Om purna mada purna midam..........

"Om purna mada purna midam
Purnaat purnam udachyate
Purnasya purnam adaaya
Purnam eva vasishyate
Om shanti shanti shantih"

Which translates into:

"That is the whole, this is the Whole; from the Whole, the Whole arises; taking away the Whole from the Whole, the Whole remains"

(I had a fair idea of what it meant but the exact translations is goggled)

As i spend the night arranging and enhancing my pictures from "my wilderness trip" i suddenly look at the time and see it approaching 4:00 AM and only thing that pops in my head is "raga Ahir Bhairav". I search it on you tube and find this gem sung by Pt. Jasraj (Internet is the best blessing anybody could have ever asked for). This reminds of the fact that when i tell people i like Classical (both Indian and Western) music as well as most of the other contemporary forms like Rock,Jazz,Blues (I just hate POP, there must be some good in it i just fail to see it)its they kind of make a face that suggests i am getting old or have Orthodox thinking. Which is such a stereotypical thinking as music defines the mood and the inner feelings and every kind of music has it's own niche. Actually if there is any form of music which is whole by itself its the classical form. Its just the tendency of people to neglect anything classical or old as not hip enough.

In Indian Classical music there is a time frame for each raga, and anybody who has experienced the celestial feeling of listening to one of them in the time frame allocated can easily understand the reason. As i look back on the last few hours i can trace my mind going from "Raga Malkosh" the midnight raga to "Raga Ahir Bhairav" the dawn raga (4 AM-6 AM). Its amazing that we have lost track of our ingenious and rational mind frame over the last couple of thousand of years. The Sutra i have mentioned above describes the wholeness or infiniteness of things(nothing is absolute, which is the central nerve of Christianity, Islam and the current form of Hinduism), which is amazing as this has been written long before any kind of so called western thought of "infinity" was discovered. I know people think of Hindu(VEDIC, surprisingly very few people know that there's nothing called Hindu in our scriptures or writings before 16th-17th century, and its very much a foreign word...ironic..isn't it!!! i will continue to use "Hindu" throughout as its easier) religion as a fixed set of pagan rituals, which is true in the current situations as people are following all these rituals oblivious to the actual logic and reason behind them.

In 1995, Chief Justice P. B. Gajendragadkar was quoted in an Indian Supreme Court ruling(source Wikipedia):

"When we think of the Hindu religion, unlike other religions in the world, the Hindu religion does not claim any one prophet; it does not worship any one god; it does not subscribe to any one dogma; it does not believe in any one philosophic concept; it does not follow any one set of religious rites or performances; in fact, it does not appear to satisfy the narrow traditional features of any religion of creed. It may broadly be described as a way of life and nothing more."

I am not saying that i know all (which probably is what it sounds like, but believe me i am not, though i agree i do get bouts of a pompous know it all) but when i see people getting prejudiced by what society as a whole have been doing,all the so called "Hindu things" i feel saddened. Somebody told me that "not eating beef is the only Hindu thing that she is doing". I can't express by remorse when i heard this as it is beyond the capability of my vocabulary. What they don't understand that being Hindu is not about what diet we have or what clothes we wear it's what we do and how we behave that defines us. The rational behind the rituals have been twisted to fit peoples own political or financial benefits so much that there's a only a bleak chance that we can get back.

We are constantly being blamed by the western world to have bias based on caste whether knowingly or unknowingly, which is absolutely true (i am no going to agree to something just to keep up a false image ). Surprising even the Brahmins don't know what it actually means to be a Brahman (it has nothing to do with what your parents are or have been doing). If there is a god ,i don't think he/she(i don't want to mix up gender bias :D) well hold "eating beef" against us :D. On the other end of the spectrum i find all these fanatics (not terrorist type but just the highly religious people) absolutely funny. If the so called GOD or celestial being created us and considers human being to be the best of his creation, would he ask us to suffer to be eternally happy. Which parents want their kids to suffer?? If GOD becomes happy because i am depriving myself of enjoying the pleasures of the world that he himself created then i can only say that he/she is "sadistic".

