A Carnatic Krithi, A Rock Classic

In which the title of the post is a con

Brachevarevarura

Seeing as there was a Facebook meme going on a couple of days back about this subject, this may be relevant.

Not for the weak of stomach. The essay describes how a "surgeon" removed a tumor from Abigail "Nabby" Adams' breast in 1811, without the use of anesthesia. You have been warned. Thanks to Orac for the link. This is how it was done.

Warren then straddled Nabby's knees, leaned over her semi-reclined body, and went to work. He took the two-pronged fork and thrust it deep into the breast. With his left hand, he held onto the fork and raised up on it, lifting the breast from the chest wall. He reached over for the large razor and started slicing into the base of the breast, moving from the middle of her chest toward her left side. When the breast was completely severed, Warren lifted it away from Nabby's chest with the fork. But the tumor was larger and more widespread then he had anticipated. Hard knots of tumor could be felt in the lymph nodes under her left arm. He razored in there as well and pulled out nodes and tumor. Nabby grimaced and groaned, flinching and twisting in the chair, with blood staining her dress and Warren's shirt and pants. Her hair matted in sweat. Abigail, William, and Caroline turned away from the gruesome struggle. To stop the bleeding, Warren pulled a red-hot spatula from the oven and applied it several times to the wound, cauterizing the worst bleeding points. With each touch, steamy wisps of smoke hissed into the air and filled the room with the distinct smell of burning flesh. Warren then sutured the wounds, bandaged them, stepped back from Nabby, and mercifully told her that it was over. The whole procedure had taken less than twenty-five minutes, but it took more than an hour to dress the wounds. Abigail and Caroline then went to the surgical chair and helped Nabby pull her dress back over her left shoulder as modesty demanded. The four surgeons remained astonished that she had endured pain so stoically.

What an unbelievable woman she must've been! Must've got her genes from mum (Apparently the first recorded use of "Mere paas maa hai." is from this era.) Abigail Adams (the mother, the daughter was named for her) was a major intellectual studmuffin. When her husband John Adams, later to be the second president of the newly formed United States, was part of the Continental Congress, trying to cobble together a constitutional form of government, she wrote him:

"...remember the ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.

And on slavery she

...explained that she doubted most of the Virginians had such "passion for Liberty" as they claimed they did, since they "deprive[d] their fellow Creatures" of freedom.

Respect.

Tern, Tern, Tern

The Arctic tern undertakes a "colossal" (where colossus = 70,000 k.m.) journey every year from Greenland to the Weddell Sea. Scientist type fellows fitted the birdie type fellows with little tracking devices. Surprisingly, the devices don't work off of GPS or other such sat nav technologies. Instead

The devices record light intensity. This gives an estimate of the local day length, and the times of sunrise and sunset; and from this information it is possible to work out a geographical position of the birds.

Bridges, Historiography, Patriotism and Politics

Where we proudly call ourselves a civil engineer, make some observations on historiography, comment on the last refuge of the scoundrel, and take a swipe at Our American Cousins

On the lines of the colourblindness confession, here's another one. We got a couple of degrees in civil engineering, and we have to admit that secretly and not-so-secretly, we're rather proud of ye olde profession. The heart leaps up with joy unbounded at the sight of buildings, roads, bridges, tunnels, dams, airports, railway stations, and so on. Large construction sites tend to cause a distinct uplifting of spirit. Something like this is a positive cause for bursting into song.

Blast furnaces, cooling towers, Bessemer converters are all poetic. There, we've said it once if we've said it once. Or whatever. (The other thing that sets one off is a gorgeous looking warship, but be that as it may...)

Some weeks back, we went on a birding trip to the AP Police Academy, and after having stumbled through the undergrowth for a couple of hours, we found ourselves at the edge of the campus, where that well known topological paradox, the Outer Ring Road cuts through. (Paradox: All plots in Hyderabad, nay South Central India, are within 2 km of ORR, if you believe the adverts.)

Of course, suitable horror was expressed at Man's depredation, the sullying of pristine nature and so on. But this was somewhat offset by the sight of earth movers and hard hats at work on the permanent way. The best photo from that trip follows. And its not just us, others were seen clicking away, possibly in appreciation only!

Which lets us segue into 18 stunning bridges. Molto fantastico. Check out the water-on-water bridge. Poetry only. There's that word again.

And although we are long sundered from bending moments and serendipity elements, we well up with emotion once in a while, and this will hopefully help us win the New Hampshire primary.

Martin R, over at Aardvarcheology has written a pertinent piece on history and proto-history. Several points he makes rang true, and deserves to be quoted at length.

A really good historical source is coeval with the events it describes, or it may even form a part of those events, such as in the case of a land deed. It is written by a knowledgeable participant in the events, one who is not strongly politically biased or whose bias is at least known. And any statement in a good historical source is ideally corroborated by other independent good historical sources.
...
But before the historical period...there is usually a proto-historical era: one for which there are only few and bad sources, often quite extremely bad ones. Typically, proto-historical sources are written centuries after the fact by political propagandists, and there exists no corroborating historical evidence.

