I remember...
The field mouse was out early to feast on ripened paddy grains, plentiful, golden and lustrous fields of which were spread as far as the eye could see as one got off the train at Hampapura in late December. But that was perhaps never in the mouse’s field of view. What it could probably see, however, were ‘tall’ stands of rice plants in different shades of ripening, and a narrow bund of mud, one of the hundreds that criss-cross these vast fields in regular squares, dividing them into plots of a certain approximately-fixed area. The mouse, no doubt, had to negotiate this maze everyday. A maze fraught with dangers.
The mouse also probably had to jump down, at regular intervals, certain bunds which suddenly gave way to fields at a lower level, as the land on which the fields stood gently sloped from Hampapura to the floodplains of the Kaveri river. It would also have wandered into the shallow wet marshes that lay beyond the cultivation, but then, in course of its wanderings, the mouse could have encountered other denizens of the neighbourhood; other mice, frogs, fidgety grasshoppers, pretty butterflies and gaudy dragonflies, ubiquitous paddy birds, grey herons, mynas, weavers and snipe, and sometimes, perhaps, the harrier. Now and then, the harrier rises grandly from the lower marshes…the chase is on through the wet paddies. A swift skirmish sometimes results in a harrier with a contented stomach. Sometimes, the mouse gets away. And the harrier is left seated on a stone, or on an elevated bund, to survey the endless expanses of paddy and the extensive marshes of the Kaveri that form the great Paradise marsh of Hampapura.
The Hampapura marsh exists for two to three or four months in a year, depending on the post-monsoon water levels at the Krishnarajasagar reservoir near Mysore. It is created de novo each year when waters are withdrawn for Mandya’s winter rice and sugarcane crop in early November. The marsh literally migrates along the Kaveri for several kilometres, as the water level recedes between November and March.
The marsh is the first in the reservoir area to welcome the monsoon flood waters. The life of and on the marsh is thus directly dependent on the rains at Kodagu, the catchment of the Kaveri. If rains are copious, the marsh is formed by the end of November while it may not be formed at all as it happened a couple of seasons back, when the rains were insufficient and the dam never filled to the maximum level. The marsh thus cannot escape the caprice that characterises the politics of water; it disappeared two years back as soon as it formed early in late October, when water was let out of the Krishnarajasagar dam to irrigate the parched delta in Tamil Nadu.
The Hampapura marshes encompass roughly two thousand acres of shallow marshes, the deep flow-channel of the Kaveri and in later days, vast swathes of undulating grassy downs dotted by small and large, clear ephemeral pools and the occasional gobli (Acacia nilotica) tree. Several short streams carrying runoff lead into the Kaveri from some of these ponds. A clear, meandering boundary can be established between traditional cultivation and traditional flooding zones; this boundary has come to stay over the past seventy four years of the reservoir’s existence. As the marsh dries up by March, cultivation of short-term crops is taken up with the likes of tomato, green chilli, brinjal, okra, greens - grown and harvested before monsoon floods invade the marshland again. The tubers of the water lily are also consumed as vegetable as it is in southern China, and can be made into several tasty dishes including pakodas.
I cannot say how much this place of most was for several years my favourite haunt to go birding; one could see a whole lot of birds, quite a few of them rare in these parts, old trees and the spectacular landscape. I remember the golden plovers that froze into position as I approached a few feet of them, crawling on all fours in squelchy mud despite the fact that with the spotting scope I had on my back I could have easily afforded the pleasure of watching the plovers on dryland half a kilometre away
I remember the mighty flocks of thousands of little and Temminck’s stints that twisted and turned in tandem with incredible swiftness when dangers like the peregrine falcon encountered them, or sometimes just by force of habit, the apparently instantaneous group response scientifically inexplicable to date.
I remember the six curlews with their long, aesthetically (but strictly utilitarian) bent beaks probing deep in the soft mud for buried annelid worms.
I remember the nineteen greater spotted eagles on one day; one of the eagles made a spectacular straight dive from over two hundred feet to catch an injured wader.
I remember the beautiful bar-headed geese landing in the marsh; their sonorous honking stir in me even now…I can swear that I heard them just now, just here.
I remember the swift-swimming, diving, squabbly flotilla of several thousand cormorants, the largest I have seen in my life, being harassed by a few hundred gulls for the freshly-caught fish.
I remember the interminable lines of glossy ibis on the horizon that transformed into equally large v-formations as they flew overhead. I have always felt that our jet planes show up as sloppy and tame when compared to ibis, duck and the wading birds, all of which brake with remarkable efficiency as they hurtle down towards the earth only to embrace it gently.