I recall my dad telling me once "when its about your loved ones, you don't want to tempt faith and think that just doing something without understanding is no big deal when you consider the bigger picture". I totally understand the point view , and that's what made all the rational behind the rituals vanish. For sure when /if i have kids definitely my pride doesn't come in before their well being and i will be following all the rituals that has to be followed and probably will follow them more vigorously . But what i am insisting is that people pass on the fact to their kids that whatever is being followed is not rigid and there is no harm if we deviate from some of the rituals but what is most critical is to have an open mind so that they can think of everything rationally.

I also recall another saying my dad uses but himself doesn't follow all the time is :D"tume adhom hole, ami uttam hobo na kano" (my Bengali spelling might be wrong :D) which translates into "if you are bad, doesn't mean that i can't be good". This i think is one of the most important things to always remember in this vastly materialistic times as it constantly reminds me that i should live my life according to my needs and requirements not what my neighbors and friends are having. If everybody things in these direction probably there will be no fights over petty things. I know its hard as being human means that we are prone to all these feelings (otherwise we will be celestial beings) but as long we don't let everything in our life being dictated by it we are OK. Its so surprising to find that people (specially Indian's..surprisingly i find it lesser in white folks) calculate other peoples worth by what kind of materialistic things they have. I am not saying that its not good to follow a materialistic approach to life, because if that's what makes them happy then follow the rainbow, but don't judge other people for the lack of it. Before coming to US i had a notion that education makes people more rational and less materialistic but surprisingly its not true as in India these days certain branches of education is followed vigorously because of the materialistic benefits attached to it not because of an actual quest of knowledge. We also have totally lost the fact that our religion (which is actually general guidelines for lifestyle not rigid rules) asks us to do what we are good at,and not what makes us more money. People(sadly mostly Indian's , white folks beat us here again) i meet day in and day out are all doing things without having their heart in it. People say that i don't work much, which i totally agree , but i can proudly say that whenever i work i put my heart and soul into it.

This brings another saying that my mom uses a lot "jekhane na jaye ravi sekahne jaye kobi"(again my Bengali spelling can be screwed up) it translates into "the place where even sun can't go a writer(imagination) goes". This is a very beautiful line as it tells us that we are only limited by our thoughts/imagination. People have invented stuff and found things because they have allowed themselves to dream and not to be bogged down by the rigid rules and regulations of the society and religion. These days all religion does is limit or cloud our thinking for political or financial gains of some. Of course i am not suggesting that we let go of all the rules and let anarchy take over, as we do need a set of rules and guidelines as most of the people are not capable of handling pure freedom ,as i think freedom is freedom's worst enemy(don't know if somebody has used it before, if so the credit goes to him/her). But these guidelines should be to open our minds and let us think rationally so that we can derive our own conclusions.

As the clock tick's towards 6AM and i feel totally drained i understand that i am dreaming of Utopia but then again we can't reach there if we don't dream of it first.I actually was supposed to write about Day1 of my "wilderness trip" but got so swept with this sudden feeling that i had to write it down, which i haven't done for getting peoples comments about "how profound it is but both "very profound" or "piece of shit" comments are equally welcome and will make me feel euphoric of having touched somebody enough to ponder over it (direction doesn't matter).

Copyright@ 2008 Rahuljit Pal

For more pictures please visit

http://flickr.com/photos/rahuljitpal

wilderness camping trip, day 0 (June 30th 2008)

Finally after 3 months of starting this blog, i am going to write an epic (sadly only 7 days of traveling is an epic for me for the time being) travelogue. The reason for this delay is blamed on lack of time( if you can believe that..i don't..lol!!) to sort out videos,pictures and my thoughts...hehehehe.

