Nine notes

A sudden gaze through my dormitory window was that of blurry stars, at first didn’t really get if it was the cloudy sky or my sleepy eyes that gave a swinging effect to the stars. But forest keeps one curious, even in sleep.  A closer and longer look at it, cracked the curiosity.  It was but a simmering strand of spider's web, the infrequent patterned light that reflected on the strand gave it the look of blurry-swinging stars. 

Now why this theatrical drift? Coz it strangely got me (re) connected to the quantum oneness of all that cosmos holds and beholds, inside which our observations were to unfold during the next 5 days, as we set open 9 windows, which the Biomimicry lady- Janine Benyus, describes in her book- Innovations Inspired from Nature - as nature’s laws, strategies, and principles that resonates in all that exists, in both visible and invisible paradigms.  According to her, “Life has some very universal, common strategies- that it uses across the board simply because they work so well”, I have all the reasons and, if need be- the willingness to unlearn to believe that.  

Not drifting any further – the 9 laws, for the next 5 days at Tadoba national park, oh, sorry- Tadoba Tiger Reserve, were to be sanctified as a musician would do to the 7 notes of music. It was not about looking for logics and explanations on why 9 and why only 9, but to seek examples, to practice and balance the scale of 9, to tune our senses and orient our thinking, to take back building material for ideas and its applications, or simply to observe as never before.

Following is the summary of our findings, with an earnest attempt to not dilute your observations while you are at your findings when next in a forest: 
 

1. Nature runs on Sunlight: Now isn't that one of the most obvious and central to life's existence phenomenon?
But to revisit this knowledge as a Principle, perhaps gives an access to observe it as a brilliant mechanism in use both by organic and inorganic to 'run on sunlight'. Run- which also indicates a cyclic formation, a recurring phenomenon, self-sustaining and thus abundant, like the life-nurturing photosynthesis.

This time at Tadoba forest (April), flawlessly demonstrates what it takes to be known as 'dry deciduous'. Bare trees with sketched branches, shedding off the greens. Greens that run on sunlight, incessantly manufacturing all that is required for nurturing growth. Interestingly, the same star, also enables the mechanism to shed off.  Perhaps, the reason for leaves to be known as 'leaves' with a promise to come back, giving the forest an almost upside down scattered canopy, as all the greens- now dried and brown, work as a fantastic insulation to retain ground water and also harvest dew to refill quenching portion of what got evaporated.

2. Nature uses only the energy it needs: Nothing can beat this evolutionary mechanism when it comes to energy management. A tree's ability to strategically prevent 'growth' due to lack of water, 

Langurs using trees' kinetic energy by springing from one branch to the other.

The Sambars seem to be well aware of this phenomenon, and thus dare to play safe in the same pond inhabiting the tigresses.

Using this Principle as a default mechanism, Crocodiles are built to last! With a body mass that exceeds 4 tons, crocodiles can control their metabolic rate; they can slow their heart down to only two or three beats a minute when they are inactive, and can widen or narrow their blood vessels to limit or increase blood and oxygen supply to peripheral parts of the body as and when needed.

In addition, being "cold-blooded", they don't use metabolic energy to maintain their body temperature. All this enables them to survive for long periods without eating at all; big crocodiles can go for more than a year without feeding and even new hatchlings can survive for four months on the fat from the remains of the yolk-sac. No surprise how they outlived the dinosaurs. 

3. Nature Fits form to Function: Look at the stoned form on to your right. It took me full 8 minutes to help my mom sight it! A Nightjar, perfectly fit form to camouflage. A remarkable design! 

Form in nature is material science for us. The beak of a Parakeet is built to eat, chew, feel, preen, feed, hold objects and  defend. 

 

The Tiger- a form perfectly fit to be on the apex- robust built, honed focus, agile yet discreet, stealthily camouflaged. All brilliantly performing as synchronized tools to function as a shrewd hunter. Interestingly, forms outwit forms, giving a counter edge to all that one species banks upon. Rule to survive.  

 

4. Nature Recycles everything : and this is so intrinsically performed that nothing is kept out of the loop. A closed loop recycle system- soil to minerals- minerals to roots, roots to sap- sap to stems- stems to leaves- leaves back to soil and the show goes on. 

