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Newasa - Encountering an unique form of Vishnu, and Sant Jnaneshwar

The year was 1290 . A crowd had gathered around a clearing, where broken down pillars marked the presence of an ancient temple, now long gone. A young boy, just 14 years old, leaned against one of those pillars, deep in thought. Then, he began speaking, and the crowd fell silent, listening to his every word. He spoke without any notes, translating the Bhagavat Gita, from Sanskrit, which only the pundits knew, to the language everyone in the village knew and spoke – a variety of Prakrit which developed into the Marathi language. Even as he spoke, one of the men in the audience realized how momentous this event was, and how important this composition would be. He began writing down the words the young boy spoke, and this composition was named by its author and composer, the Bhavartha Deepika – the enlightening meaning (of the Bhagavat Gita). Now, the ancient, holy text, was no longer restricted to the pundits, but accessible to all, understood easily by them, composed as it was, in their

The Resident Reptile

This one is a permanent resident of our colony, and can be relied on to appear every now and then, reminding us of his presence, especially as a warning to kids not to venture into the bushes! Capturing him on camera has never been easy, even though he comes out to bask in the sun,  because he seems to be more wary of the kids than they are of him, and he is the first to disappear when they mark their arrival with whoops and shouts.

I saw the chap this week as I left to collect Samhith from school, and he didn't seem to be bothered much by me, and continued to absorb the warm sun rays after a sudden spate of rainfall.


As I clicked on and on, happy that I had my camera with me for once, he turned to regard me, as if wondering what I was doing!


Incidentally, for those of you who are interested, this one is an Indian (or Oriental) Garden Lizard, also called a Changeable Lizard. It is NOT a chameleon, though it does change its colours, but much more slowly.

Comments

  1. Great captures Anu, he seems to be knowing he is getting famous. :)

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  2. Recently we were observing a chameleon and were surprised to see it was not changing colours. May be it is a slow process.
    This one looks like a mini iguana.

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  3. Good to learn about this Garden Lizard. Thank you for this post.

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  4. Nice clicks Anu... He too seems very curious!!

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  5. @Indrani: Thanks... yes, he does seem to love the publicity!

    @Bindhu: Thanks.

    @Chitra: samhith was asking me the same thing sometime back, which is why I searched a bit on the net before simply labeling it as a chameleon! and yes, it does look like a mini iguana... i was trying to get samhith to understand about evolution that way...

    @Celine: thanks.. i learnt a lot too thanks to writing the post :)

    @Atri: thanks... he really seemed curious!

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  6. Awesome photographs, Anu. And I always thought that fellow was a chameleon- nice to know that he is not.

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