Birding trip report: Sultanpur and Basai Wetlands

Delhi has been unusually cool this year; and even in the last week of March and first week of April, it felt as if summer was far, far away. I therefore decided to make a birding trip to Sultanpur in the hope that some of the winter migrants would still be there. What a great decision it turned out to be!

We left Delhi at 6:00 a.m. with tea in a thermos flask, and biscuits.

About 1.5 hrs from Delhi, just before Sultanpur, we stopped at Basai Wetlands and walked around. The sighting was excellent! In the brief 30 minute visit, we saw so many birds that I kept oohing and aahing and jumping around like a child at a birthday party I almost didn't want to go further to Sultanpur!

I had only my point-and-shoot camera, so I just got some scenery shots and some long-range pics. So please someone else go get some awesome ones and send them to me!:

Basai Wetlands

Here is a list of birds we saw at Basai:

1) Long tailed Shrike

2) Sarus Crane (3 gorgeous cranes)

3) Grey heron

4, 5, 6) Three types of ibis, all in one place, single camera shot, I loved this! We saw the glossy ibis, the black ibis (with the red head and small white patch on shoulder) and the black headed ibis (with the white body)

7) Dunlin in flock - did you know that in this bird the female often deserts the nest and the male looks after the brood?

8) Drongo

9) Either Citrine Wagtail, or Yellow Wagtail, I'm not sure which!

10) White wagtail (what's the right name for this?)

11) Praticole

12) Pied starling

13) Ashy crowned sparrow lark (adorable)

14) Pied bushchat

15) Asian laughing dove

16) Common redshank

17) Spotted sandpiper

18) Common sandpiper

19) Purple swamphen

20) Spot billed duck

21) Black winged stilt

22) Godwit

23) Pied Avocet

24) Marsh harrier (gorgeous big bird, excellent sighting, we saw three of them!)

25) White breasted kingfisher

Most of the waders were in flocks, so the sighting was very good. By this time, we were hungry, so we drove to the Sultanpur sanctuary (another 30 minutes); where we stopped and had an excellent breakfast at the tourist centre. The centre is called "The Rosy Pelican Tourist Complex"; and they served us very good alu-parathas with excellent curd and pickle. They also served very soft bread and butter, and omlettes. The tourist complex has accommodation as well, in case you want to stay overnight. They also offer groups the facility to cook your own meals for a charge. At the restaurant, I went to look for the toilet to wash my hands, and the old man took me to the men's loo because the other one was being repaired Anyway, I decided to "hold it" until return to Delhi!

Like all government complexes, the Rosy Pelican is blessed with a great location and surrounds. It was green and beautiful, perfect for having chai outdoor under the shade of a tree. However, the restaurant was shabby; the old man who served us wore a white shirt and black trousers that had clearly seen better days. The curtains were old looking, the plug points were a joke. Basically I came out feeling like I was in some 1970's movie set - which in some weird way was actually quite a nice experience.

Haryana Tourism board that made me smile

I grinned at this signboard by Haryana Tourism, which tries very hard to prove how amazing and popular this sanctuary is. It says with great earnestness:

Migratory Birds Comes From: Indian Sub-Continental, Central Asia and Europe

Tourist Comes From: USA, England, Russia, China, Swidan, Switzerland, Australia, Taiwan, Nepal, Hong Kong, Malaisia, Indonesia, France, Germany etc.

(he he he he he)

Anyway, fortified by tea and breakfast, we were ready to set off for more.

We walked around the pathway of the sanctuary. Tall trees on both sides gave us good shade, and to our left the water in the wetlands was still there. The park authorities maintain water levels by pumping water into the lake, we saw the pumps merrily at work while we were there. I was glad there was water, because it meant we would have better sighting even late into the season.

Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary

I had to get back to Delhi for meetings, so we spent only about 45 minutes here; but some of the birds we saw are below:

26) Magpie robin

27) Common coot

28) Northern shoveler

29) Comb duck (very interesting looking bird!)

30 ) Greater egret

31) Pond heron

32) Alexandrine parakeet (a tree full of them!)

33) Greater coucal (strutting around as if he owned the whole lake)

34) White breasted water hen

35) Peacock

36) Painted stork (a big group of them, all standing looking very sleepy)

37) Rusty flycatcher

38) Green bee-eater

39) Jungle babblers, doing their usual noisy thing!

