PAINTING THE SKIES

Dear Friends.. I am sorry for yet another long break. I know.. I have been doing this quite a bit recently. Anyways.. am back with something interesting again! Okay... so tell me friends… What would be your idea for a lazy Sunday afternoon? I see a lot of hands. And I guess there are a lot of refreshing recipes for a relaxing weekend afternoon act. A good heavy meal, is it? It certainly helps if a Saravana Bhavan or a Punjabi dhaba is round the corner. But it will be even more special when a loved one cooks that heavenly meal for you or you make his/her afternoon special by becoming the master chef. Okay… I hear you are on diet. A movie perhaps! Check out the latest blockbuster that is showing in the multiplex nearby. Ahh.. Mixed reviews you say!

Hmmm… How about sitting back on that recliner and checking out anything the idiot box has to offer? Coziness and entertainment all at one place; with a refreshing dash of ginger tea and bliss is yours. Chaos in the living room, huh!! What to watch: Debate on economics or a movie or an Ekta Kapoor soap opera!  Gosh, can’t decide!! Okay okay.. stop that fight for the remote. Let me think of something else. Wait wait… don’t go to sleep! How about a long drive into the woods? What woods you ask? I hear someone yelling “Traffic”! Hmm.. This is getting tougher than I thought. How about a silent and pleasant walk then?  Did someone say cricket? Oh oh…There goes the afternoon for most of you now! I will leave you alone. You guys can fight in peace now!

Well these are all very viable options for lighting up a dull Sunday afternoon which were in my mind too. But the skies had other plans (literally). How is that you ask? Glad you did! It did start out as a dull, peaceful and serene Sunday morning as it went by in slow motion. A little bit of TV, some chit chat and coffee of course made it soothing and relaxing for me, mom and dad. And then it was lunch time as I debated the different options for lunch with mom. We settled on Pav Bhaji as the weather was in perfect synchrony for that and also because mom had never tried her hand at that before. So the chef hat and the apron were on as we went about the task at hand with enthusiasm and panache. And voila… Pav Bhaji was ready. Or so we thought!

But we had one small technical problem: there was no Pav. A quick trip to the grocery store solved that minor obstacle and lunch was upon us. Each one of us gulped down enough Pavs (not to mention the generous stuffing of Bhaji) that our eyes were fading out as we were ready to go into la-la-land. And that is when I just stepped out to the balcony to take a peek at what nature had in store that day. It was a fine day with the right mix of warmth and breeze, color and shade, blue sky embellished by cream clouds, birds chirping, squirrels fooling around (oh btw.. I do have to tell you something about squirrels but that would have to wait), cars (and men) giving Mother Nature a break, trees sveltely grooving to the winds and autumn leaves adorning the sidewalks. This abounding spectacle sent the idea of a nap cart-wheeling out of my mind.

Mom has always been an ardent admirer of nature herself and she joined me in the balcony as we listened to nature’s sweet chimes. And that was when we saw the sky’s white magic. It happened all of a sudden that we were left dumbstruck and pinched each other to ensure it was not a dream. Before you decide (for the umpteenth time) to kill me for holding you hostage with my impending suspense, let me let the cat out of the sky. The reason for our blissful commotion was that letters all of a sudden started appearing in the sky. Yes, you read it right. A magical invisible pen with the help of a precision stencil was etching out letters that were literally appearing out of thin air. We could recognize the letters but the words made no clear sense. And then in a minute or two everything disappeared. Now we were really curious about this mysterious turn of events. The afternoon nap was certainly out and we waited in anticipation of more wizardry from this mysterious wand. In other news, the curiosity bug had infected my dad as he too joined us in the balcony.

About 15 minutes had gone by and we were beginning to lose hope when a déjà vu happened. In another direction, in a different part of the sky, different letters made their appearance one by one to create new words but the one thing that remained the same was the fact that we couldn’t make out what the heck it meant. And then a minute later, it was all gone. Now I started speculating about these seemingly mysterious happenings and quickly made up a few preposterous theories. Was it some evil spirit’s handiwork? Were those writings somehow connected to some holy scripture? Was it warning us of some impending doom? I even thought about trying to research those words and try to find some patterns when my mom said that I was trying too much to be Sherlock Holmes (or Ramanugem rather).

