The coconut tree climber

Recently when I had been to Kerala (south India), I saw this guy named Thomachan who came to climb the coconut tree. Everyone kept talking about the “tree climbing machine” But what this guy had was not a machine but a contraption which helped him to climb the tree.

The design was simple. The contraption gets locked on to the tree when you put your weight on it (by stepping on it) There were two, one for each leg.

He carefully strapped the pair on to the tree and climbed up with confidence.  

Once he reached the top, he cut lose all the coconut that was ready to be plucked. In all we got 32 coconuts from this single tree.  

I was comparing this with a black and white picture of mine where I could climb a coconut tree half way without any assistance. (this was clicked about 45 years ago)

OK, in case you are wondering how I did it, this particular tree had nicks carved out in the trunk to enable the toddy tapper to climb up.   

Coming back to our guy Thomachan, while he was gathering all the coconuts, I saw him picking up an aluminium coat hanger. I asked him where it come from. He said “It is usually the crows, they take it from the clothesline to build their nest”   

Now that rang a bell. I remember seeing the same phenomena here in Pune just a month ago. In fact there were two hangers that were used in the crow’s nest here in Pune.

Here it is seen from another angle clicked again after a month. Probably the hangers slipped down after a heavy downpour.

Have to give  credit to the crows that they chose to pick only aluminium hangers (being lightweight) The ingenuity of the crows are universal, even if they are separated by about 1200 kms. (distance from Pune to Cochin)

Have made a small video to show how Thomachan climbed the coconut tree.

Here it is.

Never a dull moment

The grey Langur paid us a visit the other day. In fact there were two of them. How I came to know about it was by the distress call of the Koel. To add to this the crows were all excited and were concentrating on the mango tree.   I had a closer look at the tree. After carefully scanning through the gaps in the tree, I found this cute face looking back at me. 

Had enough time to grab my camera and take some quick shots.

The crows were getting really agitated (and frustrated) as they could not swoop down on them. The second line of attackers were waiting above for action:

Meanwhile our friends decided to change location and descended on our garden. One of them perched on the bamboo scaffold and relished our flat bean shoots. 

Later while checking the net, I found that Langurs are indeed known as “leaf eating monkeys” as they feed mostly on leaves.  Other than leaves they eat fruits, shoots, roots, seeds, flowers, grass.

While enjoying the shoots, I saw him eyeing the Dutchman’s pipe (or queen of the night) flowers at the other end of the garden. I presume he gave up the idea, probably guessing that that they were the ‘already bloomed ones’ (these flowers bloom once a year and that too in the night)

The front line attackers had a clear target now and resumed their attack.  

Our friends now moved on to the adjacent tree and found the flowers on this tree really delicious. (this is the same tree on which the bats come at dusk during this season)

I suppose they had their fill on that tree and moved away, as the concentration of the crows shifted away from our house.

With some greenery around the house, there is never a dull moment.

I did manage to take some video footing too and you can see it here:

Taj revisited

Had been to south Mumbai (Bombay) recently.
Took a walk around the Gateway of India and the Taj Hotel early in the morning.
Its been more than two years since the 26/11 attack took place, but it has left its scars and tell tale mark.
The earlier blog on the same subject was in a lighter note with a bit of sarcasm sprinkled in.

Sauntered into the Leopold hotel to have tea. As it was just opening time for them there were hardly any customers. While having my Toast and jam with tea, I realized that my table was right next to the glass pane which had three bullet holes (they have preserved it as it is)

For a minute I was just trying to imagine how the scene must have been once the guns opened up. Noticed the owner Mr Farhang Jehani behind the counter, but I did not speak to him regarding the subject. Not a nice thing to bring back bad memories early in the morning. While coming out of the Hotel, I clicked this which has a good vintage look.

(some how I like these old Coke ads, though I don’t like any of these aerated drinks)

The paper man was just lining up the morning papers


Whenever I am in that area, I don’t miss a chance to peek into Mondegar (another hotel in the next lane) Just love to look at those colourful murals by Mario Miranda.

In 1925, the Yezdegardis, an Irani family, bought the home of a French sailor Monsieur Monde. Inspired by its Hindi reference ‘Monde Sahib ka Gar’ (Mr. Monde’s house) the Yezdegardis soon converted it to a café called ‘Monde-Gar’. It started off as a typical teahouse that also sold tobacco, foreign liquor, wine, breads and specialties from Iran like saffron, almonds, and pistachios..

In fact the ambience of this hotel is really good, complete with a juke box. About 5 years ago I had posted another picture of Mondegar in my Flickr account which had some 84 comments and 3300 views.
It was good to see that life was getting back to normal in and around the area, with some extra precautions. (had never seen the Gateway of India before with an armoured vehicle parked permanently next to it)

Saw some tourists going about their normal procedure of checking out of the Taj Hotel.

A balloon vendor was trying out his luck with prospective customers.


Many of us have seen the Taj Hotel from the east side but this is a view of the main dome from the west side

One common sight in front of the Taj hotel is the flock of pigeons that sweep down to feed on the grains provided by the tourists.
But this time the jostling and the fluttering (of the birds) was too much and I discovered the reason. Apart from the normal tourists there was one guy who came in his car and took out a sack of grains from the boot of the car. (yes one huge gunny sack)

He then just scattered the contents of the sack on the footpath. The swoop of the birds was so powerful that I was reminded of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds”


And this time there were crows too. One observation I made was that the crows dined separately and the pigeons had their own group. No mixing up. It was also funny to see some of the crows perched on this guy’s car (with the dicky open)
Talk of trying to take the loot directly from the granary!!

© Photographer: Joezachs | Agency: Dreamstime.com

I have put up this picture for sale on Dreamstime. Wonder if any one will like it.
(click on the image to see large)