Life on the Line of Control is always strenuous and lonely. In the higher reaches of the Himalayas, posts get cut off once winter sets in and the soldiers are isolated except for telephone or radio calls with the battalion base. Should there be a requirement to return home to a sick child or in case of bereavement, the jawan is forced to wait it out till the first rays of spring melt the snow enough to make it possible to negotiate a path to the base. Should he fall sick, his life depends upon providence and good weather, or lack of it, which dictates whether he has a chance to be evacuated by chopper to a hospital down below.

On a post you are imprisoned in your own world, where the only other humans are the lonely figures of the enemy sentries in the Pakistani posts opposite who are likewise imprisoned. You live each day, in a surreal routine, praying to survive the long wait. The relations between an officer, a JCO and a soldier change. Each is an individual dangling like a puppet on his strings. What you believe in and what you feel is real changes in definition. And sometimes, just sometimes, you have experiences that have no rational explanation.

This then is a story of Forward Ledge, a picquet in the Sangro region of Drass, where I served as a field company commander in the aftermath of OP VIJAY. I was constructing field defences for an infantry company of the GRENADIERS. Forward Ledge is a lonely post poking boldly between dominating enemy posts on Manpo La ridge with a lone satellite post called Maharaj Position to give it company. Forward Ledge is more than 50 years old having been occupied during the 1947-48 hostilities with Pakistan. And like any self-respecting post in the Himalayas, Forward Ledge has its very own ghost – in this case, it was called the CHM.

The CHM was a paratrooper, a strict disciplinarian who was killed many years ago on the post during roll call by a single mortar bomb which fell unheralded out of the sky – the first enemy round to ever fall on Forward Ledge. Undeterred by small details such as life and death, he continues his lonely vigil on Forward Ledge, ensuring each man does his duty, long after the paratroopers left the Sangro Valley.

The CHM appears to those who are not alert on sentry duty. He appears to those who are slacking in their daily routine. He haunts those who partake of meat or alcohol on Wednesday – the CHM’s day on Forward Ledge. Why Wednesday? Nobody knows, but everybody in Forward Ledge believed it to be the day of the week on which the CHM changed his mode of performing duties. And most bizarre of all, he appears in the dreams of Company Commanders to warn them of impending attack – Forward Ledge, though vulnerable, has never fallen since its capture more than 50 years ago.

I first heard of the CHM from Maj Ravi, the Company Commander at that time, when I went to Forward Ledge for reconnoitring my field company’s task. Ravi’s company had occupied Forward Ledge just before the previous winter when his battalion had just been inducted into Drass. The previous Company Commander of the battalion being relieved had done a hurried handing over to Ravi and decamped immediately muttering something about the picquet being haunted and the need to abstain on Wednesday. Ravi, being of sound mind and healthy body, promptly put the whole thing out of his mind with pitying thoughts about the mental states of officers who had been isolated from the world for too long.

At first, life proceeded uneventfully. Ravi’s troops, being superstitious, abstained on Wednesday. Just to be on the safe side, so to say. Ravi himself was a vegetarian and rarely drank. Winter came. The first snows drifted slowly onto the bunkers. It became dark and cold early and the hours of darkness grew longer. Ravi insisted on a busy and meaningful routine for his troops. Deep snow now isolated Forward Ledge from his battalion. Bukharis, ECC (Extreme Cold Clothing), long nights of sentry duty and the whistling wind and whirling snow became the dominating motifs of daily life. The cold and limited space around prevented the troops from getting the exercise and physical recreation they were used to. The troops lost appetite and could not sleep soundly for long. Some of them passed away the long evenings reading, some playing cards, but always in company. They were never happy staying alone at any place for more than half an hour or so. Just when Ravi thought his company had settled down, the first incident occurred.

