What Evening!

What evening hast thou given to me?
Where the evening doesn't seem to know, what it means to be an evening endearing
What now, after all, does it stay to be?
What evening here, hast thou given to me?

Where the sun strangely slips through, without a single sign
Whence I have not an inkling, that this bare would be this evening sky
With the hues all having hidden and neither a silver shine
The sun strangely slips through, without a single sign

Why would there be a silver shine? Since these clouds don't know a thing!
As they cluster all clumsily, in clumps of light grey whims
Whence would there be a wetting of drop, if these clumps hold damn nothing!
Alas! There's not a silver shine, for the clouds don't know a thing!

And what now have the winds garnered, on this gust-less evening so still?
For not a wing rides them, rest alone a flock feathered
Such bereaved twilight bringeth the bereft evening, with not a nest to fill!
Watch this, what have the winds garnered, on this gust-less evening so still!

And how does this evening stutter now, and coughs as the engine spews!
With curtains of ghastly gases, covering even this suffering
The earthly waft's stopped rising now, filth and a frown is all that it gives
See! The way this evening stutters now, and coughs as the engine spews!

What cheer then, do thou bring to me now, with this evening so long and lonely?
Listless and drab, it drags along with such dull dreariness
Where there's none to share a thought, wherefore my humble hut doesn't feel so homely
Tell me what cheer do thou bring to me now, with this evening so long and lonely?

What evening hast thou given to me pray?
What else now, does it stay to be? Say!


Instead give me that evening, that evening like before
On that hump of earth overlooking, the sylvan river shore

When the sun tinkered a while longer, as he clung to the last line
In a farewell bid of gratitude on his descent of last incline

And spill did he all his grandeur, in countless crimson colours
To embellish the blushing vastness, enchanting all others

What pining must have brewed there, in that glance of the parting moment
For climb would I the tallest boulder, to keep watching even as he went

Lines of home bound feathers would garland the bridal sky
As if to thank HIS benevolence for the day just gone by

And float would the lithely flock across the greying blue
To their nest of honest twigs with new little lives a few

On the rustic riverbed, the water would shimmer and glow
First gold then the cooling silver, would pour on the steady flow

Likewise would flow the stream, of thoughts all old and good
Of happily flitting times and times that happily stood

Give me that very evening, of the simple, humble ease
When the river-breeze came in whooshes, whistling through the trees

And cooled all the brows and cheeks, wet by the toil and joy
And settled in the happy smile of the silly simple boy

-Vindy

Oriental Magpie Robin

26 May, 1600 hrs:

I am trying to read on scheduling, and yet, however hard I try, I still can't gather myself well enough to concentrate om this topic. There are just too many audio interrupts snatching my attention away and all from the musical clan of magpie robins.

Magpie robins (or Oriental magpie robins, as they call them) have been all over our place, and my mind, this spring. Through all the times from early mornings to hot afternoons to late evenings (and even during the night time on one discrete occasion) and through all places around me from our colony to right till Harantekdi and Indrayani, it has been one wonderful concert this summer from one beautiful ensemble of this bird.

