Peepal

The beautiful Peepal in the Onkareshwar temple

Shaniwarwada

The mostly Ashoka foliage near the main entrance to Shaniwarwada

foliage sambhaji park

Sambhaji Udyan foliage

Rain trees

Rain Trees near Bal Gandharva

Roadside vegetation in the monsoon

Jungle Crow

Thoreau says

I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.

- Henry David Thoreau, 1817 - 1862

Young Mango tree

This is a young mango tree I drew in Hyderabad. I'm not very happy with it because I'm not sure it shows the mango treeness of the mango tree.

The mango treeness of the mango tree makes you think of plump, juicy mangoes even when summer is months away. A sketch of a mango tree should make you yearn for mangoes.

Grey hornbill

On Sunday, I saw a bulbul, several parakeets, a flock of some kind of ducks and one grey hornbill sitting on a peepal. The bulbul was perched on a telephone wire and I stopped suddenly and stared with the intention to identify it. In my line of vision was a verandah, with a man sitting with his feet up clad in a lungi. He saw me looking upwards in his general direction and scrambled quickly to his feet and tied his lungi. Perhaps he thought I was trying to sneak a peek up his lungi. However, this was not my intention at all.

In any case, I was pleased to see the hornbill. I saw my first hornbill when I was in Rajapur in Konkan. That was the Malabar hornbill, a delightfully awkward looking bird - all yellow and white and black and an outstanding award-winning beak. A and P were as excited as I was and we looked up the bird in Salim Ali at once. A and P plan to move to Rajapur when they retire. I hope they will have a comfortable guest-room with a comfortable bed.

The barn owl on the mango tree

I saw my first barn owl sitting on a mango tree. He was being tormented by a crow which was pecking at him. The owl looked like it had hurt his left wing. He was bigger than the crow, but seemed helpless, unable to cope and rather surprised by the crow's assault. He dropped from the tree and hid underneath the bushes at the side of the house.

We shouted and gesticulated and the crow flew off. I went around the house to peek at the owl. He was standing on the ground ten feet from me, with one wing held at a painful angle. We examined each other for a minute. He was a real beauty, ivory white for the most part, with flecks of grey and brown. He had a strange sort of face, like a disc, with slits for eyes and beak. He looked wise and gentle and sad, and a little apprehensive, but not afraid of me.

In a little while, the danger having passed, we saw him again on the mango tree. It is a young mango tree, about six years old, and strong and slim and full of the promise of mangoes, but now the barn owl sat in its lowest fork, quiet as a mouse. It was remarkably still, not the hive of restlessness most birds are.

"Quick," said aunt, "somebody get me a cloth bag. I will draw it over him quickly and capture him." "Capture him and do what?" asked her grandson scornfully. "I don't know," aunt faltered "maybe take him to a place he will be safe" she said, sounding not very convinced about her plan. Aunt's maid said seeing an owl brings bad luck. She made a great show of looking everywhere but at the owl. Then there came visitors, a husband and a wife. Before anything else, they were led to the mango tree, so they could admire the owl. We all went with them. We all stood around the tree looking at the owl, except for aunt's maid who turned her head and looked at the side of the house.

"Nice" said the man and his wife finally. Pleased with this endorsement of our owl, everybody trooped inside. I stayed back and finished my sketch.

In a while, hearing a racket, I stepped out again. Two red-whiskered bulbuls were screaming at the owl, who was bearing all this noise with serene dignity, with a slightly bowed head as though he was embarrassed by this unbecoming behaviour by his fellow-birds.

The barn owl is a saint among birds. We must try to emulate the barn owl, instead of the kukkabarra, who is Australian and probably a sledger of the worst kind.

Arlington Meadows

his is a sketch of the arlington meadows, a fine grassy bit of land off the bike trail towards lexington. this was towards the end of summer and you could feast your eyes upon more yellows and browns than you thought possible. the bike trail goes to lexington, and then on to bedford, where it ends. in bedford, i would take one of the inner roads, a pleasant road that meanders through fields and pastures and woods, up and down hills to the centre of concord and then intersecting Rt 2 to walden pond. i would sit for a couple of minutes by the edge of the pond before having to start back. it would be dusk by the time i got back to arlington at the great oak tree, where a tremendous chattering by hundreds of birds would greet me.

in the early part of the last century, ice from walden pond and spy pond across the road in arlington would be harvested and shipped all the way to bombay and calcutta, where it would cool the drinks of the wealthy. thoreau who liked to ponder over such things says, "the pure walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the ganges" which might be true for calcutta. but in bombay, the pure water of walden mingles with the water of vihar lake. it is an idea that stirs the heart, for i have spent many hours of happy solitude gazing at the waters of all three water bodies - spy pond, walden and vihar lake. over the course of the years, i began to look at my rides to walden pond as a personal pilgrimage. the associations with gandhi and thoreau added to the sense of ritual, but the fact of the matter is that it was a beautiful ride on beautiful summer and autumn days and no more meaning need be attached.

White Mountains

These are the woods of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Mostly pines and deciduous forests that change colour in Autumn. People come from the world over to see the foliage of Autumn. I am pretty sure the thin stream is the Kangamangus highway. There are plenty of hiking oppurtunities in the White mountains.

The leaves fall and winter sets in

This is off the bike path in Arlington. In the distance, you can see the grounds next to the Spy pond. These are mostly young maples I believe, that have shed their leaves. I used to find this a depressing time of the year, but it does have a stark, barren beauty. This was probably at Thanksgiving in late November.

Foliage of Sambhaji Udyan

The foliage of Sambhaji Udyan seen from across the river. The umbrellas of the rain trees define the landscape. There are a few Ashokas and some sundry trees here and there. The rain tree is a non-native, an import from England, but over the years, it has become as much Indian as test cricket and P G Wodehouse.

Nir-PaNas, Breadfruit

The Chafo, Chafa, Champa, Frangipani

This Chafo is an old childhood friend. It lives in the courtyard of the temple in my village. There is another Chafo on the other side of the temple, but this was the one I looked forward to meeting every summer. I would do the ritual prayer to Hanuman as quickly as I possibly could, and then run to the tree and perch on its branches until it got dark and it was time to go home.

I tried climbing the tree recently and found that it was much harder than it used to be when I was eight. I appear to have put on some weight in the intervening years.

An old tree is as venerable as an old temple.

The Vad, banyan grove

Tha banyan is the quintessential Indian tree. Is there a village in this country that doesn't have a banyan (and a peepal)?

The Great Indian tree

The great Buddha was born beneath a tree, he attained enlightenment under a tree and his mukti from this world also under a tree.

This is a drawing copied from a comic book by a wonderful Japanese artist whose name I forget.