see it for yourself

kusum 

lesser white mallow

    So if you think the months of march and april are as drab as they are in the city,it isnt so in the forest. Amidst all our ear cracking traffic,eye soring boards of frog faced politicians wishing happy birthdays,and surprising amounts of breaking newses in the papers,its a blessing to your senses when you visit a forest in the spring.

indian turnsole

   After the dry winters, leafless kusum starts getting new leaves which are red, and at a surprising rate the whole tree looks red with fresh leaves create a crown. Wildflowers bloom,mallows start showing up,their stems jutting out from the leaf litter.

piluki

       And if you are lucky a rat snake might cross your path,or maybe you can spot this bark gecko. motionless and so confident of its camouflage it doesnt budge unless you are like more than a couple of feet away. Disturbed it scuttles away to its tree hole,peering once it feels its danger is no longer there. With this wild hope and curiosity of checking other holes in the bark,there can be this funny(your interpretation) looking insect,comfortable in its rather unexpected retreat.

bark gecko

bark gecko

someone from the family of grasshopers,cicadas and crickets

spot sword tail in mass puddling

 Well with so much things to look at and many more with every forest visit,right in your backyard(this was shot in Sgnp and yeoor hills thane),there seems no point alienating ourselves with this. Its rather priceless and the purest form of enjoyment worth noticing. Take yourself to the forest on a weekend. And before planning such heavy sounding trips to far away tiger reserves ask yourselves if you have seen jungles in your very own backyard!. If one seriously feels about a forest start from your local ones, And if one isnt intrested about forest,its advisable for him to not to go a tiger reserve for the sake of the trend thats present today. It helps reducing the stress on the tiger too.

To spice up a really boring academic life, occasionally a poem or two pop into my head, specially before some critical exam and work well to rejuvenate me. Here is one of those that found its way through all the enthalpic theories stuffed in before my chemistry finals. Astonishing enough is how a little of mere 10 lines out on paper can help to stuff more 100 pages that are to come in next! 

Stars!

Alone on my window sill stood a jar,

Glistering with bright golden shining stars.

Countless of them, each with a name,

Love, aspirations, happiness even fame!

I often stared at the soulless sky,

Wondering why couldn't anything stay up high?  

What was so cosmic, so mysterious about it?

That nobody dared to explore the beauty of it.

And so I released the little stars,

Though fearing they would wander far…

High up I sent them to adorn the skies,

Little soulful simmering butterflies.

Love went north, aspirations down south,

Fame glided by and happiness burst out!

The inky sky finally twinkled,

The fear of mysteries finally dwindled.

Yet hidden in a corner of the empty jar,

Was one of my most valuable star.

That one star refused to bid me good bye,

And thus became ‘hope’ the twinkle in my eye.