A rather noisy little bird-a long loud trill, for a bird of its size it is quite a surprise-that seems to find it difficult to sit still and is cheerful all the way, just about manage to photograph this one!. This bird prefers heavy forests on the hills with bit of open space around wherein it hunts on insects, doing the characteristic acrobats that flycatchers are known for. Quite an experience to track this one. The above is resident race of Eastern Ghats; the Western Ghats race is much brighter. Apologies for the pictures…this is the best I could manage after chasing the bird for half an hour or so!.....well that was then now i got some new and spectacular pics so i am replacing the above!!
And then there was Toru Dutt
But not because of its magnificence
Dear is the Casuarina to my soul:
Beneath it we have played; though years may roll,
O sweet companions, loved with love intense,
For your sakes, shall the tree be ever dear.
Blent with your images, it shall arise
In memory, till the hot tears blind mine eyes!
What is that dirge-like murmur that I hear
Like the sea breaking on a shingle-beach?
It is the tree’s lament, an eerie speech,
That haply to the unknown land may reach
(from Our Casuarina Tree)
While reading about Derozio i came across a beautiful being named Toru Dutt. Toru Dutt (1856-1877) was born in Calcutta, now thankfully Kolkata...i like that Bengali twang in the way it is pronounced. Unfortunately the colonial Britishers found it arduous to their tongue-a Malayali would say “naak vadikathenta kozhapam ma saipe!”, a name of the place carries lot about not only the language but also socio-cultural heritage. This should have been one of the earliest steps that should have been taken when India got independence, the place should be called what the common people have been calling all these centuries and still do. But Indian elite seem to be just carrying on where the British left even now the laws and policies are archaic and nobody seemed much bothered, though it leads to serious injustices but some people are concerned about their immediate gains. This section though would do their best to get their accent of French words in English right!. Pity these people.
Toru Dutt’s first published article was on Derozio, it came out in The Bengal Magazine in 1874 when she was just 18 years old
. She did some translation from French too, Ancient ballads and Legend of Hindustan (available at gutenberg.org) was published posthumously. Toru Dutt died of tuberculosis when she was just twenty one. Thinking of Derozio, Toru Dutt...all these beautiful people dying so young, it pains me, think how much beautiful they might have made the world with their presence, what a terrible loss. And what we have is crude people living longer (ten or twenty years more of manipulation crude woman?. I sincerely hope it is much lesser), i sometimes think that a code of self destruction has entered human genes. They create systems where it is the crudest who thrive, at an individual level it is very much Darwinian, survival the crudest- take the political system, economic system, entertainment etc. At every level it gets crass with very few and rare exceptions. Decency, propriety, restrain are minor causalities. But humans are only a minor part in a bigger system and these grand human conceptions don’t seem to match up to the subtleties of life and living-also referred to as ecosystem. It isn’t therefore surprising that the more humans succeed more they destroy more they are in peril. Clearly therefore humans are thriving on self destruction. Earth needs to balance, life blossom in diversity and so if Homo sapiens reach a destruction point do you think life-nature-will stand watching its own decimation. It will see humans as threat, and so the seeds of destruction are sown to eliminate this threat.Toru Dutt was one such beautiful human who left early we now do have medicines to defeat diseases like tuberculosis (thanks to some brilliant scientists), the threat is now ethical-moral. Diseases and challenges (like say issues related to global warming) now have its origin in loosening ethical framework. It’s about greed, aggrandisement, complacency etc. Though the political system like democracy has given people unbridled choices on thoughts, market choices on products, entertainment choices through latest gadgets but all these choices are hinged on a very important parameter called ethics. Without ethics humans are going the Dodo way. And please don’t try to save the earth!.
This a poem by Toru Dutt i read in a book, it made me nostalgic firstly because it is about storytelling and secondly anything to do with stories from Indian mythology like Ramayana or Mahabharata very much reminds me of my childhood when everyday was a story from mythology. “What happen to Sita?” “How cruel that Ravana” “the fun of hanumana; heard about Kumbakaran?” “Pandavas and their adventure”...few decades back life really was quite different. I surely am getting quite old.
Sita
Three happy children in a darkened room!
What do they gaze on with wide open eyes?
A dense, dense forest, where no sunbeam pries,
and in its centre a cleared spot.-There bloom
gigantic flowers on creepers that embrace
tall trees; there, in a quiet lucid lake
the white swans glide; there ‘whirring from the brake’
the peacock springs; there, herd of wild deer race;
there patches gleam with yellow waving grain;
there, blue smoke from strange altars rises light,
there, dwells in peace the poet-anchorite.
But who is this fair lady? Not in vain
she weeps.-for lo! At every tear she sheds
tears from three pairs of young eyes fall amain,
and bowed in sorrow are three young heads.
It is an old, old story, and the lay
which has evoked sad Sita from the past
is by a mother sung...’Tis hushed at last
and melts the picture from their sight away,
yet shall they dream of it until the day!
When shall those children by their mother’s side
gather, ah me! as erst at eventide?
Beautiful but bit in line with 19th century English poems ‘esrt at eventide’ means ‘as of old at evening’. When young people die it is much sad but when young sensitive and talented humans like Derozio or Toru died i cannot really fathom the loss of people around them, it must have been devastating. I can feel that even now. Toru Dutt is a precious find.
I recall when in my primary school (third Std, in Delhi) there was this girl who used to sit in my front row, who used to write poems...must been one of those precocious types i guess, one day she didn’t come next day we were asked to stand in silence for few minutes because the girl died in an accident. It did affect me quite significantly that one. I even now recall some of the images she created through her poems, though i very vaguely recall her face except that she never tied her hair. I had ideas about death much before that. Indeed i knew about infinite, when i was in first standard (in Jabalpur) i used walk and try retrace my steps to check whether time also moves back!. Other experiments included spitting and spitting to see when the spit will end!!.
A scribble...
River
Something strange is exuding
from the depth of the river
Is it sludge collected over the years?
Must be the soul of the river
spreading under the ground
over the banks into the street
it makes swish noise under the shoe
shwak shwak shwak
I must be imagining.
