While (temporarily) not there on FB

I can say this, better than most
the social network is truly one of lies.
There's no more to it,
whatever the gadgets may think,
I am better lonely, all alone
than being lonely in a crowd.

I am taking one of my occasional (read detox) breaks from Facebook, and I must say it feels good, even therapeutic by degrees to not be assailed by a thousand alerts, updates, angst(s) and outrages.

I do miss checking out the bird photos that various (Facebook) friends post and the occasional poem and a lot of valuable (read thought-provoking and insightful) links to various topics of interest -- such as the environment, Monsanto, saving water, doing away with plastics, etc but hey I could use this quiet, this loneliness and this relatively low-tech mind-space for a bit, thank you so much.

And NO, I am not blaming Facebook at all. Blaming Facebook for my addiction to it (and the resultant time wastage) is like blaming advertising for human greed or like blaming bars for alcoholism and its not like that at all.

Honestly, Facebook is a big help to me in a number of ways and as with most of us, it has taken over my contact list / address book / whatever-you-call-it in a way that I could never have foreseen. And oh, yes I will be the first one to say that it gets you noticed as well and gets you renown / praise / fame (you can call it "likes" if want, I am sure a lot of time there is much more than a grudging like when someone clicks that button -- everyone doesn't see the point in being expressive).

But still...as someone told me long, long back (she was so "ancient" that she had to be helped to check her e-mail, I was already hooked into the fun, and harmless flirting of chat rooms and online "time-wasting") maybe everybody online is lonely. Add to that, that almost everyone hooked onto a gadget is lonely as well. And that, everyone leading an urbane, rushed, high-on-caffeine (or whatever else) metropolitan life is lonely as well.

So, why not be alone and away from the lies of the social network?

At least for a bit?

I am liking it!             

My reading at the Red Leaf Poetry group

This is a bit late in the day, but then its still current by my chronologically challenged mindset (and then again, we are still in the same month), so I hope it isn't too late to thank Linda, Shubhorup and Nivedita for having me over at the Red Leaf Poetry group's monthly get together for April.

Thanks to Nivedita's presence as an "interpreter" and Linda's hands-on stewardship of the event, I was very much at ease and could really enjoy being there at Landmark. As I have said earlier, I have no problems reading my poetry (nor any hang-ups about doing it), its just that the hearing environments in most such dos defeat my hearing aids and that evidently contributes to making me seem inarticulate or shy or self-effacing or whatever (I really don't think I am any of that -- not more than any more poet, anyway).

Not that it matters in any earth-shattering way -- but it was good to have an audience to read to and it was good to have to field so many questions as well. And it was also good to use the occasion (and the location -- how many people who come to Landmark buy any poetry books?)  to briefly touch on the penury of being a poet who has published two books.

Linda, Subhorup and Nivedita (not in any order) thanks for having me over, I was honoured. Wishing you all the very best in your endeavours to popularise / revive poetry. May your tribe increase :-)   

This and that about Philip Larkin

For no specific reason, but for that I found a lot of mention of Larkin in a novel that deals with the tragicomic lives of  "deafies" that I recently managed to finish (thanks to train travel), I have been reading up on Larkin. And also getting re-acquainted with some of his poems -- I remember reading a lot of his poems, after the sock in the gut impact of reading "This Be The Verse" for the first time. But then, you know how it is with me, I am certainly not constructive in the way I read poetry, so I don't really remember much of what I have read of Larkin's poems.

And then again, maybe the blame is not entirely mine, for as it is with AK Ramanujan and "The River" or with Nissim Ezekiel and "Night of The Scorpion", so it is with Philip Larkin and "This Be The Verse". I mean, what other Larkin poem will one remember / relate to (as a reader and not necessarily as someone who "agrees" with what the poem says) after getting "a sock in the gut" from "This Be The Verse" ?

So there.

And speaking of reading up on him -- well I found this lovely piece on him that makes for interesting reading. 

