The Latest (January 2011)

For long I have been using one of blogger's preset themes as my background. I felt it was high time I changed that and began using a photograph taken by me. So here I present to you the new theme of the blog. Besides the background change I have incorporated a few minor changes into to blog. There is an added option of sharing blog posts and rating them. Please feel free to tell me what you think.

Regards,

Mukund Palat Rao

New Poem: Carpe Diem

Carpe Diem

Here I am,

And I am running for I am late,

The sun has almost set, and I must reach my haunt in time,

I reach a bend by the stream and take my place,

The sky is a majestic eclectic mix of auburn, golden, red and blue hues,

And large ominous clouds have begun to appear in the sky,

Red on the eastern sunset end and dark on the other,

The sun is now barely visible through the trees,

It will be dark soon.

A herdswoman gathers her cattle behind me,

She clicks her tongue beckoning them to hasten,

But I continue to sit there impeding their path,

Some of them go quietly around me,

A calf looks at me curiously,

To my left on the branches of a dry semal tree the crows have gathered to roost,

Their chatter is cacophonic,

The calf comes closer and smells my jeans,

I do not wish that I scare her by moving,

She contemplates over whether it is edible or not,

And decides to have a try,

Denim isn’t quite her cup of tea,

It is bland and tasteless she decides,

She then loses her interest in me,

The herd has moved on and she hurries to join them.

There are a pair of red breasted king fisher hovering above the stream,

How about one more fish before a good night’s sleep?

The brahmini kites and eagles soar high in the sky,

The light is fast fading,

They have sharp vision,

But it might have become too dark for them to hunt prey today.

A laggard lone male calf still chews his grass behind me,

The herdswoman appears exasperated,

She races back with her stick,

Calling him,

Soon he’ll be a full grown bull,

Stately and regal,

Too strong for her to control,

She won’t be taking him on walks then,

And she’ll have to leave him behind in the barn.

An Imam commences his Salat-ul-maghrib namaz,

Calling the faithful to prayer,

His voice is lucid,

It doesn’t disturb me,

It is faint yet discernable,

In tune with the surroundings.

Twilight is fleeting,

Night is almost upon us,

A man comes cycling along the opposite bank,

Behind him paddy fields,

And the last of the Western Ghat mountains in the horizon,

Tall, imposing and commanding respect,

I watch his reflection,

As it cycles on and into the horizon,

Oblivious of me watching.

I get up now,

In five minutes it will be dark,

And I must return,

There is an aura of suspense in the air,

Powers beyond my control conspire causing night and darkness to befall.

I start walking,

Someone invites me into a temple,

I enter,

It is dedicated to snakes,

I pray to the idol,

‘May you help protect those to whom you have been dedicated to,

For they need you more than us’,

In the same vicinity some time back on the road I spotted a dead cobra,

It had been beaten and killed,

There was blood everywhere,

Its head had been smashed in,

May its soul rest in peace.

I break into a trot yet once again,

Through a road that was once a paddy field,

And now new houses have sprung up,

I too have contributed to it.

I overtake the herd of cows which had passed me,

They have left a trail of dung behind them,

In a village cow dung has a fresh earthy smell,

It is not as vile and disgusting as it is in a city,

Where it is full of plastic and half-digested waste,

I smile at the herdswoman,

And pat a cow as I move on.

Carpe diem,

Seize the day,

Or seize the moment,

A friend has oft told me,

But time, it flows past like a river,

How do I stop it?

Capture it or seize it?

The more I’ve tried the faster it has flown past,

Life is like a journey on a boat,

And I am rowing the boat down the stream of time.

Experienced boatmen will tell you,

You can never fight the river,

Just row along and enjoy it,

And that is your safest bet.

Mukund Palat Rao (January 14, 2010)

(Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera along with me today, so I've attached a few photographs I have at taken at the same place in the recent past)

 

A bit about me

A bit about me

I must start by wishing you a very happy new year.

