Dreams

Dreams are a weird phenomenon. When i close my eyes i only shut out this world to enter a lofe of dreams. When i was younger any major upheavel put me to deep sleep clearing away the cobwebs in my mind., the occasional monsters did visit in nightmares but on the whole sleep was solace.
When I dream it is so real, as if I’ve entered another world. Sometimes when i fall asleep reading a book, the charachters come to life spouting garbled, unintellegible dialogue from the book. I’ve dreamt of places which I am sure exist somewhere in the real world. I’ve dreamt of long lost friends and of faceless people who I’ve never met bringing feelings of intense joy which turned to sadness when I wake up for not knowing who they were or not completing the dream. I’ve jumped from a cliff into bright blue waters, almost flying on the way down and dived gracefully, a thing I wouldn’t do in reality. I’ve flown on wings of air, swam in waters and remained dry. I’ve dreamt of fearful things and woken up with residual feelings which dogged me the whole day. I’ve traveled in trains which hurtled down a half broken track into oblivion while I woke up startled, the scream in my head turned into a mere sigh. I have fought battles in vast empty fields, my blade glinting in the sunlight; I’ve discussed amicably issues of strife with loved ones not able to do the same with eyes open. I’ve read weird tomes and sometimes wrote poetry on non-existent paper, the words clearing like mist when I returned to consciousness. I’ve held friends tight in a bear hug, trying to hold onto them before they go so far that I don’t even dream of them. I marvel at this world of dreams and wonder whether others dream the same. Sometimes the sweetest nights are the ones in which I am not plunged into this world of dreams, when I am so tired that I sleep the instant I lie down in bed or when secure in the arms of a loved one the dreams melt away, leaving me with a mind clear of empty fears.

Bheemashankar

Bheemashankar (24-26 Jan)

The giant squirrel looked at us with as much interest as we did at her. Her body poised on a slender branch like a model, she held on to it with a certain grace and air of an animal that has spent its whole life on trees and knows that nothing can shake its hold. Our first sight of this beautiful creature was what all we had been waiting for. Taking advantage of an extended weekend me, gaurav, anand, ruchi, jasmine and our little photographers 11 year old Ishan and Mishal visited Bheemashankar.

The Giant Squirrel had eluded us the first 2 days only letting us know of its presence with its loud chak-chak-chak call. But now watching this beautiful animal her russet fur glinting in the morning sun and her golden eyes looking straight into ours, took away all the disappointment we felt earlier.

Bheemashankar is popular among Shankar devotees and wildlife enthusiast alike. SPROUTS decided to celebrate republic day in style and we all joined in for the ride. We stayed at the Blue Mormon Eco-resort, situated on a plateau from where we could see on all four directions and look at the mountains peaks eye to eye. Even more breath taking were the gaudy shows of sunrise and sunsets, firing up the sky in brilliant colour’s of orange, pink, purple which turned to inky black in a matter of minutes.

Though disappointed with the bird life and repetitive species, we were happy with sightings of sulphur bellied warbler, brown cheeked fulvetta (10-15 in a mixed hunting flock), black bulbuls, crested lark, oriental turtle dove, grey jungle fowl, changeable hawk eagle, shikra and calls of Eurasian thicknee. We also saw white bellied mouse, Indian Palm Civet, Jungle cat and a male sambar deer. The serpent gods also seemed to be shining on us as we caught a Beddome’s cat snake in the unlikeliest of places, the roof of one of the shops lining the gates and a wolf snake crossing the road exposed momentarily due to our car lights and then lost into the dark.

The fate of this beautiful place lies in the hands of the thousands of devotees who throng this place on religious days. There is high level of noise pollution, high volume of vehicles and lots of trash and plastic all of which threaten to turn this plateau into a trash mound. In some places huge grounds have been cleared to make parking lots, the resultant loss of tree cover forces the squirrels to take to the ground to cross roads leading to road kill.

We need to create awareness among the devotees and residents of bheemashankar and open their eyes to the wealth of flora and fauna that this spiritual place offers.

Songhar and Velas

11/01/2009

Songhar-

Sacred groove or devrai as it is called is a forest situated around a temple which the villages do not cut preserving it. Songhar is a sleepy hamlet, very neat with pretty red-tiled houses situated on a higher incline which our bus struggled to climb. The streets were clean and paved with cow dung, cakes which also powered the furnace producing acrid smoke burning my already raw throat. We started walking towards the devrai at around 10:30 the sun already sending forth his full wrath. The outer periphery was quite barren, dry grass dominated the scene with contrasting black rocky patches. As we neared the forest the scene changed dramatically, green became the dominant colour, climbers of hoya covered everything like a curtain. Transporting us into an almost prehistoric era when the first plants evolved was Gnetum ula, a gymnosperm climber; said to be the connecting link between gymnosperms and angiosperms, its male cones looked like ice-cream cones stacked neatly one on top of other. The mountain peak in the distance was almost at eye level and gave a breath taking view of the surrounding.

A lot of birds called out around us but discreetly, due to the dense foliage we didn’t sight many except for a beautiful crimson backed sunbird who regaled us with his high energy. Most of the plants we saw were new to us, strange flora dominated the scene. Dr. Latoo pointed out a small plant, Cyathocline purpurea, with leaves exactly like a fern but showing off beautiful purple flowers, its only seen at high altitude. At one place we all stopped to admire the 15 feet high buttresses of Tetramalis nudiflora, almost everyone took cheesy tourist snaps standing in front of the tree. By this time we had reached the temple, in older days this would have been a simple shrine with just a stone statue and no other adornments, today it had a house like structure built around it, brickwork showing on the walls, though charming not original.