Not that reading up on Larkin demystifies him or translates his poetics -- his verse still remains verse, to be assimilated and enjoyed in the vocabulary of poetry -- but one does get a fair amount of insight into what shaped his poetic mettle, and served him as ink.

Would seem (on the basis of what I can gather from reading about him without claiming any scholarly application of mind) that Larkin was largely stoic as well...but then which wise poet / lay "deafie" isn't that anyway?    

Personally speaking, I do know (from the novel I mentioned reading) that Larkin was bothered about not being able to hear the larks singing, a fact brought to home when he was interrogated on it, while on a walk with a companion. I wonder, did he ever "get used" to it?

Who knows.    

A thousand trains (and another "lost" phone)

I spent a little less than 2 years in a small, more or less one street (that connects bus stand and railway station) town in Orissa in the pursuit of a Diploma in Electrical Engineering, so I am not new to out of the way, marooned-in-the-boondocks towns.

Then again, I grew up in Rourkela which certainly couldn't claim to be anything more than prosperously provincial back then, so I am used to things bucolic and slow-moving in a way not many born (and bred) in cities are. And since I used to commute a lot between Rourkela and the aforementioned town, I have more train journeys under my belt than most TTE's.

So then, this was one more journey (or two -- counting going and coming back as individual journeys, or four -- considering I had to change trains at Delhi) and one more visit to an out of the way, marooned-in-the-boondocks town.

The highlight of the four train journeys was traveling first class to Delhi. Something that came to transpire primarily because I couldn't get tickets in any other class (even after enduring the torture of IRCTC's Tatkal bookings). And I must say this, traveling First Class by train beats every other way of traveling -- and certainly scores high, much higher than traveling by air (not that I am much qualified to speak of air travel, I have caught a flight barely 4-5 times and it has always been cattle class) especially when it comes to the room on offer and the kind of pampering one gets to enjoy (tea / coffee, soup, breakfast, lunch, dinner...). Beats being offered a small bottle of water and a matchbox sized pack of boiled peanuts (or whatever else, if at all) by an anorexic lass speaking in a phoney accent (not that I can even begin to hear what they say) any day if you ask me.

In fact I almost went to the extent of thinking that this is a "life event" (no -- not in FB terminology, I am being serious) comparable to catching a flight (you know how it is with most small-town, middle-class people -- like yours truly -- who don't remove the baggage tags from their luggage for ages to "show off" that they have traveled by air) but then my father claims that he took us all (to Tirupati, no less) by First Class when I was too young to understand / notice.

Oh well -- that anyway explains why I love trains, eh? Must have cottoned onto the experience pretty early in life.

Another highlight was traveling through what used to be (if my sense of history and geography is correct) notorious as the Terai at one time -- at least that part of it which is in the north-western fringe of modern day Uttar Pradesh. Miles and miles of flat expanses with fields of golden wheat ready to be harvested or just harvested (and left in neat bundles). I have seen a lot of rice fields but this was the first time I got to see so much of ready to harvest wheat. Since a lot of my hoarded wealth in life these days is visual and in the form of photographs, this was certainly a bounty of a rare order, even if I did not take a single photograph.

And then, I lost it. In Delhi, I mean. The phone.

How?

Was in an auto headed to Nizamuddin to catch my train back to Hyderabad and texting (or writing into the phone, rather) and the auto (incidentally going at a fast canter on some Expressway) suddenly swerved, and as I lost balance, I lost my grip on the phone as well. Which then dived onto the Expressway and got hit and run (no idea how many times). Which then, I also managed to find (without its back cover) more or less intact and estranged from its battery (which also I managed to find) but...its best to write-off the phone as all it does is blink in a more or less half-assed way.

Yes, my ticket was in the phone and so were all my contacts, etc.

But then, I was mindful enough to manage to find a travel agent functioning out of a hole in the wall near Nizamuddin (all the cyber cafes were closed) log-in to IRCTC and coax it to let me print a ticket.The aforementioned travel agent (a tout more like) made a killing (he wanted Rs. 50 and was very rude too) and I decided not to knee him where it hurts, but what matters is I could get a ticket and carry on to Hyderabad and home.

