Back with a bang!

For those (including me) who had forgotten about the Aniyatkalik, suffice to be reminded that we are back in the business.

What with 31st July looming on the very near horizon, I'm flooded with tax work. Still got some time out to wiki for Mowgli and read some interesting stuff on feral children - Amla and Kamla are worth a read.

Monkeys of the golden palace

From tigers to monkeys.. to continue with the wildlife theme

I was wikiing around and came across a monkey called goldenpalace.com monkey.. I'm not bluffing, chek it out at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoldenPalace.com_Monkey

To cut a long story short, when this species was discovered, the name was auctioned and the funds used for conservation. Neat, ain't it?

I had heard of species and subspecies named after their inventors or other important conservationists (the Indochinese tiger is named after Jim Corbett)

Is goldenpalace.com monkey this a new face of capitalism? Is it kind and caring, or merely manipulative? I don't know.

Tiger Tiger burning bright

I've been reading a book called "Tigers in Red Weather" by Ruth Padel. She talks about her journey through India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Russia and some more Asian countries, understanding the tigers. It's a journey in which she gives equal emphasis to scientific and cultural aspects - a fascinating book.

As with any good book, this also evokes memories of other books on the same subject.

My earliest reading on tigers must be stories in Panchtantra and other children stories. Then a gradual movement to Jim Corbett's "Man-eaters of Kumaon" and books by other hunter-naturalists. Notable among the Marathi authors were Vyankatesh Madgulkar and Lalu Durve.

Then read an esoteric book about claimed sightings of unusual tigers - blue, golden, green....

And finally, the pretend tiger from Calvin & Hobbs....

Hope to see Kanha national park sometime, the spiritual home of the Royal Bengal Tiger.

Chess and Animals?

Does playing chess need a killer instinct? I don't know, but would assume so based on the way people boot their opponents after getting defeated in online chess.

Well, chess does have something to do with fangs and claws, and also with the herbivorous sections of the world fauna. There's the weird Hippopotamus Defence, Hedgehog formation and my all-time (semantic, not cullinary) favourite - Fried Fox.

There are chess variants with esoteric names - Camel and Rhino chess is the most picturesque. Have a look at:

http://play.chessvariants.org/pbm/presets/camel_and_rhino_chess.html

And yes, in Hindi, pieces like Rooks, Bishops and Knights are known as Haathi (Elephants), Unt (Camels) and Ghode (Horses) respectively.

It's a jungle out there!

Why?

Why am I writing this Aniyatkalik? This is something I must ask myself, even if my readers (if there will ever be any) don't ask.

I guess it's just a place to put down any random thoughts without having to rationally weigh the pros and cons. It will be a haven, overriding the gravity of the routine and the standard.

I'll probably talk about a lot of nostalgic memories, throw in some musings on cricket and chess, with a sprinkling of cryptozoology and really anything that comes to the mind on any given day.

And yes, I don't know whether I'll really think of something half-original every day or even every week, hence this is an Aniyatkalik - an irregular publication.