Morning has broken ......

The power of a visual.

My friend Sangeeta Khanna posted this Good Morning visual from Delhi, some time ago today. 

Such is its power, that even after logging on after  having breakfast in muggy Mumbai, it gave a sense of a cool nippy Delhi morning,  a lady walking in from her green garden with a small basket of Prajakta flowers, pouring herself an amazing tulsi or hibiscus tea ,  and enjoying a great morning , say , in a verandah or balcony, with assorted birds chirping away.

Sigh. What a difference from early morning cooker whistles, garlic tadka smells,  honking car horns, and  a reversing car playing the latest item song.....

   

A new day.

Some steep themselves,
straight
out of the garden
into a teapot,
giving of themselves,
to warm your hands,
surround you with flavour
and
warm down
a fasting throat.

Some
shake excitedly
and
tumble down
in your path,
as you take
an early morning garden walk
and then sit quietly
in the tray
strewing magic in the air
applauding the
tea leaves,
giving off themselves.

Birds tweeting,
amidst the jungle of green.

Your early morning 5 senses alert.

So many doing so much for us.

Just wondering if WE even try ......

A great arrival....

My blogfriend and FB friend, Shail Mohan of Trivandrum, posted this wonderful capture of just born tender neem leaves, possibly from her garden , with their wondrous copper glow, and just like us humans , yet to be firmed up spines.

However, unlike us humans, these trees do something else that is sensible.

 Read on...

(photograph by Shail Mohan on her Sony Cybershot W-150)

So many
fresh,
pink
and raw;
some younger than the others,
all sticking to the mater
a bit tired
and bent in fatigue
from the natural delivery
amidst
observant older
greener ladies.

Each new arrival

clutching on
with the
smallest umbilical cord
but biggest attachment,
and no one even
bothers to ask
whether
they are girls
or boys….

A Bozoical rap on the knuckles

He's back ! Bozo, Mumbai's only dog-with-his-own-blog returns again, this time to comment on what a Dog's Life is. 

Summer is often a season for holding interesting series of free public talks and stuff, in more enterprising places like Pune, where they are currently hosting something called "Vasant Vyakhyanmala", initiated in 1875, by none other than Justice Mahadev Govind Ranade, the same person, who is seen defying society and encouraging women's education and sensible integration into daily life in the currently very popular Marathi TV serial  " Unch Majha Jhoka !" (Literally, "I fly high").   The serial  is based on the then prevalent custom of child marriage.

I think Bozo has been watching this serial.  He understands it. And he has something to say.......Naturally , his mentor , Magiceye,  immediately captured that ....

Seriously, no.

I did not pose for this photo;
(and some say
I look like a statesman
in this )
But I do
spend a lot of time
just thinking about things
as a senior..

Where I come from,
the kids,
girls and boys alike
don't hang on to their mother's tail,
and
are on their own
almost from day 5,
and somewhere in my
wild early youth,
my Amembal family
took me
to their homes and heart
as their very own.

I am sure,
my sister,
like my friend Luci,
in Thiruvananthapuram,
was similarly lucky too.

I often sit at Deepak's feet
and
watch TV along with him,
and am aghast
to see that
folks who should
have better sense,
don't like girl babies,
sometimes don't allow them to be born,
sometimes kill them at birth,
and should they even live,
then they
humiliate,
attack
and
destroy their lives
for ego and money
when they are older.

We dogs are not like this,
although
it's fashionable
for some folks
to shake their coiffeured heads
in air conditioned splendour
and say
"It's a Dog's life ! "......


Like I was telling Luci
who shook her head
and said ,
"It's a Lady Human life.....
I want no part of it..."
......

Look into my eyes , folks!
And listen !
I'll tell you what a
Proud Dog's life is....

Horse Sense

My FB friend, and extremely versatile photographer Sanjeev Hirudayaraja lists this photograph clicked by him at the Lea Valley Riding Centre, London, as a absolute favourite.

These two must have been really preoccupied with worries about some important concerns in their lives,  to be unaware of someone creeping up close to click them.

I hear someone saying the  Z -word, which implies that you dont have to be in horse kicking distance, and can use Zoom.

I prefer to speculate about the worries troubling these two, that gets them so preoccupied with each other....

(photo by Sanjeev Hirudayaraja)   

And his folks said
"Smart, handsome
fair,
white,
race-course returned, 
super qualified.
tall equine catch,
seeks
beautiful,
very fair,
stable-loving,
slim, tall,
mare,
from a "cultured"
setup;
trainer no bar....."

But he met
an amazing golden filly,
who flew
like the wind
and cantered
alongside him after meals
sharing sugar cubes.

The two,
at the end
of a strenuous running day,
catching breaths together,
sharing the trauma,
so typical
in the world of bipeds today....

