Tail-less Tomistoma

The Tomistoma schlegelii or the false gharial is native to Malaya and Indonesia, where its habitats have been under threat due to spread of oil palm plantations and clandestine gold prospecting. It is estimated that there are less than 10,000 of these animals in the wild, which places it in the 'Vulnerable' category of the IUCN's Red List. 

If you are in Chennai, you don't have to go out to Indonesia to see a Tomistoma. A short drive, to the Madras Crocodile Bank is all that it takes. It was earlier believed that this was similar to the gharial because of its thin snout; but closer observation showed that, unlike the gharial's evenly slender snout, the Tomistoma's broadens at the end, placing it closer to the true crocodiles than the gharials. That was further strengthened by recent findings that the Tomistoma's diet comprises more variety than just fish, which is the only food for the gharial. 

Notice anything odd about this animal? Yes, you're correct, it doesn't have a tail. No, not because that is how it has evolved, but because this female got into a fight a few years ago and lost her tail. She seems to have learnt to live without it - possibly because it is much easier to do without a tail in captivity than in the wild!

A New Tree

It must have been quite a bold decision to go with this design for a Christmas Tree. One is accustomed to thinking of lush dark green pines, spruce, firs or cypress at Christmas time. Evergreen conifers, whose branches form helixes or whorls around the central trunk, their leaves having evolved into thin green needles. From what I can recall, the options for such trees in India, especially in south India are limited. The country's north has a few species of pine, or cypress, which can be a very nice Christmas tree. Far too often, an artificial tree substitutes for a real one. 

Tamil Nadu's state tree, the palmyra (Borassus flabellifer), on the other hand, can't pass of as any kind of a conifer. The tree has no branches and its leaves grow directly from the trunk, falling off as they get old, leaving their marks behind on the trunk. A fully grown tree, holding its crown of leaves right at the top is distinctly different from the conifers' foliage, which envelopes almost the entire trunk. The leaves of the palmyra too, have 'needles' - sharp black teeth on the petioles (the stalk that attaches the leaf to the trunk / branch of a tree), but the leaf itself is large, fan like, and as far different different from the needles as possible.

So, to see a Christmas tree made of palmyra leaves was a pleasant surprise. It is an artificial tree, not the traditional dark, or striking green, the leaves are fan-like, rather than needle-like, but with all of that, this tree in the lobby of the ITC Grand Chola was created to demonstrate the 'sustainability' theme. The gift boxes under the tree were kottans and koodais made by weaving together tender fronds of the palmyra are again very different from the traditional boxes wrapped in bright gift-wrap paper. Quite apart from all that, let us hope the palmyra goes back to being as plentiful as it used to be at one time!

Recharged

The rains have been quite patchy this year; cyclone Vardah was an anomaly, one that gave the city more wind than water. The threat of the city going dry within a few weeks, if not days, appears very real. There was a bit of cloud today, and promise of showers over the weekend. If that happens, it would be a Godsend.

You might take a look at the Kapaleeswarar temple tank and wonder what the fuss is all about. If there is so much water here, the ground water levels must be pretty good - that sounds logical. But this tank has been nurtured carefully - in the early 2000s, when rainwater harvesting was made mandatory, the tank was re-done with a little bit of thought. The normally sandy bed of the tank was laid over with a foot-and-a-half of clayey soil, which has helped in retaining the water much better.

If you click on the picture and blow it up, you will notice that the lower steps of the mandapam are bare. We can probably breath a bit easier when they get covered up with water!

Bird unseen

I have this old chestnut for the day of the Chennai Bird Race, when I go back to give in my log sheet to the volunteers manning the desks. I tell them that my team saw a few ostriches, and they start, because they haven't heard of the Post Graduate Research Institute in Animal Sciences at Kattupakkam, about 17 km from Tambaram. 

This year, I did not use that, mainly because my team did not see any of these ostriches. We did go to the PGRIAS, but we were intent on improving our bird count and so did not spend any time going over to watch the ostriches at their research area. Of course, the Bird Races do not accept any sighting of captive birds, so the ostriches were never going to add any heft to the count.