Proto-history offers a powerful lure to all students of the past: oh, how we all wish that we could somehow dig good historical knowledge out of those crap sources!
...
Those texts must be treated like fairytales, because they most likely are and there is no way of finding out if they aren't.

Everywhere on earth, the proto-historical sources that appear to stretch the farthest inte the past are usually genealogies, often royal ones. "Lo, King Freddie reigned for 253 years and begat King Ronnie who smote the Fellatians and reigned for 346 years and begat King Reginald who reigned for 123 years and begat King Humpty" etc. At the head of the list is usually a god who acts as mythical ancestor of whoever is king at the time when the genealogy is compiled.

Indian history is also full of king lists which seem to be of the most dubious authenticity. When there appears to be no corroborating material evidence (written records of such mundane things as taxes, revenue, treaties, inscriptions, etc; coinage, other artifacts), it's a bit preposterous to think that the king lists/puraaNas whatever need to be given any credibility. Back to Martin...

As historical scholarship has improved, one area after another on Earth has lost its proto-historical innocence and relegated the king lists to a position as sources on the royal propaganda of far later ages than they purport to treat. But this process isn't complete yet. A good paper...shows that China is finally beginning the necessary reevalutation. This is a painful process, as the current Chinese elite quite likes the idea of unbroken historical continuity way back into the Bronze Age.

Parallels with some of the Hindu revivalist types who seem to be able to back calculate from Narendra Modi to Nala, Nakula and Nahusha? A word of caution for us, we think. [A good separate post for the choultry or elsewhere would be the the Top 10 Myths About History Cherished By Indians, including such pfaff as the definitive authorship of the Arthashaastra, "Vedic" mathematics, "India" never invaded any country (Go Cho!) and so on.]

We have written about popular historiography and engineering before.

If history has made an appearance, can patriotism be far behind?

Gotcha.

The New England Patriots are apparently playing as though they are lving a dream. They didn't lose a game in their perfect season. This has been done once before by the Miami Dolphins, in 1972, but they had only 14(?) games then. If all goes well, they will win 3 more and duly pocket the Superbowl. They ought to. For those not in the know, the Pats this year are somewhat like the Australian team. Clinical in winning, with accusations of ( videotaping opposing coach's signals) and unsportsmanlike conduct (running up the score, or doing unto Washington what Achilles did to Hector or Dushasana(?) to Abhimanyu(?). Ludwig is a Macaulayite, he knows his Greek myth better than his Indian "history", and look at all that stuff he wrote about Indian history).

Who cares? Go Pats!

Politics.

Reporter to passerby: "Sir, sir. Why is it that more Americans don't participate in the electoral process, is it ignorance or apathy?"
Passerby: "I don't know and I don't care."

MIT Open Course Ware

More techie stuff never hurt anyone

MIT has gone a put tons of their course material online and available for free download as part of the Open Course Ware (OCW) initiative. You can download course material from pretty much all the departments at MIT. And this doesn't mean that only the geeks need to go into spasms of ecstasy, material from the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences grouping are also available. So if the Music of India floats your boat, feel free to download the ZIP file and unleash.

Hat tip to Abi for the reminder about OCW. He has a post pointing to several seemingly fundastic video lectures in physics.

Note to self: Switch to unlimited download broadband plan.

P.S.: Yesterday was a very, very good day for sit-in-balcony birding. We saw red-vented bulbuls, pesky babblers, koels, golden orioles, what must've been purple sunbirds (but didn't look so), scaly breasted munias, green bee-eaters, ashy prinias, pestilential quantities of pigeons, a white-browed wagtail, 1 nos. saada drongo, tons of pigeons, and the odd parakeet. And these two birdbrains were back at their usual adda.

Hornbills and Syntex tanks: A Juxtaposition
We even have a video (11MB) of eldritch hornbill hooting away. It's very blurry and unclear and all, but right at the end you can see a blur as birdie launched itself from tank. Check out (our first video!).

"Birdie birdie kee gal hai?" said Sardarji.

To which the bird replied "Praaji, praaji sea gull hai!"

First, check this out (you will need Macromedia Flash). You are given a glass box full of mice. Each mouse is on a different recreational drug (marijuana, heroin, cocaine, Ecstasy, alcohol, methamphetamine, LSD). Choose your mouse and drop it in the chair. Said rodent is duly conveyed to a box, and a nice voice will explain exactly how these different drugs affect our nervous system. Priceless.

Local events heads up.

The Hyderabad Half Marathon/10k is on Sunday. We've run this in 2005 and 2006, and it was mostly fun.

Bird Race

HSBC HYDERABAD BIRD RACE

Sunday - 2^nd December 2007

Dear Member

You will be glad to know that HSBC is sponsoring the “BIRD RACE” again this year in Hyderabad. For the information of members who have joined our society recently, BSAP had organized and conducted the Bird Race last November which was a great success. We are confident that with your continued support we should be able to make the race this year also a greater success.

The rules of the race in a nutshell are: Participants have to bring their own cars and each car will have four to five persons and this will form a Team. We can even consider two motorbikes with four riders as a team. If you do not have a car and want to participate – absolutely no problem! We have enough seats for you in the cars that are participating.

