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Mahisasuramardini....In Sculpture & Mythology

10/5/2019

One of humanity’s most fascinating and enduring narratives in mythology is vanquishing the devil or the evil force. Quite often these accounts privilege the accomplishments and powers of male deities over their female counterparts.

However, there have been female goddesses too who left their imprint through their fearsome assertive power over malevolent forces.
For example, Sekhmet, one of the oldest known Egyptian deities, was the warrior goddess of Upper Egypt. Her name is derived from the Egyptian word for power and she was known for being fierce warrior. Dressed in red, she was envisioned also as a ferocious lioness and her body was said to have taken on the bright glare of the midday sun to blind her opponents.

In Greek mythology, Nemesis was the ancient goddess of divine retribution often depicted with a sword and scales. She was a feared as well as revered goddess. She was the embodiment of the resentment aroused in gods against those who committed crimes with impunity. As a purveyor of justice, she meted out punishment to those who were deemed arrogant through their evil deeds in the presence of the gods.

In Indian mythology, Durga is perhaps one of the most well-known manifestations of Shakti, who is worshiped during the festival of Dussera/Navaratri. She is also celebrated as Mahisasur Mardini, or the slayer of Mahisasur.

The story of Mahisasuramardini is perhaps one of the best known in Hindu mythology and many us might have heard it from our grandmothers, if not from Amar Chitra Katha! It has its origins in Devi Mahatmya which consists of chapters 81-93 of the Mārkandeya Purana. The framing narrative of Devi Mahatmya is one of a dispossessed king, a merchant betrayed by his family and a sage whose teachings lead them both beyond existential suffering. Its thirteen chapters are divided into three charitas or episodes. The sage instructs by recounting three different epic battles between the Devi and various demonic adversaries and the legend of Mahisasuramardini figures prominently in it.

According to the story, Mahishasura, a demon, obtained a powerful boon from Brahma that no man should be able to kill him. With the power vested by Brahman, he gathered a huge demon army and began harassing the gods. The gods under the leadership of Indra failed to control him. They approached Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva with a request to help them. The three gods joined their power to create the goddess Chandi, or Chandika, a ferocious aspect of Durga. Vishnu gave her the Sudarshana chakra, Shiva gave her his trident, Brahma gave her his kamandalu that held the water of Ganga and Indra gave her his Vajra, his thunderbolt. Armed with these she marched onto the battlefield and waged a fierce battle with the demon Mahisha and slew him after a prolonged fight.

And of course, there are longer and many other versions of this story…

Durga’s encounter with Mahishasura has been a popular subject among artists for centuries. One can find varied depictions of it in the sculptures in Hindu temples, in paintings, murals and even contemporary art like the controversial depiction by MF Hussain. In temples and religious sculptures, she is often depicted as either calmly victorious standing on a decapitated buffalo head or in the act of killing a buffalo-headed figure from whose cut neck a demon in the form of a man emerges. But the most unusual of all depictions is in a small cave in Mamallapuram.

On a hot sunny morning when Ahalya and myself walked into a small cave, we were totally unprepared by what we saw inside. The cave itself is quite nondescript from outside, shorn of any embellishments. There is a small sanctum which is empty, but if one looks carefully, one can have a glimpse of Somaskanda etched on the back wall. On the right wall of the temple is a panel the likes of which we have never set eyes upon.

In a striking contrast to other sculptures that focus attention on an isolated figure of Durga, this panel depicts the battle scene between her and Mahishasura in vivid detail. Durga is adorned with a distinct crown and jewelry including large earrings, necklaces, bangles, armlets, belt, and anklets, all of which demonstrate her divinity and royalty. Calm and confident, she is shown riding a beautifully ornamented prancing lion, holding her bow stretched and ready to attack. In her eight hands, are the bow, sword, bell, discus, knife, pasha (noose) and conch. She is followed by army of nine soldiers, eight dwarf ganas and one female. The female figure is shown carrying a sword, ready to attack. Her eight ganas are also armed with sword and bows, except two who are shown holding a plate of offerings and a parasol.

Mahishasura is depicted with his retreating army. His army, defeated and down in morale, is shown in detail. One soldier is shown falling after being cut in half, a few soldiers are hiding behind the bulky Mahishasura and a few have already tasted the dust of the battlefield. Mahishasura, shown with a large body, is trying to hold his ground and holding a club aloft. His attitude suggests that he has already suffered much at the hands of Durga and her army and now only the final blow is in waiting.

The sculptors have cleverly manipulated the depth of the relief to convey the liveliness of the clash between good and evil; the modulation of shallow and deep carving allow the goddess and her army to materialize from the background in striking detail. An exquisite arrangement of space and volume has done much to convey the excitement of the scene; the lion appears to burst into battle, and we can almost hear a ferocious roar escape his open mouth. The forward thrust of the winning side is facilitated by an arc at roughly the center of the panel. Mahisha and his soldiers seem to be aware that their exit from the battle, the relief, and even the cave itself, seems imminent!

Without doubt, this is the finest depiction of a battle scene, as though the sculptor had a vivid vision of the whole combat before executing it on stone. The only comparison I have seen is on the panels on the outside walls at the temple at Bayon.

The subjects of myths reflect universal concerns of mankind. What cannot be conveyed through philosophical discussions and logical debates can be transmitted more effectively through myth and metaphor. They speak to us in multiple ways. Thus, at one level, the legend of Mahisasuramardini chronicles the battle between the Devi [divine] and the asuras [demon]. At another level, it deals with the ‘inner battle’ that each one of us wage between the divine and the demonic forces within ourselves. The demons we confront are not always outside of us. They are our greed, anger and excessive pride. In the ultimate sense, the dichotomy between the bad and the good may be a false one. Both are part of a single, often paradoxical, human consciousness.

