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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