Each car will have a CAPTAIN who will be familiar with the geography of Hyderabad and its environs and also be reasonably knowledgeable in bird identification. For first timers who are not familiar with birds but still want to have lots of fun, again no problem – we can provide Captains from amongst our members. And remember – this race is not only for BSAP members but open to all. So get your friends, young and old, school children, et al.

The cars will be flagged off early in the morning and report back at sunset, that is almost 12 hours of birding. Each car will be given a Log Book containing a list of birds found in our region as also names of places and locations that you can visit. You are however free to go wherever you want, as long as you keep within a radius of about 50 – 60 kms around Hyderabad. You have to tick mark all the bird species that you see and where you saw it. The logbooks have to be surrendered to the judges in the evening for their scrutiny. The criterion is that you try and record as many bird species as possible to win the first prize. There will be prizes also like Bird of the Day, Dip of the Day, etc.

We ofcourse expect total honesty and integrity of the participants. Despite the rules, the main purpose is to have loads of fun.

PROGRAMME

• Cars with the Captain and Team members to report at 6:00 am sharp on Sunday, 2.12.2007, in front of the Hyderabad Public School, Begumpet Main road, next to the foot overbridge.


• Each car will be given a sticker with a bird name. This has to be stuck prominently on the left upper corner of the front windshield glass.


• There will be a briefing of the rules and each car will be given a Log Book and breakfast hampers and all will be flagged off together at 6:30 am.


• There is no entry fee. You have to carry your own lunch, water and snacks, including binoculars and field guides. As usual we advise you to wear dull colored clothing good walking shoes and a cap.


• You can visit as many places as you can – the more the better. We have also listed a few prominent places in the Log Book for your convenience.


• The cars must return latest by 6:30 pm and the Captains have to submit the Log Books to the organizers at Secunderabad Sailing Club, situated on the banks of the Hussiansagar Lake, at the end of the Tankbund on the Secunderabad side. Refreshments will be served on arrival, which you will need badly, anyway! Please note that Teams submitting their Log Books after 6:30 pm are liable to be disqualified. So, give enough margins for traffic jams and we suggest you target to reach the club by 6:00 pm.


• The function will start by about 7:30 pm. There would be a few talks by the organizers to kick off the get-together and may be a short speech by the Chief Guest. All Captains will also be required to speak for a few minutes each, recounting the team’s experience for the day. We expect you to make this as lively and funny as possible! This will be followed by prize distribution and DINNER for all the participants.

We do hope the above is clear. Please rush and register your names for this wonderful event. The last date for receiving the entries is 24.11.07.

You can give your names to the following members. Mention whether with car, without car, want a captain, etc. Any question feel free to ask.

         Siraj - 32936937.
         Sushil - 9393319333

Hope to see you all in large numbers and make this event a huge success.

BSAP Organising Committee
15^th November 2007

Nature and Civilization - A Juxtaposition

Nature (birdie) and Civilization (plastic tank) - A Juxtaposition

Date: 23 August 2007
Time: 10:00 a.m. IST
Location: Balcony, chez Ludwig, Begumpet, Hyderabad, India
Camera: Canon Powershot S45





And you thought Hyderabad was only good for biryanis...

There Be PJs Here

In which the insanity resumes with a PJ

Captain John Foster of Her Majesty's 21st Engineering Regiment was a troubled man. Newly arrived in the tropics, all manners of ailments beset him. The moment he had stepped off the decks of the P&O steamer in Bombay, this vile country with its heat, sweat, crowds and insects seemed to have begun executing a personal vendetta.

When the regiment was posted to Bangalore, the old timers heaved a sigh of relief. There would be polo, and pig-sticking, and chances of being transferred to fight the Jezails or the Dogras were remote. Besides, the weather would be blessedly English.

Unfortunately for Capt. Foster, his woes did not end. Directly he had arrived in the cantonment, and some enterprising colonel had discovered his special talent for earthworks. Foster was assigned a team of coolies and told to get busy and start building the embankment for the new railway station.

Now they were almost done. Most of the embankment was complete and there remained one last bit where the surface needed leveling. They had to be done by sunset, and the evening shadows were beginning to gather around them. Those strange tropical birds were creating pandemonium in the fig trees, and Foster was beginning to feel the need of a bath and a sundowner at the club.

The problem was that the labourer in charge of this last bit was insanely slow. He would shuffle off to pit from where they were digging, root around listlessly for a bit, and come back with a pitiful basket of earth. No amount of staring or fulminating seemed to make a difference. Perhaps he didn't understand the urgency.

Perhaps he didn't understand English. Shortly after this thought occurred, Foster began to cast about for ways to make his point. Foster was rather taken with his own linguistic abilities. In Bombay, he'd managed to pick up a smidgen of Marathi and Hindi, and he could confidently venture into the fleshpots.

But this was a completely new language, and he hadn't (yet) found an opportunity to test his skills. The time had come. What was that fellow's name again? Ah... He wandered over to the pit. The coolie appeared to be poking at the ground with a shovel, apparently he was trying to tickle Mother Earth.

"Hey! Krishna! Nee begane burrow!!", said Capt. Foster.

Curiously enough, an eminent Haridasa was taking his evening constitutional close at hand.

