15th April, 2017 : A very good wild morning...
With no mobile signal and no boring routine I had a very good sleep. My brain was all rejuvenated in just a single day. Nothing else in it, there was the transcript running in my mind and the transcript was of the TedEx speech by Pamela Malhotra. I am a big fan of the following lines of the speech.
"I wanted to share a dream I had.. decades ago. In this dream, I saw house on a small hill... over looking a pond... with a river flowing past.. in a wooded valley.. surrounded by white capped mountains...and the area was full of wild life..."
That's all!!! click on the link and watch the speech. Coming to my morning scheduled, it was planned as below..
- A morning trek with Pam, followed by lunch
- Video presentation at the Malhotra's house
Pam, according to me, is a very professional woman when it comes to sticking to the schedules. However, with no chasing timelines these schedules were all flexible. With only two people to manage, making the schedule too flexible may hamper the routine activities in sanctuary. The sanctuary needs the couple more than anybody else. One more interesting thing is, she prays to all the directions daily ( I remember Anil telling this to me).
At the breakfast table...
Small discussions were budding and the discussions were about the differences in the cultures of southern part of Italy and India. Though I like such conversations, didn't want at that moment.
Execution of the schedule...
1. Morning trek: There were two trekking trails in the sanctuary. One behind the house of Malhotras and the other one was closer to the cottages. The one, now, we went with Pam was the former.
The Camera Traps...
This trail has camera traps. Anything intercepting the infrared beams, the sensor would trigger the camera. There were good number of such camera traps to cover some major wildlife trails in the sanctuary. The cameras were ranging between rudimentary to the advanced ones that are available in the market today.
The trek was not a typical wildlife safari...
I had a previous experience when the people were expecting to see a round table conference of all the animals in the forest during the trek - which is not possible in any sense. The best part about this trek was - nobody was expecting to see plenty of wildlife and hence no sighs. My only wish was to see the age old trees standing tall in the sanctuary. If at all it happened to see animals, I would have considered it a bonus.
The Camera Traps...
This trail has camera traps. Anything intercepting the infrared beams, the sensor would trigger the camera. There were good number of such camera traps to cover some major wildlife trails in the sanctuary. The cameras were ranging between rudimentary to the advanced ones that are available in the market today.
The trek was not a typical wildlife safari...
I had a previous experience when the people were expecting to see a round table conference of all the animals in the forest during the trek - which is not possible in any sense. The best part about this trek was - nobody was expecting to see plenty of wildlife and hence no sighs. My only wish was to see the age old trees standing tall in the sanctuary. If at all it happened to see animals, I would have considered it a bonus.
I believe, there must be a way to communicate with trees as well. Till, oddly, 115+ years ago no one had a proof that 'trees also have life'. Perhaps, they too can memorise and they too can share age old stories and knowledge with us.. if we can figure out a way to communicate with them.
Coming back to the trek, we saw the camera traps that captured...
- The attack of Indian wild dogs on the Sambar deer-fawns
- The endangered river otters
- The elephant family marching during one Christmas eve
- The herd of Gaurs.. so on..
Wide open meadows...
We crossed three meadows and each one was giving a different view to the neighboring Brahmagiri mountain range - possibly these were the 'white capped mountains' of the dream where the white cap was given by the mist & clouds. Those meadows were uncultivated, wild open spaces covered with brownish/yellowish grass ( not so dense as in savannas. The type of grass was also different) and they host dozens of wild cattle and herds of different species of antelopes.
The Bhrahmagiri range
The friendly poop...
It was in one meadow, we stopped at a 'poop'. The poop gave support to the couples' belief that there was a bear in the sanctuary. Still not very sure of that.
It is a common practice among the folks working in forests to observe the poop. True! poop generally provides very important details about the wildlife such as the food patterns, the type of animal, how long has the animal been there or when it left the place...etc.
The elephant pond...
It was in one meadow, we stopped at a 'poop'. The poop gave support to the couples' belief that there was a bear in the sanctuary. Still not very sure of that.
It is a common practice among the folks working in forests to observe the poop. True! poop generally provides very important details about the wildlife such as the food patterns, the type of animal, how long has the animal been there or when it left the place...etc.
During the discussions at this place, I got to know the poop of birds is referred to as 'dropping'. Scat is one another type of poop.. Someone even told poop was friendly to remember than referring to these many different words.
