'Himalayan Tsunami'

 

After a big gap of two months, I am writing on this page. I took time to come out of the deep-shock of Uttarkhand hill-shrine tragedy. Friends, please bear with me.

I am presently working, on a 4-month assignment (June-Sept 2013) as Visiting Professor at Mae Fah Luang University, Chiang Rai, Thailand. I came here on 10^th June 2013. This time, I came alone and will be back in India on completion of this academic/research programme, on 6th Oct 2013. I am teaching a paper on ‘Mycology: Taxonomy and Diversity’ to under-graduate and graduate students of this University. Besides, I am assisting research scholars working with fungi on taxonomy and biodiversity. Week-ends, accompanying the mushroom group, I go out on collecting fungi. Collecting, working and teaching fungi; what else will bring joy for people like us? Two weeks ago, I gave a seminar talk entitled ‘Evolution of taxonomy of Hyphomycetes and its present status’, to the Mycology group. Time is running! If we want to accomplish more in the limited time, we should work hard and with great speed. 

Exactly a week after my arrival here, one of the worst natural calamities struck Kedarnath temple Valley in Uttarakhand, India. Torrential rain, instant flash flood and huge landslides, together lashed out at Kedarnath temple premises and the whole valley - all happened on June 16^th-17^th 2013. This terrible nature’s fury has been aptly named as ‘Himalayan Tsunami’. The landslides and flash flood from the mountains, accompanied by huge boulders and mud-slurry, gushed down the sloppy terrain and washed away everything on the way. A sea of humanity and vast amount of built-in infrastructure which included buildings, roads, dams, bridges, vehicles and forest trees, were washed away or got buried in the mud. I read all these in the news, continously flashed by the Indian media channels! Unimaginable loss of human lives and huge damage to state infrastructure – I was deeply, deeply shocked! I pray Bhagwaan Shankar Mahadev to bless the departed souls with everlasting peace.  My heart goes with deepest sympathies to all those who lost their dear and near ones in this horrendous tragedy.   

Sacred Chardham theertha-yaathra is perhaps every ardent Hindu believer wishes to undertake, in his or her life-time. Located in the astonishingly beautiful foothills of Himalayas in Uttarkhand, Yamunothri, Gangothri, Kedarnath and Badrinath are India’s most revered and glorious four shrines. With famous Haridwar as gateway, age-old sacred shrines of Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Rudraprayag, which altogether reminisce thousands of years old Hindu mythology and Indian history. In my childhood days, I heard these legendary stories from my mother. Way back in the 8^th century, great reformer and Hindu philosopher Shree Adi Shankaracharya travelled to Kedarnath by foot from Kerala and established the temple. On the walls and roof of Kalady Sharadamba Temple, on the bank of river Periyar in Kerala state, the birthplace of Adi Shankara, details of establishment of Kedarnath shrine and Shri Adi Shankara attaining divinity is inscribed. It is quite but natural that thousands of devotees from all over India, throng these sacred shrines in Uttarkhand, during the festive and auspecious season.  

I read with anxiety and deep pain the untold tragedy and unimaginable difficulties faced by local people and thousands of devotees visited the shrines, during this painful devastation. Our Army forces (land, air and mountain) did a yeomen service in rescuing the trapped devotees from nature’s fury.  Press and TV channels did a great service to us by reporting the news first-hand and in great swiftness, utmost care and continuity.  History will always remember this 'Himalayan flashflood tsunami' as one of the greatest natural calamities of the time.

It will take lot of time, energy and money to rebuild the shrines and infrastructure in a holistic and planned manner. The Chief Minister of Uttarkhand, Shri Vijaya Bahuguna, is doing everything possible to put the place back in its natural glory, fame and divinity. All of us should join him and his government in this noble and pious task. That will be a great service to the nation and deep prayer to Bhagwan Mahabaleshwar.   

(D. Jayaram Bhat)

 

My fond farewell to Goa University MSc (Botany) students (2011-13)

I taught a compulsory course paper BOC 102: Bacteria, Fungi, Viruses and Plant Pathology (Theory and Practicals) to the present batch of M.Sc. (Botany) students in Semester I (June-Oct 2011), just before I retired from the service of Goa University, on superannuation, on 30 Nov 2011. It was the last batch of students that I taught at Goa University. I believe, these students have now completed their learning component and will be writing final semester examinations in the coming week.

