Articles by Deepa Mohan

Cartoon by Rohan Chakravarty. Bird Race time again! Or to be more precise,The HSBC Bangalore Bird Race is what it's known to the wise.As soon as the registration was declared open,Thirty-six teams registered, every person hopingThat he or she would be the one to sight so many birdsThat "You're the best!" would be the judges' appreciative words.The Bird Race team consisted of a lot of names with S's...Srihari, Subbu, Sunjoy, Swarna..to sort out all the messesAnd successfully stage the event.Thanks to their work, it all wentSmoothly, with sponsorship from HSBC...A day of being in the open air, sighting birds happily.One…

I found these two Harley Davidson's at Cuppa cafe the other day....I've seen the Harley-Davidson communities in the US, looks as if we have an active community here, in Bangalore, too! ⊕

One of the unusual features of this year's Bird Race was the fact that seven teams out of 35 (that's one fifth!) wanted to go together, rathen than compete on their own. One team, Flamingo, had to drop out, and the other, Flowerpecker, started late..and went on to win the race. But here are teams...Black StorkFalconIbisRuffandSpotted Owletall together in the morning...We stayed together throughout the day, made sure as many of us as possible could see each bird.... had chai, breakfast, and lunch, enjoyed ourselves very much...and one of the teams still managed to get the third prize, and that's…

I've been interacting, on FaceBook, with the MD of BESCOM (Bangalore Electricity Supply Corporation), Mr Manivannan (though our interaction is not mainly on civic issues..he's quite a poet!). I have been getting the sense that he's shaking up this behemoth and making them more accountable and user-friendly.I realized that if I was going to be away for a long time, I could ask for minimum billing on my apartment. I wrote to the contact email (Ms Jayanathi) on the BESCOM website...and promptly got a return email from her, telling me whom I had to contact, and the phone nos...and additional…

On Friday, 11th Jan 2013, a few of us were going for a birding trail, and we were waiting at the chai shop at Mantri Residency Apartments, on Bannerghatta Road, for a couple of others to arrive.Suddenly, in the pre-dawn dark, my friends (all young men) said there had been an accident, and rushed on about 10 yards ahead. Then one of them came back and told me that it was a girl who had been hit. A Tata Sumo driver had started the car and speeded up, and a young woman (about 19 or 20, I'd guess) had suddenly…

Some of the BULBs (Bangalore Urban Lady Birders) decided to meet up for lunch at Halli Mane on Sankranti Day:The decorations were beautiful...made of palm fibre:made of palm fronds: This is the menu, as displayed on the board:kharabUjatha rasa (Musk Melon juice)eLLu--bellA-kabbu (Sesame seeds-jagger-sugar cane)hesaru beLe pAyasA( Mung dal payasa)mAvina midi uppinkAyA (Maavadu, small mango pickle)chOLada kOsambari (Salad with corn and grated carrots)moLagekkALu, dAdimba kOsambari (Salad with sprouted green gram and pomegranate)Alu gaddE palyA (potato curry)dondekkAi, gOdambi palya (...... curry)mAvina kAyi chutney (mango chutney, not sweet)sihi pongal (sweet pongal)khArA pongal (savoury pongal)avarekkALu usli (preparation with winter beans)avarekkAlu bAth (rice with avarekkAlu…

Posting for all children, on behalf of Hari Someshekar : The theme for this issue of the WWF Panda Magazine is Big Cats (tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard and so on), which we hope will be exciting and interesting for children. Please do encourage your children/ children you know. who write/draw well, to submit their articles, experiences, stories, poems, photographs and illustrations on the topic by January 21, 2013. We are also open to entries in regionallanguages/vernacular and would prefer submissions in soft copiesPlease email entries tohsomashekar@wwfindia.net ⊕

Mother and father are discussing family matters. They deplore the mischief of their two boys, and also express wry amusement at the younger one's original thinking, that lies behind the mischief. However, the father predicts that this boy will leave footprints on the sands of time, and go on to become famous. Almost a scene played out in every home, one may feel...but it was, actually, a scene from a play on Tipu Sultan, by the late Dina Mehta, who was an award-winning playwright and Fiction Editor at the Illustrated Weekly of India. The father in question in this play…

It's been my experience that when re-introducing people to Nature, two kinds of instruction are necessary. I call the process a re-introduction, because all of us are part of Nature; it's only that in the rush and stress of urban life, many of us lose touch with the environment that we were created in. We are fortunate to have Bannerghatta forest at our doorstep, with so much scenic beauty! Here's a photo of a pond near the Bannerghatta Zoo: Kingfisher Pond in the Bannerghatta Zoo area. Pic: Deepa Mohan On one hand, I feel strongly that a hands-on approach works…

Ganjam in association with Bangalore Little Theatre presents `Tiger ! Tiger ! ‘ by (the late) Dina Mehta, a site-specific theatre exploration that is being performed at the Bangalore Fort. The performance is a part of the prestigious History of Ideas programme of Bangalore Little Theatre and is in partnership with the Centre for Public History as a part of the `Tiger comes to Town'.The performance marks the first time a heritage site in the city will open itself out to a unique experiment that will enable an audience to experience a historical event at its very location.`Tiger ! Tiger…