3 NOMADS: February 2011

a tribute to unconquerable souls, especially one.

she was the first person i saw when i walked out of the elevators on the first day of work in india. friendly girl, i thought. turned out she sat right next to me in the "bull pen" -- the space that housed the new guys until their lovely cubes were allocated :)

we got along well enough.

one day, a few weeks after we met, she said out of the blue, "i am sending my fav poem to one of my fav people." and she sent me this. i was blown away. by the poem, yes, but more by her statement. i barely know her, i thought.

but she obviously knew better, much better. it has been five years now and she means the world to me. one of those things. you barely meet, speak and yet there is nothing on earth that can come between you. like that :)

what is more, she is the epitome of this poem: invictus.
and what a poem it is... a staple that has deeply influenced me ever since i first read it, five years ago.

begin it now!

On boldness and committing oneself to doing...

when i held eternity in an hour

after several days of wild [elephant] chases on foot several kms at a time - up, down, sideways - that day i got lucky.

five aaneys (elephants) - two mothers with their babies and one adult female, were not quite 100 m from me. and i was on foot, on their turf, and deliciously vulnerable. as i watched, they ate, rumbled, mud-bathed, emerged, hid, pushed, felled an erythrina, chomped on the roots and, an hour-and-a-half later, suddenly decided to walk out and up a slope. not wanting to miss a moment, i ran -- scrambling up a parallel slope - gravely and steep, slip-sliding and awkwardly [mental note: no rings on my fingers when in field] -- one eye on these giants as they sashayed easily in and out of sight. they allowed me a few more minutes of blissful aaney-watching before they had me scrambling up yet another slope, as they decided to head into a thicket on the margin of tea. as i reached the top of the second slope, i was above them, and the single adult female re-emerged to pull up grass choosily from among bushes of lantana. exhausting the supply, she eventually walked inside to join the others.

there has been little that compares with what i experienced in those hours that day. suddenly everything made sense. watching aaneys has been on my wish list for many years. but i had no idea how much a part of me it was, just how much pleasure it would actually give me, and how desperately i would want more.

there, when it was just my aaneys and i, nothing else had mattered. nothing.

wide open spaces | four grasslands

four grasslands across three continents - each beautiful, vast, delicate, vulnerable and fragile.

grasslands are found in temperate and tropical regions and once covered almost a quarter of the landmass on earth. the soil in grasslands is rich and deep and they support a huge number of creatures big and small that are vital to the survival of the ecosystem. moreover, grasslands support some of the most important watersheds around the world.

the nature of the soil and the relatively flat land has rendered grasslands extremely vulnerable -- with large tracts converted into farmland. bad farming practices have left dustbowls in their wake and precious few grasslands are left pristine today. the destruction of grassland habitats have widely affected the breeding of birds, insect populations and animals they support -- in addition to important watersheds that are rendered drained or contaminated.

All photos taken by Arati Rao in 2009-10. Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License

High grasslands of the Altiplano in the Peruvian Andes. This is one of the most altered habitats in the Andes

The altiplano is accessed by road and rail and is @ 4000m +/-

Overgrazing by livestock and farming has degraded the natural grasses in this region

Once wild herds, alpacas (seen here) and llamas are now all domesticated. Guanacos and Vicuñas are the last remaining wild camelids. the latter protected by law, as they were once severely endangered, are the national animal of Peru

Altiplano, Peru

The mosaic of farms in the Laikipia district of Central/North Kenya. Once open grasslands, these were vital elephant corridors. Widespread cereal farming has resulted in a severely fragmented elephant habitat leading to increased human-elephant conflict.

Laikipia district, Kenya

traditionally pastoralists, now Maasai grassland has been converted into farms and the Maasais have put down roots against their instincts. Reports are that they are unsuccessful farmers and often suffer huge losses.