Articles by Deepa Mohan

Here’s a video I took, of some remarkable ‘fishers’ that we are able to see, even in urban lakes such as Madiwala or Lalbagh, in the winter. These are Spot-billed Pelicans which are local travellers. There are some long-distance travellers, too. These are Bar-headed Geese landing at Hadinaru Kere, near Nanjangud, Karnataka, in August 2015; they come all the way from Mongolia! Here’s one, which was tagged in Mongolia (yes, I received a reply from the scientists there when I emailed them, it was quite a thrill). This winter, we had another lone, and surprise visitor. The Demoiselle Crane was a lone bird that I spotted in a lake…

Recently, the Bangalore Traffic Police made it mandatory for pillion riders to wear helmets. It's been a law, for some years now, for two-wheeler drivers to wear them. Here's a family I snapped...   This was not on any side road, it was on the main highway leading to the airport from the city.  I've had a neurosurgeon neighbour, and two of my surgeon brothers in law, tell me what horrific head injuries can happen when a two-wheeler is involved in an accident. The pillion rider can, in fact, be thrown even further than the driver, and head injuries are…

Having read this article in the Hindu, dated September 28th 2008 and also enjoyed this article by my friend Adarsh Raju about the trees and the temple, written on July 15th 2015, I'd wanted to visit this heritage site for some time. On January 30th, when my friend Mallika Rajasekaran asked our mutual friend Arun Visweswaran about the location, I was very happy to finally be able to go Nallur, a village in Devanahalli taluk in Bangalore Rural district, which once hosted vast tamarind groves, now has a patriarch of a tree, estimated to be 900 years old, still bearing…

It was very pleasant to sit on the lawns of Bangalore's premier management institution. In the gathering dusk, people drifted in and took their seats. The stage was well-lit.  Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia started the evening off with sweet notes from his "bansuri", with the lilting evening raga, Madhuvanti. One can truly say that, with his flute, he literally breathes  his music! For the audience, also, the composition in raga Yaman that followed, and then a bhajan, breathed relaxation and serenity into them.   When one of the impresarios came up on stage, he wisecracked that when pretty girls appear, trouble…

At South End Circle, on Sunday, the 17th of January, 2016, it was heartening to see several volunteers holding placards asking road users not to use their mobiles while driving.  The trouble with our country seems to be that no one thinks an accident could happen to him or her...until it actually happens. And rules, we feel, are for others to follow and for us to flout. The volunteers looked tired, standing in the middle of the road junction in the polluted air. But if even one two-wheeler or four-wheeler driver put down the mobile phone and resolved not to…

Right now, the rains are a distant memory, but it wasn't long ago that we felt our city was just soaking in water... and though we didn't have the major deluge that Chennai had, we too had our share of dampness and moisture. There are some organisms that thrive in this moist, humid environment, and though they have a short life, they still look beautiful, and intriguiging, when they appear. Mushrooms are a form of fungi... and in fact, the fruiting body of these organisms. Mushrooms come in varieties called bolete, puffball, stinkhorn, morel, and gilled mushrooms themselves are often called agarics.…

With young students like Anvitha Rao and Joiston Pereira taking the initiative, the annual Waterfowl Census, which had been suspended some time ago due to lack of support by the authorities, was revived again on some of the lakes of Bangalore. On Saturday, 26th Dec, 2015, the census was started at Agara Lake. Several concerned citizens,birders and environmentalists participated. On Saturday, lakes along Sarjapura Road were covered; on Sunday, the focus was on Hosur Road.  While doing the bird counts, participants were also asked to input data on the condition of the lakes. Here is an update from Joiston Pereira:…

We recently protested against, and stopped, an illegal meeting by the Bangalore Metro authorities, to ratify cutting trees in Reach 2. However, we can't protest all the time, and I recently found several large trees cut down on Bannerghatta Road. When will this tree-cutting mania stop in our city? Cutting the trees and widening the roads is a double whammy...we remove the beings that cleanse our air, and add motorized vehicles, each of which produces noxious fumes. It's been proved that widening of roads only causes more traffic to jam them in a downward spiral of destruction and pollution. When…

At the last minute, on the morning of December 13th, I convinced 20 other birders that instead of going to Valley School, we should bird along the Kaggalipura-Bannerghatta stretch, and then go to check out Hulimangala. And there, at nearly the end of a long birding outing, we saw a migrant which has never before been sighted in the Bangalore area... the Demoiselle Crane. Can you spot the crane in its habitat?  Here it is: Demoiselle cranes undertake one of the toughest migrations in the world.... as tough as that of the Bar-headed Geese.  From late August through September, they gather in…

The adage says, "there's safety in numbers". But our Bangalore citizens seem to apply this out of context. Here's a photo I snapped on Sunday.  I wonder how many more people can ride on that two-wheeler, all without helmets....