Magpie robin is a wonderful bird; a worthy passerine(birds considered as songbirds) with its extensive vocal skills. It has a rich repository of melodious tunes and various ways of rendering them. Even the conspicuous calls of cuckoo have faded in my opinion in comparison with the spirited and varied calls of the magpie robin. I have loved hearing to them, indulging myself in their talks once in a while. I even once tried chasing one on my bike only taking its calls as the cue. It sure was a blind chase, since it was nearing dark, but by no means was it a chase in silence! Although the advent of barbets in the nearby trees has been a really welcome news this summer, magpie robins have hogged all the attention due to their relentless riyaz in their vocals. It is of course their breeding season. I realized, after some reading, that the calls aren't just meant to win over a mate during the breeding season. They are more to stake a claim to a certain territory as their own and to ward off any potential competitor from entering the protected area. That explains the observation of the peculiar stance of the birds in fixed areas around the house. I have seldom seen them in large flocks, but only in small units of a family. A male magpie robin claims its territory and in a solitary exercise defends it all through the breeding season and the initial few days of bringing up of the offspring which is taken care of by the female. The male's calling poise shows aggression, excitement and also some real determination. As a visual signal, it also uses its tail to communicate its intent through jerks, flicks and by spreading it sometimes while it sings. Besides, there are other subtler, musical calls, perhaps meant for other specific communication or signals. So much so that one feels that the magpie robin is actually having a detailed conversation and the tone, loudness, pitch, tempo, tune all seem to depict at different times, various feelings like love, understanding, concern, happiness, jubilation, pleading, inquiry, aggression, imitation and maybe some more. I once tried to converse with a magpie robin with my own bird-like chirping, just out of curiosity. It was successful to an extent as we exchanged a few calls before the robin must have realized that I wasn't making any sense after all and just flew away to a farther branch. Or on second thoughts, did I impose my authority over my territory, forcing it to budge away! [:p]

Here are some pictures of this bird.

The last one which looks evidently different from the rest is a female whereas all others are male magpie robins.

There is another relative of this bird, called the Indian robin, which is widely observed. I have always seen this bird only in open spaces, near shrubs and trees, somewhat away from human settlements. Here's a picture, albeit not a very clear one.

May

Mango my mouth, Mohur my mind, Magic my MAY!

The Grey Tit

Next, I would like to discuss about the Grey Tit (Parus major cinereus). This bird struck me as a rather industrious one, consumed in its own activites and almost overtly oblivious to its surroundings. Perhaps, I always happened to see it when it was in such a mood. Busily foraging and gathering its food from one branch to the other, it seemed to be going about its business with some purposeful intent. It is not that the other birds aren't so, but this bird never seemed to waste even a glance on unnecessary details and events happening around it. Even now when I see this bird, like the one I saw this morning with sleepy eyes, it looks consistently busy, checking and picking things on and between the branches and twigs with its short, straight and pointed beak. It has a neat beak, something like what a small kid would draw in his drawing book for a bird's beak. With this beak the Grey tit normally feeds on insects and their eggs as also on small seeds and nut kernels. The strong short beak helps it to crack hard nuts and seeds. It is around the size of a sparrow, in fact slightly larger, I felt. This bird is coloured in patterns of black and white on grey and it is from this that the bird also derives its common name, the Grey tit.

When I tried to read some on this bird, I realised that this bird has been extensively studied since a long time. There is a more popular variant of this tit, known as the Great tit, which occurs all across Europe. The Great tit shows very good adaptability to the human presence, and also great adaptability in general, and has therefore apparently led to and aided a lot of research.

The grey tits, on the other hand, predominantly occur in Asia. They are believed to forage mostly in pairs through the winters and then summer is their normal breeding season. They communicate in pleasant twitters (yes, I know...it occured to me too).

And now to the photographing part of it. Grey tits, despite their busy continuous bustling, have given me some good frames to capture. They keep frequenting the branches near my house. I have also photographed one (the third one below) at the chowk near the Akurdi-Nigdi Pradhikaran dumping grounds, where I used to wait for my morning office bus. It sure makes for a lovely subject to capture in a photograph.




-Vindy

Scaly breasted munia

Scaly breasted munia was one of the birds that caught my attention when I came to Talegaon. It was monsoon and in the open space that my window overlooked, tall grass and weeds had grown aplenty. Amidst the swinging greens, I saw two brownish specks busily pecking away at things. I wasn't familiar to that kind of birds. I clicked a few snaps and sat down to correlate what I had seen with one of the bird illustrations in a book. The scaly pattern over their breast and the finch like beak were prominent pointers, apart from their colour.They were munias. And how apt their entire name was, Scaly breasted munia!

