Remember The Living Earth?

Food for thought. The problem with clearing out my office is that the work expands exponentially; I pick up a box of photos, a pile of papers, a wad of drawings and deliberate on each one. I just came across a quotation I used when I was working in community environmental education. The quote is more potent now than it was 20 years ago and its message is more urgent than ever. We have lost the poetry as we argue in blunt scientific terms about whether or not we are in climate change. I have just retyped the piece and will place it on my newly cleared office wall. This is one thing I will not throw away. Read the words slowly, contemplate them and get the point!

The Living Earth

‘I am the living earth. I am the softened tissue of rocks baked by the sun, split by ice, carved by water and winnowed by the wind. I am interwoven by myriads of tiny plants and animals that pulse and breathe. I am the invisible universe of sparkling molecules in the infinity of living soils that bless the mantle of this globe.

I am the carpet of the biosphere; the floor of the forest, the seedbed of all plants; and my living substance nourishes all roots and all leaves that rely on the sun and rain to make green sculptures out of clay. In the tall dim damp rainforest I house the bulk of animal life and support the endless upward toiling of trees and coiling of vines. I am the bottom line of all grand symbiosis in forest biology. I am the source of mineral molecules in lovey flowers born high among the birds in the rainforest canopy; I am the energy sink, the lovely muddy frugal cemetery for recycling all the forest’s elements in the transitions between life and death.

Touch me, smell me. I am your ultimate quality of life in ecology’s profound cycles. See me, hear me, you humans who pass by me with your round computer heads rocking in the forest sky above me. Spare me a thought you humans who depend on me; remember me as I die before you, when you take away my forest coverings and still the microbes that give me life – me the Living Earth.

Take your shoes off, touch me with your fingers, let your skin tingle as it touches mine.

Shift your gaze sometimes from the stars and remember the heaven beneath your feet. Remember me when the sun burns and the waters gouge me, be kind to the forest that remain and protect them from seamless destruction. Remember this, like me you are already eroding. Know this; like me you are only dust when you are dead. Accept this; unlike you, I am closer to recreation as the living Earth, to Genesis’.

Len Webb, Rainforest Ecologist

October 28, 1920 November 25, 2008

	Footnote: Starting in the 1950s, the research of Len Webb and colleagues, from the Rainforest Ecology Section of the CSIRO Division of Plant Industry, identified the rainforests of northern Queensland as being the ancestral flora of the whole continent. They were unique, not merely the 'rag-end' of South-East Asian forests as had previously been surmised. Webb's surveys found evidence for rainforest in 75 million year-old sediments across southern Australia long before Australia drifted close to Asia estimated to be about twelve million years ago. Under Webb's patient scrutiny the northern forests were found to contain the world's greatest concentration of primitive flowering plant families, suggesting Australia may have been part of the region where flowering plant families first developed. His work subsequently made crucial advances in the understanding and management of Australian rainforests. He was a key figure in the crusade to protect Australia's rainforests as a non-renewable resource and heritage and frequently quoted from EJH Corner's The Life of Plants to impress upon people the sheer magic of these 'green cathedrals'. There is a giant tree, prominent in a forest that stretches to the skyline. On its canopy birds and butterflies sip nectar. On its branches orchids and mistletoes offer flowers to other birds and insects. Among them ferns creep, lichens encrust and centipedes and scorpions lurk. In the rubble that falls among the roots and stems, ants build nests and even earthworms and snails find homes. There is a minute munching of caterpillars and the silent sucking of plant bugs. Through the branches spread spiders' webs. Frogs wait for insects and a snake glides ...

From Superwoman to Supersloth in Four Moves

I just received an email from a friend and erstwhile colleague. After much deliberation she has decided not to assist me with a marketing plan; her mother is unwell, her daughter is doing a major exam this year and with funding (and therefore resource) cuts, her job has suddenly become even more demanding. Whatever happened to etype and superwoman? Remember those of us who managed fulltime careers, childrearing, housekeeping, gourmet cuisine and Ikebana and kept ourselves stimulating, sexy and slim! Perfection!

I know what happened. Some of us saw the light before the collapse, created new lives and our own businesses, went to rock concerts with the kids, dispatched the vacuum cleaner and Le Creuset, exchanged Kafka for kaftans, bras for bare breasts and gave away the size eights. There was enough money in being entrepreneurial and we had enough time to lie on the beach and eat ice cream without guilt.

