Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide by Pradip Krishen

"Sar Santey Rookh Rahe To Bhi Sasto Jaan"
(If a tree is saved even at the cost of one's head, it's worth it) - Bishnoi saying.
In 1730 in a small village named Khejadli in the Jodhpur district of Rajasthan three hundred and sixty three women, children and men of the Bishnoi tribe laid down their lives saving a grove of khejadli (Prosopis cineraria) trees from axe-wielding men sent by the Maharaja. They had orders to cut down these trees but the villagers hugged these trees and took the axe blows upon their own bodies.

In Nature there are neither rewards nor punishments, there are consequences - Robert Green Ingersoll

The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the Universe, the less taste we will have for destruction - Rachel Carson.

Poems are written by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree. - Alfred Joyce Kilmer
American poet who was killed in World War I

Pradip Krishen, former film director (Massey Sahib, In Which Annie Gives it Those Ones, Electric Moon) has spent four years tree-sleuthing (as Sandeep Unnithan describes it in the Authorspeak column of India Today, May 29) and collecting material for Trees of Delhi: A Field Guide (Dorling Kindersley). Pradip's book is supposed to be a must-have for all nature lovers. I haven't yet seen the book but the reviews I have read have convinced me that I should pick up a copy. Click here for more info on the book.

The article by Sandeep Unnithan also tells us of two projects that Pradip is currently working on. One is the rejevunation of 70 hectares of wilderness in Jodhpur into an ecological park and the other is the creation of a botanical garden in the Garhwal foothills. Here's wishing him all the best in his efforts to green the planet.
-----------------------------------------------------------

Makes no difference to me ji.....

Sharmaji and Pathakji are discussing the rise in fuel prices.
Sharmaji: Fuel prices have risen again Pathakji. I remember it used to be Rs 1.75 a litre in the early seventies before it got doubled. After that it has just kept on increasing.
Pathakji: Haan Sharmaji I remember. In fact in 1979 my elder brother, who was then alive, had told me that petrol is about to become Rs 5 per litre.
Sharmaji: Ek baat to hai Pathakji. It makes no difference to me.
Pathakji: Can you please explain that to me Sharmaji.
Sharmaji: See pehle bhi I used to take hundred rupees ka petrol in my Bajaj Super and now also I take hundred rupees ka petrol.
Pathakji: Arrey waah Sharmaji. What a good idea. I will tell my son also. He has got Hero Honda

A Bowstring Winter by Dhruba Hazarika - A new novel set in Shillong

Memories of Shillong: Hills, clouds, rain, mist, cold, plums, pineapples, oranges, good music, guitars, good clothes, faded jeans, pretty girls, the Khasis, Garos, Jaintias, Assamese, Bengalis, Army, Assam Rifles, Geological Survey of India, Laitumukhrah, Nongrim Hills, Nongthymmai, Spread Eagle Falls, Laitkor peak, Happy Valley, Burra Bazar, Police Bazar, State Central Library, Rock concerts in Laban, Dhankheti, St. Edmund's College, Brother Pinto and his Alsatian.....

For Shillong lovers and Shillong watchers (and for book lovers too). A new novel set in Shillong. Just came to know about it from the Penguin India website.

A Bowstring Winter by Dhruba Hazarika.
Dhruba (b. 1956, Shillong) is a product of St. Edmund's College Shillong and of Guwahati University. He has won the Katha award for creative writing in English in 1996.

Looking forward to getting a copy of this book. Will send a recommendation to my online bookshop.

Ekta unites Afghanistan.....

I remember Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai being interviewed on an Indian TV Channel. He was asked about his student days in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, where he studied during the late seventies. He talked of the Shimla of the seventies. Of walking on the Mall, of tea shops where students used to hang out, of songs from Mausam (starring Sharmila Tagore) playing in the background. It could be Rabindranath Tagore's story Kabuliwallah or umpteen Bollywood films where the large hearted Pathan swears undying love for his Indian friend we are used to a gentle pre-taliban image of Afghanistan. After the US led invasion of Afghanistan one read many newsreports of posters of Bollywood stars being sold on the streets of Kabul and of pirated VCDs and DVDs doing brisk business. Many Indians working for the reconstruction of Afghanistan have been killed by the Taliban. The Taliban represent those who are influenced by the gospel of hatred which the U.S. preached and encouraged fanatics from Saudi Arabia to preach when they wanted the Russians out. The large majority of Afghans would prefer to be in constant touch with India and things Indian.

