In the Forest of the Night

Retelling the Same Planetary Tale: Again and Again

2025-12-24T12:56:00.005+05:30

With the economic model of development firmly adopted and actively implemented, India’s natural countryside is witnessing fast paced changes. Changes that test our resilience and will continue to present new challenges in the face of rapidly evolving ecosystem threats. In many ways, India is a mirror to the global situation where our persistence in following the present growth model is further degrading the fragile landscapes.

While a nation is defined by its boundaries, multiple actors cooperate to make it a living space. India’s story has been substantially impacted by its diverse geography and natural features. From the monsoons which provide an enviable certainty to millions of farmers to the trade winds which provided intrepid explorers to explore distant lands, from the Himalayas which provided a natural unbroken barrier to all sorts of discomfort including invaders and the cold draught of wind that sweeps down the Tibetan plateau to the richness of the soil which has ensured stability for thousands of years, India has been blessed with subtle gifts from nature that enabled civilizations to thrive long before a settled agrarian society arrived at what are now euphemistically referred to as the first world.

The nation’s ecological integrity is now at stake and while many may claim that the current ecological crisis is not our making but the result of the vagaries committed by the west, especially in the post second world war period, it does not absolve us from the responsibility that within the boundaries of the planetary common, the causes and impacts are not of a limited nature.

Firmly entrenched within the capitalistic society, the western world after a quarter of a century of obfuscation and offering entreaties to the so called developing world, has now effectively washed its hands of cleaning up its mess. Rather, the continued exploitation of the worlds resources continues unabated, albeit obscured in fancy terms and aid packages. India and many other countries are still viewed either as a resource base or a market for dumping products that may not have been needed in the first place. Under the Paris agreement of 2015, so much billions of dollars were promised to lift developing countries into a greener economy but the results are there to be seen. Now, increasingly even the pretense of trying to help seems to be a distant promise, as the west tries to consolidate its rapidly fracturing societies bereft as they are of the easy pilferage that they were used to for the past two the three centuries.

Are we following the same pattern. Is our model of development, which on the surface appears to be replicating the western model of extraction, still has space or scope to move tentatively towards achieving the goals of sustainable development. Can we uphold the ideals of a just transformation where inequality can be at its minimum and justice the order of the day. Can we move beyond caste, class, religion and gender inequities to usher in a green model of development, one that places priority over nature and equality. These are broader questions that may take lifetimes to evolve but the polycrisis that we find ourselves in might find answers from an equally diverse coming together of positive action.

The impending crisis that unfolds before us forces everyone to rethink contemporary ways of dealing with them. From small forest hamlets to urban high rises, this multipronged crisis has the capacity to impact everybody. Though a stark reminder exists that some stakeholders may suffer more than others. Resilience is likely to become a precious commodity in the coming decades.

There is the thunder rolling above, and the river below roars. Household chores are in the mind, as the sun disappears below the snow!! Ancient houses, shattered beams, venerable cows and time does the slow swing!!!!

2025-09-21T12:33:00.003+05:30

That was Dharali for me, around the last week of December.

It changed this year and the maggi shop was the first to go under.

The image of Gangotri on the opposite wall perhaps went a second earlier.

The shop next served good parathas and the locals used its shade to gossip forever. That went too.

And the grocery shop next to it, the biggest shop of Dharali seems to have gone too.

The open space where the hotels began also seems to have been gulped till the point where the walk to the old village starts.

Lots of places gone forever, or perhaps gone to be reimagined elsewhere.

I wonder where Alam bhai is.

Teaching the Unteachable in the Climate Era

2025-08-29T11:53:00.002+05:30

We live in an era of extreme climate disruptions. Each passing season seems to bring new records: temperatures soaring beyond endurance, floods that overwhelm entire cities, droughts that stretch across years, and storms whose intensity unsettles even the most resilient communities. For those attentive to the science and the lived experiences unfolding all around us, a deep anxiety has taken root.

The future no longer feels like a horizon of progress; instead, it looms as a shadow of uncertainty. Yet life continues, and so does education. Students arrive in classrooms, notebooks open, eyes filled with expectation. Teachers must still teach. The responsibility, if anything, has grown heavier. But what do you say to young people today?

When you speak of sustainability, resilience, or human well-being, you are not merely lecturing on abstract concepts. You are speaking to those who will live through the decades we only imagine. And herein lies the teacher’s dilemma. How do you inspire hope without denying the scale of the crisis? How do you tell the truth without overwhelming them with despair? Students are rarely content with numbers. They listen to climate projections, to reports of biodiversity collapse, to news of sea-level rise, and then they ask questions that go far deeper: “If everything is going to get worse, why should we do anything at all?” or “If this is the world we inherit, why should we prepare for it?”

At such moments, data points feel empty. You can recite figures on global warming thresholds or species extinction rates, but these do not answer the questions of meaning. The truth is that teachers themselves carry the same fears, the same uncertainties, the same grief. To deny that feels dishonest; to admit it risks intensifying despair. And so one learns to inhabit the tension, to stand alongside students not only as a guide but as a fellow traveller, uncertain but committed. Perhaps this is the real task of teaching in these times: to hold both despair and possibility together.

Between 2025 and 2035 the world is likely to change drastically, not only through the familiar dimensions of climate change but also through cascading crises of land degradation, water scarcity, pollution, and widening inequality. These are not abstract risks. They are realities in motion, already pressing upon us. To name them is not to frighten students but to recognise what they, too, already know. And yet, recognition must not be mistaken for resignation. There is always the space for agency.

The word most often used in response to crisis is adaptation. To students, it sometimes sounds like passive surrender: accepting that the worst will happen and adjusting to survive it. But adaptation, when taught honestly, is not defeat. It is action. It is the capacity to live differently, to reorganise society, to create communities that endure in spite of disruption. It is a way of insisting that the story is not over. When a student asks, “But what happens in five years if things get worse?” one cannot truthfully say, “Nothing will happen.” Nor can one say, “All is lost.” What can be said is: “Yes, things may worsen. But you are not powerless. To adapt is to take responsibility for shaping the spaces you inhabit and the systems you influence.”

This conversation carries a particular sharpness in India. On the one hand, the current trajectory of consumption and growth is ecologically unsustainable. On the other hand, millions still live in poverty, without reliable access to basic needs such as energy, housing, and healthcare. To simply declare that growth must stop is unjust. To demand unlimited growth is catastrophic. This is the paradox our students must wrestle with. Development cannot follow the old models of consumption-heavy industrialization imported from elsewhere. At the same time, pathways for justice and dignity for the poor must remain open. The challenge is not only technical; it is deeply ethical. Teaching this paradox is not easy, but it is necessary.

Here comes the Litmus Self. Humans respond most intensely to what touches them personally. Our skin is the boundary that registers pain, comfort, danger, or relief. Imagine if the self could function like litmus paper, instantly sensitive to changes in the environment.