My career as an artist and writer grew. I took the first byte of an apple in 1987 – a trendy Mac Plus, went back to university and scrolled unix codes on an ‘under construction’ information super highway until a dog called Fetch began retrieving for me. Smart bitch. Mosaic paved the way, software morphed and I gave up the easel for a Wacom and spent more time on my bum than on the beach. Screen time grew along with the waistline. Time passed. I wrote less on the creative edge and made art even less often.

And then what happened? I know what happened. Suddenly, and just as Terence McKenna predicted, the world wide web had spread its sticky filaments into every waking moment. Wetware was on the horizon - the connective tissue of the new world order and I had fallen into the wayside of chaos. The list of never ending things to do and all of them urgent and important kept me at the screen face until the small hours long after other tasks were left half done and cluttering house, heart and mind. I did not write a single greeting card at Christmas time although I did receive one from my only remaining (ninety year old) aunt. Making the fruitcake was a chore and the size sixteens gathered mould while I expanded ever outwards. It rained.

I had a meltdown. My life so creatively reinvented is on the edge of obscurity. I have no tour bookings on the horizon. My website languishes beneath the radar of any search engine – it is ‘under construction’. The ‘free range’ sustainable clothing range I designed for women just like me falters. The book I am writing stares at me accusingly from its folder on the desktop and my credit card threatens to swallow any income for the foreseeable future! All good non-sustainable fuel for any meltdown.

My life post Le Creuset has somehow missed the next move. The answer is simple. I am not i-friendly; I do not own an iphone, ipad, ipod or even have an ilife. Google is too big for my boots. I have fewer than one hundred friends on facebook (shame), I do not tweet and my blog no longer ‘shares’ seamlessly - it is now entirely dependent on circles that insidiously appeared one night and in ever expanding complexity.

The truth of it is that I do not have time to maintain or entertain more than the five friends with whom I am in contact somewhat irregularly. I could not begin to contemplate the 150 that evolutionary anthropologist Robin Dunbar theorises is the maximum number of friendships that the human mind is capable of handling, let alone the thousands that some boast of on facebook. I do not have time to create circles or i-dle chat. I am too busy reordering my office, constructing a website, writing a book, promoting a business, designing the next range of clothes and attending to the ever expanding list of things to do – along with the waistline!

 

What happens next? Well today I will be slothful and hang by my toes, gaze on the half done, undone, not-ever-to-be done and dream of lying on the beach eating ice cream with the Jabberwocky. Thank you Lewis Carroll for landing in my hands as I cleared the bookshelf. This state of affairs is, after all, a nonsense of my own creation. Brillig! Enjoy!

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

'Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!'

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.

 

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Lewis Carroll

Fire and Plumstones

 January and it rained at last and the acrid stench of wet, newly burnt land, livestock, wildlife and property dulled any sense of relief. Each day television crews working at infernos’ edges reported new outbreaks burning out of control while thousands of fire fighters from across the country joined ranks to defend the vulnerable. And later we were witness to the awful plight of those returning to the charred ruins of homes and gardens, pets, stock and native animals as families picked through the ashes for signs of life before the flames. It is still sad beyond description.The reminder is constant in the new category added to our roadside fire gauges - CATASTROPHIC! Scary stuff? You bet.

On Friday January18^th, Sydney broke all records when the mercury topped 45.8 in the city and further west reached a scorching 46.5 degrees (115.7°F). During the day more than 200 people were treated for heat stroke; hundreds of commuters were stranded when steel buckled, signalling systems failed and overhead wires melted while beyond the city serious fires raged.  I was afraid, stayed at home, shut all the windows and doors and sweated out the blistering heat. Even our dogs were treated to a rare invitation to come inside where they lay panting on the tiles of the kitchen floor. Without air conditioning and fans that simply serve to push around the already warm air, not a lot of energy was exerted and our garden wilted as I watched. These days even backyard food production is trickier than it should be.

