soliloquies in the outdoors…
the cat is a contradictory phenomenon, a pet you don’t really own, an existence that baffles Schrödinger, symbolic of witches or exuding the air of a wiseman… if the canine is warmth of attachment, the feline is cold of detachment… bereft of anxiety, it basks in the aloofness that comes with predatory instincts… the cat, …
pensive are the avifauna that predate… especially at dawn or dusk, when not hunting for food, there’s an expression on their face that is enlightened yet forlorn at the same time… once saturated with crocs, we started scouting the banks of Chambal, and ruminated on a grey heron and an Egyptian vulture that were relatively …
Birds are one in the faunal realm that share the joie de vivre of running, meandering (out of breath) just for the sake of it (and some foraging, maybe), a seeming purposelessness that is whimsical and resolute at the same time… while other animals chase you, or recede into the thicket at the sound of …
crocs, in a sense, are a perfect faunal representation of the landscape of Chambal… there’s an overarching sense of the sedate punctuated by violent outbursts of activity… badlands – geography seeping into the society… serrations in the terrain and caste divides… law of the land that once caved in to dacoity, dregs of which still …
musings on Indian stone-curlew (Burhinus indicus), Chambal, Uttar Pradesh
‘twas perchance that we got to know of Chenap valley, which we did as our original plans went awry at the last moment… tucked in ‘twixt religious fervours, highways and hydropower more hedonistic that utilitarian, and the never-ending scrapes of JCB for last-mile connectivity, ‘tis purported to be a quieter alternative to Valley of Flowers, …
The praying mantis is a beautiful critter… id quod visum placet – as Aquinas put it – that which seen pleases – and more often than not, in spheres of both the animate and inanimate, this beauty comes at a price, a curse inflicted upon self or others… as Frost surmised… everything beautiful, that’s truly …
the wasp is villainous and the butterfly saintly… first impressions that hold true if one takes the black-and-white approach, but wander into the realms of grey, as natural processes often tend to do, and there is hardly any good or bad, seldom anything unconvoluted, and never anyone invincible… the immensity of these microcosms can be …
Musing on a Lychee shield bug (Chrysocoris stollii)
One can feel it… the humidity slowly but surely receding, the dry heat back for one more spell, sparring with what once used to be autumn before winter sets in… what the monsoons have contributed to the coffers of biodiversity will start waning out shortly, and those feasting upon it for the past few months …