The urge to go on a wilderness trip all by myself was the result of a growing underlying feeling of being sucked into something which i have been trying to avoid for a large chunk of my life( the details of which are too private to mention.. ;) ). But to satisfy the curiosity of any of my readers (hope fully i have at least few readers by now) i will agree to the well known secret that even though running away gave a specious momentary feeling of being released , but it never rooted out the problem completely. As i am still finding out, i am gradually rolling back to square one. Maybe if i keep going to trips like these quarterly i can stay in an euphoric state of denial, but alas this is a fad only for the rich people. Anyway , picking myself up from self pitying, and going back to the travelogue, i choose Canada as it vastly impressed me in my past trips (details of which will be published later) and i have heard so much about beauty of the maritime/coastal provinces of Canada. Since i have already been to Ontario and Quebec(not the northern part of the province though) i decided to go to New Brunswick,Nova Scotia & Prince Edward Island (at least that's what the plan was initially) on the Canadian side and Maine and Boston(chosen because its the biggest city where i can fly to for driving to Canada) on the US side. The initial plan was to stay in cheap hotels or B&B's but after a quick search i found that even the cheap ones were not less than $70 a day, so i decided to switch to camping which is almost 1/4th of that even with electricity(i thought its best to have it to charge my numerous equipments). Once again the color green dictated my travel plans(i know i have started to sound like a broken record), but the good thing is that this forced change was one for the best.

I had done my homework of reading up on all this places and looking at the travel time, places to see,made all the reservations and had even made up a Excel sheet hour by hour schedule. Friends and acquaintances will agree that its very unlike me. I blame (i like to pass on the buck,..:D) it on "The People" who keep hammering me with the idea that its high time i grow up and become organized with my life ("The People" are still not happy with the changes though :( ). On the suggestion of Mr. BIL i had bought a GPS system, which came in mighty handy most of the times.

My plan was to fly to Boston on an early morning flight (8:45 AM)(30th June , Monday) and then drive to Fundy National Park(my first destination,10 hr drive from Boston) by sunset while visiting some of the famous Maine lighthouses on the way. I should boastfully add that the previous 3 days i was visiting Montreal with family and had driven almost 2500 miles all by myself :D, and had reached Chicago Monday morning at about 4am and had to return the car at 7:30 AM before going to the airport, thus only getting chance to catch some ZZZZZ's in the cab ride to airport in the last 24 hours. Even though "The People" will like to call it stupid i say its my time management skills :D.

Well it was not as peachy as i had planned. There was a lot of traffic on the way to the airport, and at a point i thought i will miss my flight by hours. Anyway i just reached the airport 15 min's before the allowable luggage check in time. My flight was with American and let me tell you, their service sucks!! and when i reached the terminal there was a huge line at the ticket counters and even on the automatic kiosk's. After staying in line for almost 10 min's i finally reached a kiosk but was unable to retrieve my flight details as their online system choose the exact date & time to crash. As i started to get frustrated over what seemed like a missed flight for sure and also for the reason that one AFRICAN AMERICAN attendant kept on telling me that its was my fault (well partially it was , but nobody likes to be told that) in that nagging tone of voice all the attendants in any kind of public service desk take. People have to understand that its just not the words that we use , its how we use its that's makes it important(i myself am quite oblivious to this fact, but i love to preach). Anyhow, i finally got to see a person on the counter and she issued me a ticket on the next flight( on waiting list though) but suggested that i can try to go to the flight i was originally booked for and see if they haven't reallocated my seat. Luckily the security check was fast and as the fiasco probably had started just before i reached there (lucky me!!!) there was nobody on the waiting list on my plane and i was able to take the 8:45 AM plane. The down side of this whole mess was that my luggage (for which i had to pay $15 :x) arrived on the next flight which delayed my whole plan by 2.5 hrs,and New Brunswick being 1 more hr ahead of Boston didn't help my cause either.

In between the wait period for my luggage i decided to go get my car from Enterprise and get some much needed camp supplies ,like a stove and some propane tanks (in all my previous camp outings i have preferred to cook on an open fire with not very satisfactory results) , a camp light, some mosquito repellents, food (which mainly consisted of various kinds of canned beans,spam and bread) and bottles of water. Thank god for the GPS that i could finish all this in just couple of hours as Boston is a weird maze of roads each going at a different angle to the other(Chicago and New York City is so good in that aspect).

