Wired

Black-winged kite

Pied bushchat

Indian roller

Black drongos

Barn swallows

(Some) Birds of Goa

Jungle crow

Blue-tailed bee-eater

Black kite

White-throated kingfisher

Malabar lark

Wire-tailed swallow

Black kite

Brahminy kite

Whistling ducks

Western marsh harrier

Glossy ibis

Cattle egret

Chikoo, it's all yummy.

Dear Chikoo,

I write to you with a content smile across my lips and a cool, spicy tingle on my taste buds. Imagine a blissful glaze across my wide-open eyes as I watch the chaat walahs layer my masala puris with nothing but meticulous love.

Turns out, Goa has kickass street food.

You know how Mumbai has those chaat carts on wheels like our bhel walah’s? Goa has them too, but with little fancy embellishments. Each cart has both chaat and pav bhaaji. Mmm. The vendors give you a little bowl full of flat puris sprinkled with chaat masala to chomp on while they prepare your order, no matter what it is. Their sev puris are made in round puris, so they fill your mouth with an explosion of chatpata flavour. Their meetha chutney is tangy and sweeter than the ones we’re used to, but in a good way. In an interesting way. Their pani puris are large, filled to the brim with icy-spicy pani. Their aloo tikkis are soft and filling- making the ragda even more delicious with them.

Now, all this being said, I still prefer the chaat back home. But the pav bhaaji here is a buttery dream. This is the closest it has ever come to tasting as good as it smells. And that’s saying a whole lot.

I think I’m this excited about the street food here because of how low I placed my expectations when I first got here. I was dejected to think that I won’t have real chaat for six whole months, and although I was excited when I first spotted a bhel walah, I was also prepared to be completely let down. But now my cravings will be ever-satiated, and I can fall asleep each night knowing that no matter what goes wrong, there will always be a cart of chaat waiting for me at the end of it.

The road perpendicular to our office is dotted with a series of chaat walahs in the evening and Tanisha and I drive past them all every day on our way home. We are now regulars at the ‘Miramar Goa Spacial’ bhel puri stall and the vendors wave and smile at us even when we don’t stop to grab a bite. In a strange way, that makes me feel like I’m settling down into this place more than anything else.

Now all I need is a sudden gush of monetary wind that will let me gorge every evening and I’ll be the happiest girl you’ve ever met.

Love always,
Poodle

PS: They call pani puri ‘water balls’.

Dolphin Watching (Hello, Goa)

Last year I visited Ranthambore National Park and spoke spitefully of the tourists there, and of how the gypsies and canters drive through the forest like lunatics, disturbing all the wildlife within. (See rants here.) I was certain that the situation couldn’t get much worse than that. I was wrong.

Life has been eventful post-Ranthambore. I spent two months working with Madras Crocodile Bank Trust (during which time I neglected my blog entirely), and now, I’m volunteering with WWF in Goa. I’m hoping to treat Teental as my conservation/travel journal during my six months here, because my daily journal entries have taken a backseat with all the commuting to work, cooking and general being-an-adult-ness. I think I’m aging.

All views and opinions mentioned henceforth are mine alone, and do not reflect the ideas or agendas of my friends, colleagues or workplace.

Goa is the holiday state of India. The place where Indians and throngs of hippie/retired foreigners descend on to rent bikes, drink, get tanned, dive and go dolphin watching. WWF did an extensive study of the tourism in Goa that revolves around Humpback dolphins and the coral reef surrounding Grande Island. After reading more about this project, Tanisha and I decided to go out on a dolphin watching boat and see what the situation was like ourselves.

Tanisha is a very pretty, curly-haired girl I’ve known for the last four years and have come to know intimately due to our working together in Chennai, and now Goa. She is one of many vibrant, wonky personalities, and you shall hear of her often in my upcoming posts.