40) Spotted owlet (three adorably cute ones, all in one tree but different branches, just inside the Rosy Pelican)

In search of the Indian Courser:

After this, we set out with a hope and a prayer to a village nearby to find the elusive Indian courser. Three of these birds had been spotted a few weeks ago near a farm, but we weren't sure if we could find them. We drove through small but prosperous looking villages, and finally came to a large open farmland area. Here we had to spend nearly 20 minutes hunting for these birds. Instead of the courser, we found red wattled lapwing and the more uncommon yellow wattled lapwing. Then after we almost gave up, we found four coursers in a field. It was my first sighting, and the birds were small, sleek and very graceful. We spent 10 minutes watching them and carefully following them on foot. Finally we returned to our trusty Innova and turned our car homewards to Delhi.

The return journey to Delhi seemed much longer, because of the traffic (although I think it didn't take more than 2.5 hours). Having left Delhi at 6:00 a.m., we were back in Delhi by 1:30 p.m. for lunch, feeling very happy with ourselves.

I can only imagine how lovely this place must be in the winter season. I am quite certain I will go back again if I get the chance. This time, I went with a very poor camera; next time I will fix that!!

Navratras thali at Pandara Road

The restaurants at Pandara Road have acquired a reputation for serving some of the best butter chicken in Delhi. It's the kind of Punjabi food that is viscerally satisfying - apart from the butter chicken, there are lots of rich creamy gravies, hot naans dripping with butter, soft paneer-saag, and other seasonal Punjabi specialties.

"Havemore" is right! This kind of Punjabi food is hard to resist!

Gulati - another Pandara Road favourite.

I went to Pandara Road this week looking for an artery-clogging Punjabi meal :) But instead of the usual fare, I found a specialty menu on offer at Gulati's.

The Navrata Thali at Gulati

All over India, Vasant/Chaitra Navratri or Navratras is being celebrated; marking the advent of warmer weather. As part of this festival, a special fast is observed for 9 days. Rice and wheat are forbidden; in fact, all grains are forbidden. All meat and seafood is banned. According to religious prescription, only one meal a day is allowed; and simple healthy food such as fruits, vegetables, milk etc are to be had. Even onions and garlic and sea salt are forbidden. I guess the idea is not only to give the digestive system a break; but also to draw attention away from food, towards more spiritual thoughts.

However - like the Indian legal system - there are several loopholes in the scriptural injunctions, and these have been cleverly twisted to suit all those who have no desire to suffer :)

For example, those who can't live without hot rotis and puris have discovered that flour made of sago, buckwheat and water-chestnuts are all allowed. Why? Because these are not grains, you see? Water chestnut is a fruit; so is buckwheat (technically speaking!). And sago is made from tapioca. That makes these flour subsitutes perfectly acceptable during the Navratras "fasting". Similarly, since sea salt is forbidden; the meal is cooked with rock salt, lending it a different taste. Green chillies are a fruit, so they're kosher too. Chillies can therefore be merrily used to produce spicy results; spiritual thoughts be damned! :)

For every fasting "rule" there is a workaround, a sort of cheat code, if you will! It is as if a wicked, but highly determined chef decided that he or she would beat the system. Over the years, with help of several clever chefs and their clever workarounds, a complex cuisine has grown around the restrictions of the Navratras diet.

Since I have never fasted for Navratri, I was curious enough to want to try the Navratri thali. It turned out to be quite a fancy meal!

Thali with 8 different dishes, accompanied by water-chestnut (singhada) puri and buckwheat (kuttu) roti; and a cucumber salad.

At the centre of the thali is a bowl with two dishes served together, which serves as the starting point for the meal. The yellow-coloured stuff is aloo-chaat; the potato was lovely and tangy with rock salt. It was served cold, garnished with coriander. Next to it is a fried dumpling made of sago (sabudana), served piping hot. Nice combo! There's a spicy green chutney that you can eat with this.

The three orangey-red gravies were pretty good too - one of them is pumpkin, the other is paneer, and the third is a kind of dal that I couldn't quite figure out. All three were cooked without onions or garlic, but they were quite tasty.

