We had done some birding at the Ragihalli sheet rock area and had come into Ragihalli village, to visit the pond. (yes, yes, I *will* post the actual birds-and-other creatures pics soon.)

I wanted a hot cup of chai, so we stopped at my usual lady's shop, said hi to the lady, her grand-daughter and a neighbour's kid called Monica, and had chai and biscuits (in keeping with its being a nature expedition, I bought...Tiger biscuits!) and while we were munching and sipping, I looked into the house opposite...and caught this lovely vignette.




I don't know if the photograph is clear enough...but it shows one woman ready to comb out and plait another's hair.

This habit of sitting for a relaxed few minutes while someone else combs out and plaits your hair seems to have all but disappeared in today's fast-paced world...I instantly thought back to the days when I had hair that I could sit on. (Really. I have a photograph to prove it.)

My mother would sit me down in front of her and the part I totally hated was that she would pour on the hair oil (coconut oil). I always detested the greasy mess it made of my hair...and I think my life-long preference for very short hair stems from this dislike.

But...it was very relaxing to have her gently comb out my hair (except for the odd "ouch" when the comb got caught in a tangle)...and there was one style of plaiting, called, in Tamizh, "kodalai pinnal", which was very much admired by my Bengali friends. (Alas, it would be done only when I'd had an "oil bath" and needed to get my hair dry.) There were also plaits with 5 strands rather than the usual 3, and the French plaits..and when I had two plaits, I had "Y" plaits where the two plaits would be joined together, and a "W" plait where that "Y" was looped back and tied to the top of one plait with a ribbon...and of course the regular two-folded plaits as my hair was too long, even plaited, to be let to hang down.

The difficulty, of course, was that it was my mother who would decide how much of oil would go into my hair, and what style of plait I would have....and I actually treasured the moment when she started letting me plait my own hair. To me, it was one of the signs of growing up...how little I knew of adulthood, to think that plaiting my own hair was entry into this state!

Loose hair was totally looked down upon. "parattai thalai" (unkempt hair) was the very epitome of bad grooming! It was a well-knnow fact that Bengali women and girls let their hair loose, and the words "parattai thalai" was often amended to "parattai thalaiyum, bangALa vEshamum" (unkempt hair, with the looks of a Bengali).

No loose plaits were allowed, either. The hair was tightly scraped back and tied into tight, severe plaits....and finished off with ribbons. T

The ribbons would get greasy, too, and had to be washed. I had to come for "thalai pinnal" ..plaiting the hair...with a large-toothed comb to detangle it, a fine-toothed comb to give the final neat appearance, and ribbons that matched my clothes.

What I loved about others' caring for my hair was, visits to Chennai to my grandmother's house, where the maid would oil my hair thoroughly every Friday, and wash it out beautifully with hot water and shikAkAi powder (soapnut powder).

Then my hair would be spread over a basket set over a mud vessel in which "sAmbrANi" (a kind of resin, I think) would be smoked...the hair would dry and get the delicate smell of the sAmbrANi

And after that, my hair would be silky and smooth and fragrant and would frame my face...and for those few hours (until the next morning's oiling and plaiting!) it was worth it to have long hair!

Yesterday I was chatting with my friend

Chandu

as he and Ramesh were supposed to come birding with me. He said, "Ramesh can't come as his wife has gone out and he has to take care of the maid."

"Oh," I said, "I understand. Yesterday, someone I went birding with had to run home to catch the cook."

...then we both just broke up laughing!

I saw, on the bngbirds egroup, that someone called

R. Padmanabhan, a doctoral student at IIT Madras

....who belongs to the Madras Naturalist Society, had asked if anyone could go birding with him to the Bannerghatta Forest area. To me, this is like someone asking if I want chocolate. I promptly emailed him, and this morning, he came with three friends of his who were going for the first time. (Of them, it turned out that Sandhya was my daughter's junior at Sacred Hearts School, and has been reading my blog.)

Yesterday at Bheemannakuppe was FRY day not Saturday, as the temperature was uncomfortably hot...so, naturally, today was chilly and it was so misty that it took quite an hour or so before the birds on the Ragihalli route even woke up!

