A cold Arctic like blast blows through my wooden field station. Raising the structure on stilts to a height of 10 feet above the ground makes it easier for the wind to squeeze in through the gaps in the wooden slats forming micro wind tunnels through the two rooms that have been my home away from home for the past few months. Something warm and furry nestles in the palm of my hand. It is so startling that I am awake in a flash and am siting bolt upright in bed looking for the offending object/creature that has dared to disturb my precious sleep long before the rude summons of my alarm clock. In the dim light, I see two beady eyes gleaming up at me and then a sampering of tiny feet and its gone! A MOUSE!! Inside my mosquito net, beside my pillow at 2 am in the morning! Bemused and more than a little shocked, I look for offending crumbs of chocolate rolls brought from home or a packet of biscuiits forgotten on my bed which has become my makeshift office temporarily. The packet of biscuits (the sneaky bugger hadnt been able to cut through the toughened plastic casing!!) is duly removed and locked away in my tin chest of food items away from the enterprising rodents that live amidst the wooden beams under the tin roof over my head. No amount of cajoling or cold blooded removal has worked in eliminating these pests completely. The self respecting bats have stayed away after hasty acion was taken to block any open vents under the in roof after an unsuspecting baby bat collapsed on my shoulder one evening. The rodents are a law unto themselves. So I practise “live and let live” and lock my food away securely with a diligence that would do an army seargent proud! The truth remains that I have been defeated by the sneaky rodents!!

***

“Take your laptop to the cyber cafe and upload your data to the server for safe keeping” advised my husband helpfully. Aaaah! to explain the vagaries of why it wasnt possible for me to let my shiny new 12″ Mac powerbook see the light of day (and indeed the clouds of dust and swarming insects). I couldnt take it to a cyber cafe because my ownership of a shiny laptop would become common knowledge over a radius of 60 km without the benefit of mobile phones or wireless technologies! The officials of the forest department have gleefully informed me of dacoits (yes! they do exist in this part of the country) robbing unsuspecting vistors of their valuables travelling through dense jungle that lines the highway in stretches on many occassions. This doesnt inspire much confidence. I should heed the unsaid advice that I need to keep my expensive equipment under wraps and as inconspicuous as possible. The GPS has been passed off as an old phone on its last legs. The local officials decided that my Canon EOS 350D is not as cool as the sleek digital cameras wielded by foreign tourists and since it couldnt fit in the palm of my hand, it was consigned to old equipment that poverty stricken field researchers often lug around! I have been advised to save up for something more “modern”. I doubt Canon will be happy to hear such reviews in the overall look dept!

The rest of my technology park lies locked away in a tin chest only to be taken out late at night in the light of an oil lamp. This is when data entry and preliminary analysis takes place and accounts updated. Perhaps I have been living in a city too long and my trust in fellow humans have sagged to abominably low levels but at the moment when I am so heavily dependent on technology to help me along the path to thesis writing quickly (to spare me hours of mind numbing data entry when I am back in civilisation-the data sheets alone weigh 3 kgs now!), I need to be secretive about my space station worthy set up (minus an internet connection that I miss desperately in my lonely exile).

Off again on a bone jarring, nerve wracking journey back to my field station over 20 km of potholed dirt track! At least the dial up connection has been relatively trouble free at this cyber cafe! So what if the top row of keys on the oily keyboard dont work and the mouse has a mind of its own- at least its a computer and I am in touch with my loved ones! Oh yes! I also did manage to upload my data to my file server! (via a CD-RW drive that miraculously works in this cybercafes only computer!).

It is an exciting life! It makes me appeciate the things in life that I have almost grown to take for granted- politeness, steaming cups of coffee, a broadband connection, a tete a tete with friends whenever I wish, mobile phones and hugs from my family.

Holi. In my mind, the festival of holi has always been imbued with tones of general mayhem, revelry, clouds of vibrant colours, buckets of coloured water being hurled at unsuspecting misanthropes, “gujias”, unparalleled mirth and laughter. Definitely not a festival for the weak hearted or for unsporting individuals! I took a shine to Holi at a relatively late phase in my life-more for the sweet “gujias” that aren’t available at any other time of the year, the bauhinia blossoms and the raucous welcoming of spring (a fleeting presence in northern India which rapidly gives way to summer). I haven’t been home to celebrate Holi for 6 years now and I realized how much I have missed the fun and mayhem. It was good to be reunited with family in the midst of a busy field season in the comforts of home before heading out to the field station once again. Flecks of colour dotted the lawn and the pavements outside our home-sure signs of our enthusiastic participation and enjoyment of the festival after many years!