We went to Sinquerim Jetty in North Goa and got tickets to get onto a boat that could accommodate roughly twelve people. As we waited for there to be enough people to set out with, I noticed little pools of petrol leaking into the water from the engine at the back of the boat. I then turned around to find a large family of over-enthusiastic photo-takers chatting excitedly about the boat trip they were about to take. I mentally greeted my to-be co-passengers and hoped they wouldn’t make me regret the trip later. My hope was short-lived, for even before the boat pulled away from the jetty, the daughter-in-law of the family pulled out a selfie stick from her purse and began experimenting with angles. I made a large-fonted ‘DEATH TO SELFIE STICKS’ note in my diary and tried to stare ahead.

I pictured the boat trip in a very peachy way before we set off. I imagined a boatman up front who navigated and spoke to us about what we were looking at and far fewer tourists. What we had instead, was a boatman who stuck to the back of the narrow boat with the engine, and tourists who piled into the boat in numbers so large, we ran out of life jackets. The boatman stood up briefly and mumbled to the crowd to keep their hands inside the boat and off we went. The boat rumbled away into the mouth of the bay where it joined about seven other boats before slowing down. We passed floating seagulls and beer bottles on our way- both being present in rather large numbers. The amount of garbage in the water was appalling. There were glass and plastic bottles, little bits of thermocol, a petrol can and wrappers. Truth is, each floating bit of anthropogenic waste was distanced from the other, making it seem like there wasn’t too much of it. But in retrospect, the fact that all that waste had travelled two kilometres past the shore itself proved just how much crap is being chucked into the water regularly. 

Speaking of waste, the tourists on our boat had already taken 275 selfies collectively (or individually? Who can tell?) by the time we reached the mouth. Everyone was a model and director- shouting instructions and pose ideas across the boat. The couple up front (who had been accommodated on loose plastic chairs) had been leaning backward into the water, staring at their mobile phone the entire time. I was torn between hoping they fell over and wanting to strap them into their seats. The trash, seagulls, sparkling water, beach and distant cliff were nothing but changing backgrounds for their boat-time photoshoot. The vibrant couple, for vibrant they were, looked up and over the edge of their phones only 15 whole minutes into the trip, when we saw the first dolphin surface.

I expected the dolphins to be at least 50meters away from the boats. I remember seeing dolphins at a distance of roughly 100meters from the ferries in Mumbai on the way to Elephanta islands and figured this would be similar to those sightings. I sat there, looking into the distance for signs of movement in the water, when an adult popped up 10meters away. There were simultaneous shouts from everyone on our boat and from the other ones as well, followed by exaggerated gesturing and attempts to take pictures of the dolphins. All the boats’ engines revved together and they headed aggressively in the direction of the animal. I couldn’t figure why the boats needed to be any closer. One didn’t even require a primitive pair of binoculars to see the dolphins clearly. After that first sighting, there was nothing but violent chasing. It felt like I was part of a predatorial chase. The boats zoomed madly toward the dolphin, crossed its line of movement, nearly bumped into it (twice) and even moved straight toward its head. We saw two dolphins emerge together at one point, and I can only assume that the boats confused them, for they surfaced individually afterward. The first dolphin was seen travelling quickly away from the boats initially, but was soon completely surrounded by the encircling mob of boats. There were times when the dolphin emerged for breath less than 2meters from the side of the boat. It was so easy to forget that this was a wild animal in its natural habitat. I spent those long minutes growing stress lines, feeling confident of running over the dolphins. By the end of it all, there was no time or space left to admire the beauty and elegance of these creatures.

The boatman didn’t say anything about the dolphins. He called out to the passengers the first time it emerged, and thereafter devoted all his attention to navigating the boat toward them. He didn’t even mention that they were Humpback dolphins or ask the people on board to sit down and maintain any kind of quiet. Although, it seemed like the people we were travelling with weren’t interested in gaining that kind of information, or perhaps they didn’t expect to receive any. People from other boats took pictures of the waving tourists on ours, hooted at one another, and tried hard to take pictures of themselves with the dolphins in them (expressing their disappointment if and when that didn’t work out). It was becoming rather evident that the dolphins were nothing but bonus excitement for most of these people- they were just there to have a good time on a boat and feel the sea breeze in their hair. Fundamentally, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be on a boat and take pictures or being uninterested in the fauna of a region. But to pursue an animal with such unfettered dedication for people who couldn’t care less about it seems completely pointless.