The insistence
and the misconception
by his folks
that
Fair is Lovely.

The Golden one
has just realized
that
someone must fight,
and that
Silence is never Golden....

Sometimes hunter, sometimes hunted....

My blog friend, one-time fellow competitor, cricket fanatic, trekker, innovative cook, photographer, and in his spare time, a financial advisor and planner, Dhiren Shah, recently went on a visit to Pirotan, an Arabian Sea area in the Marine National Park, Jamnagar District of Gujarat state (on India's west coast).

He was participating, in Anubhav , a marine camp with Anala Outdoors.   This was a camp for kids to learn about marine wildlife,  admire them, learn and have fun with them, and understand that they need not be afraid of any  denizen of the sea.  And that one must not provoke animals etc.

See all his pictures here and here.

Like in many other things, real life intervened, and the kids were also shown the  seafood industry  set ups.  Fishermen with the catch.  Lifeless fish heaps. They saw many of those, captured, dead, and prepared for export,packing and sale. 

One of those,  a post-life picture of a baby ribbon fish , possibly wondering about the use of the sharp teeth now,  and the expression in the eyes,  got the mind-wheels churning....

 P. S.  As you might have guessed, I am a pucca vegetarian....:-))

(photo by Dhiren Shah)

I move around
in oceans
minding my on business,
going
for long swim-treks
along
with friends,
taking great care
not to mess up
the
environment,
as we pass by
amazing coral reefs
and marine flora and fauna.

What amazes me
is when biped fellows
who come to enjoy the oceans
just like us,
get their kicks
out of
catching us,
asphyxiating us,
and then,
displaying us,
saying
"Good God ! Look at that !".....

That's what I was about to say,
when they caught me:
"Hey Bhagwan !
Will these guys ever realize,
that
should another
stronger civilization exist
and discover the earth,
this will
exactly be the look
on the faces of the bipeds
after being caught...."

The Perils of Abundance

FB  friend, and versatile photographer,  Anand Amembal, posted the wonderful photo , of what I thought, was a butterfly faced with a choice.  That of a limitless source of nectar . To be sucked , through a single proboscis, from what look to be plenty of tubules in the centre of the flower. 

And the thought occurred to me as to what a greedy homo sapien would have done under the same circumstances .

And thereby hangs a poem.....

(photograph by Anand Amembal)

Smitten by the brightness,
sensing the food,
she alights
on the flower,
spoilt for choice.

So many
tube like
nectar holders
and just
one proboscis
to suck it all in.

She daintily dips
into the one close by
and then a few,
the eyes
checking in surround-sight
for others
with similar intentions,
and
similar tiny brains.

Some big brained
evolved bipeds
similarly spoilt
for choice,
go berserk,
thoughtlessly imbibing
everything in sight,
greedy,
hankering,
wasteful, and
mindless of
their actual need.

The perils of abundance.

Small brains,
thoughtful decisions,

huge brains
thoughtless acts...

No wonder
the bipeds
get diabetes
and the butterflies don't......

Beauty Problems....

Blogger friend, trained scientist, photographer and fun person Anuradha Khanna Pentapalli was in Rajasthan recently, and managed to capture this beauty and posted it here.   

All beauties are famous and  are always commented upon and written about.

Ask Madhuri Dikshit or Angelina Jolie. Who, incidentally, are not a patch on this one.

There are two Kavita's mentioned here.  The first one that appears in the poem, is a blogger friend and dentist who practices in Guwahati, Assam, and has a wonderful travel and photo blog.

The second "kavita" mentioned herein, is a Marathi/Hindi word that means poem :-)).....

(photograph by Anuradha Khanna Pentapalli)

Fresh from
an application of Vita Oils,
she emerges
from the
Desert Dove
Indiblogger Camelia Meet.

Golden Hair
at the ears,
and at a shapely neck
smooth as silk,
glistening after a wash;
Winter moisture lotions,
whitening the
star visage,
yet a nose
reddening in the cold,
and she
looks up and far
into the desert,
to see if the dentist has arrived....

The Miss India types
sponsored by Camel Times,
said an expert
from Guwahati
who went by the name
Kavita
would come fix the teeth;

Instead,
I find strange folks from Mumbai
making Kavita on me ?

Magic creation and camouflaged minds....

A brilliant capture by blogger friend Magiceye, of an Oak Leaf Butterfly,  at the Ovalekar Butterfly Garden , on the outskirts, north-east  of Mumbai, and posted as part of the Mumbai Daily: Camera Critters series.  At first I thought it was a dried leaf, involuntary pushed along by the wind, blocked by a trash can .  And was soon amazed to know that it was an oak leaf butterfly,  thanks to its legs !    

