Nature and its fruits. And Love?

I just finished reading today’s newspaper. The Delhi Development Authority has decided to throw open its fruit orchards to the public. Orchards of mango, guava, ber, jamun, mulberry and star fruit will now become public spaces, with lights, jogging paths and adequate security measures. The entry to DDA’s 18 orchards will be free, thus encouraging people to come and connect with nature and its fruits. 

Nature and its fruits? 

I close my eyes and imagine... 

Hundreds of mango trees stand pregnant with fruit in front of me. The sun is sweating to somehow reach the undergrowth. To touch it. To nourish it. Here and there, in those yellow patches, I spot fruit flies drunk on juice. They are dancing around plump mangoes which have fallen, as if hungry to be consumed, so ready they are! My nose smells grass and moss and bark. My ears hear the bees, the parrots, the falling fruits and also those faint whispers when the wind meets the leaves, making them shiver with an ‘I love you. I love you so much, Meenu’.

Wait, who said that? Is someone there? I see a red stone bench, a little in the sunlight and a little in the dark, as if yet to make up its mind to show or not to be seen. A boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing. Lovers, of course! Lovers professing love, discussing love, feeling love. Just the trees hear them. Only the mangoes understand. And none of the parrots can repeat their secret passion to the big, bad world of honour and blood … 

Nature and its fruits. And love.

I walk up to my book shelf and neck bent, finger the spines. 

Kalidasa’s ethereal Sakuntala, in a bark-garment, walks in the forest of her hermitage. Her girlfriends tease – ‘With you beside him the mango looks as if wedded to a lovely vine.’ King Duhsanta, spying on Sakuntala’s beauty, is smitten. He sees ‘how her lower lip has the rich sheen of young shoots, her arms the very grace of tender twining stems, her limbs enchanting as a lovely flower.’ 20 pages later there is an invitation to share the bench, if there ever was one, as Duhsanta says – ‘O girl with tapering thighs! … out of kindness, you offer me a place on this bed of flowers sweet from the touch of your limbs, to allay my weariness.’ She blushes with fire, he burns with it and her friends excuse themselves and leave. Love happens. Marriage follows soon after, but alas, it belongs not to the sylvan, fertile surroundings but to the world of the court, and its many laws. Many androcentric laws. About purity of roots, ‘varna’ and ‘uninterrupted succession’. And a woman who is ‘never free to do as I please’.  

I see a red stone bench … a boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing.

To lush regions of harmony, spiritual health, love and fancy, Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ belongs. Fancy, did I say? Yes. Make-believe! The woods, so symbolic of wilderness, are seemingly away and apart from the city-bound civilization. The traditional pastoral festivities release the escaped lovers’ energies for the continuity of life, but which in the end, sadly, are held in check. How? The city has its rules for the formal bonds of marriage. Very strict bills one needs to fit! This ‘contagious fog’ of terms and conditions can creep through the world of shady trees and reach the bench … brutal quarrels, a deranged lover, predation, jealousy, shame and disgust ensue to kill … ‘And therefore is love said to be a child because in choice he is so oft beguiled.’ Therefore.

I see a red stone bench … a boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing. 

I suddenly remember what this guy in Siddharth Chowdhury’s ‘Patna Manual of Style’ saw in Indraprastha Park, New Delhi. In his words – ‘I heard some voices from the covered pavilion that is right in the middle of the park. I thought I heard a faint female shriek for help … I found a young couple on the floor, the girl still in her school uniform, with her nylon zebra-striped chaddi and salwar around her knees and the boy bare-assed on top of her. Without thinking of consequences I ran in to save the girl and gave the boy a tremendous kick. The girl started saying ‘please, please, please’ and the boy … tried to run away… but not before some choice slaps from yours truly.’ He was just a goodly confused passer-by. No. He wasn’t a cop with a baton. But he could have been a cop, or someone serving the opaque and impermeable code of morality, of which one size fits all, and flouting which leads to such ‘dheeli chaddis’. 

