Taamul

By Allwin Jesudasan & Rajkamal Goswami An edited version of this article appears in the print edition of  Down To Earth, July 15, 2013 “Varsham muluka naa TV paathutu beedi suthitte irrupen. Varshathulle inthe oru vaaram oru kavalai illaame na inge thanguven.” (All year I sit in front of the TV, rolling beedis. In the one week that I spend here, I just relax and enjoy my stay here without worrying about anything else in the world) remarked a middle-aged woman ‘pilgrim’ from a small hamlet of Alangulam Taluk of Tirunelveli District of Southern Tamil Nadu.  She was replying to our query as to why she came to visit the the Sorimuthu Iyyanar Temple inside the Kalakad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve (KMTR) during the annual Adi-amavasya festival. We had asked this question because to us, it was difficult to understand the motivations that drove hundreds of thousands of people to travel and camp inside forests. During this festival a large area of the forest around the temp...

An edited version of this article was published in Down To Earth, April 30, 2013 At one point in his memoir, A Writer’s People, V S Naipul notes, “All my life I have had to think about ways of looking and how they alter the configurations of the world.” The celebrated writer's method holds true for not only a novel but also an academic work, especially when it is set in a politically volatile and culturally diverse region. Seen this way, Bengt G Karlsson’s ' Unruly Hills-Nature and Nation in India’s Northeast' is an honest attempt to document the land, its people, its economy and socio-cultural textures through the disciplines of ethnography and political ecology. It begins with the story of the destruction of a sacred grove in Meghalaya, Law Kyntang of Lum Shyllong. The episode sets up the book's aim: tracing changes that have led the worshipers to desecrate their “sacred” icons. Community forests encroached by a limestone mine in Meghalaya     ...

Seeking empty spaces to deal with the emptiness within Looking for empty spaces, I go and crowd places. Abdicating the cacophony here, I subvert the quietude there. I go to see this, I go to see that. Browsing through the SD card, I see only myself. In front of this, and in front of that. Inexplicably wearing, My paradoxical hat.

Can you uproot the uprooted? Strong limbs, s ubmissive lives,  Bruised palms, egos , souls  untroubled  Abstracted friends,  love  forlorn,  Ghost families Burnt faces,  tireless  dreams. Undeserved,  even of punctuations? In the ditties of growth Where did paan,  bidi,  or gutkha pitch-in to   make-over,  build, develop? Unacknowledged martyrs, uncelebrated piety Killed, burnt, maimed Uprooting the uprooted fulfilling convenient whims, Of unbeknownst nations,  obtuse destinies. Wiped from imaginations Subtracted from reality. Quietly born and raised To mop, pull, push, drag civilizations'  humdrum burdens  Underneath the ordinary  where , high heaven Is the dusty earth. yet why the head  droops down and down?

From the deepest, and the darkest nook, alleys and mazes of my thoughts, Hidden  f rom facebook,  Not allowed even in my dreams.  I have hidden her from myself too. Is she shameful or is she immoral? Dogmatic, academic, eerie or fearful? So tender, so nimble, that the faintest touch. Create tenacious memories. Lest it can’t be stopped. I am never looking, yet I keep finding. Right now, I am waiting. Just to lose her,  forever.

Discovered this article which I had written 5 years ago, and had lost it since then, while doing a random google search. The original article is in the archives of Ecowatch Blog  . The sun scorched above me as I started my trip up the misty mountains to revisit my extended family of Nilgiri langurs, the Misty Monkeys of the Sahayadris. In the next two and a half hours, dramatic changes in weather conditions would unfold. I would be climbing from sea-level to 1330 meters above sea level and the temperatures would drop from a scorching 38-39 degrees centigrade to a cool 18-22 degrees centigrade. I feel apprehensive as I climb higher and higher. The first glimpse of a lonely Langur during the trip makes my heart almost skip a beat. Would the Nilgiri langur families whom I had befriended still remember me as I do them? Would they still be as friendly towards me as before or would I have to start the whole process again?  I did miss them in my urban abode. Did they too m...