So, the picture here is from a few weeks ago. Without spending time on the ostriches, our team managed to top the 100-species mark for the first time this year!

Lemon on a stalk

Have you ever wondered how many different kinds of fauna share the city with you? No, I don't mean those "animal types" on the road - there is only one animal that can display road-rage, anyway. I am talking about other life-forms, and if you are a Chennaiite pondering that question, try this book by Preston Ahimaz - you fill find many more than you thought likely.

And if you are more specific about the kind of life-forms, you will surely be able to find specific books about them. R. Bhanumathi, has written a series of handbooks - on butterflies, dragonflies, birds, etc.,  It is in Tamizh and I am sure it would have opened up a world of wonder for a few of the thousands of Chennai's children who do not read English.

But somehow, I felt confident enough about this lovely butterfly that I did not have to refer to either book to figure out this is a lemon pansy (precis lemonias)!

Cleared

A few years ago, this space was a reasonably wooded forest, which had some wildlife running around it. Within this nine-acre patch of land in Nandanam, a small herd of chital, a brood of mongooses, a few snakes, a couple of monkeys and a wide variety of birds lived together, mostly in harmony, wondering why some of their fellow creatures were cooped up inside buildings. 

Those buildings - which were difficult to spot from the air because of the tree cover - housed the facilities of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University's Poultry Research Station (PRS). The PRS was set up in 1941, to supply poultry breeders with 'superior germplasm'. Over the years, the PRS introduced a variety of lines; apart from the ubiquitous chickens, they had the Japanese quails, turkeys, guinea fowls and geese. Over the decades, the variants introduced from the PRS appended 'Nandanam' to their names - hence Nandanam chicken or Nandanam quail. 

In 2011, it was decided that the land being occupied by the PRS could be put to better use for the citizens of Chennai. The PRS was shifted to Madhavaram, where the University has extensive space and the site at Nandanam was handed over to the Chennai Metro for constructing their administrative and maintenance facilities. The first thing the Chennai Metro did was to clear the land of almost all the vegetation; a few trees remain around the periphery, but in the centre, both trees and buildings were razed. This picture is from a year ago, when the clearing was going on in full swing; if one were to see this space for the first time now, it would be difficult to believe that deer and koels once frolicked here!

Groves

I have known of Palmgrove the hotel, and also of Palm Grove, the army officers' quarters in Fort St George. But I did not know that the army's golf course is also referred to as the Palm Grove Golf Course.

Nor did I know that the army was maintaining an ecological park with the same name nearby!

High-rise sunrise

The marsh at Pallikaranai is somewhat better protected these days, at least on the southern side of the SH109. The fringes are greener than what they used to be. A small concrete cabin at the eastern end of the marsh indicates the presence of the forest department, even though I have never seen the cabin occupied. 

Haven't gone across to the southern bank of this marsh, though. Apparently there is a walkway into the marsh, as well as an observation tower there. Maybe if you climb up that tower, you can see the sun rise a few seconds earlier!

Wilderness

Yes, there are several out-of-the-way places within the city itself. One of them is the Nanmangalam Reserve Forest. We have seen parts of this forest before - it is the one where the Great Indian Eagle Owl can be found. 

Getting into the forest a couple of weeks ago, we noticed something different from our previous trips inside. There was far less plastic than we were used to seeing. Bowers near the road, which used to have several empty liquor bottles rolling around, were mostly empty and clear. Saplings of teak and other trees had been planted here and there. And then, on our way, we ran into another group, but they were being guided by an Anti-Poaching Watcher of the Forest Department. He demanded to know how we got in to the forest without permission, but wasn't rude about it. Got his boss to talk to us over his cellphone and made us commit to drop by at the Forest Office on our way out. 

Though we eventually did go to the Office and make all the required entries in their register, staying around inside the forest dulled our sense of time. So much so that the APW came back cycling to look for us, wondering if we were lost. In a way, we were; by that owl sighting, but also because there were some places like this that we couldn't tear ourselves away from!

What a sighting!