Till now I have made a deliberate effort of not using the blog as a medium or format to air my personal views. I have always just posted my articles or poems and kept other everything else at a bare minimum. I do understand that most people wouldn't really care to read about the daily happenings of my rather mundane life.

If that is so please don't read further and skip this post and move on to the next one. The next post is my latest poem.

On the other hand if could bear to read a bit about my ramblings please continue. (Don't say I didn't warn you) I now present to you a list of my New Year resolutions. The reason I am doing this is because I feel that writing them down and presenting them to the world would be a good source of motivation for me to actually abide by them. It would always be there at the back of my mind that someone might turn around and ask me, 'Hey, Mukund. You had made these New Year resolutions right? Now half the year's is over. What have you done about them?'

Here I am presenting my resolutions in the order of importance.

1. Academics: I must confess that I really must start working harder. I'm not doing anywhere near what I'm capable of. While the first half of last year went really well, the summer semester wasn't quite as good. Besides that I really must start doing research on the colleges I need to apply to for my post-grad and start studying for the examinations.

2. The Blog: I have tried to keep the levels of updating of the blog in such a manner so that it doesn’t start getting classified as irritating spam mail that pops up ever-so often. I really cannot do too much to increase the frequency of posting because it is impossible to post something when you do not have anything to post.

I could however try and improve the quality of my posts. For that I would need your help. Please point out any errors that might have inadvertently crept into the post. Someone told me that they often noticed errors but felt it would be rude to point it out and leave it as a comment. To make things quite clear, I am fine with posts pointing out errors. Also I always have the liberty to delete the comment once the correction is made. So please feel free to comment. Apart from this I also request you to help spread the word. Please do so only if you like the blog and have friends who might like it too. (A simple way to help the cause would be to 'like' my facebook group and invite others to join it.)

3. Move beyond the past and forget regrets: The biggest regret of my life is the fact that I am not pursuing veterinary sciences as my undergrad degree. I might have a passion for saving the environment, besides worrying about climate change, pollution yada yada but my real love has always been animals, plants and insects. (Cats, dogs, snakes, butterflies, crocs, trees, flowers, grasshoppers in short everything.) Adolescence has always been a tough period of everyone's life and I guess it was the same case with me too. I made some stupid decisions then, but I must move beyond them and look ahead. Even if I might have lost the chance to be a vet, I could still study about animals and understand how they behave, their inter-relationships with the environment etc. I am still in the field of science (thankfully), and still have an opportunity to make the switch. I must do so.

4. Books: I have four books in the pipeline but just haven't found enough time in the recent past to give any of these projects justice. This year I must not let that happen. Even if no one reads them, at least I can be satisfied that I tried my best.

5. Improve my memory: I must tell you I am awful at remembering names of people. I can remember numbers, directions, facts but names, not at all. It is quite embarrassing to have to tell people, 'No I do not remember you.' Unfortunately whenever someone meets you after a long time the first question they ask is, 'Do you remember me?' Now I hate to lie, and the situation might just become worse if they ask the follow up question, 'What is my name and when did we meet before?' All you can do is give a silly lop-sided grin and hope they don't probe you too much.

6. Managing Finances: Recently someone asked me a question. 'How much do you spend in a month? 'Now all I could answer was an approximate amount. I really did not know exactly how much do I spent in a month. I am by no means a spend thrift, but it's always good to know how much you are spending.

(Approximate expenditure per month has withheld for privacy reasons)

7. Never trouble you (my reader) with information like this again: I cannot promise that won’t do this again in the future, but I can assure you that unless I feel there is some great necessity to publish posts such as these I shall refrain from doing so.

The last eleven months of blogging have been a truly wonderful experience. I look forward to many more in the future.

Thank you so much for bearing with me.

A very happy new year to you again!

--

All views expressed in every blog post are personal and not plagiarised. Due credits have been given at in all such instances where references have been made to works by others.

Poem: A tale from ‘man’s’ better half

A tale from ‘man’s’ better half

I walked in on one fine morn,

To a quiet café to gather my thoughts,

And there was a lady all forlorn,

Seated in a corner and alone,

I went there and sat beside her,

Offered her a coffee and a listening ear,

And a tissue to help her wipe her tears.