For a bird, their existence near the ground for prolonged periods appeared surprising to me. From some literature, I came to know that they feed on the grass seeds and insects near the ground and prefer building nests in low bushes. That explained their behaviour. When they weren't busy eating near the grass, they would fly up to the branches and perch calmly. Their sound to me felt like a milder version of the sparrow's sound and also less regular. When in the winter, the grass all dried up and later cleared away, the munias weren't there to be seen near our house for a long time. The monsoon came and the grass grew back and there they were again with their clan! While I wasn't satisfied with their photos captured during the first monsoon, they came out slightly better in the second season. Here are a couple of them.

Although munia appeared more like a finch to me, I saw that it doesn't belong to the conventional family of finches. The baya weaver, the sparrow and the munia, all belong to the same family, Ploceidae.

-Vindy

On The Go...

(Sometime around the end of Sharad rutu, early Dec 2009)

Early mornings, now-a-days, are slightly chilly, as if the waiting winter were slowly crawling upon me. With the weather Gods going crazy and all confused this season, winter seems to have resolved to put things back into their place and restore the familiar order in earnest. And so, with no more surprises expected and as a meek acknowledgement to the increasing cold, my reluctance at shedding my blanket and shrug out of my bed has increased in proportion; with that the repeated attempts of my mother to wake me up and get me moving and to my office; and so have come out my sweaters and the black Peter England coat. The winter giggles all along at me as I finally manage to hit the pedal. Me and my poor friend, who must have bore the cold brunt all night in the open, set about gulping distances by circumferences.

My friend is sent through violent shocks and jerks by the few metres of kuchcha road, and so am I with him; awaking both of us from the stiffness and dullness of the incomplete slumber. The landscape plummets down in front of us pulling down with it the quiet houses and farms, before the mountains far away lift it up towards the sky. They aren't very far away though, what with they almost filling up your sight and their essence percolating through your senses and soul. They surely do strike a pleasant, magical chord, almost enthusing a gladdening, familiar scent of the mountains all around you and within you. The winter, however, has played a beautiful trick on these harmless humps on the earth. It has brought all its mist clogging down, thick and dense, under the mountains to stay there, such that one can't see through them. The mighty mountains, as a result, appear to have been lifted nonchalantly up by the indolent congregation of the dense mass of vapour. It looks enchanting, I tell you. The sun's slowly peeking above the horizon, almost with a yawn, sending down warm rays to mix with and glisten the white mass of mist. If only I had my camera with me! Where, however, would I capture the smell and the cold feel of the winter that's tingling its way through me, perching on my nosetip, sprawling on my ears and setting into my eyes?

I pedal further down the now smooth road, breezing down the straights and around the bends. My numb fingers try to control my overjoyed friend. He is sprinting across, ignoring the undulations on tar. His bell calls are met with happy responses from his chums; the sparrows, bulbuls, mynas, crows, munias, shrikes and others and that's the cause of his joy. We pass the Krishna temple smiling our greetings to him. He smiles back at us, serene and healing as ever.

At the station, I bid a goodbye to my friend, promising to return at dark. I am amongst people now; my kind. The early morning crowd includes many youngsters, high-school students to college going teenagers. Everybody is geared up for the cold weather. From rural folks in plain dhoti and stained shirts to milk vendors and vegetable vendors with their huge cans and baskets to office going people like me to the teenagers, the station is buzz with activity and conversations. Herds are what I feel I am seeing along the length of the station and the faces wearing multitudes of emotion appear like ruminating on the daily dose of conversation and gossip. The newspaper guy is in the thick of action and everybody's more than eager to grab his/her copy. I always walk half the platform towards the far end to climb the train there. There's no reason for that, just a preference. I have a few minutes before the local train would arrive allowing me to take an easy stroll across the platform in my comfortable canvas pair.