If we could train ourselves, and our students, to extend this sensitivity outward, then every global change would be felt as personal change. Like a frog that reacts instantly to shifts in its environment, the Litmus Self would be attuned to the fragility of ecosystems and the vulnerability of communities.

This requires a widening of identity, from “I, the individual” or “I, the citizen of a nation” to “I, the planetary citizen.” In this framing, the melting of a glacier, the choking of a river, the burning of a forest are not distant events. They are registered in the self as if happening on one’s own skin. From such recognition comes the impulse to act. Sometimes the act is small and personal, like changing consumption habits or rethinking mobility. Sometimes it is collective and confrontational, like challenging corporations, influencing government, or reshaping institutions. But always, it arises from the realisation that harm anywhere is harm everywhere, and that growth cannot continue at the expense of the future.

The Litmus Self is both a sensor and an actor. It feels, and it responds. It collapses the distance between global crisis and personal action, between abstract statistics and lived urgency. This is what we must nurture in our students, not merely knowledge of climate science but a felt recognition that the Earth’s fate is tied to their own.

Teaching this does not begin with graphs. It begins with stories. Stories of farmers who lose crops to unseasonal rains, of families displaced by coastal erosion, of students themselves struggling through heatwaves or floods. These are not case studies to be examined from a safe distance but experiences that reveal the porous boundary between self and world. To cultivate the Litmus Self, students must learn to place themselves within these stories, not as guilty bystanders but as implicated participants not drowning in guilt, but responsibly making an effort.

This requires classrooms to be more than sites of instruction. They must become spaces where fear can be voiced, grief can be acknowledged, and creativity can be cultivated. Teachers cannot pretend to have all the answers. But they can model engagement, honesty, and resilience. They can show that it is possible to face daunting realities without paralysis.

The balance between despair and hope is delicate. Too much despair, and students will give up before they begin. Too much hope, and they are unprepared for what is to come. The task is to walk the narrow path between, never denying the truth but never abandoning the possibility of change. That path is uncertain, shifting, imperfect. Yet perhaps that is precisely what makes it real.

I do not pretend this is easy. Teachers too carry their own griefs and their own doubts. We too ask if our efforts matter, if our words reach beyond the classroom walls. Yet I return again and again to the image of the Litmus Self: self porous and sensitive, refusing the comfort of distance, insisting on connection. If we can nurture such selves in our students and in ourselves, then perhaps teaching the unteachable is not impossible after all. It is difficult, it is painful, but it is also necessary. And within that necessity lies hope: that even in a time of crisis, we can still teach, still learn, and still act. That, perhaps, is lesson enough.

The 50 Most Inspiring Travel Quotes Of All Time

2025-07-14T15:22:00.001+05:30

1.“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” – Mark Twain

2.“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”–St. Augustine

3.“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.”–Robert Louis Stevenson

4. “The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” –Samuel Johnson

5. “All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.” –Paul Fussell

6. “Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” –Jack Kerouac

7. “He who does not travel does not know the value of men.” – Moorish proverb

8. “People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” – Dagobert D. Runes

9. “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” –John Steinbeck

10. “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” –Lin Yutang

11. “Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.” –Aldous Huxley

12. “All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.” –Samuel Johnson

13. “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” –Robert Louis Stevenson

14. “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” –Cesare Pavese

15. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” –Miller

16″A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.” –Moslih Eddin Saadi

17. “When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.” – D. H. Lawrence

18. “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark

19. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Twain

20. “Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard

[19] 21. “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber

22. “We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” – [20] Jawaharial Nehru

23. “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” – [21] Paul Theroux

24. “To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” – [22] Bill Bryson

25. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” – [23] Ralph Waldo Emerson

26. “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by.” – [24] Robert Frost

27. “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – [25] Lao Tzu

28. “There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.” – [26] Charles Dudley Warner

29. “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” – [25] Lao Tzu

30. “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” – [27] James Michener

31. “The journey not the arrival matters.” – [28] T. S. Eliot

32. “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” – [29] Tim Cahill

33. “I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” – Mark Twain

34. “Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quiestest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” – [31] Pat Conroy

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu
35. “Not all those who wander are lost.” – [32] J. R. R. Tolkien

36. “Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.” – [33] Benjamin Disraeli

37. “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” – [34] Maya Angelou

38. “Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversation.” – [35] Elizabeth Drew

39. “Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe”……[36] Anatole France

40. “Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – [37] Seneca

41. “What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do – especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” – [38] William Least Heat Moon

42. “I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.” – [39] Lillian Smith

43. “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” – [10] Aldous Huxley

44. “Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.” – [40] Freya Stark

45. “The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.” – [41] Rudyard Kipling

46. “Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.” – [21] Paul Theroux

47. “The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” – [42] G. K. Chesterton

48. “When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” – [43] Clifton Fadiman

49. “A wise traveler never despises his own country.” – [44] Carlo Goldoni

50. “Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins

The Russia - Ukraine war changes forever today

2025-06-02T07:39:00.003+05:30

Roaming with Giants

2025-04-20T12:00:00.001+05:30

The entrance to the Dubare Elephant Camp is dramatic and moreso in dusk. Wearing life jackets and positioned cautiously on a boat that can accommodate not more than a dozen people - that is all that stands between them and an imminent dip in the Cauvery, one looks out into the river. The boatman pushed the boat away using a bamboo pole and soon the scene changes as large trees loom in the distance. The boisterous crowd is left behind as silence takes over and you are at the middle of the river looking at the Dubare Elephant Camp. The forest stands tall as you disembark from the boat and strain your neck to look what’s in the ahead. Giant trees, the likes of which is seen usually in television shows in faraway lands stretch upwards, kissing the skies almost. Rosewood, lagerstroemia, teak, flame of the forest, wild mangoes and many more species is all that stands in front of you and an enviable holiday that has few parallels.

For in Dubare reserve forest, just north of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, in the Coorg district, lies several hidden gems that truly invoke the beauty of the forest in the eye of the viewer. Yes, more than the famed tiger or the elusive leopard or the giant that is the elephant, it is the forest that takes centre stage by its diversity and sheer beauty and holds its ground at Dubare. That and the fact that a person can touch and be one with the elephants in a natural setting without fear of being trampled over by some unruly giant is perhaps the singular thrill of this unique experiment of the Forest Department of Karnataka and Jungle Lodges and Resorts.

Dubare is situated in the district of Coorg, a vast mountainous region with a low population density which makes it one of the most sparsely populated regions in South India, with few urban concentrations and the sweet aroma of coffee and spices pervading the senses everywhere.