I used both black-board and well-illustrated/described power-point presentations, abundantly and continuously, as teaching aids. All ppts were given to the students as take-home reading material. Besides, mycology literature web-links were provided as additional reading materials. With assistance of research students, I conducted practical classes every week twice using freshly grown fungal specimens gathered from various habitats. The course was given in the first semester from July to October and being the rainy season, fungi were available in plenty in their best fruiting stages. We used pond water, decaying plant debris and moist-chamber incubated herbivore dung as continuous source of live fungi to study different taxonomic groups, at all the time. End of the semester, an illustrated and compiled lab-journal was submitted by each student. I took the students on a fungus-collecting field-trip to Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary in Sept 2011 and observed that they are so eager to learn. It was a good opportunity for them to see the fungi growing on natural substrates such as live leaves (foliicolous), fallen decomposing plant-leaves (litter), tree trunks (including lichens) and even on running streams (aquatic fungi). The fungi gathered included mushrooms, puff balls, cup-fungi, earth stars and a variety of microfungi. Students brought the samples and examined in detail in subsequent lab sessions. Overall, the students did quite well in the course. None missed the classes.

This is a very fine batch of post-graduate students; very disciplined, good at learning and above all quite inquisitive about the subject. For reasons beyond my ability, we had no formal parting at Goa University at the time of my retirement. I take this opportunity to wish them good luck to forthcoming examinations and all well in their future endeavours. 

D. Jayarama Bhat

‘Hanuman Jayanthi..........’

‘Hanuman Jayanthi’, the 'birth of Maruti’ is celebrated today, the 15^th day of Shukla Paksha in the month of Chaitra as per Hindu calendar. Today is also the ‘Chaitra Pournima’. Hanuman, an ardent devotee of Bhagwan Rama, is worshiped for his deep faith and devotion to Shri Rama who is revered for his unending compassion, courage and devotion to values and duties. Hanuman, son of Vayu (wind God), is said to be immortal. He is the symbol of strength, energy, truth and loyalty.  The Ramayan is the story of triumph of good against evil.

‘Ramakien’, glory of Shri Rama, is Thailand’s national epic, is based on Valmiki Ramayan from India. This work had greatly influenced Thai culture, literature, art and drama. The walls of Wat Pra Kaew of Thai Grand Palace in Bangkok, where the temple of Emerald Buddha is also located, are beautifully emblazoned with 178 mural paintings representing the entire story of Ramakien, dating from late 18^th century.  The Ramakien is considered as one of the masterpieces in Thai literature. It is still vastly read and taught in the country’s schools.

Hanuman is one of the central characters in epic Ramayana. He also finds references in mythological texts such as Mahabharata, various other epic literatures and some Jain writings. In Ramayana, Hanuman has been described as a humanoid ape. He searched and found Sita, the wife of Rama, in Ashokavan of Sri Lanka and later participated in Rama’s war against King Ravana.   Shri Rama was a great human being, embodiment of noble values and virtues. 

I and my wife visited the Grand Palace in Bangkok in August 2013 and spent a day seeing the Ramakien mural paintings on the walls of Wat Pra Kaew. The pictures that we took at Grand Palace in Bangkok are most amazing and some of them shown below are self explanatory!

 

D. Jayarama Bhat

 

 

 

‘Fairy ring’ forming mushroom fungus.............

 

My friend Dr. V.V. Sarma of Pondicherry University initiated a brief on ‘fairy ring’ forming fungi. I am writing below a 'fairy ring' that I and my wife saw last year in Thailand.

 

I had just then joined Mae Fah Luang University, Chiang Rai, Thailand, as a Visiting Professor, in the first week of June 2013. We were provided accommodation in the University guesthouse quarters within the campus.

The Mae Fah Luang University campus is one of the most beautiful and picturesque places in Thailand with well-laid asphalted roads, neatly grown huge avenue trees, artistically cultivated flowering plants, well-maintained expansive lawns and a number of water-conserving ponds and artificial lakes. It is a residential University with apt ambience for students and teachers to live, study and teach/learn. Accomodated in this charming campus, I and my wife seized the opportunity and took long walks almost every morning. Rainy season had already set in and the weather was very nice.