---

Ah. That is so much better than senti claptrap. A few other points. This last Saturday, in Hussain Sagar, we saw coots, purple swamphens, black-winged stilts (or so we think), and pheasant-tailed jacanas. Do the rains have anything to do with this? Lots of baby birds as well, blundering around the reed bed.

[Aside: There must be a song to the tune of mere pyaar ka ras zaraa chakhna from Bade Miyan Chhote Miyan, which we can create with "jacana", no?

apne poonch ko thoda oopar rakhna
oh jacana! oh jacana!!
mere paas waali machhli ko chakhna
oh jacana! oh jacana!!

Scope are there, we feel.]

Ah well. Vijay Cavale's excellent IndiaBirds as usual has much better pictures of said coots, swamphens, stilts, and makhnas.

Another point to be noted is that as of this morning, we are utterly thrilled to report the return of the Jedi.

---

What do you call a medium-sized, colourful, passerine bird with a bladder control problem?

PJ

Har har de har.

Bole Re Wagtailuva

In which Ludwig takes pictures and rambles on again about the rain in Begumpet

Summer has been beating down upon us with her usual diligence and fervour. However, the last three days have been unusual. The mornings have been pregnant with expectancy, the afternoons hot and muggy, the evenings windy and leaden-skied. Yes, against all odds, it has been raining (drizzling, anyway) in Begumpet. Wednesday and Thursday weren't very great productions, a lot of wind reeling drunkenly hither and thither, fatal hoardings, but very little by way of precipitation.

But today, finally, the weather decided that it had had enough of the thillana variety stunts and tried to settle down for a proper katcheri. A hush descended over all the land, there was no wind to speak of, the setting sun turned syrupy golden.


And then, quietly, it started to rain. As showers go, it wasn't much to speak of. Garden sprinkler variety output. But it did leave everything wet, and green, and squelchy, which is always good.


We whipped out the trusty Powershot S45 and started clicking like there's no tomorrow. The lights went out, and mercifully put an end to all the lingering air conditioners. Quite appropriately, the laptop launched into bole re papiihara (YouTube, you can find the full audio and lyrics here). Who are we to argue with Fate? We lined up a bunch of "rain" songs and let fly (1).

The kids from the building were playing galli cricket downstairs, and their easy Hyderabadi admonitions floated upstairs, "What re, vy your dooing li' that li' that?", "Notredee-notredee-notredeeeee! Rrrredeeee!!!" . Presently, it stopped drizzling, so we hauled ourself onto the roof to see what was to be seen.


Per usual, the cupolas of our local Kremlin, the Hyderabad Public School, gleamed creamily in the distance. The grotesque new foot overbridge butted its way into our picture, and someone seems to have spilt a palette of watercolours on the sky. After some time, this fellow came fluttering by and with what seemed like visible relief, perched on a handy construction rod.


It was quite tired, wet, and frazzled. It sat morosely there for a bit, incessantly wagging its tail and shaking out the droplets from its fuzzy breast. Eventually, it decided that enough was enough, and let out a few experimental trills. Having discovered to its apparent astonishment that all was in working order, it flitted off towards Hussain to catch the passing 1021 Dn Konark Express, itself all wet and gleaming liveried. It seems like it was this, but alack, we were too busy trying to photograph to notice whether the supercilium was supercilious enough and so on...


And then, the lighting of the lamps...

---

1. There are so many of them...

• bole re papiihara perennial favourite in miyaan ki malhaar
• kahaan se aaye badraa from Chashm-e-baddoor, which we don't listen to as often as we should
• ghir ghir aaye badariyaa kaari, from Sardari Begum, a relatively orthodox rain song
• rim jhim gire saawan (YouTube) from Manzil, of course, even if it isn't (is it?) a rain raagam. Visually, we like the one which Lata Mangeshkar sings, with Amitabh Bachhan and Moushimi Chatterjee wandering through the rain in a stunningly pretty Bombay. For a number with no "skin show", it is stunningly erotic, blows your mind away.
• ek bas tuu hi nahin, a Farhat Shehzaad poem set to miyaan ki malhaar and sung by Mehdi Hasan. Not a raing song, per se, but love this one, because it taught us to (sort of) identify miyaan ki m..

Sadly, we've skipped (PARENTAL DISCRETION ADVISED) this classic and this one, which were...umm...influential...in our formative years.

Odissi Odyssey

In which Ludwig descries aquatic loblollies gamboling in the distance, and reflects upon entering dotage

Sankranthi in the Circars is the time when Ludwig's family hosts and dutifully accompanies migratory friends and relatives on a tour of the Kalinga country. Hitherto, this perambulation was restricted to the fleshpots of Bhubaneswar, Puri and Konark. In 2007, however, we did things differently. Follow closely. Ooh and aah at the photographs in a suitably coy manner.

Per usual, the party found itself cautiously detraining from East Coast Express at Bhubaneswar station, early in the morning. Quite precipitately, we allowed ourselves to be conned into being driven around town by the very first cabbie we found. Not sure what the deal with Oriya cuisine is, but when we asked to be taken to a good local place for breakfast, we were led to a somewhat seedy 'Udipi' joint. Regardless, dosais were polished off, coffees were gulped down, etceteras were etceteraed (i.e. the unspeakables) and off we went. First whistle stop, the caves of Udayagiri and Khandagiri.

