Category: Forest

This was a day of huge, grey sheets of rainclouds that had wrapped Sundarban. In a desolate canal with the dripping woods nearby, our eyes found this pair. The skies were crying and the forest, just a breath away, was bathed in an ethereal shade of green which contrasted the alluring greyness above.Monitor lizards become […]

Sundarban swampland is often described with interesting epithets and one of these is - it is that unique place where roots grow out of the ground and fish climb trees.Fish climbing trees, a curious phenomenon here, refers to mudksippers.They are amphibious fish, any of the numerous extant species of amphibious fish from the subfamily Oxudercinae […]

Three archaeological sites have been identified in the tiger-inhabited island region of West Bengal from where, between about 2,200 and 1,700 years ago, golden beads were exported to various ports both within India and abroad. These beads were produced using a unique and sophisticated technique. Archaeologists refer to this type of bead as gold foil. […]

The ' keora' fruit is a gift of the rains in Sundarban. I find it immensely popular in forest - adjoining Sundarban in the two Parganas as well as all places which carry the legacy of Sundarbani or Aabaadi culture, food and history. Its characteristics and medicinal values have been discussed often. During my stints at […]

A massive, well-protected naval fortress in the kingdom of tigers? And not from the medieval or modern period—but from very early historical times? Could such a thing really be believable? When I first heard a vague description of it from a boatman in the late 1980s, I dismissed it as nothing more than a tall […]

The Dog - faced snake (Cerberus rynchops),, is a mildly venomous species belonging to the Homalopsidae family.It is known by a number of names as the New Guinea bockadam, South Asian bockadam, bockadam snake, or dog-faced water snake. It is perfectly suited for the wet, muddy Sundarban habitat. The nostrils of this species are higher […]

Do you remember the story “Mritypradip” by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay? Emperor Chandragupta I, Queen Kumaradevi, their infant son Samudragupta, King Chandraverma, his courtesan’s daughter the beautiful Somdatta, and the royal companion Chakrayudha Ishaanvarma—an earthen lamp once set the royal residence of Pataliputra ablaze and changed the course of history! Did something similar once happen in a […]

বাঘের বাড়ি তার জঙ্গল, বাঘের জঙ্গল। এবং জঙ্গল যেমন একেক জায়গায় একেক রকম, সেই অনুযায়ী বাঘের আখ্যান ও তার বিবরণও একেক জায়গায় একেকরকম। জেলে কাঁকড়াধরা সহযোগী, বাঘের জঙ্গলের ব্যবস্থাপনায় নিযুক্ত বনকর্মী, আধিকারিক ও সুন্দরবন পর্যটন, বিশেষত বন্যপ্রাণ পর্যটনে যুক্ত বহু মানুষের সাথে আদানপ্রদানে উঠে আসে নানা দিকের বাঘের কথা। আজ সেই পরিচিত ও অপরিচিত জঙ্গলের […]