Me and phones, eh?

And that brings me to the "town". Last time I was here, I had a wait of almost 3 hours for my train to Delhi to leave and I had to prevail on the Station Master to get the only Waiting Room opened. This time, I found that the Waiting Room has been taken over by a TTE and converted into his living (or at least sleeping) quarters. And no, there was no other place (apart from the loo in the Waiting Room) for me to relieve myself.

Marooned-in-the-boondocks town, did I not say? Or maybe this is how most end-of-the-line Railway Stations are...

   


                           

What Jimmy Carter said

This is not exactly that recent, and Jimmy Carter is certainly not much of a heavyweight in world affairs or the kind of person who can create a groundswell of opinions -- at least in comparison to serving US presidents, but it still makes for good and thought-provoking reading.

Take a look see, do.

Truth be told, all religions discriminate against women and Hinduism also doesn't really score very high when it comes to being "equal opportunity". Which is a bit surprising considering that there are so many Goddesses in the Hindu pantheon and the "Mother Cult" is an intrinsic part of the Hindu faith and way of life.

Truth also be told, Hinduism has been crying out for reform (and renewal) for ages now and Hinduism can do with some women Shankaracharyas as well...

Meanwhile, what Jimmy Carter said. 


      

An idyllic trip into the Garhwal hills

The place (like last time when I wrote about it here) will go unnamed. Sorry if that bothers you, but I prefer it that way and its not that I am being rude, its just that I am a bit concerned about the numerous "jeep safaris", "wildlife treks" and "nature hikes" being offered to a variety of city-bred, consumerism-cultured, gadget groomed groups of nouveau-rich Indians.

All of whom, (like most urbanized Indians, to be honest) care a shit about nature or environment; and this is something I am qualified to talk about (and even rant on) as I have been around in what remains of Hyderabad's outdoors and cannot really say much about the cleanliness or aesthetics of these spaces.
 
So there, the place will remain unnamed. Not that it really matters, you could mail and ask me and I will tell you :-)

I guess, "idyllic" is a bit of a misnomer, because the last thing I did was relax or luxuriate in any kind of idyll; rather I more or less walked the skin off my feet and the ankles and knees off my legs (there were some killing inclines involved) and was on the move from almost 6.00 in the morning to 6.00 in the evening...but I guess it was still an idyll, because mentally I was at absolute peace and even feeling "blessed" as I was in the company of innumerable trees and a lot of birds were repeatedly straying into my consciousness.

What else would a self-confessed poet of nature (and birds) and a simpleton with notepad skills (and bum ears) consider idyllic?

******************

Like the last time I was here, I was again put up with the Army guys, in fact at the very same Mess. As such, I remembered the trees and the lay of the land and which way is east, which west, etc, etc

These are all very important from the viewpoint of birding, because these are what go into getting your eye in. In my case, I am happy to say that I could start shooting barely 10 minutes after getting to my room and dropping off my gear. And I am also happy to say that the first bird I photographed was one of my "firm favorites", a Blue Whistling Thrush, a bird that is fairly common here but yet needs a lot of skill to get close to (as it always wears a habitually suspicious air), a bird that I had laboured to photograph through fog and rain the last time I was here...

Speaking of fog and rain, it did rain the second evening, for around 30 minutes or so and there was the low rumble of thunder over the valley (surprisingly -- more than three years after Moving On and a poem where I have celebrated the "fact", I can still hear thunder, and most of the time it is a low rumble to my ears...and a very welcome, atavistic and wild rumble too!) that I for an instant took to be the boom of artillery guns being fired in some field exercise. But then, this was after it was already dark and when I was going through the day's catch of photographs on the laptop that I had lugged along.

That (apart from a couple of false alarms) was the only time it rained this time, as opposed to the last when the rain / fog would again and again literally come out of the blue and put paid to my hopes of gathers keepers / lifers.