My hand brushes my warm coat at its sides as I walk. I try to keep my head steady, but my fickle, flickering eyes give away my curiosity. I can't help but notice the girls whispering to each other. I cast a glance on the group and my eyes are held captive by a complimenting pair, pure, black and mesmerizing (as Onkar says, I think in my mind :-)). What follows is a strange status quo as far as expressions on both the faces are concerned as against a distracting and confusing hustle inside, behind the falsely held expressions. Both the individuals stuck in the deadlock become exceedingly wary of every movement and each sinew asks permissions before it can twitch. Intervened by a conscious mind now, my involuntary walking and poise suddenly assume proportions of a foreground process requiring extensive-complex-real time-stimuli based-decision making algorithms. Where the conscious mind sets in, I lose the fluidity of my sub-conscious self. She follows suit and her posture stiffens laying bare her own susceptible processes which have evidently gone awry by a little disturbance. Until my friend, ‘inertia’, thankfully carries me ahead and beyond the threshold distance disengaging the bond, we both go through a strange metastable state in our minds which can neither be defined as outright enjoyable nor as entirely uneasy. The effect sweeps across the group. Every individual goes through the brief wave trying to win attention and pleasantly sail with the occasion if it happens. Depending on various sensory parameters (primarily audio-visual) and their weights in position and time, any two individuals may get connected or there might be a sequence of multiple short connections. Let me accept that this is indeed a natural sociological behaviour in animals and the aforesaid events and effects form the normal protocol in mortal beings like me. Anyway, the point is that you feel for it. It is almost like an instinct driven by the irresistible laws of attraction and which renders every post-adolescence individual predictable and helpless in such situations. It pleases the heart and rides the mind and there’s not much one can do about it except wait for time to take care of and tone down this instinct, if it ever does. Besides, since I am no Yogi, I often follow the ritual and enjoy the uneasy transients and muse in the pleasant feelings that blot my heart as the experience trails. And so, I do the ritual today again. And boy! Am I not pleased! She looks beautiful, doesn’t she!

- Vindy :)

Lightning experiments

It was happening again yesterday. Heavenly flares and flashes were lighting up the backdrop behind that hillock and the immediate neighbourhood. Akshay came running to me, bursting with excitement at the spurts of illumination which were creating magnificent, isolated silhouettes of the hillock, the clouds and the tall receiver station, in an otherwise dark sky. As I broke into a beaming smile and let go a rapturous 'tokk', I realised that despite seeing this almost every other day here, at Talegaon, it still evoked a wonderous feeling. Far away, beyond the hillock and the mountain lines perhaps, a possessed clan of clouds and the crazy earth must be playing with their charges!

I have never seen before lightning with such regularity as I have seen in Talegaon. The location of this place between mountains on many sides and more importantly the vastness of perceptible space seem to make this possible. Unlike a metropolitan, where visibility is limited by structures and their immense density, this place is not that badly cluttered and not so populated as yet. Hence our terrace affords a lavish view across the countryside right until the horizon which in this case is largely undulated by mountainous hunches. And not just on one side, but in almost all the directions. The feeling, when I spend evenings sitting on the water tank at the top of my building, is akin to those I have had on numerous treks; a view spanning the earth as much as it could!  When I lift may gaze slightly skyward I see myriad and plenty clouds and realize their movements. Sample this – In cities, either there are clouds or there are no clouds; either it thunders and throws lightning or doesn't; it either rains or it doesn't. But here, I can see dense clouds, not here, but a few kilometers away over that mountain; I can sense the rains to my right and sunshine in front of me; I can sit down here without fear and still watch in awe furious lightning striking somewhere in a distance! I can sense nature at work in its various forms at different places at the same time, as if it were running numerous parallel processes, all of them distinctly visible to me.
 

Somewhere along this experience I thought I should try to capture images of lightning. There are, anyway, many spectacular images of this phenomenon already available across web and other literature, and still I wanted to experiment with my camera. Although this was a long cherished idea, I thought I had good chances of getting a good result here. I started with the first noticeable rains of this monsoon and have made a few attempts since. With a digital camera like mine, it is pretty simple. Trying to click at precisely that moment when lightning strikes is obviously not a very wise option. One might instead think of utilizing the features in a good enough camera. All you need is a fairly prolonged shutter speed (which means keeping the shutter open for atleast a few seconds) and loads of patience. Based on the other conditions, one may have to adjust other settings in the camera, like keeping the aperture small when exposing for a long time to reduce the insurge from other areas in the frame. With a long exposure, a steady surface for the camera is advisable while capturing the image. The lightning, if it strikes in exactly that window of time when shutter's open, is bright enough to create a reasonable impression, as also to leave the rest of the frame fairly illuminated. The settings may have to be adjusted bearing these things in mind. Patience is a very important trait in this pursuit and that can convert the matter of luck to a matter of time, before you get your desired result.
 