I remember the cold harsh winds that sometimes prevail over there, hitting the water with vengeance, but the mixed flocks of duck mostly brave it out by staying afloat with heads turned around and beaks tucked in their warm backs.
I remember the pheasant-tailed jacana guiding chicks over the floating water lily leaves – these birds can actually walk on them with their huge spider-like toes and sometimes from a distance, it even feels that they are walking on water!!
I remember the erratic escape tactics of the otherwise cunningly camouflaged, large, evening brown butterflies that rose from the floor leaf litter of ancient mango and venerable banyan trees near the marsh.
I remember the siege of bees that fell upon a honey buzzard raiding their hive for grubs and in the ensuing mêlée, the swarm that took after us, yours truly having to perform what was probably the run of my life before they were shaken off
I remember the huge numbers of egrets, cormorants and herons nesting on roadside and village trees on the banks of the river; the juvenile cacophony that arose from that heronry could be heard from half a mile away!!
I remember the festoons of white and lilac Asystasia and saffron-with-a-purple-centre Thunbergia alata blossoms that charmed the border thickets along canal-side paths.
I remember the sad irony of many places on the banks of the reservoir, further away from the marshes – water, water everywhere, but not one drop to drink – they are about the driest places around Mysore that I have seen.
I remember the time when I sprained my leg attempting to jump across a canal that I knew I couldn’t cross and the subsequent serendipitous encounter with a kora, a rather shy marshbird that likes to hide more than reveal itself, when I sat under a tree nursing the sprain…the “I remember”s can probably go on forever, and that was the last one for now, but why do I remember so much? This marsh, thankfully, is away from urban centres that could endanger its soul as we have as urbanites done with several water bodies in Bangalore and Mysore and elsewhere…Is it not time that these urban jewels be left alone? Is it not time that we keep more such treasures hidden, like the Hampapura marsh I just wrote about. A railway line and a highway connecting Mysore to Hassan are located at striking distance from the marsh. Although I am confident that in the near future nothing untoward will happen……People have been living in the villages bordering the marsh for centuries but their scale of life has allowed for sustenance of marsh life, with rewards in terms of land to grow paddy and vegetables when the marsh disappears each year; perhaps the scale of urban life makes it inevitable for such co-existence to remain a pipe dream…perhaps sometime when I go back again to the marshes I can see more birds, witness more exciting events and interact with the plants and insects and people, I might get more trivia to write about. Till then, let the the fields be left to rustle in the wind, a battalion of harriers gently stalking their vastness, gliding with unsurpassed grace, confining themselves barely above the canopy of golden rush………
The mouse also probably had to jump down, at regular intervals, certain bunds which suddenly gave way to fields at a lower level, as the land on which the fields stood gently sloped from Hampapura to the floodplains of the Kaveri river. It would also have wandered into the shallow wet marshes that lay beyond the cultivation, but then, in course of its wanderings, the mouse could have encountered other denizens of the neighbourhood; other mice, frogs, fidgety grasshoppers, pretty butterflies and gaudy dragonflies, ubiquitous paddy birds, grey herons, mynas, weavers and snipe, and sometimes, perhaps, the harrier. Now and then, the harrier rises grandly from the lower marshes…the chase is on through the wet paddies. A swift skirmish sometimes results in a harrier with a contented stomach. Sometimes, the mouse gets away. And the harrier is left seated on a stone, or on an elevated bund, to survey the endless expanses of paddy and the extensive marshes of the Kaveri that form the great Paradise marsh of Hampapura.
The Hampapura marsh exists for two to three or four months in a year, depending on the post-monsoon water levels at the Krishnarajasagar reservoir near Mysore. It is created de novo each year when waters are withdrawn for Mandya’s winter rice and sugarcane crop in early November. The marsh literally migrates along the Kaveri for several kilometres, as the water level recedes between November and March.
The marsh is the first in the reservoir area to welcome the monsoon flood waters. The life of and on the marsh is thus directly dependent on the rains at Kodagu, the catchment of the Kaveri. If rains are copious, the marsh is formed by the end of November while it may not be formed at all as it happened a couple of seasons back, when the rains were insufficient and the dam never filled to the maximum level. The marsh thus cannot escape the caprice that characterises the politics of water; it disappeared two years back as soon as it formed early in late October, when water was let out of the Krishnarajasagar dam to irrigate the parched delta in Tamil Nadu.
