Mansi - The Chirput.

Field work was full of surprises, as often happens when your subjects of interest are two incredibly intelligent primate species. Of all, the best one was discovering that I would help take care of an abandoned infant macaque - affectionately named Mansi by the local Forest Department.

I was working on field one annoyingly sunny afternoon, when my troop decided to scale two cliffs and make me work up an even heavier sweat. They were just settling down into a clump of Pandanus trees for an afternoon snack and siesta, when a family I had come to know ambled along. They were there to lop some wood in that secluded forest patch, and they brought their bumbling, black-and-white dog along to keep watch. The dog, however, promptly hurtled towards the snoozing macaques, wagging his tail eagerly in hope to play. The macaques found in him a play thing rather than a playmate, slapping his snout and then jumping just out of his reach.

While the husband and son dodged the monkeys and got down to their business, the wife hid behind me, worried that the large male near my feet would jump up and swipe her. While she hid, she asked me if I had seen the Forest Department's "new baby monkey". She wasn't the first one to mention its existence, and I was beginning to take this rumour seriously. There was an air of secret celebration, as though the fertile Department had borne an infant to the island.

Before I knew it, I was brought face-to-face with this fragile, wrinkled, scrawny thing. She looked alone and crinkled in her makeshift cage. While I held onto the still-solid portions of my melting heart, I scooter-ed off to the marketplace where I found some milk powder, overripe bananas and a mother-macaque-sized soft toy. I whizzed back to the piddly one with these items to find her clutching the cane that formed the mesh of her cage. Her wet, brown eyes looked up at me with piercing longing, melting all that was left of my cardiac muscles.

I opened the door and offered her my arm, which she took with all four of hers and held onto with resolve. I could feel the thirst for contact in her grip, which seemed only to tighten with time and trust. She swung from my clothes, body and hair - never losing hold of me. I was starting to understand directly how these infants cling onto their mothers as they leap between trees and rooftops. With fingers and wrinkles which provide arboreal certainty across media, any movement was possible, no matter how petite. I remembered the way my sister wrapped her hand around my finger as a baby, and couldn't help wonder about how unimpressive human babies are when compared to our evolutionary sisters.

She clung for three hours - initially playing and eventually falling asleep. She climbed her way up into the inside of my shirt collar and slept in the warmth of my neck. I cupped her thin body with my palm, enveloping her entirely, as I felt her chest heave against me. She hugged my neck with her delicate, long, pink fingers. Her skin felt as soft as a newborn's, but had the texture of someone much older.

I felt a fierce protectiveness towards Mansi instantly. Spending that time with her felt more profound than I thought it would be. This young macaque had lost her mother, and somehow found her way into the human realm. Not so different, albeit larger, I found how I was a plushy candidate for the role of 'mom', and wanted nothing but to give her the best care within my control. If I was there only for another few months, I was going to try to do what was best by her.

When I peeled Mansi away and returned her to the enclosure, I felt cold and bare where she had been resting. I left her that night hoping ardently that she survives to an age where a troop would accept her. In the following days, we grew increasingly fond of each other, and I watched with hope and pride as she grew more dexterous and agile. I selfishly rejoiced on the inside when she preferred my arms to others, but always felt the bitterness of having to leave her island home soon.

Now, nearly 2000 kilometers away from her, with only sporadic updates about her health, I miss her ardently. Regardless of whether I see her again, the intensity in her eyes, the softness of her fur and the smell of her pee will forever remain etched in my mind.

Mansi, you lanky bit of jet-black hair, I hope you keep hanging on.

Ek chai toh peekar jao

The island of Great Nicobar is speckled with modest settlements. People from Bengali, Tamilian, Telegu, Ranchi, Punjabi and Maharashtrian communities left their homes in Peninsular India from 1969 onwards to colonize and gradually develop the island, originally occupied by Nicobarese and Shompen societies alone. Ever since then, they’ve cut down slivers of forest along the eastern coast to build homes alongside their allotted land, surrounded by paddy fields and coconut plantations. Within 30 years of their arrival, they collectively started schools and medical centres, set up a Forest Department, an Agricultural Department and several police stations – all distributed across a long road that ran along the coast, originating at Campbell Bay and ending at Indira Point, the southernmost tip of India.

