A Cloudy Afternoon - Karwar beach

Throwback to 2011

A Cloudy Afternoon - Karwar beach

Yellow Fungus Mushrooms

Clicked at Karwar in this Monsoon...

Bright, Yellow, pretty looking,
Common Jelly
#Fungus #Mushrooms
on dead Wood.

#Tremella_mesenterica (not sure)

Appears in #Rainy weather.

Destroys wood internally.

#mobile_photography #phonography

Farmers at work... Binaga Karwar

"There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth.
The first is by war, as the Romans did, in plundering their conquered neighbors. This is robbery.
The second by commerce, which is generally cheating.
The third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favor, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry." - Benjamin Franklin.

#mobile_photography #karwar #monsoon #india_gram
#foodandfibre #agriculture #thankafarmerforyournextmeal #seasonalproduce #farming #farmer #ploughing #soil #plough #farm #workingclass #nammakarnataka #nammauttarakannada 

Fishing Boats... at Rest for the Monsoons...

Fishing boats are rest..... just before the Monsoons... on a clear sky day...

Tagore Beach Entrance

Nobel Laureate Poet Ravindranath Tagore's 150th birth anniversary will be celebrated at Karwar beach on Saturday. Tagore had visited Karwar when he was 21 years old, while his elder brother worked as a district judge in Karwar. 
Tagore was attracted by the beauty of Karwar beach and the nature of the area during his visit. Tagore then stayed with his brother in the judges' quarters.

There are references in his books that he was visiting Sadashivagad near Karwar by boat and also by walk and lunched with fishermen during the visit to their houses. In his book `Nature's Revenge,' he referred to Karwar and the natural beauty of the place. 
The District Administration hence named the beach after Tagore and his birth anniversary was celebrated at the beach. 

Palm-fringed paddy fields...

In this picture - mountains (Western Ghats), coconut trees, paddy fields, cattle, clouds, water, greenery.....

***

Before and After Rain

The wind has exposed the light undersides of the leaves,
The sky darkens into a mass of ash and bluish grey,
The neem trees, all a-huddle, heave
And sway,
The unploughed fields, dry and parched with pain,
Eagerly await the first reviving flush of rain.

The arid landscape, languishing and about to die,
Weeks later looks refreshingly alive.
Fields covered with saplings moist and green
Present a healing scene.
In the ditch where gurgling waters flow
Reposes a tranquil milch-buffalo.

Tom Prato/Tan Pratonix

Source - http://hubpages.com/hub/Tropical-Poem

Cloudy skies... and the roaring sea...

THE LADY TO HER GUITAR.

For him who struck thy foreign string,
I ween this heart has ceased to care;
Then why dost thou such feelings bring
To my sad spirit--old Guitar?

It is as if the warm sunlight
In some deep glen should lingering stay,
When clouds of storm, or shades of night,
Have wrapt the parent orb away.

It is as if the glassy brook
Should image still its willows fair,
Though years ago the woodman's stroke
Laid low in dust their Dryad-hair.

Even so, Guitar, thy magic tone
Hath moved the tear and waked the sigh:
Hath bid the ancient torrent moan,
Although its very source is dry.
                                           - Emily Bronte.

A boat...

Languid...

Monsoons again !!

Clouds, mountains, fields, palms, green, monsoons,.. All at Karwar this season !!

Its Monsoon time again....

Monsoon - Frogs

The onset of the Monsoon signifies the end of the Hibernation period for these Bull Frogs. Their skin has been discoloured due to the long period that they stayed hidden under the Earth. The Rain-Water-Slush-Ponds inspire these Frogs to come out, socialise, mate and procreate....

After a long bout of hot summer, the Rains last night brought relief to all Living things in Karwar, including these Frogs. 

Last night was a Party Time for these Frogs, and we could hear them croaking to their fullest all night. It was a Riot Night !!

HAPPY MONSOONS !!


My Older post on a similar topic - http://karwar-daily-pic.blogspot.com/2009/07/of-tadpoles-and-frogs.html

Maadibag Hill landslide Site

These are the serene pictures of the Maadibag - Jariwada Hill. No one would guess what happened there a few months back... The beauty of the picture is deceptive...