For some reason that I just cannot fathom, this time, I did not get to see / photograph a single Greater Flameback -- a species of woodpecker that is as common here as the moss grown pines and deodhars that it favours.

That, let me tell you was one big, big let down. Because, I had set my heart on an intimate encounter with at least a couple of Greater Flamebacks, to make up for not being able to photograph them properly the last time I was here. Something that was more or less guaranteed if I could have sighted them -- considering the abundant sunlight and my enhanced (read higher ISO, faster shutter speed) capabilities, thanks to the D600 (AND my enhanced understanding of woodpecker behaviour as well).

But then, maybe the Greater Flameback likes this part of the hills and frequents these trees where I had seen so many of them only when it is is rainy / foggy...or else it likes to go down into the valley during the "winter" (something that technically speaking hasn't ended for more than half a month and was very very severe).

Who knows, after all -- we know so less about birds anyway.

***********************

I did run into a lot of other woodpeckers and in fact (in retrospect) I spent too much time photographing them, while I should have been more after the Verditer's Flycatchers, the Minivets, the Lammergeiers and the Himalayan Kingfishers (in the valley down below -- in fact, I did not even go down to the valley for any birding). But then, woodpeckers are nothing if not mesmeric to watch as they traipse up and down a tree's bole or branch and let me tell you both the Yellow-fronted Woodpeckers (of whom I saw two nesting pairs almost on a daily basis) and the Indian Black-naped Green Woodpecker (of whom I saw both the male and female, again on a daily basis) are positively hypnotising when watched through a lens.

So, maybe you will understand if I say that I did not get to photograph much, apart from these woodpeckers and a Lesser Yellownape that I saw on my last morning.

That "much" being -- a pair of Eurasian Blackbirds, a couple of Spangled Drongos, the highly elusive Great Barbet, a Grey-headed Canary Flycatcher, some Verditer's Flycatchers some Eurasian Jays and a lot of other birds that I still need to properly look at and ID.

All in all, a nice idyll, I would say. Especially if you are a self-confessed poet of nature (and birds) and a simpleton with notepad skills (and bum ears).                                  
           

The renewal (and after)

As resplendently dark
as the eternal truth,
as overpoweringly soulful
as the silent hum
of divine nothingness,
the night of Shiva is here.

ॐ नमः शिवाय

I wrote that on Mahashivaratri.

Once again, the temptation was to give it up all, leave this constant fight to be, and go on the path that the hermits walk, the yogis walk, the Shiva trippers walk...and this time the temptation was far more powerful than it has been before, ever since I have heard the call of Shiva, known it as the wellspring of my faith (and sanity). Especially so, because the last four-five months had left me more or less mentally punch-drunk. Because its one thing to be in a boxing ring and getting slammed around and its another when punches hit your core, your self-belief and sense of dignity, your very sense of being human. 

Surprisingly, I did something else all-together -- decided to shave it all away and get a haircut as well. After all, I am anyway very lot low-maintenance and frugal in my wants -- with due respects to the ascetics (and the real men of God). The rest can wait, till I photograph some more birds :-)

I did not manage to do anything much on Mahashivaratri either. Did not go to Varanasi or Prayag (had vague plans to do both and of course, all the time in the world as well). 

But I had my inner renewal all the same and this post is in to commemorate the same. 

Notes from the full frame world

I have been the happy (slightly overwhelmed) and very jittery owner of a Nikon D600 for almost a month now. The decision to go for this camera is a bit illogical because technically it decreases my reach (as it is a full-frame and doesn't bring in the 1.5 crop factor that comes with the Nikon D90) but this was a camera I anyway needed because I had more or less grown out of the D90 (at least in terms of having to deal with its ISO limitations, and living within its limited focus points and effective Megapixels). Hence the decision (very very long drawn, involving a lot of heartburn and trepidation) to go for the Nikon D600.