So while I was waiting....I took the birders:





The sun was in bed, too, on a fine mattress of mist:




It was rather reluctant to come out:





And even when it did, it had fine veils of mist over it, like a shy woman covering her modesty with filmy cloth :





Mist may make for lousy bird photography...but the scenery does make me misty-eyed!

The

BLACK-WINGED KITE

(earlier called the Black-Shouldered Kite, which I think is more accurate)

is easily one of the most handsome common accipiters in the Bangalore outskirts....

You can see the black shoulders clearly as it lands on the insulators of the power cables:





( this kite flies itself )


But back it came, to land on the wire again:




More photos from our Bheemanna Kuppe Kere trip (thank you Sangeetha!) on Saturday....coming up as soon as I can upload them...! We were 4 NTP members in a group of 7.

Here's the radiant bride:




The handsome groom:



And one of the ceremonies (in Aryan culture, the important one) that makes them husband and wife:

pANi grahaNam ("acceptance of the hand")

(see the wedding rituals )





the bride's hand,holding a sacred coconut and betel leaves, is placed in that of her father, and then placed in the groom's hand...the bride's mother then pours sanctified water over it...as the water pours from the bride's hand to the groom's, her care and welfare passes from her father to her husband.

Though the small streets and the lanes he goes,
His voice echoing around.
He calls aloud, this sharpener of knives:
They hear him, the mothers, the sisters, the wives:
Each busy housewife knows
That he'll set the wheel on the ground:
The sparks will fly as he steps on the pedal:
Sharper and sharper gets the now-shiny metal:
He pockets the small sums that he's paid,
Perhaps drinks a cup of tea that someone's made...
Then he's off again, with his clarion call,
Whoever needs his work...he goes to serve them all.


I heard his "clarion call" (in Chennai, what he calls is, "katthi shAAAAAAAANAAAAA!") and rushed out on to the balcony to photograph his retreating form...my sis in law didn't want any knives sharpened that day!

On the way to visit the Jayamangali Blackbuck Sanctuary, we were negotating a badly dug-up stretch of highway, and I found this notice:





Now,


this link

tells me that Pune is 835km (about 519 miles) from Bangalore....

I wonder if the guy who put up the notice HAD to give the way to Pune, but doesn't WANT us to go there....?

It seems like I have been away forever from the world of blogging. There is still so much to show from the trip to Africa in September but I never got around to processing those photographs or even looking at them. Life-changing events (in a good sense!) have kept me busy in the past month and I hope I can get around to processing the remaining photographs from the Africa trip at least. What subject would be better to restart this near defunct blog? Elephants!

Loxodonta africana, the African Bush Elephant. I've waited forever to see the largest land-based animal in the wild and they really look tiny in the massive Serengeti. At least, that's the case until you get close to one of those things and realize how huge they are. When you're used to seeing elephants in the Indian subcontinent you feel that their African relatives would be similar in behavior. Elephants in India need a cautious approach. It is perhaps frequent conflict with men that makes some herds in India aggressive. Charges, mock-charges and tail-twisted flight are all common with wild elephant encounters back at home, but the Serengeti (and Northern Tanzania in general) turned out to be a much different experience. Elephants are calm and at peace with men here and they don't run or charge that frequently. In fact, it is probably safe to say that some of the elephants are rather tame. We had a bull elephant drinking water at our campsite near the Ngorongoro crater and even with people just a few small footsteps away, the bull went about his business and calmly walked out into the wild. It is such a nice experience to watch animals when they aren't feeling scared or feeling the need to attack/defend.





( Six more photographs )

How many of us can so easily get Gold Medals or afford a Rolex?




( some more gems )

Most of all, I loved this sign, which unwittingly gave the message that it IS wiser to wear a helmet... and itsalouwelylife asked if "glass change" meant currency coins that made of glass!

In

one of my posts

I had talked about the joys of bargaining, and asakiyume had said she would never like it...I need to explain this to her'

I buy stuff in two ways. One is...the straightforward way. I look at the price of something, pay it, get the item, and off I go.

But on the other side is the whole wide world of bargaining!

It takes a lifetime here to know what is bargainable,and what is not. (I would never, for example, bargain for 5 kg of rice at the store!) But over a period of time, one...just *knows*.
And then, of course, the pas de deux begins....


( the bargain )


Good bargaining practices are...a form of culture!