End of June 2013 on a wet Sunday, during our early morning walk, we noticed a few whitish-brown, fairly big mushrooms appeared below a rain-tree (Samanea saman), just outside our quarters. As walked further, I was pleasantly surprised to see numerous big, initially creamish-white and later turned brown, well-grown mushrooms with white huge annulus sheath hanging from the neck of the stipe, but all appeared in a large circular ring form below another rain-tree, near the guesthouse reception centre. My wife was exited to see this rare site of a beautiful ‘fairy ring’. Immediately, I called two research students of MFU, Mr. Phonguen and Ms. Linda, who were working on taxonomy and diversity of basidiomycetous fungi for their Ph.D. under the guidance of Prof. Kevin D. Hyde. Within 30 min, they arrived at the site of the fairy ring and commenced their mycological studies. They took photographs, measured the diameter of the fairy ring, carefully picked up a few mushrooms for lab studies and scribbled plenty of notes in their field notebooks. I too clicked a few pictures. I had seen fairy rings a couple of times earlier in the forests of Western Ghats in southern India but this was certainly a big one and a very happy encounter which I could show and explain to my wife. Ms. Linda promised that she will get back to me with the correct name of the fungus when she had completed her studies.  

Fairy rings are not very common but formed by ectomycorrhizal mushroom-forming fungi in the forests, grasslands and meadows. It is the appearance of mushrooms of a single species in a circular ring shape. Radial growth of the vegetative part of the fungus underground and rainy wet soil conditions facilitate appearance of the mushrooms in a ring shape, year after year. The present ring was of about 5 meters in diameter and appeared at the base of the rain-tree. I am sure that we will be seeing the fairy ring at the same site, perhaps a slightly bigger ring,  this year also.

Several species of basidiomycetous fungi are known to form fairy rings. I was told that the present fungus could be a species of Amanita or Calocybe. I don’t know. A few pictures that I have taken on that day are given below.

 

 

 

D. Jayarama Bhat

Azad Housing Society family members visited ‘Sahakari Spice Farm’on Sunday, April 21, 2013

Summer months; children in the Society have annual vacation. Some of us thought why not organize a brief day-long ‘outing’ to an interesting place where all can go and spend time together for a while. We felt that such an outing will be very relaxing, fun, educative and curious to all of us. Accordingly, we decided to pay a visit to ‘Sahakari Spice Farm’ in Ponda, Goa, a popular tourist site, on Sunday, April 21, 2013. Two of our Society members, Dr Uday Kakodkar and Dr I.K. Pai coordinated the programme.

The 'Sahakari Spice Farm' is located on the Panaji-Bengaluru National Highway in Ponda, Goa and 35 km from Panaji. It is an extensive areca farm, intermixed with coconut, banana, cocoa, and various spices such as black pepper, cardamom, nutmeg, clove and all-spices. Being well-irrigated and well-organsied, the farm is a lush green site, in spite of mid-summer.

 

In all, 44 members, young and old, of the Society joined in this trip. A hired, special bus sailed us to the Farm at 10:30 am in the morning. We were welcomed in a traditional way with garlands and tilak to the Farm. A serene ambience under the dense canopy of areca trees, to begin with we were offered organically prepared health drinks, kokum juice and/or lemon-grass tea, which instantly quenched our thirst . Next, a well-trained guide took us around and nicely explained the various plantations and spices grown in the farm. It took about 1½ hours to go around and see the various herbs, spices, nuts, fruits and learn the details. We enjoyed watching the live demonstration of areca tree-climbing by skilled personnel. Some of us enthusiastically experimented the tree-climbing. It was a great fun! We were brought back to an airy, spacious, and canteen-attached all-weather shed of traditional roof and tiles. It was a wonderful place to settle, relax and eat. First, we were served with cashew fenny as an appetizer, followed by a sumptuous lunch in traditional Goan style. Indeed, it was a luxurious lunch with a number of items to eat, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. Leisurely we ate and enjoyed the food, time and place at will. A traditional dance troupe performed Goan dances as we eat our lunch. After lunch, children ran around, jumped and played a lot. We returned back to our home by 5:00 pm.

Truly, the 'outing' was very nice and we will remember this always!

 

 

 

D. Jayarama Bhat