Dubare lies on the banks of the Cauvery, about eighty kilometers from her source at Talacauvery. Located aptly so, as the Cauvery is the singular presence that occupies the landscape in the district of Coorg. The entire hilly country of Coorg is devoted to the river for the bounty she provides and much of the popular lore in Coorg is usually associated with the great river Cauvery. Besides, coffee also defines Coorg along with the fragrance of pepper, rubber and other spices also grown alongside the major crop of coffee. People who visit Dubare get an opportunity to see the flourishing agricultural practices of the people who grow a diverse variety of rice on the valley floors and plantation crops in the hills, some of the bounties of the river and her tributaries.

A beautiful water-locked forest, Dubare is located at the eastern end of the district at an average altitude of around 900 metres. As we drive from Dubare to the west, the altitude rises sharply with the Tadiandamol peaking at 1750 metres and Madikeri lying at an average altitude of more than 1400 metres above sea level. The Western Ghats is at its prettiest here and the rains exceed in its more than 4000 mm at various places, much of the water drains into the Cauvery providing Dubare with an intensely lush riverside vegetation and the sight of the river at its brim several times a year.

The cabins are located close to the elephant camp, next to the flowing Cauvery and are simple in nature, snugly fitting into the surroundings. Woodwork done to taste ensures that one feels part of nature while gazing at the setting sun over the Cauvery. A wonderful idyllic location, the Dubare Elephant camp is much loved by nature lovers throughout the country. Although, it was set up relatively recently, it has acquired a special status as an unexpectedly unique holiday.

Home to Giants

The giants have a place of pride at Dubare. Giant trees, a larger than life riverine landscape and above all the gigantic elephants. Fuelled by a high rainfall regime, the river often brims over and the trees grow to a height uncommon to large parts of India. The elephants here too form an integral part of the forest. This is the land where the giant beast roams with abandon, where the smell of coffee pervades all senses and where an unique experiment of introducing the general population to the experience of handling real elephants has worked wonders and brought thousands closer to nature and at the same time aided in conservation by imbibing valuable education to the common man.

A serene location, lots of elephants to interact with at close quarters, some beautiful patches of ancient bamboo forests and a small quaint village of tribals or indigenous people who make these forests their home. Dubare thus, whilst set up as an elephant camp is a wonderful location matched perhaps by the very best nature camps in the world. A must visit for any traveler to the hills of Coorg.

You know the magic of nature, when...

2025-04-13T06:30:00.001+05:30

You know the magic of nature, when you least expect it to be beautiful, it knocks you off your breath and leaves you wondering about the sheer beauty in each and every of it's moods.

On a stony hilly plateau atleast 50-75 metres away from the nearby forests/plains, where due a to a lack of soil depth, just about everything makes an attempt to survive and life is held to tenaciously (and the proof being that relatively huge neem tree, which must have taken several years to reach this height in such a punishing environment, FALLEN, possibly because it could not fight a strong burst of wind or a heavy spell of torrential rains. Sudden death to a majestic life well spent.

Suddenly, I see a dip and see an oasis of greenery. Almost evergreen in nature, it was a paradise in the top of a tough hill. And then I see, that the entire area has subsided inwards, as if a giant JCB has scooped the rock and flung it far away. A soft layer of alluvial soil held out life to several trees and with little scope of exit, most of the water was being utilized by the trees.

Walking on that plateau, I feel that the slope or aspect plays a magical role. On the plateau, the slope was from the left to the right and as a result the vegetation on the right hand side of the cliff was much more green and luxurious. We saw much more during that super walk of a few hours through monsoonal Bidar, saw many facets of nature, got wet several times and finally came back to the resort.

We came back and read books, rested, had a pleasant evening and slept. The next day we finally left, went around Bidar and then to Hyderabad, through the most terrible traffic I have perhaps ever seen in my whole life. In the list of bad traffic scenarios, this counts as the highest, as we crawled through roughly 80 km of traffic. Amazing experience for a forest wallah.

Old Stories - Same Stories

2025-04-11T14:21:00.001+05:30

As a young environmentalist who has spent the past seven years of my professional life on conservation issues, I feel emboldened that change is happening for the better. As a civilization, we are growing more inclusive and realising the threats posed to our mother earth is ultimately detrimental to all of us. As the global economy grows, I feel that more engagement is required to enable the message of climate change and environmental degradation to all sections of the society so that more people could make informed choices about the life they lead, products they purchase and ultimately the respect they give to the fragile earth that they live upon.

Guess it was just wishful thinking in the summer of 2005

I

WWWWWWWWW

2025-04-10T13:28:00.001+05:30

When it comes to my field of work, I am pessimist to the core. I believe, perhaps I already know that our vast natural heritage is dying out. Not naturally but is being accelerated by our actions or inaction.

And as an individual, the more I see all of this happening, I become more radical about doing something. And yes, several times, I feel that all is lost. Yes, that is true as well... all is lost.... we will soon be a nation of cities siphoning of the resources in and around. Or as it is in Kerala, become one long urban village on both sides of the highway.

India as a city from north till south - the ultimate in national integration. We will not have states but mohalla names for our THE singular city - what we now know as Nagpur will be a Marathi Mohalla with a sprinkling of smaller linguistic mohalla. Patna will be a homogenous North Indian mohalla. 10 kilometres from Bhopal will be industries with their exhaust pipes turned towards the hinterland and supplying goods to the cities every hour. 20 Kilometres and the beautiful hinterland will start. Long stretches of wheat and rice will dot the landscape, cane swaying gently in the wind. Hundreds of cows munching on soft grass (IN AN EUROPE STYLE FACTORY). And no human in sight.

We would have achieved the American dream, here in India.......
We will have one person managing 10000 acres of land and the rest engaged in beautifying the city.

Drive for another 100 KM and you will see the same phenomenon repeating itself... What about the forest or lakes or pastures or hills or mountains.... Eaten up by the Indian Uncle Sam....

Mukurthi Again

2025-04-08T08:30:00.001+05:30

As a past resident of the Nilgiris, discounting an oppurtunity to visit the Mukurthi National park is not a choice but an eagerly awaited stroke of fortune, as people would testify to the difficulties of permissions and prohibitive costs involved in visiting this pristine zone. I have visited the park umpteen times for very short durations and the very abundance of nature at its best compels me to look at the westward sky, everytime I pass Ooty.

Mukurthi is infact a jewel in the hill district's crown and its very existence till today speaks volumes of the conservation efforts undertaken by past conservationists in enforcing policy decisions that led to the creation of the park.

Mukurthi is located in the western crescent of the Nilgiri district, looking over the expanse of the state of Kerala and almost appears as a wall like impenetrable fortress when seen from Nilambur region of Kerala.

The park is covered by grasslands and sholas and some stretches of the invasive tree, wattle.

The Forest Department and Nilgiri Wildlife Association were organising a census to estimate the population of the endangered Nilgiri Tahr and I bounced upon the organisers. With a stroke of luck, Mohanraj Sir, who is one of the most progressive conservationists in Southern India and also one of the main organisers of the event allotted me to survey the Bison Swamp region.

The effort was worth for the sheer opportunity to see pure nature with so few disturbances.