Late one night, a company cook fell asleep while his comrades played cards around him in the Company Langar. All of a sudden, he woke up screaming “Save me! Save me! He’s coming for me.” The langar commander woke him up assuming he had a nightmare. The cook continued to blabber with fright, moaning and writhing, and pleaded with all and sundry to save him. It took a long time for them to calm him down. He was still a shaken, nervous wreck, when a worried Company Subedar brought him before Ravi. Patient questioning revealed that when he had slept, the ghost CHM had appeared to him in his dreams and threatened to punish him. Ravi tried to convince him that it was a nightmare but the cook insisted on saying that it was real and that he would be punished by the spectral CHM. Ravi asked the cook why he felt that he would be punished, after all, he hadn’t done anything wrong, had he?

Slowly and painfully, the truth emerged. The cook, being fond of non-veg had been opening a tin of meat or fish on the sly to supplement his meals. He had done so today also, quite forgetting what day it was. It was then that Ravi realised it was a Wednesday. Ravi assured him that he would be OK, but the cook refused to go to sleep and volunteered to go on sentry duty. He spent the rest of the night in the open in front of the small post mandir, praying for forgiveness.

The episode affected the troops and Ravi had a hard time reasoning with them. They refused to call the actual CHM of the Company as CHM calling him Havaldar Major or Major as troops are wont to do. It was obvious whom they referred to when they spoke about the CHM. Time passed, the weather worsened and the blizzards began. Inconceivable though it was that the enemy would launch any kind of attack, the sentry duty continued. The sentries were always alert and no sign of the CHM could be seen until three weeks later on the night of the second incident.

That night a blizzard was blowing. The sentry huddled inside his sentry box which had a bukhari blazing inside. The bukhari (kerosene pipe stove) was warm, nothing could be seen through the frosted glass of the windows and slowly the soldier’s eyes drooped. A resounding slap hurled him into the sentry box as he felt his weapon being snatched away. Dazed, he peered around expecting to see the Duty Officer or JCO but he could see nobody. The freshly fallen snow lay pristine indicating that no one had come from the direction of his post. Also, he could find no sign of his weapon. Thinking it to be a Pakistani raid or grab action, he activated the alarm.

Hearing the alarm, troops stormed out of their bunkers and fibre glass huts and rushed to their posts. When Maj Ravi appeared, the sentry who had been slapped, narrated the incident and reported that his weapon was missing. Immediately, a search of the surrounding area was instituted. It revealed no sign of any activity. The search was now extended inwards and once again, no sign of any intruder could be found. One thing though! The sentry’s rifle was located lying in front of the unit mandir!

By now, the troops were firmly convinced as to what had caused this mysterious occurrence. It was the ghostly CHM on his rounds who had discovered the errant soldier and punished him. Ravi could not make anything of this incident and puzzled returned to his fibre glass hut. He carefully shut the doors to stop the draft and stoked the bukhari till it glowed warmly. He took off his extreme cold clothing and in the orange light of the bukhari lay back in his sleeping bag to ponder on this latest puzzle. He began to doze on his side with his back to the bukhari. He felt the door open and a cold draft tickled the back of his neck. Turning over drowsily, he saw a dark figure in a greatcoat standing on the far side of the room; the light too dim to distinguish his features. The figure  stood silent and motionless.

Ravi asked him, ” Haan bhai! ( yes, man). What report have you brought?”

The figure remained silent. Ravi, now irritated, said “Why don’t you speak, man?”

The figure replied softly in a deep voice, ” I have warned your soldiers before but still I find them sleeping on duty or eating meat and drinking rum on Wednesday. Be warned, caution them, or I shall do something you wont like!”

Amazed, Ravi sat up on his bed and now the bukhari came between his line of sight and where the figure had stood. Infuriated, he shouted, “Who are you? How dare you speak to me in this manner?” There was no reply. Ravi immediately stood up and rushed around the bukhari. There was no one there!

Assuming the prankster had rushed out of the hut door, he went out into the snow with his chappals and found no one. Even stranger, once again the door entrance was surrounded by virgin snow showing that no one had passed from there recently. Aside from his own footsteps, there was no sign that anyone had passed except for the open door!

