Chirps of a Forest Bird

 It was a normal science class that day, in the last week. We were learning about control and coordination in plants. And that's when I learnt why t ouch me not( Mimosa Pudica ) plant closes its leaves. It was a great class, although it left me with thousands of more questions. To answer some of these questions, I had to look further than the textbook. And now, here I am with some more interesting things I learnt about 'Response to stimuli in plants'.

  How do leaves have a specific pattern? Why does lighting appears in a specific shapes which looks like tree branches ? (at least it looked like that to me :P) Why do succulents looks like a geometry diagram? Well, it’s all science. These are called Fractals. Now, what exactly are fractals? According to Encyclopedia of Britannica, ” Fractal , in mathematics, any of a class of complex geometric shapes that commonly have fractional dimension”. In other words, Fractals are the repeated patterns.They can be found anywhere. From lightings to leaves, these are present. And as the encyclopedia said, it is a part of Maths – which is a great example for how maths can be applied in our day-to-day life. Of course, they can be found in every part of the science, from astronomy to computer science. But I’ll talk about fractals in nature today. Back in 1918, a mathematician called Felix Hausdorff introduced this concept. We can find these almost anywhere. Look at a tree. The branches have ...

ನಾವೆಲ್ಲರೂ ಇತಿಹಾಸವನ್ನು ಶಾಲೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಕಲಿಯುವಾಗ, ರಾಣಿ ಅಬ್ಬಕ್ಕದೇವಿ ಉಳ್ಳಾಳದ ರಾಣಿಯಾಗಿದ್ದಳು.. ಅವಳು ಪೋರ್ಚುಗೀಸರೊಡನೆ ಹೋರಾಡಿದಳು.. ಎಂದೆಲ್ಲಾ ಬಾಯಿಪಾಠ  ಮಾಡಿರುತ್ತೇವೆ. ಹಾಗೆ, ಲಕ್ಷ್ಮಿ ಬಾಯಿ, ಕಿತ್ತೂರು ರಾಣಿ ಚೆನ್ನಮ್ಮ ಮುಂತಾದ ರಾಣಿಯರ ಬಗ್ಗೆಯೂ ಕಲಿತಿರುತ್ತೇವೆ. ಈಜಿಪ್ಟ್ ನ ಕ್ಲಿಯೋಪಾತ್ರ, ನೆಫೇರಿಟ್ಟಿ , ಇಂಗ್ಲೆಂಡ್ ನ ರಾಣಿ ಎಲಿಜಬೆತ್ ಮುಂತಾದವರ ಬಗ್ಗೆಯೂ ಕೇಳಿರುತ್ತೇವೆ. ಆದರೆ ನಮ್ಮೂರಿನ ರಾಣಿಯರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ, ನಮ್ಮೂರಿನ ಇತಿಹಾಸದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ನಮಗೆ ಎಷ್ಟು ಗೊತ್ತು?  ನನಗೆ ನಿಜ ಹೇಳಬೇಕೆಂದರೆ ಸೊದೆ ಅರಸರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಅಲ್ಪ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಕೇಳಿದ್ದು ಬಿಟ್ಟರೆ, ಮತ್ತೇನು ಗೊತ್ತಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಆದರೆ ಈಗೊಂದು 2 ವಾರದ ಹಿಂದೆ ಗಜಾನನ ಶರ್ಮಾ ಅವರ ಚೆನ್ನಭೈರಾದೇವಿ ಎಂಬ ಪುಸ್ತಕ ಓದಿದೆ. ಈ ವರ್ಷದ ನನ್ನ favorite  ಪುಸ್ತಕ ಎನ್ನಬಹುದೇನೋ.  ಚೆನ್ನ ಭೈರಾ ದೇವಿಯ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಒಂದೆರಡು ಕಥೆಗಳನ್ನೂ, ಡಾ. ಕೆ. ಎನ್. ಗಣೇಶಯ್ಯನವರ 'ಬಳ್ಳಿ ಕಾಳ ಬೆಳ್ಳಿ' ಎಂಬ ಪುಸ್ತಕವನ್ನೂ ಓದಿದ್ದೆ. ಆದರೆ ಈ ರಾಣಿಯ ಪೂರ್ಣ ಇತಿಹಾಸವನ್ನು ತಿಳಿದಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ, ಎಲ್ಲವೂ ಒಂದು ರೀತಿಯ ಪಝಲ್ ತುಂಡುಗಳಂತೆ ಇತ್ತು. ಆದರೆ ಈ ಪುಸ್ತಕ ಉಳಿದ ಇತಿಹಾಸದ ಪುಸ್ತಕದಂತೆ ಇರದೆ, ಕಥೆಯಂತೆ ಇದ್ದು,  ತುಂಬಾ ಇಷ್ಟವಾಯಿತು.  ಯಾರಿವಳು ಚೆನ್ನಭೈರಾದೇವಿ? : ಇ ವಳು ಗೇರುಸೊಪ್ಪದ ರಾಣಿ! ಗೇರುಸೊಪ್ಪ ನಮ್ಮ ಜಿಲ್ಲೆಯ ಒಂದು ಸಣ್ಣ ಹಳ್ಳಿ (ಉತ್ತರ ಕನ್...

