An article I wrote some time ago:


http://www.deccanherald.com/archives/nov192006/finearts1942320061118.asp

If any of you can, do book at Bandipur JLR, and ask for the cottages with the murals in them!

I wrote several articles and "middles" regularly for the Deccan Herald before I started writing for Citizen Matters, and after having met Sangeetha Kadur and hijacked her and Madhukar (another expert birder whose work with the digiscope can be found here ) home,I
went and googled for the article about the artists who painted the beautiful murals at Bandipur...it's at


http://www.deccanherald.com/archives/nov192006/finearts1942320061118.asp


Oh, I have referred to it in

this post

Alas, that last mural remains unfinished, and JLR never continued with this great initiative....but Sangeetha continues with her wildlife painting, and is at present working on a book on humming birds! More power to her brush...


Hmm...I thought I had lost all the articles that I wrote, I realize I can hunt for them...these simple things take the Concrete Cauliflower a while to understand!

The Wildscreen Festival proved far more interesting than I budgeted for; the masterclass by Jeremy Bristow was riveting, and the one by Laura Marshall on managing productions, applies to so many situations that demand good scheduling to ensure a successful outcome. More in my writeup for Citizen Matters! :)

Our trip to Bandipur/Masinagudi happened quite suddenly, with Avinash calling me up on Wednesday afternoon, asking if I wanted to go the next day. He had a compensatory off, he said, and a young friend of his, Rachana Patwardhan, was also keen on going on a field trip.

I knew that KM was having dinner at some meeting, so I cheerfully ditched him for lunch as well, and went off with Avi and Rachana.

I will start with one of the best sightings we got that day.

The Bandipur/Mudumalai ranges are home to (at least) two single-tusked male elephants; one, dubbed "Onti Kombu" ("single-tusk" in Kannada) by the locals, has only the left tusk.

Chirdeep, who took the JLRNTP with me, and worked as a volunteer naturalist in Bandipur JLR for two months, took this picture of Onti Kombu:


http://indianaturewatch.net/displayimage.php?id=53973

But we were fortunate, that day, to see the right-tusk tusker! I dubbed him "Kombu Onti" as he is the mirror image of Onti Kombu.






The guy wasn't far from the road, and we were very,very VERY quiet...but though the reputation of both these elephants is fearsome--they are both supposed to have killed people-- he wasn't aggressive at all, and calmly went on his way while we had our hearts in our mouths!

I also feel that perhaps the deaths were all because tourists did things as foolish as getting down from their cars too close to the animals, trying to taunt them, or something provoking like that....but in any case, we were not the object of an elephant charge that day!

( more about the trip here )

Here's a closing shot of the SUNFLOWER fields of Bandipur, smiling in the sunshine, framed by the huge banyan trees that are being steadily chopped down to widen the road; I thought the money would be better spent making the road better, it is full of dreadful potholes!





A lovely day; since three of us had Canons (Ashwin and I had 20 D's with the 300 mm lenses, Ashwin had the 1.4 teleconverter as well), and Rachana and I had Canon Powershots (she had the S5 and I had the S3), we all ragged Avi solidly for being the lone Nikonite!

Thank you, Avinash, for a great trip!

Votsit?





( If you want to know )

I must thank Avinash (a friend from the JLRNTP, and several other voluntary initiatives) for a wonderful day today yesterday.


Here's the I of the E...the eye of the elephant:






That's the mother.


And here's the child (remember, for me, Bandipur is *always* a place where I see mother-and-child pairs of all species!)





I was in Bandipur the day after this fellow was born. Now...I am watching the baby grow up....the cutest little toddler imaginable.

The mother is Jarisha (I don't know how that is spelt.) The son is Krishna.

More images, and an account, especially of Avi's tiger shoes, will follow.

Which is one of my favourite places to go off to for a couple of days when I can?

Here's a postage stamp of it, which I saw quite by chance, when a letter with this stuck on arrived at my doorstep:




By the way (not btw), the graininess is on the STAMP picture. I am not guilty.

And what I like about the stamp is....the ever-present, space-hogging tiger (yes, the SIT that doesn't exist) is NOT featured on it. LOTS of other fauna, that make Bandipur such a wonderful place.

chirdeep_shetty has a few more days to go on his assignment with JLR there. As far as I am concerned, his initials are...I.N.V. Chirdeep!