Lastly, the three white bowls - they had:

a) sago kheer

b) sago pulao (flavoured with cumin and green chilli) and

c) yoghurt raita with rock salt.

I loved the raita, and the pulao was pretty good too. I tasted the kheer, it was light and nice, but I didn't have much of an appetite really.

Buttermilk to finish off the meal

There was a glass of cold buttermilk, also seasoned with cumin and coriander, to round off the meal nicely. So instead of the kheer, I stuck to buttermilk.

For me, the most interesting part of this meal was discovering kuttu, or buckwheat. I had never seen buckwheat before. It is grown mostly in the hilly regions of North India.

Buckwheat roti (the black coloured stuff)

The buckwheat fruit has a single seed, sitting inside a hard outer skull. The skull may be green or dark brown, which is what makes the kuttu roti blackish looking. The buckwheat roti tastes nothing like a wheat roti. It is kinda starchy, and it has been cooked with a lot of ghee, so it is heavy as well.

As we walked out of the restaurant, I wondered why or how this nine-day Navratri fast originated. In the month of Chaitra (April), the season changes. The hotter summer days begin. Maybe it originated as a way to get the body acclimatised to the weather change? If anyone knows the answer, or has a better guess, please let me know. Meanwhile, if you want to taste this thali, head to Pandara Road!

Delhi watches cricket

World Cup fever has completely taken over. Everywhere I went, the only thing people were talking about was the game, the game, the game.

Overheard at Defence Colony: A debate about where to watch the match. I think they went to Adderwaza finally.

Drivers and guards at Dilli Haat: Deeply thankful that the memsahibs are taking a lot of time over shopping!

Brisk sales at the booze shop at SDA Market. Check out the number of cases and cartons lying around!

Post script: Aaaaaaaaaand the boys in blue have brought home the World Cup! The whole country is going to be partying now.

Food walk in Old Delhi

I went on the most amazing food walk in Sitaram Bazaar. This area is full of shops owned by Hindu Banias; the street food here is vegetarian and fantastic. With me was Dhruv, who lives in the area.

We started off with a gol-gappa-walla near Chawri Bazaar Metro Station.

I knew I should go slow and eat very little (so as to save space for more later) but it was too tempting!

After the gol-gappas came the most amazing kulcha-chole; just a little further down.

The chole was hot from the brass pot; and garnished with chaat masala, onions, ginger, chillies, coriander and lemon.

Finger-licking good! My tastebuds were tingling with the tartness of the lemon, combined with the spicy chola, and the tang of the chaat masala. The kulchas - soft bread made of maida - help temper down the spiciness of the dish. I swear this is the tastiest thing I have ever eaten in Delhi.

After the spiciness of the chola, Dhruv introduced me to the delights of brown milk cake.

The old man is a daily fixture in Dhruv's lane; stirring milk and sugar and ghee into a thick delight.

This cake had a chewy rich goodness that sent me on a delirious high. I started out saying "But I can't eat all this by myself"; and shared it with others, but then I tasted it, and ended up wishing for more!

This was not all - there was more - bedmi puri, aloo sabzi, nagori halwa...which I had never eaten before. But it's getting late right now, so I better finish this story here. I'll post again, with Part 2 of the walk, and more photos!

The Trishul

Have you seen the giant Shiva statue at Murudeshwar Beach? My school friend Preeti clicked this arresting photo with the sun in the background:

This is the second largest statue of Shiva in the world, all of 123 feet tall.

Whenever I hear that something is the "second largest", I always wonder "Which is the largest, then?" :) :) In case you're wondering too, the world's largest Shiva statue is in Nepal, and it is a standing Shiva, not a seated one. The Nepal statue is a more chubby-cheeked smiling god. Take a look. I think it is quite an unsuitable depiction of this charismatic ascetic! The Murudeshwar statue somehow seems more impressive, don't you think?

In both statues, in his right hand, Shiva holds the Trishul, his trident.

It's hard to miss the trident when you visit any part of India. Especially if you go on a pilgrimage circuit, you will see the trishul just about everywhere.

I found this maker of tridents in a little shop in Jaipur

At the Delhi Crafts Museum, there's this interesting collection of decorative spears and tridents (looks like it came from South India, not sure from where)

Lingaraja Temple, Bhubaneswar. This is one of the few temples where Vishnu and Shiva are both worshipped. At the entrance, there is a painting of the two Gods merged into one. Shiva is identified by his Trident, and Vishnu by his Mace and Discus.