 

5. Nature rewards cooperation by default, as there is nothing that species do for each other that is not rewarding. hm. That explains quite a lot. Pollination, seed-dispersal, survival calls, local travels, free dentistry, regular pest control and the list is endless. thankfully!
  Look on to your left, the crowded sky of canopy yet  cooperating enough space for growth. 

And the hungry butterfly below getting rewarded by the nectar luring flower.   


6. Nature banks on diversity:  

How often have we really thanked to be born in a Tropical region? Never, I know, because we never correlate the sultry weather as one of the ruling factors for the diversity that we are endowed with.

As a matter of fact, diversity banks on diversity,  just for example- the world of birds- as  many types that many beaks and and claws and those many seeds dispersal and pest control and food chain and what not! Look at the photos and dare to disagree :) 

7. Nature demands local expertise
Let’s not argue who said it Charles Darwin or Herbert Spencer –‘Survival of the fittest’,  the fact remains, that the said rule cannot be applied if you are any short of street smartness. Survival strategies drive local expertise and vice-versa.  Look at the tiger cub Do you think this  young one would have survived even a week in an unknown terrain without its maternity's local expertise.


8. Nature curbs excesses from within 

An inherently inbuilt mechanism at play to ensure survival, sustainability and sustenance. Tiger at the apex naturally controlling the prey-base, sloth bears feasting on bee hives ensuring sustenance through pollination, parched trees shedding off leaves, cold-blooded reducing their metabolic activity, in fact the best one observed was the pair of wild-dogs, who even pruned ‘excess’ hair cover to keep off heat!

  

 9.Nature taps the power of limits

This is one of the most beautifully explained laws of all, in Janine’s words, “is perhaps the most opaque to us because we humans regard limits as a universal dare, something to overcome so we can continue our expansion. Other Earthlings take their limits more seriously, knowing they must function within a tight range of life-friendly temperatures, harvest within the carrying capacity of the land, and maintain an energy balance that cannot be borrowed against. Within these ‘limits’, life unfurls her colours with virtuosity, using limits as a source of power, a focusing mechanism. Because nature spins her spell in such a small space, her creations read like a poem that says only what it means”.

  All these collectively conclude, what Beethoven once poetically exclaimed on a music page:

happy every one

in the Woods

every Tree speaks

through thee!

nature of odds

Courtesy a stranger, its beginning to intrigue me no extent to see numbers manifesting forms and shapes, acting like recurring patterns to fit form to function.

the recent visit to the Bor wildlife sanctuary, and  my recent exploration of numbers coincided and everything that our eyes spotted, searched for numerical phenomenons breathing beneath. Well, agreed, when i say number in nature, Geometry gets automatically applied.

To briefly tell you about this forest, which has got nothing to do with my latest fetish, is one of the least explored forests in the southwestern range of Satpura ranges, located at Hingni in Wardha, Maharashtra.

It covers a modest area of 61 sq km. Covered with southern mixed dry deciduous forest, thickly fencing a widespread lake. An aerial view of this place will be no less than that of the Christmas door wreath, and quite metaphorically made of the greens, to symbolize strength, as the perennial lake lasts even throughout the harshest summer of Vidharbh region.

Tigers, Leopards, blue bulls, spotted deer, sambars, peacocks, barking deers, langurs, wild boars, bears and wild dogs are all in their most naturally expressed selves. Green pastures on the banks of the lake are like a platter of feast for the 12 tigers inhabiting here. In many ways, Bor is like the little sister of Tadoba and you got to visit her to believe me.

Meanwhile, let me see, how best can i introduce you to this forest, through numbers and geometry. We explored the forest cover for mapping transects and pugmark pads. Until now, numbers that i came across, were seen less in wilderness, but more in our gadgets, was amazed to see the live functioning of a GPS and what a fantastic tool AKA blessing it is for foresters. We in no time could create a very resourceful map of and for the sanctuary.

To begin with Birds. we sighted multiples of approx. 79 species of birds across three days. Not bad at all. Interestingly, on every safari, we often sighted same winged individuals, at same location and in exactly same posture, followed to the very same clicks of our camera, like some Déjà vu.
A deeper look at all that i spotted, from colours of birds to shapes of leaves, structure of seeds, stripes of tigers, spots of cheetals, barks of trees, cones of pine, spirals of antlers, nodes of twigs, phew. its almost breathless. It all displayed only patterns- beneath inbuilt geometry - beneath evolutionary mathematics, which seemed to have worked for eons, after a whole lot of trial and error. now functioning almost as a cosmic sigma.