I see a red stone bench … a boy and a girl sit huddled there, as if they were one. Someone is sobbing. 

The newspaper flutters in the fan’s wind to draw me back. I read yet again.

The Delhi Development Authority has decided to throw open its fruit orchards to the public. Orchards of mango, guava, ber, jamun, mulberry and star fruit will now become public spaces, with lights, jogging paths and adequate security measures. The entry to DDA’s 18 orchards will be free, thus encouraging people to come and connect with nature and its fruits. 

Nature and its fruits. And love? 

On Tiger Trails and Travails

Tucked between noisy news of parachuting politicians, noisier roadside shows and noisiest intellectual opinions in 140 characters about both, was a piece of news that made me roar with joy sitting in New Delhi. It said – ‘Good News. Tiger Numbers in India up from 1,400 to 2,226 in 7 Years’. 

Good news, indeed, because tigers and I go back in time a long and winding jungle way. You see, I’ve been looking for them since exactly seven years back. And something tells me my heart-felt but unheard call in the wild, ‘Oh show me your face, a paw, the tail or even a whisker, will you please?’ must have echoed in the various Reserves, Sanctuaries and National Parks I honeymooned in. Must have inspired them to multiply. While then not an inch of stripe did I see, in true election-style I hereby snatch credit for making boy tiger meet girl tiger, man tiger meet woman one, and so on and henceforth for hitting this milestone of 2226. 

As I sit wondering if it’s time for a second run through the wild, this time with greater chances of meeting the ‘Tiger, tiger burning bright’ (albeit without handshakes and hi-fives, Jai Mata Di) I thought of putting my tiger travail flashback to rest by bellowing about it right here. Yes, I call it a travail because to spot a tiger is like looking for a needle in a haystack where the hay is not just wet but spray-painted silver too. 

On the face of it, our jungle sojourns summarized looked something like this: 

On the face of it. 

The greatest thinkers on Facebook warn you that every happy family picture veils a load of sadness (and hen-pecked husbands) behind it. This picture too is that cheery curtain on the stage behind which such misery resides as would make you shudder and sigh. Because, even as we both say ‘cheese!’ in these snaps we had not spotted a single black stripe after visiting the most densely tiger populated habitats and spending hours there. Instead, we could write a thesis on ‘The Cheating Wild Boar; The Grunt that excites as if a Roar’ or ‘Mosquitoes; The Bloody Suckers You Can’t Beat’ or ‘How to Cushion Your Ass against Mud Roads When On a Safari’. A chapter on ‘The Importance of Patience’ picked from sacred texts could be the common one between the three.

Of course, when it first began at Buxa Tiger Reserve I was an uninitiated idiot high on love and love for all things wild. There I stood on the watch tower, excited to know from the beat guard that ‘Any time now, madam, the path behind you will be blessed with a tiger. You can make a wish, it is lucky to spot one.’ With a wish list prepared, mister in tow and khakhi-pants asked to double-check the lock on the gate, we had stood there long enough for migratory birds to have reached South from North, with a lunch break and siesta at the Equator. 

The beginning

Just when we were calling it a day, Jumbo had walked in as if to say ‘I am all that you got, honey. Stay and I’ll spray you with some namak I’m about to eat’. I had said tata to his salt and made my way out of a Reserve which had a tiger in its name but none on its knees four feet, and certainly not for me. 

The standby suitor

I had pocketed the wish-list I had made at Buxa though, hoping to ask the black-and-orange genie for some material pleasures (which soon enough meant Odomos, and drinking water) but failed to summon the other genie who would call the tiger out for me in the first place. 

So, for Sariska National Park we woke up early, really early to have more viewing time. It was cold and misty as we circled the beautiful lake our guide began the tour from. Dear reader, while I may lay the blame for a bursting bladder entirely on the cold, do know that the playfully deceptive whirls of mist in an area teeming with tigers does no good for the enthusiasm and confidence one goes looking for the national animal with. If anything, the mist seems full of evil eyes and with all intentions to pounce at the slightest sound denim makes against denim.