There is also a parallel story, according to which Mahishasura was a great devotee of Durga, and at the time of his death he got a boon from her that wherever she was worshipped his image would be associated with hers and he would be equally well known. Who can miss the ferocious depiction of him on the Chamundi hills in Mysore?

Reality on the ground is far more complex. Myths are not born in vacuum and have their roots in socio-cultural milieu. There have been alternative readings of the Durga-Mahishasur narrative from the perspective of the oppressed and the marginalized. It has been argued that Mahisasur has been unfairly demonized, when in fact he was a much respected and valued leader of the indigenous people, Asurs. Asur as a tribe exist to this day and are found in Gumla, Latehar, Lohardaga and Palamu districts of Jharkhand and in north Bengal's Alipurduar districts. They value their ancestry as descendants of 'Hudur-Durga', a Santhal name for Mahishasur and don’t celebrate Navaratri as it is a period of mourning for them.

India is a living crucible of history, myth, belief and living traditions.

Too sanguine an interpretation of a myth has its own limitations…

Here is a link to some of the images of Mahisasuramardini that I have glimpsed through my travels, including the majestic one at Mamallapuram: photos.app.goo.gl/EJsc3uPXMU5jxeuHA

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A Perspicacious Bird!

9/20/2019

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It is hard to miss the California Scrub Jay.

As I watch it alight on a branch, it announces its presence with a loud, raucous squawk. Emily Dickinson called them “blue terriers” for their bark- like call. Not quite on par with other songbirds!

It was hopping in bold lunges, pumping its tail and looking around with quick twists of the head. Charging through the branches as if sprinting down a path, it scared other birds away with an aggressive and purposeful energy.

The California Scrub Jay compensates it’s belligerent stance and lack of melodious call with a striking appearance. They are handsome birds with azure blue wings, tail and head, with light gray underparts and a distinctive white throat and eyebrow. Its feathers are not actually blue! The bright sapphire color we see is in fact, the result of the unique inner structure of the feathers, which distorts the reflection of light off the bird, making it appear blue. If that structure were to be damaged by crushing the feathers, the blue color would go away. The pigment in their feathers is melanin, which is brown. The blue color is caused by light dispersed through modified cells on the surface of the feather barbs.

One of the important characteristics of the California Scrub Jay is their “caching behavior”. As scrub jays spend their day foraging for seeds and acorns, they hoard their stash in little piles all over their territory in order to ensure supplies when food is scarce. Rather than building up one big pile, jays hide their bounty in many smaller piles. This strategy is called “scatter-hoarding” and leads to jays amassing up to 200 caches within their home ranges, which average about 1/10 of a square mile. Scrub jays must have excellent spatial memories just to remember where they have stockpiled all these future snacks. This is a rather impressive task. I wonder whether anyone can remember the last 200 places they ate at?! Since the hippocampus is the part of the brain that is involved in memory formation and storage, researchers have speculated if scrub jays have particularly large hippocampi, given all this remembering that they must do. Turns out that scrub jays do have one of the largest hippocampus sizes compared to their body size. The important factor is not absolute brain size but brain size relative to body weight, often termed as the “encephalization quotient.”

The size of the hippocampus also comes in handy when the California Scrub Jay wants to plan ahead. This is important because they store not only nuts and seeds but fruit, insects and worms, foods that perish at different rates. Cached insects can spoil in days if the temperatures are high enough, while nuts and seeds can last for months. A series of creative experiments by Nicola Clayton and her team at Cambridge University showed that the birds retrieve the more perishable food before it rots, leaving the nonperishables, such as nuts and seeds, until later. The jays use their experience of how quickly food degrades to guide their choice in recovering their caches. Remembering that perishable food items may need to be retrieved sooner requires recalling cache locations, cache contents, and the time of caching. This ability to remember the what, where, and when of specific past events is thought to be akin to human episodic memory, the remarkable capacity to remember specific personal experiences. Like us, the birds seem to be using events that happened in the past (what they buried when) to figure out what to do now or in the future (dig up or save until later).

Besides their remarkable memory, scrub jays also seem to have a social awareness that they employ for more deceptive purposes. Scrub jays often cache in a secretive manner to protect their stores from other birds, hiding behind objects, or relying on shade to obscure them from other birds’ view. Sometimes though, these efforts are not enough. If jays “believe” another bird is watching them cache, they will return to the cache later and “re-cache” it to a new secret location so that their food cannot be stolen. To do this, the jays must be able to “understand” in some way that the other birds are not only able to see what they are doing but also use that information to preserve their hard-earned seeds. This requires a social skill called ‘theory of mind’. Theory of mind involves the ability to understand what other individuals know. Simply put, it is the ability to realize that another bird is watching its cache with an intent to steal it, and that hiding that snack in a new location could trick the other and protect the food. The capacity to take the perspective of the other and to grasp what might be going on in another creature’s mind is one of the hallmarks of theory of mind.

Theory of mind may sound basic, but it is a demanding and complex social ability that even humans struggle with. A human infant may not develop theory of mind until around four years of age. Hence, claiming jays have this ability has literally ruffled feathers among biologists and psychologists alike. Some have suggested that this might just be an example of social learning, when birds find from trial and error that not moving your food can lead to unfortunate consequences.

Yet another astonishing fact about this Machiavellian tactical caching behavior is that a California Scrub Jay will resort to these clever tactics, only if it had its own experience in stealing from others. Birds that have never pilfered themselves hardly ever recache. In other words, “it takes a thief to know a thief!”

Scrub jays are also among the most social of birds. They participate in cooperative breeding, when they share the responsibility of raising the young. These brainy birds also watch out for each other while foraging and feeding in groups. They post a sentinel, or lookout, and take turns watching for predators, enabling the other members of the flock to forage with greater concentration and less danger of being captured by a predator.

