Hirudin day

Madla camp

07-09-09

Woke up late in Madla camp in Bhadra Tiger Reserve today. With eyes still half open I cut about 2 cm candle, put some wood together and started a fire. Coffee next and then Shankara anna made me rice and dal. Plan of the day was crossing the swollen Somavahini river and going to abandoned paddy fields in Hipla and Karvani villages. After breakfast, we went to the river to inspect, had to divert to plan B since the river was uncrossable! We had to get to abandoned agricultural fields in Kesave village but through a longer route. We had enquired earlier if there was an alternative route without crossing the river but no one in the Forest Department knew. Shankara anna said that we should find a way on our own, so we walked on.

We left at 11 am hoping we can go along the side of the river. Though a river winds a lot, we thought it would not be longer than 5 km since the jeep trail was only 3 km long. We start to walk. I hadn't judged the terrain in this season and was wearing slippers, much to the delight of the leeches. In all the muck/swamp the slippers proved what they are called and several times I had to fix broken slippers. In all this commotion, there was no time to even remove leeches. It took us abut 3 hours and about 100 leeches. We reach at 2.15 pm, finish vegetation sampling by 3.30 and walk back in about 2 hours since we knew the route back. Another 100 leeches. I reach camp, take this photograph and salted them. I'd have never imagined a day like this in field. I drank a cofee, had the evening meal and put my feet in a stream closeby and the fish cleaned up most of the mess in my legs. Later I lie down writing this and conclude 'leeches suck!'

Nothing too crazy here, leeches just suck!

Chinese whispers!

Last night I was in the Bhadra Tiger Reserve, Madla camp and I was listening to the great band Queen. Before that I tuned my radio to short wave to look for more interesting channels than Akashvani-Hassana. First channel I tuned in reminded me of times in Arunachal and after listening to Queen I was thinking ‘all we hear is, Chinese channels’. Somebody please tell me why there are so many, so many Chinese channels. Does this have anything to do with the fact that the radio I was using was ‘Made in China’. I can understand this if I was in Bomdo village in Arunachal, I was so close to Tibet, it was but natural to tune into Chinese channels. There was even a program teaching Chinese in English. 'Wan-an' I remember hearing which means good night and then I turned off the radio and fell asleep. And yes, how do they produce that music with jarring instruments, sounds like elephants are tuning their trunks! I do listen to a bit of Chinese classical music but to hear this in a camp in a forest is not a pleasant experience, trust me.

By the way, I then found BBC, good one. I remembered listening to BBC in Garo hills and Arunachal and felt nice to tune in from Bhadra. A discussion was on about the similarity between Hinduism concept of beginning of the world and that of science. A radio is, I think the best thing to have in field and the best thing to gift your field assistant after the field season! My MSc field assistant Shankara anna, who I am presently with in my camp after three years told me, ‘everyday when I turn on the radio you gave me, I think in my mind, ‘Hi Karthik’!’ Apparently the radio was even offered a price of 1500 bucks, but he wouldn’t part with it. It’s a Grundig hand-crank radio, he has also tied a wire to its antenna to make it reach out. A minute of cranking produces ten minutes news or some good music or some Chinese music. This time, it had batteries to save all the cranking! I gave another radio to a friend in Ramsing, Upper Siang, will he be listening to it everyday too, I wonder...