LEAF LIFE - Part 1

May 2022

There are only two facial expressions you’ll notice when the three of us - my two spotter associates and I - are conducting our undercover operations. Out there in the fringes of forests of the Western Ghats, when we are crouching and contorting in the lush foliage, we either wear a stupid grin, or have our eyes and mouth wide open. We are gleeful to have found a new creature, or are staring at one in awe (in the real sense, not in its vacuous, ubiquitous ‘awesome’ version).

Once in a while we wear a cryptic expression which is really a smile being forced past arched brows, giving us a borderline constipated look. Laboured suppression of vaporous matters in polite company also evokes such hybrid expressions.

We are desperately hiding fear, and the embarrassment of feeling that fear.

To our object of awe and affection, this might be utterly puzzling – the creature is after all just a tiny speck in front of three looming monsters. Plus two of us look human, that most destructive of all species. I look almost human. The three of us have a wild code of conduct: no poking and prodding; no disturbing the habitat; and conversation only in whispers. Alas, being human, every now and then we are unable to contain that shriek of excitement – there are such wonders to behold at every step. At other times, we don’t know what to feel or express, like when we skid on moss or walk into a cobweb. To give you an idea of the confounding intensity of the moment, imagine that you have walked into a cobweb – face-first, and hopefully with mouth shut.

You shuffle and scrabble frantically but can’t locate the spider.

Kingdom with Class In the kingdom called Animalia, in the phylum called arthropod, the largest known population is that of the class called Insecta.

They come in a seemingly endless variety of size, shape, colour, and purpose.

The photos you see on this page were taken within three weeks and mostly within a radius of 50 metres. Hundreds of acres deeper into the wilderness, the understories lie unrevealed.

Insects are critical to life on the planet. Without them doing all that they do, we won’t exist: they aerate soil, pollinate plant, act as bio-control agents by predating parasites, scavenge, and cause decomposition of the dead.

Insects put food on our table.

They help create and clean up. They, along with microorganisms, are the ones doing the real recycling. Yet, we humans treat most insects with murderous revulsion and agitation. Our response to them, often comic, is actually tragic.

So strange we are, we experience super-natural shudders when we see a butterfly or moth - we launch into rapturous clichés - but we shun its baby, the caterpillar. In these three weeks, we came upon several different caterpillars, each with its unique coloration and bristles - their keep-off armour.

A naturalist told me that the hairy ones generally turn into moths. This means that if I were a caterpillar, I’d likely not grow into a beautiful butterfly. This might be true of most humans were it not for the invention of the razor blade and the bridal overhaul where people are transformed into hairless and white creatures. Only humans are capable of such non-natural metamorphosis and where, at great expense, the outcome resembles elaborately painted alabaster.

One wonders what it takes to shed all that paint and revert to one’s natural self.

Back to more compelling subject of butterflies and moths. We saw them eating with rigour and regimen that can be seen only in the military.

Many insects live in, on and under leaves. That’s their edible home.

We saw them in their cocoons, nestling against a stem, covered in water bubbles. We saw them in their final avatar, butterflies breathlessly fluttering all over. It’s as if they were making the most of the two weeks of average lifespan they have.

They make me ask: Is life about living long or living rich?

Their cousins, the dragons and damsels, are as energetic but much more suspicious. (Was there a linguistic gender bias when they were named thus? Moreover, a damselfly can be male.)

We found several in a small basin of mountain water: a roadside poolside party of predators.

Odonates have large eyes and aerodynamic bodies, making them apex attackers of mosquitoes and more. They are nimble fliers and can catch their prey mid-air. We used to call them ‘helicopter’ when we were in school.

Advanced precision-guided military-grade attack helicopters – but much prettier, and built to kill for food, not ego and politics. Moreover, they cause no collateral damage.

It took me close to half hour of becoming a slow-moving statue to sidle up to a dragonfly: the blue marsh hawk.

I did get quite near a damselfly too but my hands shook because my belly jiggled because I started chuckling. My associates saw the creature and exclaimed in excitable Bhojpuri: Suiyya titli! Needle butterfly.

This particular suiyya titli was the longest damselfly I had ever seen. (I admit that I haven’t seen much yet in life.) It was possibly a jewelwing, with shimmery green thorax and a two-inch abdomen.

Something else green scintillated not far away: a robber fly aka assassin fly. They are known for their aggressive behaviour, so I tried my best to not get too close.

I didn’t succeed. I got about six inches from it.

Fear has its own allure.

All the while I adjusted the focal length and shutter speed, I kept asking myself how one determines the line where courage crosses into plain stupidity.

~*~