She seemed glad to have some company,

And looked straight into my eye,

And told me a story that made me cry.

‘It is very hard being a woman,

And harder still when you are also destitute,

I was brought up as an orphan,

And by my uncle was sold,

And forced to dance at a discotheque,

And each night appear as though I was quite in the mood,

Gyrate around a pole and satisfy male lust as though I was food .

I was loved,

But this was only with regards to my appearance,

My breasts, my face, my legs and hair.

About me as a person no one cared.

The looked at me as though I was play thing,

They were rude and nasty as though I was a lesser being,

And yet they said that the loved me dear.

This wasn’t what I was looking for,

I remember a long time ago when I was barely sixteen,

There was this boy and we were in love,

To him it was as though like me there were no other,

And he cared for me tenderly like a doting mother,

But we drifted apart and for long haven’t seen each other.

Fed up with life I ran away,

And was then spotted by an airlines company when I was on my way,

They said you are beautiful and we’d be honoured to have you,

Join our flights and be a hostess,

It’s a position of respect and honour,

And would well suit your calm demeanour.

I thought for once my life had changed,

But just when think so it remains the same,

Now here I am at this wonderful job,

Not much better than before I could add with a sob.

As a hostess at an aeroplane,

I apply so much make up that I look so very fair,

And when I look at a mirror I scarcely remember it’s me reflected there.

And the men, they are just the same as everywhere,

As I walk down the aisle they drop spoons to make me bend,

Stare at my arse and rate me out of ten.

Everyday I repeat please fasten your seatbelts,

Please turn off your phones,

And straighten you seats,

But these men so thick headed,

Whip out their phones,

Click photographs of me the moment I’m gone.

This is however not what makes me livid,

It is that they question my ‘Indian-ness’ that makes me sore,

Just because my eyes are slanted I’m called a cheap whore,

And these perverted men think these ideals make them Indian to the core.

This beauty is my curse,

And has brought me only suffering,

And however much you might want to escape,

This brings me my money,

My bread, butter and honey,

I have been condemned to this fate,

And I see no escape.

I know that you might try to understand,

And empathise,

But it is so hard to be a woman,

That I wonder if it’s worth it or should I end it all.’

Mukund Palat Rao (December 31, 2010)

(Note from the poet: The truth I feel cannot be sugar coated, and however much I might have not wanted to do this, the poem had to be written in a way which portrayed reality. )

My trip to Agumbe

The hostel is an eerie quiet with all most everyone having gone home for Diwali. With too many people around you are sucked into a kind of humdrum existence and it’s only once you’re alone does one have time to think and introspect. Here on one such day I present to you a travelogue of my trip to Agumbe.

I left here (college) late on the evening of Friday the 29^th of October accompanied by three of my friends. We boarded a local passenger train to a place called Palakkad (also known as Palghat or the Gateway to Kerala). Palakkad is the first major town in Kerala whilst entering it from Tamil Nadu and incidentally it’s a place I call home too (besides Delhi of course). After supper at Palakkad, we boarded the West Coast Express at the Palakkad Junction railway station and reached Mangalore Central Railway station early on Saturday morning (5:30 am). From there we caught a bus which took us to a town called Udupi which is situated about sixty kilometres to the north of Mangalore. Udupi is a town famous for its excellent South Indian food and especially, its sweet sambar. Unfortunately we could not partake in the luxury of a delicious breakfast at Udupi as we were pressed for time. After a quick bite we headed off to Agumbe.

To put things in a better perspective Agumbe is sixty kilometres from Udupi. After completing two thirds of the journey we crossed the village of Hebri and ascended into a very steep climb with a series of tight hair pin bends. On surviving three quarters of hour on the hilly road we finally reached the village of Agumbe. Upon reaching Agumbe we headed off to the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station (ARRS) base camp.(http://maps.google.co.in/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=107726479902280188831.000495433acb4d1b03288&ll=13.151702,75.333252&spn=1.136657,2.705383&z=9)

The ARRS was set up in 2005 by the renowned herpetologist Romulus Witaker. Agumbe is known for its high density or snakes and is also known by its apt sobriquet, ‘The Cherrapunji of the South’. On an average it records the second highest rainfall in India. Incidentally the filming for the famous tv series on the ‘Malgudi Days’ was done at Agumbe.

