Creme de la creme

 
If you ask me (which I know you never will)
What did humans (that’s us) invent best?
I will pretend to think and make up a drill
And then answer the test.
 
“Not planes, not cones, not humour (though witty)
Not phones, not cars (now, don’t be absurd)
Not shaving brushes nor ChatGPT
The answer – yes, you guessed it – is good old curd.”
(ps: the only worthwhile invention after this boon
Was the teaspoon)
 
 
Then I see your look, where you roll up your eyes
There are two reasons why you do
a)    There is incredulous surprise; or
b)   You are like me too!
 
When you have a World-this-day or that
Why not National Lactobacilli Day
It’s fermentation’s superstar brat
DiCaprio, horn ok please.  Now, make way.
 
Vegans – good humans - avoid this delicious stuff
Their lips will never mention the word
They make almond milk into a cream-ish bluff
And label that as Honorary Curd
 
(And I always ask a vegan,
“When you started off, how did you ever beegan?”)
 
Now, this ode to curd will end here
The reason isn’t that I am short of time
The only issue with curd (unlike beer)
Is that it’s a bloody hard word to rhyme.
 
Ps: note that this ditty had not a single blood-curdling pun.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Breathe the colour

March 10th

4 pm

The early weeks of March are the finest for a walk in the forest; the landscape is dry but not stifling, leaves of trees have been shed and, while some species are re-greening and getting their canopy back, brown is the colour.
Ananda, Vishnu, my son, and I are the only ones walking through the forest now, along thin paths covered with dried leaves that crackle and crunch under our feet. There is little doubt that we were preceded some hours ago by one or more elephants, but, for now, the air is still and silent.
….with a difference.

For, this silent forest speaks through a rich tapestry of colours and fragrance that you will never see or breathe later in the year.  The Flame of the Forest, Butea Monosperma, lights up a striking red patch amidst the brown, the young green and the dense bamboo.  The Taare tree - Terminalia bellerica - a handsome tall arboreal wonder, has a startling, light canopy of young wine-red leaves, matched in lustre by the flowers of the occasional Malabar Silk Cotton in the distant village in the valley.  Pongamias are all around, the forest floor carpeted with chlorophyll-rich, light-mauve fragrant flowers and a million bees working an ecological miracle in buzzing cacophony.  

Then we reach our destination, a rich outcrop of rock surrounded by dense forest of bright green and white, an oasis of noise in that otherwise somnolent silence. It is a sight I have seen every year, yet can never ever tire of, for it is, in a word, breath-taking (and I mean that in every way).

This is a forest of Shorea Roxburghii or Jalaari, and, boy, is that a pathetic, weak introduction! For about fifty weeks in a year, this is a non-descript tall tree, making no official statement whatsoever. After Shivaratri, it begins to bloom and then compensates for its prolonged reticence with a million tiny flowers in dense bunches, each a light cream and exuding the most heavenly, delicate fragrance ever. 

This is spectacular abundance, a cornucopia of sensory delight and the landscape ahead is clothed with it. We sit on a rock, under a mid-sized Jalaari tree – the rich, bright green leaves provide fitting shade – and the flowers drizzle down, falling on our shoulders, lap and all around. It is time to do nothing and Vish has this faraway look in his eyes and we lounge around. 

If you have to be, be a bee.

Eventually, we must leave these old friends behind (a parting is necessary before you can meet again, Richard Bach once said), so we saunter down the kaal-daari or footpath. 

A cactus in bloom greets us with its stunning (yet odd-smelling) flower-of-geometry. 

And nearby, next to a nulla that hosts a seasonal stream, is another treat - Firmiana Colorata or Kombare, a tall, spare tree with a rich, orange cast of flowers. Just flowers. Each is a stunner to see, touch, feel. There are but three of these trees in this forest, so they are hardly profuse, but, if you are a first-timer, it is a jaw-dropping sight of evolutionary adaptation to prevent self-pollination. 

Ananda picks a small branch for us and the bees are hovering around. To remind us that nothing in this orchestrated performance is for the gate-crasher, the traveller. 

Take nothing. Leave nothing behind. 

That is when you know that, in a forest, you are never alone.

The Last Stand

On the fringes of Manas Tiger Reserve
Feb 28th

A lovely clear morning underway as we tread on the soft soil of the paddy field, stopping frequently to scan the flat paddies around us through our binocs.  It’s been a couple of months since the harvest, and the stubble, a brittle brown, is interspersed with patches of fresh grass for which the cows will arrive later in the day.
For the moment, there is no one else.  Just us.

And, somewhere in this vast stretch – over a thousand acres of open paddy - is a bird of a species that is teetering on the brink of extinction.  