There has been a lingering question as to whether birds experience human social or emotional capacities such as grief. For example, it has been observed that once the California Scrub Jays spot a dead member of their flock, they make loud alarm calls to draw the attention of others. The other jays then stop foraging and congregate near the dead bird and some remain close to the dead bird even for a day or two. Were they mourning a fallen member of the jay tribe? Or were they just demonstrating how birds respond to a dead member of their own species, by noisily telling other birds about the death and perhaps alerting the group to danger, a behavior that is often termed as “cacophonous aggregation”.

It is imperative that we are cautious while imputing human emotions like grief to other species. It is very easy to slip into the anthropomorphic trap!

But what is so remarkable is that the California Scrub Jays are capable of some form of metacognition. Many such abilities and skills have been outlined by Jennifer Ackerman in her masterly tome, Genius of Birds.

Thus, to call someone “bird-brained” is inaccurate and an unfortunate insult to the avian species!

On an altogether different note, it seems timely to recall the classical song, Bird Brain by the inimitable Alan Ginsberg. It is a six and half minute song recorded with a Denver based group called The Guons. It starts with these scathing lines;
“Birdbrain runs the world
Birdbrain is the ultimate product of Capitalism…”

Not too inappropriate in these times….

PS:
You might wonder why I called this bird perspicacious and not just brainy. Perspicacious is somewhat similar to being shrewd or astute. But there is a subtle difference. All three mean acute in perception and sound in judgment, but ‘shrewd’ stresses practical, hardheaded cleverness, whereas ‘perspicacious’ implies unusual power to see through and comprehend what is puzzling or hidden. And ‘astute’ suggests both shrewdness and perspicacity combined with diplomatic skill. The ability to quickly pick out from among the many things, those that are significant and to synthesize these observations and develop a practical strategy is what is characteristic of being perspicacious and the California Scrub Jay symbolizes it.

A skill that many a psychotherapist will be envious of!

GLIMPSES OF THE CALIFORNIA SCRUB JAYS AT:
photos.app.goo.gl/YSD1BrtiBEFmp7GL7

KINDLY POST YOUR COMMENTS HERE AND NOT IN GOOGLE PHOTOS!

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ON THE WINGS OF A BUTTERFLY...

9/3/2019

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The moments I spend in the backyard are a gateway from the outer world to the inner. Often, I am lost amidst the chirping of the birds and the pranks of the squirrel that ambles along the fig tree in search of a ripe fruit. When one is immersed in the sounds and sights of the natural world, one is in touch with something deep and indescribable. Nature reveals it’s beauty in inexplicable ways..

During one such moment, my attention was drawn to a dainty butterfly darting across the garden. It was wafting lazily over the grass. The morning sunlight reflected off its wings and it seemed to disappear and reappear under its shadows. When it perched itself on top of the broccoli plant, I had a long look at it. I was charmed by its fluffy white body and powdery white wings with the smoky black-tinged edges.

When I checked the net, I discovered that this delicate winged beauty is known as the Cabbage White Butterfly.

The cabbage white butterfly is often the first butterfly to appear at the beginning of summer. It is affectionately called the “summer snowflake” and there is an interesting history tucked into its gossamer wings.
The cabbage white was introduced to the eastern United States and southern Canada along with European cabbage imports in the 1860s. It’s less clear how this species arrived in California. There are no documented appearances in San Francisco before the 1880s, though the butterflies were flourishing in the city by the time of the 1906 earthquake. One Gold Rush-era specimen from Yreka suggests they might have arrived with the Spanish explorers in the Mission period.

When food shortages gripped the United States during World War II, the country launched a “Dig for Victory” campaign that resulted in more than 20 million “victory gardens” in backyards and public parks and the harvest of more than 8 million tons of fruits and vegetables. The most popular produce in these gardens were cabbage, kale, broccoli, kohlrabi, turnips, and Brussels sprouts—all plants from the cabbage family. And among those who ate most heartily from the victory gardens was the caterpillar of the small white butterfly - Pieris rapae or the cabbage white. Cabbage whites ate so many victory crops in the United States and in England that one British newspaper called for exterminating these butterflies on sight, calling them “Hitler’s ally”!

People still refer to the cabbage white as “rat butterfly,” and a “weedy” species—but their extermination never happened. An incredibly rapid spreader, it has survived all efforts at its annihilation!

How did this diminutive butterfly succeed in surviving in different environments across time? Surely it must have worked out ways of working through climate change. It has been suggested that it adapts to climate change by producing less dark pigment so that it absorbs less heat from the sun to avoid overheating in warm climates. One of the researchers involved in this enquiry is Art Shapiro who is a distinguished professor at University of California-Davis. For decades, he has been offering a pitcher of beer to the person who brings him the first cabbage white of the year in the Davis-Sacramento area!

But there’s more to the cabbage white than meets the eye.

A butterfly relies on the sun’s warmth to heat up its flight muscles before it can flutter off. But it has been observed that even on cloudy days the cabbage white butterfly takes flight before other butterflies. This got the attention of scientists at the University of Exeter, England.
They noticed that the cabbage white butterfly is distinctly different from the other butterflies in that it poses in a V-shape. This posture concentrates solar energy directly onto its flight muscles in the thorax, warming them up for takeoff.

Inspired by this, they further examined whether the solar panels could be made more effective by replicating the butterfly’s V-shaped pose. Not surprisingly, they found that the amount of power produced increased by almost 50 percent! They also noticed that the surface of the butterfly’s wing is highly reflective. By imitating the V-shaped pose and the reflective wing structure, the researchers produced lighter and more efficient solar panels. These results suggest that the ordinary cabbage white butterfly is an amazing expert at harvesting solar energy!

The cabbage white’s white wings also reflect ultraviolet light, which we can’t see but the butterflies can. To our eyes the butterflies seem plain and drab, but to each other, females are a gentle lavender and males shine with a deep royal purple. I marvel at this humble creature, imagining the rainbow it sees that I am unable to.

