Lighting the lamp of education

This story is yet another generous gesture by my friend Ritu Raj Mate shown to me. He not only gave the story theme to me but also drive me to their house. That’s why I have always insisted this to my juniors where ever I have worked that have one person who knows the city and also the city’s people who can keep providing you stories from time to time. The trust factor is very important because one can be taken for a ride too, by means by the source trying to plant a story to nepotism him or whom he wants to be written about. So first one has to check the credentials of the subject on whom they are going to report about so that it matches that of your sources information. Well anyway after I visited this lady who was self funding her education programe for the underprivileged children, I knew that this story would make to the HT Bhopal Live paper of the Hindustann Times, Bhopal edition, on its own merit.

It’s a story of staunch social commitment as heart-warming as it is inspiring. Denied any Stat aid, a lady in the Madhya Pradesh State capital of Bhopal has been ploughing a lone furrow to shine the light of education on street urchins.
He own failure to make it as a doctor fired a strong desire in Mehraj Nadim to prepare slum kids to make it to the top professional league. She launched a primary school, Legion school in Koh-e-Fiza locality in n1997 to fulfill her dream.
And it’s not run-of the mill education either. Some of he charges have made it to the best schools of the State Capital on the strength of their academic performance. Take, for instance, Serish Iqbal, who was later admitted to the St Joseph’s Convent Girls School on Idgha Hills.
The teachers, all of whom comprise Muslim women, share the feeling that free access to education should be made the country’s policy in order to facilitate nation building.
The academic curriculum in her school in her school has some unique features. “Children are taught four languages – Hindi, English, Urdu and Sanskrit,” she says with obvious pride. “Verbal and written language skills are the key to a successful future,” she says.
Including the hands-on principal in Mehraj, the school has seven teachers; all paid a token sum of Rs 300-500 per month. ‘We’re here top extend a helping hand to Mehraj in her mission. Salary is only incidental,” says Faiza, one of her colleagues at Legion.
The journey for Mehraj and her school began on a humble note. “We had only four students to begin with,” she reminisces. But that was the least of her problems. The slum dwellers were reluctant to send their children to school. “They wanted the kids to start working early for extra income,” she says.
Untiring efforts to convince them was the first obstacle she overcame. Now, the school has on its roll over five-dozen children in different classes. For those in Class IV and V, basic computer training is mandatory.
Despite the wholesale effort, Mehraj is till handicapped by some odds. For one, cash for meeting the school expenses. “While the teachers have been gracious enough to work on paltry honorarium, there are other unavoidable expenses,” she says.
She has to provide them with free books and stationary. Then, there are shoes and uniforms for those children who come from the lowest strata even amongst the slum dwellers. “I have often taken money from my husband to meet the expenses,” the lady -on-a-mission says.
To her utter disappointment, the Government agencies haven’t been supportive enough. “My application for State Government aid has vanished without a trace. I’m still awaiting the Union HRD Ministry’s response to my letter,” she recalls.
The support from her husband, Syed Nadim-ul-Hasan is the best part of the Legion tale. He couldn’t have been more cooperative. “My parents have also chipped in from time to time,” she says, confident that as the school grows, so would the list of benefactors from the immediate family circle.

Come R-Day, these boys will slither down flying chopper

This story idea was given to me by my good friend in Bhopal Ritu Raj Mate, who was training these NCC cadets in slithering down from great heights as part of their preparations to use these practice jumps from a chopper at the 2003 Republic Day Parade at New Delhi. Four NCC Cadets were hand picked to do this dangerous but yet fun jump from a flying chopper in front of our President of India and The Prime Minister of India. Ritu Raj Mate who was himself a disciplined cadet during his younger days was given the charge to give them the basic training to get the scare of height from their minds first. When he invited me two weeks of the cadets onward journey to practice on their real jumps from a flying chopper, it was exciting and also great to have a word with the future defense personals. I thank Ritu again for giving me another wonderful story.

