Celebratory Fishing

 

 

 

Its been a week since I heard the good news about having secured a PhD at the University of the West of England, in Bristol.. I was sitting in the train when I was told the news, and I found myself wanting to laugh and cry at the same time, and the months of restrained emotions fought to break free from within. However I ended up doing neither as I was surrounded by strangers. I was a little annoyed, even when I got off the train as almost all the celebration and expressions of joy had to be done over the phone. I call myself a seed in the wind, but the fact is, that while I’ve been staying in Plymouth for the past year and 10 months, most, if not all my friends have moved to other places.

Anyhow, I do have a good friend here and she wasted no time in inviting me over to her place to celebrate and share in the joy. Those of you who've read my previous blog s will be familiar with Karen and her family. Karen was my classmate during the master’s degree and is now doing her PhD at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory where I’m currently involved with some voluntary work.

                                                                Lucy and Paul, two other former classmates, were in town for the weekend and we all decided to meet up on a beach near where Karen lives. Since the ferry was the easiest option to head across, we caught one and were met on the beach by Karen and Allen (Allen is Karen+'s husband and works as a school teacher) and her delightful little twins – Chrissy and Finny. We then caught up on each others stories and had a few ice creams (which caused me a sore throat and led to a bout of flu later on!). It wasn’t long before Allen and I decided to move on to more serious things!

 

                                                           You see, the main thing I was looking forward to on this trip, was to going fishing! For those who are familiar with my hobbies in India, you will be aware of my fishing exploits (which includes having gone an entire season with only one fish to show for it!). But fishing here is so much different from fishing back in India. For one thing, there is so much hi tech equipment here that I was a bit afraid to start without first doing it with someone who knows his stuff.

                                                                          Although Allen hasn’t been fishing for long, he`s been hooked onto it lately, and was quite looking forward to showing me his skills. Just the previous day he had caught a big sea bass which he promised would end up as dinner for us that night. So with our dinner already taken care of, we headed out to what was supposed to be a secret area that promised to be full of fish. With just one rod to share between us, we took turns in casting and reeling in the bait after a bit of tutoring from Allen.

However, every time we reeled in the line, it would come up empty, no fish, but no bait either..this went on for a while before we finally caught the culprit who was stealing our bait and getting away with it! A tiny fish which we had to release as it wouldn’t make dinner for anybody.

 

 

 

 

 

 

After another hour of determined fishing we soon gave up and headed back home to Karen to start a barbecue to roast our dinner.

 

 

 While I played around with the twins and sipped on some cider, Allen started the barbecue and prepared our fish for the roast….well not exactly. What he did was sprinkle it with salt, pepper and garlic, roll it in tin foil and toss it on the barbecue..

                                 While it was cooking, Karen produced a bottle of champagne which we toasted in celebration of me having got the PhD. I was really touched. It is great to have friends to share your joys and sorrows with, and Karen and Allen have been there for me right from the start. The fish turned out to be great and I washed it down with more champagne.

                                        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then moved into the sitting room and decided to play a game of scrabble just like we had done when I first came to stay at Karen's house. On that occasion we had a lot of fun although I ended up losing and Allen ended up winning. It was to be no different this time too. Time passed swiftly with a lot of chatting, joking, and sipping on more cider and munching on celebratory chocolates. Finally we retired for the night with plans of heading to a great beach tomorrow with more fishing to be done.

                                                        Disaster struck the next day, as I woke up with a sore throat and I felt a flu coming on, but I was too enticed by the prospects of what promised to be a great day of fishing that I ignored all symptoms. After packing all essentials, we drove down to Whitsand bay where the beach lay.

                       When I got off the car , what I saw was awesome indeed. To both my sides lay curves of beautiful English coastline. and below me , far below , lay what appeared to be a beach. I wondered how we were going to get there at all. Indeed , what made this beach prized was the difficulty in accessing it. We had to walk through dense bushes along an overgrown pathway for what seemed like endless miles before we finally got there. Having to carry the twins along made it none the easier.

 

 

 

On reaching, we pitched camp and wasted no time in scampering across the treacherous rocks to where we could cast our line. The twins tagged along with frequent distress calls, and the occasional advise to me that if I wasn’t careful I’d fall down!

                   

 

                                                    For the next 4-5 hours we fished fished and fished again. We fished using real bait and artificial bait, we fished from rocks and we fished from sand. But all we had was one fish that got away before we could even see it.

                                      To add to it, the line kept snagging on the rocks and alan had to paddle out on his surf board to retrieve the line. Whew, the joys of fishing! Some of you may ask what is the fun in fishing for the whole day without the possibility of catching anything. I think that that is exactly what makes it exciting...some days you may catch nothing, on others you may catch a shark! It’s unpredictable and there’s always the unexpected waiting to occur.