For commercial producers it is now more than tricky to bring crops to fruition in seasons such as this. At our local organic market I speak to producers who struggle with their crops. Jamie, from Windy Hill Orchard near Young on the southwestern slopes of New South Wales, has watched weather patterns change since his family established the business 26 years ago. Rain, once spread out evenly over the seasons, now falls sporadically and unpredictably as feast or famine weather patterns play out on the land. According to Jamie, the seasons have moved and he reckons they are now as much as two months out. Shorter, milder winters do not allow apricots, peaches, nectarines and plums to set, the constant lack of rain dries their flesh and sustained highs of 47^oC do not a stone fruit crop make! Yet weather is not the only threat.

‘What about open cast mining in your area?’ I ask him. Now a mere 60 km away from Windy Hill, mining activities threaten more than the natural landscape. ‘Those large holes in the earth’ Jamie informs me ‘create micro climates’ and micro-climates, as we know, disturb the larger patterns. It is a planetary given that ecosystems are interdependent. Groundwater consumption and contamination, air pollution and altered landscapes are but the tip of the melting iceberg. Just as we all do deep in our hearts, Jamie understands that the fossil fuels our country has in abundance are at the heart of climate change and, just as we all do, he feels powerless as an individual to bring back the balance. He is simply working too hard to make a living and hang onto his land.

I had an eerily similar conversation twelve years ago while sitting on baked earth in a remote village in India with a block printer who told me in no uncertain terms that the climate was changing. Ismail pointed to the overhead vault of sky and said ‘something is wrong up there and is making it wrong down here’. The river had already dried up, indigo crops failed and in recent years, encroaching industry, powered by plants fed on fossil fuels from Australia, continue to substantially lower the common water table.

No longer can we be guaranteed the usual. Yesterday, when I made a booking at Shaam e Sarhad Desert Camp in Kutch for my October tour, Paarth informed me that, after the late rains in September and October in the past two years, he could not guarantee the camp would be open. Rain in Kutch in October, November and even January? And today Sushma pushed that out to February when she told me via Skype that it rained again just three days ago. I have covered myself by double booking elsewhere just in case and wait and see.

Apart from making radical changes in our daily lives, banging on the walls of bureaucracy and signing AVAAZ petitions, wait and see is the name of the game in this small world we share.  My atmosphere is your atmosphere, my sea is your sea and my life is yours. Treat them with care.

 I have not yet mentioned the floods.

 

Postcard from Ahmedabad

After a rock’n’roll overnight train trip from Bhuj I emerged into the early morning chorus of chaos as Ahmedabad rubbed its eyes and blinked awake into a new day. Taxi and auto hustlers vied for my money and I simply took the nearest green and yellow tin can and set off in what I hoped was the right direction. Relief Road, the main transport thoroughfare was already pumping. On one side of the open vehicle I was blasted by the cacophony of temple bells as they rang in the dawn and on the other the call to prayer lured white frocked men pedalling furiously on old fashioned high seated bicycles.

My auto rickshaw squeezed narrowly between painted trucks staggering under great bales of cotton, veered between buses already full at 5 am with workers off to a factory, roadside stall or residence to begin 15 hour days for as little as 100 rupees ($AU2) and scraped alongside large cars with small children being chaffeuredto an elite school. Chai stalls steamed into the crisp air and the overnight sleeping buses variously and incongruously named  Shiv Shakti, Ramdev, The Pink City Sleeper and just plain Patel discharged bleary eyed passengers into the dusty air. As we neared Ellis Bridge camels began unfolding ready for the day's haul and vegetable venders were already trading briskly. It was not yet anywhere near daylight.

Several phone calls to Asif later (nothing changes in the world of auto rickshaws) I was landed at his home and instead of hitting bed I sat and talked until breakfast time and then we headed off to his studio. It is warm here in this desert city and as the locals always say it will remain so until the festival of light in a few days time. Ahmedabad is gripped by Diwali fever; the roads regularly gridlock; I can’t get near the old city to shop for a few essentials and fireworks drive me crazy at night! 

Ahmedabad is also gripped by election fever as Chief Minister Narendra Modi woos its citizens with promises that he mostly seems to keep. He did make the Sarbamati flow again, he has built large scale industries in previously pristine environments and which in turn provide employment not to locals but to outsiders willing to work for lower returns and he may just manage to ruin the White Rann of Kutch with a few more bromine plants.  Myopia is indeed a political disease. We do not mention the fact that Muslims are still not allowed to integrate outside their clearly defined urban boundaries. The city is also hosting fever of another kind due to the late rains and heat – Dengue. The insecticide vans regularly ‘smoke’ the streets at dawn and dusk and we all cover up. If you are heading this way do pack tropical strength Deet laden repellent.

