Kalyan Varma's Blog

You know you are addicted to photography when ...

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:29:54 GMT

Heh.

Sleep disorder

Thu, 29 May 2008 22:45:46 GMT

This is the second time this week I'm up till 4am and still not able to sleep. I had this issue a while back and looks like its acting up on me again.

EVM

Fri, 16 May 2008 06:37:36 GMT

I voted last week.
It was an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM).
It does not have a paper trail.
Something smelled fishy.
I do not trust machines.

Shudder

Draco the flying lizard

Thu, 08 May 2008 06:52:58 GMT

The photograph I posted yesterday was the Draco, The Flying Lizard. Click here to see the lizard marked out in the bark.

These small lizards live in trees and are found along the Western Ghats. They are masters of Camouflage and if they are sitting on a bark without moving, its almost impossible to find them. On land they are clumsy and easy victims for predators. When scared, they run up a tree. When threatened, they leap off the tree. With their "wings" stretched out, these long-tailed, lightly built lizards glide gracefully. The wings act like parachutes. They gently land on another tree, head up. When they land, they run up the tree, getting ready for their next flight.

During mating season, male flying lizards defend their territories. They court females by displaying their bright yellow throat flap as shown in the photograph above. They have to, as they are well camouflaged otherwise.

Spot the Lizard

Wed, 07 May 2008 12:27:44 GMT

There really is a lizard sitting on this bark

Answer : You can compare the original with this one to find the lizard. Try to find it yourself before you look into this link though.

Leopard Updates

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:19:00 GMT

A lot has happened in Valparai since I last posted about the captured leopard. We did a bunch of press releases in the local news papers and it seems to have been well received except for the fact that the article appeared on a day when another leopard picked up a small girl in a tea estate and killed that girl.

People of course were angry which prompted the forest department to deploy traps in and around the area where the girl was killed. Last week, a young leopard was captured around that area. Anand, the NCF biologist who deals with conflict situations in this area, thinks its just a year and a half old and too small to kill a young girl. Either way it has been branded as a man-eater and since people felt that its not safe to release it back in the wild again, the Forest Department have moved it to the Madras zoo. Soon everyone realised that this was a young leopard and could not have been the same one that killed the girl. So now the forest department is under pressure to deploy some more traps to capture the mother of this young leopard or any other individual which people think is the actual leopard that killed the girl.

I really don't think there is a better solution than taking these animals to captivity. However its very tough to find the right one which actually killed the girl and in the process of finding the right one, many leopards are getting caught. In relatively prey-rich areas like this, it may not be too wrong to judge these incidents as accident and not necessarily a birth of a "man-eating" leopard. We should be able to identify individuals using forensics, size and rosette patterns, and/or by implanting transponders on captures and relocated individual leopards.

Now NCF is planning to organise bigger awareness programs and seminars with the local forest dept, local people, press and even politicians in the dist to help them handle these kind of situations better the next time around.

Digital Photography Workshop

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:26:16 GMT

For a long time a lot of people have been wanting me to do this, so here it is. I am organising a 2-day Digital photography workshop here in Bangalore and the first batch is on the 2nd week of May. Check for more details here.

If you are wanting to get into photography or have just started using a DSLR, then this is a perfect course for you. It's also scheduled on a weekend so you do not have to miss your day job.

The Shock

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:47:22 GMT

Doing a press release here in Valparai with the images to tell people the leopard's side of the story.

A Day with a Leopard

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:52:20 GMT

I'm currently in Valparai, Tamil Nadu doing some work with the Nature Conservation Foundation folks. Lot of events this week, which I shall write about later.

Few weeks ago, an old lady was injured from what was reported as an attack by a leopard in this town. There was no conclusive evidence, but the forest department was pressurized to setup Leopard traps outside the town to catch this Leopard. Valparai is surrounded by Tea estates and forest fragments and leopard sightings are quite common.

Anyway this morning we got a call that a leopard was caught in one of the traps.

By the time Anand (NCF researcher) and me reached the place, there were already a lot of people who had come to see the leopard. There were housewives, kids, estate workers, grandmothers.. you name it and they were there to see the leopard. Soon we realized the situation was getting out of hand. People were getting close to the cage and hassling the leopard, which in turn was getting very agitated and hurting itself againt the bars.

I stopped photographing at this point. Not only that we had to do something, me trying to photograph was also getting people ticked off. Both of us along with 2 forest guards started talking to people and were trying to keep them away at a distance from the cage. We covered the cage with a lot of bushes so that the leopard cannot see all the people around.

The leopard was already quite badly injured because of all the banging and was highly stressed out.

Eventually Divya and Sridhar from NCF also joined us and all of us along with help from the fire dept and the forest department were trying to keep people away from the leopard till the Vet arrived from Coimbatore which was 3 hours away. We took a lot of abuses and got into issues with local VIP's who thought they had every right to come and see and poke the leopard. Eventually the Vet came in by 2pm and already the there were hundreds of people around with all the press and all.