This is where I saw multiple tigers, in my mind's eye

We did see a host of other animals once the sun was up in Sariska, but did we meet The Royal One, snoozing behind the bush or feeding in the grass, swaying his lazy tail at a butterfly or licking her cubs clean? Le Sigh, etc.

As months went by, I kept myself from Googling the probability of spotting a tiger in the wild. Something told me for the number of hours we had spent in these two widely-apart tiger habitats without spotting one would mean we had been incompetent and undeserving failures. I knew now what we thought was our stomachs grumbling with hunger was indeed a tiger purring in pleasure for having tricked us. That what we brushed off as the play of light-and-shadow on the tall trees or dry grass actually had two eyes staring right back at us. 

Oh, if only we had looked harder and not let our rational minds rule supreme.

I looked and waited

He waited on me and looked too

One day, when I made up my mind to bring home a cub of my own, I heard that we would float around in the Sunderbans for two days to spot tigers and tickle crocs with our propellers. I was ecstatic! I was ready to be robbed of breath at the sight of a majestic Bengal getting his paws dirty in the slush and giving me the looks. Except, I had no idea our room for the night in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by nothing human would be as tall and as wide as a baby's cot. Breathless I slept, breathless I woke up. As for what happened the rest of the time?

We learnt the laws of this land. I prayed too. 

We asked around and cried when we heard 'It just passed by'

But looked around, with ferocious hope

Till 2 seemed 4, and everything at least 2

And the deception continued ...

Till the point when faraway egrets seemed to roar

Till dawn became dusk, twice over

No tiger did we ever see, not even the tip of a tail. 

Le Sigh number two.

Aside - whenever we sit and think back to those days of backpacked wild abandon, even the discomforts and disappointments of those days we miss. There is something so unique in seeing plants and animals and native tribes enjoying their natural homes; with an ease that no other place affords and a sense of belonging that another’s territory can never create. Much like us humans, happiest where the heart is and we know the heart is always at home. 

Of course this poetry-in-prose doesn’t mean I am not ready to lock home and go for round two! 1400 has become 2226, the good news, the good news! 

Perhaps, next time I will go lusting for wild boars or deer, squirrels or parakeets. Maybe then I will spot a tiger? Who knows how Murphy the Ranger thinks! Some tiger somewhere has to be born to grace my presence with his majestic frame. It cannot be otherwise. It just cannot be.

I'm not dropping my anchor yet. Not just yet!

The Full Moon

The full moon shone bright. As bright as a perfect bowl of pure silver which had passed through fire. Seven times over. As brave too, for the bluest of darkness surrounding it could not steal even a ray of its light.

But little Tarini wanted to steal tonight. She really did! She sat in her cot pushing sleep away and making a staircase with her Lego blocks. To climb, right up to the moon. Why, to steal the rabbit that lives there, of course! Haven’t you heard? Just this afternoon, Lakshmi ma’am had read a story from a very important book, which only grown-ups could touch, about the fluffy rabbit that stays on the moon. As if by divine coincidence, tonight, when the moon was so round and so big, Tarini thought she saw the bunny hop. Twice! She knew instantly that he was very lonely up there, just as she was down here. So, she was going to steal it tonight, get it home and care for it as much as her mother did for her brother. Without a sound, and with dolly her one-eyed confidante by her side. But first things first! She had to build a long stairway to the heavens above. And that is exactly what she was doing, putting block upon block, tongue popping out in concentration, sleepy eyes glancing up to make sure the moon remained, whispering ‘I’m coming to rescue you, bunny. Just wait for me. Be my best friend’.

The lonely bunny must have heard her whispers and then her snores which followed close behind. It must have also heard the deep sobs coming from another window.

