At 3:00 AM +0000 3/29/08, uttam borthakur wrote: >To earn a living, I always have to look down and for many years the >occeasion has not arisen to look up to quite tall trees. I never had >the brush with life science either. Moreover, I cannot boast of >Chandan Da's penchant. > > Still .... I hazard a guess... may be Ximolu.
*** You did good Uttam It IS indeed Ximolu., Silk Cotton or Bombax . I am proud of you :-). Nobody has to neglect efforts to earn a living or acquire an USEFUL education, to also be aware and concerned about the environment we live in. Trees and plants are some of our closest and ever present neighbors . I don't hold it against people who are ignorant of them, but do hold our system of education and learning/societal values that have not only neglected these aspects of learning or of giving them due importance in their value systems--that have created generations of our fellow men who are oblivious of them. Can they be depended on to be good custodians of their living environment, much less of the planet? When we studied Botany at Cotton College, for most it was an easy 4th subject ( not an IMPORTANT one) to get good grades with. Few really cared because it was something worth learning. At IIT KGP, I took Botany/Horticulture, again as an optional subject--the only one from my architectural class. The teacher from the Dept of Agricultural Engg. was almost stunned. He said it was amazing--never seen architectural or engineering students ever taking that course before. He is an younger brother of the noted Bengali singer Dwijen Mukherjee and himself a noted singer too. He remembered me when I approached him at the stage in Southern California where he gave a concert in the early seventies. *** The Assam Tribune, like other Indian papers, or its editorial staff don't give any importance to such issues. It is like--"modaror ful" that Bhupen Hazarika wrote so eloquently about - who needs it? They didn't care to give credit to the photographer, even for such a terrific image. Had there been a name as to who took the picture, there might have been an attempt to identify correctly what the image is of. Somebody just guessed and called the red flowers "modaar". The bird must have been way too hard a subject, so ignored it altogether. Such is the standard of excellence, of accuracy, of curiosity at the halls of this hallowed journal. But they are not special. They merely reflect the society they are a part of , of low standards and even lower expectations. Can you imagine how things will get better? *** BTW the bird is a rare one in Upper Assam. At least it was so where I grew up. We called it "Moina sorai" ( Indian Mynah) , which would occasionally show up in our village. There are a number of different kinds of Mynahs. This particular one, according to Salim Ali's The Book of Indian Birds, is the Jungle Mynah ( Jungli Myna in Hindi) --Acridotheres fuscus. See: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://lh3.google.com/_1nwYsU6OEMM/RnZbl0YjiiI/AAAAAAAABvM/8iF-IGpxbCA/s800/juma_0209.jpg&imgrefurl=http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/KyoCHUOIqFMerVy2gBGdlQ&h=90&w=135&sz=83&tbnid=lDhnD8gSA3EJ:&tbnh=90&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dacridotheres%2Bfuscus%2Bphotos&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=1&ct=image&cd=2 > >Chan Mahanta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > http://www.assamtribune.com/scripts/details.asp?id=mar2808/main > > >There is a gorgeous picture of a black bird sitting on a bunch of >flowers. It is one of those symbolic images of spring in Assam. > >But unfortunately, in yet another pathetic display of ignorance of >our natural treasures, the AT labeled the flowers wrong as "modaar" >( Indian coral flower). I guess ALL red flowers are 'modaar' to our >one dimensional knowldege-brigades . > >Can anyone identify them correctly? > >And can anyone identify the black bird? > >cm > > >_______________________________________________ >assam mailing list >[email protected] >http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org > > > >Uttam Kumar Borthakur > > >--------------------------------- > Why delete messages? Unlimited storage is just a click away. >_______________________________________________ >assam mailing list >[email protected] >http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