There is no place to hide as we walk, our banter is muted and we tread with care. Suddenly, Edison, the young naturalist with us, points excitedly and we hunker down and peer.  It’s hard to control my emotion – excitement dominates for the moment, but I know that there’s much more – and I must focus (and not blink).  There in the far corner of this large open country, amidst the stubble, we see a beautiful head on a slender neck of navy blue and a large brown-and-white body.  The Bengal Florican walks with cautious avuncular dignity, a dainty exquisite bird of immense splendour and bearing.  It moves between the stubble, now lost to sight, now back in focus, a single bird of a population that numbers worldwide in the low hundreds.  It is spectacularly beautiful and we watch enthralled.  
And then it vanishes into the stubble as easily as it had appeared.  

Photo: IUCN

We wait patiently for an hour to see if the same bird or others in its precious depleted flock would show up, but we see none.  It’s getting warm now and cattle – dozens of them – fan out across the paddies; the Florican, if it hadn’t earlier, has now moved away.  

It is a silent exit, in more ways than one.  The story of the bird’s decline is familiar and painfully repetitive: hunting and loss of its grassland habitat being principal causes. 

I think of the extinction of the passenger pigeon, once the most abundant bird on earth, darkening skies as millions flocked across North America.  And of what that extraordinary conservationist and philosopher, Aldo Leopold said:
“There will always be passenger pigeons in books and in museums, but these are effigies and images, dead to all hardships and to all delights…..They know no urge of seasons; they feel no kiss of sun, no lash of wind and weather.  They live forever by not living at all.”

Those emotions return.  Thrill, yes.  A chill too. Anger that our species could do this. 

And, as with all those moments of great alloyed happiness, there is a surge of ineffable sadness within.  It is the sadness that precedes a requiem, one that, I hope, hand on heart, will never have to be written. 

 
Back in the Maozegendri Eco Camp, Rustom chats with us for an hour exploring conservation options, but he is both wary and weary.  Many like him – the younger gen – have done the rounds, going from home to home in the area speaking of the plight of the Florican and requesting a cessation of hunting and the good news is that those conversations have had some effect.  In one such home, a farmer went in and brought out a Florican egg and handed it over to a bemused Rustom who then placed it under a hen that was roosting.  A Florican chick was the delightful result and he brought it up with care, hoping to reintroduce it into the wild, but one day the door of the cage in which it lived was left open and the bird disappeared.  

You could say with justification and a touch of irony that the stars are yet to align in favour of the Bengal Florican.
…and therein lies a tale of woe.

a time lapse image of the mating ritual of the male Bengal Florican,
taken by the inimitable Ramki Sreenivasan, captures its dance in flight

My Majorel Uncle

The only doctor I was not scared of, as a child, was Ghai uncle, my best friend, Mintu’s, father and a gentle, mild-mannered man, with heavy specs, a ready smile, easy laugh and a very kind face.  Though he was an ophthalmologist - an apt qualification for one with such benign eyes -  I would refuse to go to any other doctor, and he’d happily treat coughs, colds, stomach upsets and about everything else, at times in that little white room in Digboi hospital, at other times in their home in Muliabari and sometimes over the phone.  In Carmel School, most of the children knew and loved him and he and Baruah uncle, a pediatrician whose son, Sandeep, was my classmate too, were the most popular doctors in that hospital.

I use to fall ill with fever often and Ghai uncle would prescribe Majorel, a little yellow, sugary tablet that was for kids (adults had some horrible stuff called Analgin).  So, of course, I knew him as Majorel uncle.  And he knew me as a finicky, scrawny little fellow who could not stomach good Punjabi food that Aunty made, but would instead yearn for rice, curd and sambar at their dinner table.  

One day, at the age of nine, I had a rather horrific accident while playing football in school and was rushed to the hospital.  There had been blood and flesh, fainting classmates and screaming children, but I did not see the crisis.  After a quick clean up, Dr Sharma (another marvellous doctor, an orthopaedic surgeon) announced to my parents that a surgery was needed, an immediate one at that, but I did make quite a fuss, which, on reflection, must have driven all of them quite nuts.   

Finally, it was time to make a deal with my utterly panic-stricken parents – I would agree to the operation, provided Ghai uncle did it.  

There was hurried, hushed consultation amongst them, a call to Uncle and then my dad announced that, Yes, Ghai uncle would perform this ortho surgery.  As I was being wheeled in, he came up and walked into the theatre alongside me, putting on his mask, above which I saw the kindest eyes in the world.  As the anesthesia took its effect and I blanked out, my last memory was of Uncle standing beside me and holding my right hand with his large, gloved fingers, his cheeks expanded in a broad smile…….and when I came to, many hours later, there he was in the patient room, chatting away with my parents. 

