Immersing Ganesha - An ode to broken things?

The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda may well have been talking of the immersion of Ganesha, thinks Sahastrarashmi as he presents a tableau of pictures from the beach at Pondicherry


Let's put all our treasures together
-- the clocks, plates, cups cracked by the cold --
into a sack and carry them
to the sea
and let our possessions sink
into one alarming breaker
that sounds like a river.
May whatever breaks
be reconstructed by the sea
with the long labor of its tides.
So many useless things
which nobody broke
but which got broken anyway.


~ PABLO NERUDA
From Ode to Broken Things

Photographs by Sahastrarashmi
Text from a poem by Pablo Neruda

Birds of the Varanasi River Front - a photo-essay

Sparrows on the wood weighing scale

Sparrows dust-bathing in a boat

A Blue Rock Pigeon drinks of its reflection

A White-throated Kingfisher brightens the clutter

Bank Mynas inspect a priest's wares

A Bank Myna surveys its domain

Even paradise takes prisoners, like this parakeet

Monkey business as usual - and does the kite qualify as a bird?

All of us at The Green Ogre wish you a very happy 2011, filled with hope for the future of our earth.


Photographs by Sahastrarashmi

Knights of the Western Ghats - Kalyan Varma's photoessay

Kalyan Varma has relaunched his website, and with it, some very absorbing new features. His photo-essay on the Lion-tailed Macaques (Macaca silenus) of the Western Ghats is beautifully captured and enchantingly told. Ok, ok, I know I'm going wild with the superlatives, but great photography often does that to me. And by great photography, I don't refer only to images that dazzle with their excellent composition and perfect lighting. You know, the kind that has a congregation of fellow-shutterbugs go 'ooh' and 'aah' and launch into impromptu discourses on F-stops, and finally sign off with the intriguing three-letter acronym (TLA) 'TFS' (fans of India Nature Watch will know what that means). Kalyan inspires more than that. As I have said in these pages before, I admire his prowess for telling stories with his photographs, to capture interesting and insightful aspects of animal behaviour, and more than ever, to underscore the imperative for conservation. And finally, because the Lion-Tailed Macaque (or LTM, if you prefer TLAs) is itself a species very dear to me. And because on my visit to Valparai, Divya Mudappa of the NCF told me the heart-rending story of a roadkill involving a pregnant female. And because Kalyan's camera was there, without blinking, to grieve that grisly death, this story must be told. And no one but Kalyan can tell it like it is. Kalyan Varma's photoessay>>