RGB Monday

 A couple of colorful Kolam from Pongal. 

These are the remaining Kolams from the Pongal festival (Jan 14), which I shared here. As usual, I went around the neighborhood on Pongal Day looking for colorful kolams drawn by the neighbors, I couldn't find many kolams this year, same as last year, but I did manage to photograph a few. 

Signs2: Little Folks

 For those who love coffee like me:

Cute Little Folks

Little Folks is an abandoned amusement park on ECR near the Nemmeli Seawater Desalination Plant, which provides an alternative water source for Chennai residents. I visited Little Folks nearly 25 years ago when I was 12 years old. I came here after watching the Sealions show at the Dolphine City opposite the same.

Our actual plan then (1998) was to see the dolphin show at Dolphin City, but due to an illness that affected the dolphins, the show has canceled, and we ended up watching the Sealions performance, which was quite amusing. The dolphin city was the first of its kind of fun-filled water park in the country. Unfortunately, the dolphin city and the little folk stopped their operation in the latter years after the dolphins died. 

Ponniyin Selvan and Kodikkarai

It's been ten years since I visited Kodikkarai (aka Point Calimere), yet the memories are still vivid in my mind. Furthermore, the novel I am currently reading, Ponniyin Selvan, has a lot of connection with the place in its second and third volume, which overlaps with the time of my visit, precisely ten years ago. 

Ponniyin Selvan is a renowned classic historical novel in Tamil written by Kalki, which needs no introduction if you come from Tamil Nadu, the southern state of India. As captivating fiction, the novel tells the story of the greatest king, Raja Raja Chozan. I love reading this book, or more accurately, I enjoy traveling through it, and Kodikkarai is one of the key stops on this journey; that transports me through nostalgic memories and into a thousand-year-old fantasy. 

At the pristine shore of Kodikkarai

I envisage a dense forestation once in the already widespread scrub forest of Kodikkarai,  home to many blackbucks and chital deer, wild horses, boars, and foxes, where the courageous Vanthiya Devan follows the insane girl Poonkuzali, who tricks him and saves him from quicksand. 

Kodikkarai is a vast network of backwaters that includes the Great Vedaranyam Swamp and the Cauvery Estuary; it opens up to dry evergreen forests, mangrove forests, and wetlands where quicksand is common. 

Based on their discussion in the book, I can imagine how wild it should be to have tigers and leopards in the Kodikkarai forest a thousand years ago. They used to say that where there are deer, there will be tigers, but now in Kodikkarai, the deer are safe from everything but the cunning foxes. 

The 9th Chola lighthouse ruin was surrounded by water during high tide.

While I sat along the pristine and powdered sand shore of Kodikkarai, besides a half-cylindrical ruin of the Chola's brick and mortar lighthouse, I had no idea that I was sitting at a historical landmark of the Chola dynasty. And that our Ponniyin Selvan (Raja Raja Cholan) arrived in Sri Lanka from here.

About a thousand years ago, the Chola lighthouse was a tower-like structure where firewood is lit atop the tower to indicate the ships and warn about the shallow seashore.

Ponniyin Selvan is a 5-volume novel, and I've finished the first two and am now reading the third, which seems to be more intense and all pointing towards Kodikkarai; my imagination is taking new sights and vistas of the shore. The Kadikkarai coastline is shallow for a few kilometers and has stripes of sandbanks to keep ships away, and only tiny boats can access. 

It was a magnificent sight to see hundreds of birds take off and land on a sandbank by the sea, as well as a herd of deer leap across a long stretch of ground and disappear into the bushes. It was a scene that struck my mind's vision like a flash of lightning forever. The forest department permitted safaris within the forest up to the Chola lighthouse to watch the wildlife.

Kodikkarai is a nearly right-angle turn in Tamil Nadu's coastline in the delta region of Nagapattinam. It houses wildlife, a bird sanctuary. Kodikkarai is a 10-kilometer drive from Vedaranyam and takes us past extensive salt pans on one side and woodland on the other. 

A white heron taking off

Every winter, millions of birds from all over the world visit Kodikkarai, and it is popularly known for the Greater flamingo. During our trip to Kodiyakkarai, we stayed at the forest guest house, close to the forest and the new lighthouse. And the suite allotted for us is named "Flamingo."

It was a beautiful experience to see deer and peacocks casually roaming around the guesthouse, and the rattle of peacocks was a rhythmic way to wake up in the morning. Since the guesthouse had a tile roof, we heard knocks at night, which was nothing but peacocks who enjoyed a stroll on the roof. 

Unfortunately, I could not share many photos from Kodikkarai, as I have saved the photos on DVDs, my new laptop doesn't have a DVD drive. Some of these photos are from my archiver, and those remained on the hard disk I have many photos of the wildlife, the beach, and the forest to share with you, but you'll have to wait till I buy an external DVD driver.

Signs from Theni

There was once a custom in Tamil Nadu (or perhaps it is a practice throughout India, I'm not sure) to number the trees along the highway to ensure their protection. We can still see those numbers on trees along state highways, and the tamarind trees were usually the ones with the marks on their trunks. 

Once we were driving towards Theni (a southern district in Tamil Nadu), we happened to come to a halt in front of a tamarind tree with the number 10 painted on its trunk. We stopped to buy palmyra jaggery at a roadside stall, and the jaggery (sold by a couple) was worth buying, so we bought from the same stall again the next time we passed. 

We have been using palmyra jaggery and palm sugar for the last few years in place of white sugar. So we couldn't pass them up when the palm jaggery sold by them was of such high quality and purity. 

Coming to number 10 - 

There is also a popular comedy in Tamil, where the comedian Vadivelu draws the number 10 on an old woman's forehead who complains of fever. In Tamil, the number 10 is spelled pattu, and the same word is used to refer to patches or medicine applied to wounds; the entire village would chase him to beat, and one in the crowd would say, "See, he had drawn 10 similar to the one on the tamarind trees on highways."

The doll you see is at the entrance of Meenakshi Bhavan, a restaurant where we generally eat when traveling through Theni. It is one of the best vegetarian restaurants in Theni, though the taste of the food isn't as good as before. The doll serves as a welcome sign to the eatery, and it has idlis and dosa on the plate. 

Scissor Beak Crow

This isn't the first time I've seen a crow with a scissor beak, also known as a crossed beak or crooked beak, which is a physical deformity in which the top and bottom of the chick's beak don't match correctly. It usually emerges within a week after the chick hatches.

I've seen some more crows with severely crossed or displaced beaks, which I assumed might be the cause of a fierce fight between the crows. But it wasn't until now that I learned that "scissor beak can be caused by inferior genetics, an injury to the chick's skull causing the growth plates to not grow at the same rate, or inappropriate incubation temperature."

Incorrect hatch positioning can also result in a scissor beak if the chick is not in the normal hatch position with her head tucked beneath one wing. A shortage of calcium, folic acid, or vitamin D can also lead to abnormal growth, but eating and drinking shouldn't be difficult unless it is serious.