When I was visiting Madurai a few months back, I knew there would be language problems. You can travel all over North India, talk Hindi and survive. Even in remote parts of Rajasthan where a few old men speak only Marwari, there is no dearth of Hindi speaking population. Pahadis in Himachal and Garhwal switch between Hindi and local tongue effortlessly. But things are much different once you drift southwards.
The deeper you head into any of the southern states, less easier it is to find people who speak a language known to wider audience. It better be Kannada, Telugu, Tamil or Malayalam in their respective territories. So Tamil it had to be when I was in Madurai – a language I did not speak.
I caught a rickshaw from the bus-stand to take me to Meenakshi Temple. That part of the communication was easy. “Meenakshi Temple,” I told him, and he responded with a short “fifty,” using the English word.
Further on, I would have been happy to sit silently in the backseat, waiting to be dropped at the temple. But the rickshaw driver had other ideas. He smelled more business, and had to act. He made a short talk as he drove towards the temple, most of which I did not understand. But what I could do was pickup words from his generous mix of English and give it a meaning. Besides, being neighbours, a Tamil fellow can grasp bits of Kannada and vice versa. And so began the conversation I did not wish to be a part of.
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Naturally it wasn’t hard to see what he was trying to say. But my challenge was to respond to him in a way he could understand. Realizing that my best bet was to use Kannada than any other language, I got down to speaking as though I am in Bangalore, or giving him short one-word answers.
Me: no
I tried to cut the conversation and keep it as brief as possible, but he would not give up.
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Me: kannada kannada kannada meenakshi temple kannada kannada
The conversation went on this way till we made it to the temple. He kept opening up every few minutes and had something or the other to say. And I had to stay alert to catch a few familiar words to help me interpret him. Even after we made it to the temple and I paid his bill, his last words were still the same – “tamil tamil tamil tamil rooms tamil tamil.”
Things was much easier when I was on the way out from Madurai and looking for a bus to Kanyakumari. The rickshaw guy I hired to reach the bus-stand was silent, but a travel agent caught me once I was there. To my delight, this man spoke Kannada to a decent degree, but it was to become a cause of my problem later. He insisted that I buy a ticket from him for a bus that was bound to depart an hour later. But I was least interested in it till I saw the bus – I did not want to look like a fool with a ticket in hand for 10am bus if buses kept departing at 9.30, 9.45,.. Or even worse, last thing I wanted is to make the 6-hour journey in a dilapidated rickety.
So I asked him to wait till the bus comes. It was 9am, and the bus was scheduled to leave at ten. But he wanted to finish my business in a hurry, so he get away in search of others.
“Bus has come,” he told me in excellent Kannada, “come to our office, I will give you the ticket.”
“Show me the bus,” I demanded.
“Bus has come baba,” he replied pretending a resigned look, “you take the ticket now.”
I never understand why he was hesitant to show me the bus, and that made me a little suspicious. I poked him further and insisted on seeing the bus – “no ticket till you show me the bus.”
“Bus has come,” he again said in a desperate push, “you see, the bus has come at 9.45”.
I then realized where the problem was – it was his Kannada. Talking to me at 9am, he was confusing the tenses, saying that the bus has arrived at 9.45am. I laughed, and eased his tension by finally buying the ticket from him a little later.
Ask everyone, and they say Bangalore has changed a lot in the last few years. There are more buildings everywhere, more roads, more people, unbearable traffic and the like that come with unchecked growth. Lakes are shrinking and green cover around the city is making way to gleaming modern structures. But Bangalore still remains a favourable destination for many, and fortunately it has remained so with our feathered friends too. Between December and March last winter, pelicans had made their annual trip to the lakes in the city, and so did migrant Drongos and Swallows and the like.
An Ashy Prinia at Madiwala Lake.
The green patches and the lakes around the city have always housed many species of birds through the year and host a lot more during the winter months, when migratory birds flock in from the cold regions in the north. Like everywhere else, their habitat is shrinking in Bangalore too. But still there are many places in and around the city that can charm a birdwatcher with plenty of variety.
An Ashy Crown Sparrow Lark near Jigani
Keen eyed birders have always been finding places that are teeming with many species of birds. Many water bodies like Hebbal Lake, Madiwala Lake, Yelemallappa tank and Hoskote Lake attract large migratory birds in drones during winter. Nandi Hills occasionally throws up surprises with unlikely birds like Malabar Whistling Thrush or Blue Capped Rock Thrush.