Dharamsala da Magic

2025-04-07T09:01:00.001+05:30

The name Dharamsala has a tinge of magic about it. As a town, there is nothing exceptionally special about it but seen differently, the entire region including the town, Mcleodganj, Bhagsu Nag temple and Chamundi Devi mandir has a special charm about them. The town itself may just be a stopover for many on their way to Mcleodganj, but the quaint old time charm it exudes fills the imagination. Just standing in the bus stand and staring up at the Dhauladhar range can be awe inspiring. At certain times of the year, the entire range is covered with pure white snow imposing itself upon the landscape.

But Dharamsala is special also because there are so many nooks and corners where a normal tourist scarcely goes but those places in themselves leave a lifetimes’ imprint upon the mind.

Just before the bus stand, a small road diverges to a place named Chilgari. The woods here are lovely and dark and the view of the Kangra valley is unbelievable. When I reached that particular place, the sun was on its way down and enveloped as it was by a cover of dense clouds, little straight lines of rays was shooting down from that cover. The entire Kangra valley, well over 10 km long was bathed in orange and white light, painted as it is by some master artist.

Another less frequented area is that of the tea gardens. Though it is a private property, nobody really prevents you from having a look. Beautiful ladies carrying their baskets full of leaves reminds one of Darjeeling. The silence is stunning with your breath being the only companion. Still further up and away from the normal population, very close to Chilgari is a vast stretch of pine forests. It is surely an interesting experience listening to the pine trees whispering amongst themselves.
There again is the Kotwali bazaar, the region around the bus stand, the beautiful and well kept cantonment and the imposing Chamundi Devi mandir. Another well kept secret is the Kunal Pathri temple that is a leisurely three km walk from the bus stand through the best preserved forests of the region.

When you leave Dharamsala for Mcleodganj in a Rs 5 a trip jeep, it is an amazing sight. For as companions, you will find an assortment of Tibetans, several foreigners, some beggars shifting their routine to the profitable region in and around the monastery, and local residents – all oblivious to one another, busy in their own thoughts, as if in a search. And that well may be a truth, for many come to Mcleodganj to fill up a gap missing form their lives and many return contented in the basking warmth of the monasteries and temples that abound in the region.

Amongst my companions that day, the Indian stood out for he had the strange Indian habit of when going uphill, to start with his papers. He prefers missing the view but then he may be an old timer and the view may not hold much importance to him now. However, I find it difficult to understand that that particular jeep ride through the cantonment, Forbesganj and the old church with such spectacular sights had most people dozing off by the time they reached Mcleodganj. To add to the confusion in my mind, the very first sight of Mcleodganj might put you in disarray. Overpopulated with gentry from all parts of the world who walk over the filth without a bat of their eyelids and a garbage disposal system that need much more improvement, this is what we see.

However, soon you join the milling crowds as you realize that everything in that town and every road, also every person that I see walks up and down one path – that leading up to the main monastery and the Dalai Lama’s residence. A mass movement of faith and curiosity, enough to give one a heady feeling worth a lifetime. The small monasteries on the way, innumerable shops selling Tibetan handicrafts and trendy clothes wear, even the barber with his Tibetan styled shop add to the mystique of the place. All visitors, including me and I have been to this part several times have a certain look of amazement about them, as if they are being led by a pied piper.

More on Mcleodganj TO BE CONTINUED…..

A Land devoid of Kurunjis

2025-04-04T10:24:00.001+05:30

The undulating mass of land lying south to the fertile Mysore region has a life that is it's own. The Nilgiris remains to this day alive and throbbing. It still is the land of honey and milk, where the giant rock bees nest in abundance and the soil nourishes all.

Known throughout the world for a blue tinge that covered the mountain sides on a twelve year cycle, these embodiment of the Nilgiris spirit has now come to a loss. The Kurinjis are vanishing and so is the spirit of the man who inhabits these hills.

The Nilgiris lies at the trijunction of the three states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Kerala and harbours unique flora and fauna, many of which are endemic to the Nilgiris. The Nilgiris also boast of the being the first declared Biosphere Reserve under the man and Biosphere programme of UNESCO in 1986 and to this day, remains the only biosphere that has been officialy recognised by the United Nations Body.

The Nilgiris was formed as a result of upheaval in Pleistocene era that resulted in the churning out of the huge mass of rock as we see the Nilgiris today. yet, with stability came a price - a price of soft upper strata that is highly vulnerable to modifications and disturbance. the charnockite rock layer on the upper strata makes Nilgiris unstable. And the soft rock layer on the upper surface also makes the rock vulnerable to illegal mining for housing purposes. The scourge of mining which had devastated large tracts of the nation has been, somewhat satisfactorily

Yet, the Nilgiri Ecology is in decline today. Unfettered development, adoption os a high energy dependent lifestyle and reverse migration are some of the factors that are contributing to the ongoing degradation of the Nilgiris.

However, the Nilgiris that meets the eye and the Nilgiris that remains tucked in far from the prying eyes of the outsider are two different worlds and much effort needs to be put in to conserve that other world, that other world of the mystical, beautiful Nilgiris. The other world in the Nilgiris is a world which belongs to the adivasis and to the mountains, it belongs to the rivers and the tigers. And this is the Nilgiris which lend to it that particular aura bringing hundreds of conscious worshippers to the place.

The challenge today is that the Nilgiris must be accorded a degree of protection that goes beyond mere lip sync and is carried forward to a level where the ecology is seen together and efforts made to protect that ecology

An early morning in the Nilgiris...

2025-04-03T08:14:00.001+05:30

An early morning in Kotagiri,
And the sun shining hard and bright.
I see fluttering butterflies and I see raving sights,
The roads are empty, the chill of the weather bites.
And I walk on, alone watching nobody go by.
Maybe, it is the magic of the past rains,
that makes this sun seem so conscientious this morning,

I wander more and reach the hill and see my house down alone,
It seems so separated and full of life, and yet so forlorn.
The road I walk this morning has a vehicle broken down,
I wonder at the ingenuity of man, who to reach home swerves around.
There are a few birds, this morning and I wonder why,
Maybe the rains had given them a fright,

I walk and think aloud,
So many trees are being cut down,
No one cares and no one knows.
So I thought I should write it down.
The road has cracked with the drumming rain,
I see again anarchy prevail,
It takes time to start work,
and you may need some wondrous luck.
The roads may yet get repaired and with luck soon too,

But I walk on and reach my purpose and sit down and click hard,
The sights I saw were like the stationary tram,
It may move or may not, trees may get cut or may not, but I pass by watching on.