The Hampapura marshes encompass roughly two thousand acres of shallow marshes, the deep flow-channel of the Kaveri and in later days, vast swathes of undulating grassy downs dotted by small and large, clear ephemeral pools and the occasional gobli (Acacia nilotica) tree. Several short streams carrying runoff lead into the Kaveri from some of these ponds. A clear, meandering boundary can be established between traditional cultivation and traditional flooding zones; this boundary has come to stay over the past seventy four years of the reservoir’s existence. As the marsh dries up by March, cultivation of short-term crops is taken up with the likes of tomato, green chilli, brinjal, okra, greens - grown and harvested before monsoon floods invade the marshland again. The tubers of the water lily are also consumed as vegetable as it is in southern China, and can be made into several tasty dishes including pakodas.
I cannot say how much this place of most was for several years my favourite haunt to go birding; one could see a whole lot of birds, quite a few of them rare in these parts, old trees and the spectacular landscape. I remember the golden plovers that froze into position as I approached a few feet of them, crawling on all fours in squelchy mud despite the fact that with the spotting scope I had on my back I could have easily afforded the pleasure of watching the plovers on dryland half a kilometre away
I remember the mighty flocks of thousands of little and Temminck’s stints that twisted and turned in tandem with incredible swiftness when dangers like the peregrine falcon encountered them, or sometimes just by force of habit, the apparently instantaneous group response scientifically inexplicable to date.
I remember the six curlews with their long, aesthetically (but strictly utilitarian) bent beaks probing deep in the soft mud for buried annelid worms.
I remember the nineteen greater spotted eagles on one day; one of the eagles made a spectacular straight dive from over two hundred feet to catch an injured wader.
I remember the beautiful bar-headed geese landing in the marsh; their sonorous honking stir in me even now…I can swear that I heard them just now, just here.
I remember the swift-swimming, diving, squabbly flotilla of several thousand cormorants, the largest I have seen in my life, being harassed by a few hundred gulls for the freshly-caught fish.
I remember the interminable lines of glossy ibis on the horizon that transformed into equally large v-formations as they flew overhead. I have always felt that our jet planes show up as sloppy and tame when compared to ibis, duck and the wading birds, all of which brake with remarkable efficiency as they hurtle down towards the earth only to embrace it gently.
I remember the cold harsh winds that sometimes prevail over there, hitting the water with vengeance, but the mixed flocks of duck mostly brave it out by staying afloat with heads turned around and beaks tucked in their warm backs.
I remember the pheasant-tailed jacana guiding chicks over the floating water lily leaves – these birds can actually walk on them with their huge spider-like toes and sometimes from a distance, it even feels that they are walking on water!!
I remember the erratic escape tactics of the otherwise cunningly camouflaged, large, evening brown butterflies that rose from the floor leaf litter of ancient mango and venerable banyan trees near the marsh.
I remember the siege of bees that fell upon a honey buzzard raiding their hive for grubs and in the ensuing mêlée, the swarm that took after us, yours truly having to perform what was probably the run of my life before they were shaken off
I remember the huge numbers of egrets, cormorants and herons nesting on roadside and village trees on the banks of the river; the juvenile cacophony that arose from that heronry could be heard from half a mile away!!
I remember the festoons of white and lilac Asystasia and saffron-with-a-purple-centre Thunbergia alata blossoms that charmed the border thickets along canal-side paths.
I remember the sad irony of many places on the banks of the reservoir, further away from the marshes – water, water everywhere, but not one drop to drink – they are about the driest places around Mysore that I have seen.
I remember the time when I sprained my leg attempting to jump across a canal that I knew I couldn’t cross and the subsequent serendipitous encounter with a kora, a rather shy marshbird that likes to hide more than reveal itself, when I sat under a tree nursing the sprain…the “I remember”s can probably go on forever, and that was the last one for now, but why do I remember so much? This marsh, thankfully, is away from urban centres that could endanger its soul as we have as urbanites done with several water bodies in Bangalore and Mysore and elsewhere…Is it not time that these urban jewels be left alone? Is it not time that we keep more such treasures hidden, like the Hampapura marsh I just wrote about. A railway line and a highway connecting Mysore to Hassan are located at striking distance from the marsh. Although I am confident that in the near future nothing untoward will happen……People have been living in the villages bordering the marsh for centuries but their scale of life has allowed for sustenance of marsh life, with rewards in terms of land to grow paddy and vegetables when the marsh disappears each year; perhaps the scale of urban life makes it inevitable for such co-existence to remain a pipe dream…perhaps sometime when I go back again to the marshes I can see more birds, witness more exciting events and interact with the plants and insects and people, I might get more trivia to write about. Till then, let the the fields be left to rustle in the wind, a battalion of harriers gently stalking their vastness, gliding with unsurpassed grace, confining themselves barely above the canopy of golden rush………
posted by Dumaketu at 6:38 PM
7 Comments:
Wow! Sounds like paradise :))
I assure you, it is!
