Sahyadrica

I need no call of clamant bell that rings iron-tongued in the towers of earthly kings. -          Mettanyë by J. R. R. Tolkien, The Book of Lost Tales Part I Deep in the woodlands of Konkan, there are areas reigned by a particular creature: the forest floor, the leaves and the tree trunk, are booming with a frenzy of this small, nimble-footed, bright yellow-coloured insect carrying a lethal spray-gun of formic acid. It is called Anoplolepis gracilipes , and is more commonly referred as the Yellow Crazy Ant. This story is about these ants, on what they mean to be in India’s forests (more specifically northern Western Ghats), and forms a prelude to a larger story which has not been enacted in India yet, but has been and has lead to drastic changes in landscapes in several parts of the world. On a clear winter morning, a Yellow Crazy Ant ( Anoplolepis gracilipes ) and aphids Nagla Block, Sanjay Gandhi National Park, 2012 Taxonomically,...

7 AM SHARP , said the text on my phone. I calculated I’d have to wake up only thirty minutes early.  The alarm clock went off at thirty past six.  I saw myself wake up and, as I finished the routine in a blink, stood near the gas station. I sat in the car that approached from the highway connecting the messed up old city to the new unplanned one. The scene flew by swiftly, and switched to me sitting under tall shrubs with low thickets; a late morning sun filtering green sunlight through scarce but broad leaves. Everything was glowing softly, but it was very hot. I was looking at a boulder. Out of curiosity, I upturned the rock, to find a dead Bronzeback Tree snake lying there. What on earth was an arboreal snake doing under a boulder? I turned to look up to a passing lady, and my eyes met hers. She was slender and tall, and hung delicately from the lean shrubs. She was Mrs Bronzeback, wearing a necklace of turquoise jewels beneath her scales. She investigated me thou...