Sahyadrica

Their birth is marked by very few, yet we all eagerly await them. They are one of the few organisms that, if I may use the phrase, carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. But they lack shoulders, or bones. Scientists studying them call it agrostology, taxonomists identify them as Graminoids, but we all call them grass. A carpet of grass in Western Ghats We’re talking about grass which we all ignore simply because we’re too used to seeing it. In fact it is there right now not more than five meters from your home, unless you live in Antartica – but there too grows grass. Graminoid is a term used for three types of monocotyledonous plants with peculiar behavioural and growth pattern: the true grass (Poaceae), the sedges (Cyperaceae), and the rushes (Juncaceae). So what we call grass may either really be grass or it may be a sedge or a rush. That’s just one of the secrets of grasses (More on Graminoids and how to distinguish them can be read here ). I only recently start...

I woke up to the merry laughter of birds, the melancholy music of rain, and a green aura, deep and longing, creeping onto the walls of the room and draping it in an indescribable glow. I spun my head seeking the source of the light and felt its warm glow upon my face, to which I stayed in my place, absorbing all the energy that emanated from the green fields filtering the early sunlight. Home The morning carried a pleasant breeze from the sea, the scent of which is peculiar only to the Konkan region. The sun glanced through a fissure in an otherwise uniform grey cloak of nimbostratus covering the eastern sky. I found myself standing in front of piling fields of bowing rice heavy with raindrops. Rice Thin streaks of smoke rose from the few scattered houses. Behind the house we live in runs a stream inundated by a makeshift dam – a useful source of water for the villagers – from where echoed the beating of clothes. A leopard killed a cow and dragged its prey behind the d...