Lifeless, numbered, fated to become furniture, the dismembered corpses of ancient forest trees are stacked neatly in the Dandeli Timber Depot. Peer closely at these images gleaned from that brooding graveyard — your mind’s eye might detect fate-lines gone awry, cracked smiles, suppurating wounds, faces contorted in silent pain, broken hearts, gnarled palms clasped in futile prayer… Along the northern coast, Just back from the rock-bound shore, and the caves, In the saline air from the sea, in the Mendocino country,  With the surge for bass and accompaniment low and hoarse,  With crackling blows of axes, sounding musically, driven by strong arms,  … Continue reading Trees speak, even in death

A chance find in a Pondicherry flea market points to an unknown Tamil Nadu pilgrim party’s mysterious journey to the base of Mount Kailas in 1948, only two years after Heinrich Harrer arrived in Lhasa Last Sunday, as I am prone to do on weekends, I paid a visit to the flea shops on the East Coast Road in Pondicherry. These shops, which usually offer a motley collection of old stuff – terracotta figurines, calendars and posters, furniture, French porcelain, old black-and-white photographs, books and the usual bric-à-brac, sometimes throw up a surprise. Rummaging through an old tin trunk full … Continue reading From Madurai to Mount Kailas, a pilgrim’s puzzling progress

Few people know (or care) that this favourite locale of filmmakers is a spectacular mangrove ecosystem throbbing with life The mangrove forests of Pichavaram comprise an intriguing ecosystem Tickets in hand, negotiations with the boatman closed, we should have been on the boat, headed for our first visit to a mangrove ecosystem. But all we could do was to gaze longingly at the dense green clumps across a vast expanse of the lagoon. The boat that was to carry us there was moored to the shore covered in blue tarpaulin. A sudden squall was depositing even more rain on the … Continue reading Pichavaram – the great mangrove forest of Tamil Nadu

Life is so quiet and still in Madhyamaheshwar that it’s easy to imagine why local people believe that the deity is drunk A wayside shrine en route to Madhyamaheshwar A moss-encrusted tree on the trail “I found myself moved by the simplicity of this shrine. It was a place where nothing stood between me and the spiritual elements of nature… Nothing was hidden from view — no lamps, no smoke and mirrors, no priests performing a sleight of hand. I noticed the lichen on the rocks, the irregular colors in the stone lingam, the bruised petals on the primulas. Garlands … Continue reading Madhyamaheshwar – In the temple of the Drunken Lord

Driving between Chennai and Pondicherry, approximately 30 km before you reach the former French enclave, you cannot but notice a small inlet channel from the sea passing below a narrow bridge and then expanding into a vast lake stretching all the way to the western horizon. This is Kaliveli, the second largest natural lake in southern India (after Pulicat Lake in Andhra Pradesh) and unfortunately among the most neglected wetland ecosystems of the eastern coast. Kaliveli is connected to the sea by the Yedayanthittu estuary from which there is a considerable intake of sea water. Along its large catchment area … Continue reading Life and death in Kaliveli’s salt pans