As many as 20 people were feared buried alive when seven houses collapsed following landslide due to torrential rain in the Karwar District of Karnataka. Source

As many as 20 people were feared buried alive when seven houses collapsed following landslide due to torrential rains in the Karwar district of Karnataka. Rescue operations were continuing, but it was feared that all those, who were caught under, might have been died, due to suffocation. The rescue operation was hampered last night due to bad-light and heavy rain. In Karwar taluk, more than 200 houses had collapsed and 1000 residences were water-logged. Source

Chief Minister of Karnataka on Tuesday, visited Kadwad village where more than 20 people were killed in a landslide on Friday. Chief Minister of Karnataka on Tuesday, visited Kadwad village where more than 20 people were killed in a landslide on Friday. Later, talking to mediapersons at the site of the landslide, the Chief Minsiter said the Army, Navy, police, home guards are engaged in rescue operations. He said the government will give a compensation of Rs 1 lakh each, to the kin of the victims of the landslide. He promised that relief works for people affected by untimely rains would be taken up war footing. He promised the kin of those, who were buried alive in the land slide, that alternative arrangement for their living would be made. He said all the 60 families located beneath the hillock would caved in at Madibag, would be rehabilitated at a safer place. He had already directed the Deputy Commissioner to take steps in this regard. Source Source

Although 400 people, including 50 soldiers of the Maratha Light Infantry, 50 navy personnel and 240 police personnel have been working round-the-clock with JCB machines to recover the bodies of 21 people who were buried alive in a landslide at Madibag, the task has become very difficult due to the mounds of slush covering the area to a depth of nearly 12 feet. The JCB machines could not be brought to the spot till Sunday since the road leading to Madibag was blocked following the landslide on both sides. Source

Leaves of Grass - A Paddy Field

This picture of a Rice Field, with the crop standing, constantly reminds me of the "Leaves of Grass" of Walt Whitman.....

Lines from "Song of Myself"

"A child said What is grass? fetching it to one with full hands

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of the hopeful green stuff woven.

of I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,

A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,

Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners,

that we may see and remark, and say Whose?...

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves."

A Poem by Walt Whitman (His Life excerpt here..)

Leaves of Grass (1855) is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman. Among the poems in the collection are "Song of Myself," "I Sing the Body Electric," "Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking," and in later editions, Whitman's elegy to the assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd." This book is notable for its delight in and praise of the senses during a time when such candid displays were considered immoral. Where much previous poetry, especially English, relied on symbolism, allegory, and meditation on the religious and spiritual, Leaves of Grass (particularly the first edition) exalted the body and the material world. Influenced by the Transcendentalist movement, itself an offshoot of Romanticism, Whitman's poetry praises nature and the individual human's role in it. However, Whitman does not diminish the role of themind or the spirit; rather, he elevates the human form and the human mind, deeming both worthy of poetic praise. (From Wikipedia)

What can be written of Walt Whitman that has not already been pondered or researched? The good, gray poet is an American literary icon. Leaves of Grass was his opus, his life's work. He originally published the collection of poems himself in 1855 and proceeded to submit anonymous reviews extolling the book's greatness to magazines and newspapers.
The ordinary becomes extraordinary in Whitman's perspective as he gladly and patiently passes that perspective on to his readers. He calls to them still :

"I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles... " (Source Here)

The Entire Leaves of Grass can be read here.

My other Picture Posts of Rice/Paddy Fields - here, here, here and here.

Butterfiles.....

Shot this picture in a Garden..... I didnt know what to caption this picture, so I Googled Poems on Mating, and this is the First Best one that I found..... A Brilliant poem !! which very well suits this picture, I believe....

Mating by David Herbert Lawrence

Round clouds roll in the arms of the wind,

The round earth rolls in a clasp of blue sky,

And see, where the budding hazels are thinned,

The wild anemones lie

In undulating shivers beneath the wind.

Over the blue of the waters ply

White ducks, a living flotilla of cloud;

And, look you, floating just thereby,

The blue-gleamed drake stems proud

Like Abraham, whose seed should multiply.

In the lustrous gleam of the water, there

Scramble seven toads across the silk, obscure leaves,

Seven toads that meet in the dusk to share

The darkness that interweaves

The sky and earth and water and live things everywhere.

