Photo: T J Varghese
Photo taken near Pollachi, Tamil Nadu.
The Zero-Carbon Carrier (Bullock Cart)
India
Nilgiri Langur (Trachypithecus johnii)
Photo taken from Gavi- ecotourism zone, north of periyar
MOMA Celebrates Bollywood
Click the image above to see the schedule of MOMA’s programming. The image is from Shree 420 (1955), directed by Raj Kapoor and the image belongs to the Indian International Film Academy. Continue reading
Green Pepper (Pipper Nigrum)
Native to the Western Ghats, Pepper is popularly known as the “King of Spices”. Continue reading
Backwaters Home: Pampa Villa
- Pampa Villa On The Pamba River
We have mostly shown images of life on Kerala’s backwaters from the perspective of boats, as in looking at and looking from. As Milo’s recent post showed (at the tail end, so to speak), there is much more life on these waters than first meets the eye of the occasional visitor. The view above is from the river, looking at a home that Raxa Collective recently took responsibility for.
This responsibility included modifications to the interiors in order to make it more welcoming to travelers. It had served as the home of a prosperous resident of the backwaters, but now is open to receive visitors whose preferences in terms of privacy, decor and food (at least spice levels) often differ from those of locals, at least a bit.
Haiku and Homilies
From New York to Paris to Bombay, navigating city streets can be a challenging choreography between bipeds, bicycles and motorized vehicles. In places like India that dance expands to include the more than occasional quadruped as well.
We’ve written about driving in India on several other occasions, and to mitigate the apparent chaos the Indian Government has a program of sometimes rhyming, often droll, road signs that include little “ditties” such as:
Speed Thrills But Kills
Impatient on the Road, Patient in the Hospital
Safety On Road; Safe Tea At Home!
Reach Home In Peace, Not In Pieces!
Life of Periyar (Periyar Lake)
Photo by: Varghese TJ
The most familiar scenic view of Periyar Lake, which covers 26 Sq Km of the Periyar Tiger Reserve. Continue reading
Blue Grass Dartlet
The first time I saw this species, I was dumbfounded, to say the least. We live in a 10th floor apartment in urban Cochin, which admittedly is on the banks of the backwaters. Nonetheless, I was quite surprised to see a dull-colored damselfly float through a window and over our dining room table, and out the door onto the balcony on the opposite side of the room. Fortunately, I gathered my wits quickly enough to rush back with my camera, and corralled the enigma into a corner in the balcony (non-violently, of course), and was able to get a few shots before it breezed off in the lethargic float I’ve come to associate with damselflies. The only time I’ve seen any damselfly zooming the way most dragonflies do is when they’re swooping in on their prey, at which point even the laziest, slowest, and smallest of them can put on quite a turn of speed.
Male Trumpet Tail (Revisited)
A few months ago while staying at Cardamom County, I spent a morning with a wonderful character named Jain – a tribal man with an avid interest in insects and arachnids, working as a guide in the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, and incidentally, a friend and student of Mr. Vijaykumar Thondaman‘s. Both armed with cameras, Jain and I entered the reserve just after dawn, and spent the best part of the morning hunting dragonflies and damselflies across streams and fields, ponds and gullies. Continue reading
Any Given Christmas
While the paper Christmas stars of Kerala are often just cheerful adornments to a rooftop, shopfront or hanging eave, there are also an entire range of much larger, homemade stars. Ranging in size from large to gargantuan, they are meant to convey messages from simple well wishes to the deepest ideologies…. Continue reading
Saip!
In my own favorite post of the last few months (Kerala: Seeing & Learning), I briefly mentioned the word. But I didn’t make it clear just how hilarious the instances of its utterance can be, especially when the subject knows its significance.
A New Zealand writer who lived in Kerala for a few years describes a few bizarre Continue reading
Blue Dawn Glory (Ipomea nil)
Blue Dawn Glory is an annual twiner seen commonly throughout India in areas up to 1800 meters altitude. This twiner is commonly known as Morning Glory due the fact the flower opens around sunrise and fades before sunset.
Relics
Everywhere you go in India, even cities considered ‘modern’ by today’s standards, there are relics of the past. Architecture, attire, animals walking through the street. In Cochin, one of Kerala’s biggest cities, locals don’t even look twice if an elephant walks down the street – the same street with IT parks and shopping malls on it. Continue reading
On Underfrogs
Guest Author: Nicole Kravec
Photo: Milo Inman
The thought of academic expeditions, leeches and Asia brings a smile to my face. I just read a thought-provoking (and pun filled) article in The Economist about conservation in India with a froggy focus.
The article focuses on Mr. Sathyabhama Biju Das’ amphibian affinity and makes the overall point tha while growth damages the environment, it also nurtures a countervailing force: rising green consciousness. Continue reading
Our Gang, Thevara (#10)
Two brothers and their neighbor buddy. Thevara is one of our communities, part of Cochin (aka Kochi) and situated on the backwaters between the modern part of town and the older harbor sections of town called Fort Cochin and Mattancherry. Continue reading
Our Gang, Thevara (#9)
These youngsters are often to be found on a warm afternoon sitting in this exact spot, discussing something important in Malayalam; but ever polite, when a passerby of foreign appearance says hello, they break into English. Continue reading
Our Gang, Thevara (#8)
In our neighborhood, 8am on a weekday implies children of all ages preparing for a walk or ride to school Continue reading
Our Gang, Thevara (#7)
Water, Dams, Kerala & Tamil Nadu
In the lovely monsoon season, one of our Contributors wrote about crossing the border from Kerala into Tamil Nadu. The writing took the man from mars perspective: a South Korean observing two distinctly different cultures and landscapes within southern India, writing with a sense of wonder and backed up by great photographs.
Lately things are different. Sung would not be able to make that same journey. The politics of water–actually the politics of politics superimposed on the politics of water, or vice versa–seem to be the problem. Another of our Contributors, writing seven weeks prior to Sung about the same cross-border excursion, hinted at the problem seen today, with martian prescience. Continue reading
Our Gang, Thevara (#6)
The stance is familiar to anyone of North American, Cuban, Central American or Venezuelan heritage. But it is not what it first might seem to anyone from those places. An anglophile, indophile, or carribophile will immediately recognize the bat our neighborhood friend is gripping. On any given day, on any given street in the country that currently holds the trophy as world champions in cricket, you are likely to see something like this. Continue reading
Organikos 