Every morning four boys can be spotted climbing down the rope from a high tension wire pole at Bhadbhada dam like an agile monkey. No, neither the boys are into some kind of monkey business nor practicing any rope trick, so to say. They are the four talented National Cadet Core (NCC) corps selected to slither down the rope from a moving helicopter at the Republic Day Parade in the National capital. The boys – Ravinder Rajput, Anup Karmakar, Phool Singh Netam and Sheshnaryan Namdev look pretty excited about the practice. That is of course, understandable. For, among the audience to watch their well-practiced feat will be the President of India A P J Abdul Kalam, the Vice President, Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and the Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
If the boys are excited their trainers and supervisors are no less so. Entire NCC Directorate for Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh is keenly looking forward to the R-day.
The four boys are put to a rigrous drill every morning by the commandant Brigadier Das Gupta (deputy DG MP & Chhattisgarh), Colonel R R Gadkary, Subedar D S Chouhan, Havildar H M Data Ram and Ex- NCC cadet Ritu Raj Mate.
Colonel R R Gadkary informed that this would be for the first time that the cadets would Para drop with rope from a helicopter. “It is going to be an excellent one.”
The contingent is leaving for New Delhi on December 29 where another 25 days will be more crucial training period for the boys.
The will start actual practice of slithering down the rope from a helicopter.
Ritu Raj Mate says that when he was a cadet he had had training in all sorts of adventure sports. He feels that the early training has stood him in good stead now that he is imparting training to these boys.

Children toil as world observes Anti-Child Labour Day

This story was work over two days and was published on the eve of the Anti-Child Labour day, in the Hindustan Times, Bhopal edition in 2003. What I like about this story was I was able to free at least three children from their job and they were later admitted into a government run school by an NGO working for the welfare of the children in Bhopal.

Even as the whole world observed Anti Child Labour Day, 12-year-old Rashid toiled away in simmering afternoon heat to eke out a living by pushing a cart loaded with wood up a slope along with his father in the State capital’s walled city.
Like Rashid, there were hundreds of children who were seen doing all kinds of arduous jobs unaware that the world was observing a day to bring their childhood out of the clutches of drudgery and hard labour.
For Kamal, a daily wager at the sugar cane juice stall on Hamidia Road, it was sweating it out in the heat roiling his frail hands around ensuring that the last drop of cane juice drops into a vessel, while he gets paid a meager Rs 20 a day. Kamal contributes this amount to his mother’s kitty to keep the hearth warm.
According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), there were an estimated 246 million child workers around the world aged between five and 17. One out of every two children aged between 6 and 14 has no access to primary education.
The ILO website also says that 14.4 per cent children in India, aged between 10 and 14, are engaged in labour.
But the statistics does not matter to 13-year old Amir Khan who helps his father at a road side show shop near the Lower Lake. If he does not help his father, his two brothers and a sister cannot go to school, he says.
Another 10-year old, selling locks at the bus stand says that he does not know the place of his birth and the names of his parents. He lives with a group of people who brought him up on the pavements of the Bus Stand.
Though India celebrates the Children’s Day on the birth anniversary of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, little is being done for them, as the number of child labourers grows every year.
If the trend of child labour is not curbed, India soon will have the largest population of child labourers in the next five years.

100 pahalwans fight it out

This story was another treat because when I was roaming the streets of Bhopal in search of some stand alone visuals I saw an huge crowd entering a dingy alley surrounded by old broken buildings which had a small but sizeable ground to fit around thousand people. I quickly entered in and found to my luck that the traditional wrestling was on and they were fans across a spectrum of age group vociferously egging their pahalwans to get the gold for them. So after interacting with many people in the event which otherwise is not known to many except for those who have visited this venue over the years. This story was published in the Hindustan Times, Bhopal edition in 2003.

Ecstatic crowds cheered their guts out at the jam-packed Banne Pahalwan’s Akhada as the foremost pahalwans of the City of Nawabs wrestled in the mud in a surcharged atmosphere at the prestigious annual wrestling event held on Sunday.
The Akhada, which produced greats like Muhamad Ali Pahalwan was again enlivened on Sunday as scores of bouts of scintillating ‘kushti’, were witnessed in a thrilling atmosphere.
As the pahalwans flexed their muscles, roared and pounced upon their opponents with vengeance, the crowd enjoyed each and every moment of the scores of bouts of traditional kushtis.
No less than 100 wrestlers flexed their muscles at the competition, which brought back nostalgic memories of yore when ‘Kushti’ was the most popular of sports activities in Bhopal.