 

 

 

                     However I guess todays main culprit in us not catching anything was the numerous jet ski`s , speed boats and water skiers around the bay, which frightened away the fish. The past few days have been extremely hot in the U.K with the temperatures touching the 35 mark, and after a while exhausted from the heat, we all fell into the shade and took a nap, dreaming about huge fish and nightmares about the climb back onto the road through the jungle pathway!

 

 

 

 

Anyhow we finally did make it back home and although we had no fish to show for our efforts this trip will be embedded forever in my memory for what it was worth. I’m seriously thinking of taking up fishing as a hobby and with three years of stay assured here in the U.K, you can bet I’ll be boasting of some huge fish that I caught or the bigger one that got away!

Tiger play

Its Monsoon time, the time when the heavens open up over the Indian subcontinent and lets loose a barrage of water. It’s the time when nature is at her best and worst. Creating and destroying with such intensity that when the monsoons are over, the very landscape on which she practised her art is transformed beyond recognition. To us city dwelling humans its is often a period where we face the fury of nature, with floods, powercuts and damaged telecommunication links, but to nature it is creativity at its most intense. I have often in the past had the chance to be stuck in some pristine semi forested area during a monsoon storm, and I could swear even the animals prefer to lie low and take shelter, however in the brief periods between these monsoon showers and during the less intense ones, nature is teeming with life…with so much variety that it is hard not to get overexcited just being a part of it.
If this is the case with living in a semi urban area, I could imagine what it is like in a full fledged natural forest. I can only imagine what my brother, the Tiger Man, will be experiencing. After a few months back at Dehra Dun, where he has completed the formalities of a PhD registration, the Tiger man has headed back to work on his beasts of interest.
Although Kanha National park, where he works is a lot of grassland, its forests are not too far from my imagination. As usual there will be the scary beasts of prey, overgrown pathways thick with undergrowth stimulated by the rainfall, ticks and leeches, thorns and mosquitoes, but this time there will also be thunder, lightning, and the incessant rainfall, all adding to the wonderfully scary and exciting atmosphere on which the Tiger man thrives! Kanha is a part of the region where Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book” is based on and if you lack in imagination, all it takes is to remember the wild creatures of this beloved film.
The last time he came back from the forest, my brother was excited. He had just seen an amazing sight. A fight between two of the characters that are part of the Jungle Bookstory – Shere Khan, the tiger and Ka- the python. No this is no story, he visualised this in real life….and not just that, he was able to document it on film. He mentions that such events are a rare occurrence in nature and having the chance to capture it in photographs are even rarer.It seems even the local tribals in their entire lives in the forest had never observed such a thing. In Jungle book, if I remember correctly, Ka the python is too cunning to fall victim to Shere Khan, but not in real life. The battle ended in victory to the tiger, or tigress in this case, and the vanquished, badly bruised but still alive python was dragged by the tigress and given to her cubs to play with.
I’m no tiger expert like my brother is, but I’ve had my days with the domestic cat and i`ve observed such behaviour in them. Often a mother cat will catch a lizard or a frog and give it to her kittens to play with, and I’ve watched as the kittens would play with it like humans play football till all life has ebbed out of the hapless victim. Some would call it sadistic behaviour, but I guess it is nature’s way of providing experience and perhaps a bit of entertainment for the cuddly cubs.
Another interesting behaviour documented by the tiger man was that of a Jackal following a tiger! Jackals normally hunt singly or in pairs, but they are mostly known to be scavengers, feeding on the leftovers of prey from greater predators such as the tiger. An interesting fact about Jackals is that like (some, not all!) humans, they mate for life i.e. they stick with a single partner throughout their life. They are also known to hunt their own prey, including reptiles such as snakes…perhaps this one was just following Shere khan to discover where he could find a python for lunch!(he`s more likely to end up as lunch for the python!)...oops I almost missed the link....in the jungle book,Shere Khan has a wily henchman (or should i say hench-jackal?)named Tabaqui for company too...strange!
Now, look at this photo! It is quite one thing to follow an tiger riding an elephant (as is my brother’s everyday job) and I think it would be really exciting…but reverse the scenario and ooh...I can already feel the chill down my spine ! the last thing I want is for the spotter (hunter) to become the spotted (hunted)…but that’s the way nature sometimes works…when will we ever discover all her secrets!
So that’s it this time from the Tiger man’s enviable life. As I mentioned he`s headed to the forests to take on the might of the monsoon and gather vital monsoonal observations and tiger statistics. I wish him all the best in his endeavours, as I’m sure do all of you. Hopefully there will be more photos when he returns to quench the cravings of us urban folks!