The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their...
A flock of birds pecking
at something on the ground caught my attention. They looked like sparrows, so I
turned my attention instead to a Little Green Bee Eater plucking out insects
from the air. It was only when the tiny sparrow landed nearer me that I realised
it wasn’t a sparrow – or at least, it wasn’t the common House Sparrow I see
everywhere.
Out came the camera and I
clicked furiously as the flock went about having their lunch.
It was Karthik who
enlightened me about the identity of these birds – these are Yellow
Throated Sparrows, also called Chestnut Shouldered Petronias. They
are a species of sparrow found in Asia, from Turkey to Afghanistan, Pakistan,
India and Bangladesh. There are vagrants found in Sri Lanka and also Myanmar.
Apparently, it’s quite a common bird, found in gardens, fields, and forests,
and it made me wonder why I haven’t noticed any before.
Can you see the dark brownish or chestnut patch on the shoulder? That, and the pale yellow patch on its throat (which you can see if you look really close, unfortunately, I need a better camera to show you) give the bird its name.
Interestingly, this is
the bird which is said to have introduced the legendary Salim Ali to
Ornithology. As a young boy, he shot a sparrow that looked different, and the
then secretary of the BNHS (Bombay Natural History Society) identified it for
him, and also introduced him to the subject. His interest was sparked, and he
went on to become probably the most well-known ornithologist of the country. Isn’t
it interesting to see how simple things like these change the course of a
person’s life?
I guess I have never seen it before! Looks pretty.
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