14th November 2017, ANET
By late afternoon I was mighty restless. I felt trapped and suffocated, like a month had passed since I left Bangalore. I decided to take a walk up to ghumai and get a samosa or something - anything to get OUT.
Spoke to Chandy on the way down. He's still waiting for permits, but is enjoying the birding, falling in love with the sunrises and swooning over the new-found skies in the Himalayas. I'm slowly starting to realise how much I care for all these guys, and how long these six months apart are really going to be especially after our constant co-existence for the past three semesters.
By the time I got back, Dr. Narayan Sharma (a former PhD student of Rana's*) and his students from Cotton University had arrived at ANET for the night. These students are of the first batch of the course for which Narayan is Head-in-Charge. He is clearly well-respected and admired, especially because of how hard he is trying to provide these students with as many experiences and perspectives as possible. He's the sole permanent faculty at Cotton's right now, and this can't be easy for him.
We spent about an hour before dinner doing introductions and speaking about our (all the researchers on base) ongoing or prospective projects. For a bunch of 20- and 21-year-olds who had had a full day of travel and no food in their bellies, they were extremely patient.
I had a long chat with Narayan after dinner. With his calm demeanor, pot belly and pollo t-shirt, he reminded me of Rana. He discussed the social angle of my project quite extensively and said he would send me a textbook on survey methods which covers the entire process - including how to prepare a questionnaire. It was lovely to have an ecologist-primatologist so keen to discuss the 'people' aspect of my work, since I still had the least guidance in that regard, and I didn't want to mess it up due to unintentional ignorance. He's an extremely warm and gentle person, and I can sense why Rana thinks of him so dearly.
Before turning in, a few of us went out on an owl search once more with the old-yet-enthu Vice Chancellor I mentioned a few days ago - he had stayed on a little longer. He's a very kind and articulate man who walks with purpose, with a camera and binoculars hanging off of his shoulders. We saw a hawk owl once more - it had bright yellow eyes and gave off red eye shine. On that particularly dark night, it was quite something. No matter how noisy the congregation of birders, the silence that follows a sighting like this one tells you more about it than words can.
A lot of fraternizing happened in general today in the library, which was fun on the whole. I find that even lighthearted chatter and tangential conversation in that library or around the dinner table tends to teach me a smidgen more about the islands than I previously knew.
Akshay was preparing to leave for Baratang tomorrow. Also, Naushad (scooter; Switz) and I agreed on 22 k. The day got better post-samosa.
________
*Rana is the pet name for Dr. Anindya Sinha - my lead adviser. He's one of India's most renowned primatologists, and it still tickles me to think that I've gotten to know him so closely over the past two years, when I was utterly star-struck and afraid to speak in his company when I first met him.
I spent much of the day on campus at ANET. Worked on all my remaining datasheet-related tasks, which wasn't much, and finished writing up the proposal for Chandan and Paro's 'Pakke in Macro' film.
About 3-4 months ago, two forest rangers from Pakke Tiger Reserve came to the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) to screen a film that they had made on-foot in Pakke. It was extremely impressive, especially since all the footage in it was shot by forest guards who were patrolling the area. They knew the land closely, and captured behaviours that a visiting filmmaker probably wouldn't have the chance to witness. Chandan and Paro, the two primary filmmakers of the screened documentary were truly enjoying their cinematographic learning, and were keen to make a follow-up film shot entirely in 'macro'. For this, they needed funds, equipment and someone who could help getting them. I offered to be that person. I had been working with their ideas and wish lists for a proposal, which I finally put together today.
With some scrounging for internet, I finally managed to send it off. A huge tick off of my to-do list. I don't know why I end up doing a multitude of tasks when I already have a lot else to do, but not when I'm perfectly free and available to tackle tasks in a timely manner.
By late afternoon I was mighty restless. I felt trapped and suffocated, like a month had passed since I left Bangalore. I decided to take a walk up to ghumai and get a samosa or something - anything to get OUT.
Spoke to Chandy on the way down. He's still waiting for permits, but is enjoying the birding, falling in love with the sunrises and swooning over the new-found skies in the Himalayas. I'm slowly starting to realise how much I care for all these guys, and how long these six months apart are really going to be especially after our constant co-existence for the past three semesters.
By the time I got back, Dr. Narayan Sharma (a former PhD student of Rana's*) and his students from Cotton University had arrived at ANET for the night. These students are of the first batch of the course for which Narayan is Head-in-Charge. He is clearly well-respected and admired, especially because of how hard he is trying to provide these students with as many experiences and perspectives as possible. He's the sole permanent faculty at Cotton's right now, and this can't be easy for him.
We spent about an hour before dinner doing introductions and speaking about our (all the researchers on base) ongoing or prospective projects. For a bunch of 20- and 21-year-olds who had had a full day of travel and no food in their bellies, they were extremely patient.
I had a long chat with Narayan after dinner. With his calm demeanor, pot belly and pollo t-shirt, he reminded me of Rana. He discussed the social angle of my project quite extensively and said he would send me a textbook on survey methods which covers the entire process - including how to prepare a questionnaire. It was lovely to have an ecologist-primatologist so keen to discuss the 'people' aspect of my work, since I still had the least guidance in that regard, and I didn't want to mess it up due to unintentional ignorance. He's an extremely warm and gentle person, and I can sense why Rana thinks of him so dearly.
Before turning in, a few of us went out on an owl search once more with the old-yet-enthu Vice Chancellor I mentioned a few days ago - he had stayed on a little longer. He's a very kind and articulate man who walks with purpose, with a camera and binoculars hanging off of his shoulders. We saw a hawk owl once more - it had bright yellow eyes and gave off red eye shine. On that particularly dark night, it was quite something. No matter how noisy the congregation of birders, the silence that follows a sighting like this one tells you more about it than words can.
A lot of fraternizing happened in general today in the library, which was fun on the whole. I find that even lighthearted chatter and tangential conversation in that library or around the dinner table tends to teach me a smidgen more about the islands than I previously knew.
Akshay was preparing to leave for Baratang tomorrow. Also, Naushad (scooter; Switz) and I agreed on 22 k. The day got better post-samosa.
________
*Rana is the pet name for Dr. Anindya Sinha - my lead adviser. He's one of India's most renowned primatologists, and it still tickles me to think that I've gotten to know him so closely over the past two years, when I was utterly star-struck and afraid to speak in his company when I first met him.
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