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Wildbuzz: In harmony with nature
The nature-loving couple also had occasion to nurse a fallen squirrel pup; Explorer Saurabh Ranade from Nashik was fortunate enough to travel, photograph and post on social media one of the most mystical of the high sights
With the wisdom of age, retirement and time for contemplation, developing a deepening sensitivity towards nature is inevitable. One such Chandigarh couple have woven a creative partnership that reflects this evolving sensibility. Lt Col RS Gill, a retired infantry officer from the Punjab Regiment, revels in photographing the double delight of butterflies alighting on gorgeous blooms in their Sector-36 bungalow. His wife, Jyotsna, a former Kendriya Vidyalaya teacher, is so deeply moved by the flower-butterfly harmony that she lets her feelings crystallise in verse. Her poems lend the proverbial “wordsworth” to her hubbie’s photographs and complete them.
The nature-loving couple also had occasion to nurse a fallen squirrel pup, whom they christened Tipsy. The pup blossomed, went on to have three pups of her own and bestowed them blindly to the Gills’ trusteeship. The couple showered all the unrestrained affection and care on the helpless creatures that doting grandparents reserve for ‘dota-dotees’ (a daughter’s kids).
“Whenever I feel low, I sit in the garden. Watching beautiful flowers, butterflies and honey bees revives me. It is therapeutic as you connect to nature. Colourful butterflies sucking nectar is a message to all of us: ignore your problems, think how blessed are we with this beautiful world,” Jyotsna told this writer.
Stirred by the spectacles afforded by her garden, Jyotsna’s thoughts metamorphosed into a poem titled, Rainbows of colour or a kaleidoscope! “Butterflies bring a promise of hope, A garden with blooming flowers with colours so bright, Beautiful butterflies make a perfect sight, The little fairy with delicate wings, Sits on flowers and drops the pollen it brings, In the short span of life it performs its duty, Spreading a message of love and beauty, The life cycle itself a struggle, From the egg comes a larvae that wriggles, The dormant pupa locked in a cocoon, Then emerges a beauty a heavenly boon, They unfold their mesmerising wings, We forget our woes and our heart sings.”
Just blue me away
Travellers to the mountains when monsoon magic exerts its ethereal charms speedily post photographs on social media. The enchanting images provoke the viewer’s lingering eye to savour the beauty and the imagination to soar to that blessed spot in the high mountains. Marooned in the plains’ suffocating humidity, how the heart sighs it were there, too!
Explorer Saurabh Ranade from Nashik was fortunate enough to travel, photograph and post on social media one of the most mystical of the high sights: Himalayan blue poppies bending like chandeliers to a drape of monsoon drops. Truly, blue is the colour of depthless desire, of a longing for the distances you never arrive in.
Artists have creatively copied and innovated from a diverse cache of bird, flower and landscape images uploaded on social media. Jaipur-based artist, Anshu Kashyap Jammoria, pines deeply for a trek to the poppy mountains because she has never seen such dreamy flowers. Pending that pilgrimage, a series of poppy paintings emerged from the wandering strokes of her brush. Easily accessible photos such as Ranade’s served as a beacon to her wondering imagination, to the yearning stirred in her soul.
“There is something so fragile and delicate about poppies. Their transparent petals, the way they bow to rain and dew. I have depicted dewdrops and depending on the direction of light, the dewdrops show luminosity on the poppies’ outside while those settled deep within petal folds are subdued and subtle,” Dr. Jammoria told this writer.
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