Nature is valuable not just because it is beautiful. It possesses intrinsic value, grounded in its intelligible structure which we to strive to unravel.

Let us continue to be awe-struck and feel inspired by the intricate mysteries of the environment that we are enveloped in.

Each wing an albino leaf
Smudged with charcoal
At the tip
Flitting here and there
Basking in the sun
What tales you can share
About your seventeen degrees?

LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR COMMENTS . . .

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Towards The Within . . .

8/13/2019

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Sometime back one of my clients asked me during a therapy session whether I believed in God. I was flummoxed for a while and wondered whether sharing my personal beliefs would impact the therapeutic process. I worked around it and replied that it has been evolving over time.

Growing up under a broad canopy of religious and cultural ceremonials, the quest for God has been a perennial one in my life.

My first tryst with this question was in a book ‘My God Died Young’ by Sasthi Brata which I read in my adolescent years. In a period of relentless quest for personal identity, this book resonated deeply within me. I must have read and re-read it many times. Printed on poor quality paper in a cheap published edition, many words have faded away over time. It’s a pity that I am unable to locate the dog-eared copy of this book in my library.

His angst arising from a sense of alienation is beautifully encapsulated in the final passage of the book: “How does one go about building a house when the timber that holds the roof and the walls together seems so fragile…”

Sasthi Brata’s articulation of fear of “being in the world” and search for personal meaning drew me into the world of existentialism.

I started devouring books on existentialism, facilitated by the iconic Eswari Lending Library. My existential crisis found solace in the cramped bookshelves of the place. I first borrowed a battered copy of Rollo May’s ‘Existence’ and followed it up with his ‘Love & Will’ and ‘The Meaning of Existence’. His suggestion that in the long run, finding the center of strength within ourselves is the answer to many of the unanswerable questions in life, appealed to me immensely.

On many occasions, when I was cycling back home after picking up loads of books from Eswari, amidst the cool afternoon breeze in the almost empty roads of Madras, I was in harmony watching the world go by. With every push of the pedal, thoughts and ideas came floating in my mind and I would begin my search afresh from the books I had just borrowed.

One such tome, ‘The Doors of Perception’ by Aldous Huxley had a tremendous impact on me. I still vividly recall these words from the book, “The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend”

Perhaps it is this exploration through the doors of perception that was a determining factor in my choice of psychiatry. We don’t go through life painlessly and one of the most demanding and often ill understood pain is go through emotional crisis and psychological breakdown. For those in throes of it, it is an immensely agonizing and often, a lonely journey. RD Laing (another lasting influence on me!) mapped these unexplored frontiers of consciousness in many of his books. One can witness the poignancy of these struggles in the poetry of Sylvia Plath.

In my professional encounters I strive to respond to people in psychological distress with acceptance, accommodation imbued with compassion and that has been a continuing journey.

The circle of compassion keeps widening…

I feel close to God in my explorations in nature. I feel His presence in the silence of the forests. He responds to me in the chirping of birds. My hopes soar with their wings when I am overwhelmed with a sense of despondency. I see His beauty in the brilliant hues of flowers.

As I write this, there is a sudden gust of wind in the backyard. It catches the tiny bird sitting on top of a bare branch, unprepared. It sways, unperturbed, with the wind, feeling at one with it. And when the wind ebbs away, it starts singing its melodious note again.

It is life itself.

As Rembrandt commented, “Choose only one master…nature”

Flowing with the rhythms of nature is inherently a spiritual pursuit often lost amidst the frenzies of our everyday lives.

Let me conclude in the words of the enigmatic Chinese poet, Hanshan or Cloud Mountain as he is often referred to:

I’m on the trail to Cold Mountain.
Cold Mountain trail never ends.
Long clefts thick with rock and stones,
Wide streams buried in dense grass.
Slippery moss, but there’s been no rain,
Pine trees sigh, but there’s no wind.
Who can leap the world’s net,
Sit here in the white clouds with me?

LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR REFLECTIONS....DO POST THEM HERE!

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Among The Orchids...Again!

7/30/2019

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There is something irresistible about orchids.

When there was an announcement about the Annual Exhibition of the San Francisco Orchid Society, it was too tempting to resist. Ahalya and myself followed Oscar Wilde’s dictum “the best way to resist a temptation is to yield to it” and made our way to the venue which was adjacent to the sprawling San Francisco Botanical Garden.

The hall was filled to the brim with a profusion of colorful orchids of various vibrant hues and colorful patterns, the likes of which we had never set our eyes upon so far. They were extraordinarily diverse in their sizes, shapes, and colors. The enthralling variety of their colors and shapes kept us engrossed for several hours.

Orchids are repositories of vast histories

They made their debut 2000 years ago in the book ‘Enquiry into Plants’ by Theophrastus of Eresus , who is universally acknowledged as the “father of botany.” He commented that a porridge made of the bulbs of orchids increases vigor in sexual intercourse. At the same time, he also cautioned that while they may improve erections, they can also cause impotence. Not surprisingly the word orchid is derived from the Greek word orchis meaning testicle; a plant that looks like male testicles ought to have sexual effects of some kind! The myth about orchids’ aphrodisiac properties and its association with sex has lingered on for centuries.

The link between orchids and sex was reiterated by the great taxonomist Linneaus. He commented, “ the flowers’ [petals] themselves contribute nothing to generation, but only do service as bridal beds which the great Creator has so gloriously arranged, adorned with such noble bed curtains, and perfumed with so many soft scents that the bridegroom with his bride might there celebrate their nuptials with so much the greater solemnity. When now the bed is so prepared, it is time for the bridegroom to embrace his beloved bride and offer her his gift.”