So, obviously I believed that he had done the surgery until Dr Sharma removed my stitches weeks later and presented them to me with panache.  It only strengthened my belief that I would never go to anyone else.  

Three years later – that is forty five years ago - we left Digboi.  I thought of Ghai uncle and his wonderful, warm family on occasion - the odd conversation with someone, a reflection somewhere - but Time does something to you, it takes you away from the important to the urgent, it teases your instinct for fond memory with the present, it prioritises the traffic light over a conversation.  Yes, Time does something to you.....

In 2019, as I was due to travel to Delhi, I thought I'd see him again.  Through friends I got in touch with Rajiv, Ghai uncle's son and learnt that my Majorel Uncle was in the winter of his eventful life, in a world beyond people, pasts and patients.  To not see him now would preserve a sepia image, a script I had had for Life’s journal, a hugged slice of an enchanted past, so, much as I yearned to meet him, I did not do so.  

Thank you, Uncle, for lighting up a thousand lives with those kind eyes.  If compassion is a standard in medicine, you were the best ever.

The Lone Ranger

 Coorg
Feb 15th

A walk-and-jog on a lightly-misty morning in coffee land.  There’s hardly anyone on the road at this hour and, as I pass a labour line, the enticing fragrance of a firewood stove blends with the aroma of mist.  I stop to breathe it in, chat with the devil of a dog hanging around that has strong views on strangers walking by – more so, those that have the temerity to chat with it – and look at the canopy; there are Malabar hornbills, racket-tailed drongos and golden backed woodpeckers that always sound like a fleet of ambulances with their urgent, pitched chatter.  

There are mud roads, leading off the main one, into each plantation and I always stop at their entrance for the depth of view they offer and the possibility of seeing something – or someone – out of the ordinary.
Forty-five minutes later, I stop at one such mud road and stare.  The road leads down to a clearing about a hundred metres away, and I see a dog right there; it is standing sideways and seems to be looking away, but I can’t make much more out (my binocs have been helpfully left behind in the room).  The light mist shrouds the dog’s silhouette in that morning light and lends it a glow, a radiance that makes the ordinary seem gifted.

Or am I wrong? Is this a dog or is it something else?
As I stand there, as still as I possibly can be, it turns its head and sees me.  My pulse rate quickens, for there is now doubt mingled with excitement, anticipation that seeks vindication.  We watch each other for a few moments and then it turns and, with the characteristic trot of the Golden Jackal, vanishes into the coffee bushes.  
Could a morning ever be better?

If there is one animal that deserves a better script for its story, it is the jackal.  From bedtime tales to myth and legend, from farmer’s stories to the powders sold by quacks, jackals were – and are - described as cunning, thieves, dangerous, surreal….and – if some parts of theirs were eaten – medicinal.  These stories were fiction, yet their consequences have been real: an animal on the mud road to certain extinction.  

In Coorg and elsewhere in the southern Western Ghats, the slide to the bottom has had another rapid brutal cause: pesticide usage – a particularly nasty one being Thimet, used in ginger cultivation to kill crabs, which are then consumed by jackals.  

Over the years of travel there, the two questions to those I have met have been: when did you last hear a jackal howl?  ….as a child how often did you hear it?  And in a hundred out of hundred answers, I have sensed loss and foreboding, a sense of the inevitable.

  
I stand there for a moment staring at the now-clear path, hoping that it would return for a final glimpse.  But the jackal knows better.

Yet, we – you and I – can write a new script and tell the tale of a superbly adapted, courageous, gifted, graceful, animal, one that is as crucial for our survival as the tiger or the elephant, for it is a seed-dispenser and keeps the populations of other species (think field mice and wild piglets) in check.  It is a tale for the heart and in the narration of the real story is the redemption from complicity.  
ps: the picture isn’t mine, it’s a Wiki one from Keoladeo, but about sums it u

Hug a Cow? Please tell me How?

The most uplifting item in the news this week is the declaration by the Animal Welfare Board of India that February 14th will henceforth be Cow Hug Day.  During this day, presumably, you must hug a cow (and not the other way around) – one needs lucidity in these crucial matters.    

I had not been a fan of the AWBI, for the notable reason that I did not know that such an august institution existed.  Until today.  Now I am a die-hard supporter of the world’s two most exciting performers (in the following order):
1. AWBI
2. Messi

So, as a loyal fan, I am all prepared for Feb 14th.  There is a minor lingering detail I need clarity on and your vital contributions will hugely help: how does one hug a cow?

I measured my arms this morning and all I can hug is the teddy bear in the loft, which is the fastest known way ever recorded to start sneezing and continue till the anti-histamine takes effect.  So, in the spirit of scientific enquiry, I divided the cow into three parts: the back, the mid-section and the front and did my research.  The summary of my findings are below:
(below here, not below the Cow.  As mentioned earlier, one needs lucidity, and you are clearly inhaling something illegal.)

