A lot can happen over coffee near Periyar

I have seen the different shades of colour in the river, from dark blue to green and from azure to muddy brown.

With my apartment located close to Kerala’s Periyar and having spent almost a year both consciously and unconsciously observing the happenings around the waterbody, I thought I had seen just about everything that the river had to offer.

I have seen the different shades of colour in the river, from dark blue to green and from azure to muddy brown. I have seen the river gentle and silent, stately and majestic, disturbed and angry. I have seen the ripples and the whirlpools. I have seen excited fish popping out of the surface only to pull themselves back into the comfort of the waters below. I have witnessed fishermen paddle their canoes and boats through the river in search of livelihood. I have observed with fascination the games played out between a white-beaked majestic kite and a much smaller but equally determined and persistent crow over the river.

I have each morning watched white storks fly past the river in a beautiful formation and return in a similar geometric discipline the same evening, their day’s work done and dusted. I have seen the resplendent obeisance paid by a rising sun to a flowing river as also a crimson farewell by the same sun as it set for the day and made its way through the maze of grey clouds. But then this was not all! The river, just as much of nature, is never quite done with what it has to offer.

Recently when I returned home after a rather long break of over two months, I was surprised to find yet another spectacle. Soon after sunrise, I noticed around 10 white-beaked kites doing some kind of aerial dance just over the river. They would group themselves in a circular fashion and execute swooping dives which would see them skimming the surface of the river without ever really diving below it. They had perhaps discovered that there was plenty of breakfast to be had and seemed to be making amends for all that lost time. A few minutes of this dance and feasting, and the kites would disperse only to appear and perform this diurnal drill the next day once again.

I don’t know for how long this will last, because as I said, nature will, for ever, have something new to flaunt and surprise us. However while it lasts, I continue to enjoy the sights and sounds over the river as I sit in the balcony and enjoy my morning coffee.

Ashok Warrier
Email: ashokwarrier27@gmail.com

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