But it's not Shiva alone who lays claim to the trishul; it is also the weapon of the great Goddess in her many forms.

Mithila painting of the many-armed Goddess Durga. She holds several weapons, but no Durga rendition is complete without the trident.

Paan-wallah in Agra - this is the most popular representation of Goddess Durga; you see this in little shops everywhere in the country

"Eunuch temple" in Mumbai; trident of the Goddess Mariamman, who is said to cure people of the pox.

So the trishul is everywhere, and clearly it has huge symbolic value. I looked up some websites and blogs dedicated to Shiva, and they have a set of complex explanations for what the trishul represents. I didn't really know any of that stuff earlier; and I don't know whether this is even correct. If you have a deeper understanding, and can point me at the right sourcebook, let me know.

Meanwhile, I'll continue to look for interesting tridents to add to my collection of photos!

On Aesthetics

There are some days when I have this intense desire to paint or draw. I desperately want to put pen and brush to paper; I want to watch bold black strokes darken and take shape. I want to drench the paper with colour, watch it spread and deepen. I want to forget the world outside, and live inside that canvas, in a private world of my very own aesthetics.

So what's holding me back from doing this? It's those twin T's, of course - Talent and Time. One isn't good without the other, right?

Do I have talent? I don't know. I will never know, unless I give it the time it needs. Do I have time? No. There's too much going on in my life. I've looked at my days, tried to find a couple of hours to spare...but I'm already overstretched.

So - since I'm a practical person - I've decided to set aside my desire to paint, until the time is right.

Meanwhile, I will surround myself with beauty.

It is easy enough to do that. There is beauty everywhere, if you just choose to look. Beauty in art, architecture, music, plants, forests, animals, daily life.

Beautiful door at the Crafts Museum

Bangles at Kinari Bazaar

All I have to do, is to absorb the form and colour and motion I see around me, and carry that around in my head. I'll have my own little beautiful world, then, won't I?

The Indian Water Buffalo - A Tale from my childhood

When I was 10 years old, I read an amusing Marathi folk tale. It was about a man who left his home in a huff after a quarrel with his wife. When evening came, he regretted his rash action, but couldn't bring himself to go back and say sorry. Besides, too many of his neighbours had seen him walk off swearing never to return. He would become a laughing-stock if he returned meekly.

But he badly wanted to go back home for dinner, especially since his empty stomach now reminded him of his wife's lovely cooking. Desperate, he looked around, and spotted one of their buffaloes returning home unescorted after the day's grazing.

So he grabbed the buffalo's tail and went back home behind it, pretending the buffalo was dragging him back against his wish.

As he went, he sang a rhyme loudly: "Aga Aga Mahshi, Mala Kuthe Nehshi?!" (Oh, Oh, my buffalo, where are you dragging me?!).

He sang loud enough for the neighbours to hear :) When he reached home, his wife, wise woman that she was, smiled to herself at the hilarious sight, but welcomed him and gave him dinner. And that was the end of their fight.

Even today, every time I see a buffalo, this story brings a grin to my face.

Aga Aga Mahshi, Mala Kuthe Nehshi!

Buffaloes are a big deal in India. I was looking at the National Dairy Board figures, and we seem to have an astounding 100 million buffaloes. That's one buffalo for every 10 Indians!

We have a lot of cows as well; in fact the cattle population is nearly double that of buffaloes. But the buffalo population has been growing far faster.

While buffalo numbers have grown by 130% in the last 50 years, cattle population has grown by only 15-20%. The trend is sharper in more recent years. Clearly, buffaloes are fast becoming the animal of choice in the Indian dairy industry.

Why is this happening? Simple. The buffalo offers the most reward for the least cost and effort.

Firstly, the buffalo is hardier, and survives better under poor fodder and poor management conditions.

Skinny buffaloes in a dry village near Dausa, Rajasthan.

In this village home that I visited, there was no feedstock anywhere in sight; and grass was scarce. The buffaloes were skinny, and some had skin infections, but they still yielded milk. These buffaloes were still the biggest source of that family's income, and I'm guessing they made a big contribution to the family nutrition levels.