Undoubtedly, orchids are an ancient flower and they have flourished through history. There is the suggestion that they were present at the same time as dinosaurs. They are the largest and most diverse family of flowering plants on Earth. How did they survive and evolve over time and what is the role of insects in their lives?

This attracted the attention of Charles Darwin. He was convinced that the orchid’s beauty was not a piece of floral whimsy. But he needed proof which came in the form of an orchid specimen from Madagascar sent by an orchid grower. It was a beautiful star shaped flower with an exceptionally long nectar spur. Upon seeing these strangely long spurs, he hypothesized that it was pollinated by a moth with an unusually long proboscis, one so long that it could reach into the depths of the nectar spur. He also postulated that the relationship was so specific, that if the moth were to become extinct on Madagascar, so too would the orchid. He outlined the complex relationships between these flowers and the insects that pollinate them and how this led to their co-evolution in his book ‘The Various Contrivances by which Orchids are Fertilized by Insects’. He posited that the incredible diversity of orchids is a function of co-evolution between these amazing flowers and their insect counterparts.

Darwin was effectively claiming that plants possessed intentions, that they had a sense of agency. It was a quantum leap to regard plants as fellow creatures, regulated by the same laws of life as those affecting human beings themselves!

The orchids’ survival is also a reflection of the myriad ways they entice the insects to pollinate. Some use sweet fragrances to attract certain bees and wasps, and others, putrid smells to attract flies. These happy insects are rewarded for their pollination with nectar. Others use striking colors that flying insects cannot resist. Still others which produce no nectar have come up with some innovative methods of attracting insects. Some mimic the smell of food. Flying insects approach the flower and crawl all over it looking for the nectar. It is not until they are covered in pollen that they give up and move on to the next one, transferring the pollen in their search for food.

Even more deceiving are the orchids that use pheromones to attract unsuspecting pollinators. They mimic the female bee or wasp visually, often using the same colors and tufts of hair and give off a chemical that smells identical to the pheromone that the female insect would emit. The gullible males climb on the flower and try to mate with it, an act described as ‘pesudocopulation’. During this futile attempt they pick up a gobbet of pollen which they pollinate when they visit another flower.

It is not surprising then that orchids have often been viewed as seductive femme fatales. One good example is HG Wells story “The Flowering of the Strange Orchid”. It is an eerie story about an orchid collector who buys an unknown species from the Andaman Islands. He is obsessed by his new acquisition and waits excitedly for it to sprout leaves and then flower. Finally, the great day arrives when the orchid’s “rich, intensely sweet scent” lures him like a seductress. He was found later lying dead at the foot of the strange orchid. The tentacle-like aerial rootlets were coiled tight around his neck.

Wonder whether it was a coincidence that the orchids’ ability to trick male wasps into pollinating them was not understood until its fictional portrayal as a wily seductress! The imaginary worlds of the writer and that of the serious scientist turn out to be part of a single interesting story!

Orchids seem to have a much more complex relationship to humans because they are so fragile yet resilient in their ability to withstand captivity and our human desire to possess them.

And they continue to bewitch us.

In the words of the journalist who wrote the engaging book The Orchid Thief, “To desire orchids is to have a desire that can never be fully requited.”

I had written about them five years ago: www.profraguram.com/musings--reflections/beguiling-orchids

Unfortunately, with 30,000 wild orchid species and hundreds of thousands of man-made hybrids, it's hard to name them with confidence and I thank Meena Subramaniam who helped me to identify some of them.

Glimpses at: photos.app.goo.gl/SAWbjru4GuiyfZVp6

Would appreciate if you post your comments here and NOT in Google Photos!

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MOCKINGBIRD DAYS..

6/29/2019

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Late one evening, I was sitting on the porch, reading a book. My attention was drawn by a medley of bird sounds. I was curious to locate the source of these sounds. To my great surprise all these sounds came from a lone grey bird sitting on top of a tree. When a hummingbird tentatively approached it, the grey bird imitated its call! It also made a prancing movement to chase the hummingbird off. As I was watching, there was a sound of a car horn in the distance and the bird let out a honk-like chirp! I was totally entranced with this amazing display. I was reminded of a video of David Attenborough in which a superb lyre bird made sounds like the click of a camera shutter and a chain saw. Over the next couple of days, it continued to keep me company without fail.

With the help of Sibley’s guide, I could identify it as the Northern Mockingbird. Curious about this strange bird, I started reading about it.

First described by Linnaeus in 1758, the mockingbird’s modern scientific name is Mimus polyglottos, which means “many-tongued mimic,” because rather than singing their own songs, these birds learn and repeat the songs of other species. In addition to birdsongs, northern mockingbirds can repeat dog barks, musical instruments, and sirens. A single bird can learn up to 200 songs during its lifetime and will continue to add new sounds to their repertoires throughout their lives. Its capacity to improvise is so extensive that it rarely repeats them, and the listener will never quite know what will come out of its beak next. It is veritably an avian karaoke machine!

The most famous American to keep a mockingbird as a pet was Thomas Jefferson, which he bought from a slave for five shillings. He also has the distinction of being the first U.S. President to keep a pet in the White House. Over the years, he would go on to own at least four mockingbirds. He even took a mockingbird with him to France, a trip during which the bird learned not only to sing French songs, but also to imitate the creaking of the timbers on the ship that carried it across the Atlantic. Jefferson would leave the bird free in the White House. It would fly around, perch on the president’s shoulder while he worked and even sing duets with Jefferson as he played the violin. Jefferson’s appreciation for this unique species is apparent in his suggestion to a friend that he should “teach all the children to venerate the mockingbird as a superior being in the form of a bird.”