Udayagiri from Khandagiri

We leapt like gazelles (not) from rock to rock, and frolicked amongst the age old ruins for a while, before heading out to the temple district. First up, the amazingly stupendous Lingaraj temple. It is quite a piece of work, no one in this day and age could pull off something like this. We wandered around the courtyard, and gawked at the gopurams, while successfully fighting off a horde of pandas who pluck at your elbow in that annoying manner (ref: Jerry Seinfeld's uncle). Alas, they don't allow cameras on the premises, ergo we did the next best (possibly even better thing). Scooted over to the Brahmeswar temple, which is a smaller scale Lingaraj type thingy. Only, much cleaner quieter, and altogether more hangoutable.

Brahmeswar Temple

Next stop, Dhauli. This is apparently where "the Kalingas were completely massacred by Ashoka" (If you can, trying saying this as "Unit Vector" would've done in his class. If you have no idea what we're referring to, move on.) There's a Japanese built stupa on the hill, and at the bottom, some vandal named Ashoka had scratched some stuff onto a rock. The Archeological Survey of India (ASI) has helpfully not provided any translations. Soon, it was too hot, and we were almost in a stupor on the stupa. Geddit? In a stupor, on a stupa? [Passersby pull him off the dead horse he has been flogging...]

Even atop Dhauli, we nautical types could smell the sea. The blue yonder was in the distance, and calling. Off we sped. Heigh ho for Konark. Checked into Yatri Nivas with gardens etc., right outside the temple. Evening walk to Chandrabhaga Beach was followed by a visit to the Sun Temple. If Lingaraj was impressive, this one is simply mind-blowing. More so when it is twilight, and the tide of day trippers from Puri and Bhubaneswar is ebbing its way out to the rows of buses parked outside. As the light fades, the massive, massive, massive, (did we say massive?) massive structure stands there and changes moods. Some of which we tried to capture using our very ancient Canon Powershot S45. One thing is for sure, one definitely, definitely, and absolutely needs to spend the night at Konark. Long series of pictures follows.

Just before sunset...
Black and White
Sepia
Apres sunset...
We really, really, like this one...
...and this one

There's a dance hall type thing right in front of the main entrance. Many pillars, three corridors through which the rays of the sun fall on the deity in the sanctum sanctorum, depending on the position of the sun in the sky.

Dance Hall
Naach Amrapali, naach...or whatever
The Guardians

And this is what it looks like during the day. We got this ASI guide to do the walking tour around the temple and the grounds. Lots of gyaan imbibed, lots of "piligrims" dissuaded from pouring panchamritham on the pilasters etc.

Our time had run out. Hopped on bus to Puri. Hopped off at the bus stand. Took one look around. Screamed in unison. Rented car. Set off rectilinearly for Chilika. This brackish water lagoon is serene, beautiful, and many other good adjectives. Decanted into the Yatri Nivas at Satapada. What is it about rooms with views of water bodies? Huh? We loves.

Yatri Nivas, Satapada

Wash, lunch, prawn fry (mmm...) and then we rented a little phattphatti boat for a trip around the lagoon. You don't need to do much to be happy in Chilika. Rent a boat, head out, switch off the engine, and wait for the sun to set.

Sunset, Chilika

The icing on the cake though, is that Chilika is the home of the only lagoonal population of the Irrawady dolphin (oracella brevirostris) anywhere in the world. There are about a 100 or so of these johnnies in the lagoon, but they seem to be relatively easy to spot. Maybe they're tied to a large concrete block at the bottom. Maybe not. More likely, they apparently like to leave the lagoon every evening and head out to sea, and the only way they can do that is through this narrow channel between Satapada and a sandbar (Rajhansa). So all you have to do is park yourself somewhere in the channel in the evening, and you can see dolphins on the move. Look closely at the next photograph, which is a juxtaposition. Sun. Boat. Dolphin. Bottom left.

Sun, Boat, Irrawaddy Dolphin - A Juxtaposition

At one point, we even saw a dolphin and an osprey in the same instant. Double paisa vasool.

Update: space bar gently jogged our memory about something we'd meant to mention. The reason why we're going on and on about the oracellas is that we are big fans of Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide. The Irrawaddy dolphins are a very big part of the novel, in which Ghosh somehow manages to convey at least 4 different perspectives on the environment, human rights, conservation, and development. Rather nicely we thought. Somewhat tangentially, Princess Mononoke manages to do the same, we thought. Be that as it may, "The Hungry Tide" is up there in the Ghosh list along with "In an Antique Land" and "The Calcutta Chromosome", and perhaps "Shadowlines".

Night in Satapada after the day trippers have scooted is very peaceful and soothing. There was rain, and birds, and the morning was windy and gray, and beautiful. We got parathas packed at the hotel, and rented another boat the next day, for a cross-lagoon dash to Balugan, whence we had to catch the train back home.

Lonely Tree
Lonely Sailboat
Lonely Sailboat, Net, Egret - A Juxtaposition

On the way back, we stopped off at the Nalabana Bird Sanctuary in the middle of the lake. We waded our way through the muck and walked up to the watchtower, from where Caspian tern (baby turn...), bar headed geese, pintails, shovelers, thicknees and other mysteries were seen.