He looked up and saw the sentry opposite the Company Kote about 20 ft away. The sentry was observing him curiously. “What’s the matter, sahab?”, he said. Ravi asked him whether anyone had passed this way. He said no, except for Ravi himself who had entered about half an hour earlier. Ravi accused him of not being attentive! The sentry was indignant, “Sahab, we have just turned out for the alarm given by Sepoy ___ who was slapped by the CHM tonight. I’m an extra sentry placed to keep an eye on the Kote and your hut by the Company Subedar. I’ve already had a good rest tonight and I’ve not been on duty for an hour as yet. How could I make such a mistake?”

I never believed Ravi, who swore that what he said was true.  That was the last time I met him at Forward Ledge because the next day, I sidestepped to Tiranga where my field company was now working. Two weeks later, while walking back to my field company base in Drass, I saw a chopper take off from Forward Ledge. On returning back, I enquired from the Adjutant of the battalion about the chopper. He told me that Maj Ravi, the Company Commander had been evacuated as he had fallen prey to HAPO, the dreaded High Altitude Pulmonary Oedema, and had now been moved to the Command Hospital at Udhampur. It was a Wednesday!

The next day, I phoned the Company Subedar at Forward Ledge to commiserate on his losing a fine company commander. He told me that Ravi had confided with him that his engagement had fallen through as his in-laws had been horrified by the officer losses in Op Vijay and had decided against giving their daughter to an Army man. The Company Subedar said to me, “I told him many times to put it all behind, but he succumbed to his grief and got drunk once I left him. And Sahab, you know what happens to anyone who break’s the CHM’s code on Wednesday!”

Even today, I don’t know what to think. Chance? Or is the truth out there?

It happened during Op VIJAY in 1999. Tololing had just fallen. I had moved my field company to Drass. We moved into the heights of Sangro between Tiger Hill and the long Manpo La Ridgeline. I shared a bunker with a Maj Ajay, the company commander of Sangro Main where we were constructing field defences.  Maj Ajay  belonged to Alpha company of the GRENADIERS battalion which clung onto the Sangro ridge despite everything the Pakis could throw at them. Our post, Sangro Main,  was regularly shelled by the Pakistani Observation Post at Pt 5109 to the North.

The Company Commander’s bunker at Sangro is on the crest of an exposed knoll connected by a hundred yard corridor to the nearby mountain side. Each day we had to get out of the bunkers carefully at unexpected intervals and scuttle along the ridge to the mountainside. For, if we dawdled or were seen, the ever watchful Pakistani OP would lob a few arty shells at us. On each of these hair-raising excursions, we were accompanied back and forth by Bozo.

Bozo, was a large biscuit-coloured Bhutia. He, and not Ajay, was the real king of Sangro.  He would sit on top of  the Company Commander’s bunker basking in the warm sunlight while we cowered inside or crept along the mountainside. When shelling began, he would yawn, stretch himself and cock his head to peer at the explosions. If he felt they were a mite close, he would amble inside the bunker. Not for Bozo were the jawans bunkers nestled safely amongst the rocks. No, his domain was the company commander’s bunker, the most exposed of all and the favourite target of the Pakistani Mountain Howitzers whose life’s sole mission, it seemed, was to land a shell squarely onto it and blow us all to smithereens. So far, it had not happened and Bozo being the Raja of Sangro naturally chose the Company Commander’s bunker as his home.

Bhutias - fierce protectors and loyal companions. (Image credit - Ms Kishmish)

Being the Tiger’s dog, Bozo was the mascot of Alpha company and the choicest scraps were reserved for him. These he accepted with great dignity from Ajay’s hand only. The rank and file he ignored. It took me a long time and much effort before he deigned to grace me with the permission to pat his head!  Bozo would lord over the other dogs who dare not show their snout anywhere near our knoll. Bozo accompanied Ajay everywhere. He was the apple of Ajay’s eye and they were inseperable. I marvelled at their affection for each other.

In war, bunkermates become bosom-buddies and I soon came to know Ajay quite well. A courageous and competent officer, Ajay was undergoing great personal strife – he was accused of failing to press home an attack on a nearby feature.