After a slight detour where I lead my friends astray, we finally reached the ARRS at around a half past eleven. We met a few of the researchers out there and understood what kind of research work is being undertaken at the centre. We learnt about the King Cobra telemetry project aimed at understanding the habits of Kings and how they are evolving in order to survive co-habitation with humans. A project to learn about burrowing habits of scorpions (how long they burrow, why they burrow etc). Besides these projects we also learnt and discussed about various other projects including, some studying the Seetanadi River, the amphibian bio-diversity, weather monitoring to understand the impacts of climate change et cetera.

We observed a project aimed at studying as to why Flying Lizards (Draco dussumieri) show FSSD (Female-Biased Sexual Skewed Dimorphism); i.e. females are larger than the males. This phenomenon is quite rare in lizard species. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draco_dussumieri). We spent a good three quarter of an hour with the researcher studying lizard behaviour by observing the habits of a courting lizard pair. We then went about exploring the base camp and searching for snakes around the base camp for a couple of hours; in the end all we found was just a Green Vine snake.

 

From the base camp we went to a waterfall called the Jog Gundi falls.  After spending five minutes there, our auto driver told us about another waterfall called the Onake Abbe falls (pronounced Onkebee). ‘Onake’ means a pounding stick which is used to pound grains in villages. The falls look like a thin stick falling from up above. Our auto driver warned us about a two and a half kilometre trek with an abundance of leeches. This warning just wasn’t enough to prepare us for what was to come, neither the leeches nor the sheer beauty of the waterfalls. Enduring the wrath of these blood sucking creatures was well worth it because of the sublime and picturesque sight from the top if the falls. Standing two feet away from the precipice with the whole valley below you gives you a feeling that nothing else can compare with. What we thought as five minutes of gazing into the valley below actually turned out to be an hour. That by far exceeded our original intention of spending a quarter of an hour at the falls.

By now it was five in the evening and we decided it was time to head back to the main road in order to reach the Sunset point in time for the sunset. Imagine a sunset at the highest point on a mountain with a sun setting into the sea (Arabian Sea) at the horizon. Below you are forests as far as the eye can see and the sky is dotted with approaching clouds; a harbinger of rain later in the evening. The sun looks a majestic red orb and its rays are interspersed with the clouds painting the sky like a work of art that can be equalled by none. Such was the sunset at Agumbe.

It broke my heart to leave, but my friends at friends at Manipal awaited my arrival and so the departure had to be made. I left with a promise that someday I’d be back at Agumbe maybe working at the ARRS on a research project (a butterfly biodiversity or a snake mapping project perhaps). Until that day comes I must remain content dreaming about the majestic Agumbe sunset I once saw.

For the photographs of this visit please visit http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=302861&id=653528713&l=2fe05cf61a

  

P.S: As a child after every school trip or journey out of town, my parents always told me, ‘Son, please do write a report on your most recent travel/expedition.’ As any dutiful son would do, I quite wilfully disobeyed them. So here I am with my first write up about a trip which has not been forced upon me. To my parents I could add, ’It’s okay, some children just learn late.'

P.P.S You could click on the photographs to get a better look at them. Except one photograph none of the pictures below were taken on this trip. To have a look at the photographs taken on this trip please click on the above mentioned link. 

A common ground yellow

A tiger

All photographs courtesy Mukund P Rao

Poem: A Secret Enigma

A Secret Enigma

There are secrets behind everything,
Every face and every smile,
Each action of yours or mine,
Secrets, they shroud each and every thing.

As I look into that damsel’s eyes,
There lies a secret behind why last night she cried,
And now when I turn to look at a friend of mine,
There is a story behind that long drawn sigh.

