The Trogon of Creekpore - A Short Story

The Trogon of Creekpore is a short story (written by me) about the journey of a bird-watcher, looking for the Malabar Trogon, into the wild forest of Creekpore, and his encounters therein.

This story was first published on my literature blog, The Barobaug Diary.

You can read the full story by downloading the pdf document from here.

Copyright © Maneesh Goal. All Rights Reserved.

Disclaimer: This story is entirely a piece of fiction. All names, characters, places, descriptions and incidents are a product of the author's imagination. Resemblance to any actual person, place or incident is mere happenstance.

A review of the ASUS 'Zenfone 2 Laser' phone

Recently I was asked to review ASUS India's latest offering, the Zenfone 2 Laser (ZE550KL) smart-phone. According to ASUS India, it is a great device for blog photography because of its brand new laser auto-focus feature (as fast as 0.03 seconds, which greatly reduces blurring and enhances image stabilization), and low-light imaging capabilities. Being a travel writer and photographer, they requested me to share my thoughts on the device (supplied by them) with the aid of pictures taken using the same. I present to you below what I discovered about its photography abilities.

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On the Leopards' Trail in Marwar

Alert Leopard on a boulder in Bera

Trying to sight a Leopard (Panthera Pardus) in a jungle is perhaps no different than trying to find a needle in a haystack. On the many trips to the jungles of India, with some patience and luck, one can have excellent sightings of tigers, lions, even the shy sloth bear, and other mammals. But the leopard is an elusive beast. It can hide itself in any nook & cranny of the jungle, is smaller than the other carnivores, enjoys excellent camouflage, prefers hunting in the night, and with its acrobatic skills can perch itself on trees and boulders. Even if sightings occur, they are more in the nature of blink and you miss it. Though, we have heard stories of people seeing a leopard, sitting nonchalantly in plain view of the human eye, in the jungles of South India, such reports have been fewer from those of North India.

Despite several trips in the wild, we had thus far been unlucky in the matter of leopard sighting. The closest we ever came to sighting it was when we spotted a leopard’s kill but, not the perpetrator himself!

No longer wanting to leave things to a chance, we decided to take matters in our own hands and headed straight to Bera, a dusty village in southern Rajasthan amidst the Aravalli mountains and surrounded by water bodies. Here our abode was Thakur Devi Singhji’s orchard or rather the Leopard’s Lair Resort as it is officially called.

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Shilonda Trail (Sanjay Gandhi National Park): Update

Here is an update to my previous post on Shilonda Trail in the Sanjay Gandhi National Park (Mumbai).

Last Sunday I traversed the Shilonda Trail again with few of my friends. Here is a bit of dope for those wanting to go on this trail. This trail is closed for the general public and requires special permission from the forest department to go. Good news is that the Nature Interpretation Centre inside SGNP provides this permission for a nominal fee of Rs. 50 per head, albeit for a group size of 10 people. In case you are fewer than 10, then a lumpsum amount of Rs. 500/- needs to be paid. The department issues a receipt so everything is above board. 

This time around our focus was on birds and we managed to sight around 30 species of birds (fewer than we expected - but that's luck). Our prize catch was a pair of Indian Grey Hornbill. However, we didn't get any good bird photographs... but got some decent nature and street photography images.


Check out the images here.

Spiti Valley - Article published in Hindustan Times

Himalayan Patterns @ Spiti

The web edition of leading Indian daily, Hindustan Times, recently published an article written by me on Spiti (Himachal Pradesh). You can read the article here.

Leap of Faith!

Titled 'Discovering the charm of Spiti', it is a slightly modified version of the article I had written on this blog last year immediately after returning from Spiti - one of the most satisfying trips of my life!
Hope you enjoy reading the article. I also urge you to visit the place at least once in your lifetime for the spectacular sights it offers and the wonderful people who live there!

As always, I would like to personally thank each one of you for having patronised my blog and for supporting me. A special thanks to the team at Incredible Spiti for getting this article published in Hindustan Times, which is an esteemed newspaper of our times.

P.S. - The pictures published alongside the article in the newspaper are not mine. They have been mistakenly credited to me. All images on this blog are, of course, mine :-)

Kaas Plateau - Article published in Asian Age

An article written by me on Maharashtra's Kaas Plateau, along with some pictures taken by me, was published yesterday in the Delhi edition of Asian Age newspaper.

Asian Age article

I would like to personally thank each one of you for having patronised my blog and supported me. You can also read the original write-up, which I had published in October 2010, on this very blog here. The newspaper article is a remixed version of the same.

Also do not forget to visit the place in September!

Thanks once again :)

Ranthambhore National Park II - Charge in the Rajbagh Lake

Portrait of T-17 / Sundari Tigress

It was a cloudy evening on our third day in the Ranthambhore National Park. As I looked heavenward, I said - well, bad light to add to our woes! Thank you! So far on our current trip, we had tasted limited success with tiger sightings - none worth photographing (see details at the end). Hence, for our fifth safari in the jungle, we were at the same time desperate for a decent photography opportunity as well as nonchalant about the prospects. We were getting closer to a tiger with every passing safari and we still had two more to go after this one!

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Street Photography in Vasai

I am happy when my best friends have their arms around me :)

"When you photograph people in colour, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!"  — Ted Grant

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Picture of the day: Rajasthani folk musician

A Rajasthani folk musician enjoys a light moment during his performance in Mumbai. This picture reminds me of Indian farmers' smiling faces that we typically see on fertiliser sacks and posters / hoardings of Government's rural schemes :)

See more of Rajasthan here.