The drive to Fundy was uneventful, only stopping for gas and at the Canadian border. After crossing over to the Canadian side it started to drizzle and become very foggy. I reached at about 2:00 AM and set up my tent in dark (the constant drizzle didn't help my cause either).The only nagging thing was that the tent equipment were kind of screwed up (pieces were missing and some had mud stuck into it) because the previous group i loaned it to didn't use it properly. It took some patience and some improvisation to put it up, but it still took about 50 min's. I had to satisfy my hunger with few slices of dry bread and an energy bar as the constant rain prevented me from cooking anything.
And thus begun my trip.

Day0 drive from Boston to Fundy (warning: until you have a lot of time in your hand to waste and get easily amused by mundane things don't watch these videos :D )

Copyright@ 2008 Rahuljit Pal

For more pictures please visit

http://flickr.com/photos/rahuljitpal

sith lord defeated in 9hrs 10 mins :D

Well i haven't been able to post stuff on regular basis as expected(whom am i kidding,nobody including me was expecting to do it on regular basis). Anyhow keeping up with my tradition of blaming something for not letting me blog regularly , i blame my rejuvenated enthusiasm for Wii. I found some new cool games and got the new Wii fit (well some of the games were already released for quite a while but i didn't get updated information as JJ was not here :(.

Well the first game of the list is Pro-Evolution Soccer 2008. Even though the game has a huge learning curve and is not just "run and kick" stuff, the total control of all the players and that too by just pointing towards the screen and not controlling it via an analogue stick is pretty awesome. Of course playing it in the top professional mode is extremely difficult and i have just got used to playing in the normal mode ( in which i loose sometimes to a better team). I as a rule always play with Brazil using the 4-2-4 formation (made famous by Pele in the 1960's world cup, forgot which one). The bad thing about not having the "run and kick" capability is that its very hard for any of my newbie friends to play with me as it becomes more of a burden than fun.

The second game on the list is Medal of Honor - Heroes 2.This is a first person shooter, WWII game better synchronized for the Wii motion controls. Its a very nice game along the same line as its predecessor, which i was so fond of playing during my college days on my state of the art (for those times)PC ,now it feels like a 386 system even in comparison with a cheap laptop. I had my newly bought Altec Lansing surround sound music system (with a big ass woofer :D) plugged into it, and the rattling noise of the Thompson, the MP40 and the LMG'S kept me in a musical euphoria. It sure bugged my mom a lot as the whole house kept vibrating all day long and she kept on wishing that i will finish the game fast ....hehehe..But those days the Call of Duty, the Medal of honor and the Max Payne series were my favorites and they kept on releasing one game after the other, giving very little respite to my mom. Well this game did let me touch that nostalgic moment in my life and i am eagerly looking forward to the new Call of Duty for Wii to be released early in 2009 :D. Well as for the current game i have finished about 55% of it and am currently stuck at the using a mortar gun to stop Nazi rein enforcements.

The 3rd one in the list is Star Wars: The Force Unleashed which i pre-ordered and got a free T-shirt(yippee!!). Even though the critics were saying that this game will be ground braking but after a midnight September 16 release most of the websites gave it a mediocre rating. I actually totally disagree with the reviewers, i was expecting a much more polished game same as the reviewers but the final product is definitely more than mediocre. As usual the sound and story line is amazing and links the part III and IV in the star wars saga perfectly. My only complain is that the Wii version hasn't used the full graphics capability of the console and uses the PS2 type graphics. Of course the graphics of the Xbox 360 and PS3 are supposed to be better, but for me its no use having an amazing graphics if the controls are not good. Some of the critics have said that the gamplay of The Force Unleashed is very repetitive, again i defer with them as any kind of sword fight or gun fight game is repetitive, and there's nothing anybody can do about it. the capability of choking (only Darth Vader's character does it), having force lightening, picking up enemies and banging them around on the wall or floor are one of the many cool things this game has. But the capability of swinging the Wii remote ( named the Wiimote) as a light saber tops the list of them all. The game is played as Darth Vader's secret apprentice, and i gain more force power as i progress. The boss fights are really good but the normal fight is probably little too easy apart from the last stage , where it gets really crowded with star troopers. At the end (which happens on the unfinished death star) i first had to fight Darth Vader and then the i get an option of either fighting him again and move to the dark side along side the Emperor or fight the Emperor and save the rebels :D. For the first go i choose to save the rebels as a good hero always does...hehehehe..but of course good deeds are punishable by death , so i die... even after defeating the Sith Lord. :O. But the bright side of it all is that i get to play the whole game again with all my powers at the current level which makes the stages a breeze as i can kill a group of star troopers with just my lightening and force push. :D. This time i am gona go over to the dark side and stand along side the Sith Lord and crush all the rebels as that's my destiny ;). The Wii version also has a duel mode which none of other console has which makes it one of a kind, but alas i lack a formidable opponent to actually enjoy the battle mode as it can only be played by two humans(physically present, not even online), which sucks big time.