Then, in 2004, a tsunami hit, washing out decades of hard work and development, not to mention hundreds of lives and homes. Ever since, the survivors have crawled back to a semblance of what once was, aided by Government subsidies and rations. Today, the previously spread-out habitation has shifted to a clumped distribution of nine villages along a new road – running along the coast and through forested hills for 35 kilometres.

When I came to the island to study human-macaque interactions, I had planned to divide my work into behavioural observations of the monkeys, and one-on-one interviews with the local communities to better understand their take on the issue, their experiences and collective histories. For the past six months, I’ve been regaled with tales of the monkeys I’ve grown so fond of. Simultaneously, though, I’ve been caught in an endlessly looped battle of wits – that of the peoples’ plight and the macaques’ actions. Picking a side can never be part of a scenario like the one present here – my heart wishes to be parted like my methodology, lending complete sympathy to both the people and the macaques.

Despite this, a new itch has been occupying my mind off-late, one of metropolitan disgust and guilt.

Having grown up in a place like Mumbai, where trust is scarce and home exists behind two closed doors bolted tight, places like the Andaman and Nicobar Islands seem like a confusing paradox of society at first glance. Here people enjoy company, the notion of having visitors arriving unannounced, making tea for a crowd, sharing meals and lives. Here, time is a gift that’s meant to be shared, not a constraint within which life seems fleeting. People from the metros shy away from interaction; we shield ourselves behind the illusion that sparing a moment to hear someone out will eat into our minimal allotment of cosmic time. Where did this manic selfishness arise? Or rather, when? Perhaps our fear of the unknown is further exacerbated by our unwillingness to learn more about the people around us. In a society where people are more numerous than our cranial capacity to retain, and where everyone is a stranger living by an unwritten code of order amuck observable chaos, could one open their arms wide and share tea, food and time? Even the eternal optimist within me leans towards a resounding, ‘‘no’’.

I’ve been to nearly 200 homes here in Great Nicobar. Most of these homes are left ajar, often with a flimsy curtain hanging by the doorframe. The shuffle of my feet and some stirring barks from nearby dogs attract the residents’ attention. Immediately a chair is produced, chai is placed over the stove and conversation is struck – all before knowing who I am or where I’ve come from. I was worried about being an intruder, an inconvenient blotch on their routine days. This anxiety didn’t last long, though. I soon found that wondering if a family would rather I didn’t visit is an insult to their culture of hospitality. Rejecting an invite to come in, have some nimbu paani or chai, or to stay for lunch is an offence akin to outright rudeness. I began to relax, welcome the hospitality, home-cooked meals and willing company with open arms, and it transformed the way in which the locals perceived me too. I became one of them, one who held onto no pretence or inhibition, and who partook of their characteristic islandic gossip. I have the families here to thank for my own personal growth – these lessons and realizations can’t be shaken irrespective of where I go from here.

When people who have so little, who’ve lost so much, can give so voluntarily without batting an eyelid, what is it if not arrogance that makes the privileged so stingy with their time, courtesy, respect and love? Sure, I may not welcome strangers into my home without a care in the world from here on out. But I know my conscience will sting deep if I fail to extend at least a shred of the decency that has been showered upon me through my travels. 

Trust

It’s been five months since I arrived on the island of Great Nicobar. I’m here to collect data for my Master’s thesis, which is focused around the Nicobar long-tailed macaque and its interactions with people. Much like the macaques in Southeast Asia, these guys have been creating steady havoc by raiding coconut plantations and vegetable gardens all over the island, and I decided to study their behaviour and the locals’ perceptions of the issue at hand. This is one of the three Nicobar Islands housing the rotund, grey, furry monkeys that have created a reputation for being intelligent, sneaky, dangerous and annoyingly prolific. Most people still stare at me in disbelief when they learn that I travelled ‘all the way from Bangalore’ to study what seem like every day, common pests.

