It started with a cellphone that went missing the evening before. No, not mine. It was my wife's cellphone.
I am going to sneak in a few details here, since this is my blog, and nobody else really has a chance to defend herself in print on this forum. Kind of unfair. But that's the way it is. I know this is a risk I'm taking - generally wives tend to get back at you in different ways if they think that you've made fun of them.
Now that we've got the rules of the game sorted out for the moment - let's get back to the case of the missing phone.
So when I got home from office that evening, the house was (well, not quite as yet anyway) in an uproar. The wife had commandeered the other phones at home and was in the process of calling her mobile number in an effort to locate the missing device. Quite the sensible thing to do: let the ringtone hopefully lead you to the reluctant object which is hiding somewhere in the car, or inside a recently opened cupboard. But the phone wasn't ringing. Even more puzzling were the different responses from the mobile service provider: one saying - 'this number has been switched off'; another, far more ominously, not saying anything at all but maintaining a deathly silence. Not good. In turn, I too was pressed to try calling her number. But we got yet another different response this time.
It was clear that my wife would have to retrace her movements over the past hour because she said, 'I remember making a call about an hour ago'. She had been home all this while, so that definitely improved the odds of finding it quickly.
And find it quickly we did. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the different kinds of error messages displayed by washing machines. I am not. It would appear that sometimes these are not dissimilar from the old days when desktop computers stopped suddenly; the monitor took on a bluish pallor; and strange sounds issued forth, to subside only reluctantly when you pulled the power cord from the socket. So, our washing machine (and it is a most respectable and a dependable one), ground to a halt, beeped a few times, and started flashing a wholly indecipherable error. At this point, the penny obviously dropped for the wife. In a flash she had the lid open, briefly rummaged around inside, and then triumphantly held aloft the missing phone.
The phone, of course, had seen better days. Mysterious things had been done to it for the past half hour - some gently with water, and some, rather more vigorously, with soap. Quite clearly it was hors de combat.
Now, there is a very good reason I am telling you all this (even though the mystery has been solved already). This blog post is actually about our weekend trip looking for Lesser Florican and the Indian Bustard. So stay with me for a bit. Trust me. Though I may warn you that, in my experience, I have only a deep suspicion of anyone else who says 'trust me'!
The excitement of the missing cellphone had blown through on friday night, only partly distracting husband and wife in getting an overnighter packed; in charging the camera battery; in checking that the golf umbrella didn't leak, etc.
Saturday is a (half) working day for the two of us, so by the time we were on our way it was past 3 pm. Not a problem; we had an easy three hour drive from Jaipur towards Bhilwara on the expressway.
We discovered we were without a cellphone soon enough. I had forgotten my phone at home. The wife's phone we knew was in several pieces, each soapier and wetter than the other. You only experience the handicap of a modern phone-less existence when you are travelling, as we were to learn shortly.
Our destination for the night was Fort Barli. Our hosts, Karni and Pallavi, had given us directions the night before. More precisely, I had been given directions. Let me confess that I am quite hopeless with directions.
Anyhow, we arrived Vijaynagar within three hours, being only slightly delayed by torrential rain (I mean almost complete white-out conditions). We had about 9 km to negotiate from Vijaynagar to Fort Barli. I remembered most of the directions, which seemed simple enough, but there was no way to recheck with Karni at this point. Yes, I know what you're thinking - why couldn't I find a STD booth in Vijaynagar and get confirmation. Several good reasons: but just one would suffice - cellphone numbers remain hidden in cellphones, which we were both without. No way of calling our hosts.
No problem, we could simply ask this helpful-looking rickshawallah the way to Barli.
'Achha Buddly, just go straight from here' he said. That was easy.
We ran the usual gauntlet of any small Indian town: narrow streets through the bazaar; cattle in the middle of the road since only the middle is dry; across the railway track; until we arrived at an obstacle. The rainwater had collected in an underpass in our path. As we hesitated, a motorcycle rushed past. The driver, a youngster, clearly believed in the 'leap-in-before-you-think' school of thought. He raced through raising giant plumes of water, drenching only the pillion-rider. We followed slowly and carefully. A short distance ahead the water-skating champ's bike had stalled. His companion looked rueful, not so much because of his ruined clothes, but rather more, in that he would now have to push the bike to the nearest mechanic.
Our mirth, however, was quickly tempered by the realization that I had managed to get us lost.
'Nothing new' said the long-suffering wife. It would take us the better part of an hour to finally reach our destination for the night.
Let me add that the birding on sunday meant a pre-dawn drive of an hour to arrive at Sonkhaliya. The rest of the day also passed in a blur, culminating in our return home by evening. It was all quite tiring.
So tiring in fact, that I find myself unable to follow my usual birding trip template: describing the birds, and the lovely property we stayed in; our companions for the trip who had driven down from Udaipur (Happy, Anuradha and AVS); instead I'm going to sign off here with a wannabe haiku (apologies in advance to AVS - I still don't know the rules for composing a real haiku) -
Rain glistening grasses
Jaunty plumes wave in the breeze
In jumping display the florican croaks.