Oakleaf Butterfly (Kallima inachus),is native to tropical Asia, India and Japan. With its wings closed it looks like a dried leaf with darkish veins.  While it displays drab woody colors on the outside , brilliant colors like blue and orange are visible when it opens it wings.

There is a native intelligence about when and where to behave like a leaf, and when to display its real colors, and an abiding respect  for the environment in which it thrives.

Which is more than I can say about some folks I read about in the papers......

(photograph by Deepak Amembal Magiceye)

So many
pretending to be
what they are not.

Crooks
pretending to be
saviours;
Mafia types
pretending to be saints;
Quacks
pretending to be doctors;
Water in Mumbai
pretending  to be potable;
Trash in Mumbai
pretending to be invisible.
All fail,
because
what they are
and what they strive to be
is not on the same
line and length.

And then there's
this butterfly,
so enamoured of
its own life
in the woods,
that
it pretends
inobtrusively,
to be a leaf
slowly flitting in the breeze,
one side stuck
amidst lines of the trash basket,
as it peers
and climbs the lines,
to see if any flowers
or rotting fruits
are inside....

The trick to being accepted
is never
money,
power,
or size.
It's about being one
with
those around
where you live.

A Chameleon's identity crisis....

A Chameleon,  taking a break from slithering around, in the leafy environs of Bandra, a suburb of Western Mumbai.  Blogger friend Magiceye, posted this photograph , of a chameleon, ( "surveying his kingdom" as he says), as part of his Mumbai Daily: Camera Critters series . 

And it occurs to some, that this little fellow can look so regal, while some other folks known to us, can change colors all they want, throw weight around, and yet , they still fall short....

(photograph by Deepak Amembal Magiceye)

Life for him
is a many splendoured,
many colored  thing.....
As he slithers
green
in an out
beyond the leaves;
sometimes 
a scratchy brown
in the muddy base of a tree,
and then again,
a cool dark
shining
gold-black-brown
doing a
Bhujangasan
resting on the bark.

He inhales,
and looks up,
gratefully,
surveying
what surrounds him.

And sees a world
full of
folks,
who
not only change colors
to suit the occasion,
they even change
what surrounds them
destroying the green
and the brown
and the flowing blue...

And he wonders
why he is called a chameleon....

A Bozoical Diwali.....:-(

Bozo, the only dog in Mumbai to have his own blog,  is upset. And in the highest traditions of the Mahatma,  he is following Maun Vrat( a vow of silence), and fasting to protest about something.  

Magiceye clicked this very evocative photo during our festival of Divali, which was recently celebrated. Unfortunately, in Mumbai, it is celebrated with massive and loud fireworks, at decibel levels that are hurtful to humans as well as dogs and cats, and possibly other animals too.

Dogs can hear many more frequencies that we can. And such loud stuff hurts, and stresses out dogs and can get them restless, frightened , quick tempered and unable to eat.  And they look for places to hide and chill out, till all the madness gets over. 

A peep into Bozo's mind ......

(photo by Deepak Amembal Magiceye)

I lie
on the cool floor
on tenterhooks and wonder.

First
the thunder evenings
at the monsoon end
that
make me shiver.

And then
this man made
Sound and Light show,
with more sound than light
at Diwali,
as I
squeeze
under the bed
to damp the noise
and the sudden glare.

And to think,
that in this
modern day and age
you can buy silence in Courts,
and get away with it
but
no amount of money
can buy silence
in the city.

A city,
crumbling
under the overload
of concrete, ambition,
money,lies and shame.

I guess most ruins
have Sound and Light shows.

Figures.

Hurt, not retired, and still batting....

This is a photograph  of a hurt and injured butterfly, clicked in the Sanjay Gandhi National park, Mumbai, by  blogger friend Magiceye, and posted as part of the Mumbai Daily : Saturday Photohunt " series.

Butterflies sometimes have "fake" eyes on their wings. They are actually a defense mechanism, a trick to divert the attention of the predator from the main body /head/trunk of the butterfly.   

It appears, that quite like what we observe in the real human world today, "goondas", or  predators have often started seeing through the opponents' or victims' strategies. And so this butterfly probably struggled, as it had its wing partially torn. 

A sad commentary on our world today....

(photograph by Deepak Amembal magiceye)

In today's world,
goondas prevail;

a lady bus commuter
has an
imitation gold
necklace snatched;
the thief returns
again
to berate
and
attack her
on her face:
how dare she cheat a thief !

So does a butterfly,
with false eyes
on dorsal wings,
designed to divert
the goonda insect's
attention
from the main body,
suffer a later
retribution
on the imitation eyes.

A torn wing
and a
scratched neck and face.
The butterfly and the lady
learn to flutter,
utter something,
and get on
with the business
of flitting
and living
in a sometimes cruel world.

Garbage in, garbage out....