And when Vijay Pahalwan trounced Afsar Pahalwan in the end to emerge the winner the kushti loving Bhopalites became wild with joy. Even after the kushti ended, the audience howled on as if they were in a trance enjoying every second of the one hour drama in which pahalwans pinned their opponents with electrifying application of ‘daaon-pench’ and ‘paintra-baazi’.
As per the rules no bout could be extend beyond 10 minutes and pahalwans fought at a dazzling pace with many ‘kushtis’ ending within minutes.
Even there was no age bar. Loud cheers were heard with the end of each bout. No wonder the atmosphere was so charged that even after the event ended, the audience was craving for more.
Not only the winners were honored, the losers were also given trophies in this unique event.
‘All the participants are given trophies as that no one goes disheartened’, says Ayaz Pahalwan, the organizing secretary of the event.
Banne Pahalwan who organizes the event feels that the State Government is not bothered about promoting traditional wrestling.
‘It is the intrest of a few people which is keeping the even going through all these years’, he adds.

Saras Plane - Crash, takes three pilots lives

The images taken by me of the Saras Plane during the Aero India show in February 2009, was short lived as it crashed within a month, along with three of the best pilots of the Indian Air Force. The plane which was still under experiment, plunged to its end on March 6th 2009. The images you see below of the accident site were taken by my team member Mohan Kumar B N and the video pictures were taken by an onlooker who happened to be at the right place at the right time.

SARAS AT THE AERO INDIA SHOW - FEB 11th to the 14th, 2009 at the Yelanka Airforce base in Bangalore.

These are the only few images I had taken during the India International Air Show. During the show I did not realize the importance of this plane and so I just took a few pictures as a matter of stock images. But after the Crash these images proved to be very lucky for our newspaper (DNA-Bangalore Edition), as we were able to compare the images pinpoint and tell our readers that it was the same plane which crashed.



D Srinivas captured these video images of the burning and mangled remains of the Saras plane which crashed on the outskirts Bidadi 30 kilometers away from Bangalore on Friday, 6th March 2009.





These moving images of the remains of the Saras Plane taken by my team mate Mohan Kumar B N showing the various moods of people as well the investigators trying to get some lead as to why the crash occurred. Some of the images show the charred remains of two of the three pilots and also of the inconsolable co-workers of the NAL who were handling the Saras Plane project.

Hisaab-kitaab days are up

This story idea was given to me by a friend who was a businessman over dinner. He told me how the invasion of the computer has put to end an age old tradition of manual writing on the ‘Hisaab-Kitaab’ book. After learning more about the book which was facing extinction I went around the old Bhopal area to find out more about them and then after getting enough material spoke to my editor who asked then asked me to file the story during my stint with the Hindustan Times.

Diwali may still retain all its pristine glitter but the sale of the traditional account books “Hisaab-Kitaabs’ – the kind that have taken a nosedive, thanks to the invasion of information technology. These colourful books bound in red cloth with ‘kadhi’ strings cost between Rs 40 and RS 500.
Traditional businesses open new accounts on Diwali day and the old books are usually replaced with new ones. The book comes in various categories of accounts to be kept such as “Kaachada Hisaab-kitaab”, “Tibandi hisaab-kitaab”, “Choubandi hisaab-kitaab”, “Matabandi hisaab-kitaab”. The book itself is two to three feet long and about a foot wide with 150 to 500 pages of paper either white or pale yellow. These books are in demand during the Dhan Teras during the Diwali festivals.
According to Gore Lal Ramesh Kumar Jain, owner of the oldest (55years) “hisaab-kitaab” shop on the Marwari Road in the walled city, the sale of the book has dipped in the last five years by 25-30%, primarily because well-off businessmen have opted for computers to maintain their accounts.
The city has only three such shops and all of them are in the Chowk Area. According to Maulana Syed Saab of one such hisaab-kitaab shop, people used to come from Guna, Barailley, Sehore and even other states to buy the account books till about 10 years ago.
The hisaab-kitaab books used to be made in the City by the Jains till the 1980’s. But they left the business because of huge losses. Now the books come from two different cities, with the pages coming from Indore and the cover from Nagpur. The books are merely assembled here and sold.
The old order appears to be changing, yielding place to the new. Businessmen say though small traders and businessmen may continue with the tradition for some more time till the red-bound “hisaab-kitaabs” would slowly be replaced by the sleek and fast computers.