The bastard photographers using their mini point-and-shoots were going too close to the cage and poking the leopard so that they can get an aggressive photograph. I fought with them a lot, but could not do much at the end really. Now that a lot of cops were here, I decided to take some quick shots before the leopard went down.

As you can see the leopard was badly wounded and it was very close to dying because of all the stress with people around. After 2 misses, the vet got it right and darted the leopard.

Within minutes, it went down and rested it head on the floor. I just got down and with a zoom lens and thanks to a gap in the leaves around the cage, I just locked my focus on the leopard and kept on shooting.

A tear rolled down its eye and the leopard slowly went down. I cocooned myself from the whole crowd as the cops were taking care of them and I could not see anything but the face of the leopard through the camera. I just broke down at this point and walked away. Could not see all the people going crazy and this poor leopard in that cage in that state. All the screaming, pleading, arguing did not help at all.

Eventually the drug took its effect and the forest dept moved it out to a truck. People started climbing the truck etc as if this was some state funeral for the president. We kept on kicking / throwing away people to keep them away from the leopard. Eventually the truck drove off towards Top Slip and hopefully at the end of the day it will be released safely. Ofcourse I dont know if the leopard will make it. Its stressed out too much and being in a new place, it will have a very tough initial few days.

Today was one of those days when I had to put down my camera and help the situation than try to document it. Felt like went though a war zone and survived.

Update : The leopard did make it alive it seems. Hope it manages in the wild at Top Slip.

Back Online

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:20:26 GMT

After living off borrowed laptops and desktops for a month, I'm finally back online. I've given my Thinkpad for servicing at a nearby computer place who said he would be able to fix it for Rs 10k, but I'm still waiting on it.

Meanwhile, I decided to switch and moved to Mac. Its been exactly a decade since I switched from Win 98 to Linux and now moving to Mac has been quite an interesting transition. I just managed to get all the things running in the mac and since I do a lot of photo editing, I think I'm really loving it.

Been traveling a lot the last few weeks and now happy to be back in town for a bit. Hope to catch up on my 6 months work of photo backlog.

Bye bye Thinkpad

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:25:25 GMT

I had made a quick trip up to North Karnataka for few days last week. On the 1st day of the trip, my laptop (Thinkpad T41p) screen flickered for a bit and after that just refused to boot up. I got back and gave it to the IBM service center for repair and have been keeping my fingers crossed as I just ran out of the 3 year warranty period.

Today they get back to me and say the motherboard is busted and they will charge me Rs 50,000 ($1200) for replacing it. Thats right, almost the cost of a new decent laptop. So much for being such a long Thinkpad fan.

Anyway I've asked some folks to check it up outside for me and to see if they can do anything about it. If not, its time for a new laptop. This is going to put a serious hole in my pocket.

Over and Out

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:28:38 GMT

Finally its documentary over (Atleast the filming bit). The edit is scheduled in April and hopefully the documentary will air sometime towards the end of the year.

The final shoot was quite tough. Had to walk up and down Eravikulam National park with all the heavy gear on my back. Sometimes I ended up walking more than 35 KM a day. The night temperates touched sub zero (Never imagined I would experience -6 C in south india) and the days were hot and sweaty.

Also finally managed to climb up Anai Mudi, the tallest peak south of Himalayas. The view from the top is breathtaking. On one side you can have the birds eye view of the whole Eravikulam National park and parts of Valparai in Tamil nadu and on the other side, the jaded peaks of Western ghats.

More photos coming soon ...

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 07:46:32 GMT

Heading out now on my final filming schedule for the Western Ghats documentary. Our last shoot is at Eravikulam again and we are all back at the end of the month. Its going to be freaking cold up there at this time of the year.

I've still not had time to process all my Namdapha trip photos. Promise to post them all as soon as I get back.

Yappy new year

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 09:16:59 GMT

Happy New Year Folks

I spent the new years Scuba diving near Goa and it ROCKED.

What did you do ?

Yuthi the Superman

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 03:38:16 GMT

Yuthi is one of the young chaps from the Lisu tribe who was with us on our trip at Namdapha. He was helping us carry our luggage as we crossed the National park in over 10 days. The other Lisu men used to call him 'Superman' because he was the strongest one of the lot. He was also the happiest of the lot because on Dec 14th (today) was his wedding and he was really excited about that.

On the 4th day of our trip he fell ill and we decided to let him rest at the '52 mile' settlement where his cousin has a house and we moved on. Yuthi passed away last week because of Malaria. Infact 12 people died in the 52 mile settlement (which has 16 families) last year.

And here were we wimps trying to talk wildlife conservation to them.

