One more

As we looked back at the way we had come, we found this fellow in the middle of the path, looking at us. His companion had gone a bit ahead and was already in the shadows. How do I describe seeing two of them? 

Reminded me of an old story about a tailor who wanted to order two units of a special kind of pressing iron called the 'goose'. He wrote out an order for 'two geese'. Reading it, he thought that sounded odd, so he changed it to 'two gooses'. This was odd too. So he wrote a new note: 

"Please send one goose. Thank you! 

P.S. please send another one too."

So yes, I saw two mongooses. Two mongeese a mongoose. And I saw another one, too!

Displaced

There was a time when traffic along the ECR was controlled, not by any human agency, but by these friends of ours. Domesticated buffaloes were a-plenty, and if they decide to amble across the road, the rest of the world had to find a way around them. 

I was told that when the Sheraton property on ECR was being constructed, the most difficult task they had was to herd these animals away from the construction site. But they were not forgotten; these statues of the water buffaloes, though made of metal - balls of metal held together - they seem quite a lifelike replica of the animals displaced by development!

Other side

Looking through earlier posts on this blog about the Chennai Metro, it is amazing how quickly time has passed. A dozen years ago that an entrance at this spot would have taken you into the Poultry Research Station (PRS) of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences University (TANUVAS). The cackling of quails and chickens gave way to the noise of pile drivers, earth moving equipment and then of construction. 

In the six months since the inauguration of the Chennai Metro's headquarters, the offices seem to be rather sparsely occupied. Which is fine; my balcony looks out on to the other side of this building complex, and I am in no hurry to see big groups of office-goers gathering under it. 

All the more so considering that about 15 years ago, this was what I could see from my balcony. No hope of the 'lucky days' I had in those times!

Living up to their names

Buffaloes are not sea creatures, so it is a bit of a surprise to see some of them come out of the backwaters at Pulicat. Small herds of these domestic animals are quite often seen moving across from the mainland to one of the many islands nearby. It is not as difficult to do it as one might imagine: the water is shallow enough for most of them to keep their heads above water.

This animal, Bubalus bubalis was first domesticated almost 6,000 years ago. Their ancestors were quite at home in the rivers, and in swamps. Their fetlocks are extremely flexible and their hooves are adapted to splay out to get a good grip on the marshy ground of swamps and riverbeds.

They love spending time in the water, preferably remaining submerged with only their eyes and nostrils showing above. And that's why they've been referred to as the water buffalo; this herd is probably going to a favourite spot to spend the day lolling about! 

Model birds

Everyone knows that the CGI of dinosaur movements in the Jurassic Park movies were based on bird movements. Although I do not recall the movie credits ever mentioning what kind of birds were used to provide the model for dino-motion, these here are likely candidates. 

Not that this is a park of any kind. Rather, it is the research station of the TANUVAS - Tamil Nadu Veterinary and Animal Sciences University - at Kattupakkam. Not that I understand too much of it, but this research programme has been doing well; essentially the idea is to understand how the birds adapt to local conditions, so that commercial ostrich farming can be viable. That takes a couple of generations. With well over 60% of the ostrich eggs not hatching, it will take a while before you can get to see these take the place of chicken on the menu.

In the meantime, they continue to behave like, well, ostriches. Just because you think they bob their heads about like a velociraptor, you can't blame them for being copy-cats!

Follow the herd?

Just when you thought the animals were all outside the city limits, here's something that makes you think again. But then, how else would you get fresh milk!

Red Madras

It may be the New Year, but there are some places where 'old' memories remain. Like the name 'Madras', for instance. In 2014, it will be eighteen years since the city was renamed as Chennai. There are still several places, however, where 'Madras' continues to be used: the IIT Madras, the Madras High Court, the University of Madras... and there would be many more such. 

The picture shows some lesser known users of the 'Madras' appellation. These sheep are native to the Chennai and Kancheepuram districts; with a startling excess of imagination, they were named 'Madras Red'. Once they have been named so, it is only fitting that the Chennai district today has less than a thousand of them; the bulk of them are in Kancheepuram, which has about 200,000 of these, just under 20% of their total population. (The rest are distributed across Tamil Nadu). 