A few days ago, I felt, I finally got a satisfactory image. Hence this post :P
 

I would like to share some of the images of lightning that I have captured till now. Apart from scaling the images, I have worked around, slightly, with these images in GIMP, mainly modifying the picture curve to reduce unwanted illumination from lightning, of adjoining areas. (But believe me, the pictures look equally good with that illumination) 

The first one was captured on June 11, 2010. This one struck right behind the Harneshwar tekdi and I captured it from my balcony. Since it was pitch dark, the camera couldn't focus well enough.
 

The second one was taken on September 28, 2010. This lightning was snapped over the trademark mountain near Talegaon, around which Indrayani meanders. This lightning seems to be a cloud­-cloud discharge. I captured this from my terrace.

 The third one was photographed on November 21, 2010. This one's similar to the second in location. However I got really lucky with (wonder of wonders!) three lightning strikes in the captured frame. I was literally jumping with joy and singing merrily for the rest of the day!
 

Here's some of the exif data for this image if anyone's interested.
Exposure Time: 13 sec.
ISO Speed Rating: 200
Flash Fired: Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode.
Metering Mode: Center­Weighted Average
Exposure Program: Manual
Focal Length: 9.9 mm
 

One interesting capture in this above image is the region in the vicinity of the mountain surface and the tail of the rightmost lightning. The air in that region seems to have been blown away or vastly influenced by the lightning strike. I wonder what the effect actually is! (Maybe related to streamers...or...impact..or..anyway) Here's that zoomed part.
 

Lalit had written a very interesting and informative post on lightning and related observations in his blog some time ago. Here's the link for that article.

- Vindy :)

Pied Kingfisher

I heard a splash, a loud one; as if some big stone had been thrown into the calm river. I turned my head in that direction, expecting not the least what I saw next. Cutting through the rippling river arose a flapping bird, much to my amazement. 'Just a bird and such a loud splash!', I wondered. It flew up and sat down on a transmission line running overhead across the breadth of the river from one bank to the other. Evidently surprised, I saw it settle down on the wire and the next instant my mind exclaimed 'Kingy!' The beak and the body structure were unmistakable! I couldn't be wrong. It had to be a kingfisher! However, I had never before seen a kingfisher of this colour. Black and bright white! As vivid as it could get in just these two! It was a pied kingfisher.

Pied kingfishers are amazing hunters, unique in their ways. They hunt mainly for fish. They hover over waters, biding their time, before drawing their wings back and making an almost verticle, spectacular dash towards their underwater prey, packing all their might into it. They cut the layer, beak first, diving down into the water to pick the prey with lightning speed. The heavy plunge was what had created the splashing sound. This one, however, had missed its target. For the next 15-20 minutes the female pied kingfisher kept looking at the waters under with a steadfast gaze. It was so focussed that nothing around seemed to matter to the bird. I, in turn, kept looking at it. I was waiting with bated breath for the kingfisher to make another dive. All my hopes to witness the spectacle whimpered away when the kingfisher flew away without making another attempt. Perhaps, it thought it wise to find another more suitable place to strike its deadly dive. I wasn't very disappointed though. Atleast I had seen the bird. Hopefully, I would also see the dive some other time.


Here's a modest cropped image of the bird, that I would like to share.