A buffalo yields richer milk than a cow (typically, buffalo milk has twice the amount of butterfat than cow's milk). The milk therefore fetches better prices. Buffalo milk is whiter, and better suited for the manufacture of milk powder. Traditional paneer cheese made from buffalo milk is better. Buffaloes can be used in agriculture for tilling, and also as a source of meat.

With the start of Operation Flood in the 1970's (specially the second phase of the program in the 80's), there has also been infrastructural support from the Indian government for buffaloes. Feedstock availability has been improved, veterinary services made available, and, most important, a stable, self-sustaining distribution channel has been established for buffalo milk. Both cows and buffaloes form part of the staggering 73,000 village co-operatives that produce milk for sale; supplying over 300 towns and cities. Each co-operative is made up of multiple small producers, allowing rural as well as semi-rural families (like the one below) to prosper.

This family near Agra had four fat female buffaloes with three calves.

The children of this family looked well-fed and healthy. Obviously, the milk was for sale, and not just personal consumption. I could not stop and check if the milk was being sold to a co-operative. But since this home is not far from Delhi, I assumed the milk would probably end up there.

There are several breeds of buffalo in India; but the champion milk producer is the Murrah. You'll see the Murrah in Delhi, because it is native to Haryana (adjacent to Delhi). It's really easy to identify this champion - the horns are small, upwards, backwards and tightly curved inward at the end.

Haryanvi Milk Goddess :)

The tail of the Murrah often has a white switch at the end; and that's an easy identifier too (although you can't see it in this photo). There's a very nice page here, managed by Central Institute for Research on Buffaloes, that describes all the buffalo breeds in different parts of India. As you can see, they're each quite different; and some of them look very fancy! I'm going to click buffalo photos now, whenever I travel through the country!

All this milk-talk has suddenly set up a craving in me for paneer. Thick, creamy, soft, paneer... I'm thinking we'll try palak-paneer tonight! You're invited :)

In which I learn about paring toenails

On facebook, a friend posted this photo, which explains the right way for a devout Muslim to trim their nails.

Toe nails are easy. You start with the smallest one on the right foot, then work your way in an arc towards the smallest one on your left foot.

Fingernails are a little more complicated. For some reason, you do four fingers of the right hand in one arc, then four fingers of the left hand (but starting with a different finger), and then finally the thumbs (see photo above for better understanding; the fingers have been helpfully numbered in the right sequence).

As if this elaborate sequencing isn't enough, there's also a recommended frequency of nail paring (not more than 40 days between trimmings), a recommended disposal method (burial) and several other injunctions (for example, you can't wear nail polish, but you can put henna on nails and make them orange).

I then looked up a Jewish resource site, to find out what they had to say about nails. As it turned out, the Jewish way is equally specific. There are rules for the frequency with which nails should be cut (every week, or once in two weeks). There are days on which nails should not be cut (Thursdays). There's a recommended sequence (adjacent fingernails can't be trimmed one after another). There's also another rule that says you can't clip fingernails and toenails on the same day.

Both religions say that it is important to dispose of or destroy nail clippings. I think it stems from this old underlying belief that nails have "power" of some sort, and if you leave them lying around, someone can cast a a spell on you or do you harm.

I then looked up Hinduism and Christianity on the subject of nails. In Hinduism, I found that there isn't much other than an injunction not to cut nails after dark (I found lots of complicated rules about haircuts and tonsuring, and a total obsession with bathing!). Christianity doesn't seem to have anything much to say on the subject of nail cutting at all (or bathing, or haircuts or any other form of personal hygiene). Or maybe I just didn't look hard enough.

The more I read, the more I wanted to smile, especially when I laid all the "rules" side by side. They were all written in earnest religious tones; and each writer seemed convinced that they had got it right.

Actually, some of this stuff may have been right at the time it was written - for example, not cutting nails after dark was probably sensible in the pre-electricity era. Not leaving nails lying around is definitely sensible, no matter what era you are in.

But not all the rules make sense today. By and large, I find that the elaborateness of religious ritual borders on the absurd.

I have never had much patience with it; primarily because I grew up without any customary daily prayers or weekly fasts or what have you. I agree that rituals do have their uses. Having set patterns for things can aid in calming the mind. But hello? the "right" sequence for paring toenails? What were they thinking? :) :)