Stories from the Landscape- Part 1

Last Sunday, I went walking along the Olentangy river trail. I walked for two hours, roughly for around 9 kms. I met a couple of rabbits along the way, and some geese who hissed at me. The river was dirty grey in colour. I saw some people fishing in the river, and I assumed they were doing it for recreation. Later on, I was informed that people use the fish in their river for their consumption. Unfortunately, the river is anything but clean. It looks diseased, and it seems to be totally uncared for. And this is the state of most of the rivers everywhere too.

The Olentagy Trail

Rivers have always interested me. The banks of the rivers are the foundations of cities, and are a major reason for the building and breaking of civilizations. The existence and functioning of cities depends on water. This is one reason why I chose to study practices of water management. Though I study water management in rural areas, I am increasingly drawn towards water management in urban areas. I decided to walk along the river was to understand the drainage pattern of the river, to view the neighbourhoods that have sprung up along the river, and find out the uses of the river. I'd previously read that flooding was a common phenomenon, and a flood wall built around 10 years back has now contained the wild waters.

I began my trail from here- King Avenue and Olentangy River Road

Along the way, I came across historical markers that I used to look at from the bus, and was always curious to find out what they said, and what they marked. This is what I found:

The first road way along the Olentangy River

A steel truss was constructed across the river in 1863, and was the first roadway across the Olentangy River. In 1912 arches were built across the river, which were later to become into a bridge. 1913 saw the most devastating floods in the Olentangy and the Sciota Rivers, which destroyed the false arches built across the river. (At this point, I hadn't any clue that floods were going to become a larger part of what I was studying!) In 1999, The King Avenue bridge was rebuilt, and was the first precast-post-tensioned, field spliced, segmented arch bridge with an integral post-tensioned, high performance concrete deck. Now, I don't know what all that means, but it sure sounds impressive. 

First Modern Streamflow Measurement in Ohio 1892-1893

This was another first that I came across just a few steps away from the King Avenue Bridge Marker. Engineering students from the Ohio State University, in 1892 and 1893, were the first to make streamflow measurements in Ohio.

Dirtty Water!

There is an organization called FLOW (Friends of the Lower Olentangy) who undertake river clean up programs to improve the quality of the water. Sadly, the water is still murky and grey.

Stand-up Canoe Paddling

I can't make out whether he is fishing or just contemplating about life

I discovered this hidden trail

And then suddenly, from being a grey and green murky stream, the river turned wide and bigger at the confluence. The Olentangy and the Sciota Rivers meet at Downtown, and turn into a big river. I saw a lot of people fishing here, despite the water being unclean. Initially, I thought that they were indulging in some simple recreation, but on second thoughts, I realized that they were actually fishing for food. A conversation with my advisor corroborated this fact. 

The Confluence of the Olentangy and the Sciota

The Santa Maria (the most authentic replica of Christopher Columbus' Ship) is also anchored here.

The Santa Maria

About the Santa Maria

This is where the story of reading landscapes begins. After this trail, I discovered a very interesting link to the floods and a neighbourhood called Franklinton, just across the river from Downtown. Stay tuned for more!

Wings on the Feet

Cities have a strange way of growing on you. All the exploring to do gives me a high- figuring out the ways, asking for directions and inevitably, also the getting lost in strange streets. Having spent 23 years of my life in my home city Pune, moving out to Bangalore was a dream come true. The freedom along with the responsibility was something that I managed very smoothly. There were no growing up pains and I quite enjoyed living alone. I would wait eagerly for the weekends wherein I would escape into a different part of the town every time. One day there was the old part of Malleshwaram to explore while another time it was the Russel Market in Shivajinagar. Armed with a camera and loads of water, I played the part of an enthralled tourist to perfection. Curiously, I did not miss my home town at all. Agreed, Pune has its own charm but it had got kind of tiresome roaming around the same places and meeting the same set of people.

Having spent 5 months in Bangalore, I then did another month-long stint in Delhi. Again the same kind of excitement and joyousness swept over me. Delhi was a place that I had always longed to go to- a peculiar longing mixed with romantic notions that were never to be. But keeping that aside, Delhi was all that I wanted it to be and much more. June is one of the most nasty months to be in Delhi. But I certainly couldn't care less. All the rivers of sweat notwithstanding, I still feel that I left a part of me over there. The jostling around on the streets, navigating the crowds while keeping in mind the many warnings about the unsafe nature of Delhi...all of them are now relegated to a special corner of my memory bank. Now keeping the memories safe for another day when I can go back to savour all those moments once again. Cities are because of its people and this is what I enjoy the most.