A short break and a long walk later we reached a particularly dense part of the forest, the trees grew tall and close to each other, their braches twined forever, making me wish I was as close to my loved ones. The landscape was very undulating, now we had to climb up and then again descend into small valleys, we reached the ancient water storage tank encompassing a perennial stream which oozed water even at the height of summer. At another similar tank but made especially for cattle were a few cows drinking water while skittering fogs muddied its bottom. We admired the ingenuity of the tank and moved away scaring a well camouflaged owl from its perch though caught by Anand’s expert green eyes.

Another long winding walk and we reached the middle of the forest; this was a small valley with Tetramalis nudiflora dotting the place. These trees grow very tall and majestic and along with their huge buttresses give a very mature old look though they look a little bald as a nice thick crown of leaves is missing. Looking at the branches we saw a nest so huge it might have held a roc’s egg, though it turned out more wonderfully to be of White Rumped Vultures. These beautiful birds are highly endangered due to the indiscriminate use of diclofenec as medicine for cattle which these birds end up ingesting when they perform their natural duties as scavengers. The vultures sat pretty in their lofty abodes taking no notice of us as we stood under the trees and admired them, we were also very lucky to see a juvenile vulture inside one of the nests.

We returned to our bus, hearts and stomachs full. On the way out me, anand, gaurav and aparna saw a Paradise flycatcher, its snow white ribbons trailing in the wind, a Black Naped Monarch and pompadour pigeons who whistled hauntingly. A white eyed buzzard was also seen perched on a tree, which we id’d through pictures clicked by Pranad. We had to reach velas by 6-6:30 and so we bid goodbye to songhar.

Velas

Velas was our pit-stop and accordingly we had hired a house for our overnight stay. The girl’s room was warm and had a big welcoming bed with heaps of bed sheets and blankets. The house was managed by 3-4 women, very charming, sweet and eager to help. They prepared a hot and wholesome meal for all of us. With stomachs full we headed to the beach for a date with the turtles. Unluckily even though the setting was so romantic with a huge moon in the sky and the music of the waves, we were stood up. Anand had brought tents and except for the faculty and me recovering from flu decided to stay on the beach and wake up by 3:30-4 to look for the turtles when the tide was low. I went back and had a couple hours of sleep while the others were disappointed again by the turtle no show. We moved out by 6:30 a.m. and headed to Harnai for breakfast with the dolphins.

In the bus I sat near a window and peered out through the tinted glass, and saw a scene which took my breath away. The moon hung in the sky like a white orb glowing faintly, one wouldn’t expect it to light a room leave alone the whole ocean and yet the water shimmered bright, almost like molten silver. I’ve seen water glow fiercely when flying in a plane, the sun hits the smallest of water bodies and turns it into gold. But this was somehow very magical, the moonlight even though subtle hits at your heart stirring hidden emotions to the surface. I have always had a fascination for the ocean which through the years was replaced by love for the wilderness, but when I saw the ocean through the moon glasses it felt like a revival of a first love.

Harnai

We reached by 9-9:30 our stomachs growling with not only hunger but also a mixture of anticipation and a bad bus ride. A quick breakfast of poha and we headed for the beach, hiring a boat for our next sojourn. The boat owner cautioned against high expectations and waves as we were late for our date and we all feared a repeat of the turtle episode. The boat had a powerful outboard motor and it almost skipped over the waves bringing a knot to my stomach. Big white gulls dotted the water floating effortlessly over the now smooth surface. Suddenly an arc of smooth grey body broke the surface and disappeared a split second later, we were surrounded by a pod of dolphins. Two to three of them surfaced in perfect synchronization making it seem like one dolphin with two fins. This was my second encounter with these beautiful mammals of the sea and all of us were enchanted with their playfulness and graceful countenance. But watching their acrobatics was akin to putting my head on a merry go round, I craned my neck in every direction no sooner anyone said dolphins on this side so close to the boat, coupled with lack of sleep, the incessant drone of the motor and the sun pouring its heat plus the waves turned my stomach into a quivering mass of jelly which threatened to come out, so I closed my eyes and almost drifted off to sleep, the dolphins were long gone by then but I missed the gulls which circled over our boat and were id’d by gaurav, aparna, pp and vari in loud voices making me feel very left out of the action.

A little distance away was the murud harnai fort our next stop, in normal circumstances this would have been a joy ride, but in my current state I was yearning to set foot on solid ground and at the same time dreading the boat ride back to the mainland. At one point I was desperate enough to jump in the water and start swimming.

We landed on the tiniest beach littered with plastic; the entrance to the fort was just a few feet away. The whole island is a fort and was constructed by Shivaji in year. It must have been a gigantic effort to construct and maintain this beautiful monument, in ruins today; I could almost picture Shivaji with his mavlas on the ramparts keeping a lookout on the sea. Today the whole place has been taken over by ber trees and weeds and plagued by people blind to its heritage.

We hurriedly left from there and spent the next couple of hours on the main beach scrounging for shells etc. We found many interesting and new organisms, including rock whelk (murex) its beautiful shell covered with spines, many empty crab shells, a few sea-weeds all of which we are yet to id. Dr. Latoo demonstrated how to make an alga herbarium right on the beach. By now we were very tired, hungry and thirsty and headed to a local eatery.

On our way back to Mumbai we stopped at Mr. Savarkars factory for tea and spent almost and hour at a nearby river ending our day spectacularly with a glimpse of Malabar pied hornbills and pied kingfishers. We returned to Mumbai tired, tanned and with our heads filled with memories of surf, sea and sand.