[Assam] AT Photo- A Quiz

[Chan Mahanta]

At 3:00 AM +0000 3/29/08, uttam borthakur wrote:
>To earn a living, I always have to look down and for many years the 
>occeasion has not arisen to look up to quite tall trees. I never had 
>the brush with life science either. Moreover, I cannot boast of 
>Chandan Da's penchant.
>   
>   Still .... I hazard a guess... may be Ximolu.




*** You did good Uttam It IS indeed Ximolu.,  Silk Cotton or Bombax . 
I am proud of you :-).

Nobody has to neglect efforts to earn a living or acquire an USEFUL 
education, to also be aware and concerned about the environment we 
live in. Trees and plants are some of our closest and ever present 
neighbors .  I don't hold it against people who are ignorant of them, 
but do hold our system of education and learning/societal  values 
that have not only neglected these aspects of learning or of giving 
them due importance in their value systems--that have created 
generations of our fellow men who are oblivious of them.

Can they be depended on to be good custodians of their living 
environment, much less of the planet?

When we studied Botany at Cotton College, for most it was an easy 4th 
subject ( not an IMPORTANT one)  to get good grades with. Few really 
cared because it was something worth learning. At IIT KGP,  I took 
Botany/Horticulture, again as an optional subject--the only one from 
my architectural class. The teacher from the Dept of Agricultural 
Engg. was almost stunned. He said it was amazing--never seen 
architectural or engineering students ever taking that course before. 
He is an younger  brother of the noted Bengali singer Dwijen 
Mukherjee and himself a noted singer too.  He remembered me when I 
approached him at the stage in Southern California where he gave a 
concert in the early seventies.


*** The Assam Tribune, like other Indian papers, or its editorial 
staff don't give any importance to such issues. It is like--"modaror 
ful" that Bhupen Hazarika wrote so eloquently about - who needs it? 
They didn't care to give credit to the photographer, even for such a 
terrific image.  Had there been a name as to who took the picture, 
there might have been an attempt to identify correctly what the image 
is of. Somebody just guessed and called the red flowers "modaar". The 
bird must have been way too hard a subject, so ignored it altogether. 
Such is the standard of excellence, of accuracy, of curiosity at the 
halls of this hallowed journal. But they are not special. They merely 
reflect the society they are a part of , of  low standards and even 
lower expectations.

Can you imagine how things will get better?


*** BTW the bird is a rare one in Upper Assam. At least it was so 
where I grew up. We called it  "Moina sorai" ( Indian Mynah) , which 
would occasionally show up in our village.  There are a number of 
different kinds of Mynahs. This particular one, according to Salim 
Ali's  The Book of Indian Birds, is the Jungle  Mynah ( Jungli Myna 
in Hindi) --Acridotheres fuscus.

See:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://lh3.google.com/_1nwYsU6OEMM/RnZbl0YjiiI/AAAAAAAABvM/8iF-IGpxbCA/s800/juma_0209.jpg&imgrefurl=http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/KyoCHUOIqFMerVy2gBGdlQ&h=90&w=135&sz=83&tbnid=lDhnD8gSA3EJ:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dacridotheres%2Bfuscus%2Bphotos&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=1&ct=image&cd=2












>
>Chan Mahanta <cmahanta at charter.net> wrote:
>   http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/details.asp?id=mar2808/main
>
>
>There is a gorgeous picture of a black bird sitting on a bunch of
>flowers. It is one of those symbolic images of spring in Assam.
>
>But unfortunately, in yet another pathetic display of ignorance of
>our natural treasures, the AT labeled the flowers wrong as "modaar"
>( Indian coral flower). I guess ALL red flowers are 'modaar' to our
>one dimensional knowldege-brigades .
>
>Can anyone identify them correctly?
>
>And can anyone identify the black bird?
>
>cm
>
>
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>
>Uttam Kumar Borthakur
>
>       
>---------------------------------
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