All this travelling around makes me feel very light. Now that I am back home, I can't wait to pack my bags and set off again on some new road once again. I wish I had wings on my feet. Places entice and I sigh.

Cities touch. Cities ignite.

Delhi Diaries

One day old in Delhi. I cannot believe it that I am finally here. Previous plans to Delhi  have always got cancelled. But this time, things fell into place and finally I am here!

I am here for a month long sojourn attending a course. The course was just a reason for me to visit Delhi and my primary aim is to jaunt around the city as much as possible. Besides, my friend too is doing the course with me, so loneliness is also kept at bay.

The Metro

Our first stop was the Akshardham Temple. Now I am no temple tourist and never willingly visit temples unless I feel a pull. But this was different. A new city needs explored and for me any place will do. Plus there was the added attraction of travelling in the metro which for some unknown made me feel cool, snooty and clever. I also felt like clapping my hands and jumping up each time metro reached a station.

From the Metro Station

Cars taking darshan

So Akshardham wasn't all that great. I just felt it to be a religious gimmick thriving on people's faith and money. We didn't get tickets for the exhibition, the boat ride and the robotic shows (Each ticket Rs. 200) but I didn't feel as if I missed much.  Instead we sat through the fountain show- (Each ticket priced at Rs. 30 and attended by scores of people). Other than being a dance of light, water and smoke this too isn't as spectacular as much as the hype that was created. Or am I missing something here? 

I just saw a lot of money being taken from people and just felt that religion is an extremely profitable business. So much for being the largest Hindu temple in the world. I still don't get the point. The best part about Akshardham was the number of languages that fell on our ears. Right from punjabi, gujrati, marathi, bengali, tamil and a number of others. People flock here just about from everywhere.

Moving on, we ended up making friends with a cycle-rickshawala. Got talking to him and came to know that they make an honest hard day's work. Cycling on bad roads, being bullied by the six-seater rickshaws and the worst I felt was the uphill cycling. I felt bad bargaining with them about the fare but that's how it is.

Crossing into U.P. on and off...being greeted by Mayawati 

Connaught Place was yet again a different story. It is daunting for a first timer to venture out there alone. The directions at the metro station (Rajiv Chowk) are very good and precise-only if you know where you have to go. We, having no fixed agenda just decided to amble along the inner ring road.  Most of the shops were just starting to open up (this at 11.30 in the morning!), found a ear-ring seller and bought a couple of pairs (people who know my fetish for ear-rings, it's obvious what I would do first!), found PVR Plaza where we am going for a film festival on Thursday and discovered a quaint little shop that serves awesome milkshakes in huge bottles all for 40 bucks.

The ubiquitous waterwallas dotted all over the city

 

CP  :)

Newspapers from La Francaise, Deutchland...all March editions.

No tobacco for under 18

English Dairy- Serves only North Indian cuisine

My meal

Palika Bazaar beckoned enticingly but my hosts had warned us against going there because of a crude crowd. It's not that we were fearful in going there but we reckoned that it's in our own interest that we stay away from unpleasant situations.

Coming back we found the same rickshawala and he dropped us back home. Today we are shifting from Vasundhara Enclave to our hostel at Sainik Farms. More to see, more to take in.

Cheers to exploring!

Poof-Off Again!

I am going back to my field area again (Basavakalyan) :)

I am going all alone with no one to guide me this time :(

It has always been my dream to travel in the heart of rural India alone :)

The temperature in Basavakalyan is going to hit 40 :(

I am eager to meet the children at the orphanage and also Malgudi type uncle-Kishan Kaka :)

My trip got planned after a lot of anxious moments as I couldn't find a field assistant :(

I have now found 3 field assistants and I hope I get along with them :)

My bags are yet to be packed, I have to make photocopies of my questionnaires, I have to have one last discussion with my advisor and I don't know the pick up point of my bus :(

But I know that the journey is more that 13 hours and I don't have my berth on the wheel this time :)

Though I am leaving in a rush, I still feel that I am much better prepared than last time :)