Tonight Mumbai seems an age rather then a week ago and Kutch a month rather than a day! Both were busy times in the life of this traveler. The tour group arrives on Sunday and I’ll decamp to the Cama tomorrow; set the mind to another mode and prepare for the next adventure.

On a final note the Tata Photon dongle that Jabbar bought for me in Bhuj is working a treat and I am now connected! Watch this space. In the meantime Aavjo and Happy Diwali  - may your flame burn brightly for another year.

Tickling the Senses

The idea of being in India is such a tease. The week before I leave she, the idea, repeats her customary monsoon mantra - rumbling, boiling and building up until the crescendo as the plane screams down the runway at full throttle - when suddenly, magically, gracefully we are airborne. We have become featherweights. My tease and I float away - away from life as we think we know it and into life as we can never truly know it. Me? I love these currents that carry me at will, sensing my surrender and waiting in deep shadows for my itchy soul to pass. I cannot speak for the tease! She is simply an idea.

I am leaving behind the usual trail of unfinished deeds, thoughts and intentions. A book here, a new website there, a pile of mending, paintings unstroked, shelves undusted, choruses unsung and last year’s tax buried yet again under more paperwork. But then, I’d hate to surprise my accountant with a set of books presented on time! I have though, with Mike’s technical wizardry, made a video presentation for a friend whom I love and admire. She, who went off to India alone in 1953 and long before the Liverpool lads, the magical mystery tourists and those who sought orange. As I sorted through her great pile of albums and envelopes, cuttings and postcards I became increasingly aware of a life lived fully, richly and deeply; never in the safety zone of western comfort and always on the edges of daring and adventure. Lenore Blackwood is quite a woman. 

Victoria's Memorial, Kolkata

Also In the pile of ‘done’ sits the small book I produce for my journeywomen (all female on this tour), a love job that keeps my research skills honed and my eyes on the lookout for new paths to follow. This time we are doing Diwali dinner at the real Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – I am testing it before my big adventure tour next year. The rooms are booked and the management is on a promise to produce Bill Nighy as a dinner guest even if they can’t manage dud phones, leaking taps and birds in the upper rooms. Thereafter we dip lightly into a little more of Rajasthan and do Delhi - its museums, monuments and mayhem before we head by train to Kolkata and then by road to Shantiniketan, Fulia and other rural villages of West Bengal. Beware the tiger! 

Kantha rendition of traditional game, Chopad by SASHA members. Image M Light 2011

Lucknow is our finale, one of my favourite cities on the eastern seaboard. Its faded elegance, lingering gentility and breathtaking stitches – white on white, glitter on net and precious metal on silk that are still exquisitely worked in squalid lanes where artisans toil day in and day out. Old men with fading eyes and nimble fingers produce work worthy of any court, king or concubine and they remember me and I am flattered. Elsewhere in dim basements cheeky, flirtatious young men work on sparkling wraps for older women to wear on magic nights - I could be flattered. Mostly I look forward to the early morning walk along the banks of the Gomti where dhobi wallahs drag white cloth from filthy water and beat it on worn laundry stones belonging to their forefathers. It emerges from this punishment so pure and white why am I not surprised? Never - this river after all feeds Ma Ganga. 

Whiter than white. Gomti River, Lucknow. Image C Douglas 2010

Back in my own home on the eve of departure the colour of India today is pink as in the floating camellias at my front door; her smell is the cardamom used in last night’s shrikant and still wafts from my fingers; her taste is mango – the first of the season eaten at breakfast; her texture the hand woven scarf I pack for cooler nights - organic cotton and silk dyed in indigo by Chaman whose vats never run, rub or fade; her sound is the camel bell I ring as I enter my work/think/dreaming space – just as I ring the temple bell at Koteshwar while the sun sets over Kori Creek and Pakistan. 