In the meantime, another message had appeared in the sky teasing us with another riddle before fading away surreptitiously. Now we were proposing the theory of an alien attack (come on, we wanted to have some fun) and that over-abused prophecy of the world coming to an end in 2012. Seriously, an alien visit rather an alien attack would surely have been fun. But then, all good things have to come to an end. With some googling and research, I finally traced this to a Ryder cup gimmick. Now what is Ryder cup, you ask. It is a golf tournament between USA and Europe that happens every 2 years.

I know.. Golf is boring. Tell me about that! But this time it provided more fun even if it was unintentional. Apparently Europe made a historic comeback to retain the Ryder Cup. And I guess they had a little help from above. Well, not from that high up as you are thinking, but from at least above 50,000 feet. A European bookie hired a team of sky writers to create pro European tweets high above the country club where the tournament was going on, which by the way is in Chicago close to where I live. But to make them visible so far on the ground though, the planes have to make the writing really big. Each tweet was 400 meters high and 5 miles long and went on to break all skywriting records. That meant even people as far as 20 miles away could clearly see the writings on the sky and we were among the lucky ones.

Well… so ends the story of an intriguing Sunday afternoon. It was no Apocalypse but still a memorable and enthralling experience. For the first time I came to know about this concept called Sky Writing. It is the art of using an aircraft that is capable of expelling smoke, to fly in certain patterns to create writing readable by someone on the ground. Fascinating, isn’t it? Now this message could be anything, meaningful or less, advertisement, celebration or even a birthday wish or a marriage proposal. Now how many of you would want the heavens to broadcast your proposal to that special love of yours! I sure see a lot of hands again. 

AUTUMN LEAVES

Here is something I thought about, that is going to tickle and delight your heart and mind. Oh oh… no.. Don’t get too excited though as I am not going to tell you anything remotely new or ground-breaking. I am sure it is going to be déjà vu for most of you. (But wait wait.. don’t run away. Please read on! :P) Imagine asking your child to draw a tree. Ah.. I see some nostalgic smiles there. Well… what do you do? You give her a nice big sheet of paper, drawing pencils, crayons of different colors and even paint brushes and water colors if she is a pro.

Now I am sure your kid is not new to such an exercise but would nevertheless enjoy another opportunity to unleash her creativity. So the child goes about effortlessly outlining the tree as she has done several times in drawing classes at school. She carves out a broad trunk for the tree, designs the branches generously and then carefully and delicately fills them with leaves. Then she throws in some fruits and may be gets fancy with birds, squirrels and other potential inhabitants too. If she is a stickler for detail, she may even go underground chalking out the roots.

Then what does she do? Well… she turns towards the crayon box or water colors that have been lying there craving for her attention. It is time to add some color in the tree’s life. It is only very fitting as trees add so much color to our lives. She starts with the trunk and works her way up to the leaves. She picks her favorite color green and splatters it all over the leaves. Now she looks at the box: there are so many colors left, she thinks.

So she picks up her favorite maroon and starts pondering. After a bit of debating, she decides to color a few leaves with this new exciting color. She takes a look at it: Not bad, she thinks. The few specks of maroon have added to the beauty of the tree. Now she gets even more creative. She mixes yellow and orange to get the golden tinge. She adds some glitter to the tree by decorating some leaves in gold. She is not yet satisfied. She does some more blending and comes up with some purple, golden brown and dark red leaves as well. Now she looks at her work of art with great bliss. She seems quite pleased.

It is time for some “show-off”. She comes running to you to display her wizardry with the brush. You look at the tree and for a moment you are shocked. You were expecting a “green” tree fresh and full of foliage. Now here is your kid who has sort of made a rainbow out of the tree. But then it strikes you (hopefully; otherwise there is always Wikipedia) that there is a season called autumn, which we had once read about when we were in 1^st or 2^nd standard. Your child has unknowingly but ever so beautifully crystallized a tree that displays “Fall Foliage”. Isn’t that magical? That is why they say: “Children are God’s greatest gift to us”. They can see the purity and splendor of God’s creations better than us.

Now you might be wondering why in the first place I am writing all this. I don’t know either. This week I have been noticing the first glimpses of autumn and the gentle rustling and crumbling of the leaves as they sweep across me made me think about it. The trees around have been slowly but steadily becoming more and more colorful and against a grey sky on a rainy evening, they sure look poetic. And they keep distracting me. There was this simple question as to why all this happens in my mind that has kept me intrigued. By now, most of you would be aware of my intelligence quotient. So after having unsuccessfully raked my brains trying to understand the “Autumn leaf phenomenon”, I sought the help of none other than Professor Eisenkleiftovich! I know you guys would have missed him and his genius. He is busy with his research on “Martian sand” but promised to make a full fledged appearance soon.