The fourth game in the list is Wii Fit(well don't know if qualifies entirely as a game). Anyway the Wii fit is actually quite amazing as it allows me to do aerobics, strength exercise , yoga etc in my home, and a visual instructor and a COB chart keeps telling me if i am doing it correctly. I think it fits perfectly with my at least 3 days a week exercise schedule, and with the long Chicago winter coming up, when a leisurely walk will be totally out of question, it probably will become by sole exercise mode.

Another game to mention is Resident Evil 4, Wii Edition which i bought along side Pro-Evolution Soccer 20o8 but haven't yet started to play beyond the first few minutes. I am also hopelessly stuck at stage 3 boss fight of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, which is a very hard game to play , but is the best game up till now for Wii where graphics and motion control is concerned.

this blog will be incomplete if i don't mention the new games i am looking forward too :

1. Wii Music: using my Wii Fit Board and my Wiimote and nun chuck i can play the drums which is next to amazing.
2. Wii sport resort: looking forward to this game specially because of the Wii motion plus add on for the Wiimote, as this is supposed to give 1:1 motion control.
3. Call of Duty-World at War: next generation first person shooter WWII game
   
4. Conduit-supposed to be developed specifically to utilize the Wii graphics to the fullest.
5. Red Steel 2: sword fighting game made for Wii motion Plus add on.

the best part of this Wii system is that the possibilities are only limited by the persons capability to imagine. :D

Copyright@ 2008 Rahuljit Pal

For more pictures please visit

http://flickr.com/photos/rahuljitpal

first visit to Brookfield zoo, and first attempt at macro photography(08/06/2008)

I have been to Lincoln park zoo quite a few times mainly for an evening stroll, but I wanted to have a wide range of animals/insects/birds to watch and photograph and Brookfield Zoo being the only one nearby(17.66 miles from my house, not that close) I had no other choice. In place of taking the CTA-Walk-Metra combination I decided to take the Walk-CTA-CTA-Pace as that saved me almost $3.50 each way. I always found the Metra to be really expensive unless I was going to suburbs like Aurora, Joliet etc. I thought that I would wake up at 8:10 am to reach the zoo by 10:30-11:00AM, but ended up waking at 10:10 AM (quite a common feature for me. :D,7:10AM being the earliest I wake up to go for work at 9:15 AM), if it’s before that I prefer not to sleep the night before. These days I have acquired an amazing amount of patience of standing alone and letting the time pass by without getting irritated ( a must have quality if you intend to travel by Pace/Metra and if you are not a very careful trip schedule planner like me).

The zoo was not as big as I expected, as I have a memory of the Delhi zoo being enormous, maybe it’s because the last time I was there I was a mere kid and all places at that time looked huge to me. I will have to revisit it the next time I am there to get the measure of things. I entered through the South Gate and have to wait 10-15 minutes to get a ticket just because some women had some troubles with her membership, and they didn’t bother to open another counter. As soon as I entered I was amazed to see how crowded it was even though it was a Wednesday. Must be because of it being summer and the kids having their summer vacation, but what about their parents, they didn’t go to work or was it just all of them decided to take a leave of absence on the same day‼…I haven’t figured it out yet…Maybe the zoo is that popular a place. There were kids of various sizes, shapes and age squirming all over the place like flies on a fruitcake and the whole atmosphere seemed to be filled with yelling, giggling and uncanny noises mostly associated with kids and their accompanying parent/grandparents. I never could figure out what all this fuss was about‼, and here I was expecting a quiet and peaceful photography trip. I soon got hold of my rushing disappointment and anger and did what I normally do in these situation (unfortunately I tend to get in these kind of situation a lot), I went about the exact opposite direction most of the people were going, i.e. I made the exit of the walk around of a particular zoo exhibit my entrance point. The plan works, although it has a higher risk of getting lost, but I never got bogged down by that as I have stumbled upon nice things when I am lost.