Let me state this right away – I am now taking the bull by the horns – I refuse to hug the cow at the back and I shant describe this further, despite grave provocation.  You can argue as much as you wish – until the cows come home, to use an udderly disgusting pun - but I know a few, trust me, and they have strong, unequivocal views on strangers hugging them at the rear and will react with alacrity, leaving you either
A) Drenched; or
B) Benched; or
C) Trenched
D) Stenched

If you choose Option B or C (or B+C) above, please travel to cow-hug location in an ambulance (preferably multi-specialty).

I have equally deep-rooted reservations about hugging them in the vicinity of their horns, because cows often mistake humans for flies, in which respect, they bear a spitting resemblance to Stallone in Rambo (there are other notable resemblances to Stallone as well, in voice, dialogue and intelligence quotient, but that is digression.  One needs to report from the drenches.  Sorry, trenches.) 

 
If you insist – despite this hard-working researcher’s dire warnings – on hugging Cow around the neck, please choose the outdoors without a ceiling, because the known record for human- levitation-by-Cow-propulsion is 14 feet and this could be a unique opportunity to beat that.  On landing, you will need to check every one of the 206 bones you have (including those precious few in the cranium that protect the vacuum inside), while the lady continues to observe you with a critical, clearly jaundiced eye.  

That leaves the mid-section.  Now, I am not sure if you have seen a cow ever, but the mid-section houses pretty much all the machinery and prodigious amounts of grass and you will need about fourteen prosthetic arms to get around, with your face right in its midrib (for the record, cows don’t smell of Chanel eau de cologne, not the ones I know).  If there is a calf inside and you go ahead with a hug – prosthetic arms and all – the cow, unless she is fully anaesthetised or listening to Pink Floyd, will treat you to a reverse flick which makes Messi look like a bartender in a cast.  Ambulance recommended.

Now, a final point: if you had thought of giving a rose to a sweet girl on Feb 14th and have now changed your plan and plan to give it to her cow, do quote Amol Palekar in Chitchor and say with feeling, Gori tera gau bada pyaara.

 
…which will be a memorable one-liner, even it will be the only memorable thing you say that day.

When Winter Left The Mist Behind.....

Random Rubble
February 5th 2023

Sometime in the last week, Winter went softly away.  Like a guest who believes that she is overstaying and would like to evade the ensuing argument, Winter eased her way out without a trace, leaving the morning mist in the lap of Spring.  I know that because the silk cotton tree is in leafless bloom, with a large flock of noisy, active rosy starlings helping themselves to the nectar, and a shower of brilliant wine-red flowers on the road; the flowering of silk cotton is the harbinger, the totem that Spring brings along for the short ride of cool, nippy nights and warm days before the heat of summer takes over.

Much as I – and about everyone else – would like Winter to stay on for a wee bit longer, the sunsets of Spring are beautiful and fiery and that is a fine, rich compensation.  To this bounty, add a weekend with a full moon.  I huddle on the terrace under the moonlit sky, basking in celestial company, with moments for desultory thought and just the feeble unmet expectation: will I hear the old eagle owl, with his ‘bubo’ call, or the screech of a barn owl?  Will a rustle in the grass show up a wild boar and her piglets?  Or – ooh la la – my old friend, Colonel Haathi?  This evening, though, is a no-show.  Maybe they have seen me and are waiting.  For, you see, big boys play at night.

The only sound I hear is one of temple drums from a village in the distance but the evening air in the hamlet behind me is silent and sombre: it has been a hard year for the farmers in our parts – the rains were ruinous -  and, of those who planted ragi, some say they will not plant it anymore, at least not for the market, for labour costs, boar and troops of macaques have ravaged the economics of a fine crop, one that is the mainstay of a millet mosaic and in their blood and diet. The price of ragi stalk though – fed to cattle - has risen to the point where it is no longer just a by-product; this year, it will be the only product.  Isn’t that ironical or is it just the norm when things are upside-down?   

And then I think of Kelu, the sagacious Kuruchiyar man from Tirunelli who once grew native varieties of rice. Seven days of sunshine, he had said, and seven mornings of mist were needed to ready the crop.  He stopped growing rice for the same reasons; the loss is as much ours, for his rice came with wisdom.   

So, under this moonlit sky, I think of ragi, bats, economics, stones, charcoal, rice and jackals, all the while wishing I could think of nothing.    It’s past nine and the night is cold now, so did Winter do a rethink and come back for that wee bit longer?  And will She say a Goodbye this time with a hug that will bring a shudder?
…for Gulzar once wrote:
Of the last season, there must be some sign
Some old pain, an old memory
Surely there must be some story?

Some story.