Author: Swati Sani

It was a rewarding experience to go for a bird watch walk on Sunday at VNIT campus with the bird lovers and members of Bombay Natural History Society. VNIT campus, housed inside a small natural forest where we spotted about 30 species of birds – some of them fairly uncommon in urban areas, is less than a KM away from our house.

With trees dating back to a century, bamboo clusters found naturally and a thicket of trees with what was (about 100 odd years ago) a rivulet perhaps had abundant wild life including big cats a hundred and fifty years back.

Today it is host to a variety of birds – some migratory, some resident, that feast on year long supply of food and live here. I hope it stays like this forever though what was a rivulet has now turned into a nullah full of sewage, it still has enough fish, crabs and snakes for birds and small wild life to survive.

it was a pity the digital SLR we ordered has not yet been delivered to us – Our current camera Nikon 5700 is too slow to focus when it comes to wild life photography. Hopefully on the next bird watch walk, scheduled for 3rd April we will have the D70 with a good fast lens.

For the interested, the list of bird we spotted in two hour walk include:

Common Grey Hornbill
Dusky Crag Martin
Common Swallow
House Swift
Magpie Robin- M & F
Indian Robin – M & F.
Purple Sunbird – M & F.
Red – Vented Bulbul.
White – Browed Bulbul.
Crimson – Breasted Barbet.
Indian Myna.
Pied Myna.
Brahminy Myna.
White – Browed Fantail Flycatcher.
Jungle Babbler.
Yellow – Eyed Babbler.
Rufous – Backed Shrike (Long – Tailed Shrike).
Red Turtle Dove.
Maratha Woodpecker.
White Wagtail.
Koel – M & F.
Rose – Ringed Parakeet.
Crow Pheasant.
Iora.
Shikra.
Black Drongo.
Tailor Bird.
Ashy Wren Warbler.
Jungle Crow.
Pariah Kite.

Listening to Ustad Zakir Hussain is always magical!!! He makes his tabla sing, dance and chant sholakas. He can make Bramha, Vishnu, Mahesh, Ganapati wake up and take notice of someone calling them out!

Rela’s – Ustad ji has the most entertaining way of describing a term like rela -he choose this one to explain what rela is to the audience of Nagpur “ They said when the steam engine pulled into..Nagpur…at a superfast speed of twelve miles per hour. So the maharaja in those days told his court musicians please compose a rhythmic composition for this memorable occasion. So he took the syllable (bol) dhiredhire and composed a drum roll-like composition and of course the maharaj in his own wisdom gave tha composition on the word rel, rela. So here’s a rela. performance and he went on to demonstrate a steam engine sound using tabla syllables. Here is an mp3 from one of his older performances where he defines a rela and then performs it.

He went on to play several relas demonstrating Shloka’s Radha-Krishna Ched Chad, pitter patter of rain interspersed with thunder and lightning

It was a performance I thoroughly enjoyed watching with Aasim who at the end said – ” I did not understand all of it, but I still did“. Aasim has been learning tabla only since past three months and has not yet gone beyond the initial kayda of trital…

After the concert, we met Aasim’s tabla guru Mr. Ramesh Uike and Ramesh ji’s Ustad, Ustad Sheru Khan, a contemporary of Ustad Alla Rakha – Guru and Father of Ustad Zakir Hussain.

Ustad Sheru Khan performed on a different plane all together – at 82, he quickly taught the people who surrounded him some gat’s and tukda’s by just spelling out the bols and clapping – its a different language these people talk in they are capable carrying out a complete conversation in ta tirkit, dha!!!

“good morning mam -I want to talk to sanisoft”
“yes, tell me”
“I want to talk to sanisoft”
“I am CEO SANIsoft” “you can talk to me”
“I am a BE computer science engineer” “ I want work”
“do you know PHP”
“Ye, I am studying in PHP”
“What is PHP”
“its a program mam”
“Sorry,we dont have an opening for you”
“why?”

At which point, I just kept the phone down!!!! May be, I should have called the candidate for an interview!

I don’t know why taking Citizine makes me so sleepy!!! All doctors say its a drug that *does not* induce sleep. It must be me!!!

Winter is over and the heat is increasing every passing day, its fall -a season that comes loaded with allergens. I can almost feel the allergies coming. Hope the homeopathy I took will help keep them at bay.

This season also brings memories of studying for exams; sipping fresh orange juice; staying overnight at friends on pretext of studying and gossiping through the night. Unfortunately this year the one thing out of the thee listed is also not possible – the orange crop has been completely spoiled. At a place where the mondhas (heaps) of orange on the road side were common place, with vendors selling them for Rs5/- a dozen- and good ones at that, I bought Nagpur mandarin oranges (dehydrated looking) for Rs.40/- a dozen. Sad state of affairs!!

As if that was not enough, the newspaper bought another distressing news as well – 18 tigers in Ranthambore are missing -that makes the missing tigers count to 36!! 18 tigers were reported missing from Sariska earlier this month. I hope the tiger census at other places around the country does not bring similar news. Something seriously needs to be done about this magnificent animal!!

Restless today, nothing has happened, nothing unusual since morning -am listening to good music, but mind is still wandering -restless, cant sit at a place, cant concentrate on work!!

perhaps its just PMS

No dis-respect to our national anthem, but this is too cute. You teach a child of three/four our national anthem and this is the result – he grabs the tune perfectly rest you just have to listen.

i laughed so much my eyes started watering.

Bakr Id today – had a lovely feast for lunch and am making Biryani for Dinner -all those who can come home before it gets over are invited.