This herd is part of the research station at Kattupakkam, just outside Chennai. And there they are, looking forward to the New Year, when they would be distributed to some farmer or the other, and might end up as mutton on your plate, if you have such tastes. In any case, here's wishing you a wonderful time in the year 2014!

Symbolic animal

The State Highway No.78, from Pollachi to Valparai (வால்பாறை, not வாள்பாறை, as I had thought of it earlier), is the best way for a tourist to get to the tea plantations there. The 64km highway starts climbing soon after the Azhiyar dam. It is quite a well maintained road and after a while, one starts seeing the tea plantations, even if they are broken in parts by the shola forests.

To reach the hill-tops, which are at around 1200 metres, the road navigates 40 hairpin bends. We were advised to watch the hairpin bends 7 and 9 very closely. Not much to do with the driving, but for the view. Bend #9 is much more sweeping than the others and there is a little platform abutting the curve, where one gets a panoramic view of the Azhiyar reservoir and the hills around. A board there also talks about possible wild animal sightings there. We were excited about that possibility and were looking forward to Bend #9.

The earlier bend was therefore quite a surprise. As the vehicle slowed down, we saw what we thought were donkeys on the road. With horns? There were a couple of them by the roadside and when we recognized what they were, we had to jump off and take pictures; here is one, of the Nilgiri Tahr, the State Animal of Tamil Nadu!

Empress?

That was the first thought on seeing this beauty at the Kattupakkam Livestock Research Station  of the TANUVAS. Lord Emsworth's favourite person in the world was his pig; the Empress of Blandings, supposedly a Berkshire pig. Now, Berkshire pigs are black, but I had always thought of the Empress as a pink pig - thanks to the illustrator's influence. Also, Emsworth's magical manse was set in Shropshire and this pig in the picture traces its ancestry to Yorkshire, rather than to the former county.

Kattupakkam LRS has had a fair amount of success in being able to produce a domestic strain of the original Large White Yorkshire. Over the past decade, the station has been offering seed-stock to pig farmers. Quite likely that this lady has several of her progeny all over the state!

Walking leaf

There is a bunch of insects that is commonly referred to as 'stick insect' or 'leaf insect'. The bunch comprises both these - and the variety in them is considerable. They belong to an order of animals called "Phasmatodea" - meaning 'phantom' and is a reflection of their now-you-see-them-now-you-don't appearance. Not only do they closely resemble leaves or twigs, but they have adapted so much that even their movements are not regular - they swing and jerk along, for all in the world like a leaf blown by the breeze.

One of them took up residence in the bougainvilla on our balcony. It came perilously close to being brushed off as a dead leaf, but luckily, it dropped down and moved its head to and fro, so we let it climb back on to the plant. With small "foliaceous expansions" - leaflike ornamentation -on its joints, it was extremely difficult spotting it once it was back on the plant. Because it was rather lazy, it didn't move around too much and that made it easier to spot day after day. And yet, a few days later, it disappeared completely. I don't think I have seen anything like it earlier and all the checking of pictures on the internet has not thrown up anything similar. They say that the order Phylliidae is constantly being expanded, with newer species coming up all the time. Well, here's one Phasmid from Chennai to add to the list!

Catch 'n' throw

What do you do when you live in a slum and don't have space to keep pets? One option of course is to believe that every animal around your house is your own and care for them - much more effort than a single pet, but then, there will be many more people caring, as well.

Seems to be this boy had adopted the pigeon as his own. His friends were not as comfortable running behind it, but this kid was at it, over and over again. He'd run behind the pigeon - which would just hop around wherever it was, waiting for him - grab it and run across to the other side of the road. Didn't matter where the pigeon was, on top of a hut, on the door of a small shrine, on the road; he just followed it to where it was and scooped it up with one hand, very neatly.

And then he ran across the road, and bends, ready to let go in a slingshot action. Several of the passers-by ducked, and began to rumble ominously, thinking the boy was throwing a stone at them, before the rumbles turned into sheepish smiles as they saw the pigeon flying up and across the road!