A woman stood there, crying. Tears of desire and longing combined. Beautiful beyond belief she was, and if you were to know her real story she would remind you of Rapunzel in a tower, trapped. She stood staring at the moon which became two dots of silver light in her wet eyes. As if a sign of the power she carried within. Power to love with the ferocity of a huntress, but none to overturn edicts carved with stony old thinking. He’s Muslim, she knew. When her parents came to know they wanted to know no more. The full moon tonight was the last one she would see with unmarried eyes. At least she saw the moon, for her husband’s face she was yet to! Bathed in silver she swam back to when she was little. When the moon meant a rabbit, a fluffy one. And then, those days in the hostel of secret chanting to the old man known to play ‘cupid’ sitting on the moon – “Full moon. Full moon. I hail thee! By all the virtue in thy body, grant this night that I may see he who my true love is to be.” Giggling. Praying to dream about the face of true love, those girls just out of pigtails, but grown up enough for now they bled. She smiled and opened her eyes. How far back it seemed. How juvenile! True love … a tear slipped down her left eye.  Sat on the window sill, and then dried.

The old man on the moon must have seen it fall. But what could he have done? He looked around. Luna! But the goddess was busy elsewhere.

At the ghat which burned with human cries in the day sat a bald woman wrapped in white tonight. Riding on the full moon’s silver palanquin, as if possessed by its rays, she had broken out of her ashram through her lonely window. Could the silver disc in the sky have lead her there, after a fit of hysterical screaming at flashes of memory which she saw as monstrous shapes, only she? The air around was still alive with murmurs, but the water slept calmly. She sat there listening, beads in one hand the other making wild movements on her head as if pulling the hair that wasn’t there. If you saw her you would think she was crazy, but she was just a widow punished with this life because the man she married died. Because of you, for him you did not love, repeated the voices. Accusingly. The same voices. A thought touched her like a gentle breeze does a searing heart, that right below the water was a peaceful kingdom. That is where the moon shone brightest. With a fluffy bunny sitting next to an old man promising her true love. She went down the steps, slowly unwrapping the cotton sari from around her wrinkled frame which formed a trail of chaste white on the holy steps. Soon, Tarini became one with the water.

The full moon shone bright. As bright as a perfect bowl of pure silver which had passed through fire. Seven times over. As brave too, for the bluest of darkness surrounding it could not steal even a ray of its light.

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - The Full Moon - When the full moon happens, you turn into a person who’s the opposite of who you normally are. Describe this new you.]

Paintings which speak to me

How convenient it is to have definitions for everything. How comforting too, to know, or seem to know the what-why-how behind most things that surround us or make us. To have an instruction manual for a do-it-yourself, or even a pure white line of social conventions to tow. But this is what the "usual" side is made of, of a coin the other side of which reads "different".

To me, and particularly in art, "different" is a stimulus which challenges my brain's synapses into re-thinking and re-visiting all definitions which I have either imbibed or invented before the prick, pinch or as most like to call it, the spark of novelty brushes against my soul. It is the beginning of not just love then, but of an unending relationship with that art form.

In music, Jazz touched me for the "rebellion" that it stood for, and for ways it re-wrote its own notes in the book; pure noise to those who love it not enough. In Literature, the subjectivity of Modernism-Post Modernism made me reject reality itself as limited and limiting. And in painting, nothing has caught my eye as much as Impressionism did and the ripple-effect it had on other art forms, including on the love-of-my-life Literature.

Here, I show you some of my favourite pieces from this art movement which began in France, setting such unconventional precedents for things to come that in 1874,  at the first exhibition of Impressionist paintings, most observers reacted with sneers. An expected reaction by the keepers of all things 'classic' but later made popular by those who welcome what I call "different".      

Impressionism perpetuated the idea of painting 'sensory-impressions'. The artists worked mainly out of doors and in natural lighting, for a new aesthetic based on light and colour was being born. Sunbeams, shimmering radiance, elusive tricks of light and daring colour combinations were the ambiance in which the Impressionists bathe their landscapes and city views, their scenes from everyday life, and their still lifes and portraits. They (and the neo-impressionists who followed them) were revolutionaries and trail blazers: they opened the way to modern art.