3 weeks in Bangalore and counting

Nothing can be more exciting than moving to a new city. The 3 S's (sights, sounds and smells) have to be imbibed all over again. I set off on my new city mission just a couple of days into the new year so moving into a new city was doubly exciting. Too much new stuff.
As I journeyed from Bangalore City Railway Station to Shrirampur I was thrilled by the bustling in the city. I was eager to dump all my luggage and jump off and go exploring. All the new routes to be learnt, quaint shops to be chanced upon, favourite places to be discovered. Aaah each thought set me up on a high.
My weekdays are very busy here. Every morning my roomie and me set off at 9.00 am to catch our shuttle bus for work. It makes us feel very important because we both are playing adults now. From buying our groceries, cooking, going for work and all in all we are carrying an important air about us. Smug really. I too have gotten more responsible. I can't seem to find trace of the lazy bum that I left home. I get up early, prepare my breakfast, clean my room and am always ready on time. My mum's efficiency has left it's mark on me. Thanks mum.
The weekends are a different story all together. The days are spent roaming the length and breadth of some place till my legs give way. The first weekend my friend and me had a leisurely brunch at the IISc Prakurthi Canteen and watched some monkeys play haovoc with food. Later we ambled all over Malleshwaram. We found a second hand bookstore and I bought a Wodehouse and English, August for myself-something that I had been waiting to read since a very long time. We ate yummy apple cakes and bought Moong Dal Halwa from Asha Sweets (Yum Yum!).  And later we rested in Sankey Tank looking at the water and the birds and gossiping after a very long time. My day was made.
The next weekend my roomie and I set off to Shivajinagar. Here too we roamed all over Commercial Street, Brigade Road and Chuch Road in search of the elusive Blossoms Bookstore. We tired out eventually with no luck and then we chanced upon Russel Market. I couldn't resist and plunged inside. And we again out on our adult demeanours to shop and bargain for some veggies. The day was awesome all in all.
And yesterday I finally met my sister. Co-incidentally we both got to work in the same city for the same time period. Real Sisters ??? :) She took care of me like always and I became her baby sister again. Now once again I'm off to be wrapped up under her wing again. Sisters are the best darlings in the world. Nothing comes close.

Over and out!

Will write in disjointed words. No time to frame sentences.

Train journeys-"The Blue Mountains"- The Nilgiris-Annamalai-Mudumalai-Cold chills-hot, steaming coffee-rich tropical forest-nature trails-night walks-leeches and ticks!-Teak, rosewood and of course sandalwood!-Inevitably Veerappan!!-Trumpeting elephants, Gaurs and Sambars-some photographs-late night nostalgia with friends-gossip and gupshup-moments-the last tour-the last time as a class-the last time with friends...

2nd day of the rains

Lights conked off suddenly. I didn't see it coming. I thought that the it would never build up into a storm. Thunder-storm. Ma'm says that there is a depression near Mumbai. This explains it. Water falling down in torrents. It's white-pure white. Crystal white. I can make out cyclones and anti-cyclones in mid air as the  wind effortlessly tosses  the rain about like it's some fascinating game.  And the rain seems to enjoy  this-surrendering in  an exploding rapture and the Thunder Gods growl. Hailstones showered down now. Looks like a sheet of pearls from afar but a closer inspection would call them perfect cones.Topazes would be more accurate.

For a while all the space not occupied by rain was filled with leaves. Helter-skelter they flew. A branch has fallen on someone's car. Where do all the birds go when it pours like this?

Now the storm has abated. Everything is wiped off the grime and dust. The green looks fresher. There's a traffic jam outside. Horns blaring loudly. But the rumbling thunder is louder drowning everything else. And a hideous dance enfolds.

Yesterday the rains nearly got me but I escaped from it's clutches. I raced with it yesterday and I won. Not a lick I got. Today I'm in the indoors. But the rain seems to have won the battle. I've yet to reach home :) 

Tamhini and D :)

Off tomorrow to Tamhini once again. From being one of the places high on my mother's list of forbidden places, now she surprisingly approves of me travelling there. I have no idea why the sudden change. It has nothing to do with me. Now I wangled it out of here. She trusts one among my friends-a super duper lovable bully who also screams like a cantankerous fisherman when she is 'teaching me the right way' to drive :)

D is pretty cool, she sometimes lets me be sarcastic, lets me wield her camera, lets me exasperate her as much as I can-but oh yes..she does exact her revenge in no uncertain terms. However, now I can't help bursting out with laughter when she is scolding at me for my idiotic driving. Her expressions are priceless at those moments, she doesn't know what to make of me at those moments and there I am doubled up in full glory. D looks comical then, her hair looking like a mop on her head.

Have to get up at 4 tomorrow and I am clueless as to why I signed up for this madness. I absolutely detest waking up at anytime before 8 and this unearthly hour is mighty unsuitable for me. But the trip there holds tantalising promises again-a flaming flash of the Giant Squirrel, the mating song of the cicadas, and Blue Mormons enticing you to follow them before disappearing in the wink of an eye.