Wading to Nalabana

On the way back, some genius (i.e. Ludwig) dropped his precious Powershot S45 into the murky waters of the lake. It was fished out promptly, and pictures were recovered. But since then we've been terrified of turning it on. Ergo, no more pictures...

Ended up in the metropolis of Balugan, Orissa a full 7 hours before the train. Spent this time constructively playing cards. And next morning, we were home.

Reflection upon entering dotage: The Big Three-Oh happened today. Bah.

Room With A View, With Some Observations On Gadgets, And A Picture Of Ludwig

Chez Ludwig, despite its concrete jungle location, has a moderately pleasing view. Some greenery, some billboards, some filth. A little bit of everything. The discerning reader will no doubt have spotted what is special about this picture.


And this one...


No? Still see nuffink? Look closely. We have helpfully placed striking yellow and blue rectangles. Look inside the rectangles.

Still no?

Well, so there we were, dissolutely plying the toothbrush in the oral cavity on a Sunday midmorning, as one normally does, when we glimpsed aerial activity in the middle distance. Stumble in, grab scope, camera, and stumble back to window. Which is the story of those pictures. Anyway, the blue and yellow rectangles magnified.

Yellow:


Blue:


Ladeej and jantalbhainses, we give you, live and hot from Begumpet, Hyderabad, a bevy of Little Green Bee-eaters (merops orientalis). These flitty things aren't exactly uncommon, but bloody fun to watch, as they take off periodically and dart about dementedly in search of...umm...bees. Almost beginning to wish we had a better camera...

In other ornithological news, the Birdwatchers Society Of Andhra Pradesh (BSAP) conducted their first ever "bird race" last Sunday. The very intrepid (1) Sheetal has an in-detail blow-by-blow i-was-there account of the proceedings. Teams spotted as many as 104 different species in and around Hyderabad, which is stunning, to say the least. To think that this primeval lump of barren Deccan Plateau...(shuts up hastily lest the lynch mob arrives).

We couldn't go to the race, nope, we couldn't. We were off running the Hyderabad 10k road race that same day. We ran this race last year, in the company of a curious sandbagging Irrawady dolphin, who this year thankfully spared us the agony of watching the clouds of dust as she took off at the end.

For this edition, we managed to get around 20 unwitting souls from work to sign up. We wended our way through Brahmanwadi at the crack of dawn, crossed the tracks and found ourselves at People's Plaza. The run was supposed to start at 7:00, but what with the dignitaries getting escorted onstage by each other (yes, there was an infinite loop of escorting-dignitaries-onstage), the crowd going nuts (right!) at the sight of killadiyon ka killadi (2), Sameera Reddy, Subbarami Reddy (3), and other Reddys, the thing didn't kick off till 7:20 or so. The crowd seemed a lot smaller than last year, there was no danger of fallschirmjäger sedimenting on our heads from the heavens, and there were portable loos (big, big improvement over last year, although lots of people perhaps hadn't figured out what the telephone booths were for at a road race!).

So we all set off, and we took pictures as usual. Here's one from Tank Bund, with little cute sailboats and stuff. It was a very nice day for a morning lun, no sun and all.


And, here's that much awaited mugshot of Ludwig Himself, in the flesh, somewhere between the end of Tank Bund and the Sanjeevaiah Park gates:


Yes, that's us. Except for the head, of course (the size is just about right). You see, this Predator with a serious yen for dum biryani, was in the process of materializing right in front of us, as the picture was being taken. Tchah. [Readers will be glad to know that Ludwig did not come to any harm. Pred courteously requested directions to Paradise, and in true Hyderabadi fashion, instead of actually giving him the straight and narrow path, we did the decent thing and told him how we thought he ought to go about the getting-to-Paradise algorithm, "Aap aisa karo...." Pred thanked us with a slap on the back [Note to self: Remove icky talon thing from between shoulderblades when showering next], and slithered off towards RTC Crossroads.]

Phew. Anyway, there are a couple of things to note (apart from the sexy, curvaceous looks) in the above picture. Which brings us to our final set of gadgets. Note the belt. This is a FuelBelt from the training-for-Marine-Corps-Marathon days. We whip it out once a year, mainly to hold camera, money and so on on these little runs.

Also, observe what is strapped to our left wrist. This is the latest baby of them all. It is what is called a Garmin Forerunner 301.


It's an inspire-fat-Ludwigs-to-run thingumabob. Has a GPS receiver which shrewdly plots your every move; a heart rate monitor which, with a steady, unblinking, unambiguous "0" where it should read "165", will clearly indicate to you that, you're in fact, dead. In case this crucial aspect of your existence had escaped your attention, engrossed as you were in following that item in tight red tracksuit, scooting up those impossible steps in the KBR Park circuit. So this sexpot (gadget) can store boatloads of data, and lets you do a bunch of stuff. You can download the data and view on your desktop (as in the below, which shows a run around KBR Park):


It computes elevation gain and loss (look closely, there is a picture below):


And when you hook it up to MotionBased, you can quickly upload all your data, do all kinds of analyses, and plot your path against Google Earth. Check out our new running log. The gory 10k details are available, and our final exhibit, a shot of the Google Map for the 10k, generated from the running log:


We loves the technology.