I speak here of three important impressionist painters - Monet, Degas, and Renoir. All had their own unique way of conveying reality - Monet's landscapes, Degas's dancers and Renoir's portraits being their specialities.

~ Claude Monet ~

Monet succeeded in capturing fleeting impression neglected by his predecessors or deemed by them to be impossible to depict with a brush, by no longer merely painting the immobile and unchanging landscape but also the fleeting sensory impressions conveyed to him by its atmosphere and mood. Monet, thus, creates an incredibly powerful impression of the observed scene.

Impression: Sunrise

The name of this style derived from Monet's painting's title 'Impression: Sunrise'. The sunrise was depicted as an impression rather than a landscape. In fact, the old school refused to even call these paintings 'landscapes'.

View of the Tuileries Gardens

Notice the detachment from the factual world of stabilizing lines in favour of pure colour in the above picture.

Poppy Field at Argenteuil

In 'Poppy Field at Argenteuil', Monet dispenses almost completely with outlines. For instance, notice the poppies closely. He was, after all, concerned primarily with conveying a visual impression.

Waterlilies

There is no fixity of perspective here. No structure and not even a horizon you can see and hold on to. A seamlessness reminiscent of impressions.

Boulevard des Capucines

Graphic elements in 'Boulevard des Capucines' play a subsidiary role, while unmixed colours comprise the main means of pictorial organisation. The further away you stand and look at the picture, the clearer it seems.

~ Edgar Degas ~

Degas was known for his preference for surprising perspectives, and that makes him one of the most interesting painters for me. He positioned his observer so close to the self-absorbed subjects, it was like a peeping Tom painting them.

The Star/Dancer on Stage

Degas shunned artificial poses, letting the women follow natural movements - appearing so natural that critics surmised the artist was observing models through key holes. Don't ask about the theories that the rumour mill churned connecting his bachelorhood to his style of painting!

~ Pierre-Auguste Renoir ~   

Renoir was a celebrator of beauty, especially feminine sensuality. But I have picked here two paintings in keeping with the above-mentioned paintings.

Venice Grand Canal

'Venice Grand Canal' is flooded with light. You can see it reflected on the water, the canal front and the cloud flecked sky. Look how they shimmer! 

Dance at the Moulin de la Galette

Renoir allowed himself to be carried away with the surroundings he found himself in. He lived around this cafe for six months, spoke to residents, and in the midst of it all produced the wild movements of this popular dance cafe. Notice how his figures softly fuse with one another and their surroundings.

No other style of painting comes as close to my idea of reality-fused-with-subjectivity as Impressionist Paintings do. By giving form to impressions, they give importance to the painter's thoughts and visions, even as they invite the on-lookers' ideas. A looking within and reflecting it without. As a person who has always enjoyed understanding not just various art forms but the minds behind them too, the paintings above speak to me at myriad levels. Interestingly, if you show me a photograph and then an impressionist painting, chances are I will find the latter more real. The fluidity, the motion in the water, the movement of bodies, the light and the flux that they signify is what reality is, isn't it? Changing and becoming all the time. 

Post-Script: These are photographs of pictures of these paintings from a book called 'Impressionism' that I have. As Plato would say, four times removed from reality, before banishing me from his Republic. If it interests you despite the banishment, turn to Google for more. In the mean time, click on individual paintings for an enlarged view.      

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - The artist’s eye - Is there a painting or sculpture you’re drawn to? What does it say to you? Describe the experience. (Or, if art doesn’t speak to you, tell us why.)]