These monkeys have faces that seem astonishingly readable at first glance. Unlike some of the other macaque species, they have long hair on their faces, but none around their eyes. Their eyelids are several shades lighter than the rest of their skin and body, and they stand out distinctly under their thick, bushy eyebrows. Their eyes tend to be a caramel brown – piercing when directed at you. When I first began following them, I was the one being observed. It took a month of respectful distance and nonchalance on my part for the troop to relax in my presence. During this period of habituation, I began to notice personalities and tendencies of several individuals and discover their responses to my body language. I took notice of them taking notice of other passers-by, but not of me. I realized at this point that they either trusted or tolerated me, and I was keen to know which one it was.

Initially, I found that I couldn’t sit down during the day. Every time I did, I suddenly became accessible; a curio that the larger males and enthusiastic sub-adults would make a beeline for, probably hoping to raid me for some food. They’d be abruptly aware of me, as though I appeared out of nowhere, and this bothered some of the more timid and cautious individuals in the group. Just as you’d find in a social gathering of people, within the troop, some monkeys take longer to warm up to you than the others, some are ever-suspicious, some are eager and inquisitive, and some simply don’t care. Soon, I found that majority of the troop fell into the last category. Having moved from an unwanted intruder that prompted an angry chorus of alarm calls through the forest patches to one of unexciting, repetitive and uninteresting demeanour, it felt like an achievement. Never before had I been as happy to be the one not worth noticing.

This being said, I’ve come to share some tickling moments in close proximity with those whose lack of concern for me led them to attempt interaction. On one such day, I sat down in the grass, tired from having walked after them for nearly eight hours. I put my clipboard in my bag and watched the monkeys groom themselves lazily in the cloudy afternoon haze. I suddenly felt one of the monkeys grip my shoulder. It was Tripod, one of the more dominant males of the group. Having made contact with me uneventfully, three other sub-adult males, a female and another adult male made their way up to me. From their casual strides and relaxed eyebrows, I felt rather confident that they meant no harm. They seated themselves around me; a couple leaned against me and began to doze off. My heart was thumping against my chest and I could feel the pulse in my neck – I was elated. Just then, their little hands began touching my arms and legs. They lifted my shirt sleeves to inspect underneath. They began to pick ants off of my pants and pop them into their mouth. Tara, another male, used his teeth ever so gently to pull off some scabs on my arm. I was being groomed. This lasted no longer than five minutes, before a female some feet away seemed to disapprove of the gathering. She raised her eyebrows rapidly, sounding low alarm calls while shooting glances at several individuals around me. I rose and stood back slowly, and the female went back to grooming her infant, as though the whole thing never happened.

On another day, I was standing fairly close to the troop while noting down some data, when a huge fight broke out among the monkeys. Nearly every adult ran frantically to the centre of conflict and the air filled with their calls of skirmish. I was left standing amidst those who opted out, now some distance away from most of the troop. As the ruckus died down, the adults slowly sauntered back to where I was. There was palpable tension in the air that I couldn’t shake; it seemed like they couldn’t either. Several monkeys searched me with their eyes as they passed by, something that was rather unusual. A couple of them sent rapid signals to the others, and several began grunting at me. The males pulled themselves up to their full, impressive height and advanced towards me in an unamicable fashion. A couple yanked at my pants and bared their teeth. Once more, I silently backed away, and they settled down almost instantly.

I realize now that even if what they have toward me is tolerance, they trust me to understand their signals. In both the occasions I related (and some more which I didn’t), the monkeys could have easily torn me to shreds with their remarkable canines and hardy nails; they have with others in the past. They could have chased me far away from where they rested; again, they have with others in the past. Instead, they chose to provide me with a minimalistic warning and let me off easy. Maybe they were okay with having a human amidst them who hadn’t tried to harm them thus far, unlike nearly every other person they encounter each day. Whatever the reason, these events help me stay grounded and remember never to take their acceptance for granted. I have utmost awe and respect for these animals, no matter how amusing, strange and quirky they can be at times.

These fantastic, wild creatures are complicated. They have moods, personalities and emotions; and I don’t feel presumptuous for saying it anymore. Watching them day in and day out for these past few months only convinces me of this further. Perhaps the data I collect will fail to portray this, with only numbers telling tales of their behaviour, but the experiences I’ve had with them will remain more fascinating and dear to me than can be statistically discernible.

Anthropo-why?