Ajay’s company had been tasked to crack a particularly difficult nut, Pt 5200 which had a long flat exposed approach. Just as his company attack had reached the objective,their stealthy approach was noticed by one of the ever-vigilant Pakistani OPs and Ajay’s company were straddled by salvo after salvo as they tried to bunch up for the final assault.  Ajay was knocked unconscious by an arty shell. After the accurate arty fire forced the company to retreat with a large number of casualties,  the local commander blamed Ajay for this debacle, ignoring the fact that the next attack by an infantry battalion was also repulsed by the Pakistanis. Ajay was to face a Court of Enquiry and a possible Court Martial. In those dark days, Ajay seemed to have no friend in the world, except for Bozo who lavished affection on him.

The type of terrain where the attacks go in! RIP our brave martyrs!

One fateful day, Alpha company was ordered to capture Pt 5109, our nemesis. As the troops moved up after dark, Ajay soon found that he was not leading just a company but also a large brown dog. Bozo, happy to do something new, was following him. Shooing him away had no effect. A well-aimed stone drew a whimper and it seemed that Bozo had returned to Sando. An hour later, as Alpha company crouched behind rocks with fixed bayonets, Ajay was startled by a warm wet tongue licking his face. Bozo was intent on assaulting with the GRENADIERS. There was nothing to do but go on. The company moved out silently and soon battle cries and barks surprised the Pakistani outpost which was quickly overpowered. Alpha Company tasted victory for the first time and that too without a casualty. The troops attributed this to the luck that Bozo brought with him and this time Bozo permitted all and sundry to pat him on the head.

Pt 5109 is ten yard narrow ridge with sangars on both sides and a trench in between. The Pakistani shelling soon began but either overshot or fell short. Later that night, a fog crept up and it became very cold.  The troops huddled together, tired and miserable after the gruelling climb and adrenalin rush of battle. An hour passed. Suddenly Bozo stared into the fog and began barking loudly. Ajay immediately stood to with his men just in time to repulse a Pakistani counter-attack which had used the cover of the fog to get close to the post.  Once again the GRENADIERS pushed back the enemy without a casualty.

Except for one, that is. Bozo was found bloody and cowering at the bottom of the trench after the attack. A piece of shrapnel had neatly sliced off his front right paw. He was quickly fitted with a first field dressing and the Company waited for daylight when a company of SIKHS climbed up to relieve them. Bozo was carried down by Ajay in his own arms, no mean feat since Bozo weighed over 20 kgs.

Victory!

Bozo healed rapidly and soon adapted a three legged gait. He moved slowly, but with the same dignity and once again accompanied Ajay everywhere. He was still the Raja of Sangro. With Pt 5109 falling to the GRENADIERS and Tiger Hill falling soon after, we could now sit in the open and enjoy the sunshine on Sangro knoll along with Bozo.  I can still recall, in my mind’s eye, Ajay and Bozo sitting beside me as the last rays of the evening sun fell on our faces and the waters of Pariyon Ka Talab glinted in the distance.

Soon, Ajay had to leave for his Court of Enquiry and he bid a tearful farewell to his best friend. I assured him that I would look after Bozo for him till he returned. Soon I shifted to a bunker on the nearby hillside next to the camp of my field company. Bozo continued to live in Sando but often visited me at mealtimes to the great delight of my sahayak who kept the choicest marrow bones for him.

In early October, Ajay returned. He had finally been exonerated, but his battalion was moving out to a peace station in the desert. He resolved to take his best friend with him. I kept silent as he first retrieved his luggage, then collected Bozo’s collar, dish and blanket and loaded them in the 1Ton. As he turned to get Bozo from where he was basking in the evening sun at his usual spot atop the bunker, I placed my hand on Ajay’s arm. He looked back enquiringly. I quietly reminded him that Bhutias are dogs of cold weather and high altitude and that Bozo would definitely not survive the desert summer. Ajay’s eyes mutinously but silently refused to acknowledge the truth of what I was telling him. But in the heart of hearts, Ajay knew that what I said was true, and now deep sorrow filled his eyes. My hand dropped from Ajay’s arm. He walked over to the knoll and sat next to Bozo. They spent a few moments together and then after petting him for the last time, Ajay returned. He shook hands with me. We could not look each other in the eye. Without looking back Ajay got into the 1Ton and drove away. Bozo was still sitting on the knoll enjoying the evening breeze,  the undisputed three-legged king of Sangro.

