Sahyadrica

It rained for the entire day on August 28, and a little more on the next, and has been for the past three days. Mumbai region received most of its share of rainfall on August 19, a day when I went to one of the most treacherous pass in the Ghats to trek on one of the most treacherous forts I’ve been on this year. It is raining as I write, but August was nothing like August rain is supposed to be, even if it was better than July. The region is still facing a deficit by more than 30% (September 1, 2012, Times of India ). Yet if you go a few hundred kilometers from the city, the paddy fields are saturated and bathed in an aura of a rich lemon-green. The monsoon outburst of life, natural and planted, is at its peak. Bagadwadi bathed in monsoon To call it an explosion of life is akin to the theory of the formation of our universe, the Big Bang: that single moment of an “explosion” that took us by surprise even after it has been approximately 13750000000 years since. Life, when ...

It will be wrong if I say I have not spent time (a lot of it) looking at the nimbostratus clouds passing silently from the south-west, waiting for the horns to blow that mark the arrival of monsoon. This we must agree, that monsoon is the epitome of change. It is the most astonishing of all changes. The change is in the air, in the earth, and is ultimately wrought in the mind. And all of this may happen just as you sit and stare out of the window! Monsoon this year did not arrive at its stipulated time. It thundered sparsely. There was no dance of the lights. May I say that Lord Varuna is not happy with what mankind has done to Mother Earth? That he is not in our favour anymore, and would abandon us when he knows we are completely, hopelessly dependent on him? We are all out praying, some loudly, some in their minds, some going to the length of marrying Hoplobatrachus tigerinus , the Indian Bullfrog, in hopes of impressing the Rain God. Today, the interval between two continuo...

It dances through the day, full of impressions and impulses, empty of thought or care. Something moving near it casts a shadow on its sight, and it darts away without knowing why, startled but not frightened. A rival passes and it dashes at him, powerless to hurt, but bursting with nervous energy which must find an outlet, and the two in mock combat mount up into the sky until they are lost to sight. – EHA, The Naturalist on the Prowl The month of February is drier than January but wetter than March, and much more bearable than the searing May. In the forests of the Sahyadri, rivers shrivel to a trickle or stagnate in small puddles. Streams burry into the ground and lakes shrink to their halves, and slowly they all expose their moistened shores and damp beds. These ecotones, lasting for over two months, serve as an important ecosystem for a myriad of life-forms. It is a place of a gathering for animals large and small, as they home in to relish this ephemeral reserve at their stipulat...

Winter in peninsular India, and particularly along the coast, is always for the namesake. But this year was an odd exception. The winter was cold – cold for this part of the world that lies between tropic of cancer and the equator. It is La Nina to be thanked for this pleasant weather, just as she blessed the parched Western Ghats with good amount of rain. Winter here usually starts with what is technically called an Indian summer – a rather unsympathetically  hot spell of crazy high temperatures, coupled with double the humidity. As the nights grow longer by the hour, the temperatures fall, staying usually well above 20C. This year, the temperatures fell to a record 15C in the city limits. In rural corners, where the hills are tall and woods thick, the temperatures may have fallen below 10C. But this rarely gets recorded. Warm clothes were out of the wardrobe. Those who never imagined a cold winter walk to work in their lifetime had to buy warm clothes. People kept the f...