Through the Green Lens; A Photo Story

When you say ‘Nature’ to me, no poetry born under a cherry tree comes to mind. No tune composed by the river or lyrics of a song the winds on the dunes sang. No quotable quotes either. When I hear ‘Nature’, all connections in my neurons go blank, except one. The one which zips me back to where I belong, and how. In the Doon valley, you grow up making tree houses and befriending squirrels-next-door. You play fetch with your dog in a kitchen garden which grows the family’s vegetables and you ride a scooter on roads so thickly lined with old Fir trees, the mountains on all 4 sides have to vie for a little attention. My home town where my memories with Nature converge is a picture every 5-year-old draws in the name of ‘Scenery’.

Mountains big and small standing arm in arm, drawn in crayons. A sun with glorious rays peeping from between the two in the middle. Smiling. Two birds like the letter V flying randomly and a river flowing down the tallest peak. A small hut, driveway, tree to one side and bush to the other. Maybe a pond with a few ducks. And three stick figures – father, mother and child – with arms upraised, as if saying Hurrah to the delightful surroundings. When you say ‘Nature’ to me, this comes to mind. 

A picture of Friendship with Nature. A bond that develops over time and is unlike any other. No strings attached here, no self-interest. No obligation or customary to-dos. None. A symbiotic coexistence in its purest form. In its most real form. One hundred percent.

I was inspired to befriend Nature as a girl, then introduced to the marvels of the wild as a married woman and today, encouraged as a mother to egg my own child into this friendship. Three phases, and I let my picture collection tell you about them.

Phase 1

Friends of the Doon Society, and me

I had barely learnt to differentiate between a moth and a butterfly in school when I was asked by my parents to ‘start contributing’ to an NGO they had been a part of. FODS was founded nearly three decades ago by 5 concerned citizens of the Doon valley towards the protection of this ecologically fragile belt. It was this NGO which played a pivotal role in shutting down the lime quarries in the Uttarakhand hills. I was initially enrolled in ‘NEAP’ – Nature and Environment Awareness Programme, which meant I was to visit schools and conduct informal sessions on environmental topics I myself knew enough about. And that was just the beginning, with no looking back to doing my tiny bit. While work made me relocate out of the city, FODS, with my parents as its core members, continues strong and committed. Nature trails and quizzes are organized in schools across the valley, as are bird-watching and nature camps. Under ‘Trees for Doon’, FODS asks citizens for land to plant trees on, providing free saplings and seeds for whoever volunteers a patch to be greened. A Citizen Action Group has been formed in collusion with other NGOs in order to deal with the civic problems of the city, in coordination with the government machinery.

FODS in the city

But the largest project running successfully remains ‘The Elephant Family’, with its primary aim of protecting the Asiatic Elephant. In order to reduce the dependence of humans on Rajaji National park, its natural habitat, FODS adopted a village, Rasulpur, to keep the locals self-sufficient and aware through alternative livelihood options and workshops, respectively.

Activities in the village include promoting new farmer techniques like poly-tunnels through workshops, creating compost pits, adult education classes, free health camps, computer education centres, looms for women, distributing solar lamps, cycles for girls to reach far flung schools, artificial insemination in cattle, etc. 

      Needless to say, this is how I was inspired to become Nature's friend, as a "friend-in-need". When I was shown not just how beautiful and fascinating it was, but also how vulnerable and how fragile. And how it needed us humans to intervene for its well-being and ours. Yes, even a youngling like me!

Phase 2

Into the Wild - Me and my husband

I did not marry a cave man, but I did find one who believed in wild honeymoons. Before your mind races like a cheetah, look at the picture. In the first year of our marriage, we left no stone unturned to traverse National Parks and safari across Wildlife Sanctuaries. Enjoy Forest Reserves and live on a boat to visit mangrove forests. From tuned-n-tamed nature before marriage, I was swept into nature growing wild, and in the wild. These were no resorts with manicured lawns and imported palm trees. Here, nothing stood between you and an angry animal except a man-in-khaki. Where wild boars were wild, not animated creatures out of ‘Madagascar’. Where mosquitoes bit like bees, and bees if upset could kill. Wild tuskers could chase you like toys and crocodiles snap your anchor into half. And where a beautiful bird song could be one asking you to step out of the way, for the tiger-in-stripes was walking that way. 