Here's a picture I like against all the rules.


The rules are:

1. Don't have a tree in the middle of the photograph.

2. Do not have a distracting element (like the gate-post) at one side of the photograph.

...and some others, too.









But...

I love that tree, and the steady stride those sadhus (religious mendicants) are keeping up, the casual curiosity of one, and the open road that lies beyond the gate of the JLR property; the gate and the wall stand for what is enclosed,known, secure; the road stands for what is open, unknown, a mystery... and those mendicants, with no worldly possessions, are off on that road...a road, hopefully, to the discovery of the universe within themselves.

On the way back, we also saw several Buddhists monks travelling. But these are Jain monks, I think, or Hindu ones...I don't know.

Bandipur...always something to intrigue one, and make one think.

I do wish *I* could shed my worldly possessions and stride off towards the forests like these monks are doing....!

Here's the cropped photo; no gate, only the tree, the monks, and the song of the open road:

This may not be a "distracting" photograph, but to me the unworldliness of the road and the monks lacks a counterpoint.

That's the difference between the content of a photograph and its artistic composition!

Two of the flowers on the Bandipur JLR campus:





I wanted to use the backlight on that lovely creeper and its flower; they are trained to grow around the cottages.


and this one below is the Pongaemia tree (HongE in Kannada), which is a common avenue tree in Bangalore, also; biodiesel is supposed to be extracted from this tree.





It is just about at the end of its flowering cycle now; a few weeks ago, the roads were carpeted with these flowers!

First, the gold that I struck in Bandipur. Gold comes in many forms in the forest. Here's a GOLDEN DRAGONFLY:





And then there was the gold shower of the INDIAN LABURNUM, with its cascades of petals everywhere:






And of course, the gold of the sunset as we finished the evening safari, shot (with some difficulty) through the foliage:







Then come

( the mammals )

Had a wonderful time, saying hello to Bomma, Loki, Basavanna, Ganesh, and others, too....if only I had not had my wallet picked on the way to Bandipur, things would have been perfect...but..these things happen!

Well, since That Mammal is still grimly determined that I will never see its visage (or even a twitch of its tail), let me share all the other wonderful sights of Bandipur.... Here are some of the birds (all pretty common, no Darwinian discoveries here!) that I saw.


Very common at this time of the year is the BLACK-RUMPED FLAMEBACK WOODPECKER (Dinopium benghalense...dunno why it's called "Din-OPIUM"!!), which can be seen flying about, and boring the tree-trunks (you can see a small piece falling to the ground from its work, if you look carefully!)






Also fairly easy to sight were the CRESTED SERPENT EAGLEs; this one was sitting not too far away for a brief while:







( more...if you like... )


We did see several other birds, but these were the photographs I got! As always, the mammal sightings were great too, but that's going to be another post....

I go with a heart full of hope (and greed, yes...everyone ELSE has seen the SIT)...to Bandipur, and of course, how many SIT's do I see (remember, chirdeepshetty saw 5 once)...how many? Think of a number, subtract it from itself, and that will be the answer....

Focus doesn't help. Nothing ever helps.

But what DOESN'T help at all is helpful phone calls every now and then, full of suppressed (and not-too suppressed) glee, asking, "Saw any tigers?" "What happened?" "Seen anything?" and so on...Amogh meeting me at 4.30pm and saying, "Well, I might as well go home now, there are going to be no more tiger sightings now that you are here", swiftly-hidden smiles from all and sundari...I have taken to grunting now instead of replying! :)

I may not be the only one never to have seen an SIT (er, that's south Indian Tiger, if anyone has not yet known of My Quest), but I am certainly the funniest one. Even Swarna Venkat, who had never seen one, came over last week, and sighted one...

Oh well. But everything ELSE in Bandipur is ALWAYS awesome. And speaking of grunting..... here's a lovely conversation I saw happening between two WILD BOAR:


"Hist! hist! You heard the latest? It seems Piggy and Porky were....."






"Hmmm...wait...sniff-sniff-sniff...."






"You STINK!! you rotten PIG!!!!Just stay AWAY from me!"