They get their man!

This is truly an image from another era; maybe even forty years ago, the sight of policemen on horseback would have been enough to deter a miscreant in the mob. Their vantage point, looking over the heads and shoulders of people in a crowd, would have helped them spot suspicious characters from a distance; a policeman on foot, or even from a prowl car, would not have had that advantage which comes from sitting tall in the saddle.

There is no predicting how much longer we can get to see the Mounted branch of the Chennai Metropolitan Police in action. Even as far back as 1860, the Police Commission Report stated that the "mounted bodies are exceedingly expensive" and that they were "more lawless" and "less amenable to control" than foot constabulary. Though that report also conceded that a mounted force is useful, for instance, to "check large Organized bodies of lawless marauders", it argued that the existing "Establishments of Horse Police.....be placed on the lowest scale in regard to numbers". The police force of Bombay disbanded their Mounted Branch in the 1930s (though they're thinking of bringing them back, now); the Delhi Mounted Police, on the other hand, was set up in the 1930s. With a sanctioned strength of 95 mounts, they could have been the leaders, but they have only 62 horses on the street and thus fall behind Kolkata Mounted Police, which has 67 - and a history going back to the 1840s. Chennai can probably run Kolkata close in the history, but is far behind in horses - Chennai's force has only about 32 currently. The good thing is, that number has been holding steady for some years now, while Coimbatore and Trichy have had their mounted branches being eroded completely within the past 3 years - and Madurai is barely holding on, with just 4 mounts.

It may be archaic, but these policemen on horses seem to mean business far more than constables sitting an chatting in one of the prowl cars!

Pen No.11

For as long as I can remember, this reptile has been in this enclosure, the Pen No.11 of the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust (MCBT). He apparently wasn't much when he was found on the grounds of the Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI); he only weighed in at around 15kg, as a 5-year old. That wasn't really much, for a salt water crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), a species that can reportedly grow up to 25 feet and weigh over a ton in the wild. In the 34 years since he was found at the CLRI, this croc has grown over 40-fold. Currently measuring close to 17 feet from the tip of his nose to the last scute of his tail, he weighs over 600 kg. And that, when he eats only twice a month, on the first and the third Sundays. The rest of the time, he mostly lazes around, showing off his figure to awed visitors. Some of them - the older ones, especially - find him too pacific to merit a name which had terrorized them on screen: Jaws. Jaws III, to be precise.

But don't be fooled into thinking you can jump in and dance around in the pen. Jaws III is a mean chappie. Believed to be the biggest ever captive salt water crocodile, he has been giving folks at the MCBT a peculiar headache. They just haven't been able to find a female large enough for him to mate with. Two attempts in recent years met with horrific results: Jaws III just grabbed the little lady by her waist, tossed her into the air and chomped her down. Probably the keepers didn't realise what had happened, because they brought in another lady, who met with the same fate. The third attempt wasn't a complete disaster, for there was a mesh separating them. Business did not result, in any event.

C. porosus live to a hundred, in the wild. In captivity, they can potentially live for longer. Jaws III still has time to find the love of his life. Know anyone?

Menagerie City - 7

These were common sights once upon a time, even in the centre of the city. Cattle would meander through Mount Road, making their way back home from wherever it was they went to graze. But over the past couple of decades, the few bovines that can be seen are the bullocks used as a cheap option for transporting material - typically construction material like bricks, timber, or cement.

The farm hasn't left the city completely yet. This picture was taken less than a couple of kilometres from the entrance to Chennai's international airport. Of course it is in a direction away from the city - into Thirusoolam hill, but it still shows glimpses of the rustic city - how is that for an oxymoron - that Chennai once was!

Stable

There was a time when a hugh area in Madras was completely given over to the horses belonging to the Nawabs of Arcot. There were stables there, but those were only to lock the horses into - with the weather being pretty dry most of the time, the horses were often let loose inside the garden, without much fear of their catching a cold or anything. That garden of horses (ghoda-bagh) went on to become the Kodambakkam of modern times.