Faith, they all believe in

This story was done after a lot of roaming the streets of Shivajinagar and the Saint Mary’s Basilica church on the eve of Christmas in Bangalore in 2007. After I spoke to a lot of people selling them I was lucky to find a Hindu man decorating the crib of the church. After collecting the raw material I took the help of another co-worker Vaishalli Chandra to write since I had to file a load of pictures for the Christmas special which Bangalore Mirror was getting out.

Do you believe that commercialization takes out the fun from celebration? Think again. Look around and see how the air is filled with good cheer. There is a flighty, happy feeling floating every-where. Stalls selling decorations are copious, little trinkets to adorn the tree, mini Christmas trees, Santa caps, wreaths, candy sticks, lights, confetti….
One such stall in the busy Rusell market belongs to Jameel Jaans who has been selling decorations for over three decades. He started his business when Christmas was largely celebrated by the Christian community. While conflicts between the Arab and Christian worlds keep our leaders busy, Jameel has proposed selling Christmas toys to little George and his cousins, and Dasara toys to Govind and Krishna.
A thorough businessman, he also does a Santa once in a while by giving away decorations to Christian run-NGOs or selling his decorations at discounted rates for the needy. Jameel says, “The festival like any other is about sharing and caring, I just do my bit by helping bring a smile on a needy family’s face.”

And then there’s Mushtaq who has been selling decorations for the past twelve years. Clearly, it’s time for celebration whether it is Eid, Deepavali or Christmas. Every year, at St Mary’s Basilica a set of people decorate the crib. Most of them are non-Christians, Mohan who is part of this group is all set to visit Sabarimala this year. But he made it a point to be there in time to help decorate the crib. It just goes to show how festivals not just help families bond but also people from different communities.

People, today, need a reason to celebrate and it truly reflects in the spending pattern. Mushtaq says, ‘The sale of decorations has gone up by four to five per cent this year. There are people who buy bulk. With corporate coming into the city a lot of them have turned the festive spending around. Today, it is about being happy.’
And this festival breaks all barriers. It is indeed hard to escape the snow white bearded, red-nosed man who charms his way through the chimney.

Naxals Scout for Techies

This story was given to me by Rituraj Mate who met Govindan Kutty the spokeperson for the Naxals a week before his arrest and asked me if I was interested in speaking to him too. I did a telephone interview with him and asked him to supply the document the naxals had prepared during their annual congress at an undisclosed location. After receiving the full document from Kutty, I asked my co-worker Niranjan Kaggere (who was very interested in doing this story with me), to read the document fully. After he had finished he was planning to do another angle for which I advised him to write that the Naxals are on the look for techies so that they could strengthen their hands and also get world attention on the click of a computer button. This story was discussed with K R Sreenivas the Resident Editor of Bangalore Mirror and then the final text was put to print on December 12, 2007.

Bangalore is one of the cities being targeted by naxals as a recruiting ground for tech-savvy urban comrades

Silicon city had better watch out. Its high tech an glitzy reputation of the country’s own home-grown terror movement. And it won’t be long before the red corridor along eastern India beats a path to Bangalore. Sources within the naxal movement said that a ‘tech’ overhaul of guerilla squads, with a focus on urban areas, is on the anvil.
It is not only techies whom the naxals aspire to rope in; they have ‘plans’ even for the medical fraternity. They party plans to grow networks of sympathizing doctors and hospitals where comrades can be treated. Speaking to Bangalore Mirror Govindan Kutty, a spokesman of the Communist Party (Maoists), said that despite recent setbacks, the movement would be reorganized and intensified.
Buttressing his remark are the ‘guidelines to guerrillas’ adopted at the party’s congress held recently at an undisclosed place, which talk of urban network in cities like Bangalore as a ‘back-up’ for guerrilla squads fighting in remote forest areas across the country.

Govindan Kutty with a friend during his service to the people in these pictures provided by him.

The pictures of the naxal carders during training with sophisticated weapons at undisclosed locations provided to me by Govindan Kutty.