"Hmm...this solitude is WILDly BOARing....."





and to end this post on a beautiful note (there will be more posts about the other birds and mammals, never fear!)...here's another portrait:






More to follow, but off now to take care of other stuff....!

Here's my favourite shot from Bandipur ....







Bandipur has always been one of my favourite areas...and what once used to be "Prakruthi" restaurant has now morphed into the Bandipur property of JLR . Almost every room there has a beautifully painted wildlife mural .

Well, since I can do a bit of "swalpa adjust maadi" with itsalouwelylife and her UK friend, I am executing a sneak to Bandipur tomorrow.

Alas, this time I am not going just to see what I can see. Usually, that's what I do. And I come back happy with whatever I saw, but never a glimpse of any stripes.....Then, I was told by someone, when I said that I had never seen a tiger in south India: "You lack focus. You are too happy and contented with what you see, so you will never see a tiger."

OK, this time, focus, focus, focus. Ever since chirdeepshetty went to take up a 2-month voluntary assignment as a naturalist there, he has apparently seen nothing but tigers. They are crawling out of the woodwork....he posted to the JLRNTP egroup about sighting 5 of them recently. And whoever has gone there from the NTP this past week....Praveen, Avinash, Amogh...have been also been doing nothing else.

So having once cancelled my train ticket for today, I went back and bought a bus ticket for tomorrow, and I am FOCUSSSSSSING as I go off. Wish me luck everyone. I have a great fear that these other tiger-sighting characters are swifty exhausting the April 2008 Tiger-Sighting Quota before I arrive there, and will do the usual "The tiger was sighted HERE yesterday" or "Look! Tiger Scat!" (That's a polite and technical way of referring to tiger shit tiger waste-products.) I even had one naturalist who enthused, "OH! It's FRESH and STEAMING!!!" as if it was a fragrant breakfast dish of idlies that he had found.

I don't want tiger claw marks, I don't want pug marks. I don't want to listen to other people's tiger-sighting stories. I WANT MY OWN TIGER SIGHTING IN SOUTH INDIA. This means YOU, you tiger hiding in the forests of Bandipur. Come on out you coquette, I want to see if you actually do exist, or are a piece of these other people's fevered imaginations....

Want to see some of my Bandipur posts?

click on this

adarshraju told me he hopes I will sight one. That was nice of him.

He also told Anush not to go with me as anyone with me would never see a tiger. That is NOT nice of him. I am deciding whether to smile at him or growl at him the next time I see him....

I do love Bandipur, tiger or no tiger. But I would prefer tiger to no tiger... Sigh.

Some things are born
Just to be, and to be beautiful
They do not stay too long;
Permanence is not their trait.
And they do not make a show
Or drag our eyes to them.
But when we happen to see
Our eyes remain riveted.
Their beauty gently awakens something deep in our hearts
Which has no voice, but is very strong.
Tomorrow, this object may not be:
But today, its beauty can move you to tears.




I just looked up in Bandipur, and there it was, this simple vine and flower...and I gave thanks for being sighted.

All the better to fan out the gossip we hear!

Here's a water tank on top of a building in Chennapatna (I think) on the road from Bangalore to Mysore....




I sent it along to a few of my American friends, including someone who is known for his quick repartee...his response was, "Water they thinking?"

The Maruti 800 is our version of the British Mini..a ubiquitous little runabout, great to get from A to B.

;-))

When the light sinks down to liquid gold
And the monsoon clouds reflect the sight;
When the birds and beasts return to their fold
And there approaches the dark of the night...

The barbed wire, the weeds, they keep the jungle out;
Within their encirclement sits Man...
But still beyond the barriers his mind roams all about
As he seeks to find the answers that he can.

The mind calms; the heart's content; now fails the light;
Sweet are the gentle joys at end of day;
Wonderstruck with all that was seen till night,
Homewards we wend our pleasantly weary way.




Wish I could share the peace of the evening a little better...words are lovely, but often inadequate.

Here are two images from Bandipur that speak for themselves...






and





Babies of any species, I find, are surrounded by the herd and they are always pushed to the back so that they are well-hidden from prying eyes. I have noticed this with macaques, elephants, gaur, chital, sambhar, boar...even at the St Louis Zoo,when we first went to visit the cheetahs, the mother casually stood so that the cubs were hidden behind her body.