The Nanmangalam Reserve Forest starts at the fork of the Tambaram-Velachery and the Medavakkam Main Roads and spreads over about 800 acres, with Greater Chennai surrounding it on all sides. It is the home of the Great Indian Horned Owl (Bubo bengalensis), also known as the Indian Eagle-Owl. Most of the forest is scrub jungle, but it also contains a few abandoned granite quarries within it. The quarry pits, with their rock faces, have enough crevices for birds to nest and several species do.

We missed the owl by a whisker at the first quarry we went to this morning. It heard us coming and away it flew, getting beyond eye-range even before our eyes could reach where it had been. We trudged around to the next quarry - a larger, deeper piece of work - but because it was slightly less accessible than the first one, we felt the owl would have a hideout there as well and we hoped it would get there sooner than later. 

We took our places at the edge of the quarry pit, looking down to the water that had collected in the pit, forming a nice little water body. And we looked across at the sheer rock face on the other side, trying to figure out where its nest could be. Then we heard the hoots. They seemed to be coming from the left and behind us: but with the quarry pit creating some echoes, we couldn't be sure. And then, I turned left and saw the big bird, gliding towards us. Dumbstruck as I made eye contact, I was sure it would either attack us, or swoop away, for there was no way it couldn't have seen us. But, it hadn't. Banking gently, it landed on the rock just below where I was sitting! For a few seconds, none of us moved. And then, I gently sent my arm out, camera at the end to take a picture. Managed to get a couple, before the bird looked around. This time, recognition followed eye-contact. Away it went, to the other side of the quarry, where it sat for quite a while, hidden by some foliage. You can see a picture taken by my friend, but the photo here is probably the only one I will get of a bird from above and behind it!

River and sea

That's another view of the Adyar river going out into the Bay of Bengal. You can see the green expanse of the Theosophical Society on the south bank, and with a bit of imagination, the 'broken bridge' across the mouth of the river.

That spit of land in the middle of the estuary has a few office buildings, a hotel, an apartment complex, and a building that starred in Mission Impossible:4. Can you spot it?

No prizes for guessing where I am! 

Upside down world

One of Chennai's wondrous sights is actually a pretty commonplace activity. If you stand on the Thiru-Vi-Ka bridge at dusk, you will be treated to a sight of bats - a few thousand of them - setting off on their nightly forage. Not many people see it, because it is peak hour for humans also, rushing across the bridge at the end of the workday. The bats, of course are just starting their 'day', and they fan out in all directions but east. 

More properly, they are the Indian Flying Foxes (Pteropus giganteus), also known as the Fruit Bat. Almost all of them come out of the grounds of the Theosophical Society, which is at the southern end of the bridge. Inside the grounds, the ficus, tamarind and other trees provide plenty of roosting space for these bats. They hang upside down, in large colonies and fill the air around the trees with their incessant chattering. 

So the next time you go walking inside the Theosophical Society's gardens, do not assume the sound you hear is of running water. Look up. Check out all those black patches on the trees. And of an evening, watch those black patches take flight. It is certainly a spectacular sight!

Small beginning

Kalakshetra was founded in 1936, in part as an extension of the founders' belief that Theosophy should be extended through an academy for training students in traditional arts. With all the founders belonging to the Theosophical Society at Adyar, it was the easiest thing for them to have the academy function out of the Society's premises. One of the members of the academy, Pandit Subramania Sastri, suggested the name "Kalakshetra", meaning "Holy place of the Arts". 

The academy grew. Rukmini Devi Arundale, the prime mover behind the academy, had personally trained many of the initial batches of students and continued to drive the courses at the academy for many years. In 1951, the academy began developing its own premises at Thiruvanmiyur, a short distance away from the Theosophical Society. Fittingly, the development started with the planting of a sapling from the great banyan of the Theosophical Society in the newly acquired land.

The land expanded to nearly 100 acres. The sapling has grown into a large tree. The academy has grown to become the Kalakshetra Foundation, bringing into its fold five distinct institutions - the College of Fine Arts, the Craft Education and Research Centre, the Besant Arundale Theosophical Senior Secondary and High Schools and the Besant Cultural Centre Hostel. In 1993, the Foundation was taken over by the Government of India and declared an institution of National Importance. Here's to the institution growing further and spreading wide, like the sapling seems to be doing!