Pied Kingfisher (Location: Indrayani river, near Talegaon)

 - Vindy

Bayas

Not far from my home is an open field...

where grass grows without any care, where a pond shivers under misty layers, where lotuses meditate on slender stalks, where damsels and dragons hover as if lost, where shrikes perch on the trees veined, where robins and kingies feel just like a friend, where lapwings walk in the waving meadow, where bayas weave for the want of love...

to linger, to wonder, in every little glace, where I lose myself to this rhythm and trance...

When your senses yeild to the nature, its every form may spawn poetry. Every stroke of the landscape and its elements and their various stimuli seem to convey art, an unspoken art that just sinks in and wets the inner being. I realize that I am breathing and with every breath I feel a wrap of contentment drawing upon me. I have had and keep having many such moments here, in Talegaon, when I have felt like inhaling, in a single sweep, all the good air that descends from over the mountains and carries a maddening scent of purity. I wonder if my words do any passable justice to the effect, but I shall settle for this shortcoming.  After all, there's a language beyond words and logic, that can only be felt!

Of the multitude of things that have endeared me at Talegaon, one has been the varied clan of the winged beings here. Over time, due to a constant barrage of an urban scenario, my mind had reached a concious conclusion, nay submission, that all birds could be broadly classified into two simple categories – the 'Crows' and the 'Non-Crows'. I was tempted, often, to make space for another one for the 'Sparrows'. But the innocent, almost apolegetic, expressions that they seem to carry, kept me from leaving them alone in a family of their own and instead made me club them with the others to make up the non-crows. The crows, of course, stood by themselves in lofty numbers to earn an exclusive family for themself. Such is the abundance of the black bird in the cities and the towns that after some time my faculties had become indolent to any other bird form. Not that I was very interested, and perhaps that's the real reason, but I had stopped noticing the other birds altogether. Then, in IISc, due to the campus there and some of my friends I realized that there is more to the bird family than I ever thought. And when I landed in Talegaon, I had all the time and a new grown interest to watch the birds. And so, I do. I see many, try to photograph a few and read about some of them.

In the open field that I mention in the opening lines, there used to be a noticeable flock of Baya Weavers. Last monsoon, when I first went there, I was fascinated by the place and especially the flock of the Bayas. Bayas are the expert weaving birds, weavers like no other! Inverted retort shaped nests made out of grass strings and straw hung down from the branches overlooking the calm pond beneath. I and Appaji marvelled at the expertise of weaving the nest and also at how wisely the location was selected. It was such that no predator could reach it easily. Over the next few days I gathered some interesting information about the habits of this bird. As it turns out, the male Bayas weave nests and the whole purpose, seemingly, is to earn a mate. A male Baya tries to build his nest so as to woo females, who are prospective mates. Half completed nests are completed only when a female selects them, turning them into chambers of love and safe havens for the offsprings. It was really interesting to read on the research that has gone into undertstanding the nest-building tradition and the sexual selection process in these birds. One belief is that the woven nests help the female to compare and select genetically superior males, improving the chances of superior inheritance for their progeny. Seems reasonable, but I couldn't fathom the connotations of this to a satisfactory level. An alternate proposal, that I came across in a doctoral dissertation by S. Quader, suggests that the location of nest and its subsequent safety play a prime role in selection matters. A nest that is stable and protected from strong winds and predators seems to be preferred by the female Baya, since it lends that much convenience to the raising of the offsprings. This felt pretty convincing to me. Besides, some of the tendencies of the Male nest-builder seem to indicate an effort in this direction. The nestling chambers have been observed to be plastered by mud in many cases. Perhaps this lends some strength and balance to the nest. Every male Baya starts building multiple nests to ensure a good chance of finding a mate. It completes only those that are accepted so that no unnecessary efforts are wasted. The male Baya, thus, may land around 2-5 mates at a time. The raising of the young ones is majorly done by the female. Once, the responsibilities are over, the female may opt for another progeny with a new selection of a nest and the associated male. The importance of the expertly woven nests is more than evident from this critical cycle of reproduction. What might, however, be equally interesting is the role played by a Baya outside its mating cycle. I guess, from the way the flocks evolve and move and locate themselves strategically, there has to be some structure or tradition in the flock that directs such efforts. While thinking about all this, that I had gathered, I could not help feeling that the interactions in a flock seem to suggest a more involved societal structure and habits in the Bayas. Or perhaps, they just know!