As I gaze upon the mountains tall,
There is a story and secret as to why they’re there,
And buried under them are fossils from a sea long dead,
To unravel it be inquisitive,
And enquire how, why, when and where?

There is a secret behind why she’s a troublesome child,
An abusive father,
Or an absent mother?
There are always secrets,
And secrets explain everything.

There is a secret behind everything,
The world and why it was created amongst other things,
Does God exist or does She not?
Is there a pattern behind our flow of thoughts?

The intricacies in the web of life,
What holds it up and keeps it alive?
Does the universe hold planets just like earth,
Or are they so plentiful that there is no dearth?

Some secrets are meant for hiding,
While some are shared between a you and me,
Some secrets remain because there is no proof,
And no one has cared to uncover the truth.

But secrets are meant for keeping,
As long as it’s good they do,
And after all, secrets are secrets,
What fun would it be if everyone knew?

Mukund Palat Rao (November 11, 2010)

Poem: A day in Dehlee

The Red Fort

A day in Dehlee

Dehlee’s joggers are the first to wake,
Running past old tombs maybe at the Hauz Khaz Lake,
Then cometh the sabzi wallahs on their ponies or hand drawn carts,
Aaloo bees rupaiya kilo, bhindi chowbeez rupaiya,
Not too far behind is the fruit man,
Kele, angoor, santre aur aam.

Still later when by the watch it’s ten,
‘KABAADIWALEEY’ is the cry you’ll hear,
Every day these men cycle up and down,
Help recycle all the newspaper waste in town.
After this when the time is noon,
You might hear a faint twang, twang, twang,
Signalling the arrival of the mattress man,
Playing upon his Jew’s Harp,
He’ll open up your mattress and fluff it up.


Taaze taaze phalse,
Thande meethe phalse,
Shrieks the hoarse voice of a white turbaned man,
While behind him you might hear,
A strange dhun played on the been,
O! Just hear them come, the snake charmers,
They bring with them scorpions and cobras,
That’ll amuse your children.

Maybe instead of the charmers might come the dancers,
With their bears and monkeys,
To the sound of the dumaroo,
They’ll do their little jig and jump through hoops.

Sometimes they come,
The Saadhus and the Sufi mystics,
Once came a man and an owl, with prophetic messages,
Said they descended from the misty Hindu Kush,
As he sat in the bazaar in a meditative trance,
Answering your queries about your future or finance.

Oh! And how may you forget the dhobiwalas,
They are the secret to Delhi’s clean clothes,
Those shirts’ and salwars’ prefect crease,
Are a result of paying the Dhobi-boy’s fees.

By now it’s evening,
The camembert Delhi sun is now a big red orb,
Your neighbours might come over for a cup of chai,
While you sit and rest upon your charpoy.

The moon has risen, and the sun has set,
But the chowkidar isn’t ready to sleep just yet,
Tuk, Tuk bangs his stick on the pavement,
Ready to warn passing thieves of his guarding commitment.
With every passing hour he grows dreary,
And chowkidari till six a.m had makes him quite weary.
But now again they do rise through the thick mist and fog,
The runners on their early morning jog.

The whole rigmarole begins once again,
And as it has now for centuries past,
Every hour brings with it a different visitor,
And you can be quite content just being a spectator.

This is Delhi,
(Yeh Dilli hai),
Aur yeh sheher nahi yeh mehafil hai,
Every day the play repeats itself once again,
The characters may change but the script’s the same. 

Mukund Palat Rao (October 17, 2010)

                                                                 

LEFT: The Safdarjung Tomb   (Safdarjang ka Maqbara)    RIGHT: The Qutab Minar

The Rashtrapati Bhavan

The ruins near the Hauz Khaz Lake

The Jama Masjid

There is a feeling that the nouveau rich Delhi population no longer cares for the old ways. But well sigh..

Maybe it was all part of the play script written with Delhi as the protagonist and all the transformations that she has undergone. The poem is an expression of some of the reasons why I love Delhi.

P.S: All photos courtesy Mukund P Rao