(Originally written on 10th November, 2007)

Wyanad in the night

2025-04-01T12:36:00.001+05:30

You enter Wyanad ususally to pass through it - to Cochin, to Calicut or to Southern Kerala. You hardly roll down the window when the clear sky becomes dark due to the madly dense canopy, you think about the impending vomit of your chidlren now that the hills are twisting, you do gaze at the fields and wonder about the greenery of God's Own COuntry. As you reach closer to the border of this hilly district, you will yourself to sleep as there are no longer any interesting buildings to watch and speculate the prices of, neither are their any towns to buy your regular snacks from. You invariably sleep and wake up at Mysore, smiling pleasantly at the noise of the Maharajah's bus stand and his palace that stands tall.

But my eyes pop open long long before I entered the land of the forests. I sit up in anticipation in the red and white KSRTC bus that does reek of vomit, but is regularly cleaned in the depots. I sit up and move over to the window to watch the spelendour of the hills and forest draping her modestly. I become a poet watching the clouds over Brahmagiri. I point out exactly to whichever part of me that is able to twist that if Brahmagiri is front, Chembra must be behind. I wonder and wonder and reach the forest.

It was about eight in the dusk when I drive into Wyanad through Gundlupet in Karnataka. The road was wide and empty except for a turboed KSRTC bus and the sights were a beauty. It was raining in the strange Karnataka sort of a way that makes you feel that any rain in this dry zone is inadequate yet if you step out you wet and drenched to the bones. It was raining and the road was shimmering and more than the rains, it was the thunder. In periodic intervals, it lighted upo the skies and made outlines turn to figures. A lady to the left, a giant tree straight ahead and a Pachyderm walking past. To see all this in a quite vehicle at an uneartly hour made me gush with feverish excitement.

It thundered more and the forests swayed. I was in Wyanad and was driving past the hope that sustains the hills and the surrounding plains, a Wyanad draped with Bamboo and grasses and shrubs, a Wyanad plentiful - the hope smiled and returned - the thunder just circled through forests forest's fargile shadow. I reached the checkpost..

Munnar things

2025-03-26T08:30:00.002+05:30

It was a whirlwind trip to Munnar, three days including the travelling... That left us with little time to see all the sights of the high ranges, but nevertheless was an excellent exercise in a social group based travel that I am not so adept in doing. There were some 30 families and Samita and me had also went along.

At the start, we knew that Munnar was a good choice, for the tendency of man to avoid visiting those places that are closest is universal and I stand testimony to not having visited either Darjeeling, Sikkim, Bhutan or the Sunderbans, though many say that I am a half Bengali, having lived there for most of my life.

Munnar is a small town that possesses the virtue of being located in planter country. One advantage is that populations are low , primarily because the huge plantations prevented small landholdings from touching these lands adversely. There are few villages and though tea dominates, there are neverthless large stretches of forests. Much as I think, I liked the place.

Reaching somewhere before Udmalpet, we had lunch and then moved into the Chinar wildlife sanctuary. A startling landscape, Chinar is magnificient with the Anamalai National Park casting a wide shadow over Chinar, though many of us have been working in forests most of the time - we felt an awe worth a thrill. Huge hills, deep forests, a single lane... that ride was an eye opener that as many forest one sees, there are still many more to soak in.

Tea and then Munnar and then Autumn Trees resort and then sleep after a heavy dose of confusion in seating arrangements.

Next morning though, we had a good start and after breakfast, went to the long cherished Ervaikulam or precisely Rajamalai Wildlife Sanctuary. Sheer cliffs and witness to so many tahrs made the day for almost all the staff members and for me too. In between, we went to popular tourist spots in the town, including this and that view point. At one place, all of us went for a speed boat trip that was what it promised to be. A TRIP. Jumping over the lake, it feels fine to doo these things once in a while.

Night time dance in the so called dormitory and next morning, we were ready to leave. Driving down, we reached the Trimurti falls where the gods had arranged a super charged shower for those who wished to take a bath and this is what we did. Took bath amidst a heavy water outflow and almost gasped for breath several times.

This done, this fast forwarded trip came to a rushing end with the return to Kotagiri late at night with us tired and cheerful with a a good insight into Munnar.

This trip was more of a whirlwind we associate with a lonley planet style of travel, but without those discomforts. But in the short time that we had, I felt that there are enourmous differences between Kotagiri and Munnar.

Population is obviously one, but so is cleanliness. Also is the fact that there are so many more rivers in Munnar as compared to virtually none in large parts of the Nilgiri Hills. Where have the rivers gone or were there no rivers from earlier times.

It is easier to find fault with one's home but nevertheless Kotagiri is a lovely place, in much need for its citizens to conserve the beauty of the place in the coming years as well as to promote more measures to increase tree cover and the assorted list of things that need to be done.. Who will do it...

Dear, Your Faults

2025-03-25T07:30:00.007+05:30

Dear, Your Faults

1. You do not keep upto your promises
2. You become self-pitiful at times
3. You get excited and speak too much and out of turn
4. You still dream at a wrong place and at a wrong time
5. You are a loser

Yet, at the end, nothing will matter as we pass on into the dust and soil that we are all made of. or more precisely carbon, but who knows whether it is is precise knowledge or fake news.

All dreamers are losers and all losers are cows, for they are forced to give a part of themselves while not really being requested or asked to do it. Wonder what the cows feel about it.

The air is heavy with the scent of anticipation, though honestly nowadays, it is full of the smell that is sewage. So many kinds of different sewage. Gosh, the air seems muddy while the mud is all plastic. Fuck, hell, we are not living in a matrix. We are living in a giant garbage patch.

Days in the Forest

2025-03-24T13:00:00.001+05:30

Bikkapathi Mund is a small, almost cut off village in one of the hill regions of Southern India. But that by itself does not make it any special than the hundreds of other villages spread across hills of our nation.

The village is surrounded almost completely by thick shola forests that extend to the plains below in the form of moist deciduous and thereafter dry deciduous forests. Everywhere that the eye can see, one can squint in disbelief. forests all around and of all types and hues. Wild or perhaps slightly domesticated buffaloes roam the grasslands, occasionally becoming cattle-feed for the prowling tigers all around. A few Malabar squirrels have made permanent residence at the nearby department guest house. Old and decrepit now but surely holding tales of wildlife of the bygone era.

When I went there for the first time, I made a great friend. Kuttan who knows the world like only the best naturalists would, he showed the various sources of springs and explained how they sustained the surrounding region. I was taken aback by the sudden silence, but moreso by the sudden chill and suddenly found myself drifting off.

A kilometre away and a beautiful bikkimaram was standing majestically across the empty grassland. I walked on, unmindful of the chill and of the fear of the silence all around. It started getting dark and I could see that the mist coming in from the mountain in front. It was as surreal an experience as I ever felt, anywhere in life and I just kept on walking.

Some flowers bloomed bright, some leaves glistened thick, some moments, I found myself siting, sometimes listening to the rustle of the wild boars, or perhaps it was a leopard.

Several minutes had passed when the jeep came downhill to where I was and said Lets go. I said yes and looked back. At peace.

