The fort-maker on a rainy day

It's hot and humid, the sun sweltering over rain-lashed earth. There is a well-digger in my yard. Sweating it out since early morning. The sand wasp works more efficiently than a human earth mover. No noise, no pollution. Simply going in and coming in reverse with a sand ball tucked between its snout and the foreleg pair which it uses with the efficiency of hands. Freshly hued damp yellow sand growing up like a tiny mound. 

It's unmindful of me taking a picture from a close quarter. Given its single-minded focus, I wonder I may have a tiny hill and a spring--because water table is very high in rainy season--in my yard. Best of luck well digger. But please don't dig too deep to make a hole for a small snake to fit in.

PS: on further enquiries I find it's a friendly insect... doesn't aggressively bite like bees. Now I see why it's unmindful of my presence so near its sandy altar. It also preys upon mosquitoes and houseflies. So continue bro, lay down a long tunnel for your larvae and then prey upon our common enemies. In full support with you. Cheers!

PSS: in the video it's closing the gates of its fort, for new life, new cycle. While closing the gates, it even took a few breakfasty bites at a couple of ants also. Possibly it had missed breakfast today. After closing the gates it hovered over the mound with the elated buzz of a triumphant US military hawk helicopter. It has left a little depression around the gate and gone for the time. Not to loiter around I m sure. There is something in store in its scheme, which I cannot understand at the time. And I am proven right. It's never chalta hai attitude in nature unlike humans who take shortcuts and apartments and bridges collapse. The sand wasp had gone out to get some preys which it collects nearby under leaves. To keep its hole safe and guarded in its absence, it had put up a temporary earthwork by its opening. Coming back it removes the part time gate and gets into business again. It will lay eggs and leave food there. The larvae will eat, grow big and pop out into the world.

The fort-maker scraping a depression around the freshly dug cave-mouth to close it temporarily during its absence

PSSS: So that turned out to be its modus operandi: closing the fortress and temporarily, leaving an oblong depression around the opening, leaving the scene, and come back again after a couple of hours to start the task again. In the afternoon it rained cats and dogs, a furious rain storm which jolted even the farmers and big trees. After the storm I saw the  site lashed by the rains, the small depression around the opening filled with sand and the sand mound washed away. I thought it was over. In such a stormy blizzard the little insect must have been blown away to a far place, I thought. Or most probably it was even dead. But then the tough taskmaster showed that it was still around despite the storm. The next day I see again the trademark little depression around the hole mouth and gates temporarily shut. Well done!

Back to business after the floods.

Closing the gates of its fort again.

Some sweetly humid moments on a rainy day in the countryside

Life was never greener and more colourful in my small yard. Luxurious green of Harsingar, motia, jasmine, duranta, guava, Kari patta, Tulsi, murva and the ubiquitous sadabahar blooming out of proportion. Well, the rains have been good. Butterflies dart around, flirting with flowers and their mates amid airy swirls. Even the irritatingly prickly and boring keekars are luxurious green like a new bride. There are more birds. Breeding in the safe and overgrown greenery. I could see even a kite hovering in silent, serene majesty, its wings spread out in embracing comfort of the mother nature. Even in the countryside the sight has become a rarity and I cannot remember many during the past decade. So it's a positive sign for the birdie world. There are two couples of Oriental magpie Robins chhrrring around. The bulbul family is still around, improvising new and new calls. The mother bulbul is very possessive of its offspring and entails it all the time. Bee eaters sit silently and swoop suddenly to catch flying insects. One overzealous bee-eater swooped down on a dragonfly and sat on a dry mulberry branch, the prey bigger for its beat, thinking over what to do now. It then started beating the struggling bray on the branch, striking its on both sides by rhythmically moving its neck sideways. It appeared more like bird yoga. The wire-tailed swallow family is often seen with their swift dives and faint chips. There are lots of flying insects. So the young fellows are being fed well. Tiny tailor-bird tweets with best effect among all. A lovelorn male Indian Robin is persistently sending love notes to attract a mate. The other day it was drizzling and the lonely bird kept sitting on a high dry branch in the rain and continued with its pining notes. Well, let's hope lady luck smiles on it soon. The unperturbed stoicism of the dove pair is inspiring to a meditator like me. The babblers and crows are noisy though. The stern looking mynah always appears with an air of aloof, single point focus on her own affairs. Another pair of spotted munias has erected a new nest in Parijat tree's high branches. And the slow pace of life unfolds in its rustic majesty in the countryside.