Some of the sanctuaries and reserves we visited - Buxa Tiger Reserve, Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary, Sunderbans Tiger Reserve, Gorumara National Park, Chilla Forest Reserve, Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary  

It was through many such honeymoons scattered over a year that I discovered the ‘wild’ side of the lover in me. The lover to Nature, of course, growing free far away from what I had come to call 'home' but as marvellous as creation can be!

Phase 3
Paying it Forward - Us and our child

Life happened. Out went the wild and in walked the domestic every day. The green side of our hearts had to make do with a few pots of plants and a handful of sunshine, as we earned the other kind of green to survive. It is now that I became an addict, of Facebook’s Farmville. Sowed and reaped pumpkins. Put an alarm to wake-up at odd hours to collect the harvest. The phone bill came, we were left bankrupt and I was detoxified. I bought myself an extra pot for a bitter gourd vine and forgot all about reliving and recreating an expanse of green in my apartment-life, like the green times I had left behind. Little did I know then that all I needed was a child to take me back to being my Nature’s friend again.

And my son arrived. 

How the first introduction to Nature is in the form of cuddly toys, and expanses of greens and blues and browns which make no sense, but still invite their tiny minds. From Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary to Bangkok's Siam Ocean World, from Bhimbetka caves to a Mughal window in the Red Fort, my son was saying his first hellos to Nature even before I taught him how to.

And when his feet allowed him to walk, it was time to go a step further in this friendship. Run and fly pigeons in Jaipur's Albert Hall, or take orange sweet-peas for a ride in Lodhi gardens. Show us how flowers bloom or talk to fake peacocks in Surajkund. And stand mesmerised babbling with beautiful white ducks. No surprise then that the first book he chose to buy was called 'My First Hundred Animals'.

But when language is learnt, Curiosity learns to ask questions. Why is the feather so soft? How come these leaves are so thin? You hug a tree reliving 'Chipko Movement', whispering an I love you. Run amok on the green with stranger children. Stare intently at pieces of natural history in a museum or even talk to a twig the grass was hiding. Why, you even start imagining you are Atlas, shrugged! And you ask, on and on and on and on, the why what how where how come. 
About Nature.

He's a 3-year-old boy now. I always tell him – when life gives you lemons, go look for the lemon tree. There may be pretty white flowers you may get to see. Something new, entirely! Or something wondrous and miraculous, waiting to make you gasp. And he understands, already. Feeling one with nature takes nothing and gives so much in return. Calm on a stressful day or something new to discover in the mundane. Sowing a seed in a pot and enjoying the sapling grow as if a fairy waved a wand or soaking in the sun and making mansions out of imagination. Admiring the tree and understanding growth, or the waves and thinking of change and flux. And what better way to teach my child the important idea of Respect – not just about touching elders’ feet but also letting the tiny ant crossing his path be. Safe and free, just like he likes to be. 

And gradually, through nurture and nature, our Friendship with Nature evolves, grows and gets sealed. For a lifetime, at least! Just like ours, as a family!

Guest Post - The best days of my life! by Ruchira Shukla

I don't know how to welcome Ruchira Shukla to my blog. If I drum roll her in, I might disturb the elegant sobriety that I associate with her person. If I go hyperbolic with adjectives, it will fail to suit the understated beauty that her blog stands for. So, I introduce her to you as a friend I found recently, as a woman who I admire for more reasons than one and as a writer whose writings I look up to as calm in stormy waters. 

Ruchira's stream of thoughts flow into Nirjharini, a blog she believes she cannot do justice to (thanks to her job) but a blog which does justice to her readers' lust for quality writing, post-after-post. Be it quirky travelogues or musings dipped in philosophy, Haikus or a turning back into history, the blog carries a unique character of its own. Like an exotic place where she back-packed solo, or the adrak chai she found in a shanty in a place we know only as a dot-on-the-map, but a place where she found herself. 

