Nature’s Layers Unravelled – Encounters with birds, beasts, and relatives
To derive joy from the simple act of birdwatching, all you need to do is wait, watch and listen. Jennifer Nandi reveals the Birding 101 in the third episode of her travelogue on Bedni Bugyal A Blue Whistling Thrush, ever the skulker, trails us as we walk its wooded paths…
Walking in the Himalaya offers the pleasure of a constant flirtation with epiphany, learns Jennifer Nandi A stream en route to Didana from Loharjung A morning of magic greets us. Arrogant blue skies goad us onwards. The rugged hill road from the village leads us past an anarchy of rampant…
Traipsing in Lord Curzon’s footsteps, we embarked for Bedni Bugyal knowing little of what to expect, and least expecting what was in store for us… Editor’s Note: In April-May 2007, six of us made a trek to the Garhwal Himalaya. Sahastrarashmi, Sunita, Jennifer, Satish, Rajeev and Bijoy walked from Loharjung…
Italian, British and Mughal architectural styles are all represented in this regal palace of some 56 rooms with a splendid domed and filigreed Durbar Hall. Much of the ground floor of this palace at Kawardha has been converted into a heritage hotel run by the erstwhile royal family. Secularism throbs in Kawardha’s historic heart and its pulsing beat invites us to be one with it.
The forests of central India shelter deep secrets but they have been mined cheaply or defaced. Still, there is reason to rejoice at the simplicity of life here.
Birds and spirited village women invite Jennifer Nandi’s careless attention as she enjoys Odisha’s pastoral countryside in Jeypore
The younger women are lithe and beautiful with tattoo markings and jewellery and a piece of cloth wound around the waist and then carelessly thrown over the shoulders. I am amazed at such natural beauty worn so easily. They sit in the warm sunlight, looking at us take pictures, talking to their babies, bathing their little ones, pounding rice, just carrying on despite our nosiness, our inelegant clothes and ungainliness with our shiny cameras. The group embodies an intelligence that seems to be fundamentally social.
Chilika, India’s largest lagoon and the second-largest of its kind in the world, offers a tepid reception to Jennifer Nandi, who retreats from it experiencing a strange emotion between disappointment and happiness India’s largest Lake, Chilika, famed for its birdlife, is our next destination. We pore over the map that…
After chasing down the Mangrove Whistler in Bhitarkanika, Jennifer Nandi journeys to the temple towns of Konarak and Puri, where a technicality stops her from washing away her sins A pair of Yali, fearsome mythical beasts, guard the temple gates True to his word, the boatman is already at the…
When the local bird guide of two decades vintage turns out to be a shimmering dud, Jennifer Nandi takes control of the rest of her birding trip at Bhitarkanika Early morning at Bhitarkanika – eagles in the trees harry the waterfowl Birding guides are, at the best of times, difficult…
Jennifer Nandi‘s sojourn in Odisha begins with a ride through the Buddhist ruins at Udayagiri and Ratnagiri Some serious packing after dinner leaves the night in tatters – yet, we are ready to leave the hotel at 5.30 in the morning to catch our flight to Bhubaneshwar. Sushanto, the epitome of…
Jennifer Nandi makes a quick dash to Havelock Island to peer into a world of colourful fish named after parrots and butterflies Introduced in November 2009, the Makruzz is a hovercraft. It leaves at 7.30 in the morning for Havelock Island and, well ahead of time, we are at the…
Antibiotic-addled Jennifer Nandi is awestruck by the avian diversity at Mount Harriet National Park Excitement keeps us on high alert as we leave the hotel at 5.30 am to take a ferry across the bay to visit Mount Harriet National Park. Our car snakes its way toward the seemingly lush hill that…
Jennifer Nandi’s Andaman dream almost crash-lands before it takes off again, wobbly but steady As a child, I remember a photograph of my father being garlanded by an elephant on the Andaman Islands where he had been surveying using the old plumb-line technology that Indian Naval officers in the hydrographic…
Jennifer Nandi bids goodbye to the Sundarbans and acclimates to civilisation as she traipses the streets of crowded Kolkata The famous bridge over the Hooghly River in Kolkata January 12 – Leaving for Kolkata During the three-hour-cruise to the jetty, from where we will be transferred by car to Kolkata,…