Some snaps:

The pond

The Weaver colony 

Baya Weaver (male)

The weaver nest

-Vindy

उत्तरायणं

(The Sun completed his northward journey for this year on 16 July 2010. Here are some pictures from his journey. The snaps have been taken from my balcony)

The April Spring

I behold the nature's palette,
And my heart so yearns to write
It's this spring that blots my mind,
And drapes me in delight!

With its gifts of hues enchanting,
That the petals wear and beam
And in sprightly waves they shimmer,
Like my silly eyes would dream
It's those happy hundred hues,
That fill me and my sight
It's this spring of swinging colours,
That drapes me in delight!

The warm air seethes with passion,
To pluck the naked petals
Their fragrance wets the shadow,
Where the floral sheath now settles
I feel the silken layer,
With steps so soft and light
It's this spring of tender carpets,
That drapes me in delight!

The rays embrace the country,
Enthusing life and mirth
And lend all warmth and verve,
To the fertile rufous earth
Our plains and lofty mountains,
Bask in the sunshine bright
It's this spring of sprouting hope,
That drapes me in delight!

The restless birds of plumage
Call for their love to mate
And flit through cups of nectar,
With not a while to wait
On the wings of gleeful sunbirds,
My heart too takes a flight
It's this spring of love and laughter,
That drapes me in delight!

Clouds are too sparse and scattered
Their caravan's yet too far
And so the sky so blue and smooth,
Sails sans a single scar
The sun saunters and splashes,
Shades of orange at twilight
It's this spring that sings in silence
That drapes me in delight!

Then the night of moonlight murmurs,
As we sit on the easy chair
And we watch all the moonlit silence,
And sigh at the pleasant air
Upon two eyes so grateful,
Maidens of sleep alight
It's this April spring tonight,
That drapes me in delight!

-Vindy :)

Some Spring snaps from IISc taken last year...

A Dawn at the Beach

The coastline is calm and the morning so silky
The waves are just reaching, in lines so milky
The blue is just spreading, dragging white with it
The haze stays thick and the lights are still lit

I muster my senses and breathe the sea fresh
As I walk through the close knit of coconut trees
The dawn comes and melts and peeks through the mesh
And the ochre dust of sand greets me with the breeze

The murmur of the breakers hushes in the quietness
The salty smell of mist joins in the harness
Blue, green and white mix and paint the sea
The mild touch of cold comes and clings to me

The wet bed of sand due to the receding tide
Gets dented only slightly and absorbs every stride
I tread along arrested, by a ceaseless sense of freedom
With my pal on my side, to savour this kingdom

The hillock on a side, with a mansion atop
Stares the Arabian, that threatens to chop
And far into the waters, the fort indomitable
Rises with glory, singing its own fable

A flock of few feathers now frequents the shore
Pecking with their beaks, picking prey from the floor
Unmoved and unruffled, perched on their feet
Like perfoming a penance, without a single tweet

Debris from the sea, see shallow waters at last
After ages spent in turbulence, of waters so vast
Chiselled and shaped or just simply made wet
Gaze as much as you like, pick as much as you get

Eyes drink in pleasure with bountiful of treasure
Eloping with delight, flung with no measure
No phrases are spoken, when I smile and look behind
Glances are enough, to speak through the mind

The rays are now plenty and plenty in hues
Enlightening all beings, as we continue to muse
The sea and we and the, now, twittering birds
We all sum it up in the following words
'The warm rays of aurum spread on the sand
Ushering through the coconuts, to kiss this land
The eager sea's beside, with its reverberating dim,
As our eyes traverse overjoyed, with sights of HIM!'

-Vindy


(This poem has been written describing the dawn of 1 January 2009 that we, I and my friend Gaurav, spent on the beach of Murud in Konkan)