This forest is brimming with diversity, each of it individually is encased in series of numbers, to manifest beautiful shapes, all of which fits perfectly for what is required to perform, individually at macro level and ecologically at micro level. Look at the photo on to your rights and lefts

The thing that is common in all these, is in their arrangement of their leaves, flowers, seeds and in some cases even barks.

Why do these arrangements occur? The reason for seeds seems to be that this arrangement forms an optimal packing of the seeds so that, no matter how large the seed head, they are uniformly packed at any stage, all the seeds being the same size, no crowding in the centre and not too sparse at the edges.

In the case of leaf arrangement, or phyllotaxis, some of the cases may be related to maximizing the space for each leaf, or the average amount of light falling on each one. When new leaves grow from a plant, they grow in a spiral around the plant's stem. Nature spaces the leaves in this way so that higher leaves do not shade the lower leaves too much from sunlight.

The number of turns in the spiral (from leaf to leaf) and the number of leaves that exist in the pattern in all cases express a Fibonacci fraction and therefore a Fibonacci ratio.

The same pattern repeats again and again as the plant grows. In the case of close-packed leaves in cabbages and succulents the correct arrangement may be crucial for availability of space. So nature isn't trying to use the Fibonacci numbers: they are appearing as a by-product of a deeper physical process.

That is why the spirals are imperfect. The plant is responding to physical constraints, not to a mathematical rule. hmm. that explains a lot!

Melghat- to my best.…

Its been almost a month that (part of me) ‘ve come back from the forests of Melghat, and & ever since then, I have been making plans of going there again....

Jan 2010, began for many of us with an ever increased concern of losing tigers. At a time when i get wrecked about the dwindling numbers going out of reality- with only 1400 plus or God forbid minus tigers left, the loss seems inevitable…….in midst of these, I received an invitation message from Rajashree Khalap of Satpuda Foundation, about an estimation exercise, I pounced on the opportunity and got myself to Semadoh, one of the ranges in the three divisions of Melghat Tiger Reserve (1676 sq. km). It is located in northern part of Amravati District in Maharashtra.

Semadoh, as my mum says, is an hindi colloquial for borders, geographically I cannot say, but, metaphorically this place is indeed of ‘borders’, as I could vividly see the two distinct worlds- one that I came from & one that I lived in for seven days.

Travel to Semadoh was a joy ride – from Badnera to Amravati, the landscape on either side of my ST bus was only plains & plateaus and from Paratwada onwards it was only mountains & valley. Indian landscapes have always amazed me with this - anywhere between the radius of 50-60 kms, the landscape just alters & the beauty diversifies. Semadoh is situated on the banks of river Spina.

@ Simadoh

From 26^th jan to 2^nd Feb, I was scheduled to be in this forest! was allotted a beat that was under the supervision of Forester, Ms. Sheetal Dhande, my camera went berserk taking photos when I would see her in the forester’s uniform!

The Semadoh range has around 8 foresters, each have been allotted a beat of roughly around 3000 hectares (30 Sq Kms), along with three guards & around 8-9 Chaukidaars. Semadoh is one of the five ranges in the division Sipna, the other two territorial divisions are Gugamal & Narnala . Along with me, the beat was supposed to have two more volunteers, who did not turn up.

My home-sweet-home was the check post at Kuwapatti (around 10 kms away from the Semadoh village). Less than 100 Sq ft accommodated seven of us, while your highness having one room all to myself! …at times like these, I get inspired to write a book titled: “This can happen only in India”.

27^th Jan evening, while on a rustic bamboo bench I was cross examining- how within a just span of 24 hrs, I was altogether in a different mental & physical paradigm, with the forests’ incessant whistling, dusk falling on tree tops, the gridded sky view through dry canopy, & stars ogling through this grid, in midst of these glades - was totally ballooned with the thought of being one amongst this forest for the

next six days….!!

Each day was unique, special and a revelation; the first three days were for carnivore animal’s estimation, for which we were given instructions to look for pugmarks, scats, & any & all other evidences to estimate the presence of various species of carnivores in our allotted compartment. On an average, every day we climbed (the guards galloped) around 7-8 Kms across our allotted area (pls see the map on your right).