Why watching water release from a dam is such a social event in India

2025-03-23T11:00:00.001+05:30

Slight mound on the road

2025-03-21T11:00:00.001+05:30

While walking on a steep slope

that seems to have no end,

one fixes his glare on the mound next to the one that he just manage to climb.

I was doing it some time back, while walking up and down the Mukurthi National Park.

And the mounds kept coming till at the end, there was no more mound and only deep gorges existed

When Tea smells good

2025-03-16T11:07:00.001+05:30

The tea industry in India has a chequered history. What began in the mid 1800's as an experiment is today, one of the highest grossers of foreign exchange for the nation.

Tea also holds together the livelihoods of several million people and brightens the taste buds of severalm million more.

Tea is grown in small patches, never as widespread as rice or wheat and not even as widely grown as other cash crops such as sugarcane or cotton. The Darjeeling hills and Assam have some of the biggets tea growing regions, accounting for more than 70% of the total output of India. The nilgiris and surrounding hills that form part of the ancient Western Ghats contribute the rest.

I have had both and for sure, tea is central to our lives. The cost of the forest lost rankles, so therein lies the conundrum.

Dubare

2025-03-15T15:46:00.001+05:30

THIS ONE IS ON DUBARE ELEPHANT CAMP

The entrance to the camp is dramatic and moreso in dusk. Wearing life jackets and positioned cautiously on a boat that can accommodate not more than a dozen people - that is all that stands between them and an imminent dip in the Cauvery, one looks out into the river. The boatman pushed the boat away using a bamboo pole and soon the scene changes as large trees loom in the distance. The boisterous crowd is left behind as silence takes over and you are at the middle of the river looking at the Dubare Elephant Camp. The forest stands tall as you disembark from the boat and strain your neck to look what’s in the ahead. Giant trees, the likes of which is seen usually in television shows in faraway lands stretch upwards, kissing the skies almost. Rosewood, lagerstroemia, teak, flame of the forest, wild mangoes and many more species is all that stands in front of you and an enviable holiday that has few parallels.

For in Dubare reserve forest, just north of the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, in the Coorg district, lies several hidden gems that truly invoke the beauty of the forest in the eye of the viewer. Yes, more than the famed tiger or the elusive leopard or the giant that is the elephant, it is the forest that takes centre stage by its diversity and sheer beauty and holds its ground at Dubare. That and the fact that a person can touch and be one with the elephants in a natural setting without fear of being trampled over by some unruly giant is perhaps the singular thrill of this unique experiment of the Forest Department of Karnataka and Jungle Lodges and Resorts.

Receptive to new ideas

The forest department of Karnataka maintains elephant camps across the state for a variety of purpose. Elephants were traditionally an instrumental part of the logging business and camps were set in various parts of the state to enable smooth operations of these activities. Usually, located deep inside forests, these camps provided livelihood to indigenous communities, besides engaging in timber logging. However, with the stoppage of these logging activities across the state, there were few options for these elephants. It became increasingly difficult to offer work to the pachyderms.

The forest department and Jungle Lodges and Resorts decided to cooperate in a unique project towards a tourism based management of the Dubare Elephant Camp. The genesis of the resort was in a simple suggestion that the existing elephant training camp be put to some better use as their utility for timber cutting and logging was not practical in the current regime and most of them had no work. It was suggested to transform their activities and present it as a tourism activity. This would help generate income from tourism and also keep the elephants busy. The camp was located close to the tourist hub of Madikeri within the district of Coorg and this favourable location made it ideal for such an initiative as there was a captive tourist who already visited Coorg as part of his holidays and would love to include Dubare in his or her itinerary.

Thus, Dubare became a prime location for this experiment and soon, activities were designed around the elephant interaction programme. There were many elephants who have been either kept in captivity or domesticated over the years. There are some who have begun their natural lives at the camp and many who were captured at a relatively young age, all being trained by the mahouts. It provided a rare opportunity for the common man to feel and touch the elephants at a close quarter. This camp thus served the purpose of promoting elephant based tourism, educating tourists on elephant management and also promote the message of the need for a peaceful coexistence between man and animal. It is spread over a vast area for free roaming with the Dubare reserve forest behind the camp.

About Dubare

Dubare is situated in the district of Coorg. Coorg is a vast mountainous region with three distinct taluks, Somwarpet, Madikeri and Virajpet, covering an area of more than four thousand square kilometers with about five and half lakh people. Density of just 191 people per square kilometer makes it one of the most sparsely populated regions in South India, with few urban concentrations and the sweet aroma of coffee and spices pervading the senses everywhere.

Dubare lies on the banks of the Cauvery, about eighty kilometers from her source at Talacauvery. Located aptly so, as the Cauvery is the singular presence that occupies the landscape in the district of Coorg. The entire hilly country of Coorg is devoted to the river for the bounty she provides and much of the popular lore in Coorg is usually associated with the great river Cauvery. Besides, coffee also defines Coorg along with the fragrance of pepper, rubber and other spices also grown alongside the major crop of coffee. People who visit Dubare get an opportunity to see the flourishing agricultural practices of the people who grow a diverse variety of rice on the valley floors and plantation crops in the hills, some of the bounties of the river and her tributaries.

A beautiful water-locked forest, Dubare is located at the eastern end of the district at an average altitude of around 900 metres. As we drive from Dubare to the west, the altitude rises sharply with the Tadiandamol peaking at 1750 metres and Madikeri lying at an average altitude of more than 1400 metres above sea level. The Western Ghats is at its prettiest here and the rains exceed in its more than 4000 mm at various places, much of the water drains into the Cauvery providing Dubare with an intensely lush riverside vegetation and the sight of the river at its brim several times a year.

The cabins are located close to the elephant camp, next to the flowing Cauvery and are simple in nature, snugly fitting into the surroundings. Woodwork done to taste ensures that one feels part of nature while gazing at the setting sun over the Cauvery. A wonderful idyllic location, the Dubare Elephant camp is much loved by nature lovers throughout the country. Although, it was set up relatively recently, it has acquired a special status as an unexpectedly unique holiday.

Home to Giants

The giants have a place of pride at Dubare. Giant trees, a larger than life riverine landscape and above all the gigantic elephants. Fuelled by a high rainfall regime, the river often brims over and the trees grow to a height uncommon to large parts of India. The elephants here too form an integral part of the forest. This is the land where the giant beast roams with abandon, where the smell of coffee pervades all senses and where an unique experiment of introducing the general population to the experience of handling real elephants has worked wonders and brought thousands closer to nature and at the same time aided in conservation by imbibing valuable education to the common man.

