Blog
Tiny Invaders
If you’ve ever been into a forest—and liked it—there’s probably something that stayed with you. For one of my friends, it was a tree he named the White Elephant. For another friend, it was a caterpillar that they could never identify. For me, during my time in the...
A Resumed Hobby – Identifying Flora with my Niece
On the full moon night of April’s pink moon, I walk with my five-year-old niece amidst mango showers in our colony, in hot and humid Bangalore. This time around, we observe plants, ants and tree barks. She surprised me with a peculiar flower that had bracts and was...
Semal trees
In April, it rains cotton in Delhi. The source of this cotton is the Semal tree or silk cotton tree which botanists call Bombax ceiba. It is for its showy, starfish-like scarlet flowers which bloom from February to March that city planners have adorned Delhi’s...
Arboreal Almanac
I often lose track of time. The pace of modern life is such. Sometimes days go by in such a blur, I have to check the calendar - What day is it exactly? Which month are we in? How long until the balmy summer gives way to cool rains? When will winter come? These are...
Our Shrine – The biggest Banyan of Pollachi
During my childhood, trees were an integral part of my daily life. Our home was at the edge of the village, where the village ended and the coconut farms started. At school, we often had lunch beneath the shade of Thongu Moonji (Rain Tree). After school, my friends...
The reason I fell in love with the forest yet again!!!
It was October of 2022. It had only been a few weeks since I started working in a forest resort located in Lonavala as a 'Naturalist'. I was conducting nature trails for a living. On one fine evening, I was returning from my nature trail and was going to get my...
Meaning-making from Trees
Meanings are derived from ontologies. You know how we talk about humans looking up at the stars, reflecting on how they inspire thoughts and philosophies of comparative existence; that stars reminded them of the vastness of the world and the minuscule existence of...
Like Living Root Bridges
I heard a story about ka jingkieng Jri & the story of mutualism Of sturdy, of diversity, of path ahead In a continuous improvement process The resilience of ka Jingkiengjri is such that it can withstand adversity by its strong roots entwined together by people...
The Hollock Tree
The morning was cool, and the air fresh and frosty. Dawn had just broken through the malleable night. Eager to make new feathered acquaintances, we set out early along a solitary road that floated up towards a dead end. It was our first day in Roing, Arunachal...
Home is a Fig Tree
There’s this gorgeous friend I want you to meet. Rooted in land owned by a charitable trust, she is surrounded by a granary, a bakery, a government school, a busy thoroughfare, a storm-water drain, and our four-storeyed apartment. A Tamarind tree grows side by...
The Apricot Trees of Ladakh: A Symbol of Culture, Biodiversity, and Hope
Our journey began with a simple observation: the traditional game of hopscotch often involves the fig tree, but fig trees aren’t native to Ladakh. Inspired by this, our mentor, Ms. Preeti Chauhan, encouraged us to replace the fig tree with the apricot tree—a...
The Rewards of Time
The end of a year, or the beginning of another, calls for some reflections on times past and those to look forward to. While ‘new’ means hopes and resolutions, wading through the rest of the worn-out year and the unaccomplished can be taxing, which stands to show...