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Temples of Kashi - The Tilbhandeshwar Temple

The city of Kashi is filled with temples, big and small, old and new. There are temples at every corner, and you never know where you will stumble upon a small shrine. There are idols beneath what remains of trees (there are hardly any trees any more within the core area of the city), there are saffron covered forms resembling deities which seem attached to walls, an especially incongruous sight when the idol itself appears to be old, while the wall is evidently new…. And there are surprisingly large temples rising from what appear to be a bunch of houses. The city is sometimes colloquially said to be as old as time, and some of the shrines and temples are said to date back to times unknown, at least the deity itself, if not the structure. Not much remains of the ancient structures anyway. The city has seen more than its fair share of good and bad times. It has seen the heights of grandeur, and the lows brought about by destruction. The city that exists today has grown so haphaza...
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Chestnut Shouldered Petronia

A flock of birds pecking at something on the ground caught my attention. They looked like sparrows, so I turned my attention instead to a Little Green Bee Eater plucking out insects from the air. It was only when the tiny sparrow landed nearer me that I realised it wasn’t a sparrow – or at least, it wasn’t the common House Sparrow I see everywhere.



Out came the camera and I clicked furiously as the flock went about having their lunch.


It was Karthik who enlightened me about the identity of these birds – these are Yellow Throated Sparrows, also called Chestnut Shouldered Petronias. They are a species of sparrow found in Asia, from Turkey to Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. There are vagrants found in Sri Lanka and also Myanmar. Apparently, it’s quite a common bird, found in gardens, fields, and forests, and it made me wonder why I haven’t noticed any before.


Can you see the dark brownish or chestnut patch on the shoulder? That, and the pale yellow patch on its throat (which you can see if you look really close, unfortunately, I need a better camera to show you) give the bird its name.





Interestingly, this is the bird which is said to have introduced the legendary Salim Ali to Ornithology. As a young boy, he shot a sparrow that looked different, and the then secretary of the BNHS (Bombay Natural History Society) identified it for him, and also introduced him to the subject. His interest was sparked, and he went on to become probably the most well-known ornithologist of the country. Isn’t it interesting to see how simple things like these change the course of a person’s life? 

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Comments

  1. MridulaJanuary 8, 2014 at 12:37 PM

    I guess I have never seen it before! Looks pretty.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anuradha ShankarJanuary 10, 2014 at 7:50 PM

      next time you see a sparrow, take a closer look, Mridula! you never know!

      Delete
  2. mygreatstay.comJanuary 10, 2014 at 12:36 PM

    As you love travelling, here is a website www.mygreatstay.com which is a travel portal listing homestays across India. It is a very good guide to mostly unexplored locations in India.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anuradha ShankarJanuary 10, 2014 at 7:52 PM

      Thank you, but I already know about you guys. have even booked homestays a couple of times.

      Delete
  3. Anuradha ShankarJanuary 10, 2014 at 7:51 PM

    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJanuary 15, 2014 at 11:13 AM

    Hello mam, It sounds very good when I visited your great blog and felt nice even I read your entire blog like photograph collection super means It was awesome overall... Thanks for share

    ReplyDelete

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