Ovalekar Wadi - abode of the butterflies (Part 2)

Common Jezebel Butterfly

Our second outing at Ovalekar Wadi (read about the place and our first trip here) also proved to be somewhat of a damp squib. The light, though, was excellent this time around. But, the chill in the morning resulted in the butterflies taking a bit too long to wake up from their slumber and busy themselves with the task of looking out for breakfast!

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Picture of the day: Hired cooks!

Men who toil to make our festivals sweet... all with a smile on their face, never mind the sweat and the grime! Clicked during the middle of last year.

Wish you all a very happy Makar Sankranti :)

Rewind: A photographic journey through 2010

Sunset at Pimpalgaon Joga Lake, Malshej Ghat

The year 2010 may have come to an end, but the time to look back and enjoy some of the great moments of 2010 has only just begun! The advantage a photographer has is that he / she can capture those moments and present them with his / her own unique perspective.

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Malshej Ghat, the Prince of Sahyadris! - a perfect weekend getaway from Mumbai!

Malshej Ghat, view from the plateau

Not many would believe it, but Mumbai is still a blessed place! As Mumbaikars we are indeed privileged to have places like Malshej Ghat at a driving distance of only 3 hours.

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Picture of the day

Captured from my home..., originally uploaded by thelegendreturns.

Captured this today from my home...

Have posted several pictures in the past of dusk / sunset captured from my home on this blog. I really consider myself lucky to have enjoyed these views for close to 23 years of my life now. However, soon these views would be gone as the panorama is fast filling up with new construction, sigh!

Lets enjoy the sights while we still have them!

Ovalekar Wadi - abode of the butterflies (Part 1)

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Kaas Plateau - Maharashtra's Valley of Flowers - a heaven on earth!

Let a million flowers bloom! - Kaas Plateau

Picture yourself at a place where there are rows and rows of blooming flowers on a flat land, as far as your eyes can see - different colours, different varieties - surrounded by verdant mountains, lakes and valleys. If you think I am asking you to recollect a scene from some Yash Chopra film then you are mistaken. I am alluding to a place which is only 6-7 hours drive South of Mumbai and about 2-3 hours from Pune.

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10 Amazing Photos of India - a photo-essay featured on Go! Overseas

God's Own Country, Kerala

Go! Overseas have this week published on their website a photo-essay contributed by me. The objective of this photo-essay, titled '10 Amazing Photos of India', is to market India as a destination where the international community can explore opportunities to teach, study and volunteer. The pictures are a preview to what they can expect in India in terms of the beauty and the culture of the place.

The post has been compiled based on the pictures taken by me during the many journeys I have undertaken to discover the magnificent diversity of India and hence (constrained by my travels) may not be truly representative of all that India has to offer.

In the words of Go! Overseas - "From the towering Himalayas, to white-sandy beaches, India clearly is blessed with an amazing abundance of natural and cultural diversity"

To read the post click here
To know more about Go! Overseas, click here


I hope you enjoy the post. As always I look forward to your feedback. A special thanks to Andrew Dunkle of Go! Overseas for providing me the opportunity to showcase India.

Window shooting (Part 1) and photography tips for shooting sunsets & moons

"I enjoy travelling and recording far-away places and people with my camera. But I also find it wonderfully rewarding to see what I can discover outside my own window. You only need to study the scene with the eyes of a photographer."

- Alfred Eisenstaed

A Bat flies across the setting sun in Mulund

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Shades of melancholy in black & white...

In my "humble" opinion Black & White (B&W) photography is perhaps one of the purest forms of photography. B&W stands on its own feet - on the strength of composition and mood, without the glamour (so to speak) of colour. I have also generally found that street photography is more appealing when seen in B&W - maybe it's because B&W brings out the starkness and hence help convey the mood better. To paraphrase it in a literary fashion - street-photography has the onerous task of capturing the shades of grey in our society and what better than using the shades of grey to portray them! It could also be because the works of Henri Cartier-Bresson (which were in B&W), the legendary photographer and father of street photography, continue to inspire photographers to this day, resulting in an immense amount of B&W work being done despite the colour capabilities of today's cameras.

Initially I had planned to share these pictures as part of another larger theme-based post, but then I had a feeling that they would get lost somewhere in the array of pictures (like so many of my other portraitures). Hence, this small post depicting some of the shades of melancholy which I observed recently.

A trumpet player in a Western-styled band

Wonder why the faces of most trumpet players appear melancholic and hardened to me? This man was otherwise quite jolly and would wink at me after finishing his bit!

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Musical Bands of Mumbai 1 – the Dhol-tasha band

Young boy playing cymbals

The arrival of the month of August heralds a long period of celebration for the majority of Indians. Starting with the Parsi New Year and ending with Christmas, it encompasses diverse festivals like Onam, Janamashthami, Ganesh Chaturthi, Paryushana, Eid, Navratri, Dussehra, and Diwali. It is the season of revelry, food (read sweets), music, penance, et al. In this and subsequent posts, I am sharing with you the images of people who get us swinging to their distinctly folksy beats during these festivals - the musical bands. Our first band is Maharashtra's famed Dhol-Tasha band.

If during a festival in Maharashtra you have heard the drums roll, clatter and create a deep resounding sound, then in all probability you have heard the dhol-tasha band play. As the name suggests, the band members play an assortment of drums (large and small) along with hand cymbals to create various taal (rhythm) synchronisations. The group members (more than 10 in number) are both young and old and sometimes also include children. Of late even women have started joining these bands (that should impress the women's rights groups)! During the Ganesh Chaturthi festival one gets to see the best of these groups. They typically rehearse for months and develop new taals to be in the reckoning of the large Ganesh mandals who hire them for the processions.

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