Jefferson’s idea that the mockingbird is “a superior being in the form of a bird” is enshrined in many Native American cultures. The Cherokee embraced mockingbirds as the embodiment of cleverness and intelligence, while Hopi and other Pueblo peoples told stories in which the bird was the bringer of language who taught the people to speak. Further west, Maricopa Indians believed that dreaming of the mockingbird was a sign that the dreamer would soon receive special powers. Shasta Indian culture considered the bird a sacred guardian of the dead, while Papago and Pima folklore considered the mockingbird as a mediator whose song functions as a bridge between the human and animal worlds.

Its continuing appeal can be gauged by the fact that many states in USA have adopted the Northern Mockingbird as their state bird.

The first time I had a glimpse of the mockingbird was on the cover of Harper Lee’s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, an unforgettable story of childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it. For me like many of that generation, the novel had an immediate appeal. In the words of JD Salinger in Catcher in the Rye "What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it”.

What lingers on in memory about the novel is the obvious symbolism of the mockingbird. It is the story of a girl nicknamed Scout growing up in a Depression-era Southern town. A black man has been wrongly accused of raping a white woman, and Scout's father, the resolute lawyer Atticus Finch, defends him despite threats and the scorn of many. Scout and her friend Jem learn that it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird, because they don’t do anything to damage other creatures and therefore should never be harmed. In the novel, several characters can be emblematic of mockingbirds. Surely Tom Robinson, accused of a crime he didn’t truly commit, can be on the top of that list. Tom’s innocence stems from the fact that he tried to help a fellow human being and ended up losing his life over it, all due to circumstances outside of his control, such as being a black person. It also represents Boo Radley, who is a harmless victim of prejudice. Killing mockingbirds becomes shorthand for any gratuitous violence directed at innocent, unassuming individuals.

To kill a mockingbird is a sin, but to allow it to be killed is even worse.

As much as the song of the mockingbird is a joyous patchwork of melody, it is also a forceful call to defend its territory. I wonder whether by choosing the mockingbird as a predominant symbol in the book, Lee was also hinting that it is imperative for racially discriminated people to defend themselves more assertively.

Theater owners in Birmingham, Alabama, refused to screen the movie based on the book when it was ready for release, given the tone of the book. It was no coincidence that Martin Luther King Jr. was composing his “Letter From a Birmingham Jail” at the same time.
Unlike some birds like the Eagle, Hawk, Crow, and Vulture whose symbolisms are practically static, the representation of mockingbird has changed over time. In the Hunger Games series, the mockingbird was the other half of the genetically modified “mockingjay”, which turned into a symbol of rebellion in the second rebellion which emerges from the resentment towards the brutally repressive Snow regime.

Let me end with a Mayan tale of “How Mockingbird Became the Best Singer.”

Once there was a mockingbird who wanted to be a good singer. The family had little resources to support her talents.

One day she began working for a wealthy family of Cardinals. During her employ, a renowned singing teacher came into the area. Father Cardinal wanted his daughter to become an excellent singer, but she laughed at the idea, feeling she needed no such help. Her father was determined and finally offered her enough incentives in the form of gifts, to consent.

The daughter Cardinal went into the woods with her teacher. Mockingbird followed silently behind, listening. This went on for weeks until the professor got wholly frustrated with the daughter’s lack of interest and progress. Fearing the Father Cardinal’s reaction, he flew away.

There came a day when Father Cardinal wanted his daughter to perform for friends. She, of course, was terrified of telling her family that she hadn’t learned even a single song. She had, however, overheard mockingbird singing to herself during chores and decided to ask for help. Mockingbird hid herself in a tree trunk singing while the daughter pretended to sing.

Father Cardinal knew of the ruse, having seen Mockingbird sneak into the tree before the concert. After the applause quietened, Father Cardinal called for Mockingbird to come out. The tiny grey bird came out nervously. Father Cardinal proceeded to tell everyone the truth and called upon the mockingbird to sing once more. Her song was so beautiful that all her descendants would forever have a lovely singing voice while the Cardinal never would.

It is a story emphasizing that hard work, enthusiasm and persistence will truly pay off.

Mockingbird also teaches us how to be curious and continue to learn from experience. Every sound a mockingbird sings comes from exploration and discovery. It gains its strength through simulation blended with innovation.

We can draw inspiration from the mockingbird that life is an unfolding series of experiences and an abiding attitude to continue to learn from them is the essence of life.

It keeps me company on many an evening, inspiring muse within...

As I watch it
Our gaze slips
And the mockingbird
Finds its home
Among knotted branches...

Glimpses At: photos.app.goo.gl/sTWoYoiQNGxqnUu68

PS: Would appreciate if you post your comments here and not in Google Photos!

38 Comments

Elegant Egyptian Vulture

6/5/2019

5 Comments

While we were engrossed in watching a group of Griffon Vultures, I saw a pair of birds flying side by side, the ends of their wings almost touching each other. They were gliding and turning over in flight, each one keeping pace with the other. I wondered what they were, till one of them settled down in a branch afar. I took a good look and it was the Egyptian Vulture.

My first sighting of it was almost two decades ago, on the banks of Nelliguda lake in Bidadi on the outskirts of Bangalore. When I was looking through the binocular, I could sight an odd looking, pale, medium sized bird with a yellow face and a thin, long bill. It was unlike anything I had seen before. A quick glimpse of Salim Ali’s book informed me that it was an Egyptian Vulture. To my amazement, it was busy picking up a stone and throwing it on something on the ground. I got to know that it is one of those rare birds that can use tools! I was fascinated by its ingenuity!

As its name suggests, the Egyptian Vulture was the sacred bird of the ancient Pharaohs: its appearance is immortalized in the Egyptian hieroglyphic alphabet as the letter ‘A’. Since the ancient Egyptians thought that all vultures were female and were spontaneously born from eggs without the intervention of a male, they linked these birds to purity and motherhood. They were held to be sacred to the mother goddess Isis and were also themselves elevated to the rank of a deity as Nekhbet, patron of Upper Egypt and nurse of the Pharaoh. The priestesses of Nekhbet wore garments of white vulture feathers, and the goddess herself was often portrayed as a vulture-headed woman, her wings spread to provide protection. Her cult was in fact linked to the eternal cycle of death and rebirth because of the vulture's role in the food chain as a scavenger and its supposed parthenogenesis.

