The bestiary grows: word beasts 2

Even after I finished the CES brochure, I still itched to make more word beasts. It seemed like they had potential (You can tell me if you think otherwise, I’ll really be happy to hear!). I wondered what I could do with them. I thought of one place I simply had to use them.
To tell you what that was about, I have to take a bit of an detour. Many years ago, when one of my little cousins was indeed little, in a creative fit I wrote a short story for him. About snakes. He was fascinated by my, shall we say, involvement with them. So I wrote a short story for him and promptly forgot it existed. It never reached him and probably never will since he’s grown up now and isn’t very fond of reading. The odd thing is, I don’t actually remember writing this story and I’m usually quite good at remembering my creative moments. Ask me about almost any of my photographs and I will remember the specific circumstances that surround it. Maybe, its just a sort of curious photographic memory about photographs…
Anyway, several years later, I found this story on my computer and reread it and liked it. It was okay, it didn’t make me want to puke. And I thought, hey, there’s the root of something here. The story was a sci-fi short and about snakes, specifically about the fact that they moult (This one). And I figured, maybe I could write a series, each in a different genre, each highlighting a different aspect of snake biology. As it stands there are four and a half. (I’m struggling with the half because I picked a particularly hard genre to write it in. Its interesting so far, and I love it, at least the process. Despite the fact that I actually hate writing, go figure.) All these and a few more will end up in a book of a sort. I have some ideas on how it all structures together and I’m excited about it.
This book, I figured, will need a cover. And that is where the word beasts came in. Beasts made of the words that make them up. The words of the stories that make snakes come alive (hopefully) in your head, make the snakes in my images. Here are those beasts, courting, hopefully to mate and produce more words and beasts.

PS: Also would anyone like prints? Know of a good print on demand site, one where I can submit an image and they mail you the prints? Particularly one that works for an Indian audience? I am on RedBubble. If enough people are interested I’ll put a few images up there.
Comment, tell me what you think!

"And they came two by two"

One of my utterly all time favourite books is Julian Barnes' 'A history of the the world in 10 and 1/2 chapters'. The book is a series of inter-connected short stories, which stand on their own as well. The first is the 'uncensored' version of the story of Noah's ark told by the one of the few wood worms that have snuck into the ark. The story is complete with the greatest unanswered questions of all time, what happened to the shit? What really happened to the unicorn?, etc. (The image by the way is of termites, similar only functionally.)

The ark has often been thought of as some kind of religious conservation allegory. The en masse saving of animals as creatures of God. E. O. Wilson recently wrote a book called 'The Creation' arguing that religious reasons for conservation are as strong and can be used. As much as the more usually used scientific ones that point to necessity and utility of conservation, through the notion either of interconnectedness or through the notion of sustainable use of a resource bank. It's a need, in my opinion, so urgent, that I don't care what tack one takes as long as more people can be persuaded to care for the planet and its denizens.

John Wilkins disagrees and calls it 'the myth of dominion and stewardship', I think, and points to Tom Hayden's address to a gathering of clergy. The different notions and ideas that are used to promote the idea of conservation and the premises and the consequences of each might be interesting to examine in and of themselves.

And there is a need to promote this idea, it is not self-evident. I was particularly piqued by a statement a friend made during a pub conversation. He suggested that all that the cause of conservation requires is education. I suspect he means indoctrination, cause really, education? Let's see now, the reasons usually suggested for conserving the natural world in a pristine state are stewardship, utility, sustainability, etc. Each of these operate in the longer term, almost always outside the term of a single generation. The changes that occur in the way the world functions as a result of the breakdown of natural ecosystems, the economic shifts take a while to develop. And are indeed exploitable.

Nothing in an education prevents you from optimizing your short-term pay-offs, and saying damn what happens when I am dead. Incidentally, I think an uneducated mind is equally likely to catch this problem. Educating someone merely provides access to information on what might happen if we ignore the idea, it's knowledge. And I'll stop short of saying that realizing the need for conservation requires wisdom. I'll let other wiser, deeper thinkers do that.

PS. Read the original 'Star thrower' essay if you can get your hands on it. The versions that appear on the net are quite shallow and incomplete compared to the orginal.

Secret lives (or the big secret everyone knows): book in the works

Ok, I think its time to start talking about it a bit more widely. I'm planning a book! A book on the biodiversity of IISc called (so far) Secret lives.

The book follows a somewhat alternative view to biodiversity. As opposed to following the idea of taxa as many do, it follows the idea of process, a more mechanistic view. It would be interesting to a wider audience I think. A few of the chapters I plan are: 'Food', 'Water', ' Sex' , 'Babies'. Its largely going to be in a coffee table format, while the text will be engaging, well researched, you won't really need it to enjoy this book. The books about photographs!

I've put up a chapter here so you can get a better idea of what it will look like. Here's what I would like you to do, please pass this on! Particularly to any IIScian / exIIScian you know, but everyone really! And please let me know what you think, I would really really appreciate the feedback! Quite a bit about this book is open, including the title, so feel free to suggest one!

Right now, I'm negotiating with IISc to publish the book for the centenary. If that doesn't work out, however, I will be looking at other publishers or maybe even Lulu. So any advice, contacts in that direction will also be very great and gratefully received.

Pass around the big secret :)

PS: For all those who have written to me, thanks. I will keep you updated on things as and when they happen.