Over the past couple of years, I've stumbled over, actively pursued and devoured several books on the topic of animal behaviour and cognition. It's a field that seems to be spoken about more frequently in books, which can be passed off as extended opinion pieces, rather than in factual, objective, scientific papers. Perhaps that's also because most long-time behaviourists find it easier to put their thoughts out into the larger, more accepting public than have them critiqued in the cautious world of scientific journals. The primary reason for this discouragement of juicy, emotional material in the academic world is one giant, taboo word - anthropomorphism.

I've wanted to write about this for nearly two years, but haven't because I was constantly reminded of the several unread, cognition-based books lying on my shelf that could change my mind about the topic. What I've found instead, with more reading, is nothing but mounting evidence for why the constant cautiousness regarding anthropomorphism may be unneeded. I received a final push to support the 'Of Course Animals Have Emotions!' team after reading what Carl Safina had to say about the matter.

"Evidence and logic can be trustworthy guides. In fact, one term for evidence+logic is: 'science'." 

This is the stance that seems to be lacking in the community of behaviour scientists who look solely at descriptive ways of recording behaviour and actions without attempting to interpret them. It is widely accepted to say, "The elephant approached her dead calf, ran her trunk over him slowly, and stayed with its carcass for three days before joining her herd that had moved on" but not to say, "The elephant was experiencing grief". By fearing that one is anthropomorphising an animal in doing so, one is being all the more anthropocentric.

I've finally learned that there is a wealth of undeniable evidence, from a cumulative of several hundred years of observations, of intelligence and emotion in the animal kingdom. This, combined with the logic that any scientist (or layman) who has been exposed to certain species for several years possesses, could come together to produce wonderful science, finally laying the foundation literature that better understanding of animal cognition must rest upon. An unnamed scientist once loosely mentioned, "I have no way of knowing if that elephant is any more conscious than this bush". I feel compelled to point out that elephants are known to make decisions, care for their offspring and, perhaps even more interestingly, share nearly the same nervous and hormonal systems as human beings. This is just one of many cases of ignoring hard evidence in the hope of remaining an objective, well-reputed researcher.

One of the reasons why most scientists only tell stories and write articles or books about their evidences for feeling and emotion in animals is that such 'stories' or 'anecdotes' fail to fit the scientific framework of collecting empirical data, analyzing it, and producing statistical evidence for or against their hypotheses. But, quoting an eloquent professor of mine, "there's no such thing as anecdotal data". This is further substantiated by an uncomfortably small niche of literature like this one. If more behaviourists or ecologists began publishing isolated instances of interesting behaviour, even if purely descriptive and non-inferential in nature, these so-called anecdotes could potentially collect over time to produce the statistical support needed to validate them within that very scientific realm. The collective support of past researchers who took the effort to inform the world about their chance anecdotes could encourage others to look closer for similar (or identical) behaviours, together building upon the subject and enriching it.

From Jane Goodall who speaks of emotion in chimpanzees to Rick McIntyre who studied wolves, multiple researchers and authors have passionately advocated for the recognition of emotion in the animal kingdom. A recent book, 'The Hidden Life of Trees', speaks of how trees, too, communicate and feel. The fact that animals perceive and respond to others around them and feel fundamentally physiological emotions like pleasure and grief, or feel the need to play and relax may be more readily accepted among the pet-owner community. I highly doubt that anyone who's known a dog, cat, pig, bird or any other (hopefully non-exotic) pet disagrees with the fact that animals can make bonds with other living beings and emote in ways that we can, at least partially, understand. Whining dogs or spitting cats are understood by their owners, behaviourists or not.

To truly understand an animal, we must delve into topics like consciousness, awareness, intelligence and emotion. None of these, however, have any standard definitions. Each of these could mean different things based on the fields we come from, and so, sentience - an amalgamation of all of these - remains undefined as well. We distance ourselves from these topics, trying to have an objective, outsider view of things, but this seems to me like losing valuable data. We are already on the inside. We share so much of the physiology that a plethora of other animals have, that we ought to be using our knowledge of how emotions manifest in our minds to better understand that of other beings.