..like Bozo, a well-earned rest in the sun..(image credit - Ms Kishkish)

Soon after, my field company finished our task and we too moved on.   I have not yet been able to find anyone who could tell me how Bozo is at Sangro. Thus ended one of the finest friendships I had seen between man and beast. Truly, in those dark days, Bozo had been one man’s best friend.

Sitting by the lake late at night offers an experience radically different to the familiar scene during the day. At first when you wait on the lakeside culvert, it is dark and cold, the senses seek light desperately and your mind rebels at this seeming waste of time. It takes a good quarter of an hour for the mind to settle down. You get used to the cold breeze, the pupils of your eye enlarge and amplify the scant night-light. Your ears attune to the sounds. And then, imperceptibly, you plunge through the rabbit hole and enter wonderland. Slowly, the world comes alive by night.

You are alone but not lonely. The full moon shines down delicately scalloped by the cirrus clouds high in the stratosphere. A large yellow Venus and a small Jupiter shine high on the horizon. The stars are veiled by the clouds; most will appear once the clouds have crawled past. A soundless blinking pair of lights reveal the path of an aircraft making its way across the peninsula to some magical destination in the Far East. In the distance, around the lake shore and slightly above the waterline, a beautiful necklace of yellow and white pearls amongst the dark trees trace the industrial area around CME’s perimeter.  The shadowy outline of trees on the far bank are silhouetted against the night sky brightened by urban glare. The lake water is dark, patterned with varying shades of black and gray with wavelets in the gentle breeze rippling the moon on the water.

But it is not very quiet. No, peace and quiet comes much later on a Saturday night. The night-wind carries sound faithfully across vast expanses of land. The rattle of a goods train crossing the Mula River and the plaintive hoot of its engine are as clearly heard as the DJ mixing numbers in the Officers Institute or the racy Hindi songs at a marriage in Dapodi. The barking of dogs in faraway Se La road provide a contrast to the miniature fireworks display far away beyond Kasarwadi, no doubt to celebrate a marriage, festival or a cricket victory. But these noises can never drown out the whine of mosquitoes which hover around you. Down the road toward the Cadets Training Wing, a pair of cicadas serenade each other through the night.

The concrete culvert feels hard, rough and cold even through the thick denim of your jeans. You turn up your collar to reduce the prickles and shiver the breeze brings on. The nose wrinkles first at the odour of Odomos that surrounds you to keep the rapacious mosquitos at bay. The faint stench of decaying vegetation in your nostrils now penetrates through you. It is only if you walk along the shore that you can partake of the delicate aroma of a night-blossom  beckoning its lover-moths to pollinate her.

The fish are the first living things to draw your attention. A large splash, followed by a black stain on the water indicate where a large Rohu, probably in his second year, comes up by night to draw in oxygen through his mouth. Confident of safety from the legions of herons, storks and cormorants who wait for them by day, the fish surface every few minutes. That itself is worrisome, is an  oxygen deficit building up in the lake?  A small plip on the water surface followed by a flickering little flying shadow is the only indication of some small insect bats hawking flies and sipping water from the lake surface. The water birds, who are a riot by day, are quiet except for an occasional squawk from the lake which tells us that the favourite jester of CME, a purple moorhen, has just offended his neighbour.  Now, a pale streak across the sky shows the path of a small meteorite burning to oblivion as it enters Earth’s atmosphere.

