The Western Ghats

 The Western Ghats form India's oldest natural systems predating even the Himalayas by a huge margin. Stretching all the way from Maharashtra to Kerala, parallel to the coast, they are home to thousands of plants, animals, and other organisms found nowhere else in the world! Having experienced them after a long time, I made an effort to capture my thoughts in the poem below. Though the poem describes the beauty and diversity of the Ghats, things are not all rainbows and butterflies. Entire ecosystems have been heavily stressed by human activities, with no coast left untouched, and no jungle left unseen. Hope you readers enjoy it :)

As the fog cleared up on the sweaty canvas,

Atop a hill that I had climbed to see;

As the sneaky sun turned thick air to glass,

Lo and behold! A frame frozen in beauty.

A churning sea in rain and in sun,

Enveloped by a thin, yet endless azure;

Sea eagles hovered above, watching me stunned -

Perhaps signalling other birds out on tour;

Oh, what could I have spot!

Fishers, humpbacks or passing whales?

Had I turned back my head not -

To confirm if I had indeed crossed a thick rainforest trail!

With opposing ideas my mind so filled,

A plethora of discovery demanding extended stays;

Should I search for camouflaged tree frogs tonight,

Or look for bioluminescence in high tide waves?

A stream, a beach, a mangrove, a murky estuary,

A jungle, a grassland, and their ecotones, on a steep hill;

Ecosystems, each with its own complex diversity,

I had seen all in less than an hour still!

Beyond nature I had seen too, these greens -

Intricately intertwined with human footprints;

Paddy fields sandwiched between land and sea.

And luxury built on cut-down hill-top trees.

A canvas of mellifluous detail,

Smoothening out to accommodate economy;

With so much still in veil,

We better focus on what we ought to see.