But then -- considering that I have no formal training in photography, that I am allegedly restless and lacking in patience, that I am mostly a loner with not much support from a peer group and so on -- my progress in photographing birds has been surprisingly fast. And in a bit less than three years since I progressed into the digital photography world, I was shooting full frames (on the D-90)  like I was born to do just this.

Naturally then, it was time for an upgrade. And I have been very very very happy with the Nikon D600 overall; and it would seem I can permanently live at ISO 800 (that lets me do a lot in terms of Shutter speeds and its worth a lot out in the field, a lot indeed) and not have to deal with noise. Then again, I stand to gain a lot thanks to the vastly more focus points while shooting birds in flight as well (though I still have to try it at length) and now I will not need to "zoom out" when I manage to get very close to birds, as happened on numerous times when I was at Wardha -- getting to touching distance to a family (parents and a sub-adult) of Common Hoopoes and had a Common Flameback overflowing the frame more than once...

I do miss my "reach" and I am lusting for a Nikon 600 mm, but then overall its good to be in the full frame world and then again, as they say, not having enough reach is a good problem to have all said and done, for photographing birds is mostly about the skill to get closer than ever before.

Then again, I can always shoot in the crop mode :-)            
     

An entry into the diary of my humdrum existence -- two falls

I have had quite a chequered (though lately more or less idling) career as a highwayman -- on my Bullet that is. I have been careful (in my own recklessly adventurous way) even though I have had my own share of crazy rides (mostly solo) in which I have pushed my endurance while riding; in terms of time spent in the saddle or in terms of surviving aches and jolts all over (as happens when from riding on almost non-existent roads).

But I have been damnably lucky, in terms of falls -- getting away with only one major fall... fell on my nose, was knocked out and saw the stars, but apart from a broken gear lever and a chipped tooth, there wasn't much damage -- in fact I walked the two or so kms home, if a bit groggily (pushing the Bullet along). This is, if one doesn't count the countless falls I have had slipping on black ice in Ladakh, or skidding off while off-roading closer home, both at piddling speeds.

Or maybe I have been living (and riding) under the watchful eyes of my Grandmother and my Gods.

So there, whichever way you look at it, I haven't fallen much and its been a while since I have. But then, as the saying goes, even the Gods have feet of clay; so it happened again, on balmy day in December.

I am getting the Bullet out from the homestead and down the incline onto the road and I am blind-sided by a Yellow Bells / Allamanda shrub that grows right outside our gate and thinks its a tree -- and is sacred (according to my ordinance) since any numbers of Sunbirds and Prinias and Sparrows (and some very timid Tailorbirds) visit it all through the day -- and can't see a school bus coming till its too late. I still manage to brake and take some evasive action by turning the handle in the direction the school bus is going, but still there is an impact and I fall. To make matters weightier (and worrisome) I had the camera bag on, so I must have fallen more heavily than I should.

The bus stopped, and its conductor and one of my neighbours made it to me almost simultaneously. I was a little stunned and a lot shamed, there were no bruises and as expected the Bullet started at first kick. I did go on the ride as planned (to Amma's consternation) and even shot some River Terns at Fox Sagar.

But then, falls are funny things, however innocuous they be -- for its not the physical damage that matters but the mental. And the fear that comes from falling.

And yet, there has to be learning from every fall. My mistake was, I wasn't mindful enough (and I was thinking of the birds, the weather -- it was cloudy and so on). I do it differently now (though the Allamanda is still there blind-siding me), I blank everything from my mind when I am getting the Bullet out. And my father stands out on the road as a spotter.

And I have got my riding confidence back as well, thank you kindly.

Which is really something. For don't let anyone tell you otherwise, success in life is primarily about confidence.

And (oh well, as goes without saying) money, but then I am not qualified to speak of that kind of success, am I?

**********

The second fall was even more mindless and though it did not involve moving wheels, could have resulted in a hell of a lot of damage.