  Hello Everyone! For the past three days, it has been raining heavily here. I mean, it is raining too much. July and August months are the time when the monsoon goes at its peak. Well, I think this time, Monson went over its peak. So I thought of sharing what had happened due to this rain and what might be the reason. Our region, western ghats has an average rainfall of 3000-4000 per year. And it is completely normal for us to be isolated for one week in this mid-monsoon time. But from 5-6 years this system is going quite different. The worst situation I’ve ever seen in the monsoon was in 2019. We got one week break from school and even helicopters came to rescue the people stuck in the flood( not here. In some other part of our district). But 2021’s rain broke this record. The highest rainfall in the whole state recorded in these three days is 541mm which is in a small village in our district. In our village, the first day we got average rainfall of 185 mm which is way too high f...

  When I was born , my father was working for wildlife and forest conservation. So I was named Vanya, which means forest in sanskrit. Many times, people who came to our home, pronounced my name as Vaanya, which was supposed to be pronounce as Vanyaa. This always made me wonder, is there any other meaning for my name? But yesterday I accidently typed my name in google search and learnt more things about my name. Well, Vanya doesn’t only means forest… it has lot other meanings in other languages! So here in India, there are a tonnes of girl’s names that ends with  ‘nya’  or ‘ ya’ . For example :  Dhanya, Manya, Kanya, Aanya, Aranya, Ananya, Kavya, Navya. . etc. Also, almost 80% of my friends’ name ends with ‘nya’ or ‘ya’ ! So whenever someone asks my name, many of them confuses it to some other name like  Dhanya , and I have to explain my name with syllables. This time, I searched over 50 websites about names and their meanings and finally found some meanings whic...

  Some call me Ganga, some call me Narmada. Some named me Nile and some says Congo. I go by many names, but I am same everywhere…With different forms and different names, I’m the water you drink… I’m Aghanashini for some, and Amazon for some. I’m  nehir  in Turkey, and  nadi  in India.I’m part of many lives and heritages- and I’m universal… I don’t only nurture humans, but also lacks of other creatures… There are colourful birds, jumping frogs, and quirky fishes… and tonnes of other. I’ve got a huge family called earth. And in that huge family, humans are members too… members-not rulers. Photo by  Sergio Capuzzimati  on  Unsplash Today, I am all polluted. You seems to thing I belong to you only… but no. There are many other creatures living in me, not only you. You dump your wastes in water, it may be an easy deal for you. But not for animals live with me. Your plastics are eaten by the fishes here. Your pollution is making the coral reefs in sea ...

  It was back in my 4th grade. I was walking back from school. Suddenly a flock of different birds passed over my head shouting loudly. There were 2-3 woodpeckers, bee-eaters, and 4 other types of birds. I wondered, how birds of different species can become a flock… They weren’t fighting at all. Instead, they were flying and resting on trees for some seconds and flying again. After I reached home, I asked my father about it. He said it was called mixed hunting. A (rowdy) bird called Drongo chased all these birds and created a group of various birds and hunted with them! For the 9-year-old me, Drongo was a dominating bird who is rude to other birds… But now, these drongos are my favorite. Especially racket-tailed drongo – which has long tail streamers and ivory black feathers. After learning about group hunting, I read several books and articles about drongos which made me see them as villains of the bird society. These birds are extremely clever. They can mimic other birds’ calls a...