One, or many?

Spread over about 1.5 acres, this specimen of Ficus benghalensis is one of the largest in the country and maybe the oldest one as well. The Great Banyan of Kolkata and the Thimmamma Marrimanu at Anantapur cover a much greater area than this one, but it is very likely that this tree is much older than either of them. The Adyar aalamaram (Adyar banyan), as it is called, is supposedly over 450 years old, which if true would make it about 200 years older than the other giants. 

This tree is part of Huddleston Gardens, the seat of the Theosophical Society in Chennai. If it was to have a street address, it would be listed as Schwarz Avenue. That is because the avenue runs along the southern border of the tree's extent. On the other sides, there are no roads, just more vegetation. A fence marks the boundary; the banyan of course does not respect such confines and its branches have already arched over the road and put down aerial roots.

The main trunk of the tree was brought down by storm winds during a cyclone in 1989. Some effort was made to revive the trunk, but it was futile. The main trunk is gone, but the tree continues to live on. But that has prompted some to opine that the Adyar aalamaram cannot be considered a tree anymore, but should be a 'tree system'. Clearly, they are missing the woods for a tree!

Garden house

In the mid 1800-s, the start of the Great Choultry Plain was marked by a large garden, next to St George's Cathedral, belonging to the Madras Horticultural Society. This society was established in 1835 and may quite possibly have been inspired by the one that was established in Calcutta in 1820. Dr Robert Wight, the Scottish botanist who was the driving force behind the Society was certainly a man who got around. The Calcutta Monthly Journal for 1836 describes Dr Wight sending a dissertation on Joomlah Hill Rice to the Secretary of the Agri-Horticultural Society of India; that Journal also describes the General Meeting of the Madras Agricultural and Horticultural Society on October 8, 1836.

Strangely, the Calcutta institution did not take the Madras Society in its fold. There does not seem to be any one reason for this, but it could be due to the Governors of these cities trying to be one-up over the other. The Governor of Madras was the chief patron of the Society and he was probably loath to hand over control to his Calcutta counterpart. The 22-acre space given to the Society was probably well used by Dr Wight to conduct his experiments as well as to document the specimens that were collected from all over south India. Helping him in the documentation were 'native artists' Rungiah and Govindoo. Much of their work was shipped to England. The Royal Botanic Garden at Edinburgh has the works of Dr Wight and his artists in their collection.

When Cathedral Road was built, the Society's gardens were divided; the part on the south side was comparatively neglected and in 1962 was handed over to Krishna Rao, a restauranteur, who created the first drive-in restaurant in India. The title to the gardens were in dispute for a very long time; finally, sometime in 2008, the courts ruled in favour of the Government, which has now full control of the Agri-Horticultural Society. The drive-in closed in 2008 and was developed into the Semmozhi Poonga. The part on the north side of Cathedral Road continues to be a woodland, with a nursery and this building having the Society's offices (?) inside. But the composition of the Society itself seems to be a mystery - all that is known is that it is run by the state government!

Woodland shrine

We all know that Chennai has the distinction of being the only city in the world that houses a national park entirely within itself. Quite apart from that, Chennai has a decent amount of green spaces that are unknown to - or rather, taken for granted by, - most of the citizens.

Here is one such. Okay, these folks have rather restrictive timings, they shut down at 4 pm every day, so there is not much to look forward to, getting here after office hours. But during the hours they are open, it is a lovely place to wander around. Much of the space appears to have been allowed to remain wild. There are several plants and trees and the bird life is quite diverse - we even got to see an Asian Paradise Flycatcher flitting around here.

Where is 'here', you ask? It is less than half-a-kilometre from the Gemini Circle. Got it? Yes, you are right, this is on the grounds of the Agri-Horticultural Society. Now you can get your saplings and have a puja done to them before you take them home!