Admitting that there has been a considerable setback in the party’s urbanization plans, Kutty philosophized, ‘setbacks, victories, defeats, up and downs have to be faced by any revolutionary movement.’
Almost echoing his statement the draft guidelines of the party mailed to this newspaper leaves one in no doubt about its urban agenda. ‘In the past 30 years, there has been a disregard towards the tasks of the urban movement. As per the ‘Policies of the Revolutionists’ findings of the ninth congress, the urban areas, with over 60 per cent of the gross domestic product and a huge population, have a growing role to play in the economy as well as in the revolution. It is, therefore, absolutely necessary to quickly correct the imbalance.’
The CPI (Maoists) guidelines focus on urban areas with a large working class. The guidelines urge naxal activists to reorient and reorganize urban outfits, and call for urban and working-class ‘specialization’ (read, representation) in high level party committees. Cities in the party’s cross hairs are Bangalore, Ahmedabad-Pune corridor, Delhi, Chennai and the Coimbatore-Erode belt.
In a detailed e-mail, Kutty said, ‘There is a perception that Maoists are against developmental activities. If we were against development. People would not have supported us. Without development, the country cannot progress. But the question is: development for whom? ‘For MNC’s or a handful of traitors who mortgage out country for a song, or for the majority of common people?’
According to the guidelines, ‘Technical help from the cities will in the form of repairs and maintenance of fighting, communication and other equipment of the guerrillas of the PLA, and preparing comrades with technical, electrical, electronic and other engineering skills to take up the challenges in forest and rural areas.’
In other words, the common man’s perception that the naxal movement is restricted to rural and forest areas of the country may no more be relevant. Cities like Bangalore will increasingly be beach-heads for the comrades’ power through the gun’ Agenda.

GUNS AND BRAINS
Urban comrades with good technical skills are the essence of the party and the revolution, according to the guidelines. The idea is to provide working-class leadership an technical support for the people’s war in rural areas and remote places. Unorganized sectors like textile and small scale units – labouring under poor working conditions – are seen as potential recruiting grounds. As the guidelines put it, ‘We must distribute ourselves very well in key industries and set up a strong base.”

VIRTUAL WAR
Naxals are furthering their agenda in cyber space too. They are banking on urban sympathizers with whose assistance they can track, counter and attack the ‘enemy’(read, the state) via the internet.

Clerics opt for E-cards this Christmas

This story was given to me by Father John Neduncheril after he had read an E-card story written by me for the Hindustan Times, Bhopal edition, in 2002 during the Diwali celebrations. So I went to meet him the next day and found the story to interesting of how this year to save cost the sisters of various churches were sending e-cards rather than the traditional cards to their relatives and friends across the globe. After this story was carried in the paper he became a good friend and I got some very good stories later on from him and his fellow friends.

A Global phenomenon has finally caught up with the clerics of the City this Christmas. The Fathers and Sisters of various churches are using e-cards to greet their counterparts and relatives.
Take for example Sister Hakim who was busily penning her message on an e-card and downloading pictures of Santa Claus on the computer to send to other Sisters and relatives down South. Like Sister Hakim hundreds of other sisters all over the City are logging on to famous e-card sites everyday as the Christmas nears, sending out cards by the dozens to their near and dear ones and peer group members throughout the world.
The IT bug has bitten the entire cleric community in the City right from the Archbishop who himself uses a computer, says Father John Neduncherill, who is selecting an e-card to send to his fellow father in Kerala.

Father John of the St Thomas Church says that IT is very good and he has taken a head-start to promote it with in his schools and churches all over the country.
Various e-cards are available with flash mode and it is all very easy to handle, says Sister Hakim. Sister Sukrutha nods in agreement. “Well, I have send at least 35 varieties of cards to various sisters all over the world so far,” adds Sister Hakim with a smile.
Father John says that though he is quite new to the computer (last 6 months), he finds it just great and adds that by just a click of the finger he can get thousands of e-cards to chose from, something that cannot be done in card shops.
Well, e-cards for now have come to stay during the various religious festivals throughout the world over this year’s “Merry X-Mass” would be electronically wished and received.

Two men on a right (s) mission

This story was by sheer chance when I was roaming the streets of Bhopal that I saw these two guys on the motorbike whizzing past me with a Karnataka registration in Madhya Pradesh during my stint with the Hindustan Times, Bhopal. I overtook them and asked them to stop to have a word, only to find that they were on an all India tour to spread the awareness on human rights. My story for December 8, 2001 was done.

