A deserted ant nest!

 There are balls of dry leaves in some trees, which used to be ant nests. They are pieces of art and designs of interest!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Symbols of life events!

My thoughts kept shifting between these two games and their symbolic meaning, while friends were fully engaged in balancing the puzzle pieces while adding or removing pieces one after the other. 

Life is an ensemble of experiences, which are not always the outcome of stand alone experiences, but and confluence of them. 

In a conversation with some friends, I realised that we are 'on the go' because of the nature of our work and work related responsibilities.

It is a mystery that we live with a measure of wellness in the midst of all the events that happen within us and around us. 

I became aware of this even more yesterday, when a Sunbird seems to have abandoned its nest half way due to some reason. As it was in a nutmeg tree in our courtyard, I was looking forward to see it nest and watch the process of taking care of the young birds.

Now that the nest looks abandoned for the time being, I wonder whether it was because of the ant nest adjacent to it!

Is this not the reality! We find something or other that disturbs or dislocates us from our mission! 

I wish and look forward to the Sunbird returning! But if it does not, it has chosen to pursue another site for its nest. 

There are times when one has to revise the journey path in life due to unsurmountable difficulties. When we have to do that, it is a sign of pursuing a mission which is close to us. 

During this season of Christmas and New year, it is a good time to have a closer view of the canvas of our lives which is an imprint of our life events. Is it a true representation of what we set out to do in our lives!

Living with a relook at our life trajectory is a way of reorganising the pieces of the puzzles into a better order or pattern.

M.C.Mathew(text and photo) 

 

 

A game of suspense!

 

As we we play this game of suspense with children, adults too have fun! There is a disappointment in this boy's face when his guess did not work out in his favour! But he stayed on playing the game till he got it correct to pick up the toffee. Good for him. Amazing patience!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Harvest time

I feel sorry that we could not let the black pepper remain any longer in the pepper plant to provide the feed for Bulbuls and squirrels as they were ripe enough to be plucked.

I wonder whether Bulbuls would stop visiting the garden. For the last three weeks or so, it was a daily sight for us in our garden- a pair of bulbuls in the pepper plant. 

This is an example of how we displace birds and animals from their habitat. We cut the timber and make the forest bare. Where would the elephants go except to the human habitation searching for food! They get chased away form human habitation back to the forest where there is no more bamboo or foliage for them to live on!

I remember my father telling the gardener to leave a corner of the property as wild as possible for reptiles, birds and several other insects or butterflies to live!

The discipline of balancing nature for equal rights for all living beings is a philosophy that is strong in dialogue forums but not respected enough! We had to cut about 10 teak trees in our garden as they are old and risky to be retained. The cacophony we were used to in the morning became silent since then because the birds have moved away. A family of about five Drongo birds is not to be seen!

Shymala who has been with us for thirty five years now, has a good habit. She would leave  behind in the trees some fruits, like Papaya, Chikkoo, custard apple etc for the birds and squirrel to feed on!

Whatever we might do is not sufficient enough to keep our environment friendly and hospitable! We do not have the usual presence of Dragon flies and Butterflies in our garden during this season. So something has gone wrong for them. 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Letting go of its collection!

I noticed a paiir of Bulbuls in our garden on a tall tree at a distance. Shortly thereafter I noticed one of them flying in to the electric cable in front of our cottage.  What surprised me was that in that process, the twig it had between its bills fell off! It remained  at that 

site for a while looking around!

Was it an accident or it had urge to give a bird call!

Whatever it might be, I felt delighted that another bird is about nest in our garden! From a earlier experience of a Sunbird abandoning its nest in three days last week, I wonder whether our garden is friendly enough for nesting!

All around us there are small events, which enhance the consciousness of the mysteries surrounding us! 

If we live among the mysteries small and big, how much more we need to revere life and be regardful of all living beings around us! 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Remembering!

I want to offer this flower from our garden to all children who live in the streets without a home in different parts of India! I live with hope that they too would have a home and a future to  look forward to!

I feel disturbed ever since the news leaked out that 15 percent of children in the last five years have reduced average weight that thier counterparts five years ago. While millionaires have grown by 100 percent or more in the last five years in India, children have regressed in their weight!

Are we sane in our thinking and planning for the welfare of children in India! 

 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

Stay hidden!

The bud in each of these rose bushes remains hidden, the second one more than the first or the third. It is now over two weeks they are growing slowly and steadily.

A keen observer would have noticed it and would wait for them to blossom. What is a rose bush without its flowers!

Some of us might feel that we are often living hidden and not noticed enough. Those who are loud and make themselves visible seem to get attention.

To remain hidden is also a way of living. 

I found recently a craftsman who make serving spoons out of coconut shell. He makes a few dozens of them each day and by the end of the week all of them are sold out. He has regular buyers who come from far away. He remains hidden in a quiet corner, but creates artistic work of rare beauty through those serving spoons. 

He reminds us of what was found in kitchens, when steel or aluminium serving spoons were not in the market. 

Many of us who are thinkers and would feel like sharing our thoughts might find that we do not have a forum. 

I have been writing this photoblog for eight years now and about hundred people visit it on a day. I find expressing myself a worthwhile activity for my mind to grow and interact. I feel hidden but I feel alive! In fact it is when we remain hidden we experience the strength of the gestational time. A baby remains hidden in the mother's womb for nine months. But he or she exists actively and vibrantly to come forth later!

Living hidden is also an active way of living!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The sky and the earth at dawn!

At dawn, the sky  turn bright and the plants receive the morning embrace of sun rays. As I watched this sight of transition into the day, I woke up to the reality of its gradualness and gentle transition. The cloud in the sky and the dew on the leaves made a spectacular sight to behold. The bud in the rose plant is an announcement of what is yet to come.

Each day announces something more and better that is yet to come. Living in the past blurs the sight of what is happening today. 

Life often offers only small experiences to live on! But those small experiences can be profound and turn us in a new direction of hope and cheer. 

I stayed with this sight because the dew is too small a sight to miss out. Yet it is the quiet gift that leaves and grass in the lawn receive every night.  What sustains the leaves and grass during the day is the dew of the night. The dew bathes the leaves and grass ! What a gift each night!

The nights in our lives, of hardships or pain can become occasions of newness and renewal!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)  

Two nests !

A sunbird's nest and an ant nest adjacent to each other! I keep watching whether they would adjust to each other. Sunbird seems to be very fuzzy about its requirements while the nest is being made. For the whole morning yesterday,  I did not notice the Sunbird. Has it vacated the space for the ants!

This is also a life lesson. There are times when our onward path can be threatened or interrupted. I am in a situation like that now. Some dreams that I carried for the place I work now could not be carried forward. Perseverance is one quality worth pursuing; down sizing is another reality to come to terms with. 

The comfort of work versus the challenge of work! The desire to have that in blanche is a delicate adjustment process. 

The safety of the environment where we work, is a deciding factor in turning the work place to be prosperous for everyone. I have sometimes wondered recently whether such a collaborative environment is always possible!

I am waiting to see if the Sunbird has abandoned its partially built nest or would it return to complete it to make it its home! Would the ants move away or is it the turn of the Sunbird's turn to move away!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

A pair of Bulbuls and black pepper !

We have deliberately delayed plucking the black pepper although it is time to harvest them for the sake of the Bulbuls who like to feed on them!

One interesting thing about these birds is that they can chase away the squirrels by fluttering over them. It is a sight worth watching. The bulbuls have no plan, in seems to harm them, but to cause them away.

It is now two weeks since the Bulbuls have found this spot and it is a daily routine for them to make this one of the flight stations in the morning round. 

The garden is a place where bird behaviour is manifest. I sometimes have wondered how they choose only the ripe red looking pepper. They have good sense of colour vision. They find the red ones discretely. 

Sometimes watching the birds can bring an inner composure and comfort. Its effect is similar to what music can duo to one's soul!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)

The season of Lilies announcing peace !

We have patches of Lillies in different parts of our garden. In our courtyard, the first two flowers appeared on the fourth Sunday of the advent, which is remembered as the Sunday of peace. 

It has been extremely difficult to hear the news of and watch on TV thousands of farmers living in the street for three weeks in Delhi, which is no sign of peace. If the news is correct twenty or more people have already died during this three weeks.

I feel that when violence, enmity, hatred and instinct of control or supremacy reside in the hearts of political leadership, how are they going to bring peace! Peace would symbolise loss of face for the national leadership. The honourable Supreme Court of India gave a suggestion to the government to freeze the three bills from implementation, till the negotiations are over. Even that did not make an appeal to the Central government. 

I get a sense, while watching this ugly scene that human suffering, however wilful it might be as interpreted by the government, is not a casual experience to be trivialised. A responsive government mindful of its citizens, from whom they received the right to govern, ought to reach out even by climbing down from its pedestal.  What is more worthwhile than human life and its dignity and right to live well. Does not the distress of people living as displaced people, in less than ten degree Celsius, move the hearts of our political leadership! Where is the reason of voice! 

The infrequency and the restraint with which the national media report on this crisis situation make me feel that it too is buckling under the governmental pressure to trivialise or ignore it! The is not he time to prove who is right or wrong, it is the time to be moved with compassion!

Let not our farmers live anymore in the streets ! They have a right to live in their homes. Who has pushed them to this plight! Why are we rationalising! First rescue the farmers from the streets and then negotiate. 

When a drunken scooterist is injured, we are obliged to treat him first and wait for an opportune time to engage him in a conversation about his habit of drinking.  

I want to send the first Lily in this blog to the political leadership of In dialogue wishing them to be a means of peace at this difficult time!

I greet the farmers with the second Lily wising peace to abide in them. You have been peaceful in your protest. May you be known as messengers of peace even when you suffer and endure your loss and displacement! It is which make you noble in thought and deed!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

A sunbird pair and its nest!

 

I sensed an unusual flight movement of a Purple Rumped Sunbird in our courtyard yesterday in the morning! I positioned myself in a chair to get a view of their activity, knowing that it is the season of nesting for them. Some birds have been regular visitors in or garden for a while now.

I watched the male bird relatively quiet and was in short flight between trees in the vicinity. The  female bird appeared flying in and out of a nutmeg tree. Its arrival and departure was so quick that I could not get a closer view of its purpose till I noticed it gathering a dried mushroom plaque form a dry tree branch and flying in to a twig (fourth photo) to place it on a ragged looking messy collection of waste materials hanging from a slender branch, just above an ant nest (last photo).

In that seventy minutes when I watched in the morning it made 82 sorties to add on materials to its nest. I observed forty sorties during the late afternoon. It carried fibres, plaques, tiny sticks, barks, pieces of heads of grass, etc.

It was the exclusive activity of the female bird. The mail was not in the vicinity for most of the time. 

The sunbirds are small, bodily fidgety, and swift in movement that occasionally only I got satisfactory sharp photos. It was worth taking time to watch this activity. by about 4 pm, when I observed the last visit yesterday the nest looked oblong, hanging with a small opening on its rear side. I was fascinated by the body movements,nts it and to make all around the nest to place all that it gathered for the nest. 

I watched determination, perseverance and motivation in action yesterday. The planning skills and purposefulness of the Sunbird was outstanding. 

What a sight it was! I would not have got up from the chair but for the hot sun and the tiredness setting in by looking up at seventy degree angle, causing strain to the eyes and the neck! Anna  joined for a while, with her mobile phone camera to watch this rather rare sight, in our court yard!

That is how I spent good part of the day, on the fourth Sunday in advent. I remembered that the candle that is lighted on the fourth advent Sunday symbolises peace. The Sunbird symbolised peace to my soul. 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

The Perennial flowers

Mr Rajan, the chief gardener at MOSC campus told me yesterday that his recent interest was to plant flowering plants wherever possible. This is the first lot that he planted recently.What a good thought!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)

M.C.Mathew

The Foster get together, Christmas, 2020

The Foster group of students which we started at MOSC Medical College in 2013 is now a group of students, interns,  post graduate students and couple of colleagues at work. Few of them got married and one of them is a mother and another a father now. It was the first time we did not have students for our Christmas get together, as they are at home due to prolonged leave following the pandemic. 

To see Thomas, who is at CMC Vellore for his post-graduate training was most delightful. 

We grow and change. Yet we found the relational dimension making the bond between us more real! Anna and I feel grateful for this contact and communication. 

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)