About Me

About me
I OBSERVED:
I have met many people in my life who when asked questions about themselves cannot really say much about them as every human being observes others behavior and can talk about another person. We never observe ourselves as we feel we are perfect in every ways.
I am that kind of a person who really does not observe myself and cannot really say anything about myself as much as other people can say about me.
I have been brought up in a place where village life and forest life has been valued and given a space to it. If I could describe myself I would say I love any kind of adventure that comes in life. I cannot sit still in one place at all. The place I can sit and observe is the beautiful nature that surrounds me. I can sit for hours together without getting distracted.Whenever i sit and observe it seems to me as if nature is trying to tell me its whole story.
I still remember as a little boy when the first monsoon rains came I used to observe these large termites with wings coming out of termite nests. I imagined them to be little fairies emerging from the ground to witness the rain and the beauty around them. I found that these ‘fairies’ were actually prince and princesses of the termite kingdom that have come to look for their soul mates. Some would be successful and others would die. I used to act like a match maker for these creatures by helping them find their mates as I used to enjoy it when I saw two termites forming a chain where the male followed the female. The two would find a suitable piece of land and dig deeper in the soil to establish their new kingdom.
My grandmother also played a vital role for the development of this interest. She had this amazing knowledge about plants especially in medicinal plants. Most of the time she would spend the time in her herbal garden and me the curious child followed her asking numerous questions about the plants that she would tend to. So my interest towards plants is mainly because of my grandmother. Rainy season was the best time I used to enjoy whenever I visited my grandparents house as that was the time when everything around me would come to life.
INTEREST IN FROGS:
My grandparent’s house is located on a hilly plateau of the Western Ghats. The area also lies on the coastal belt of Karnataka.
The rains are heavy in this region and as a small boy I was always surrounded by small water bodies like ponds and streams. As I was a curious child I always wanted to see what lies in these waters. I used to observe the small tadpoles and never knew they would grow up to become frogs. As my interest grew in these fish-like looking amphibians. I started going deeper into the waters just to notice many small balls made up of jelly-like substance attached to water plants. This was a new discovery in my life even though scientists had already discovered these many years back before me!! But for me it was a great achievement. I felt I finally got a complete set of the life cycle of a frog in my very own pond which was very exciting for a child of 11-12 years of age.
I remember taking these jellies in my hands and putting them in our little tank and observe them developing before my very eyes.
STUDY OF ANT LION LARVA:
I used to see these funnel-shaped structures in sand and asked my mother what lived in them. My mother smiled and simply picked up a twig and carefully excavated that pit (me watching the technique carefully!!) and from it came out a weird looking insect that looked like a turtle with a soft shell and two large jaws. What I found most fascinating about this creature was that it moved backwards.
This is one insect that I have studied extensively about and conducted simple experiments and have done documentation on it.
All these little things in my life has greatly effected in many ways for growing this kind of interest. I feel the need to learn more about the life around me go deep into it and find the need of documenting it.
Recently I have been observing snail eggs, dragon fly nymph, documenting wonderful weeds that can be used as edible vegetables and learning about the medicinal plants around me with the help of my grandmother.
Whatever I have observed are only 2% of the nature. There is so much that I can discover just at my grandparent’s place as my childhood was mainly spent there.
Besides all this I love trekking, hiking, rock climbing, rappelling, it is endless. All the adventure sports that I can imagine.