See you on the other side

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 19:23:07 GMT

OK, so I'm all set to go on the largest adventure/expedition of my life. Got all my medications, all my gear packed up and hopefully my camera will last till the end of the trip. If time permits, hope to swing via Kaziranga on the way out.

See ya all in 3 weeks time.

Got Battery ?

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 05:22:35 GMT

The expedition is 2 weeks long and I do not have access to any source of electricity along the way. I tried the AA battery pack for my D200 and D70, but they hardly last. I tried bunch of solar options, but either the gear is too heavy or not powerful enough to charge these batteries. So I need to pack up as much juice for my camera as possible.

If any of you have a spare Nikon D200/D80/D70/D50 battery, I'd really appreciate it if you can let me borrow it for 3 weeks.

Updates

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:56:33 GMT

I guess I went through a writers block the last month or so. I thought I'd mention this before I disappear this weekend.

I'm heading out on a 3 week vacation to Namdapha tiger reserve in Arunachal Pradesh. Namdapha has been my dream for many years and after months of planning, the trip is finally happening. Namdapha is the only place in the world which supports 4 big cat species - Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard and the Clouded Leopard. Also on the trip are some of the amazing scientists from NCF.

The plan is to start from Miao and trek the next 12 days to a small village named Gandhigram. Gandigram is called the 'last village in India' and is cut-off from rest of the world with thick forests all around. Neither India nor Burma claim this town and hence the tribals in this village are left by themselves. Most of them hunt wild animals and have been hunting extensively in this National park.

The one way trek is about 120 KM long and mostly I'll have to walk all the way back, which will make the whole thing a 240 KM walk. If time permits, we might swing by Kaziranga on the way back. Will keep a detailed log of the trip and hopefully will post it all as soon as I get back.

In other news, I finally managed to update my photo gallery and put some new photographs up.

I'm still alive

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 04:33:26 GMT

Well, yeah I've been either traveling or have been having writers block. Our monsoon shoot has finally come to an end and will be in Bangalore for a month or so with small travels here and there.

This is the time to catch up on urban life, fix strained relationships and striking things off the todo list etc.

Goats, goats and goats

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 14:31:14 GMT

Sometime early last week, the Nilgiri tahr that we were hoping to film came down from the highlands. However the next day, a pack of wild dogs came and attacked the herd and all of them ran back up the hills. We were on our way when this happened, so when this happened, we just drove back to Bangalore.

They have come down again it seems and mostly this will be our last chance to film them. Sandesh and Mandanna are already there and I'm leaving tomorrow morning to join them. I would have never guessed, goats would rule my life so much and I just realised that my star sign is Capricorn.

With tomorrows trip, my scorpio would have done close to 3000 KM in the last 10 days.

Shivaji - The Boss

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 04:11:54 GMT

Fuel to drive to Tamil Nadu : Rs 1400
Movie tickets : Rs 40
Watching 'Shivaji - the Boss' in a B-grade theater in coimbatore : Priceless

What sucked was the fact that most people in the theater were family types and me and my friend prashanth were the only ones whistling and clapping for every one of Rajini's killer dialogs. The movie itself was very racist and has been done with a poor taste. But then again its a Rajini movie and the dialogs totally rocked.

"Panni kuttama varum, Singam single aa than varum"

Leopard finally at BR hills

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 06:17:48 GMT

Leopard from BR Hills (click on image for bigger version)

After more than a year, I finally had an excellent sighting of a leopard and that too at my home forest of BR hills. We got there on saturday evening and got to see one for 20 min right outside the park. On sunday morning, we got a glimpse of this fellow on a tree on the morning safari. A very fruitful trip to BR hills.

foss.in/2007

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:34:08 GMT

It's that time of the year. Really the only sensible tech event in this part of the world to look forward to.

Lots of Clouds, but no Goats

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 13:57:07 GMT

As Sandesh puts it, We are in the land of the cloud goats. Lots of clouds but no goats.

We really did not get the huge groups that we were hoping to get. We did manage to get a small group and the males were getting excited smelling the females urine, but that's about it. Sometime now they gather in huge groups and then the fights break out between the males etc. We suspect we are early for this event (maybe because of delayed monsoons).

Anyway we decided to move on and landed back in Valparai now. We have messengers there in Munnar, who will call us the min these huge groups gather. Let's see what Valparai holds in the next few days.

Also I finally have a decent set of Rain coat, rain pants and rain boots. So I can almost stay out in the field in heavy rain all day and not get wet or get bothered by leeches. :)

Disconnected in Munnar

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 10:03:47 GMT

Airtel for some reason is down in Munnar now and I had to fight with a cyber cafe guy for an hour to let me use the computer without an ID proof. He finally gave up the fight when I said he can read all the emails I'm sending out.

Anyway will be offline the next 10 days and hopefully should come back with some handsome Nilgiri tahr photographs and footage.