Sorrow

Uninvited she arrives,
Dressed daintily
Like a dark princess.

Demands the mind
The heart, soul
Life itself.

She wants to stay.
Take her in,
Hold her.
Like you, she's lonely.

Why on the earth would they want to come here?? like really...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/commonwealth_games/delhi_2010/9025907.stm

Last night a tiny moth flew by and settled on my laptop. He spent all nigth on and around my laptop. This morning I found him dead on the floor nearby.

To me, it seems like this moth was telling something. That he had approved my ode. In a stupid way, I feel honoured. Like instant appreciation from the subject of my work. I picked up his body and laid it to rest in a plant vase in my balcony. May he rest in peace. Amen!

(September 23, 2010. 11 am)

Ode to the Moth

Ode to the moth

Whirling dervishes
Dance dizzily around the light bulb
Rapt in reverie
Oblivious to night perils
Daring to die. Or seeking death?

A dash of dull grey
Paled in comparison
To the brilliance of the black night
Elusive, characterless
Rushing feverishly towards definite death
You make me see
The beauty of the unremarkable

Hi all,

Clearly I am getting nostalgic in my last few days at Indian Express, a national daily where I worked for the past 3 years. I wonder if these are my last few days as a journalist as well. But then again, I think the journalist in me will never die. Like they say, you can take a journalist out of a field but you can't take the field out of the journalist.

As of now, being true to my nostalgia - and a bit narcissist, maybe - I am only putting up some of my favourite stories. These may not necessarily be the best reportage on the field but they sure are the stories I had most fun doing.

Soon I plan to write a lot more. And a lot more impromptu stuff. Hoping for some poetry, some good pieces on issues I care about, maybe some short story.. Dunno what my Muse would throw up.

A bit nervous.. am really writing after so long.. Hope its good work.. (if theres one thing I'd hate for the world to see and say 'its a piece of shit', its my writing! But then, I certainly have the courage to take it if its the turth. So please leave your honest comments behind.. )

Into the blue

Tara Oceans is a French sailboat on a 3-year expedition across the world to study the oceanic ecosystems and the threats faced by them. She set sail from Lorient, France, on September 5, 2009, with a motley team of scientists aboard. I visited her when she was in Mumbai in March. Unfortunately she was barred from collecting samples by the government.

Tara is currently on her way to Rio de Janeiro.

(Indian Express, March 28 2010)

pic courtesy: http://oceans.taraexpeditions.org

Marine ecosystems are the most complex and least well-known to man despite being significant indicators of global health. It is known that the waters, which cover two-thirds of our planet, are home to several ‘oxygen factories’ like the phytoplankton. However, the world of oceanic microbes remains largely unexplored. In a bid to create a database of these remarkably complex organisms, nearly 100 oceanographers, biologists, geneticists and physicists from some of the world’s best laboratories have set out on an incredible expedition across international boundaries, aboard the sailboat Tara Oceans, to study them.
Tara Oceans, sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme and French fashion designer Agnes B, set sail from Lorient, Brittany, on September 5, and was in Mumbai for a brief stopover from Thursday to Saturday, before moving on to Goa and then to Male, Maldives. Chris Bowler, a scientist from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), who is heading the expedition, said: “Our effort is to provide snapshots of how the ocean looks in the 21st century so that 100 years from now, there’s a record, which can form a basis for further research. Today, we know that the seas are acidifying and scientists often speculate how the condition would affect the food chain.”

Three years on the high seas
For the next three years, Tara Oceans will sail around the world collecting samples of deep water ecosystems, documenting sea temperatures, salinity, acidity and pollution and understanding marine life adaptation to environmental stress. “We plan to sail 80,000 nautical miles covering the Indian Ocean this year, the South Atlantic and the South Pacific the next, and across the northern seas in 2012 before returning to Lorient,” said Romain Troublé, operational manager for Tara Oceans. At any given time, the boat will lodge six scientists, six sailors and two international journalists.
A thousand litres of sample waters from different depths will be collected every two days. Plankton and other organisms collected will be preserved. Every three weeks, 300 kg of the samples will be couriered from the sailboat to the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, and from there to labs in France, Spain, Arizona, etc., Troublé explained. Having travelled 15,000 nautical miles so far, the team is set to see the outcome of their first leg of research in the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea.

Not smooth sailing in India
THE team, however, is facing a hitch in Indian waters. “It’s a pity that we are unable to conduct research in 200 nautical miles of Indian waters because we couldn’t get the necessary permissions from authorities. However, we are now trying to get help from the National Institute of Oceanography in Goa,” Troublé said. “We are considering including a few NIO scientists in our expedition, but they will join us later, in the South Atlantic Ocean.” The only other country where the crew couldn’t get permission was Oman.