Although vultures figure prominently in ancient Egyptian mythology, they are also important in other cultures. They appear in Greek mythology, where Zeus transformed two enemies - Aegypius and Neophron - into vultures: the former became a Bearded Vulture, and the latter an Egyptian Vulture. This became the source of the Egyptian Vulture's Latin name, Neophron percnopterus. The latter half of the name is said to come from combining two Greek words: perknos, which means "dark", and pteros, which means "winged."

In Turkey and Bulgaria, the Egyptian Vulture is commonly referred to as akbuba, "white father". There is a story about one of these birds saving Muhammad from the claws of the golden eagle. According to this legend, the vulture was rewarded with eternal life and gained its white plumage as a symbol of purity, wisdom, and bravery.

The Egyptian Vulture also appears in the Bible with the name of râchâm, often translated as "gier-eagle". It is only mentioned as an "unclean" bird that should not be eaten. In fact the Egyptian Vulture is a very clean animal, as its feathers are disinfected by the UV light of the sun during flight, and its stomach acid kills off any bacteria it might have ingested. Further, its name contains the root for "love": since these birds are almost always seen in mated pairs.

Orally transmitted since centuries, these legends make obvious its status as a sacred bird. Alas in modern times it is often denigrated as a scavenger.

It is saddening that such an amazing bird and one that bears such cultural significance through history, is currently threatened by human activities. In the last fifty years there has been a sharp decline in its numbers, and the Egyptian Vulture is currently in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The causes of this sad decline have to do with pesticide poisoning, lead poisoning, the use of antibiotics on cattle and habitat destruction. If the trend is not reversed, there is a very real chance that all that will be left of this strikingly unusual bird would be just ancient myths.

There is a story of a Pharaoh who punished whoever killed these birds with death, making it the first ever protected bird species in history! Not surprisingly, this bird was also called “Pharaoh’s child”.

Wonder who is going to care for this child in these times when concern for environment seems to be least of the priorities in body politic.

I am not new to the world
Once I conquered the majestic skies
Soaring tirelessly
Now I crave for fresh air
My breath lost
In defiled fields…

5 Comments

Inside Me Was The Stillness . . .

5/26/2019

1 Comment

While we were birding in the Great Rann of Kutch in the company of Mr Jugal Tiwari whose knowledge of the Rann of Kutch is unsurpassed, I was quite enchanted by the melodious call tune of his mobile. One day I couldn’t hide my curiosity and asked him what bird it was, and he replied that it is the call of the White-naped Tit. It was very impressive to hear that he had assiduously studied the bird for over a decade with many research publications to his credit.

Mesmerized by his account, I was keen to have a glimpse of this often elusive bird.

Next day, early morning we drove down to a thorn forest where the bird had been sighted. We searched the terrain in early morning light for some time and suddenly we could hear the characteristic sweet melodious call of the White naped Tit.

We started scanning the trees and there it was, a little bird, scuttling busily among the branches.

It was a sight to behold. Photographing it was an extremely difficult task due to the speed at which it was moving through the branches in search of food. But watching it delicately making its way with an occasional musical whistling note was itself an enthralling experience.

On the way back, Mr Tiwari spoke to me at length about the travails of the White naped Tit. With little importance given to thorn-scrub forests, the globally threatened White-naped Tit is getting pushed towards extinction. Cutting thorn-scrub forest for fuelwood and illegal charcoal making, clearance for agricultural land and settlement construction, and over-grazing are principal causes for its habitat loss. The species nests in cavities in old trees, many of which are now being razed down, leading to nesting failure. In Kutch alone an estimated hundred Acacia trees per day are felled for the collection of twigs for toothbrush manufacture.

There are two separate populations of the bird in India. One is found in the thorn forests of Gujarat and Rajasthan and the other in the states of Karnataka, Kerala & Tamil Nadu. Endemic to India, recent surveys have found the species to be scarce and declining (maximum 3,500-15,000 individuals) across its range and absent from many previously occupied areas.

Despite intense efforts to look for the White-naped Tit even Salim Ali was unable to locate the species in its South Indian range and he wrote: “Unfortunately, the survey failed to come across this tit in spite of a very special look-out for it, and the species is obviously very rare in S. India”.

Recently, retracing Salim Ali’s “Mysore Birding Diary”, Dr Subramaniam and colleagues made an effort to locate the elusive bird in the Sathyamangalam range. Even though they heard what sounded like the call of the White naped Tit, they were unable to find it.
jlrexplore.com/explore/on-assignment/in-pursuit-of-an-elusive-tit

In Tamil Nadu, the White-naped Tit is known to occur only in Salem district till date.

It was indeed a precious moment to sight this dainty little bird,,,

Oh tit
As you urgently flit
High among bare branches
My heart flutters
With your wings
Watching your joyous, undulating flight
A strange sense of stillness
Settles within me

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Encounter With An Amazing Bird...

3/4/2019

1 Comment

On the last day of our memorable sojourn at the Great Rann Of Kutch (thanks to the ever inspiring Mr Tiwari), we headed down to Modhva for some birding on the coast. Modhva is about six kilometers from the town of Mandvi. When we reached there, the town was unusually crowded as it was the day of Sankaranthi. People dressed in their finery thronged everywhere, many of them holding onto to very colorful kites. We decided to grab a bite of lunch before heading to Modhva. All the restaurants were jam packed. Finally we found one after waiting for a hour to get a seat. After a simple, tasty lunch we made our way to Modhva.