Here's what happened (lifted from my FB status update)

"Was out for a bit of birding today afternoon and walking away disconsolately after finding that neither the pair of Oriental White-eyes nor the flock of Common Ioras were in the Neem where I had seen them yesterday (this tree grows on the side of a deep well and has a wicked perimeter -- of rusty barbed wire and inch long thorn)...was a bit mentally preoccupied to be honest and then it happens, I slip on the uneven ridge abutting the well and crash to the ground.

Must be my luck or my instincts as a biker (or maybe the goodwill of the birds), the impact was totally on the left shoulder and left side of the chest. And though I felt the jar of the fall (I could have been a poleaxed tree for all purposes) nothing happened to the camera and the bazooka lens (which I was holding by the barrel, as usual).

Yes, read that as NOTHING, must be my TLC for my gear (or maybe the goodwill of the birds), it did not even so much as touch the ground (my left elbow did).

So, I brush myself off, shake my head to clear it and walk around a bit wondering if I am too early for the Ioras.

And then retrace my steps, cross the barbed wire (and one inch thorns) and sidle up to the Neem, to find them there again.

Eventful, huh?"

I wasn't exactly exact there -- it was a pair of Common Ioras and flock of Oriental White-eyes. But the rest is more or less how it happened.

And I did shoot some lifers right after the fall, too.

However, I am still thanking my stars that nothing happened to the camera (and lens) and that I did not fall into the well. What was I thinking? Truth be told, I wasn't exactly being a mentally pre-occupied Salim Ali, my thoughts had more to do with my father who has been having major problems with his insulin shots (post his bypass he administers the insulin to himself using an "insulin pen")...with the insulin leaking out at times, the needle getting twisted and bent and cutting him up and so on...we had been away on a trip to my paternal aunt's place (to lovely and quaint Wardha) and also to Nagpur (to my brother's) and it was agreed that the problem was with the pen and my father will get it replaced once we are back in Hyderabad.

But once we are back, he decides to get it "repaired" and I get to see him poking himself with a needle and the resultant blood and tension as the stupid thing gets jammed again, even when I try to give him the shots. Using that pen isn't a very pleasant thing at the very best of times -- you know you are poking a needle into your father and that it is hurting him. And it was sheer torture since I realized it was jamming, because the pressure applied onto the pen's plunger got transferred onto the pen and from the pen to the needle.

All this meant a lot of tension all around (and added consternation for Amma) as we had no idea of how many shots have gone in and what to do when the damn plunger won't move. Naturally then, that morning we had a row at home and my father promised to get the pen "repaired" in the evening.

So you can imagine my thoughts while I was "mentally pre-occupied"...I was mostly blaming myself for not having realized all this earlier and for not having changed the pen earlier. And I was also trying to figure out if my father's irrational, irritable and ill-tempered behaviour for the last month or so was due to wrong dosing. Not that he did not have other cause for worry and tensions (how can anyone who is father to someone like me be totally unworried?), but somehow I was feeling that a large part was played by the wrong dosing...something that I could have spotted and corrected long ago -- provided I wasn't gallivanting all over the country.

Anyway, so that was the second fall and whatever I may say to explain my state of not being mindful, I cannot say I am feeling very dignified about it, even now.

But then, one has to move on, no?

An upshot of that fall was a frank conversation I had with my father. And I am happy to say that there were no arguments this time when I said he get the pen replaced. And the new pen works just fine, too.  
                

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the black bird.

II

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.





-- Wallace Stevens

This poem strayed into my being (and is still roosting there) when I saw some photos of a Blackbird on a friend's FB feed. In fact, I couldn't ID the bird, as I have never been outside India and never seen / photographed any Blackbirds. But then, its a bird that seems to be almost a celebrity if one goes by the volume of bird poetry devoted to it. Another (in fact, a dryly prosaic take) would be to see it as a common bird that is almost common in bird poetry. And still, this poem elevates it to nearly mystic and mythical levels, does it not?

One wonders -- what deliberation and effort must have gone into the minimalism and pithy nature of these lines. And one wonders -- what kinship must the poet feel for a bird before he / she can see so much in it?

Thoughts to ponder -- for me -- as I start putting together my own book of bird poems.