Our evolutionary relationship with animals is sadly misinterpreted due to years of convincing ourselves that "humans" and "animals" are two completely separate categories. It's us versus them. Although we train animals to work for us, share diseases and living space, it's near impossible to believe or even imagine that we fall into the same bracket of beings. Our insecurities as a species are beginning to creep into our science and hinder it from progressing.

So sure, we may be one of the only species to feel sadness, happiness, love or pain in the poetic sense. But it's time we realized and acknowledged that these emotions do exist in other species that we've spent decades studying. Even if their grief is different from ours, it still exists. Truly comprehending the nature of these emotions is a huge task which will probably require the use of future advancements in science, but admitting that they exist is the first step towards it - one that we should have taken a long time ago.

Cynthia Moss, who spent over 50 years studying elephants in Amboseli National Park, had this to say:

"I'm interested in them as elephants. Comparing elephants to people - I don't find it helpful. I find it much more interesting trying to understand an animal as itself. How does a bird like a crow, say, with so small a brain, make the amazing decisions it makes? Comparing it to a three-year-old child - that doesn't interest me."

This is our biggest clue to overcome our ingrained fear of objectivity in studying animal cognition. We need make inferences about the animals we study without bringing to them our own emotional baggages and insecurities. Anthropocentrism, if not dealt with soon, could plague our research for good. The qualities and characteristics that we so staunchly believe are purely human, like friendship, compassion, sorrow, happiness did not suddenly come into existence with the evolutionary step into a world of Homo sapiens. These are deep-rooted in times that predate mankind. Our brain's origin is inseparable from that of other species'. Just like our mind.

Chameleons

After weeks and months of zero-break workload, a couple of friends and I escaped over our unusually long weekend to a patch of forested paradise, also known as the CFL school in Bangalore, for 17 hours. Now, several deep breaths of non-polluted air and two chameleon sightings later, I feel like a brand new person.

While chameleons go about their days doing their best to be inconspicuous, with their slow and calculated behaviour, they can't always escape seasoned eyes of the likes of The Great Chandy (see below, looking pretty in a tree). Thanks to said eyes and expertise, we contained our glee as the chameleons showcased their unintentionally comic personalities. We got to see young chameleons turn from solid green to striped, move their eyes independently and hang surreptitiously off of swaying branches. We got to feel their unsmooth, textured skin as one held the corners of our palms with delicate-yet-firm grip.

The Great Chandy

This was the first time I've ever seen or held a chameleon, and it may have just been one of the most exciting 'lifers' I've ever had. Now that I've been initiated into this world of tiny, odd, green wonders, I hope to see many more henceforth.

Colouration that lasted but a few seconds after we put him back on the branch.

Found this guy hanging by his tail.
For a long time.
A long, long time
Until he plopped onto the branch and carried on.

A review of 'Environmentalism: A Global History'

Delving into over two hundred years of literature, policy and philosophy, Ramachandra Guha’s book ‘Environmentalism: A Global History’ succinctly follows the trajectory of environmental thought across the world. By segregating the history of environmentalism into two broad stages – the first encompassing ideas of scientific conservation, wilderness and returning back-to-the-land, and the second speaking of the transition of thought and criticism to movements and debates – Guha places thinkers, scientists, governments and environmental movements into chronological and political categories. This is one of the key characteristics of his book that makes it a welcoming textbook of international environmentalism, providing a basic background required to understand the philosophies of conservation today.

This book makes for an interesting read not only because of its broadened outlook towards the world of environmentalism, but also because of the author behind it. Guha, an award-winning historian, is the first Indian to have attempted to document the history of environmental thought spanning both space and time. His commendable effort to synthesize a world of literature began as an idea when he was first exposed to different kinds of environmentalism at Yale University in the 1980’s. As he broadened his own horizons in nations apart from his own, he discovered that environmentalism began with the advent of industrialization among the thinkers, novelists and poets of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. This period marks the beginning of his book, wherein he gives new life to the long-written words of John Ruskin, John Clare, MK Gandhi, Charles Dickens, William Wordsworth and others. By interweaving his own writing with excerpts from these personalities’ works, he illustrates how, ironically, industrialization was the ‘generator’ of environmentalism, kickstarting what would become a whole new field in the centuries to come.