If there is one thing which unites India and countries from Philippines to Nigeria it is Bollywood. I remember a Nigerian army officer doing a course in India telling me that one of the first things that he and his colleagues did on arriving in India was to go to public parks and check out whether there were any young couples singing songs and dancing around trees. (The way Shashi Kapoor and Hema Malini did ? Remember Jaane man tum kamaal karti ho....?).

I remember reading newsreports of how the urban elite of Lahore and Karachi is totally hooked on Indian TV serials and that during the Kargil crisis drawing rooms in these cities were full of people crying at the sight of the coffins of Indian soldiers being received at New Delhi airport. In the seventies and eighties Indian muslim friends and classmates would tell me that if they had relatives from Pakistan visiting then one of their main duties was to take these visitors to cinema halls so that they could catch up with the latest Amitabh or Mithun starrer.

Thanks to Amit Varma's blog I came to know of this newsreport in the NY Times which tells us about how Ekta Kapoor's soap operas have forced Afghans to stay indoors when these serials are being telecast. The next time your mom, sis, wife, girlfriend or all of the above sit(s) glued in front of the TV watching Tulsi don't get angry with them/her. Maybe they know something that you don't.

The Aventis General Prize for Science Books

The Aventis General Prize for Science Books is in its 18th year. When it comes to popularising science books written for a general audience the Aventis Prize is doing a fantastic job. Pas winners include Phillip Ball, Bill Bryson, Stephen Hawking and Chris McManus.

The shortlist for 2006 included:

1. Power, Sex, Suicide - Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life, by Nick Lane (Oxford Universiy Press)

2. Empire of the Stars - Friendship, Obsession and Betrayal in the Quest for Black Holes, by Arthur I Miller (Little Brown) This book is about the public humiliation of young Subramanyan Chandrashekhar by Sir Arthur Eddington in 1930.

3. Electric Universe - How Electricity Switched on the Modern World, by David Bodanis (Little Brown)

4. Collapse - How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive by Jared Diamond (Penguin Allen Lane)

5. Parallel Worlds - The Science of Alternative Universes and out Future in the Cosmos, by Michio Kaku (Penguin)

6 The Truth About Hormones - What's Going on when We're Tetchy, Spotty, Fearful, Tearful or Just Plain Awful by Vivienne Parry (Atlantic Books)

The winner this year is Electric Universe by David Bodanis.

Fascinating stuff for youngsters and for all of us who are young in mind.

Buddha Purnima, Buddhism, India, China and Japan

Last Saturday we saw the full moon at night. It was Buddha Purnima. I remembered the CD of Buddhist music I had purchased last year. I remembered the Vipassana meditation course I did in Igatpuri in 1996. Ten days of silence. No reading, no writing, no speaking, no newspapers, magazines or television. When I entered the commune Atal Bihari Vajpayee had just resigned as PM of India. When I came out Deve Gowda was the PM. I remember how I was taught to observe my feelings. How I was told of impermanence and the inevitability of change. It was my first true exposure to Buddhism. As a young schoolkid I had learnt about the Buddha when I was in Class IV or V. It was only after going through ten days of Vipassana that I realised how shallow my knowledge of Buddhism had been.

Looking at the map we see that from Myanmar to Japan a large belt of nations which try to follow the tenets of Gautama Buddha and the eight fold path he had discovered.

A year ago I happened to read some words of Hu Shih, former Chinese Ambassador to the U.S.A. A google search could locate for me the exact words. Here they are:
"Never before had China seen a religion so rich in imagery, so beautiful and captivating in ritualism and so bold in cosmological and metaphysical speculations. Like a poor beggar suddenly halting before a magnificient storehouse of precious stones of dazzling brilliancy and splendour, China was overwhelmed, baffled and overjoyed. She begged and borrowed freely from this munificent giver. The first borrowings were chiefly from the religious life of India, in which China's indebtedness to India can never be fully told."

He had also said: "India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border."