A few birds can be seen dark stationary silhouettes perched on stumps or on a lonely vigil among the reeds. The duck sleep on the shore with heads turned back and bills shielded in the feathers of the back.  A soft chuk, chuk, chuk churrr behind me in the grass beyond the road, tells tales of an Indian Nightjar, a secretive and nocturnal resident of CME. There is harsh kwiirik chuk in the trees by the roadside. Their author is not hard to find despite his small size. The pint-sized Spotted Owlet is perched on a branch with a commanding view over where his prey, the metads and field mice, could gambol. A pair of dark animals with long snouts and long thick tails must surely be a pair of palm civets out to trouble the denizens of Bhosari. They pause at a wet trail by the river, but the water-snake which made it has long gone by and they turn away – they have bigger fish to fry. A soft whirring tells of hawk-moths which have finally arrived at the night-blossoms, plunging their extra-long and thin proboscis deep into the corolla of the Raat-ki-Rani flowers to get at the sweet nectar and leaving behind a few grains of precious pollen for the plant. An ominous shaking in the bush turns out to be nothing more than a cow grazing in areas where she is normally driven off by day.

The symphony of shadow and sound continues throughout the long vigil and the ambience mesmerises the senses. The soul begins to meditate and just as you reach a state of bliss, rude reality bursts into your presence. In this case, its the increasing screech of a Dhai-Ton truck, carrying the armed patrol of the College on its nightly round. The vehicle soon recedes with a dull roar, but takes along with it the very special moment. No doubt, you will experience something like it some other day, but today’s deed is done. You will have to return home to a different set of pleasures.

As you move off, the lake and its life continues in its endless cycle of existence unaware of the happiness they have given you.

Notes

• CME – the campus I stay on.
• Nallah – a stream or dry streambed. Water not necessarily fresh.
• Rohu – Labeo rohita, a freshwater carp often cultivated in Indian water bodies and very good to eat!
• Dhai Ton – a light military truck. (Dhai = 2.5 in Hindi)

The hottest thing happening in town is that hundreds of really good-looking birds are here all the way from Russia, Siberia and Central Asia and having a great time at our very own lakes. And with the decline of Pune’s traditional wetlands of Mula Mutha and Pashan, for Pune’s wildfowl, CME is the happening place in town.

A flight of resident Spotbill come in to land.

Our staid resident community of a three hundred Spotbill duck have been enlarged by the arrival of almost a thousand migratory duck. The first which you will notice when peering over the embankment of the CTW Lake are the bright chestnut Ruddy Shelducks, known in India as Brahminy Ducks, the giants of the duck community. Faithfully organised in spouse-pairs, they stand uneasily amidst the hoi-polloi of hundreds of Northern Shovellors with brown heads down into the water, their boat shaped bills trawling relentlessly for snacks and their tails wagging as they go about their dodgem race to get at the good stuff.

The ruddy shelduck in full splendour over the CTW lake.

Interspersed amongst them are the Northern Pintails with purple necks and a beautiful white stripe running down their seductive neckline and pointed tail feathers which give them their names. Smallest of all are the Common Teals, their males looking anything but common with shining green and brown heads.

In between the crowd, a few strays – a forlorn female Nakta or Comb Ducks, her white-woolly body peppered with black spots, looks all around in vain for the prominent combed beak of the males of her species. Someone didn’t give her quite the right directions! And all around this fish-market are the cheeky brown Little Grebes or span Dabchicks who dare each other as to how close they can get to this frightful human who thinks he’s invisible to the birds by being half-defiladed behind the bund. Amidst these, bob the plump-staid Coot, residents of CME, looking distraught at the riff-raff which arrives each season. Over head, the Grey Herons and Painted Stork are unimpressed, they have seen all this before. What is much more important is to decide whether he/she should invest in a time-share at this fish-abundant but crowded spot or go to another beckoning shallow with uncertain fish and no jostling neighbours. The Black-headed  White Ibis have no such qualms about fratenising with their cousins, a flock of Glossy Ibis.

The Purple Swamphens who entertained us all summer by their bumbling antics are now joined by the more prim and proper Common Moorhens. The Pheasant-tailed Jacanas, always a treat to watch, are now mostly gone; they don’t like the wood and leaf-smoke which is the characteristic odour of winter in our campus and do not hesitate to make their displeasure known.

The clearing of brush-wood by the roadside has deprived many dozens of Great and Little Cormorants of privacy, shade and perch and they have moved out of CME to the Mula river. However, their absence was not missed as a new bird appeared on the scene in Pune – the Darter or Snake-bird, a pair of which were recently seen at the Middle Lake opposite the Sailing Club.

