Friday, September 20, 2013

Bhopal visual Potpourri: A post modern tourist’s diary



The current sample chapter below on ‘Bhopal’ is a flashback of visuals encompassing a 5 year journey but feel free to do this in just more than 5 minutes (by the time you finish reading this).
If you are using windows 25 and trying to scan the images coded below in English alphabets with your ‘n’ MHz clock speed CPU then it is likely that your Microsoft photo editor will be able to translate this alphabet code into images but the visuals may often appear to be in charcoal (perhaps because of a bug in the new Microsoft photo editor getting in the way).
Oh! by the way if you are a human reading this (the previous line was meant for robots) you don’t need to worry about translating the images because your software is different and we are yet to figure it out but lucky you...just sit back and let the alphabetical syntax flow into your eyes and go beyond your occipital cortex to generate as much visual semantics your brain allows.

Visual 1:

You are on your car that has taken off from Bhopal toward the nearby cave paintings of Bhimbhetka and you are transported to10, 000 BC...the birth of modern asynchronous information communication technology (henceforth ICT).
As soon as your car crosses the suburbs of Bhopal and the forests adjoining the national highway (also known as ‘main road’ in local terminology) you spot a few rock outcrops atop a hill jutting out amidst a wooded forest (you may or may not bother to compare it with Stonehenge especially if you haven’t seen either) and it may or may not be love at first sight but you might like to stop at the quaint little coffee shop at the railway station just before your car enters the forest. You will find a few bridelia retusa trees (locally called Kasai) there. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5d/Bridelia_retusa.jpg  Feel free to relax and pause for awhile under its shade.

Visual 2:

The cave paintings were made by the earliest human users of ICT who felt the need to communicate asynchronously with their brethren particularly at times when they may have felt they wouldn’t be around for the day. Soon these images were translated into symbols small enough to fit into a bhoj patri (something like a papyrus) and here you see the same symbols on the page that you are reading now and if you have read till this line you are pretty good at decoding ‘post-modern’ cave paintings really. As you troll through the caves and marvel at the paintings on the rock surfaces you may like to pause at a picture of a lion being hunted by a pack of cave men. Would be good to know which one of the paintings you liked the most.

Birds of Bhopal:

Visual 3:

After you drive from Bhopal toward Sanchi for about 50 kilometres and reach a place called Salamatpur, take the right turn to the Sonari stupa from the main road and then go along the dirt road (known locally as kuccha road) till you reach the way to the stupa and instead of following the regular path to the stupa take a left turn and after a time you shall arrive at the foot of a bowl like valley.

I have marked it here on the wikimapia:


You shall find another area marked Lavanya green orchids and one marked trek to the stupas. The best birding area is actually sandwiched between these two marked areas.
The visual you may treasure in your memory of this place (depending on the season) is a flock of rosy starlings in the early hours of the morning just before you set off climbing the forested hill forming a part of the bowl like valley in your bid to reach the Sonari stupas within the forest.
You also see the usual list of birds that one can spot around most places in Bhopal. This one copied below was compiled by Shomi Gupta ( a chartered accountant and environmental activist) and if you are in Bhopal you will be really lucky to have her on your nature tour.
1.         a) Asian paradise flycatcher ( pair:  female & adult white male)
2.         b) Asian paradise flycatcher ( mother & 3 subadult male juvenile)
3.         Golden oriole
4.         Large cuckoo shrike.
5.         White breasted kingfisher.
6.         Great tit
7.         Mini blue kingfisher
8.         Oriental white eye
9.         Common iora
10.       Green bee eater
11.       Crested bunting
12.       Partridge
13.       Grey francolin
14.       Red rumped swallow (taking mud for the nest)
15.       Black drongo
16.       Red wattled lapwing.
17.       Blue rock pigeon
18.       Hoopoe.
19.       Rosy starling.
20.       Common starling
21.       Silver bill munia.
22.       Pond heron.
23.       Tailor bird.
24.       Purple sunbird.           
25.       Warbler (unidentified)

Herbivore list

1.                  Langoor monkey.
2.                  Barking deer

Carnivore list

1.                  Civet (road kill)
Incidentally the Asian Paradise Flycatcher is the state bird of Bhopal (although it is very much prevalent in the Indian subcontinent from Himachal to Sri Lanka and you can see the beauty in this picture here:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Asian_Paradise_Flycatcher-_Male_at_Himachal_I4_IMG_3011.jpg and here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Terpsiphone_paradisi_-near_Amaya_Lake%2C_Dambulla%2C_Sri_Lanka-8.jpg
Visual 4:
On your drive back through the main road don’t miss the food at Astha Dhaba (Dhaba is a way side restaurant). You may never have noticed such large whole wheat flour rotis taste so soft. As you drive further toward Bhopal a keen bird watcher at the back of your car may suddenly cry out OMG! Stop...Stop...look at that amazing flock of ‘woolly necked storks’ to your left. These are just drop dead gorgeous, tall large birds. Take a look here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/White_necked_stork_%28Ciconia_episcopus%29_21-Mar-2007_7-37-51_AM_21-Mar-2007_7-37-52.JPG
One of your kids remark, “...they don’t look like ‘fully naked storks.’ What did you say their name was again?”


Tree watching:

Visual 5


For those of you who are likely to visit Sanchi and not take the detour to Sonari (obviously have no qualms on being labelled modernists) there are other natural pleasures in store.
Most of the Sanchi Stupa area is adorned by ‘Manilkara Hexandra’ http://www.outreachecology.com/landmark/LTI_pix/LTI_SinglePho_640/c050_LTI_SinglePho_640.jpg
If you are planning to adorn your garden with this tree, beware of its slow growing nature as it would take decades to reach the size you see in the picture above. This is an interesting tree of the ‘sapotacae’ family which is currently just used as a rootstock for its more popular cousin in India ‘Manilkara Zapota’ imported from its native dwellings in southern Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. The Spanish name ‘zapota’ has been Indianized to ‘Sapota’ and further popularized as ‘chiku.’

Many places in Bhopal are named after imposing trees and one of them is a ficus common in most parts of India. ‘Barkheda’ an ubiquitous bus stop or place name in Bhopal derives from the ‘Bar’ tree. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/Banyantree.jpg It is prevalent everywhere in India and perhaps called ‘Ficus Benghalensis’ because the botanists at the time who provided its botanical name happened to have their office in Bengal. There is a large beauty occupying the sprawling lawns of a museum in Sanchi and should not be missed especially when it is fruiting (which is most times of the year).

Peepal khedi is another common bus stop in and around Bhopal again derived from another common road side tree, ‘Ficus Religiosa,’ popularly known as Peepul. This is also the tree below which Buddha sat meditating toward enlightenment (some say even the name Buddha was derived from the fruit of this ‘Bodhi’ tree, which is another name for the same tree).  A fruit from the original Bodhi tree in Bodh Gaya was taken to Sri lanka and still stands there as the oldest flowering plant in the world. Its picture here: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Mahabodhitree.jpg appears no different from the Bodhi tree you shall find in the campus of our institute, the People’s College of Medical Sciences, People’s University.

I guess i shall end here (albeit abruptly) and leave the other originally planned diatribes on integrating medical education and practice through post modern constructs such as ‘evidence-based-medicine’ and moving from androgogy to heutagogy (as far as medical education in concerned) for another day. Enjoy your tour of Bhopal.

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