A different reptile

It is the Madras Crocodile Bank Trust (MCBT), but we have already seen that the Croc Bank allows space to other orders, besides crocodilia, of the class reptilia. One more such order is testudines, which covers tortoises, turtles and terrapins. In fact when you get to the grounds of the Crocodile Bank, about 30km out of Chennai, the first exhibits you get to see are turtles and tortoises, before you see the stars of the show. 

In between, the crocodilian hegemony is broken by these old boys. The Aldabra tortoises are among the longest living animals on the planet. Behind the Galapagos tortoises, these are the largest species of testudines. However, what species they are seems to be a source of intense debate. Aldabrachelys gigantea, says the Wikipedia page; Geochelone gigantea, says the Natural History Museum of the UK. Its history of Linnaean taxonomy begins with it being the Testudo gigantea. At least they have all agreed on the 'gigantea' bit!

Square of the Polygon

This is one of the newer office buildings in the city. It came up in the last couple of years and is yet to be fully occupied. The developers however did not worry too much about maintaining any connect with what the real estate was being used for earlier and just went ahead in naming it the 'Polygon'. 

The Polygon, at Teynampet/Nandanam, stands on the site of what was once the 'nursery of Madras'. For about half-a-century, since moving to this site in 1952, P.S. Swaminatha Iyer's Soundarya Nursery was the go-to place for saplings of any kind. If you needed flowering plants for your 'front garden' or fruit trees for your 'back garden', Soundarya would supply them; Swaminatha Iyer was known for walking around with a pen-knife all the time. That way, he was able to mix and match cuttings to produce hybrid varieties of hibiscus and bougainvilla. Soundarya Nursery continued that good work even after Swaminatha Iyer died in 1972. It was only more than a generation later that the property changed hands. The Nursery itself has now grown branches, with one at Vettuvankeni and another in Pudupakkam, run by Swaminatha Iyer's youngest son and a grandson.

In the evenings, the Polygon's colour-changing lighting detail provides a relief to the unblinking bright blue of the nearby Apollo Hospital's signage. That is probably the only connect the developers have retained, channelling the colours of all those flowers in the Nursery into the LED lights on the building's facade!

The first of the month, and it is Theme Day for the City Daily Photo group. Take a look at squares from over the world here!

Two of a kind

When a person starts birding, many long believed 'truths' turn out to be not so true. One of them is about owls. Most of us think of them as night birds; they may be mostly nocturnal, but there are many of them who are quite active during the day. Though first-timers might find it unbelievable, it is quite common to see owls during the daytime, even in the middle of the city. 

One of the common species of owl is the Spotted Owlet (Athene brama). It is a small bird, and is unfazed by the presence of humans nearby. You can spot them on the IIT Madras campus, on the golf course at the Cosmopolitan Club and several other places that are overrun with people. The two of them in this picture - can you spot them? - are at the TANUVAS' Research Station at Kattupakkam, on the outskirts of Chennai.

Athene brama usually nests in holes - that should be enough of a clue for you to click through the picture and spot the Owlets!

Quiet entrance

That's the rather quiet and unassuming entrance to one of the city's best maintained parks. The Nageswara Rao Park in Mylapore spreads over an area of about four acres. That makes it one of the smaller parks under the Corporation of Chennai, but that doesn't stop it from being put to various uses. Walkers, joggers, tree-watchers, singers, lovers, chess players, all of them can be found here. By the side of the broad walking areas are seats for players wanting a game of chess; there is a stage where you can perform (and do it as a featured programme on the first Sunday of every month is a privilege) and of course, all those little nooks that invite sweethearts to linger a while.

The park is named for Nageswara Rao Pantulu, who was a resident of Sri Bagh, a palatial house near the park. A little to the west of his house was a pond called Arathakuttai; sometime in the late 1930s, when that began to dry up, Nageswara Rao convinced some of his neighbours that it was better to give up the dry lake to the city rather than to expand their residences into it, and so the park was born.

For the past decade or so, the park is being maintained by Sundaram Finance on behalf of the Corporation of Chennai. I cannot think of any other such privately funded public park in the city; but the manner in which the Desodharaka Kasinadhuni Nageswara Rao Pantulu Park (that's its full name) is used in run is surely a strong boost for inviting more corporate bodies to invest in the city's green lungs!