Elephants were once the prime free ranging animals of the Indian forests and the giants at Dubare used to roam as far as Mudumalai in Tamil Nadu and till Hassan and northwards in Karnataka. Man would be perhaps living close to where the giants ranged but were adept on dealing with the issues that arose with having such giant neighbours. But they had taken smartly to the presence of these giants, cultivating unattractive crops in the foraging area and thus discouraging them from ravaging the crops. Times have changed since then and the elephants have been subjected to a much lesser natural roaming area, making it difficult for them to maintain their high intake of diet and causing distress to farmers who find it convenient to protect crops by artificial methods rather than cultivating lesser attractive crops for the elephants.

Dubare being located in a prime forest belt was home to one of the many camps and is an important refuge for the elephants as the river forms a natural barrier and protects the elephant from the pangs of development. Crossing the river, one is witness to the deeply eroded water front, as a result of the daily passage of the elephants for their vigorous bath. This eroded river front is also commonly seen in natural forests as elephants usually have a few strategic points where they come to quench their thirst, resulting in eroding the front. This assists other smaller animals as well and soon becomes a highway in the forest. It is here at the Dubare Elephant Camp, where JLR and the Forest Department of Karnataka together conduct the Interaction Programme.

The programme which begins early each day is open to casual visitors and guests staying at the nearby wilderness resort managed by JLR. As in other JLR camps, naturalists interact with guests, especially trained to talk about elephant behavior, and take them around the facility.

The programme begins with vigorous bathing of the giants. The naturalist takes the guest to the bathing area and along with the mahout, guides guests to start the bathing. It is a sight, watching the mahout ambling down the steep slope on the elephant, a slope that most humans can’t maneuver. The mahout, in a time tested sequence stops near the water and gently coaxes the elephant inside the river. The elephant, perhaps tired after a long night foraging in the forest drinks the water to his heart’s content. An apparently nonchalant mahout meanwhile rolls a pack of tobacco and deftly places the roll in a corner of his mouth. Just as suddenly as we all are watching the proceedings; the mahout barks a harsh order. The elephant agitated knows what to do next, yet it resists. The mahout shouts at him, the crowd waits in expectancy, the elephant trumpets loud, some guests slip in the confusion as they try to move further away from the giant and then as suddenly as the commotion started, it stops. The elephant decides that it is time and with a slow motion inspired move from the movies, gently rolls into the water, setting a mini tsunami in its wake, drenching unwary guests standing at one corner. The mahout chuckles at this and decides to go about his business with an air of someone who knows his business well. Perhaps, there is none in the world who performs his work with as much craft as these mahouts, engaged in similar work for the past few centuries, perhaps.

A rough stone in his hand, the mahout vigorously rubs the elephant who is content and placid for now. Once in a while, the mahout looks up and invites the reluctant guests to try and bathe the giant. Guests, several of them unacquainted to the giant and perhaps so close to an elephant for the first time in their lives, gingerly places his hand on the giant’s vast backside and immediately recoils. A brief grin and he exclaims with wonder that the skin is so rough and immediately starts back at the elephant and rubs hard. The hairs on the elephant’s body are on alert and it is never easy to bathe the elephant as the prickly nature of the hair makes the soft hands of us humans seem fragile in comparison. But the guest keeps on trying and after a few seconds, perhaps tired, asks his young children. Apprehensive and eager at once, the children walk up to the elephant and then in a frolic abandon rub the giant, who has perhaps been sleeping through all the commotion. Now, as a few minutes have passed, all the other bystanders, egged on by their respective mothers and wives and brothers and husbands join in the bathing procedure. By nine a.m., all guests are totally drenched, slightly muddy and immensely happy - a smile in all the faces. Tourism perhaps at its best.

In another few minutes, as the other elephants join the first batch, the naturalists take the guest to the next site , a feeding place. But a final surprise awaits the guests as the scrubbed up elephant, struggles and gets up causing another tsunami and drenching a few more people. As the mahout calls all the guests to be blessed, in a secret signal called dalle, the elephant raises his trumpet, drenches everyone and majestically moves for his food.

An old building that is the kitchen for the elephants is located at one corner of the camp, where mahouts prepare breakfast using a mixture of ragi, jaggery, horse gram and salt. As there are more than twenty two elephants at any given time, it is but confirmed that breakfast takes a long time. Horse gram is boiled for up to five hours and then made into a paste. On the other hand, ragi powder is mixed with water and a little salt and cooked. Finally, the gram and ragi is mixed and made into a ball of about two kilogrammes each and fed to the elephants. The preparation is cooled and then rolled into a ball which can be easily put into the giant’s mouth. The naturalist explains details of an elephant’s daily requirement and invites a few guests to try feeding the elephant. It is an exhilarating experience dropping the huge ball into his mouth and watching him gulp up the content in the blink of an eye.

Feeding done, the guide takes the guest for a brief session about elephant ecology and behavior. He speaks of the role of the mahout in ensuring that the elephant is kept in a good state. He also speaks of the various elephant commands and opens up the fascinating world of these giants to guests from all across the world.

Management of the camp is a serious task and the forest department ensures that the elephants are well taken care off. A roster is maintained for all the elephants with full details such as name, lineage, sex, age and so mentioned in it. This information is frequently shared with the guests for their education. Besides, special care is provided for the mahouts who belong to the Jenu Kuruba group. These mahouts and their helpers, also known as kavadis, spend their entire life with an elephant and are known to consider the elephants as their family members and not just any animal. Experts at the art of managing the elephants, they are trained in this form by their fathers and soon they pass it to their children. It is a sight to behold, when you see the mahout talking to his son in the camp, and both the father and the son whispering messages into the giant ears and lovingly watch the elephant trumpet loud. This is the world of the elephant and the mahouts of Dubare

More than Elephants

A friend once said that if all the camps of JLR were to be compared, Dubare would stand out, not for something very singular in its appeal but for the aggregate of experiences that the camp provides. A serene location, lots of elephants to interact with at close quarters, some beautiful patches of ancient bamboo forests and a small quaint village of tribals or indigenous people who make these forests their home. Dubare thus, whilst set up as an elephant camp is a wonderful location matched perhaps by the very best nature camps in the world.

It is small with several pleasurable surprises. While walking silently one evening, we were amazed to see some shadows on a tree in the distance. Is it an extra surprise that Dubare is going to throw at us. We walked closer and Uday the guide told us to keep quiet. Silently, we sat on the banks of the Cauvery and were witness to a unique incident that shall remain etched forever on our memory. A number of painted storks were appearing in view. Some storks had perched on a tree while others were circling in the sky. One by one as if on cue, a bird would appear on the horizon and start circling the lone tree, circumventing the entire breadth of the river in a single swoop. The circles would reduce in size and slowly, the bird would swoop next to where we were sitting and almost as if inviting us to its abode, would in a single soundless swoop, perch on its next. The giant circle it made in the sky made us recollect the endless circles we saw at the camp. The circles that we saw in the forest today were no ordinary circles. Engraved on soft mud, they were a reminder of the precious wealth that is being lost in the nation now, even as we breathe. These precious circles in the forest, that was once a common sight is reducing by the day. These circles made by those giant pachyderms who roamed free once, their giant legs, ungainly in sight but soft and soundless as if they walk on sand. These are the circles made by our venerable elephants, circles that reduce in numbers even as we breathe in the air that is ours.

