Sahyadrica

I. That blue ripple in the tarpaulin pulled taut in the cool breeze the first farmer pulls up his sleeves, two bamboo poles and a few jute strings hold his shop, his business, his offerings; one morning among many centuries. The tilted-goats, the hunched-dogs, the burly-bulls the dupatta-women, the dyed-men, their mouthfuls I stand in the distance, watching this timeless commotion watching dealers deal, buyers buy – those customs. The shirtless boy bringing chai on naked feet the eyeless hand touching the paper cup to lips eyes caught up with money stashed ‘neath the feet. A bajār treasury is capped by the light, that taut blue tarpaulin that dust settling upon the skin. I watch with attention at this ancient system in this timeless happening, I see one figurine exhaling tobacco clouds, ballerina of the crowds he moves to the center, that corner, then back again he heeds the serenades, the auctioneers, the marketmen his handfuls multiplying in plastic gr...

There’s never been a time in history when a wild vertebrate did not kill a man or man did not kill a wild vertebrate. Not once for the last 15 million years since early humanoids roamed the planet. In fact, man killed more wild vertebrates than they killed us, and that is perhaps evident in us becoming the most successful species in spite of lacking claws and fangs. Man has always been against the wild, always the rebel, always the one to straighten things out, to mend and to tame. If it did not suit him, he destroyed it, and if he liked it, he finished it off. And then we drifted off, slowly, from all things wild. Today, we believe that money plants ( Epipremnum aureum ) bring us wealth, but we don’t know that that inconspicuous little fly, lovingly called a tiger fly ( Coenosia sp.), is sitting on its leaf to prey upon the other tiny insects that feed on this plant, and we bug-spray the plant, killing everything with it. That’s wildlife right there. We just wiped it out of exi...