The only time the boatman addressed the crowd was when he pointed out an 80 crore rupee bungalow upon the cliff where famous Bollywood movies had been shot, the Aguada jail and Vijay Mallya’s fancy-schmancy boat. The tourists excitedly spoke about these sights and exchanged notes about the movies shot there, and about how large and expensive Mallya’s boat looked (Note: the crew was playing loud music on the boat). By this time, the boatman turned back toward the shore and everyone else grouped up to take their last few pictures together before the trip came to an end. Not so far away, I could see the gulls circling an active fishing boat, with the wafting rumble of popular Bollywood music in the air.

When I got off the boat, I was far from happy or excited after having seen Humpback dolphins at such close quarters. I had pictured myself with my face cupped in my hands staring in wonder at the dolphins. Instead, I hung onto my seat as we chased after them and felt pangs of guilt every time they resurfaced.

A lot of good can come of having Humpback dolphins so close to the shore- and these tours can be more sensitive and informative than they are now. But these are goals that will clearly require the combined effort of the boat operators, tourists and locals, and time. It’s hard to say how long it’ll be before the situation gets any better, considering the small number of people who seem to acknowledge the faults within it.

The optimist in me still thinks there’s hope.

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The Memorables, or, My Top Books from 2015

A ZOO IN MY LUGGAGE- GERALD DURRELL

I first read My Family and Other Animals when I was in primary school, and read a host of Durrell's other novels through the next few years. His writing always fascinated me because they revolved around his global travels in search of animals for his zoos. He wrote of how he tracked them down, used local help, built make-shift enclosures and transported all the animals he collected. They were often humorous, and the idea of using zoos as an educational device interested me. It was also refreshing to read of the kind of zoos he designed and set up in contrast to the wasteland of an animal urinal we have for a zoo in Mumbai. A Zoo in My Luggage was like coming home to an old, weird friend. As a kid, the adventures and mishaps kept me entertained, but now, I learned to appreciate his humour, writing and the people within his stories. This particular book talks of his journey to the Cameroons where he's hosted by the Bafut, a royalty of sorts, and goes into detail about some of the animals they come to procure and bond with. The Bafut may be one of my favourite non-fictional characters. He's flamboyant, has a huge harem of mutually-jealous wives, and wastes no time in finding new ones. It was amusing to read about Durrell and his wife struggling to house the animals they found right under the nose of an indifferent, ever-jovial, dancing Bafut, who was kinder to them than any authority they knew. There was no question about whether this book ought to be on my list. Nostalgia aside, it was a delight to read.

100 HEARTBEATS- JEFF CORWIN

This book was my constant companion through the last few months of college. It's essentially a series of case studies from the world of conservation and extinction. Apart from the clean writing and inspiring/shocking/mortifying/worrying/touching topics discussed within its pages, the underlying premise of this book shook me up the most. The species that find their way into the 100 Heartbeat Club have only a hundred individuals or less left on this planet, and the list of members is unbelievably long. As conservationists strive to strike species off this list, more and more seem to make it, leading to a more fragile ecosystem than already at hand. In my eyes, Jeff Corwin was always the witty, clumsy, passionate ecologist who made 8-year-old me want to be a wild life expert when she grew up. I knew him for his love of nature and his light-hearted demeanor, which is why reading this book was an unexpected experience for me. He is serious, genuine and vulnerable through the book and opens up about how inspired he is by others and how humbled he is by the various species he has interacted with. I look at this book as a textbook that I can use through life to remind myself of how much irreparable damage we've caused as a race and of how much a handful of us are doing to better the situation. It's a book that teaches the truth behind conservation battles and the trauma of wild animals at our expense. My love for Jeff Corwin as a conservationist, scientist and human being quadrupled after reading this book, and I would certainly tremble in his presence from respect for his attitude and experiences. These are my celebrities.