What is India - to you and me and to everyone else

2025-03-10T07:00:00.001+05:30

“What is here is nowhere else, what is nowhere else is found here” declares an epic. And it is so true, this ancient wisdom of our sages. This is the specialty of the great nation that we live in and that is the reason for our culture being so prominent.

On the day of Independence day, it is for us to acknowledge this fact and derive immense pride from it. From the high mountains of the north to the deserts of the Thar to beautiful beaches in the Andamans, India as a nation consists of many bounties of nature. Culturally, we have diverse people whether they be the agricultural Punjabis or forest dwelling tribes.

As citizens of the nation, we often overlook the vastness of our country and tend to concentrate only at its shortcomings. But now, as we enter the new century, we must make an effort to understand the reasons for India’s success story.

Someone said in the early 2000s that India is set to be an important nation in the coming decades for several reasons. The primary reason is its deep rooted culture that teaches us to be humble and tolerant of others. We still touch our elder’s feet and ask for their blessings, we also care for our environment as if it belongs to us. This nature of Indians, inspite of the assault by western ideas, makes us uniquely Indian. And as doomsday theorists had predicted that Indians would lose their unique Indian feature, this has not happened.

What makes us an Indian? Is it our land or our food or is it our diversity. The truth is that all of it is true for we are Indians first and everything else later. While meeting a tourist in Rome or Melbourne, his first comment is always that he is from India and then when prodded deeper, do they say that they are from so and so state. This consciousness helps us in maintaining our identity.

Infact, after independence till the 1960’s, several leading figures from across the world had predicted that India would be a failed state by the 60’s and they postponed it till the 1970’s and then till the 80’s. It is very grudgingly that they now admit that India is not merely a conglomeration of states but one that is bonded together through various strands of mutual respect, religion and language. This makes India unique.

However, it is for us to acknowledge that India became independent due to the efforts of hundreds of thousands of brave patriots, many of whom gave their lives in their dream to see an independent India. These freedom fighters, beginning from the 18th century fought against the might of British empire and never gave up. They were beaten, tortured, even bribed but they stood by their dream to see an independent India and their dream came true more than 60 years ago.

This dream was to see an India which is a modern and just nation, where all can live together in peace and where the Indian values are upheld. They lived hard and died brave to see this dream come true. Many of them never lived to see a free India but today, we all do. We live in a free India, an India that is being wooed by all because they see great potential in the nation. We live in an India that is free, that is the software capital of the world, which is a strong knowledge economy, whose gross domestic product is growing by leaps and most importantly, that which has a strong and thriving population of able bodied and creative youth. Almost a quarter of the nation is young and this is our greatest strength.

India is still growing and we have not succeeded on all fronts. Infact, our greatest faults have been aspects of corruption, inadequate action against corruption, growing environmental degradation and many more. However, these are sins of the past generation and the modern youth can work towards the betterment of society without the baggage of these errors. They have the opportunity of transforming India into a modern progressive society and hopefully it can be done in a single generation. What would be of consequence is the fact that the youth must be empowered to take things into their own hands and do it without fear of expectations. They must be the ones leading the nation into an environmentally secure modern India.

While the world .....

2025-03-09T11:30:00.001+05:30

While we go on our way, the poor world goes hopelessly astray

While we do our deeds and spend our time, the clock keeps continuously ticking by.

While our self becomes more and more important, dogs, cats, tigers and leopards keep falling by the side.

Our self loathing takes centre stage, as if the world revolves around us.

We are but a speck but think of ourselves as mountains that can't be moved ever nor today.

Nilgiri Tahr and Me. Me and all the Nilgiri Tahr of the world

2025-03-08T09:00:00.001+05:30

It started with a view of the Tahr’s home and not the anticipation of watching the Tahr close and personal.

As a formal resident of the Nilgiris, discounting an opportunity to visit the Mukurthi National park is not a choice but an eagerly awaited stroke of fortune, as people would testify to the difficulties of permissions and prohibitive costs involved in visiting this pristine zone. I have visited the park twice for very short durations and the very abundance of nature at its best compels me to look at the westward sky, every time I pass Ooty.
Mukurthi is infact a jewel in the hill district's crown and its very existence till today speaks volumes of the conservation efforts undertaken by past conservationists in enforcing policy decisions that led to the creation of the park.

Mukurthi is located in the western crescent of the Nilgiri district, looking over the expanse of the state of Kerala and almost appears as a wall like impenetrable fortress when seen from Nilambur region of Kerala. The park is covered by grasslands and sholas and some stretches of the invasive tree, wattle.

The Forest Department and Nilgiri Wildlife Association were organizing a census to estimate the population of the endangered Nilgiri Tahr and I bounced upon the organizers. With a stroke of luck, Mohanraj, who is one of the most progressive conservationists in Southern India and also one of the main organizers of the event allotted me and two people from Chennai to survey the Western Catchment region.

And, in the end, I managed to see almost 100 plus tahrs. A memory to cherish forever.

In 2008

2025-03-06T17:30:00.002+05:30

"As and when life begins anew, it brings in a fresh whiff, a scent wondrous and it is now that you feel that life is young, it is hopeful and it is divine.

For me, it has been an uphill ride with its strains and hiccups, but when you reach the top, it feels so nice, so fair that the feeling is unparalled. Leaving IIFM that early morning, tomorrow beckoned and made me feel that hope is alive. Having joined Keystone, it was an experience just breathing in the air. The long cherished dream of having cool air to be surrounded with, looking out of the window and seeing god's magnificent creations have provided an immense sense of joy.

The road less taken was a matter of choice, a matter of choosing my destiny and I am proud of my choice. I am still going towards and through that road..... and came through".

I wrote this a long time back when I just joined Keystone and now as I am about to leave, I feel that all the dreams that I had have more than fulfilled, in various ways. In the face of it, what I did then was as unfathomable then as it is now when I am going backwards to move ahead. But that in essence is the ways of what we do and why we choose to do it. All the adventures that I did not even think up in my rather fertile mind came true during my four years here. Infact, I was cleaning my desk and saw this writeup in one of the carefully preserved diaries and copied it verbatim. As then, even now, I am doing what I want to do rather than what I should be doing in the purest career terms. But as I grow up and see the changes the world is coming too, I am becoming increasingly uncertain of the ways of the world. Better than do something I wouldn't be doing if I have a choice, it is better to do something that I would love to do even if it is unsound. For, it is relative and at the end of it - when we are counting the eggs - most will realise that these were not eggs after all, but our conscience that we playing with.

Yes, Keystone gave me much and I write more about it soon, but above all it gave me the wide landscapic vision of the hills and the forests. I see nature now.