October 2023 ~*~

June 2023 There are two creatures one must learn to dodge out there in the wilderness: female mosquito and male human. The first creature...

May 2023 He could be a mystic in tan corduroy chinos and blue cap or a matador in tan corduroys and blue cap. We would know in a few...

May 2023 As we gaze at each other, part curiosity part caution, for a full hour and a half, several similarities begin to emerge. One ,...

March 2023 ~*~

January 2023 I find myself there every other day, drawn inexorably to these watery lands that are host to the countless creatures that...

October 2022 Jezebel is lyrical, even rhapsodic, but it doesn’t quite go with my grey beard and the general supply of hair all over. I’m...

June 2022 I remember dashing to the switchboard to turn off the ceiling fan to prevent casualty. We grew up on house sparrows. They were...

June 2022 A Giant Web We are in the jungle, and it is dark. It looks quite welcoming at first and we begin wafting about, gazing at the...

June 2022 This, says my local guide Akhil as he walks past trampled clumps of grass, was wild boar last night. That, he points to a...

May 2022 Keeping Precious Creatures Organized for Grumpy Scientists: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. I came across...

May 2022 A Few Lessons We have emerged from our many little excursions with some useful lessons and many useless philosophies. 1. Never wear shorts when venturing into the woods. 2. Take with you associates who are, or pretend to be, more courageous than you. 3. If humans are good at playing dumb, weevils are better at playing dead. They can lie motionless on their backs, to spring back to action once you step away. 4. There are many more spiders and beetles than humans on t

May 2022 Weevil Weevil Rock You Then there were the weevils, which have snouts that make them look like miniature elephants. Since this is the season of pre-monsoon romance, they are often seen in a lingering embrace. If you, dear fellow mammal, feel a little envious of how long the weevil act can last, all you need to do is study the physics of copulation among some of these little creatures. You’ll likely be relieved you were born human. I learned only recently about pheno

May 2022 There are mostly two facial expressions you’ll notice when my two spotter associates and I are crouching and contorting in the lush understories. 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 gaping in a state of divine drunkenness. Many insects live in, on and under leaves. That’s their edible home. We have been living out here for the past few weeks on the fringes of a forest in The Western G

May 2022 An orange blur zig-zagged past my nose and faded into the thick green bushes. Blurs of various colours swish by with great...

As a fledgling photographer and a pre-fledgling ornithologist, I share with you observations of the past few weeks of my busy little...

Springlike Autumn October 2, 2020 Autumn feels like spring in Aravali Biodiversity Park – lush, wild and weedy, and humming with a...

November, 2021 Waddling inside a small boat this evening on the Yamuna, I watch myriad journeys intersect in a ripple of beginnings,...

September, 2021 On the peripheries of this random, rackety city of concrete and glass, there lies a dusty and restful ancient world. At...

There’s this big little green pond, Which I think is really a marsh. It’s bountiful, buzzy and bushy, Some souls might find it harsh. ...

July, 2021 The incessant monotone shrill muffles even the loud calls of the peacock – and peacocks use jarring fowl language. I choose...

May 2021 Once upon a time, which was exactly a year ago, first arrived a brown-headed barbet, pecking away with great purpose over...

April 2021 This cactus is too regal to be diminished by its plebeian other name: prickly pear. I prefer Opuntia. It’s almost...

January 2020 Joginder’s avian taxonomy is disarmingly ingenuous: birds that he can’t identify are classified as either fudguddi or...

December, 2020 The Bonduc Nut is a little like you and me: It has several monikers; different people interpret it differently, find their...

December 2020 Tendrils are nature’s hieroglyphs – a poetic word derived from the Greek for ‘sacred carvings’. In only a few weeks since...

October, 2020 Springlike Autumn Autumn feels like spring in Aravali Biodiversity Park – lush, wild and weedy, and humming with a dizzying...