And I needed her to be my lucky mascot. To initiate on my blog a section on travel writing, for I could think of no one better - in craft or as a friend - to cut the shubh ribbon for me. She sent me a post this morning called 'The best days of my life!' 

Here it is then ... 

----------------

The best days of my life! 

I have spent many happy years in the Land of the Rising Sun and have lived in almost all its major cities, but the place that remains the closest to my heart is a quaint little city called Kobe. 

Kobe lies on the southernmost tip of Japan. It’s almost at the other end from Tokyo, but what separates the two cities is not only the physical distance but also their two totally different characters. Tokyo is all about big corporates, high rises and technology. Kobe on the other hand is quiet, laid back with an old world charm.  If we were to assume that these two cities are people, Tokyo to me would be an aggressive Businessman but Kobe would be a graceful and elegant lady dressed in a Kimono.

The time that I spent there was perfect in all aspects. I loved my job, I had great friends and most importantly I was bang in the middle of the two things I loved the most - History and Natural Beauty. There was not a single cloud to mar my bright blue sky!

Kobe is just an hour away from two of the greatest tourist spots in Japan - Kyoto and Nara. Anyone with even a remote interest in Shinto shrines and Zen simply has to visit these places. At the core of Shintoism lies the belief that God as well as inner peace can only be found in nature and that is why the ancient monks laid a great emphasis on building their shrines amongst spectacular nature beauty. Most of the shrines are either set deep in the woods or high up in the mountains.

I made many pilgrimages to these shrines over the year. They had their own uniqueness, their own
perspective to offer in each season.

In spring, when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom, they seemed to promise hope and new beginnings. Autumn, inspite of all its palette of colors, made the shrines look melancholic and they seemed to be teaching us about the impermanence of things. In winter, when they were covered with snow, they seemed to signify austerity and solitude.

But I didn’t always have to travel out of the city to enjoy nature. Kobe is wedged between the hills on one side and the sea on the other. My corner apartment on the 14th floor had huge glass windows. Although it was scary when the windows rattled during earthquakes or when the wind and rain lashed at them during the typhoon season, I didn’t mind because they offered me spectacular views.

On two sides they looked out on the hills. During the cherry blossom season, it seemed as if soft pink and white clouds had floated down to cover the hills.  In autumn the trees would be rust and red and yellow, as if the hills were on fire. Summer meant looking out of the window at a carpet of blue and purple hydrangeas and irises.

The third side looked out to the sea and in summer if the day was clear, I could even see yachts floating on the shimmering waters. Even when I had a chance to exchange my small apartment for a bigger one, I didn’t simply because I so loved the view I saw out of my windows!

Even going to work was a delight. The 30 minutes in the train never felt cumbersome because the monotony of the houses and buildings was broken by fields full of Hydrangea flowers that seemed to grow in such abundance in Kobe.

Work hours were long and often stretched into weekends but who would mind staying late when we just had to lift our heads from our laptops, and look out of the window at this!

Kobe was my home for almost two years. I haven’t been there for a long time now, but the years that I spent there were truly the best years of my life!

To Nature We Turn

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. But why? How about going looking for a lemon tree instead? Maybe it is in full bloom, and shows you those pretty white flowers too?

There is much that nature has to offer a child. Or even a grown up mind. More so, because in our everyday lives there is just no time. No time to appreciate it and feel grateful for it, or even to simply realize its beautiful presence around us.

I write this as a woman who had to leave her mango and litchi trees behind in her home town to make a living out of life. And I speak as a mother to a 3-year-old being brought up in a typical big town flat, sans a garden to weed or trees to climb. Maybe a few potted plants to adorn the balcony, add some green to the concrete. But, that’s about all. It is this that makes me wallow in nostalgia the colour of flowers, but also makes me go that extra step to open nature’s treasure chest for my son to enjoy.

What is it, big or very little, that nature holds within its whorls?

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