February 22, 2015

Painted Storks at Rabindra Sarovar

This year, all of a sudden and perhaps for the first time since I have been visiting the Rabindra Sarovar in south Calcutta, we have had a small flock of painted storks staying over in the little island in the middle of the lake.

Initially, I thought that they had come from Siberia or some other very cold place but it seems that is not quite true. They are native to India.









this map shows the island where the pictures were taken

February 17, 2015

Satyam ? Shivam ? or Sundaram ? of Shivaratri

Folklore celebrates Shivaratri as the marriage of Lord Shiva with Parvati, the daughter of the Himalayan mountains. The consummation of this marriage is viewed in learned circles as the Yoga, or union, of Shiva with his Shakti. Of the Purusha with his Prakriti. Shiva is the Potential energy of the universe and Shakti is its manifestation in Kinetic form. From Sankara to Vivekananda, adepts have likened Shiva to the Ocean and Shakti to the waves that rise from it and settle back.

But then again there is another perspective!

Shiva is not a God, not even a god, in the traditional dualistic perspective of a devotee and the object of devotion. Shiva is a quality, the quality of "good", as understood in the phrase, "Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram" -- the triad of the the True, the Good and the Beautiful.

Truth is viewed as function of rational analysis as in the search for the truth. This is the way of the West -- of Egypt, Greece, the Renaissance and modernity. This has led us to major advances in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and gives us the comfortable lifestyle associated with modern societies. Unfortunately, Godel spikes this model with his Theory of Incompleteness, and tells us that there could stuff that is true but not provable. Rationality is bounded by its own inherent limitations.

Good is what is perceived by the adepts of the East -- Advaita Vedanta, Zen ( Dhyan / meditative ) Buddhism and the eroticism of Tantra -- through direct experience, the Samadhi or Ecstasy of Yoga. Logic and reason is passed over in the search for that which is without form, without shape and what represents that which cannot be captured or explained in the logic of a language and its grammar ! This is explained further in my book, the Road to pSingularity.

Beauty lies at the intersection of what is True and what is Good! In fact, when the True and the Good converge into each other, what is left is the sheer beauty of the experience. This is beauty of Shivaratri that I share here in the pictures of NP Razeshwarr.







You can see many more such pictures of NP Razeshwarr or know more about him and his art by following this links.


February 12, 2015

Andamans : From Kalapani to Neelapani

We all know about the Andamans from our history books but rarely do we get the opportunity to experience the geography of this very picturesque part of India. Here is a short, photographic record of our visit to this little visited part of India.

We arrived in Port Blair and walked into the pages of the history book that tells us about the Cellullar jail where so many freedom fighters, ( or "terrorists" from the British point of view) were incarcerated or even martyred.


the outside of the jail


inside the jail, during the Sound and Light Show



inside one of the cells


the long corridor along one of the wings


view from the roof


from the watch tower



these were the actual gallows where prisoners were executed and the picture below shows the oil mill that prisoners had to operate to produce their quota of coconut oil



two of the jail wings from the watch tower

this is the room were Veer Savarkar was incarcerated


The cellular jail was referred to as Kalapani, the place beyond the Black Waters of the unknown sea. But today, we see this sea, not as black but as a brilliant shade of blue, the Neela Pani!

This is Elephant Beach on Havelock Island




the sea at Elephant Beach is really so blue





and if you go snorkeling, as we did, you can see coloured fishes swimming in the crystal clear waters




However the he most exciting activity at Elephanta Beach was the undersea walk






where we literally walked, and danced, among the corals and the fishes and had professionals help us and take pictures like this



The hotel at Havelock Island where we stayed was awesome. It was right on the waterfront itself






as everywhere in the Andamans, the sea was an amazing colour of blue



The Makkruze catamaran was our means of getting around the various islands of the Andamans. That is how we departed from Havelock and ...



at the pier at Havelock, waiting for the Makruz to arrive




and arrived at Neil ( or perhaps Neel?) Island




At Neil Island we had the pleasure of watching corals and coloured fishes from a glass bottom boat






and ride JetSkis





and also visited Radhanagar Beach, one of the top ten beaches of the world



Our last port of call was Ross Island, the administrative, social and cultural heart of the British Administration at Andamans that was occupied, along with the rest of islands by the Japanese during WWII and is now naval base for the Indian Navy. There are many remnants of the Japanese occupation here.



these are ruined buildings from the Japanese era



and these are Japanese gun emplacements



exploring Ross Island on foot was almost like living out an adventure from the Famous Five books of Enid Blyton. Islands, forests, deer, abandoned bunkers and what not!



this is far side of Ross Island, the part normally not visited by tourists


we also saw some Japanese Bunkers at Corvyn Beach



Now that we have seen all the pictures let us say a few words about the Andaman Islands. Though these are a part of India they are physically closer to Myanmar and Malaysia. In fact, the islands are a part of the Arakan Range of mountains that run through Myanmar and represent the peaks of mountain range that is otherwise submerged in the waters of the Bay of Bengal. Hence walking through Port Blair will remind you of walking through Darjeeling or Simla -- the roads rise and fall like any hill station road -- but of course the temperature is quite warm since it is very close to the mean sea level. So you can call it a sea level hill station!

Most of the people on the Andamans are Bengali speaking settlers from erstwhile East Bengal and Bangladesh plus Hindi speaking immigrants from the heartland of India. The original people of Andamans -- the so called aboriginals, of negroid stock -- are almost extinct, wiped out after coming in contact with modern society. However small pockets of the original natives survive on reservations where us, modern Indians, are not allowed to go without specific permission from government authorities.