I started off with the Bear Grottos but only could see the black bear which was outside just because one of the attendants was filling up his small pools and he was there to lap up and splash some fresh cold water. The polar bears were all inside sleeping, and who would blame them for that, imagine their bad luck that they had to stay here in the summer. I bet they are among the very few delighted beings in Chicagoland when winter comes (me being one of them). I also saw two Sloth Bears playing around behind the rocks. They definitely have an apt name with their body hair totally unkempt and going everywhere. It made me wonder if they were named after the sloth or the other way around. I haven’t seen a sloth yet apart from in the movie “Ice Age” and occasionally in the mirror after I get into my “stay inside the house for a week and do nothing” moods :D. As I walked over to the “Lions & Tigers” section I saw the lion drowsing on top of a rock, which is probably his favorite past time as he was still drowsing when I walked past him couple of hours later but just on a different rock. The lion is a prime example of the male attitude of taking pride in doing absolutely nothing apart from sleeping, fornicating with numerous lioness of the pride and getting the first bite of the lioness kill. It’s a shame that he has to get up once in a while to fight another male for his place or run if endangered (any female of my species should take joy in the fact that I am making these comments sarcastically although the idea is highly tempting, where as the males should know how it is that we have to say stuff we don’t mean to keep things rolling ;)). The adjoining enclosure was for the tigers and only the one year old cub was out there jumping around and playing in the water. I remember the old days when after coming back from school and taking a very small nap (which was most of the time forced onto me) I was out there in the park playing in the sun. The tiger cub reminded me of how alike kids of all species are behavior vise if we move aside the physical attributes. This cub was jumping in the pool, trying to grab a ball, slipping on the edge and all that stuff kids do. I am pretty sure if its mommy was around and we had the capability of understanding their growls we would have heard the same kind of uncanny noises/dialogues I was talking before.

I so wanted to go to the “Sting Ray & Shark” exhibit but the huge line outside made me think that if I am going to stand in line let it be for the Dolphin show. So I bought the ticket for the Dolphin show for $3 and went in to the Pinniped Point as it was still an hour for the show to start and I was in no mood to stand in the line that long even for the Dolphin show. The seals and the sea lions are an amazing group of mammals. As I looked through the underwater viewing glass I pondered over the fact that they look like a large streamlined packet of fat with very shinny hair on it, but the speed with which they swim is just mind boggling ( it reminded me off a person I knew who was really fat but moved with amazing speed while playing badminton). As I moved on to the underwater viewing section of the dolphins which was mesmerizing as well, as the dolphins seem like they are the happiest mammals alive and always laughing. Can’t even imagine how a dolphin will look when irritated. All these underwater sections had small facts about the exhibit animals and it was nice to see some parents themselves acquiring that information before passing it on to their kids, while most of the others roam around just for the sake of it without even trying to learn anything. It’s really disheartening when I see people just doing things because it’s a practice without having any curiosity, I think it kind of beats the purpose of our existence. The Dolphin show was jam packed and the announcer has to revert to some verbal tricks to get people inspired enough to move little bit to the side and get some space at the end. The show was worth the money and the squishing. Dolphins are naturally playful as it being an integral part of their social structure. They are also very agile and fast which makes it a very difficult for me to get even a single properly focused shot. The group of four female dolphins (one mother and her three daughters) and one male dolphin did lot of tricks like breaching, waiving with their tails and fins, head banging etc. The best of the lot was when they stood up on their tails and swam (don’t know the proper term for it, looks like walking :D) backwards. The youngest dolphin (two year old daughter) predictably was the most playful among them all as she sometimes waived with her fins and tail and splashed water without her instructors command. I also wasn’t able to get any good snaps of them and the seals underwater even with a flash. Next time I will take my tripod and see if I can get better at it.