State-of-the-art system
Marc Picheral, an oceanographic engineer from France who has developed the scientific systems in the sailboat, said, “Our advanced equipments include a three-dimensional microscope called Spim which gives a complete view of organisms, flow cams and special microscopes that remain stable in a moving boat.” However, the star tool of the expedition is the Conductivity Temperature Depth (CTD) profiler, an all-in-one instrument which combines a high-resolution camera with a host of sensors to measure salinity, temperature, pressure, turbidity and depth and a system of bottles to collect water samples automatically. The CTD can be lowered to depths of up to 2,000 metres.
According to Jennifer Gillette, a cell biologist from the National Institute of Health, Maryland, USA, who has been onboard as an optical engineer for a month, “In the past month, I have documented images of thousands of phytoplankton and zooplankton, many of which have almost no reference in the existing literature. We are now studying their taxonomy.” The first large scale study will include DNA and genetic make-up, physical and chemical analysis.

Marvels of the sea
“We can’t wait to reach the southern bend of the Indian Ocean, where a unique cycle occurs. Here, gyres, or rings formed in the water, push a layer of water around Africa’s Cape Town all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to South America in a process called ‘seeding’. We are observing these waters through satellite—they are rich in planktons peculiar to the Indian Ocean, which are taken into the Atlantic to form an interesting colony. We also plan to study the water in regions with concentration of plastic waste, high pH levels, and coral reefs,” Bowler said. The route of Tara Oceans was put together according to three factors: the areas for research chosen by the scientists, the progress of the seasons in the northern and southern hemispheres and the direction of the prevailing wind, since winds are a determining factor for the voyage of a sailing ship.

zOO STORY (WRITTEN APRIL 2008, AMENDED AND APPEARED MAY 2009) A plagued past Byculla zoo now pins hopes on makeover

A plagued past Byculla zoo now pins hopes on makeover

*The death of Shakti, a hippopotamus, at the Byculla zoo on April 24 has raked up a long-standing grudge of mismanagement on the premises.
* While conservationists world over are looking to save the lion, an endangered animal, the zoo’s only male lion Amar died prematurely on October 22, 2007, following a prolonged disease. Amar, a hybrid of African and Asiatic lion, was just eight.
* The zoo’s 30-year-old rhinoceros, Shiva has been living a celibate life for the past 19 years. The reason: the zoo is yet to find a partner for him.

Even as it is in the midst of a Rs 434-crore makeover, the 53-acre Jijamata Udyan, Byculla, is an example of neglect of animal rights. One of the oldest in the country, the zoo built in 1861 hardly serves its primary purpose — preservation of species or education to the public. Instead, animals live in sheer stress, teased by visitors and hassled by scavenger birds. With no standardised info boards giving details on the genus, nature or habitat of the 19 species of mammals, 39 species of birds and nine species of reptiles on display, visitors also learn nothing new.

Ray of hope
The death of Shakti may have actually come as a blessing in disguise. Confronted by criticism, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation last week appointed two honorary veterinarians to render advice and guidance to the zoo officials on day-to-day maintenance, healthcare management, enrichment activities and upkeep of the zoo.
The two doctors — Dr M S Karawale, former deputy superintendent (veterinary) of the zoo, and Dr Yuvraj Kaginkar, hospital manager of the Bombay Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals — conducted an inspection of the enclosures and made suggestions, zoo officials said. “The suggestions are varied, from improving conditions within enclosures to raising security at certain points. We will start working on them soon,” said Dr Sanjay Thripati, a zoo vet.

Quality of life
A change may be in the offing, but animal activists say the quality of life of animals has remained abysmal over the years. They say while efforts are on to give the city a swanky zoo of international standards in just two years, the physical and psychological health of the inmates have been neglected. “Recently, I visited the zoo and took photographs of children feeding potato chips to monkeys. People climb over the railings to take pictures, they pelt stones on them. We can’t change the mentality of people, we can only increase security,” said Sunish Subramanian of Plants and Animal Welfare Society.
Among the other tales of neglect are the death of 16 deer in February 2006. The deer died when three stray dogs entered their enclosures through holes in the grills, causing a stampede. A day after the incident, the then zoo superintendent was sacked and the gaps were closed with wire mesh. A guard who claimed to be present near the enclosure maintained that he did not hear or see a thing. The saddest story, though, is perhaps the death of Guru, a hippo, on June 6, 1998, when he fell into the moat surrounding his enclosure and lay unnoticed for nearly 24 hours.
In October 2004, People for Ethical Treatment to Animals (Peta) had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) against the unhealthy environment of the Byculla zoo. Subsequently, a committee was appointed to study the problem and suggest solutions. The recommendations included measures like enriching enclosures and building moats. Peta says the court order has brought in little changes.

New look
Deputy municipal commissioner (Gardens) Vikram Pawar says it’s a matter of time before the work for the new zoo begins. “It will house 273 mammals of 43 species, 183 birds of 24 species and 96 reptiles/amphibians of 26 species. Till then, we are following the CZA norms in maintaining enclosures, providing fodder and water as well as cleaning the exhibit.”
The new zoo proposes to have theme parks, an exploration centre, gift shops and a restaurant facing a cheetah enclosure.