Day 72 - Ending with The Intertidal!

It seems to have rained again last night.  It was cloudy, and there were tell-tale water puddles.  I did not go out this morning.  Just a balcony birding list here - A speckled Asian Koel female sat on the teak tree, up in the bulbul perch, while the bulbul sat in the one below, sadly I thought. Until a crow came and chased the Koel off!  there was quite a parade - a drongo, a tailorbird, two scaly-breasted munias and a tailorbird too.  

When I started this daily nature journal, 72 days ago, I really did wonder how I would fill 72 days.  I an actually quite amazed - the two months of posts have been filled with observations from around my home, mainly.  The neighbour's teak tree, our balcony and the beach, so much to observe and absorb.

Every time I wrote, I enjoyed a new layer of learning about behaviour, species and even more wonder and joy.  

What better way to end than with an acknowledgement  of another diary, another beautiful journal that has brought joy and delight to readers across the world.  So much so, it is short-listed for the Wainwright Prize that should be announced in the coming week. I do hope it wins! 

A "bow" and salaams to dear Yuvan for this beautiful little book.   Sometimes, very rarely, you come across a book or a song that seem to have been written just for you.  This is one such.

Yuvan is an exceptional talent.  I really have not met anyone like him. 
Naturalist, Educator, Activist

Writer, poet, Philosopher or Nature Spiritualist

Musician.

All this rolled into a lovely human being as well.  His acknowledgment and thanks to the non-human players in his life - feels ancient and modern.  

Intertidal is written as jottings on nature in the form of a diary and  is both a journey of self discovery and an evocative description of landscapes around Chennai - Urur Olcott Kuppam, Ennore Creek, Kovalam, Pulicat, and others. 

Where others might see sand, the sea, and marshes, Yuvan sees magic, feels the wonder, hears the different voices of the non-human world, touches on our interrelationships, and gives us all a flavour of Chennai as an ecosystem.  He moves us beyond the ocular and urges us to open our other senses and thus immerse ourselves in our experiences.

The quality of Yuvan’s writing and his deep insights into the interconnected web of our environment and its inhabitants needs to be read and experienced.  Be it hydrology of rivers and wetlands or ocean currents or the types of wind, or ancient knowledge systems, there is much to learn in every journal entry.

Intertidal - the area between land and sea, so important for a coastal city like us, yet neglected, misunderstood and abused.  Yuvan calls it a "metaphorical and a metaphysical" space - a space that he traverses with his observations over two years and three monsoons.

The chapters are titled as "Meditations" - Ocean, Tree, Rain, Detrivore, Difference and Intertidal,   accompanied by guided meditations that are nature-based, with these themes. 

The Ocean - Yuvan's meditative opening is about the rhythm of the oceans and the rhythm of our breaths -"Let the ocean's sounds permeate your mind and completely wash over you".  He describes riptides and rocks, creeks and winds, sand and mud.  Palayan anna, systems of learning, land life vs a life on the sea. Yuvan describes the neglect of north Chennai, their fight for Kattupalli, artisanal knowledge be it from the Andaman tribals or the fisherfolk of Encore, Urur or Pulicat.  When I see ghost crabs these day - I recall the "otherworldliness" of these creatures that Yuvan describes and that I did not know earlier.

The Tadpole Tank journal entries all through the book bring many observations -  musings about intelligence across life forms and the fundamental need for social connection.  The frog is also the Rain Meditation chapter's wonder creature.

The Detrivore meditation is all about turning detritus into fertility.  The millipede, the roach, the woodlice, do it so well.  Unappreciated and looked down upon, this is quite an astounding knack isn't it, and if we humans are able to come to terms and convert the detritus of our traumas then it will not get passed on inter-generationally.  Recently listening to Dr Anirudh Kala speak about is book The Unsafe Asylum: Stories of Partition and Madness that delves into the stories of mental patients caught in the Partition, brought home Detrivore truth.  When the traumas are not composted they get passed on inter-generationally. "Compost your own suffering and create peace and healing for others too", he journals. 

Difference meditations is about moving beyond the others of things - what is it like to be a bird, or a fish.  "the earth holds together an uncountable number of ways to live". Yuvan melds these into his Intertidal meditations and dealing with shades and nuances and not finalities of male/female, land/water, joy/grief, etc.

All through,  there are descriptions of creatures from blue buttons, to decorator worms, painted grasshoppers to sweat bees, and his personal observations of leading change, confronting the system and speaking up for the collective commons.  The journal entries refer to activists, writers and naturalists, as well as books and writings, all well footnoted, if anyone wishes to refer to the original source.

Yuvan's Instagram handle @a_naturalists_column, is his daily journal beyond Intertidal and is hopefully going to result in his next book.

I wondered if I enjoyed the book because it was so hyperlocal, so much my "ooru", my haunts.  But that is the authenticity of good nature writing - they are all rooted in a particular neighbourhood or ecosystem, isn't it?  

It is not about a big cat or an iconic bird, but about the wonder in the day-to-day, the mundane and the ordinary.  More power to you, Yuvan in all that you may do.