[From his experience as the keeper for a newly orphaned elephant calf.] "He was having a nightmare, and I instinctively cupped his eyes so he couldn't see the light from the oil lamp hanging from the ceiling... Just as he was drifting off again, he started to twist a lock of my hair with the tip of his trunk. All 40,000 muscles in that miniature proboscis were working together to make sure that its tip- which is 10 times more sensitive than a human finger- brought him the soothing contact he needed. Suddenly, I grasped the trauma that a creature this sensitive must experience in the presence of a poacher's brutality."

GOODBYE SOLDIER- SPIKE MILLIGAN

I discovered Spike Milligan last year when I was browsing through the second hand books at Fountain. The fact that he was part of The Goon Show with Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe attracted my attention. The first book I picked up was a collection of his poems and short stories, along with the occasional script from one of the Goon shows. It had me in peals and so, I kept reading more Spike. Goodbye Soldier holds notes from the diary he kept during WWII, wherein he played for a travelling jazz band that served as entertainment for the troops in Rome, Vienna and other places. His sarcastic and comical writing about his bunk mates, other musicians and his new-found love Toni, had me feeling like I was travelling with the odd ball bunch. The book is, perhaps, the most candid one I've ever read- offering insight into how simple, no-nonsense, vulnerable, and downright funny Spike Milligan was.

NO MATTER THE WRECKAGE- SARAH KAY

Spoken word poetry has been a part of my life for only just over a year, and Sarah Kay was one of the first few poets I was introduced to. I once spent an entire evening on YouTube listening to her perform poem after poem, and her poetry is what drove me to attempt writing my first spoken word piece. Even when simply talking, she seemed to make perfect sense, and I loved that ideas were clearer to me through poetry than they would've been otherwise. She led me to other poets and more poems of my own. "Poetry is like pooping, if there's a poem in you, it has to come out." Despite having dabbled with poetic devices and rhymes in the past, free verse and expression through poetry found its way to me only in the recent past, and I hand a chunk of credit to Sarah and her recitations for that. No Matter the Wreckage is her first compilation of poems and has come to be a portable bag of emotions for me. Reading some of my favourite poems off paper and discovering more that I had never heard of before was lovely, and it's hard for me to ever tire of such a book. I find myself reaching for this book on days when I'm both happy and low, and I always find a poem in there that lifts off the page and wraps itself around me in a comforting hug.

THE GIRL IN BLUE- P G WODEHOUSE

Astoundingly, this was the only Wodehouse book I read all year (I think?), and so, it made my list effortlessly. Like some of his other books, this one was filled with failed engagements, young and fickle love, and valuable heirlooms. Even though my all-time favourites like Uncle Fred, Psmith, Finknottle and Wooster were amiss, I ended up loving the fresher characters fumbling about in this tale as well. The book opens with lawyer Homer Pyle and his shop-lifting sister, and leads you on to Jerry West, the broke bloke in love, seeking money from his uptight Uncle Bill. Jerry, engaged to Vera Upshaw (the typical Wodehouse-ian, insufferable lady) ends up falling in love with Jane Hunnicut when trying to procure The Girl in Blue, the painting that was stolen from his uncle. Summarizing the plot here would be futile, for it's as convoluted as the Empress of Blandings' intestines. This is a good book for someone who is new to Wodehouse as well, for it needs no background knowledge of any of its characters. It's hilarious, witty and sharp, but like all his other books... ends. PGW can find me laughing aloud in the most populated trains in Mumbai, and this one was no exception. 

Jerry West, you're no Psmith, but you two would get along spectacularly, and for me, that's more than enough. 

THE TEN TRUSTS- JANE GOODALL & MARC BEKOFF

This book has ten chapters or trusts that one must honour as members and custodians of this planet. The trusts enlisted are simple, and have to do largely with the attitude mankind has toward the environment and species within it. Chapters like 'Respect all life' and 'Have the courage of our convictions' are backed up by Goodall and Bekoff's experiences, case studies, anecdotes and statistics. The book explores all life, including the animals we domesticate and the trees that grow in our shrinking forests. It talks about scientific attitude, basic human mentality and animal behaviour. All these themes come together to generate a more evolved sense of awareness in the reader's mind and paints an unadulterated, clear picture of everything wrong with the way man deals with his surroundings. This book also talks about the few victory stories the world has witnessed and draws inspiration from them. Goodall and Beckoff have managed to talk about the shortcomings of man and advise us about the right path to take without coming off as cynical, judgmental or hostile. With their individual, characteristic calm, they've driven home crucial points and observations that more people ought to know about. If these trusts were the fundamental guidelines to a religion, the world would be a better, more harmonious place.

