Monday, June 29, 2009

A little bit of the Montana

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I picked up this book "Never Cry Wolf" in a small quaint town of Montana just before we were to start back from our trip to YellowStone National Park.
May be I liked the place, may be reading the first 2 pages of this book endeared me or may be I wanted to take a little bit of Montana with me

Never cry wolf was a very different book; a book in which the main characters were animals.
About 50 years ago the Author Farley Mowat travels to the Artic to study the cause of a large number of Caribou killings.
Most of the people concerned about the killings: caribou hunters and top wildlife bureaucrats blame the Artic wolves to be the culprits and that is what Mowat is sent to investigate.
Mowat's find is not just startling but by the end of the book you feel respect and love for these wolves, infact you end up feeling "small"... just a small part of the large animal kingdom.

I have to say Mowat loved his profession, the length that he went to study the wolves
from setting up a tent just a stone throw distance from a wolf family's den to subsisting on a diet of rats to study their food habits(yes Artic wolves eat rats until caribou migrate back in Summer). Beat this, he actually gives a rat recipe for the adventurous at heart :)

Now coming to the wolves themselves.Most of the things about wolves were astonishing, human like and in some cases they seem smarter!
Wolves living with their family, mating for life and just like humans wolves visit their relatives, a mom, a sister!
And here is the deal
Wolves don't kill Caribou for fun. Infact most of the times they kill only the weak or the diseased thus actually helping the caribou stay healthier.
and the real culprit--- you got it,Humans, Human hunters and not wolves.



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Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Was he too?


At the risk being called a copycat myself here is my attempt to draw a Calvin clip

I watched the much endearing movie "Taare Zameen Par". TZP
I really wonder if being dyslexic is half way to becoming a genius?
Full credit to the Amir Khan and team for venturing away from mainstream cinema and making such an eye opener of a movie.
It captured India/Mumbai so well,
right from eating a gola toIshaan's mom actually coming out of her house with a "duppata" on her night gown to see him off.
anyways I digress.
Any Calvin and Hobbes fan would notice the borrowed traits in Ishaan's character!
That page-flipper book Ishaan makes to portray the story of his separation from the family,
the imaginary "Bindaas Captain Ishaan" much like The Valiant Captain Spiff and not to mention the cute looking spaceships both ride in.
Though not mentioned anywhere in the comics Calvin always seemed to have a problem with numbers and in one strip the letters did fall of his pages just like in the movie :)
Now did the TZP team intentionally copy these ideas to make it a tad bit cute?... we may never know. (But even if they did I still like the movie, I just hope Bill Watterson knows about it)

and here's the hmmm inducer, was Calvin dyslexic too? hmmmmm....
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Wednesday, June 03, 2009

While I wait for the Swiss Chard...


I will show off my home grown Methi(fenugreek)
IndoSunGod called all gardeners to show off their green thumb so here is my bit.
This was before I made some great tasting Aloo methi :).
Thanks Indo for the encouragement!
~I grew methi following the instructions from Jugalbandi, thank you Jugalbandi
soak methi seeds in water for 24 hours, drain them and leave it for 24 hours;smallsprouts will appear, rinse and leave them again for 24 hours.
Scatter them in the ground where you plan to grow and cover with 1/2 inch of soil