Finis.

---

1. Intrepid for reasons including introducing a colour-blind, tone-deaf, biologically inept Ludwig to a hapless BSAP.

2. MMKR digression: "Dai, avan jagath jaala killadi da..." - Thanks to all 2 of you who giggled at this blast from the past.

3. Couldn't find a decent link for Mr. Reddy, but Google revealed this parliamentary debate. Snippet:

DR. T. SUBBARAMI REDDY (VISAKHAPATNAM): ...I would like to say that 17,000 mws of power was the only increase in the Eighth Plan. As far as the Ninth Plan is concerned, already one year is over and the Government is proposing 40,000 mws of power generation. Perhaps, it may be very difficult. The entire country is reeling under the shortage of power. The prosperity and progress of the country depends on the power generation. So, I would like to say that all the 545 Members must stand for power production.

MR. CHAIRMAN : Dr. Reddy, you are having extraordinary powers. You can contribute.

... (Interruptions)

DR. T. SUBBARAMI REDDY : I sleep only for four hours because I am having extra powers. I am active for 20 hours with different social, political, spiritual and cultural activities. (Interruptions).

Rain in Begumpet

Long time, no photoblog. There's some sort of depression in the Bay type production in progress, and it has been raining in Begumpet. Yesterday evening was rather pretty.


The...ah...lofty spires of the Hyderabad Public School.


Mmm. Sunset.


Meanwhile, , this fellow is still lurking in the azadirachta indica betwixt Mayur Marg and SP Road. Ye of little faith...


TAILPIECE

Hallelujah! Messrs. Dewey, Cheatem & Howe are on Worldspace [2:30 p.m. IST, Sundays, NPR]. Bit bizarre to be listening to Car Talk on a Sunday afternoon in Begumpet.

Dabbles, Sometimes Dives

"Dabbles. Sometimes dives." This pithy phrase is used to describe the feeding habits of many a water bird by such worthies as Messrs. Grimmett, Inskipp & Inskipp. Strangely enough, the very same phrase could be used to describe Ludwig's approach to many, many interests in life. A lot of dabbling, and nearly not enough diving. Most recently, we have begun to dabble in birdwatching. No, we will not indulge in birdwatching PJs.

With the grim intention of dabbling in our latest interest, we made a quick trip to Bandipur National Park. The following is the detailed procedure for getting to Bandipur from Begumpet:

1. Have lunch. Acquire tennis elbow. This is vitally important.
2. Arrange a powercut, so that the UPS at work conks off at 2:00 ish. This means you can slime out of work at 5:00. Contrive to get dropped off at Begumpet station.
3. Miss the MMTS train to Kacheguda by a whisker. Instead, haul posterior in auto across the city.
4. Catch the Kacheguda-Bangalore City Express. Have some tea and tiffin. Buy dinner. This is also vitally important. The food on this train is insipid. There are no decent eating options, as you cross the state. You will be foisted by the Rs. 30 railway biryani, circa 3500 B.C.
5. Once in Bangalore, eat a paratha. One for the road.
6. Breakfast proper is to be had at Kamat Lokaruchi on the Mysore highway. Idlis, dosai, puri, vada, coffee. [The trick to a perfect trip is to simply plan for the food. Everything else will fall into place miraculously as long as you plan the meals right.]
7. En route, coconut water, and tender coconut. Mmm.
8. Time arrival at Tiger Ranch so that lunch is just being served.

Tiger Ranch is a strange 'resort'. Located almost within the national park, right next to a water hole, a short walk from a fantastic dam, in the middle of more or less lush jungle vagera, vagera. You would think that with such a place to plonk itself in, nothing could go wrong. We did think so. We were wrong. For some completely pigeon-brained reason, the management insists on playing 'music' all day (11:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m.) via a solidly built speaker system. 'Music' includes Pink Floyd, Himesh Reshammiya (Reshammaiyya or whatever the bugger's name is), and other dingchak varieties. Major problem. Most aggravating to run away from city noise to walk into this pseudo dance club in the middle of what should've been a quiet and peaceful jungle.

This 'ambience' also serves to attract several groups of young 'men' to the 'resort'. They apparently arrive in droves, drink, eat, drink, sit around the 'camp' fire, drink, dance, drink, eat, drink, hoot, drink and pass the rest of the night exchanging 'pleasantries' at the tops of their voices from one end of the 'resort' to the other. Definitely give Tiger Ranch 'resort' a miss...

Everything else, was fantastic. We drove up and down the Bandipur-Masinagudi road, saw elephants, gaur, boar, monkeys, deer (in the zillions) and so on. The full 'photo essay' is here. Perhaps the biggest paisa vasool of the trip was catching sight of a trio of striped stripe-necked mongeese, slurping at a pool of water; and a Malabar giant squirrel fighting the Monday morning blues on a treetop. No, we did not see any tigers, leopards, bears or lions.