BOSSYPANTS- TINA FEY

Tina Fey is one of my favourite women, because she is undeniably funny in a world where only men are considered capable of being comedic. Bossypants is full of unapologetic humour- humour that feeds off of her every embarrassing experience. She walks you through her clumsy childhood, extremely-awkward teenage years, her first jobs and finally, unravels how she came to be the SNL and 30 Rock star we know her as. When I started reading this book, I was worried I'd be disappointed. I hoped that her writing would live up to the image I had of her in my mind and that her comic self wasn't the result of a team of writers hidden behind a stage curtain somewhere. Turns out, she started out as one of those faceless writers and made her way to the audience-side of the curtain. My skepticism vanished two paragraphs into her introduction, and I ended up reading the next hundred-odd pages in the same sitting. Apart from being a breather from life, it also spoke about all the work that goes into putting up live and pre-recorded TV shows, and it made me respect the whole process a lot more than I did before. This was the breezy, well-written bit of heaven I didn't know I needed. 

LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET- RAINER MARIA RILKE

This was the last book I read in 2015. I ordered it off Amazon on an impulse and the eager, little fellow knocked at my door the very next day. This is a collection of ten letters that Rilke sent to a young Mr. Kappus, who wrote to him asking for advise and opinions. Rilke, through his wise persona, wrote warm letters that offer advise and suggestions so universal, they can be applied to more than just a young poet. I do not agree or accept in entirety all of what Rilke had to offer, however, his words are thought provoking and poetic even through the prose. These letters clearly belong to a former time, but it was lovely to read words that were once delicately fed to paper and sent with compassion and genuine heart. Despite the air of formality that comes with each letter, there's a sense of acceptance and belonging between the correspondents that is endearing. Although I imagine some of its beauty was lost in translation, this is a good book for anyone with a love of poetry and words that linger.

The Kite

This morning, loud kite calls made me look out the window. There, I found two kites perched over one another, probably in an attempt to mate. After a short struggle to keep their balance on the flimsy branch they were on, the male flew away, leaving the female to roost atop that tree. (I'm not certain of their genders; their lack of sexual diamorphism is both pleasing and confusing.) When I saw that the kite wasn't going anywhere and was merely taking in her surroundings, I reached for my camera and sat crouched in my window, staring at her.

Kites are one of my favourite birds in Mumbai. They add a sense of untamed wilderness to this noisy place, cutting through the traffic and crows with their piercing, predatorial calls. I first fell in love with this bird after rescuing one off Band Stand five years ago, and watching their numbers rise before my eyes ever since excites me. But they've always been birds that I'm in awe of, that I respect and gawk at. They have a domineering presence that one can't ignore. However, watching this particular kite today for an extended period of time, made me see a side of their personality I didn't know existed.

Kites are curious, distracted fellows, highly capable of looking utterly confused.
(The number of anthropomorphism sins in that statement would appall any scientist.)

This kite sat upon her tree, turning her head to look at every single thing that moved around her. Dragonflies, ruffling leaves, flying crows and sudden bursts of traffic. She twisted her head in every direction and seemed to take notice of me hiding behind my camera as well. She looked just  like a cat would if you dangled several pieces of string around its head. In those twenty minutes, the kite went from looking large and majestic, to looking adorable and ponderous. I used to think the only thing on a kite's mind must be trying to look intimidating, but now, I realize they look intimidating despite all that goes on in their curious minds.

Fiend.

This is what dysmenorrhea looks like. A tangled mess of what is supposed to be the sweetness of life and the propagation of the human race, painted over a dark chocolate brownie with my unmatched imprecision.

Dear Uterus,
I try to live with you, but you're making this hard. Why don't you team up with the appendix and coccyx and take a long vacation until evolution kicks in?
Love?
Ishika