In the heart of

Mylapore

past

Luz


connecting North Mada (mAdA) Street and

Katcheri Road

is a small street...lane...called "Maddala )Narayanan Street" (maddaLa nArAyaNan)

Who Maddala Narayanan was, history does not see fit to record (at least, I couldn't find traces on the internet!)..."maddaLam" being a variation of the percussion instrument, the


Mridangam

the instrument being more used for harikathA and yakshagAnA....

but for a long time, many musicians resided on this street or its surrounding areas.

There are still some music shops here, where one can buy veeNAs, tablAs, or repair various instruments...

But MY song, today, is about the small jewellers' shops that also sit on this street, and this particular one:




Can you see the shop there? Yes, it's that tiny little...well, literally window of opportunity that's open next to the motorcycle!

In this shop, for at least thirty years (to my certain recollection) sits Sri T G Purushottaman Achari.

( More about this, with little digressions )

Well...in my grandmother's day, the jeweller would probably have been called home, where he would have spent the entire day on the "thiNNai" (the front porch) in the shade of a neem tree or two, setting and repairing jewellery....my generation went to him to get our work done...who knows how the next few generations (I certainly don't envisage women giving up jewellery in the next few thousands of years!) will manage?

Organizing events is not something I do regularly...I do hope it's something I do well...!

When one is organizing an event, one HAS to take the majority's convenience into consideration while setting the date and venue....but it's SO disappointing when some of the people who, you know, will add a lot of value to the event, cannot make it!

I am organizing the JLRNTP meet in January Twenty-Ten...and so far, I have got 18 "yes"es, and only 2 "no"s...but both are from people that I would *particularly* like to have.

Well, actually, I must say that I know most of the NTP members personally now, so, to me, every "no" would be a disappointment...

How I wish I could organize an even where EVERYONE could be there! Ha, that will not happen in the real world.

My article about NTP in Citizen Matters:

here

My announcement of the March 2007 program:

here

My account of the October 2008 NTP:

here

My account of the March 2009 NTP:

here

And..finally...my account of the NTP that I took:

here

prashanthks was wanting a time machine, to finish all the tasks that he has. But here's a friend of mine who already owns one! I sent an email and got this reply:


On Fri, Nov 27, 2009 at 10:53 AM, wrote:

I will be travelling between 24 Nov to 29th Oct 2009


If this person is not careful, they could wind up as an infant....

-----------------------------------------------
On a different note, there is a "Calendar Contest" being held by our company. This is internal. They are inviting photographs for the same. I am wondering whether I should participate or not.

The sunrise on the Marina today was lovely, as usual...




It really looked like the "rising sun" symbol of the ruling party of Tamil Nadu, the

Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam or DMK


Came back and read more about Dubai's debt...and felt that everywhere, I am watching hype and brightness and charm of manner overshadow genuine worth, and steadiness.

Those who have charm...bankers...financiers...the "marketers" convince others with big talk and sweet words...and honest and trusting people fall for it, every time!

It's so sad that often, big finance seems to be a big sham, without any substance to it. The edifice stands as long as Peter can be robbed to pay Paul. When Peter refuses to be fleeced, the walls go tumbling down.

Love of money is, indeed, the root of all evil. Five years ago, "Dubai" was a magic word; what is it today?

I give thanks...for all the good things I have in my life...including friends like you.

What is this slow carb rice and how is it different from regular rice? If I eat my regular rice very slowly, will it become slow carb rice?

What's the bet that this rice is twice as expensive as regular rice?

Location: enroute to Manchinabele (view on map)

This was enroute to Manchinabele where were saw a few Black-headed Munias in the reeds.

We spent some time watching them do their morning yoga :)

Original Entry

We were pretty lucky with our sightings and observations on the Manchinabele trip on the 21st of November; apart from the

TAWNY EAGLE



I also got, thanks to Manju, a first-time-ever sighting, and observation, of the

WHITE-NAPED WOODPECKER

high up in a

TAMARIND tree




( more here.... )


I compare my learning to this shoot, reaching beyond what's old to something new and fresh:




Here's a 360-degree view of the Manchinabele backwaters, with the beautiful

LITTLE EGRETS floating in to land...





A beautiful place, and an enjoyable outing...I took the train to Chennai feeling very happy indeed.