Our day would begin at 6 am, starting our march at 6.30, every guard left in different directions, along with one chaukidaar.

I was fortunate to accompany one on either day, we usually got back by 12.30-1 to our base camp, have bath, eat monstrously, write log, fill up forms, meet our forester, either visit her at her quarters in Semadoh or she would visit us at Kuwapatti, both were equally delightful, as that was the only time when our entire team would be together.The last three days, we moved along the transect for the herbivore estimation, the guards & us had instructions to cover (to & fro) allotted transect of 2.5 kms and thus make our observations. (To make it easier, rather than giving you a rundown on each day, I will provide a consolidated version of my overall observation about the forest little later in my text)

The evenings were for sharing endless talks, as I had a bag full of questions so did Mr. More, one of the guards, who had a strong affinity towards Mumbai- so he would often exhaust me with questions on & about Mumbai. Each time he would pause to dwell in what I said, I tried shifting the conversation asking our korku tribesmen about their history, culture & traditions or to the guards about the forest life, management and their family back home, so this went on for almost all evenings. The evenings were also interspersed with some grocery shopping, cooking,singing folk songs & sighting of flying squirrels- the best of all!

Meeting SundarMala

There was an excellent reason, why all three guards stayed together in the same checkpost, inspite of them having one to each. The three check posts were Pipalpadav, Kuwapatti and Chadupatti; and we kept meandering between Pipalpadav and Kuwapatti as Chadupatti was home to an elephantess- Sundarmala- which indeed she was, a 55 yr old beautiful, majestic elephantess. She gave us a very touching farewell by taking us on a 4 km ride. Wow! totally electric.

Random observations

As a Southern dry deciduous forest, vegetative diversity varied from around 4-6 tree species per 100 Sq Mts (approx.), with around 50-60 individuals, the dominants ones are teak medium size babul, and khaire. The soil is red and with good water retaining capacity.

One of the key indicators here is the diversity of shrubs found other than mere lantana, as unlike many other forests in the western ghats. This certainly confirms that there is very little or no human interference. There were some patches, where the diversity was hardly 1-2 species in an area of 100 Sq. Mts, mainly these were teak and khair.

Bamboo bushes, though planted were well spread across the forest, one of the two species that I noticed, has just begun its fatal bloom. The canopy was unusually green due to the November shower. Bird sighting was comparatively poor; the best sighting was of the Serpent Eagle. Also, I must confess that i was too gripped in experiencing the core forest than on tracking bird notes. Crows of Tree Pie, Beaeaters, Large & small barbets, racket tailed, ashy, white bellied drongos, yet the list is quite full.

There were some patches that we visited in the course of our survey which were now completely undisturbed, we were so prone to be lost in the teak labyrinth, eventually getting better with sense of directions, the chaukidaars seem to have an inbuilt binoculars mounted on their eyes. From nowhere they could sight sambars, chital, bison, barking deer, wild boars, etc, etc., even identifying pugmarks & scats were done by them.

the tigress’ territory

My last day walk was with Thorat, a guard who was allotted transect near pipalpadav. It was known, that a tigress (whom they are yet to name) has homed this place since three years now and not bred even once, a lingering indicator of shrinking gene pool perhaps (??).

We found her fresh pugmarks of her graceful walk all across the banks of a stream that empties near a waterhole named Fitkaripani. One of the Arjuna barks smelt of her territorial evidence; the spray was fresh and filled the space with her presence. Drinking water from this stream made me remotely experience, what it is to call ‘my territory’ that is not confined to any department, or state or country. There is no external significance to this territory, but a survival strategy that has worked over an evolution, left the place with this thought of oneness and the water within, both that has trickled from across forests- an experience that is simply irreplaceable.

Like my little post card….

Even after extending my stay, like all good things, this too had come to an end. While I write this to you, I can imagine that the forest will be in its complete fall, simmering golden forest floor with a clear sky embedded in bare branches, the star-kissed sky and the floating-flying squirrels, all of these and more is my ticket back there!

I deeply acknowledge Rajashree from Satpuda Foundation, to send this angelic invitation and also my two best friends who came down after my estimation, for whom i happily extended my stay!