Guha separates the two stages within his book by talking about three misfits who were, perhaps, before their time in the journey of environmentalism. Patrick Geddes, Lewis Mumford and Radhakamal Mukherjee were the first of many to come who looked at growing industrial and economic issues from the perspective of tomorrow, rather than yesterday. By looking into the future rather than an abstract past like the thinkers who preceded them, Guha suggests that their pragmatic outlook towards the environment and the people who constituted it were too radical to gain momentum at the start of the 20^th century. Their modern, yet unappreciated ideologies remained in the side lines, making way for the ‘age of innocence’, which continued until the 1970’s. Guha strategically calls the readers’ attention to these milestones, and the years following them up to 2014, when the book was last revised, unfold captivatingly.

The age of innocence, which overlapped with the blind technological advancements during the second World War, led to an ‘age of affluence’, when Rachel Carson’s book ‘Silent Spring’ marked, as stated by Guha, the most pivotal time for environmentalist action across the globe in 1962. The affluent society began rallying for the environment, despite the fact that it was their effluents that were contributing to its constant degradation. An outburst of activism in Denmark by its enraged youth in 1969 has been documented in this book as the turning point in the history of environmentalism, after which every rung of society – across genders, ages and classes – became intimately involved in the cause. With his eloquent narrative of events and episodes, Guha grips his readers though the latter half of the 20^th century as the environmental movement transcended boundaries of religion and nations.

After having read this book, I’ve come to realize that environmentalism is a vast umbrella, under which an evolution of attitudes and ideologies nests. By describing various schools of thought, movements and events, Guha helps understand that there is no set definition for what environmentalism is, nor does he attempt to explain it at any point. Environmentalism has blossomed, along with industrial development, from a romanticized and often unattainable desire for the natural world to a holistic mentality that takes both peoples’ and the environment’s needs into consideration. It has transitioned from being the naïve, albeit powerful, voice of the literate elite to the rustic, oft desperate, cries of all society. Taking cues from feminism, socialism and nationalism, environmentalism has grown into what can only be called a belief system, whose community is ever-expanding.

Although this book is replete, cover to cover, with events and personalities from this world’s ecological history, it proves to be an easy read, devoid of unexplained terminology or indecipherable language. While it is heavy in its content, the manner in which it has been written allows the reader to absorb it entirely, without losing track of what the author is conveying. In addition, he has incorporated the writings of other authors, poets and politicians into his book seamlessly, making it seem as though several great minds have worked in unison to create this historical account of environmentalism. This book is thus, undoubtedly, a comprehensive, compelling yet concise read. It provides a gamut of information to anyone embarking upon this field for the first time, and insight to those who are environmentalists themselves.

In his book, Ramachandra Guha has done what any good historian ought to; without nudging the reader towards either side of the environmental argument, he has instigated thought and inquisitiveness by simply laying out the facts as they panned out in history. Having a clear image about the occurrences of any given time period against the context of its economic and political situation allows the reader to understand the workings of the environmental movement for themselves. For example, Guha provides a comparison of environmentalism in developed versus developing countries implicitly, simply by categorising them in different stages of his book. I’ve begun to realize now that the onslaught of environmentalism as a response to development in countries like India and Brazil was more effective than that of the 19^th century in Europe, simply because they had the knowledge of the destruction that comes with industrialization, and of how passive indignation did little good as retaliation, before delving into it themselves. It is, in that respect, truly a global history, where nations have constantly been learning from each other and building upon existent ideas – both to perfect the notion of environmentalism and keep up with corresponding developments in the world of economics.

This also lends itself to the realization that environmentalism is a global phenomenon as no nation or region functions in isolation without influencing or being influenced by the happenings of the world surrounding it. Changes in environmentalism cascade through time and geography, and, could even occur simultaneously, co-evolving under similar circumstances. Environmentalism is global in its history and in its present uproar that is more synchronous than sequential. Perhaps the next edition of this historical account should be titled ‘International Environmentalism’ to better represent the intricacies of the book.

