It was the third day of our herping trail in Konkan. We had already had our fair share of leech bites and getting drenched in rain throughout the day was the closest we had come to taking a proper bath. Unfazed by the general sense of discomfort and having totally lost track of time, we continued to scan the undergrowth for any sign of movement. After what seemed like another eternity, I turned to my birding buddy and asked —
“Should we be happy or should we be content?”
(most frustrated of looks he could conjure) “Happy”
“Fair enough”
Short as it may have been, the lead up to this conversation was rather long one. Almost three months long.
The month of May (A birder’s coming of age?) this year was a local maxima of sorts on the birding front. Having birded across the country from the lush green Western Ghats to the arid scrub-lands near Rajasthan, the following months of monsoon were going to have to really try hard to match up. And going by the monsoon birding (or the lack of it) that happened last year, I was already skeptical. To add to this, my birding buddy had work travels lined up during these three months so an uneasy sense of gloom had started to build up already.
Gloomy — a feeling that I would never associate with birding, and yet here it was.
Why would something that had so far brought in unfettered moments of happiness suddenly become something of a bother? Why had something that seemed so effortless, now felt like it needed to be worked on?
Only a birding trail could possibly help answer all of that.
The month of June had been significantly dry this year so when I landed in Navi Mumbai for a brief visit, off we went to the Green Valley Park (GVP) in Belapur. The “we” this time was the largest that I had done a trail with in this hotspot. Introducing the the yet uninitiated to the joys of birding on their first trail was a feeling I had almost forgotten about. Glad that I could reconnect with it on the very first trail of the season.
As we walked around the GVP that day, I realized that a significant number trees in the urban forest of Belapur had been cut down to facilitate the extension of power lines. Inside the park, barren patches strewn with stubs where once towering trees stood was a painful sight for the eyes and worrisome one for the collective future of the city.
Returning home from this mixed bag of a trail, I volunteered to initiate— Tekdi Trails, a two hour walk that explores the natural heritage of my happy place in Pune — the Vetal Tekdi. For someone who identifies as a buddy-pair birder, taking people along for a birding trail was going to be big leap of faith — more so to do it in your hometown where almost everybody knows everybody. In the build up to the trail, I spent a couple of weeks reading up on the historical, cultural, geological and other aspects of this hill complex. The more I read about the tekdi, the more it became clear how critical it is to do our best to leave behind a world that is a wee bit better than the one we have inherited.
This sounded like a good enough “why” for me to do the first Tedki Trail.
The thing about Tekdi Trails is that I don’t get to use my camera to document my sightings — something that had become definitive to my birding experience so far. But not having to be bothered about capturing the best frame, liberated me to be present the moment entirely. Not that I would trade off my camera for anything, but the fact that there is more to the momentary happiness of getting that perfect frame than actually living the moment to its fullest was not exactly the awareness that I was expecting when I started photographing birds.
Monsoon or not, a visit to the birding hotspot of Kumbhargaon (Bhigwan) every couple of months has become a norm for a while now. Sighting lifers (seeing a particular bird species for the first time ever) is what most of my visits here have entailed. The trip this season was supposed to be no different — or so I thought. My company for the Kumbhargaon trip this time was a group of friends I have known the longest time but who had never been on the birding side of things with me.
A birding trip seeking lifers with a group for whom every sighting was a lifer. What an enthralling experience it turned out be.
Since March 2021, almost every non-work travel that I had planned was primarily aimed towards birding. But a long weekend in the month of August presented with an opportunity to plan a non-birding trip into the jungles of Goa. As with birding trips, I planned this one to the “T” but as we boarded the newly commissioned express train to Goa, the futility of that planning exercise dawned upon me in its entirety. Over the next two days as I sat in the verandah of our home-stay looking out towards a stream flowing through property — the joys of incidental birding presented themselves. But for more than my own self, yet again, to be able to open the birding window for someone else and to be part of that moment with them was a yet not experienced feeling for me.
Three months. Incidental Birding. One Lifer. Imperfect Frames. What more did this season of rains have in store for me?
Incidentally, what I was dreading about having to work my way through the season never seemed to have happened. Is this what being truly effortless feels like?
Maybe I would have never known, had I not got a call from Ashwin asking me to pack my bags informing me that we were finally going to do the much awaited herping trail for the season. Tad bit late to get there but the rain soaked land of Konkan presented an opportunity to stare across the horizon with a cup of chai in the hand and ask myself the question —
“Should I be happy or should I be content?”
While a lesser self-aware version of me would probably mix up both the feelings — it wasn’t going to be the case this time. Happiness is often an in-that-moment feeling triggered by what we anticipate to happen in a way we would want it to happen — it is rooted deeply in desire. Contentment is primarily independent of desire of any form. It is stable state that is not hinged to any outcomes. It is the feeling of living every moment, as a complete moment.
But contentment is not to be confused with been “satisfaction” that is the bedrock on which towers of mediocrity are built upon. Contentment is never sought through a compromise on effort — in fact it is the exact opposite, the effort is so ingrained, it almost appears effortless.
Effortless is not easy. But the pursuit of contentment is something worth putting the effort into.
As we see off the monsoon showers and await the arrival of our migratory friends, the next few month will once again be filled with birding action. Will it make sense to then continue on the pursuit of contentment when happiness will be served on the proverbial platter? We will get to know in my next blog if I was able to ace this dilemma.
For now, I’ll leave you with this shloka from the Isha Upanishad that speaks about the feeling of completeness for us mortal beings and how that can be experienced in every single moment of our existence.
ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदं पूर्णात्पूर्णमुदच्यते
पूर्णश्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ॥
ॐ शांतिः शांतिः शांतिः ॥
Thanks for staying with me till here. Do leave a 👏 if you liked the write-up.
PS: I wrote about rather grim picture that the State Of India’s Bird Report 2023 presents for our avian friends and a tabloid (Pune Mirror) featured a story on the birds of Vetal Tekdi with some of my bird photos.