Communist China did try to clear her debt to India when she attacked us in 1962 and took over large tracts of land thanks to Jawaharlal Nehru's inability to see the writing on the wall. This, after China had destroyed many monasteries and killed thousands of Tibetans and forced the Dalai Lama to seek refuge in India. It was heart warming to read the above words. Even today the Chinese continue to puzzle the world as they try to distance themselves from the cruelties that they perpetrated in Tibet and Tiananmen square. Something that they conveniently forget when they remember the assault that another Buddhist nation, Japan, had launched on them and the horrible unimaginable cruelties that Japanese troops perpetrated. Truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
The May issue of Dailyzen , the internet magazine I subscribe to.

Love knows no borders....

Love, it is said, transcends all national boundaries. Many Bollywood films have been made on this theme using Indo-Pak rivalry as a background. Many real life cases of couples marrying across the border have also occured. I am not talking of arranged marriages, which are also welcome, as these keep happening. I remember a case when a former Indian Naval Chief's daughter married a Pakistani General's son. Both of them were studying in a U.S. University. This case which I read in The Times of India a few hours ago tells us why truth is stranger than fiction. Asha Patel, 24, of Mumbai and Khalid Mumtaz of Lahore fell in love with each other while chatting on the internet. Similarly Asha Sharma, 22, of Nainital fell in love with Mumtaz's brother. (The word Asha means hope, maybe that has something to do with both these cases. Some newsreports say that the Nainital girl is Ayesha and not Asha) Both couples exchanged vows on the net. They were desperate to meet their spouses. They met at the Wagah border. The BSF and Pakistani Rangers allowed them to meet for a few minutes only. Their requests for visas had been turned down earlier. Love ke liye kuchch bhi karega. So both couples met again at Chakan da Bagh - the last Indian point on the LoC in Poonch - on Rawlakote road. But they had not realised that this post was meant only to facilitate border crossings for residents of J&K who wanted to meet their relatives in the earthquake struck areas. So they were arrested. The Indian police did a thorough check before letting them go. Movie ideas JP Datta?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Read the original report here.
India stops LoC ‘Love infiltration’ : Report in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn.

No formula for happiness....

There ain't no formula for happiness. But try telling that to Ed Deiner. This professor of psychology at the University of Illinois has been studying what makes people happy and how happiness can be measured. Trunk loads of information here in this article from the BBC. Enough to make any researcher happy. As far as I am concerned I quiet like these words of Aldous Huxley : "Happiness is like coke - something you get as a by-product in the process of making something else." (from his novel Point Counter-Point)

For Nature lovers - The Adopt a Rare Bird program by BNHS

The BNHS (Bombay Natural History Society) has launched an Adopt a Rare Bird program. Nature lovers can choose from twelve species:

(1) Baikal Teal

(2) Eastern Imperial Eagle

(3) Forest Owlet

(4) Nilgiri Flycatcher

(5) Nilgiri Laughing Thrush

(6) Nilgiri Pipit

(7) Kashmir Flycatcher

(8) Green Peafowl

(9) Siberian Crane

(10) Malabar Pied Hornbill

(11) Lesser Florican

(12) Great Indian Bustard

For Rs. 300 (or U.S.$10, or Euro 7.5 or Sterling Pound 5, depending on where you are) you can choose a species and have a framed picture sent to you as a memento.

For more details click here.

New Hindustani Classical CDs of Pandit Amarnath

An email from Underscore Records informs me that a two volume audio CD pack of ragas sung by Pandit Amarnath of the Indore gharana has been released. These are recordings from his 1986 concert tour of the U.S.A.
The description on Amarnath's CD says "This selection showcases three recordings from a concert tour of the United States taken by Pandit Amarnath of the Indore gharana in the year 1986. The recording showcase Pandit Amarnath\'s vocal prowess as well his originality as a composer. "
Volume 1 contains three tracks : (1) Sarparda Bilawal (21.46) (2)Kalingada (13.00) (3)Shudh Sarang (23.54)
Volume 2 contains three tracks too : (1) Darbari (43.00) (2)Madhukauns (14.10) (3) Jogia (11.46)
Am sure these CDs will be quiet a listening experience.
The neat thing about Underscore Records is that one can order music and pay for it online. One of my prized possessions is the audio CD of the music of Kesarbai Kerkar which I had bought some months ago.
For those of you music lovers out there who do not know it singer Shubha Mudgal is associated with Underscore Records.