Westernmost edge of India, Koteshwar. Pakistan across Kori Creek. Image C Douglas 2003

Ah she is such a tease is India. I’ll follow her anywhere. Next post from Mumbai.

The Season of Thieves

The violation happened with absolute panache; one moment my wallet lay safely zippered in the innermost pocket of my pack which sat safely right next to me on a leather covered bench in the store; the next moment it was gone. The problem lay in me not knowing exactly which moment. Had I been in possession of that vital piece of information I would still be in possession of my wallet and its contents -– a few hundred Euros and maybe 20 Australian dollars, two credit cards, my bank debit card, a Travelex Cash Passport plus my driver’s license, Medicare card, a few important business cards and a copy of my passport. I learned the hard way (in Spain) long ago to always and without exception leave the original securely ‘at home’.

On Tuesday I was enjoying some time alone in the centre of Palma slowly wandering the streets running off Plaza Major with some serious window shopping and a little actual shopping in mind. The main influx of tourists had departed the week before and the city was pleasantly uncrowded. I was on my way to pick up a pair of sandals that I'd earlier ordered and taking the opportunity to revisit old haunts en route. It is reaffirming to be remembered and warmly greeted by shop owners after a three year absence; the woman who, for five years, sold me brightly coloured fans to give to my tour groups in India gave me a huge hug, summonsed her husband out to meet me and offered the usual discount when I bought several for the group next month; the German woman in the arty clothing store tried once again to sell me clothing that would not quite fit and I managed to escape without trying anything on. I then bought some real lavender soap and a few small items for friends at home before I ran short on cash. At the nearest ATM I withdrew 200 Euros on my Travelex Cash Passport and made my way to the shoe store.

‘Excuse please” said a voice in my ear ‘how much these shoes are?’ The fresh faced young woman who leaned across me held a turquoise and blue walking shoe out for my inspection – it was very chic, very European. The price tag said 45 Euros, which I pointed out to her. She sort of nudged me along on the bench and sat beside me. I asked her where she was from and I believe she said ‘Grecia’ in a thick accent! She then pulled a black and red version of the same shoe off the rack alongside us. ‘Which should I buy’ she said leaning even closer. I was aware of her friend standing behind us and peering with interest at the shoes. ‘The turquoise’ I replied ‘they will match the sea surrounding your country.’ How stupidly romantic can one be in a rush of female camaraderie? In the folly that is hindsight my radar should have been on high alert when she asked the salesgirl, not for her size, but instead what sizes they had in store. Conveniently, of course, they did not have hers and I returned my attention to my own feet and the new sandals. When I looked up the two women had disappeared from the store and when I went to pay so had my wallet. In utter disbelief, rage and anguish and still wearing the new and unpaid for sandals I sprinted to the shop where I had made my last purchase – just in case.

In my brief absence the shop girls had called in the local police who patrol the streets at this time of year – the high season of thieves – those quick handed, well practiced pickpockets and bag snatchers of tourist-infested Spain. Two black-clad, gun-toting young officers promised to go looking immediately; one of the girls escorted me to a taxi in which I fled to the Aquarium and to Mike who was reuniting with his old work buddies. By the time I had made contact with Travelex UK less than 30 minutes later my account had been stripped down to a mere one hundred dollars.  The company had suspended my card due to ‘unusual activity’ but not before $1200 had been removed. The pair had been watching me since my own transaction, had taken ownership of my pin number which, according to the police, is now easily accomplished with digital devices, and then stalked me all the way to the kill.

It is 2 am here in Genova as I write this. A lightning storm is dancing over the bay. I have been to the Oficina de Denuncias at midnight and have just spoken to Travelex via Skype. I now have the times and addresses of the ATMs and shops where the fraudulent transactions took place with and without success. Surveillance cameras may (por favor) help fill some gaps. I have a feeling that this event is far from over and that my love of investigation may yield, if not a positive outcome, then material for some future undertaking. Tomorrow we go face spotting with the local police and in the meantime if you see an attractive young woman of 25 or so, dressed in a white tee shirt, red shorts and red and white walking shoes, her hair drawn into a topknot, her dark eyes peering from behind elegant diamante studded glasses and bearing a purple leather wallet then feel free to make a citizen’s arrest. Her accomplice will be busily studying a local map just like any other tourist! If you are traveling then watch your back, front and sides and your wallet and watch this space for the next instalment. It gets better!