As intuitive as its name, a family of elephants often visits the sanctuary and they take control of the mentioned pond. The pond was very placid with a hill range providing a beautiful background. The deepest point in the pond was told to be over 25 feet. We sat in the shade provided by the bamboo shots. There was a small water out let of the pond that made the best healing/meditation music. We spent more than half an hour on its bank. Pam told some past events that took place around the lake and showed some videos in her handy cam. Claudia, too,was telling some stories... Bopanna was picking some seed or a leaf or a branch and telling details about that. Bopanna, being a degree holder in the forestry studies, had a very good knowledge of the plants and animals. Occasionally he used to give some edible fruits to us. I felt it was a good thing to go trekking with Pam and Bopanna together.
The Elephant pond
A short tutorial...
It was after we finished a relatively long break on the bank of the pond, I was struggling with my camera. As I was( even am) not a skilled photographer, I was taking pics in point-n-shoot mode. The worst part was when the cam tried to adjust for bad light, the flash used to popped up. Being a professional(?), Claudia took a short tutorial/tour of how to handle the cam in manual mode. I tried to remember some key points.. ;)
- More ISO results in bad quality
- Strict no to higher ISO's unless the light is too less
- Lens take more light when aperture number is low. But no less than 4 or 5.
- Holding the camera... and so on..
The home tree...
In the sanctuary, there had been many a tree lived for several hundred years and one of which hosted us for a little while. The age of that particular tree was 700 years. Pam compared the tree with the home tree in 'Avatar' movie. In the words of Pam - "For us it is like the home tree in Avatar". This was the end of our trek. Pam collected the memory cards from the camera traps and we headed back to the starting point.
The home tree - I think I tried with manual settings :)
Lunch.. after finishing it real quick, I took a stop at a temple of the goddess "Bhagavathi", an incarnation of "Parvathi", on the way to my cottage. I like this goddess as one of our friends told she protects the forests.
2. Video Presentation:
By the time I reached their home, they were not done with their lunch. I utilized the time to explore the forest around that place. Before starting the show, Anil and I had a good chat. I explained him how I got to know about the sanctuary and the story before I reached here in sanctuary. Shanthi was roaming around us during our entire conversation.
Shradda, Shanthi and Lila...
According to the schedule, we were supposed to start the presentation at 5pm. However, it was 5.30+ pm when Anil and I finished discussion. It was feeding time for the three cats...and I thought it would be better to feed them first. The presentation started around 6pm after feeding them. The presentation covered the following videos.
After the show, I was sent with a torch. It started raining before I reached my cottage.
Dinner time and the discussion continued
It was little late by the time we finished our dinner. Then Claudia started discussing the caste system in India. Perhaps, she watched some videos on youtube before landing in India - it's quite common to know a little about the place that you are going to visit. However, the caste system is not a small and simple topic to wrap up in 15 to 20 mins. People living in the system itself didn't understand it - so there was no point trying to open the Pandora box - but it was made clear that system had changed a little from the past.
If not for politics, caste system could have been eradicated by now - if worked it out with some common sense. Surrounded by many sleepy eyes, we finished the discussion very quick.
Some other things that I got to know...
2. Video Presentation:
By the time I reached their home, they were not done with their lunch. I utilized the time to explore the forest around that place. Before starting the show, Anil and I had a good chat. I explained him how I got to know about the sanctuary and the story before I reached here in sanctuary. Shanthi was roaming around us during our entire conversation.
Shradda, Shanthi and Lila...
According to the schedule, we were supposed to start the presentation at 5pm. However, it was 5.30+ pm when Anil and I finished discussion. It was feeding time for the three cats...and I thought it would be better to feed them first. The presentation started around 6pm after feeding them. The presentation covered the following videos.
- The elephant march
- The Gaur herd
- The smooth coated otters
- Some carnivores
- Indian wild dog family - including seven pups
- Wild dog pups attacking Sambar fawn and the mother taking on the pups...etc
After the show, I was sent with a torch. It started raining before I reached my cottage.
Dinner time and the discussion continued
It was little late by the time we finished our dinner. Then Claudia started discussing the caste system in India. Perhaps, she watched some videos on youtube before landing in India - it's quite common to know a little about the place that you are going to visit. However, the caste system is not a small and simple topic to wrap up in 15 to 20 mins. People living in the system itself didn't understand it - so there was no point trying to open the Pandora box - but it was made clear that system had changed a little from the past.
If not for politics, caste system could have been eradicated by now - if worked it out with some common sense. Surrounded by many sleepy eyes, we finished the discussion very quick.
Some other things that I got to know...
- Northern part of Italy is more urbanised, whereas Southern part still sticks to the culture to some extent.
- Wages as well as cost of living in north Italy is more.
- Minimum wage( I guess it is for blue-collar work) in the south Italy is between 600 to 700 Euros (approx).
- Southern most part of Italy has more influence of Greek culture - Of course, geographically it is closer.. so on...