So here is an excerpt from what he had to say about “Autumn leaves”. As usual he was a bit philosophical too.

“We always think (such a misplaced thought) that we are the only ones who can think. But it would come as a surprise to many of us to know that even plants have “Intelligence”. First of all, as we know, they not only produce food for themselves, but also for us. And by food for us I meant “Oxygen”. Leaves are nature’s food factories. Well, as you would know, “Photosynthesis” is a phenomenon wherein leaves use sunlight to turn water and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose. They keep the “glucose” for themselves and gift us the Oxygen.

Now every factory has a shutdown. As summer draws to a close and autumn comes by, the days become shorter and shorter and the trees know and sense that winter is coming. During winter there won’t be enough sunshine for photosynthesis and hence the trees will shut down and live off of stored food. Now a leaf is green because of chlorophyll and its abundance dominates and masks any other pigments present in the leaf and “Chlorophyll” is the “Photosynthesis” guy. So now since he is not needed, he slowly disappears from the leaves and other guys start showing up. And that’s when we start seeing the yellows, oranges, bright reds and purples. If you want to know more about the science, do visit the references and enlighten yourself.”

So that was Mr.Eisenkleiftovich for you guys giving me some “leaf” gyan. Now it is time for me to signoff on this lovely Friday afternoon as I leave office early to take my parents on an autumn “leaf peeping” tour in the evening.   

And I shall leave you with a lovely poetic welcome to Autumn by a dear fellow blogger Rahul. You can read it here: Welcome Autumn.

P.S: Did I mention to you that after I wrote the article “An Alternate Hypothesis to Einstein’s theory of relativity”, I got a post-card from the man himself! It read: “Nice try, fella!”

References:

http://www.sciencemadesimple.com/leaves.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autumn_leaf_color

THE PERFECT DAY

Today morning was a breathtaking melancholy. There is this confounding paradox you experience when nature is at full bloom in front of you but you have limited time to breathe in its splendor. I was subject to this sweet agony. Clouds in various shades of grey decorated the skies. But they were not willing to part with their droplets as they clung on to them tightly. Rain was tantalizing one and all. One moment it looked to tear away from the clouds and splash us all with vengeance and the next moment its loyalties shifted once again. The sun appeared very shy as it hid behind the clouds and took an occasional peek with the naughtiness of a child. May be it was playing hide and seek with the rain. As it glanced through the broad shoulders of the grey clouds, its rays added more shade, slither and shimmer to the already moistly clouds. Everything under the sun glistened due to this early morning activity of the sky folk.

My morning drive to the office transformed itself into a grand odyssey through the gates of paradise that was graced by nature’s grand opera. I reverently thanked every traffic light on the way, prayed for a traffic jam and religiously tailed the slowest car on the road. I was a happy victim to the wrath and honks of several bustling men and women who were in a hurry to get to work. A guy who angrily passed me mouthed a few obscenities and was shocked to see my radiant smile in return. I guess he might even have thought that I might be a distant relation to Jesus or Buddha. Sorry to disappoint you my friend. Little did he know that the bloom of my smile sprang from Mother Nature’s symphony!     

And it just kept getting better as rain decided to make its grand entry. Winds started gushing around and the rustle of the leaves became music to my ears. There was a particularly enthralling scene I witnessed with bated breath. It was a visual of a water droplet fighting the battle of its life. It was clinging on with all its might to the shimmering glass as it was tossed left and right in a frantic pace. It started its slippery slide downward, was luckily held tight for a moment by another fellow droplet that was going through a similar struggle. The moment was short lived as the Good Samaritan couldn’t hold for long and both of them started their descent together. And then it happened… Flash… my car’s wiper came up like an axe to chop them into several pieces and dislodged them from the windshield into eternity! Poetic!

Nature seemed to be bombarding my eyes with its beauty. I just did not want the panorama to stop. And for the first time in a year, I felt that my office could have been a little farther. But then again, luck was on my side today as I hadn’t brought my lunch and gaily stepped out once again in the afternoon. The scenery had just gotten more heavenly. It looked the children of heaven were out on a picnic. The crayons and the paint brushes had come out and they had let their imagination run wild as they had shaped the clouds into so many breathtaking forms and shapes that I just could not stop gazing. I decided to shun my car and walk down. The graceful trees romanced the soothing wind in the perfect ballet. It was so magical that I don’t really remember what I ate for lunch.