But before I let the Lesser Florican tell us a little bit about his life at Sonkhaliya, let me just add that you would find uniformly excellent reviews of www.fortbarli.com
at this link
http://www.tripadvisor.in/Hotel_Review-g1443432-d1378899-Reviews-Fort_Barli-Barli_Rajasthan.html
So you don't have to read a freeloader's feedback (ie., mine), when you can see what paying guests think of the place!
And now, over to the male Lesser Florican at Sonkhaliya ...
I have been visiting these grasslands over many monsoons now. This is my habitat. Perhaps it would be incorrect to call these areas grasslands any more. Every year the farms spread farther afield, the open mines gouge out the earth, and there are humans everywhere. The farms I can adapt to. To survive here I must. In some pockets of cultivation, I think, the humans use less pesticide. They call these crops moong and urad. I try and find shelter here.
Oh, before I go any further, I must show you what I look like.
.jpg)
Yes, I know what you're thinking - that's not a good photograph. And yet I gave several opportunities this morning to the blogger - surely he could have done better.
I'm hoping the other photographers will have done justice to my beauty. They certainly had huge lenses. I'm not so sure about the camouflage netting they wore though. But you get all sorts of humans here these days. They know our days are numbered.
.jpg)
Before you start feeling sorry for me, I'll let you in on a secret. I am here to attract the ladies. Most of us males are rather fond of the ladies, I'm afraid. We like to lay claim to our little territories. You wouldn't want to see me driving off a rival male. I can be quite rude.
The only problem about attracting the ladies is that all of us have the same party trick. The earlier photograph shows me at the apogee of my jump. That's my courtship display.
Of course, all this jumping about while sounding like a demented bullfrog is bound to attract more attention than just from the ladies.
Some years ago bands of humans decided they would pick us off with shotguns. I'm not quite sure when and why this stopped. Rumours abound that one of the reasons could be that we are not very good eating. Perhaps because we like to eat just about anything, even the evil-smelling blister flies. You can't imagine what it takes to survive nowadays.
After I get the attention of one of the ladies, I'm going to try my luck with another ... and another! I am quite incorrigible you know. And all of this running around and doing my stuff makes me quite tired to take any part in parental duties. In any case that's what the ladies are good at.
Later, I'll just fly off alone to my little secret place after a couple of months...
* Author's note (the blogger, not the florican!):
If you would like to see a list of all the other birds we saw, and whether we dipped on the Indian Bustard, you can always email me at sahdevsingh2004@yahoo.co.in
I am going to sneak in a few details here, since this is my blog, and nobody else really has a chance to defend herself in print on this forum. Kind of unfair. But that's the way it is. I know this is a risk I'm taking - generally wives tend to get back at you in different ways if they think that you've made fun of them.
Now that we've got the rules of the game sorted out for the moment - let's get back to the case of the missing phone.
So when I got home from office that evening, the house was (well, not quite as yet anyway) in an uproar. The wife had commandeered the other phones at home and was in the process of calling her mobile number in an effort to locate the missing device. Quite the sensible thing to do: let the ringtone hopefully lead you to the reluctant object which is hiding somewhere in the car, or inside a recently opened cupboard. But the phone wasn't ringing. Even more puzzling were the different responses from the mobile service provider: one saying - 'this number has been switched off'; another, far more ominously, not saying anything at all but maintaining a deathly silence. Not good. In turn, I too was pressed to try calling her number. But we got yet another different response this time.
It was clear that my wife would have to retrace her movements over the past hour because she said, 'I remember making a call about an hour ago'. She had been home all this while, so that definitely improved the odds of finding it quickly.
And find it quickly we did. I don't know how many of you are familiar with the different kinds of error messages displayed by washing machines. I am not. It would appear that sometimes these are not dissimilar from the old days when desktop computers stopped suddenly; the monitor took on a bluish pallor; and strange sounds issued forth, to subside only reluctantly when you pulled the power cord from the socket. So, our washing machine (and it is a most respectable and a dependable one), ground to a halt, beeped a few times, and started flashing a wholly indecipherable error. At this point, the penny obviously dropped for the wife. In a flash she had the lid open, briefly rummaged around inside, and then triumphantly held aloft the missing phone.
The phone, of course, had seen better days. Mysterious things had been done to it for the past half hour - some gently with water, and some, rather more vigorously, with soap. Quite clearly it was hors de combat.
Now, there is a very good reason I am telling you all this (even though the mystery has been solved already). This blog post is actually about our weekend trip looking for Lesser Florican and the Indian Bustard. So stay with me for a bit. Trust me. Though I may warn you that, in my experience, I have only a deep suspicion of anyone else who says 'trust me'!
The excitement of the missing cellphone had blown through on friday night, only partly distracting husband and wife in getting an overnighter packed; in charging the camera battery; in checking that the golf umbrella didn't leak, etc.
Saturday is a (half) working day for the two of us, so by the time we were on our way it was past 3 pm. Not a problem; we had an easy three hour drive from Jaipur towards Bhilwara on the expressway.