The first time one heard the term "Garbage In, Garbage Out" , was when one worked in software projects. Turns out that the principle is more widely applicable in the real world....

In the beginning
of the world
there was garbage,
hissing
with methylated DNA's.

By leaps and bounds,
happened,
quadrupeds,
bipeds,
and
hypothalamised
cerebral cortexes
bursting,
with evolving abuse
for another biped..

Vicious expletives,
comparison with
female dogs,
rats,pigs
and wishing
a cursed stay
in a garbage pail...

She wondered
if pigs
call each other
rats
when angry,
or rats wish garbage on each other,
since humans did...

An ulcerated
bleeding
mind,
pock marked with abuse,
and
as she lay
breathing her last,
she willed
her body
to be donated
for research.

No false tears and
obituaries...
just a shameless
visage of
one who inspired the move.

A fine cutting up,
and a return
to garbage,
but enriching
some minds
and learning
in the bargain.


Enumerated as garbage,
treated like dirt
and now,
back to garbage........

And the pigs
dogs
and rats
look on,
at the humans,
and wonder
what happened to evolution....

Super Dogs and Duper Humans

My blogger friend Sylvia posted this photo on her blog.

While there is an entire dog clothes industry dedicated to making dog clothes, seasonal specials, fancy outfits and stuff, there is one basic difference between fellows wearing dalmation clothes and say, dogs wearing human clothes.

That occured to me, that is.

See below .....

He is quick,
he is brave,
he is loyal,
makes you feel royal....

Dressing like him
doesn't gift you with
these attributes,
as a
cunning,
money minded,
scheming,
power individual,
given
to showing
attitudes
and walking around
with chained animals....

Just as
dressing the
fellow
in superman costumes
will not make him
superman.

He never forgets
those who
pet him,
and theirs;
a loyal friend,
who listens
and nods,
and stands by you
at the end of the day.

Not just superman,
but super-hu-man......

Symian thoughts.....लंगूर विचार मंच

Outstanding photograph of a thoughtful langoor, at the Bandhavgarh National Park. Clicked by Prasad Paranjape of Pune . See many of his other wonderful photos here.

I've never seen any animal with such a human like thinking visage/expression.

It's not entirely impossible, that given the sort of scam news we are hearing day after day, about crooks and crooked folk, maybe the langoors are doing a rethink ?

(Like before, the original poem in the Kings language (marathi), and a rough translation in the Queen's)

(photo by Prasad Paranjape)

आम्ही पण
उंचावर वावरतो ,
दुसर्यांनी लावलेली फळे ओरबाडतो ,
आमची स्वतःची मुलं पोटाशी घालतो,
देशाच्या राना कोपर्यात
सोपा खाउ शोधत उंडारतो,
पण
आजकालचे
राजा, बच्चा , बावळा (नाहीतर बलवा ),
आणि इतर चोर लोकान बद्दल ऐकलं
कि वाटत
आपण लंगूर राहिलो तेच बर आहे ........

We too ,
wander
high up there,
enjoy,
grabbing fruits
on trees,
planted
and nurtured
by someone else....

We too,
blindly,
offer our kids
something to latch on to,
when
inability wins.....

We too,
ravish and loot
the country
end-to-end,
for
easy pickings
of treasures.......

Now that
I've heard
of theives
like
Raja,
Batcha,
and Bawla ***
(or is it Balwa, never mind),
I am just
relieved
that
I have remained,
in the end,
a langoor........

***Ministers and scamsters currently in jail for looting the country outrageously in an unending shameless telecommunication corruption scam.

Unrecycled Garbage

On reading this post by Kavi.

(Photo by Kavi)
Some hardy horses,
righteous donkeys,
and stubborn mules,
flashing
their knowledge
of living
in a world
overpopulated
by
asses of a different kind.



They peruse
and shuffle
through
the garbage
of the modern asses;
shaking their heads,
flicking a tail
at the fly
which tries
to whisper a secret
in the ear :

"These two legged asses
throw so much
in the bin,
when
they
should actually
be carrying it
themselves,
if they need it at all....

Dont they know,
that
Life,
is like Windows
without
Recycle Bin
and the
My Garbage
is iconic
on their
so called
progressive
desktop?"

Learning from flowers.....

A comment on this post about gardens where those colorful ones that delight the eyes, those simple ascetic types that enrich with their perfume, and what the garden has to say about it all....
(Photos courtsey: Kavi)



Those who cannot speak
learn to share
their best;
Riotous brilliant colors,
nodding petal heads
in agreement with
little jasmines,
whispering excitedly
hanging out in groups.
They have no limitations...

But we talking types,
blind seeing types,
fight on
about color,
and shape,
and size, and name.
We are so intelligent,
we never learn.
We are the mistakes.