Rajaon ka Sthan

I've been listening to a wonderful song since the past week- Mark Knopfler's -Me and the Wanderlust. It's fitting because the wanderlust bug has bitten really hard now. Packing up my bags for a 2 week tour of Rajasthan-The land of the Kings.

Home to one of the oldest people in India-The Bhils, somewhere there is a tiger if you are lucky enough to spot one, and someplace else the desert can swallow you in as you gaze mesmerised at the sifting sand dunes, the women who really know about colour all the more because of the bare and barren landscape, where the men dress in pristine white and turbans of varied hues adorn their heads, where the palaces in all their grandeur tell stories of centuries gone by, where the killas repeat tales of glory and sing praises venerating their heroes... and then the legends of the Rajputs...

Rajasthan seems to have offer all that a traveler craves for- Romance in Udaipur, Adventure with the wild-life, tempting cuisine to tickle the taste-buds, shopping for the love of art, royalty everywhere and brazen toughness also everywhere.

On previous occasions I have thought Rajasthan to be a dull, drab and boring state with nothing in it except sand and IIT classes. Hovever, since the time I have started reading about it I have been floating at higher heights, dumb-founded at the richness it offers. So spectacular, so splendid.

Our Rajasthan expedition starts with Jodhpur-the Blue City and then Jaisalmer, Bikaner, Jaipur, Abhaneri, Bharatpur, Ranthambore, Ajmer, Pushkar and ends with Udaipur-the Venice of the East. My scrapbook is ready, my bags are packed and I just have to get on that bus.

Bidding an au revoir with Knopfler's Wanderlust :-

Big black cloud
On a yellow plain
Sure enough it
Looks like rain
Packin' up all our
Faith and trust
Me and the wanderlust

Open window
Empty bed and chair
Who's that callin'
Ain't nobody there
I look behind me
And I see there's just
Me and the wanderlust

Dead of night
I had a dream
Sky was bright yes and the
Fields were green
I was down the road
In a cloud of dust
Me and the wanderlust

And I'm on the edge
Of an endless fall
Sure enough
He's come to call
Got to go now
Get on that bus
Me and the wanderlust

A Tribute to my friends

Had such a wonderful time today. Met all my friends from the bachelor days and it now seems such a long time since we sat together in class, talked crap while much more crappy lectures were going on, got the tag of permanently being engulfed by laughing gas, being scolded by teachers for not answering questions in class, sitting together for lunch, running up and down the corridors holding our flasks and petri-plates...all seems such a long time ago.

But frankly I was standing on one leg to be done with college and at that time I never thought that I would miss my friends so much. I don't miss college because it was a sad place but my friends made each and every minute I spent there seem worth-while.

One friend would just come to college to sleep, one friend had made it her life's ambition to dress to college everyday in pink, one friend would to college just to discuss how boring it is to come to college, one friend would come just to dance and the other one would just come to fill in her daily dose of movie gossip. Fascinating people all of them-really..

And the best part is now that I realised that I can have the same kind of fun with them anywhere and anytime. Nothing has changed.

Today we 5 of us met at SGS Mall at Camp and we all just burst out talking like just as if we had never parted. Each one had such fascinating incidents to relate-talking about cute and crush worthy professors at their new colleges, weird teachers who somehow manage to forget what they are teaching and some teachers who refuse to even come for the lectures. All this talk has got me eagerly waiting for my department to begin so that even I can join in with regards to this topic.

And then inevitably whenever we meet, out topic of discussion always turns to biotechnology. Now we are all biotechnology graduates and I found the course a nonsensical farce. My friends too found it a farce but they all stand by their decision to do their masters in Biotechnology whereas I was so disillusioned by the course that I had decided a year ago to fly the coop.

I found the course a mish-mash of all tid-bits from botany, zoology, microbiology, biochemistry and molecular biology and all this was just given a fancy name of Biotechnology. I would keep questioning that if one doesn't know the basic sciences how does one propose o do Biotechnology. Because Biotechnology, ultimately is an applied field which teaches you how to extract DNA but it doesn't teach you an iota about DNA. It's truly a sad state of affairs in most of the colleges in Pune. Students are all being taken in by the glamorous sounding word and colleges are wooing them by hundreds.

And the proposal put forth by Kapil Sibal to scrap specialised courses like this for the undergraduate level really vindicated what I felt about the course. So a yay! for that.
Well I have drifted off to somewhere else from what I had begun to write about. Just had to get these things out of my system.