A gossamer haze rests upon the blue hills in the distance. The brooding silence is punctuated by the plaintive call of an errant barbet and the steady beat of the pouring rain against the soaking earth as it trickles down the dense foliage. I love the tranquility that pervades the landscape. The soft breeze carries with it the heady scent of mango and citrus blossom and sodden earth. There is a pervasive fragrance of fallen eucalyptus blooms that reminds me of a house far, far away tied tucked away in a chest of childhood memories. Rain in India is special. Whether it beats as sheets of blinding torrents during the monsoons or whether it falls upon the earth in a gentle vaporous haze as it does now-it has always been one of favourite memories of India (Perhaps, it is all the more puzzling to me why the cold London drizzle doesn’t hold much appeal to me).
Spring in India arrives with relatively little aplomb. It sneaks in through the backdoor and one fine morning you notice new buds and sprigs of new leaves sprouting from bare branches. The leathery Bombax ceiba flowers burst into a haze of red blossom and lay down a rosy carpet on the ground. The parakeets and bulbuls launch into an ecstatic feast upon the stately trees almost groaning under the weight of the flowers. All of a sudden, the stark branches are bedecked in colour and life. In the wink of an eye, the fiery saffron hues of the “palash” blossoms dot the forests. The soft breeze carries with it the promise of smouldering summer heat that waits in the wings. I am waiting for the Jacaranda blossoms beside the buttery allamanda flowers to light up the horizon with its flaming blue flowers. Since my childhood, the combination of Jacaranda and alamanda flowers studding the trees beside my house have been the harbringer of spring. The Hawk cuckoo with its infectious “bou kotha kao” (borrowed from popular Bengali imploring the bride to speak and perhaps alluding to the impressive numbers of weddings during this season amongst the Bengalis during the season) or “kaphal pakiyo” (which in Garwhali literally translates to “what fruits have ripened?” These lovable birds can be provoked to great heights of calls reaching a crescendo if one imitates their call (no matter how terrible the accent and intonation). They have also been known to cause my usually calm and tolerant husband to threaten them with untold misfortune and a violent end when they start their duets and choruses at 4 in the morning! They used to be my loyal companions through the wee hours of the morning and late afternoon during exam time over the long course of my student life in India. The colourful festival of Holi is around the corner in March-always a bit of a nuisance for students who enjoy it the most in their youthful zest even though they are meant to be slaving away at important exams. Holi represents gorging on my mums home made “gujias”-little parcels stuffed with semi-sweet ingredients laced with cloves or cardamoms, dropped in a thick sugar syrup that dries on its surface. Quite delightful and again I have fond memories of sneaking into Mum’s larder (with my brother as an accomplice) to steal one or two which were eaten with unrepentant pleasure with our noses buried deep in the current books we happened to be reading.
The past few months have been a reawakening for my jaded senses that were exhausted from the antiseptic life in New York and London. I have been reacquainted with the sights, sounds and smells of India that ruled my childhood and coloured my girlhood dreams once again. I will fulfill the lifelong fantasy of running through rippling fields of golden mustard scattering pollen and breathing in their intoxicating fragrance. I pluck night blooming jasmine to place beside my bed in my field station. I sing duets with the hawk cuckoo once again. I dance with the peacocks displaying their handsome plumage to the admiring bevy of pea hens. I savour the pleasure of a few more months of being back in the land of my dreams, my India far removed from the trappings of city life across the seven seas.
I am hoping that this blog will capture some of the essence of India and be a window to my life in the wilds of Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary. Hopefully, you will also understand why I think the greater one horned rhinoceros is a truly majestic, respectable beast! I would also like to share the legends I have gathered along my sojourns throughout the lush floodplains and lonesome deserts, soaring mountains, lofty hills and dales of India that are generously scattered along her length and breadth that have been tucked away in the precious chest of memories. Memories that I have preferred to leave unsung, clinging like gossamer on the bushes that dot the emerald grasslands…My heart dreams of golden days spent skimming through green valleys, treading gently over tremulous ice bridges, dashing through the fertile hinterlands in tireless pursuit of exotic destinations.
A philosopher and fellow dreamer once told me “Ghumakkady ka dharm apnao”- Let wanderlust be your religion. It continues to be my religion till this day.