A Blue Capped Rock Thrush in Nandi Betta
A Purple Rumped Sunbird at Hebbal Lake
It is a pleasure to watch those birds colouring up the periphery of the city. There is plenty of beauty, melody, action and even humour in tailing the birds. There are many things attractive, like the pleasant whistling call of the Dronogs, graceful flight of Gray Herons or of Barn Owls, and bright colors and the beauty of Blue Capped Rock Thrush or Parakeets. And then there is some interesting action to watch in the skies when a gang of crows manage to chase away much larger and powerful Kites – a frequently observed scene in the city’s skies. If the crows do this in the city, smaller birds like Black Drongos perform the same acts of bravery in the greener areas outside the city. Watching a paradise flycatcher fly past and its unusually long tail that looks very out-of-place and trying to keep up with the flight of the bird can be comical.
A Paradise Flycatcher in Nandi Betta
A River Tern in Ranganthittu
When the thirst to see more of these beauties overpowers the Bangalorean, there is always Ranganathittu bird sanctuary just two hours away from the city. Ranganathittu is an ocean of joy for any bird lover, with its swarming population of birds of both migratory and resident kind. The ever-present River Terns on the rocks along Kaveri never fail to amuse their visitors. The dense population of large birds like Asian Openbill, White Ibis and Spoonbill always manage to entertain people who have never seen those big birds in such numbers.
A gang of White Ibis in Ranganthittu
A Rose Ringed Parakeet at Hebbal Lake
Indeed all is not well with the city that is growing rapidly. Like in other cities of the world, Sparrows have long since gone away. Lakes are shrinking and Painted Storks that were once common in Hebbal Lake are not seen as often in the city. Rosy Starlings that came in large numbers to a tree near my house have not arrived in the last two years. It is only likely that their numbers keep coming down in the years to come. There have been many initiatives from the concerned people to save the city’s birding hotspots from destruction, and let’s join them and hope that all that work bears fruit, and these winged beauties continue to flock into the city as they have always done.
A Tickell’s Blue Flycatcher in Nandi Hills
A Purple Moorhen at Hebbal Lake
Information
Popular birding hotspots in and around Bangalore: Lalbag, TG Halli reservoir, Rampura Lake, Hoskote Lake, Indian Institute of Science, Valley school, Turahalli minor forest, Nandi hills and Banneraghatta National Park. Ranganathittu bird sanctuary, two hours drive from Bangalore is a great place to see huge flocks of migratory birds in winter.
For more information on birding Bangalore, join the Bangalore’s most popular birding group bngbirds. They regularly meet fortnightly for birdwatching sessions around the city.
Water bodies have a charm that pulls them to me intently. I can spend endless hours sitting on a rock, dipping my legs into the gentle flow of the river. The sight of a clean and pleasing lake or a river fills me with an urge to get into it for a swim, or to sit on its bank and while away my time. Sound of waves in a lonely beach after sunset, or song of a river or waterfall give me a pleasure that I can’t describe. Would I have a choice, I would live next to a river, not too far away from the sea and go swimming the first thing every morning. Some images of the magic of water –
An unusual view of a section of Jog Falls – India’s tallest Waterfall.
Ramanganga flows quietly on a cold winter morning in Corbett National Park
Kappad beach near Kozhikode, in North Kerala.
A nondescript stream near Chikmaglur.
A small pond with fresh and clean water from a spring in Mahakoota, a small temple village.
Muthyala Madu, a small waterfall that comes alive in the rainy seasons, just outside Bangalore.
Long and empty beach at Gokarna, a small town in Karnataka.
Mattupetty Dam, Munnar, Kerala
Samiti Lake is a picture published often here. At almost 14,000 feet near Goecha La, Kanchenjunga National Park, Sikkim.
Hirekolale Lake, Chikmaglur.
Chandratal Lake, Lahaul and Spiti, Himachal Pradesh.
A frozen lake at Goecha la, Kanchenjunga National Park, Sikkim.
Shivanasamudra Waterfall, Karnataka.
Tungabhadra River at Hampi, Karnataka.
Chandra River, Lahaul and Spiti, Himachal Pradesh.
And finally, Ganga at Rishikesh.