Posts by: Kalyan Varma

Elephants, Monkeys and Tigers

Last week, sriramb was out of town and a lot of work was stalled for various reasons. So I decided to make a quick dash into the forest and boy, oh boy what a trip that was. At Bandipur, I got to see tons of elephants. In 2 days, I think I saw more then 50 elephants and they posed for me real nice. On one of the days, me and bunch of other folks trekked from Gopalswamybetta to the entrance of the national park. It was almost a full day trek and I’ve had one of the scariest encounter’s…

The sabbatical that was

Late last month, my sabbatical came to an end. What started out as a few weeks stint in the jungle, turned out to be a 6 month long sabbatical. Got to see some of the amazing varieties of animals, birds, insects and plants in the jungle and more importantly, I’ve learnt so much about them. Met a lot of interesting people and made friends with some even more amazing people at BR hills. More then the animals, I miss the people and my way of life there. I want to thank two people who made this whole sabbatical happen. Harsha…

Security startup

OK, this might come as a shocker, but yeah, sriramb and me are starting a security consulting startup. As sriram points out, we need a good name for which a .com domain is available. We have been breaking our head’s over it for a while, but you know how it is coming up with good names. So if you have any idea’s do pitch in. We will give away one stock of our company to you if you have the winning name 🙂 More details about this coming soon … Update: The contest is closed and the winners (if any)…

Do not use Google earth

Because it’s bloody brilliant and will eat away all your productivity and you will do nothing but sit on it for many hours. (That’s how I lost all my sleep last night) Don’t be discouraged if you are from india, because google earth has atleast a low-resolution version of it with altitude details. So I was able to look at the Bangalore, which is essentially the maps version of it, but you can start driving out of Bangalore. I was able to track Mysore, BR hills, Bandipur etc etc and with elevation details, I was looking at all the hills…

Tiger Tiger

Just had the best Tiger sighting of my life. I was driving to the Tribal NGO place in the jeep when this large male tiger crossed the road right in front of me. I stopped the jeep and switched off the engine. This tiger walked into some nice green grass, glared at me for more then a min and all along flicking it’s tail. Then slowly he melted into the forest. I’m kicking myself for not having my camera with me at that time. Anyway was a lovely sighting and something that I will remember for a long time to…

The owl that made the trip

This owl is the Oriental Bay Owl. People thought this bird was extinct in India till 1992 and till date only 2 – 3 birds have been spotted in India. When we actually saw the bird and started shooting, the bird was in a weird angle and we were not getting any good shots. Then the skies opened up and we had to rush to a watch tower. After the rain, Yathin and Vijay wanted to get back, but I stayed back in the forest with the guide to shoot this bird. After spending half an hour, he finally looked…

Hectic lyfe

Things have been crazy since I’ve come back from the trip. No net access, broken car, lot of running around the town this week. Hopefully I will sit around and upload all my pics this weekend. The trip itself was excellent. I got to photograph Oriental Bay Owl, which apparently has not been photographed by anyone till date (Subspecies from south India). Got to photograph another lovely and rare bird named Frogmouth. