yet again ... getting lost ... then enjoying self-discovery ...

Feeling Mizoram  ~ ~ Back to where: Newspapers have holiday on Sunday . .  Road signs warn people not to drink and drive - in a dry area . . A big cross greets one on landing at the airport . .  Hotel staff say ‘tu’ or ‘tum’ after saying ‘sir’ and the tone happily smells of equality  ~. ~  Leaves falling from trees have such a free abandon to them – also each of them is different : colour / fall . . Once in a while wind hastens the fall ~ ~  Life as if becomes 3 D in the silences / openness around – one perhaps feels more . . Wonder if there is any connection – for this is the place which taught me not to take self seriously ~ ~ ~ Bas yahan sirf patte hilte hue dikhte hain Sunday ko . . Beech beech me kutte ya murgi ki awaaz . . baki roj ke shor se aaram hai . . dolne ki ichha karti hai kabhi kabhi in patton ke saath saath ~ ~ Murgi aur church ki awaaz jaise bindiyaan hain alag rangon ki ek kore kagaz pe – Sunday ke...

Share a piece by Yaranajit and me that finds place in February 2014 issue of Sanctuary Asia (Vol. XXXIV No. 1) A group of pale, yellowish white-winged butterflies fluttered around the rotting fruit. We moved forward slowly and then stood still to observe them. Yes, the prominent yellowish-white forewings had a black margin with two chains of white spots and two isolated white spots. The whitish-yellow hind wings had two tails with a ridged margin. A couple of years ago, we would not have been able to identify these butterflies but we had no hesitation now – Great nawabs we wrote down! The nawab butterflies, along with the rajahs, we had read up, belong to the ‘brush-footed butterflies’ family, also referred to as Charaxinae group. Nawab butterflies occur in Northeast India and further east up to Thailand. Many have gaudy colours and brilliant flashes thanks to iridescent scales covering the wings. Beauty notwithstanding, some are known to favour decaying crab-meat or rotting ...