This one, again, is not a shot that a good wildlife photographer would choose. It's a record of an event happening "behind the bushes" in quite a literal sense...the mating display of the Indian peacock.

But to me, it is a photograph that precisely demonstrates how capriciously Nature shares her delights with us when we are in the forest.

We were driving past in our jeep when the tourist in our jeep yelled at Bomma, the driver, to stop. Behind a bush, only half seen, was this wonderful dance performance going on. The target audience...a peahen...was around, too, but completely out of sight behind the bushes, with just some movement indicating her presence.

But half-seen flash or not...the beauty of the dance was unforgettable.




In just a few seconds, the feathers were folded, the birds were gone...as if they never existed. But for those few seconds...we were privileged and awestruck.

Weird problem, that would happen only to Ms. Murphy. On Thursday, we spent the entire day without any power. When the power came back, I decided to leave my laptop on while I went for my swim.

WHAM.

Since then, my Toshiba laptop has a nice, clean, black-slate screen. Re-booting doesn't work. On Friday morning I went off to Bandipur (oh, yes, we had a superb time....) and today I am trying to call the Toshiba office. No reply, and unless I get a reply, I don't want to go all the way to find that the place is shut/doesn't exist any more...et cetera.

So, until I get my poor Toshiba working again, or consign it to the rubbish heap and get another computer and get it configured...on LJ, I have to put up a nice sign with a diagonal red line across it...no entry!

Vottapity, because I am simply bursting with stuff to write about...the lovely sightings at Bandipur, a Metblogs post that is waiting to be written about the Majestic bus stand and the levels of cleaniless (lots of supporting photos!), my musings about the history of punctuation..

And this entry? Being written on a helpful close friend's (where would we be without that wonderful species, Amicus aidus?) home computer.

But I will mention, though, that this hasn't particularly been my weekend...the laptop black out on Thursday, the usual no-tiger-no-leopard-enjoy-what-you-get days at Bandipur, my camera battery dying on me (naturally, just prior to my sighting of a Crested Hawk Eagle on a tall tree, which sat composedly for more than 20 minutes, calling away to glory while sainath clicked on and on), and an unexplained stoppage of all the more-comfortable Volvo buses on our return journey from Mysore to Bangalore-- we just jumped pell-mell into another bus and made it back...

The plus side, however, has the following points totted up...the beauty of the forest, the lovely sunrise on Moyar Gorge and the even more lovely sunset on Mangala Dam, with the water shimmering in the light and the cloud formations being breathtaking...a wonderful visit to Kukkarahalli Lake with Mr Kulasekhar of the INW fraternity, with a wealth of bird sightings (where Sainath, having used up his CF card on the Changeable Hawk Eagle, borrowed my CF card which was anyway useless in my camera, and has nearly filled it up with superb photographs of the trip)...and a hope that my laptop is not permanently damaged just when it was too late for KM to get me a new one from the US...

Ah well....all of you keep yourselves happy and healthy until my No Entry period comes to an end!

The Gopalaswamy (God Who Tends the Cattle, that is, Krishna) Temple is a beautiful little hillside temple in the eponymous Gopalaswamy Betta (Hill)...and these images caught my eye.

The first thing that strikes one are these mendicants:



Theirs seems to be a pretty organized economic activity; here they are, accepting alms...




You can see one of them putting the plate with the coins to his forehead as a mark of gratitude and respect. The plates are marked with the "naamam" that Vishnu wears on His forehead..and with the "shankha" (conch) and "chakra" (wheel)that are in His hands.

But what tickled me pink was the bike tucked away behind them:




Did the moped belong to the temple priest? Or did one of these beggars make enough money to own it, and zoom off on it at the end of the day? I lacked the courage to ask them, preferring to speculate!

I have posted a picture of the brass vessel that these mendicants use in this post:

http://deponti.livejournal.com/122627.html

and a detail of the sculpture at the corner of the temple, here:

http://deponti.livejournal.com/123610.html

( more pictures here )

I am closing with this picture, for asakiyume, of the monsoon in the hills:





And this lovely picture of a ..er...jumbo traffic jam at the Bandipur Forest Reserve reception area, from where jeeps take visitors into the forest (you can see the red-and-white road-block lever which is up right now)....



Going to Bandipur again next week....I do love the place!