Compiling a history as colourful and heterogenous as this is nothing short of ambitious, especially when envisioned at a global scale. Ramachandra Guha has succeeded in his bold venture with admirable eloquence and clarity. This praise, though, also forms my only strong criticism of his book. For all the literature and records that he combed through in order to produce this book, I feel cheated out of finer details and deeper information. This book has definite scope to be richer in the knowledge it disseminates, making it a tad more than a quick read, yet more welcoming than a historical textbook. Were this book more extensive in its discourse, a reader would scarce need to look elsewhere.

One Fish Bold Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

Pale as pale can be rested the Beta, in a tiny bag the size of a twelve-year-old's palm. His dramatic yet limp fins lay clumped together in an attempt to keep within the water line. I say 'rested', as though he had a say in the matter. The slightest movement would have thrown his breathing resilience out of the water and into a tiny pocket of air keeping the bag afloat. Bred to be magnificent and bold, the Beta lay imprisoned with his talents, teased by those around him. He was, in a way, a fish out of water. A bird hung from a just-so cage in a forest of freedom.

Swooped out of his miserly dwelling with a swift exchange of cash, he was bobbed along to what strove to be liberation of his beauty and personality. Once nudged out of his solitary confinement, he sprung into his own, opening out each crumpled, folded fin and swishing it within the cool water. He swam, for the first time in far too long, first cautiously and then carelessly, around his new home.

As he breathed new meaning into his small, yet flamboyant body, colour returned where there was once none. As I watched him, more captivated than I've been with any form of humanity, I saw shades of red I didn't know any fish could parade. With a natural, effortless iridescence, he flashed reds from wine to clotted blood, adding to the intimidation that comes with facing him directly. But he wasn't done just yet. Shooting from his body, radiating outward through his broad, red fins that resemble exaggerated, Seussian feathers, were streaks of electric blue. He was now complete - radiant, gorgeous and graceful. How often are creatures of terror this beautiful?

I dipped a finger into the water to test its temperature, only to alert him. He responded immediately, encircling my immersed fingertip, sizing it up, before drawing himself up to his full, undiluted proportions. His gills stood on end, like the fur on an agitated cat's tail, and all his fins were drawn to attention, perpendicular to his body, making him fill more of the bowl than I thought he could. Although he kept his distance, I knew not to invade his privacy or doubt his ability to protect it.

Today, Red is accustomed to my face, which must seem so much rounder to him from within. He swishes his fins now in recognition of me and my fingers, all the more so just before a meal. I have a tiny monster for family in my hostel room, and I'd like to believe he thinks of me with similar fish-like affection, even if it's merely his acknowledgment of my existence as a giant and harmless food dispenser. 

The Bandra Canvas

Growing up in Bombay kept me away from the career I am now pursuing - wildlife biology. Our Sanjay Gandhi National Park is but a bubble that I wasn't allowed to explore alone until I was older. All my exposure to the serenity of the world beyond clogged civilization was restricted to short vacations around Mumbai and later, the internships that I landed during and after college. In many ways, this made me feel more at home in the wilderness, in areas that were a complete antithesis of the metropolitan that is Bombay. I found myself running away from associating myself with a city that reflects so little of my personality.

But I'm beginning to wonder otherwise. When I delve into my memories of the city itself, I realize how it nurtured me in little ways, simply by supporting me in my growing years. It is more than its cacophonous reputation to someone who has built a life there. Having lived there for 20 years before breaking gravity, Bombay forms the context to all I see. This sense of realization of where I come from isn't always on top of my mind, it's fleeting, cushioned and beckoned by momentary remembrances. But it exists, and it ought to.

I found this collection of images from two years ago lying abandoned in my drafts, much like my love for Bombay. These are images from in and around Bandra, a place made up of a concoction of cultures and religions. It's increasingly becoming a place of expression in the city, where people are free to dress the way they're most comfortable, make fashion statements, or showcase their talents. One such form of expression is seen boldly plastered across its ageing walls and streets in the form of graffiti or street art. At times, these 'vandalisms' are white-washed to restore normality, while some places cherish and flaunt them as pieces of art. Chikoo (another one of my treasures from Bombay) and I armed ourselves with our own creative weaponry and began photographing these colourful streets together. These images remind me of all the time that Bombay gave me to pursue my interests, explore the lesser spoken of gems that the city holds, and nurture friendships that I would hold onto for years to come. Consider this my minimalist tribute to where I grew up.