Look now, through the woods where the beech-green spurts

Like a storm of emerald snow, look, see

A great bay stallion dances, skirts

The bushes sumptuously,

Going outward now in the spring to his brief deserts.

Ah love, with your rich, warm face aglow,

What sudden expectation opens you

So wide as you watch the catkins blow

Their dust from the birch on the blue

Lift of the pulsing wind—ah, tell me you know!

Ah, surely!

Ah, sure from the golden sun

A quickening, masculine gleam floats in to all

Us creatures, people and flowers undone,

Lying open under his thrall,

As he begets the year in us.

What, then, would you shun?

Why, I should think that from the earth there fly

Fine thrills to the neighbour stars, fine yellow beams

Thrown lustily off from our full-blown, high

Bursting globe of dreams,

To quicken the spheres that are virgin still in the sky.

Do you not hear each morsel thrill

With joy at travelling to plant itself within

The expectant one, therein to instil

New rapture, new shape to win,

From the thick of life wake up another will?

Surely, and if that I would spill

The vivid, ah, the fiery surplus of life,

From off my brimming measure, to fill

You, and flush you rife

With increase, do you call it evil, and always evil?

Source

Clouds on the Mountains

The Clouds have descended on Karwar, trapped by the Western Ghats, and it has been raining since 22nd August, almost non-stop...

Guess the Heat/Radiation generated by a Power Plant 40 kms East of Karwar, repels the Clouds from moving Inland towards the East....

Monsoon Landscape at Kerwadi, Karwar

A Dramatic Landscape at Kerwadi village, in Karwar clicked on a Nokia 3230 1.3 meg pix mobile camera, by Sandeep Naik.

Another Kerwadi village Landscape

This is another Kerwadi village Landscape shot on Nokia 3230 1.3 mpix mobile by Sandeep Naik...

Minor Irrigation Dam at Kerwadi village

This is a Minor Irrigation Dam at Kerwadi village, Karwar, constructed by the Government. Due to the incessant rains this month, it has been overflowing....

Picture Shot with Nokia 3230 1.3 mpix camera by Sandeep Naik.

Incessant Rains in Karwar - Skywatch Friday

The Rain bearing Clouds have halted at Karwar, since the last fortnight, pouring rains incessantly, even as I post this... And we are predicted to have much more rains ahead...

I guess this fits the Friday Skywatch Theme....

Off to a Spluttering Start....

A Sand - Boat takes off at the Kodibag jetty with six people on board, to 10 - 15 kms upstream of the Kali River to extract Sand from the River Bed.

The traditional fishermen and those extracting sand have been on the collision course in the last few years. Environmentalists say that indiscriminate sand mining in the rivers has affected the fishing population and other marine species. Officials have failed to stop the unscrupulous activity though many species are on the verge of extinction.
“Indiscriminate sand mining is posing a threat to six major dams built across Kali river. Officials have failed to prevent sand mining in estuaries which will have an adverse effect on marine organisms,” said V.N. Naik, professor of marine biology in Karnataka
University.
Though the department issues permits to contractors only for 90 days and permits only 1,000 tonnes to be extracted from the marked area, most contractors flout it. The sand is being transported to Goa though the permit allows only local consumption, said sources.
The sand mining lobby is operating right under the nose of mine and geology officials in Uttara Kannada district. The mafia’s reach became evident recently when some activists stopped a cargo ship which was illegally carrying 2,000 tonnes of sand to Maldives. It was only after series of a protests that the district administration swung into action against the scam. Source

There are 150 boats operating and out of 42 Sand Mining Contractors, only 8 Contractors have proper Licenses, issued by the Mines and Geology Department.

The action of the mine and geology (M&G) department of Karwar that allowed sand mining from the Kali River, has put the lives of thousands of commuters who travel by Konkan railway on the Kali bridge in danger. The Konkan railway bridge, which is 1.5 km long, built across the river Kali, over which 20 trains traverse daily, is facing threats due to sand mining. The bridge is built at the place of confluence of the Kali river and Arabian Sea and so naturally, the pressure of the water is high in this area. Despite this, the M&G department has granted some companies permission to mine sand from this area. Source