Why no blog since October? I'm Swedish(American) but never could GET Bergman(nor Woody Allen: dreadful!), but Britten, Walton, Bartok, Piston, Ives, Copland, Harris, David Diamond and Lenny B.make me tingle. Ditto Ravel and Debussy.How 'bout Swans? Way too what? Proustian?
Well, Jake, it has been quite a while coz of the work schedule. I've had a terrific month and would probably 'rejuvenate' my blog from tommorow. So, until tommorow...btw, about all those admirable people whom you mention here, there is only so much place that the blogger website offers to list my favourite movies. If more space were available, others could have made it to the list *grin*
Hi you low class Muslim boy, how is your mental capacity, might need some help from a medical doctor. You are a black boy
Desperate inferior race Muslim boy visit Coorg
What a sad story indeed!! An inferior race Muslim boy desperately wanted to marry a superior race Coorgs girl. It is just like a nigger desperately wants to marry a Caucasian girl. My question is why didn’t she marry a superior race Germany man instead!. Hell no, she was love with a low class Muslim boy who worship a child molester called prophet Mohammad, a 50 year old man marries a 9 years innocent girl. I never heard any normal man would ever marry a 9-year-old girl but so-called sicko prophet Mohammad did. In the Middle East countries, Indian, Pakistani and Bengal Deshi Muslims are considered as low-class Muslim because they know their history: The S C & S T, the untouchable Indian people converted to Muslim religion during the Islamic rule. So, you are a Muslim dark dirt boy, let us call you nigger boy. Let me remind you that Ancient Indians tradition, European, British, Canadian & Americans salute their weapons with celebration. Coorgs also have such celebration, hey Muslim nigger boy what is your point? Perhaps people like you are not civilized enough to understand the history. You are right on Pandi curry; Coorgs love to serve to Muslims mix with Lamb curry. Many Muslims who owns hundreds of small Deli places do cook pork meat called Bacon and inhale that horrible smell every morning, a punishment from your Allah the child-molester. All master race loves to eat pork except the inferior race Muslims. You never heard of Bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich nigger boy?, these white people love it. Well, all people from Coorg love to be a Coorgs even though they are not!, may be she is such that character, who knows?. In England even niggers, Indians, Arabs says that they are also British just like a Caucasian Anglo Saxons but in reality they are not. British Caucasian race have been polluted by the Indians, Niggers and Arabs just like in Coorg by others. In any society some people are weak and that kind of weak mined people would like to marry other races like many so called kodaga whores did. Like Shipla, Don Chengappa’s sister did or other kodaga whores might do in the future. We Coorgs never respect them nor accept them to Coorgs superior race and there are many bad apples. As Coorgs, it is perfectly legal carry a gun in Coorg and also it is legal to tortures a Muslim nigger boy like you. Perhaps Coorgs who took you in their jeep unaware of the old law and consider yourself lucky. My question is how desperate were you Muslim nigger boy to visit Coorg? If I were there then you would have met your 72 virgins in the sky. If you still have little guts in your head then leave your real full name, clear photo & correct home address and I will make sure that you will meet your 72 virgins in the sky. All expense paid, no cost to you. I wish Coorgs in Coorg start eliminating all Muslims who resides in Coorg.
By the way, Darwin’s evolution theory was made to please the Africans after the human slave trade, politically motivated one. None of the modern scientists ever made any linkage or proof between Africans and modern Caucasian humans. Perhaps Darwin might have read the Ramayana to settle his theory just like H.G. Wells' 1898 story about “The war of the worlds’” after reading Mahabratha war. Even the great science thinker Arthur C. Clarke wrote “2001 space Odyssey” (Satya Yuga -4 million years - Ramayana to Africa to Israel) scripts 4 times in order to satisfy the fine Jewish director - Stanley Kubrick. In the year 2000, Chinese scientist minister said that Chinese race is not part of the Earth’s human race instead they came to this earth as ufo aliens. He made a great point because they look like alien figures: Korean, Japanese, all the East Asian people are Chinese origin according new DNA tests, which stretch back to 40,000 years. Hi Nigger Muslim boy, you don’t have to show the Darwin’s picture on you computer to make your stupid points. My suggestion to you is; go to the old Tippu’s place and kill yourself to meet your 72 virgins in the sky. I think your desperation killing you.
dude..you need serious help.you motherfucker die.
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