Record shot of Darter at Upper Lake, CME by Girish Vaze

The hottest chick in town was undoubtedly the solitary svelte Greater Flamingo which daintily trawled her upside-down head waggling her pink body in the tasty swallows in the upper lake. But her arrival put a frown on the foreheads of the bird-watchers – are the CME lakes turning brackish, as every-one knows flamingos are only found at sea-shores and brackish lakes.

However, where duck are plentiful, the birds of prey follow, in our case a pair of Marsh Harriers with gorgeous chestnut coloured neck head and shoulders, causing waves of duck to alarm and fly off as they carry out a low vigil over the reed-filled shorelines.

The Marsh Harrier on patrol.

It is getting late now. A flight of elegant Black-winged Stilts resembling the chic models of Vogue as they cross their legs in the shallows, are disturbed by two pesky Green Sandpipers who buzz them as they spot the raconteurs. A flock of 150 Wire-tailed Swallows and Red-rumped Swallows hawk insects in the reddish glow of dusk as some birds take off – a few for their nightly outings for feed, others en-route to communal roosts on the riverside, while the rest settle down in a low muttered squabble for the night.

Hush, night falls in paradise!

( First published in CME Weekly in Nov 2008 )

(Note: Text available under GFDL or Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 . Images  are copyrighted by the authors. Email addresses of Gaurav Purohit and Girish Vaze available on request.)

If  you approach the Upper CME Lake cautiously on the Nasik road itself and halt a few metres from the culvert right next to the lake, you can see a plethora of bird life on the banks. What appears to be a melee soon distinguishes itself into a large number of interesting objects each asking for your attention.

The grass bank teams with Egrets, completely white with fine feathers on head or chest. Plump Purple Moorhens with basketball shaped bodies and red wattles on their hands gambol around on the mud. Staid Grey and Purple Herons with sharp spear-like beaks and long eyelashes which extend backwards beyond their heads stand immobile with S-shaped necks coiled like springs. Suddenly the bird strikes forward and comes up with a frog which is summarily gobbled up before they strike another pose.

The lake is well stocked with fish and supports a large community of resident fish-eaters such as cormorants, herons and storks. (Photo:Girish Vaze)

The piece de resistance of this view point are the Painted Storks, the largest birds residing here, with long beaks slightly turned at the end, egg yolky in colour, red eye patches and with delicate pink feathering on their backs reminiscent of the flamingo. It steps forth with measured step of an arthritic delicately probing as it goes for delicacies in the mud. Sprinkled amongst the storks are the Black-headed White Ibis, with curved beaks, resembling undertakers. Silently the birds plunge their beak in the morass for titbits for Ibis, unlike other birds, do not call.

The associated reedbeds and grass patches of the CME lakes support inordinate populations of Purple Swamphens! (Photo: Girish Vaze)

The water gently ripples from the breeze of crystal clear air causes the lake to band the landscape. Above the blue-grey water is a green band of grass and rushes. They are punctuated with water birds. Most prominent are the completely black Cormorants which dive into the water, upturn and fish coming up for a breather with body underwater and only the neck above the surface looking like a snake-bird. When the fishing is done, they return to their congregation on a tree next to the culvert or stand on dead tree trunks with wings spread wide open to dry their wings for as you know cormorants lack the oil glands possessed by ducks which prevent their feathers from getting waterlogged.

Speaking of Duck, there are very few on this lake. They are to be found on the CTW, middle and lower lakes with a few skeins at other ponds in the campus. We shall meet them next when we visit the CTW Lake. The black duck-like birds with white on their faces on their foreheads and beak floating amongst the water hyacinth are Coot, a different kind of water-bird. Some of the browner and smaller individuals among them on the shore are the juveniles of the last breeding season which are yet to strike out on their own.

The setting sun hangs a while poised above the horizon as a whiff of the cloying smell of decaying vegetation is whisked on the cool breeze. In the peace punctuated by the squawk of a heron above the low pitched rumple of the rowing channel machinery can be heard coming back to laager after a day’s work. A large fish jumps well out of the water, showing off its scales, confident that there is no danger from the ubiquitous Kingfishers so late in the day.