As I came out of the “Seven Seas” Dolphin show slightly disheartened at not being able to get a good picture, I was wondering whether I should visit the Butterfly house or go straight to the African or Hoofed animals section. I had my Macro filters (cheap substitute for an expensive macro lens that I can’t afford) and eager to see how they turn out I decided to have a go. As it turned out macro photography took me by surprise and opened another exciting aspect of the hobby I am starting to like a lot. I highly recommend this section for people with any kind of macro attachments for their cameras and if its people without any particular interest in photography don’t forget to take your magnifying glass. The vibrant colors and their well balanced composition and contrast completely spell bounded me. While looking through the lens I wondered how it will be to be shrunk to fit in their world. I felt like Alice in “Alice in wonderland” and “Through the looking glass” by Lewis Carroll. I am great admirer of Lewis Carroll and his works, which are termed as “Literary Nonsense” and consider most of the so called famous writers like J. K. Rowling has just mixed his “Literary Nonsense” with old folk tales in way more suitable to this ever growing POP culture without adding any literary value. Don’t take me wrong I am not against mixing but some additional value must be added to it, and making it more fashionable to the current generation is not a value. People might question why I am bringing J. K. Rowling specifically in the picture. Well the reason is that the first edition of “Alice in wonderland” was the most expensive children’s book ever auctioned before the “total garbage” (with no literary in it) of Harry Potter (forgot which one) broke it recently. It also shows how happy people are to eat crap if served in a shinny dish again and again and are willing to pay top dollars for it.

After spending more than an hour in the Butterfly House I walked towards the African animals section and took some half hearted pictures as my mind was still stuck on to the details of macro. I am quite pleased with my first effort after I looked at the pictures in my laptop in actual size and how the closes up filters are holding up. Even though I would like to get even closer shots where the image is sharper and clearer but for the time being I have to satisfy myself with my current equipment. So I decided to just walk around and get macro shots of flowers and insects which were in abundance outside. Quite a few time when I was crouching near a bush to get close-ups passersby’s asked me if there was something special in there and on my replying that it’s just a flower or a bee they let out a sigh which probably meant ”hmmm..Another of those nut jobs”…:D. But it’s an experience to actually see all the stuff I have read about butterflies, bees, wasps, dragonfly etc in biology books in school and to capture it in my camera. I saw the butterflies land on a flower and sucking the nectar and then rolling their suction tube back before flying away, while some pollen grains got stuck on its body hairs (that’s how the flowers get pollinated , for those people who have forgotten it ) was just awesome. At that time all I can say was WOW! ‼.

There were some small exhibits of Desert and Asian rainforest wildlife. I saw some small animals like meerkat, porcupines, some species of rodents and a very small fox which was one of the cutest thing in the zoo (unluckily as the fox just comes out at night in the desert so the light was very dim and no flash photography was allowed). One woman though shamelessly kept taking pictures of the animals even after being reminded by her husband of the “no flash” signs. I hope somebody wakes her up every night by suddenly turning on the lights and sound at maximum capacity to make her understand how badly it feels.

The Brookfield zoo also has a small nature trail around a lake and wolf woods where no animal is on exhibit. You just happen to see some if you stumble upon it while walk quietly. This is the way I would like the zoos too be, where people don’t take sighting of an animal for granted and are only rewarded for their perseverance. I understand it has some logistical difficulties but it can be done, and if we can’t think of a way to keep our cohabitants on earth in a more comfortable and suitable way for them while still keeping the possibility open for children’s and adults coming to see them and gain some knowledge and insight then we don’t deserve the self proclaimed notion of “being gods best creation”. I think it also will keep away people who are there just because it’s a thing to be done, as even though knowledge should be easily available but should only be passed on when there is a curiosity for it so that we don’t take everything for granted.

Copyright@ 2008 Rahuljit Pal

For more pictures please visit

http://flickr.com/photos/rahuljitpal