Siberia for nine years.

The last paragraph of the book is really amazing. It says,
“He did not know that the new life would not be given to him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering.
But that is the beginning of a new story – the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world to another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended.”

I learnt three things from this book –
1) A criminal may not be all that horrible after all.
2) NEVER commit a crime
3) Simple language is really awesome!

The Guitar!

After a lot of patient expectation, 5th April was the big day for me!
The guitar was my birthday gift from my family, and there could be no better gift that they could have given me!

It was a really awesome moment when I had the first glimpse of the guitar. It was a jet black guitar, looking as majestic as ever!

It is truly a beauty.....I am out of words!
The moment I got home with it, it was like a reflex action to sit down with it and just keep playing it! I am not trained to play the guitar ,but I will be learning on my own with a bit of guidance from my friends who play this truly exquisite musical instrument.

Infact, I felt like my guitar has a personality of its own...
When I spoke to my brother that night, I said "Aaj raat ko mein usse baat karoongi!"
And, I did just that! I tried to make a beginning at learning it, but I was just too excited to even listen to it carefully!

I slept at around one the next morning and found myself awake by 6 a.m , looking for "Ebony".
I have been playing it everyday and am making small amounts of progress...
This was like one part of my personality coming to me.....I can never forget that day as I got something which is very close to my heart .

A Memorable Trip to Amboli !

Amboli!
It was the 19th of December!
The day we were to leave for Amboli….a hotspot for amphibians and reptiles. I was just too excited because it was the first trip outside with my brother after more than a year!
And him being around meant everything but behaving ourselves!
My parents, of course, couldn’t help it since it we are just two uncontrollable brats!
I had heard of Amboli in the past . It is a dense evergreen forest near Kolhapur .
On the way to this magical place, my only ambition was to prevent my brother from reading my poetry book and teach him some birdwatching! I did succeed eventually!
We reached Amboli after about 6 hours of driving. We stayed at ‘Whistling Woods”,a beautiful place which was in the midst of nature!

We were really lucky to find an environmentalist called Hemant Ogale there.
He took us around the little town and educated us about the various butterflies and plants there.
The plant that I was absolutely amused by was known as “datpadi”.(dat=teeth,padi=fall). What is amusing about this herb is that when its stem is chewed,your teeth fall off!!!!!
We had a mighty laugh at this one!
Infact,the local villagers rub this on the cows. Their body swells up and they are sold off in the local fair as “extremely healthy” cows.
We watched many birds!
To name a few of the amazing ones, there were brahminy kites, a skimmer , kestrel, black naped oriole, Indian roller, a yellow throated bulbul and many other birds!

We were also very lucky because we saw a BISON!!!!!!!!!!
We had gone for a night trail and we were lucky! In fact ,saying that we were “lucky” is and understatement!
We also saw a pair of civet cats, and a mongoose !
The reptiles we saw were simply mindblowing! We saw a checkered keelback snake in the water for more than an hour! It just stayed near us for very long!
Then,on the way back from a beautiful place whose name I can’t recollect, I spotted a MALABAR PIT VIPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was simply awesome!
Just on the opposite side of the road, Hemant spotted a green vine snake. Vaarun handled it! My mother, of course, was screaming in fright from the car since she is terrified of snakes; an environmentalist, nevertheless.
We spent a week there and I feel that whenever one enjoys something, time flies as fast as a peregrine falcon!
Without a choice, we headed back to Pune , to the dreary life here….. I say dreary because I had to study for my preliminary examinations!
I fell in love with Amboli and I am sure that anyone would!
I plan to visit this place atleast twice a year!