We discovered we were without a cellphone soon enough. I had forgotten my phone at home. The wife's phone we knew was in several pieces, each soapier and wetter than the other. You only experience the handicap of a modern phone-less existence when you are travelling, as we were to learn shortly.
Our destination for the night was Fort Barli. Our hosts, Karni and Pallavi, had given us directions the night before. More precisely, I had been given directions. Let me confess that I am quite hopeless with directions.
Anyhow, we arrived Vijaynagar within three hours, being only slightly delayed by torrential rain (I mean almost complete white-out conditions). We had about 9 km to negotiate from Vijaynagar to Fort Barli. I remembered most of the directions, which seemed simple enough, but there was no way to recheck with Karni at this point. Yes, I know what you're thinking - why couldn't I find a STD booth in Vijaynagar and get confirmation. Several good reasons: but just one would suffice - cellphone numbers remain hidden in cellphones, which we were both without. No way of calling our hosts.
No problem, we could simply ask this helpful-looking rickshawallah the way to Barli.
'Achha Buddly, just go straight from here' he said. That was easy.
We ran the usual gauntlet of any small Indian town: narrow streets through the bazaar; cattle in the middle of the road since only the middle is dry; across the railway track; until we arrived at an obstacle. The rainwater had collected in an underpass in our path. As we hesitated, a motorcycle rushed past. The driver, a youngster, clearly believed in the 'leap-in-before-you-think' school of thought. He raced through raising giant plumes of water, drenching only the pillion-rider. We followed slowly and carefully. A short distance ahead the water-skating champ's bike had stalled. His companion looked rueful, not so much because of his ruined clothes, but rather more, in that he would now have to push the bike to the nearest mechanic.
Our mirth, however, was quickly tempered by the realization that I had managed to get us lost.
'Nothing new' said the long-suffering wife. It would take us the better part of an hour to finally reach our destination for the night.
Let me add that the birding on sunday meant a pre-dawn drive of an hour to arrive at Sonkhaliya. The rest of the day also passed in a blur, culminating in our return home by evening. It was all quite tiring.
So tiring in fact, that I find myself unable to follow my usual birding trip template: describing the birds, and the lovely property we stayed in; our companions for the trip who had driven down from Udaipur (Happy, Anuradha and AVS); instead I'm going to sign off here with a wannabe haiku (apologies in advance to AVS - I still don't know the rules for composing a real haiku) -
Rain glistening grasses
Jaunty plumes wave in the breeze
In jumping display the florican croaks.
But before I let the Lesser Florican tell us a little bit about his life at Sonkhaliya, let me just add that you would find uniformly excellent reviews of www.fortbarli.com
at this link
http://www.tripadvisor.in/Hotel_Review-g1443432-d1378899-Reviews-Fort_Barli-Barli_Rajasthan.html
So you don't have to read a freeloader's feedback (ie., mine), when you can see what paying guests think of the place!
And now, over to the male Lesser Florican at Sonkhaliya ...
I have been visiting these grasslands over many monsoons now. This is my habitat. Perhaps it would be incorrect to call these areas grasslands any more. Every year the farms spread farther afield, the open mines gouge out the earth, and there are humans everywhere. The farms I can adapt to. To survive here I must. In some pockets of cultivation, I think, the humans use less pesticide. They call these crops moong and urad. I try and find shelter here.
Oh, before I go any further, I must show you what I look like.
.jpg)
Yes, I know what you're thinking - that's not a good photograph. And yet I gave several opportunities this morning to the blogger - surely he could have done better.
I'm hoping the other photographers will have done justice to my beauty. They certainly had huge lenses. I'm not so sure about the camouflage netting they wore though. But you get all sorts of humans here these days. They know our days are numbered.
.jpg)
Before you start feeling sorry for me, I'll let you in on a secret. I am here to attract the ladies. Most of us males are rather fond of the ladies, I'm afraid. We like to lay claim to our little territories. You wouldn't want to see me driving off a rival male. I can be quite rude.
The only problem about attracting the ladies is that all of us have the same party trick. The earlier photograph shows me at the apogee of my jump. That's my courtship display.
Of course, all this jumping about while sounding like a demented bullfrog is bound to attract more attention than just from the ladies.
Some years ago bands of humans decided they would pick us off with shotguns. I'm not quite sure when and why this stopped. Rumours abound that one of the reasons could be that we are not very good eating. Perhaps because we like to eat just about anything, even the evil-smelling blister flies. You can't imagine what it takes to survive nowadays.
After I get the attention of one of the ladies, I'm going to try my luck with another ... and another! I am quite incorrigible you know. And all of this running around and doing my stuff makes me quite tired to take any part in parental duties. In any case that's what the ladies are good at.
Later, I'll just fly off alone to my little secret place after a couple of months...
* Author's note (the blogger, not the florican!):
If you would like to see a list of all the other birds we saw, and whether we dipped on the Indian Bustard, you can always email me at sahdevsingh2004@yahoo.co.in
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