Freezing in Falmouth.

Its been a long while since I`ve really got together with friends and had some enjoyable moments. Ironically, my friends circle was not a large or intense one during my university term, but has now improved to include a bit of socialising.
So, inspite of a busy week, when the opportunity came up, i jumped at the chance to spend the weekend on a day trip with friends, rather than catch up on missed sleep.
The University International students society chose to organise a trip to the nearby tourist town of Falmouth as a part of their usual tour programmes. Getting to see nearby places by oneself is a difficult proposition , especially for students here. Thus My Spanish friends Ovi, and Martha were just as keen as me to expand their list of english tourist destinations visited.Also with us were their former housemates, Megan and Matt from California.
Situated in Cornwall (why do i keep heading back there!), The town of Falmouth has one of the worlds deepest natural harbours and is a great sailing and water sprts centre. It also has abundant beaches and great natural beauty. however, the star attraction that we were looking forward to visiting was a castle - The Penndennis Castle.
The history of Pendennis castle is linked with its creator, King Henry VIII who is (in)famous for having had a succesion of 6 wives. Each one of them either died or was executed or divorced before he went on to the next. It so happened that when he divorced his Catholic wife , Catherine of Aragon, it angered the catholic counties of Spain and France who threatened war. Thus in order to defend his Kingdom, a series of fortifications were undertaken, one of which was Pendennis.
However the invasion never came and pendennis was only in use later during the civil war between the Royalists and parliamentarians, when the battered Royalists held out for six months in a seiged Pendennis castle, suviving on horse and dog meat before finally surrendering to the Parliamentarian forces.
We started our trip aboard two coaches from Plymouth. The temperature was near freezing, and Falmouth with its location just above the sea, was windy enough to freeze the marrow in our bones, however the spirit of adventure and resulting adrenalin was enough to put back some warmth in us.
The castle turned out to be rather small but, with ample displays and signs it was easy to imagine the battle that had been fought within the confines of its narrow spaces.It was surpising to know that people had actually lived in there, and that it had rooms like Kitchens and toilets. This pic shows all of us squeesed into a hole in the kitchen which was actually a toilet! and this one shows me sitting inside the oven in the kitchen.
I wont bore you all with more text, and will let you have a more graphical view of the trip and the antics of my friends.
Ovi trying his bowling skills with a canon ball!

Sergeant Martha!

A recreation of the medieval battle arena.

Megan and Matt..sending secret signals !
As usual if you are interested u can catch up on the photos by clicking this link

Apart from reliving moments of English history, Enjoying an english food in a seafarers pub, and freezing our bones in some English weather, it felt great to experience a piece of the english civil war, that led to the present state of government here. The experience was also valuable to me in sharing time with friends and building bridges....I only wish the weather was a little less freezing.

A Tiger Tale

In my previous post, I mentioned that each of those amazing pictures taken by my brother had a tale to tell. I finally managed to squeeze the story out of the tiger-man. This is a story of love, motherhood, murder and sacrifice..all in the tiger world.This is what happened.


Back in October 2004, when the splendour of Kanha, was ripening to its annual best, the tiger-man started out on a new assignment, tracking two female tigresses. These females were radio collared so that they could be tracked around the land. Kariam and Kali - as they were named - became a daily part of his life, as he followed it on elephant back and jeep rides all over the forest. … but now its Kali`s fate that we are talking about.Kali was named after the Godess Kali for her fearsome and secretive nature.She was a specimen of a feline and a much sought after mate.Now as is wont to happen in nature, Kali met an impressive male tiger and decided to get pregnant
Well that’s put in a simple way because tiger courtship is usually not that simple, and often two rival mates have to fight for a female. This is followed by their own intricate love affairs and mating.The affair is also a very noisy one,often accompanied by aggressive fighting especially on completion of the act . However the affair can last for over five days with several couplings happening by the hour, as the tiger-man tells me.

Tiger courtship is not however available for public display as you may have guessed, but the tiger-man, being who he is, managed to track down that too. (For those who need further info on tiger mating, it is available – here.
Also check out the Wild Life Institue of India`s pages on the tiger- here.)
What followed was a 105 days of gestation period in which Kali`s abdomen gradually swelled. When the birth finally did happen the tiger-man was once again on the spot to greet the three cute cubs.I can only imagine his exhilaration at the moment. I must add at this juncture, that while we grew up, my brother has always had a knack at being present at the right moment at the right time to deliver our pet`s babies..whether it was dogs, cats, pigs or even chicken hatching. I might have guessed then, that he would graduate to tigers!
However, in spite of being the queen of the forest, a tigress and her cubs are exposed to several dangerous threats. The tiger-man`s joy was to be soon cut short.
Male Tigers are very jealous and aggressive creatures, and as the tiger-man puts it –Male tigers have little role to play after they mate.
A female tigers home range is only around 25-30 sq Km while the male roams in around 100 sq km. Therefore father tigers are often not around to afford protection to the female or cubs..but they will often kill another male`s cubs inorder to mate with the mother tigress. This was the fate that awaited Kali too. Her cubs were attacked by another male tiger, however Kali put on a brave fight to save her cubs and succeeded in chasing away the intruder, but at a cost- she had to pay the ultimate price; her own life! In April 2005 her body was discovered by the tiger-man. She had succumbed to her injuries from the fight.The tiger-man reckons that it must have taken a bloody battle and a very strong male to kill the protective mother tigress.
Unlike lions, tigers are solitary animals and therefore when a mother dies, her cubs are at the mercy of other predators , not to mention other tigers. If the tiger man were to save the cubs, finding them was imperative. This he did succeed in doing and the three tiger cubs were rescued and placed at the care of tribal employees.
The cubs are now more than a year old. Under the care of the authorities and the watchful eye of the tiger-man they are fed with chickens and goats. He says with a tint of sadness that unfortunately, as reintroduction to the wild is not an option in India, they will have to be sent off to a zoo or safari park soon.
That is a sampling of the many stories the tiger-man has up his sleeves. I`ve been trying to persuade him to start a website to share his stories and maybe sell his amazing pictures. I would be grateful if you could leave your comments below to encourage him to do so…something like a signature campaign! Just click the comments link below. Go on.