Awakening the Tiger

Some time, and who knows or really cares when ensnared in a metal-clad container moving at 760 kph through the night sky, I was roused from semi sleep by Captain Stephen Young instructing us to return to our seats and buckle up for a rough ride ahead. ‘…to be expected’ his disembodied voice informed us ‘at this time of year over the Bay of Bengal’. Visions of the thunder and lightning, foul winds and sheeting rain of late monsoon playing out underneath us were nothing compared to the turbulent vision of the Bengali tiger lurking in the Sundarbans far below.

The Sundarbans: where the mighty Ganges Delta mingles with the Bay of Bengal.
Image: Landstat 7 NAASA Earth Observatory.

I can so easily conjour up the beast, imagine it stalking the unwary in murky mangrove labyrinths and swimming brackish streams in search of further prey. I too easily conjour up the Bengali tiger of my childhood. The great cat that escaped from the circus and had my brother and I scared witless as we listened at the door separating us from the grown ups listening to the Sunday night serial on the wireless. Our mother scared us even further when she opened the door suddenly and my brother fell forward into the dining room. Her roar was louder at that instant than any man eating tiger in the jungle of nightmares; it chased us all the way into our darkened room; it howled us into our beds and echoed as we scrunched down under the blankets. Some time later my brother whispered loudly ‘What if the Bengali tiger is hiding under the bed?’ Since that moment, even on the hottest of nights, I am never able to drop my arm over the side of the bed without imagining the predatory tiger lying in wait.
 

Royal Bengali Tiger. Image from internet.

I have never seen a Bengali (or any other) tiger in the wild and while I imagine I’d like to, I don’t really expect to. The closest I have come to one was at the circus where a beast far, far larger than life performed under the whip of its trainer, allowed him to place his head in its mouth and playfully swiped its great paws in a mock fight. We were enthralled. Later Dad told us that the tiger was both toothless and clawless and even at my tender age I thought it utterly cruel. But zoos are somehow worse. I could not bear to gaze for too long on the cages that held animal captive and human captivated. The restless pacing back and forth, the glazed eyes yearning for worlds unknown to me and the power rippling just beneath the surface made me sad and terrified all at once. My last encounter was in an erstwhile Maharajah’s palace on the edge of the Arabian Sea. Bengali or not, the sight of this huge stuffed relic with its glassy stare and silenced roar made my heart heavy. To the puzzled concern of my guide, I cried as I walked around its dusty case and studied it closely; its sheer size impossible to imagine as a moving mass – a striped body silently stealing through dappled forests – now you see me now you don’t! And now don’t is almost the operative word. At last count as few as 270 Royal Bengali tigers remain in the Sundarbans where they continue to swim between the islands and hunt for diminishing prey. They are also reported to kill as many as 100 villagers per year. My childhood fears were not totally unfounded.

But fears aside, tigers still figure in my life in curious ways. My Jungle Book sits on dusty shelves where my sympathy for Shere Khan in the face of Mowgli’s guile remains. My son has a tiger’s head tattooed on his right bicep. Faithfully copied from his favourite book of childhood, 'Paper Tiger', Simon says it keeps him safe. I wear a tiger’s eye bracelet for protection when traveling and a pot of talismanic Tiger Balm is never far from reach. And I am married to a tiger – that most auspicious year of birth in the Chinese calendar. But it is my friend Shweta, in Mumbai, who is passionate about saving India’s dwindling population of fewer than 1,500 tigers. She keeps them alive for me in her news of their fate and their survival rates in the wild.

But then, we are all caught in a race for survival. No longer wild, we have chosen instead to tame the jungle, claim top place in the food chain and imagine that we are the centre of the universe. Alas, poor Tiger.

The next time I awoke we were somewhere over Iran, India and turbulence and tigers left far behind. We were on a smooth trajectory to Barcelona. I lifted my window shade and there, on the wing tip, rode the blue moon of September.

I’ll be in Bengal in November. I dream of a boat trip into the Sundarbans. Perhaps like Pi I'll have a striped companion but am I yet brave enough to confront the waiting beast?

Winnie the Pooh was not at all afraid when he met Tigger!

Tiger Tiger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

William Blake