Slowly darkness falls, the cormorants fly off in batches, aligned in oblique lines to their nesting place across the River Mutha. Occasional Vs of duck can now be seen as they move to their night time foraging in the fields. The storks, egrets and herons settle down on the bunch of trees which they have selected as a heronry on the other side of the lake. It is now time for us to go home having enjoyed some of that quality of life which so many aspire to, so few get and which is already there within reach only requiring us to open our eyes and drink it all in.

(This writeup first appeared on CME Weekly in Jun 2008).

Photo Credits: Girish Vaze. Copyrighted. His email available on request.

They creep up on you unsuspectingly. One drowsy Sunday morning, with head nodding, I heard a plop on the small teapoy in front of me. It was one of the avian tribesmen, golden and black in colour, making an offering to the great sahab of his guano. The wretch not only spoilt my newspaper but thoroughly woke me up with a musical trill which brought my son, Aashay, out saying ”Oh look Pappa, its a golden oriole!” I ask you would you forgive Lata Mangeshkar or any other heavenly singer if she crept up on your slumber in the garden and blasted you in the ear no matter how melodiously she sang. You would despatch her rather quickly, but with a reputation for being a bird-lover, I was forced to smile to match my son’s enthusiasm. It seemed that the bird would never stop singing! By the time it left, I couldn’t sleep any more.

I tried the early afternoon instead, and found a green red-whiskered barbet delightfully tapping out his monotonous beat on the dead tree next to my garage. Finding a dirty look instead of appreciation, he cringed and flew off but sent big brother, a Maratha woodpecker, instead. Louder, bossier, and tapping fast enough to get him an interview in any workshop, dirty looks were of no avail as he had his speckled back to me. Words of abuse did not get him to lower his red cockade. I shook the tree violently and sent off this ruffian ‘Katphora’. But it was too late, I was wide awake.

Few things gave these creatures solidarity as their endeavour to disturb my well earned repose. One rainy afternoon, braving the occasional leak and rejoicing at the absence of birdsong, I had barely settled down when a large shiny black carpenter bee, no doubt an MES employee, came inspecting the rotting rafters of the verandah. He buzzed loudly around me ignoring the frantic swats from my newspaper. He paused overhead as if to say, hey Bud, you know I have no sting, let the rain stop and I’ll be out of here before you can sing honeybee. At long last, the rain stopped and the bee went away but now the soporific patter of a rain shower was replaced by a mismatched drip drap of different series of drops with one freshly born stream created just for anointing me. It was useless, I moved into the house.

As I had worked very hard for this pleasure, there was no way I was going to let these pesky aborigines deprive me. So one day I selected a nice hammock under the Gliricidia trees, but rushed back very soon as I had forgotten the carnivorous mosquitoes of CME who descended on me like the hordes of Genghis Khan on an unsuspecting Central Asian city.

The large cemented patio at the back of the house finally seemed to do the trick and in the warm sunlight I blissfully entered the jungle of my dreams. A soft rustling disturbed me. I ignored it awhile hoping it would subside but it persisted. At last I blinked awake to stare into the astonished faces of a pair of mongooses taking some quality timeout together. They looked at me as would a pair of Burmese natives if suddenly a pot-bellied laughing Buddha statue of their pagoda suddenly came to life. They did a disappearing act worthy of Houdini but not before a bunch of lascivious ‘sathbhais’ or large grey babblers in the ‘Parijaat’ tree beyond, who had been ogling the svelte mongooses, set up a devil of a cackle on being deprived of their entertainment. I rushed inside into the dark shadows of my bedroom for some solace but it was not to be – the neighbourhood tomcat encouraged by my daughter Aditi’s daily offerings of milk had alerted my pet dog Tashi with predictable results. Sometimes you just can’t win. Seriously, its almost enough to put you off wildlife.

Note. This blog entry is dedicated to the late Edward Hamilton Aiken, naturalist and writer extraordinary, whose classic account of nature in Kutch holds the same title as this piece. Read more about him at the blog entry above.