But it was the birds that were perhaps most gratifying. And Ludwig really loves the hoopoe. What a flighty, unlikely little thingummy! A questionable name in English (PJ: Hoo? Edgar Allan?), and in Latin (upupa epops! upupa epops it seems!!). We would gladly trade all the pigeons of Begumpet for one of these delights in our neighbourhood ficus religiosa or azadirachta indica. We also saw parakeets (plum headed), pigeons (yellow footed), bee eaters (green), nuthatches (chestnut bellied), ibises (black headed, and black), stork (painted), eagle (serpent), jungle fowl (grey), cocks (pea) and so on... We thumbed our trusty Inskipp (1) and derived much joy and Maxwell's equations.

During this entire process, we did not once forget about food. Unbelievable, but true. We carefully planned all meals, that's all there is to it, really. One lunch and one breakfast were devoured at the Jungle Lodges' restaurant Pugmarks, an optimally planned pitstop at Kamat's on the return trip was made, and we got home just in time for sunset, filter coffee and Sunday papers.

1. "'...trusty Inskipp...', said Ludw., who'd only started birding the day before yesterday" Reminds us of a small rhyme from The Undertakers

In August was the Jackal born;
The Rains fell in September;
"Now such a fearful flood as this,"
Says he, "I can't remember!"

I Thoth I Thaw A Thweethybird - Part Deux

Last year, it was a brace of hornbills. Today morning, while one dissolutely plied the toothbrush (the same one as last year!) in the oral cavity, a large bird was spotted flitting about the azadirachta indica outside the window. Large tail, somewhat ungainly. Lo and behold. It is a coucal. We have coucals in Begumpet. Unbelievable. Is this because they chopped down all those trees on SP Road so that the motorists have a wider field of play in which run down (us) hapless pedestrians?

Be that as it may, there be coucals in Begumpet. Who'd have thunk it?

The only question is whether the flitty thing was a greater coucal (centropus sinensis) or a lesser coucal (centropus bengalensis). Damn things are well nigh impossible to tell apart.

It was probably a lesser coucal. Until it strayed within our sphere of influence. Whereby it was elevated to greatness. And is now a greater coucal. Although we doubt if anyone has taken the trouble to inform said couc.

Whaddever, eh?

I Thoth I Thaw A Thweethybird

All right, very well! It has been ages since our desperate, thirsting readers were treated to a snack at the choultry. Last week was like a curate's egg. About the size of a regular chicken egg, round, offwhite, solid-yet-fragile and so on. Actually, that isn't true. Like all self-respecting layers of eggs and progenitors of hatchlings, the curate spent some time sitting on his egg. So it eventually ended up rather flat, yellowish, drippy, and mottled with little pieces of shell. So that's what last week was like.

And the disgusting egg and egglayer prelude lets us segue into the meat of this post. Not only does it let us segue into the meat of this post, it even lets us use the word segue in a sentence. Who uses segue in a sentence? We do. It is like wanting to use gargantuan, in a legitimate context. Some of use will go to any lengths, even feed an ex-colleague to a black mamba (or whatever), so that we can say "gargantuan" as the poor sod gasps his life out on the floor next to us. We're li' 'at.

We digress too much. For an urban jungle, Hyderabad seems to be exactly that. A jungle. A bunch of us go running ever so often on the banks of the Hussain Sagar, and the sheer variety of birdlife is amazing. You have your egrets, your cormorants (untrained, no politicians and/or lighthouse keepers in evidence), your ducks (not Ganguly's, yours! ha ha...), and so on. Vijay Cavale runs Indiabirds where you can see his rather fantastic pictures of various feathered fiends. Earlier this year, there was a bunch of differently plumed and hued egrets in the Sagar, a reliable source (not a little bird!) says that that's "breeding plumage" for 'em egret blokes.

And just last week, outside the flat windows, as one dissolutely plied the toothbrush in the oral cavity and gazed out over the unfolding morning scene in customary why-me-why-now-Suzanna fashion, out of the blue, a brace of Indian grey hornbills (ocyceros birostris) showed up in the neem (azadirachta indica) tree. It felt like a dream, as they flitted around in the dappled sunlight, as birds are wont to in literary works. None of the neighbours (homo sapiens) seem to have noticed them, and the passing cockroaches (periplaneta americana) motored on and took no heed. Even the Irrawady dolphins (oracella brevirostris) and the blue whales (balaenoptera musculus) scarcely raised a waterspout. Which is well and proper. Would've been one helluva of weirdass dolphin or blue whale to catch a glimpse of an Indian grey hornbill. Having used many scientific names in a paragraph (in case you didn't notice)...

A very good place to see birds, if you're in Bangalore, is to get out of Bangalore. Drive sou' sou' west, towards the Biligiri Ranganna Hills. You will pass through several wetlands, where impeccably feathered and improbably named jacanas wade through the marshes, and fill you with joy (the sight of Nature's variety and beauty), and perplexity ("How do I pronounce jacana?"). When you get to BR Hills, if you're very lucky, you will get to see an Asiatic paradise flycatcher and be amazed. "How did an Asiatic birdie make it into India without passport, visa, and bottle of Scotch for Customs?", you will wonder. Perhaps not. Certainly, you'll get goosebumps from seeing this creature.

The point of this diatribe is, there are many beautiful things in the world, outside of well designed Java applications.