And time took the incarnation of a snail post lunch. It took an eternity for the clock to strike 5 as I hurried out of work to immerse myself in the sea of beauty that lay outstretched outside. And no wonder nature’s last act was its best. The clouds had spread themselves far and wide through the vast expanse of the sky. Their somber grey had given way to a subtle and supple blue. The sun’s red was smeared in a gorgeously slender tinge which gave the evening sky a splendid shimmer. I watched the tinge slowly tail the fading sun to oblivion. With a heavy sigh, I retreated from my balcony with the satisfaction of witnessing a perfect day. Happiness is so simple!

Image Credit: http://www.bored-todeath.com/amazing/beautiful-nature-photos/

IMPRINTS OF GOD

A slender, fragile yet fascinating and beautiful creature! Its wing-span is no more than 4 inches and it weighs less than one-fifth of a pound. How it came to be called the Monarch, I shall leave it to your imagination. But the butterfly has dazzled humans for millennia. The monarch butterflies exist in several parts of the world, but God has been cruel enough to put some of them in Northern parts of America and Canada where even humans almost freeze to death in winters. Well, trees don’t come with room heaters and the market is not yet there for butterfly sweaters or jackets. So a certain death awaits these poor souls come winter. What do they do? They set off on a remarkable transcontinental odyssey that spans 2000 miles over 2 months and culminates in the safe warmth of the mountains of Mexico. And the journey back home is even more mind-blowing as it transcends 3 generations. A year long epic journey indeed that would put Columbus and Sindbad in perspective! 

The monarch migration is one of the most profound mysteries in the natural world. No one knows what exactly triggers the exodus of these newly hatched butterflies from Canada. They have never seen a winter before to know one is coming. I am pretty sure that they haven’t looked up the best travel destinations in the internet to zero in on a small town in Mexico. But yet on one late August morning, a tiny butterfly triggered by a calling of its forefathers coded perhaps in its genomes, sets off on a journey to an unknown land. Alone! Soon there are millions of them! A butterfly’s physiology is worst suited for a long migration. Yet, it travels about 50 miles a day across plains, deserts, oceans and mountains; escaping from, succumbing to and surviving rain storms, lurking enemies, scorching desert sun and tricky winds. A feat of endurance and navigation unlike anything else!

The butterflies don’t own a GPS. They can neither call their friends for directions nor can they read a map. So how exactly do they navigate their way across a continent to end up in the exact same place every year is probably the biggest mystery of all. They may be following the sun; the earth’s magnetic field perhaps provides an orientation guide or they may have special brain cells that are genetically coded to regulate their internal clock and keep them on course. Whatever their secret may be, they cross every geographic hurdle that nature dishes out in one treacherous journey with extreme panache. They fly with imagination!

A butterfly starts its journey alone but it starts bonding with its fellows on the way. As they near Mexico, they gather into huge flocks for the final leg of the journey. In a tiny Mexican village at the foothills of towering mountains, the Mazahua people wait endearingly for the Monarchs to come home. They believe that the spirits of their ancestors return in the form of these butterflies. First week of November, the butterflies arrive. I can only imagine what rapture a child would feel when she sees millions of butterflies fly into the town painting it in a reddish brown tinge. I have played the scene in my head over and over and I would give anything to be that child.

These butterflies inhabit the forests near this tiny Mexican town for about 5 months. The city rejoices. Exhausted by their monumental journey, they rest, huddled together in the warmth of the huge trees. When spring arrives, they bloom again opening their wings to the sun. They bid good bye to their hosts and begin their journey back. They travel to Texas where they make a pit stop and mate. The parents die but the next generation keeps flying north, repeating the stop, mate and die routine. A full year after they started their journey, a fourth generation of butterflies is born in homeland Canada. This generation is special because these butterflies are the chosen ones to retrace the paths of their ancestors and a wonderful planetary cycle beings again!

A spectacular natural phenomenon, this migration is an unparalleled marvel. Philosophically too, it has several underpinnings that can be inferred and interpreted in different ways. But every time I think about this incredible quest of the butterfly, I feel the hands of God. I see an artist at work! I see his Monalisa. And it staggers my mind that he has left his fingerprints in several subtle ways we don’t even realize!

Wanna know more:

http://www.monarch-butterfly.com/

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/incredible-journey-butterflies/