Two bike riders from the silicon city of Bangalore have made it their mission to ride all the way to the National Human Rights office in New Delhi in an effort to raise awareness about human rights.
They would submit a memorandum to the NHRC chairman demanding social transformation for peace and development on the “World Human Rights Day” on December 10.
S V Giri Kumar and K R Shiva Kumar from the Peoples Movement for Human rights were on their way to Gwalior on Sunday, when they spoke to Hinduatn Times in Bhopal about the small but assertive movement they have begun.
They began their journey in Bangalore on December 5 and reached Bhopal at 12 on December 8. They would reach Gwalior tonight for the last leg of their five-day ride.
They feel their expedition would spread the knowledge of human rights among villagers so that they can approach the commission to exploit to the maximum. Shiva added they have had very good response at almost all the stops they have had so far.
Citing their experiences till Bhopal, they said students in almost all the villages have had no time to think about human rights violations in their respective villages as they were preoccupied with their studies. The working classes have little time to spare for such concerns, Giri Kumar said.
Asked about their ride through Madhya Pradesh so far, both replied with undisguised disgust that the State had few roads or street lights, not to speak of the near-absence of safety markers on the highways.
They hoped the State Government would do something about the roads and provide clean potable water to villagers.

Avian visitors are here again - Bhopal

This story with a load of pictures took the maxim time for any story which I have written. Anup Dutta a vivid bird watcher and who to my luck was working with me in the Hindustan Times – Bhopal edition and me planned it out and we set about ensuring that we get the main varieties of migratory birds which yearly visit the lake city of Bhopal. It took us two weeks ensuring that we visit the various lakes inhabited with these birds. But at the end of the two weeks when our editor asked if the story along with the images were ready we gave it a lot of thought and finally said yes. So what you get to read is of two weeks of hard work from sun rise to sun set. Since I did not have the proper lenses to photograph these beautiful birds we made use of whatever we found the best possible from the hundreds of pictures taken by me. This piece was published in February, 2002.

Every year in winters Bhopal is home to some airborne visitors from across the globe who fly in irrespective of the prevailing socio-political climate. This year too they are in town ignoring the aftermath of September 11.
Over there, the deep corridors and marshes of Upper Lake and Van Vihar National Park have become an oasis of birds enveloped in breeze, fog and mist. Early in the morning the dawn chorus can be heard (but not seen) with the bird choir still indiscernible from the leftovers of the night fog.


(Top Left) A group of migratory birds returning to the Van Vihar as the sun sets, (Top Right) The endangered Blackneck Stork and (Left) Saras Crane, also known as 'pair for life'.

The waterbed of the Upper Lake and Van Vihar provides tranquil environment and congenial habitat for the water birds.
This year too, thousands of migratory birds have made these areas their temporary abode after crossing thousands of kilometers to escape the cold northern winter. As always, the winged visitors are from Myanmar, Baluchistan, Himalayas, Pakistan and Tibbet. And, some of them are endangered species.

Fiesty times for the feathered kind (left), Spoonbill (black legs with spoon like bill) (right).

One Balcknecked Strok (endangered), Comb Duck (second record after a gap of two years), a group of Openbill Strok are among the ones been sighted this season. The HT team saw in the misty morning light, a pair of Brahminy Duck suddenly taking off from the group of Pintails and Common Teals. Within a wing beat a Comb Duck was followed by the group of Pintails. Next in line was the Spotbill breaking from the water almost as a group, honking lustily and pumping their wings. Close to them were the standing Spoonbills.

White Ibis (black color from the neck to the bill) and little egret (left), Openbill Stork (gap between bill and pink leg) (right).

Spotbill or Grey Duck (yellow tipped dark bill and spot on the end of the back in male (left) and Gery Heron (black dotted line on the mid part of the fore neck) (right).

Brahminy Duck in Flight (left) and Comb Duck or Nakta (second record after a gap of two years) (right).

A painted stork with a fisherman (left) and Greenshank (white eyebrow, black mark between eye and beak and three white stripes on tail) (right).

As the sky became brighter, the birds cleared the birches on the shore, and began to spread into two line trailing the leader. Then as the small flock circled just around the marshy land and wings creaked rhythmically, the birds drifted into their characteristics in a V-shaped formation. During the day, most of the birds prefer to stay in the middle of the lake only to return to the banks of the lake as the night sets in. The best place to encounter these flying beauties is the western part of the lake. White Ibis, Painted Strok and Large Egret can be seen masticating at the entrance of the park from the J S Swaminathan Marg.
Bird lovers are thrilled over the arrival of the migratory birds in the Upper Lake.
Over the years, the winged creatures have shown a special preference for this site on account of it being free from human interference.
One hopes that they continue to do so for all times to come.