If the tree is cut, you too will suffer in your science-derived cocoon

There is a system of goodness. The simplest code nature shows is of unified and interdependent co-existence. All things, phenomena, life processes and transformations give and take from the larger system. In simple terms, nothing can exist in isolation in this universe. Our little environment is supported by the earth, the earth is supported by the sun, the sun by larger suns, they in turn by galaxies, and the latter by super-galaxies, and so on and so forth. There is absolutely no such thing as individualism in nature. It’s all a collective behemoth, ever expanding in more and more transformative ways. So how can our very own happiness come from our own limited self, concerning and defined by just our little fights and brawls in the arena of life? We just take fractions of happiness from the bigger pool. Happiness is never complete, or you can say just cannot happen, if it is confined to the limits of the individual self. There are happy families in happy societies and happy individuals in happy families. You simply cannot have happy individuals in an ant-swarm of unhappy society comprising unhappy families. And you cannot have a happy society surrounded by an unhappy ecosystem. You simply cannot. And if you think that the conveniences created science are the modes of happiness, then you are mistaken. These are mere utilities. Utilities are just contributors to happiness like countless other things. You have cars, then you have pollution, and your lungs suffer, simply because trees are suffering. It’s just like everything and everybody is unhappy and suffering in a forest fire. In a flowery luxurious garden, on the other hand, everybody and everything is happy and peaceful. We are happy or unhappy as a collective unit, not individually. Well, this is how it is, if you consider the real substantial meanings of peace and happiness. The rest are simply temporary delusions, nurtured under the mistake of taking some scientific conveniences as the destinations of happiness, which they are not, they are simply some of the means of convenience. So nurture this habit of connecting to the environment around you. The natural environment is the base of our struggle and sustenance. So see the processes of life and learn the art of miraculous interdependence. And come out of this delusion that we humans can be happy and unhappy in isolation in our modern-day scientific cocoons.

Fears are directly proportional to the doubts we have

A sword fighter has a beautiful wife. She is in awe of his reputation and is almost daunted by the force of his persona. She respects him, but love is missing in the secret chamber of her heart. As it happens, she falls in love with somebody outside her marriage. As if that is a small problem, to make it still worse the lover happens to be their servant. Lies and deceit can be hidden, but love has the natural propensity to shine like sun from behind the clouds. It comes to the light. That is its nature. As per social norms, love usually stands out scandalous. The offended husband challenges the servant for a duel, taking it for granted that he will surely kill the illicit lover, thus giving him death and earning more laurels for his swordsmanship as bonus. The deed will not reek of cold-blooded revenge and his motive to kill the servant will lie buried under the fair game of duel. So it is supposed to be a sure death for the poor servant. The sword fighter hides his revenge and anger under the art and craft of his swordsmanship. Most importantly, he is sure of victory, because by the logic of it, how can it be otherwise, pitted as he is against a man who has just picked up the scabbard from his famed walls to clean it. And he being a master swordsman whose reputation chimes across the four corners of the state. The servant is thus sure of his death. He has accepted his fate, death. When you are eying victory, you are also eying safety to yourself from the corner of your eyes. And you have fear also, because without that the sense of victory cannot sustain. With a sense of victory you just cannot be fearless. There is something to fight for and achieve and for that you have to remain alive. This breeds fear. But the servant has accepted death and failure. His acceptance is hundred percent. He has no doubt about it. And when there is no doubt, you become fearless. The swordsman isn’t totally free from fear because his certainty about his victory falls short of the servant’s certainty of his defeat and death. He isn’t as sure of his victory as the servant is of his defeat. So, irrespective of the fighting caliber, the servant is more fearless of the two, simply because he is under less doubt. In his fearlessness he decides to let loose all madness in him before his death. He doesn’t hate the opponent. He isn’t angry. His acceptance of death enables him to give all to life before death. The sword-fighter on the other hand cannot give all in the fight, because he is fighting to save respect, prolong life, take revenge, and all these with further expectations from life. Life itself means fear. The offended husband takes maneuvers as per the art of sword-fighting. In pre-death fearless madness, the lover strikes with sword like he is striking with a stick. To all the conventional strokes of the sword-fighter, he hits back with the most awkward and unorthodox ones. Fearlessness in his eyes creates fear in the opponent’s eyes. The servant kills the master! Why? Because he is sure of his death, and because the master isn’t that sure of his victory! How can he be? He simply cannot. He is fighting to save a lot of things and fighting to save things cannot allow you to be cent-percent fearless.

When ideology turns into a raised slipper, all dialogues are closed

Well, sometimes even saffron robe isn't sufficient to save you from the neo-nationalists...Neo-naionalism is very safe and convenient. Most of the times, the web-patriots are into virtual, bloodless wars--but highly gratifying for ego--on the social media. Sometimes it shows its patriotic face through a mob lynching, which is as safe as a web war. But then you should at least spare an 80-year-old man. Not that I agree with this man's ideology, just like I don't agree to the ideological fervour of those running behind him. Just like parroting patriotic songs on social media doesn't turn a lampoon into a real nationalist, similarly wearing saffron is no guarantee of one's holiness. The man definitely isn't a saint. But then it throws poor light on the BJP supporters to run with slippers after someone who had come to pay homage to the former PM Atal Bihari Bajpayi's mortal remains. To a departed soul, and more importantly to the mortal remains, all that is left behind is just the same.