These stables in the picture do not threaten to go that way, mainly because there seem to be several takers for the services offered by these horses. Of course there is the regular baraat performance, needing the bridegroom to come in on a horse; then there are several themed parties needing the horses and carts to create just the right ambience - whatever it may be. You may have seen them, all spruced up, heading out for an evening's engagement very early in the day. In case you were wondering where these are coming from, look no more, for here's your answer!

Menagerie City - 6

Once upon a time, Chennai was typical of the stereotyped notion of an Indian city. Visitors from faraway lands felt cheated if they were not shown a sequence of cows on the roads, holding up traffic because they were holy and no one dared tell them to move on. After a while the cows were replaced by buffaloes - probably because they were low-maintenance and cheaper, I guess. And then, slowly, the buffaloes too have disappeared. Now, the city buffaloes make their presence only in stories about folks raising them on terraces of their 4-storied apartment.

The buffaloes may have gone, but an even earlier resident of the city is going strong. The chital / sarang herds of the forest in Guindy have been going strong. Driving late at night on the Velachery Road, it is common to see a herd nosing in the trash dump near the aptly named 'Alsa Deer Park' apartments. About 18 months ago, the problem of motorists crashing into deer around the Guindy / Velachery area became so acute that a herd of about 15 deer was relocated to the grounds of the Poultry Research Station in Nandanam.

Here's part of that herd - now about 20 strong - resting in the shade; on a lucky day, I can see the whole herd from my balcony!


PS: If you'd like to see the earlier 'Menagerie City' posts, here they are: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

Menagerie City - 5

The spotted deer inside the IIT Madras campus are reasonably comfortable with humans. Not that they can be considered 'tame', but they are not really wild, either. A large part of the IIT Madras campus is scrub jungle, an extension of the Guindy National Park. The deer certainly do not understand the boundaries between the GNP and the IIT and were used to moving across all the space they could. Recently, there was some talk of IIT authorities building a wall to ensure their campus area is clearly demarcated; I'm not sure if they went ahead with it. I hope that even if they have done so, there are enough pathways for the deer to move around freely.

Within the campus, the deer walk around unhindered; they do find their way into the living areas, too. At times it might be a problem for the residents. They may look gentle enough, but the more familiar they become with humans, the less nervous they get. Sometimes, they may go so far as to frightening children. With an average weight of about 80 kg, you really don't want to pick an argument with that kind of antler-tipped mass. This one, however, was not too keen on mixing it up with us in any way and moved away quickly.

There are so many of them around the IIT Madras campus, that when the Institute renamed its annual cultural festival, they chose the name 'Saarang' - another name for this spotted deer!

Menagerie City - 4

The TPL Building, at the corner of Cenotaph Road and Chittaranjan Road, has a frontage that seems to have been designed for beehives. Even though the building management cleans up the overhang and brings down the hives every once in a while, their number has only gone up. There were 3 when we began keeping track of their growth a couple of years ago and there are now 6; I'm sure we can expect more.

Their resilience is comforting for two reasons: one, that the building management is not completely averse to the hives being there (somebody must be making pocket money from having the honey collected once in a while?) and two, that within a reasonably short distance from the TPL building, there are enough flowers to sustain the growth of six colonies. The second is one more data point to show that Chennai is still not all concrete, there is some jungle, too!

Menagerie City - 3

The bullock carts still retain some of the market for intra-city transporting of material, though there are some restrictions on the times they are allowed to be on the main roads.

The loading of this cart took about two-and-a-half hours; again, no mechanised help on this effort. The bulls spent that time grazing around and preparing themselves for the haulage. And here, they are enjoying a last tasty tidbit before getting into action.

Menagerie City - 2

Horses, cows, bullocks, buffaloes - they were all pretty common sights on the streets of Chennai until about 20 years ago. It has been quite a while since I've seen a horse graze on the by-lanes of the city. This one was just 50 metres or so away from TTK Road, behind the Benjarong restaurant - so very much heart of the city, in Alwarpet.

The law abiding owner has made sure that the horse has been tethered on the side away from the 'No Parking' board!