Sahyadrica

Every season is marked by an event or a phenomenon that defines that season, and is so skillfully woven onto a timeline that it forms a periodic rhythm – the beauty of which lies in a meshwork of colours, scents, songs, and something that cannot be seen, smelled, or heard – a purpose, which I think comes close to what we humans call love . The purpose is but the only force that drives every plant or animal to display colours, release pheromones, and sing melodies. What’s special about man is perhaps his way of appreciating nature’s mysteries and sharing it with others of his kind, and not in building bridges and airplanes; those feats were long conquered by nature. What’s special is this: no bird can sing of an autumn sunrise or of sound of the crashing waves, although we and they equally feel it, and our lives depend upon it. Our greatest strength perhaps lies in understanding what gave birth to us, and to them – indeed to all of us – and in respecting that wisdom than ma...

Traversing through the four-lane highways from Nagpur feels quite unusual. Especially if you belong to the kuchha roads of India, or have travelled the beleaguered roads long enough to remember the coordinates of the potholes on what was once pukka . When I travelled through this exact same road as a kid, I felt the road. It was just a busy single-lane strip of tar meant for to-and-fro traffic, and we lumbered across craters that are probably the reason why slipped discs are so common in India, until we reached a ghat that bent gracefully, offering us verdant views of Central India’s ancient Satpuda Ranges. A few more miles ahead lies Pench Tiger Reserve, a lesser-known stronghold of tigers and countless other life-forms of India. On the way to Pench National Park Lovingly called Pench or Mowgli’s Land, this tiger reserve lies in the hills and valleys of the central Indian highlands, surrounded by a sea of agricultural fields and human settlements, save a narrow channel up...

Such fairness have I ever seen, On tender stilts and blades like steel Of greens and yellows, of red-tipped reeds Standing boldly in rain, gently swaying in breeze. What name do they call you, Whose song do you sing, Do you speak of the aging seasons, Have you a message in your wisps woven? “ They call me Kaans, or Kansh, and Kasha I sing of the clouds that retreat beyond And I speak of the sun, glaring over the plains And I rise to bid farewell to the last shimmer of rains .” Kaans - Saccharum spontaneum Kaans ( Saccharum spontaneum ) is probably the most beautiful grass of central India. One can see fields of their fair-spikelet swaying in the cool monsoon breeze in meadows and paddy fields, as if someone planted them there to adorn the green monochromes of rice. The flower-heads of Kaans fly through the air as the season ages, dispersing seeds and claiming new territories Their blooming is said to indicate that the end of monsoon is near. B...

Bhoolandara is not what you think it is. If you know Hindi, you might guess that it has something to do with bhoolna (meaning, to forget, or to go astray). If you think it means doorway-to-forget-things, you’re pretty close, but not exactly. There is a phenomena called going-in-circles when lost in a forest, I don’t think it has any specific English name (in Maharashtra it is called chakwa , in Madhya Pradesh Bhoolandara ), but research has concluded that we intend to walk in a circle if we’re lost without the sense of direction; why or how, we’re still figuring that out. I’ve never been lost in a forest in true sense, once a friend and I took an off-beaten track with the intentions of exploring something unexplored, but we ended up in a village where we had began. On this occasion, though, we were truly lost – and I might say hopelessly. Dayal (the one who taught us the Mahua vegetable recipe !) and I went off into the forests to explore the monsoon flora and fauna on...

It is hard for a person to put the human experience in perspective. A person will describe his experiences as a human experience, so will a community, and the experiences between two people and two communities will differ immensely. And they will differ between two cultures by leaps and bounds. To put it in a perspective, the human experience is a collective wisdom of not one but many individuals, communities, and cultures, with every bit from here-and-there. If someone asked you to put the human experience into words, your account will be different than mine, than more-or-less anyone’s – it will be heavily biased on a side you identify yourself with, whether that side is religious, spiritual, natural or philosophical. To get a fair view of the human experience, the perceiver needs to be a non-human. No intelligence has taken birth – or has been found – that can put human experience in a perspective. Yet some can, and we can more-or-less interpret it from them. A dog itself would...

There is something within me that is a desert, a dying plain of cracked mud, an empty cup that forever thirsts for another sip of rain.                                                                 – Stephanie Rachel Seely , An Ode to Rain Kalidasa would not have chosen this year to write Meghdoot . The famed southwest monsoon of the Indian subcontinent is at its five year lowest as of June. A strong El Niño is being blamed for such an anomaly, holding back the most beloved weather of the world from us just like it did in 2009. If anyone had asked you about India’s monsoon of the previous year, you may have responded with a satisfactory smile. It was beautiful. The rivers were flowing to the brim and the agricultural production was far better. I’m not sure what the government figures tell, but the farmers of Maha...

“You have to get lost before you can be found.” ― Jeff Rasley , Bringing Progress to Paradise: What I Got from Giving to a Mountain Village in Nepal The sun setting over your shoulder in a forest wilderness as a dark rainstorm approaches from the east is not the time for you to be out trekking on the cliff of the Western Ghats. But here you are: with your trekking friends and family, battling to conquer the fort, struggling with your inner fears; and here you want to be: beating down the stinging rain, and ever marching on. For you have shed blood and sweat on your way up. For you have prepared to complete this trek, and, more importantly, you have left behind the rat-race which you think life is all about: now, you are not chasing targets, you are chasing your ambition. You are encouraging your friends to tarry with you. You are their emotional leader, and although you know that the light fades and you’re being stalked by a rainstorm, you sit back on a rock to enjoy the view w...