The beach at Modhva was completely deserted, except for an occasional fisherman returning from the sea with the day’s catch. The beach was spotless; the waves of the azure sea caressed the spotless beach gently with many birds foraging for the bounty that a fresh wave brought in. I was totally enraptured watching them silently at work.

As we made our way across the sands, Mr Tiwari told us about the behavioral patterns of many of the birds. We were truly entranced by his immeasurable knowledge of the avian world. Nearby we could see many greater flamingoes daintily making their way across the sands like trained ballerinas.

While I was lost in the magical scene in front of me, Mr Tiwari gently tapped my shoulder and with much excitement whispered, “Look at that bird which is walking among the oyster catchers doctor, it is the Indian Skimmer!”

And there it was... a single bird with a black and white plumage, black head cap, white face and collar and a distinctive long, thick, bright orange bill with a yellow tip. The colorful bill was quite unique in that the upper mandible was shorter than the lower one. Mr Tiwari told us that the bird is also known as the Indian Scissors-bill because of this unique configuration resembling a knife, which helps it to skim through the surface of the water, picking up aquatic prey. Flying a few inches above water, the skimmer drops its elongated lower mandible under the surface and moves over the water until its bill comes into contact with a fish, at which point it reflexively snaps shut! In doing so, they also need to be able to protect their retinas from bright sand and reflections off the water. To do this, skimmers’ pupils close vertically, forming thin slits that act as natural sunglasses. Skimmers are the only birds in the world with this kind of a mechanism.

The Indian Skimmer’s stronghold is the Chambal River and it was very strange to see a lonely one on the coast of Kutch. I wonder whether the Indian Skimmer might have arrived in Kutch, beyond their usual distribution range, looking for new habitats! Incidentally they have been reported in other far off places like Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu!

We were very lucky to have had a glimpse of this unusual bird. Even the bird man of India, Salim Ali was not so lucky as he didn’t spot one during his bird surveys in Kutch during the 40’s.

It is a sad story for the Indan Skimmers like many others in the wildlife scenario in India especially in recent times. They are declining in numbers and there are just around 2500 in India. The International Union For Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), has classified the bird as a “Vulnerable” species as its population is declining drastically, a direct consequence of widespread degradation and disturbance of lowland rivers, lakes and other wetlands.

When flamingo sanctuaries are sacrificed to provide way for the bullet train, what chance does this beautiful bird has to survive?!

In these times when human need and greed are so salient, it is the skimmer attached to the ATM machine which is in public consciousness rather than the perilous plight of this bird.

1 Comment

One Of A Kind!

2/20/2019

8 Comments

It was our second day in the Great Rann of Kutch. The first day was quite extraordinary. We saw an amazing array of raptors…about them a little later!

We were keen to have a glimpse of the elusive Hypocolius. It has been a difficult bird to find because its entire breeding terrain is in the politically disturbed countries of Iraq and Iran. Birders used to look for it in the Arabian Peninsula and still do, but in the early 1990s a wintering population was found in the Kutch district of Gujarat by Shri Jugal Tiwari.

How often can you have the company of the person who was the first to report its presence in India? We were blessed indeed to have his wonderful company and all of us set out early in the morning in search of the elusive bird.

Shri Jugal Tiwari is an institution. Birding has been his passion and vocation for a long time and he has enriched our understanding of their habitats through several research publications. Notwithstanding his impressive stature, he is such a genial, friendly person with whom one connects immediately.

We passed through a thorn forest and scrub land and Shri Jugal Tiwari pointed out to a rather nondescript tree and mentioned that it is Slavadora Persica, often referred to as Miswak or tooth brush tree. Its branches have been used for centuries to clean the teeth. We have been using Meswak toothpaste for quite a while and saw the origins of it for the first time! It is mentioned that Prophet Mohammed recommended the use of Miswak for oral hygiene.

Hypocollius seems to prefer this tree and we waited patiently, scanning the branches for its presence. Shri Jugal Tiwari whispered that it was hiding in the tree in front of us and we waited with bated breath for its appearance.

We could see it fluttering through the leaves and finally after sometime, it came up onto the top branch of the tree to offer us a good glimpse. It was a slim bird with a long tail, slight crest and thick, short bill. Its shape and soft, satiny plumage was that of a waxwing. We could have easily mistaken it for a bulbul from a distance. Over the next few minutes we saw several of them flitting from one tree to another.

Why is it so special to have a glimpse of Hypocolius?

There are very few birds that form a single species and single genus and these are often referred to as “monospecific families”, also known as “monotypic families”…they are one of kind!

A few years ago I went in search of one such species..the Ibis Bill in Nameri. Little did I know that spotting this bird would involve floating down the Jia Bhoroli river in a makeshift coracle. I gingerly stepped into to it while it was already swaying alarmingly with the tide. As we were going down the river, the boatman excitedly pointed out to the presence of the Ibis Bill which was sauntering across the rocks on the banks. It was a memorable experience to have a glimpse of it in the fading light of the evening. But soon it began to rain and we were steered towards the rocky banks. The boatman just turned the coracle upside down and it offered us protection as an umbrella against the onslaught of rain. That we continued to sail through the river for the next few hours despite the downpour is another story!

There are birds that one has heard of or seen in books that captures the imagination, but never had a chance to see...and then one day, there it is in front of you, as if some mythical creature has stepped out of a storybook and come to life. There's no thrill quite like it.

It is these moments that makes birding an unforgettable experience!

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Mahisasuramardini....In Sculpture & Mythology

A Perspicacious Bird!

ON THE WINGS OF A BUTTERFLY...

Towards The Within . . .

Among The Orchids...Again!

MOCKINGBIRD DAYS..

Elegant Egyptian Vulture

Inside Me Was The Stillness . . .

Encounter With An Amazing Bird...

One Of A Kind!

Dr Raguram

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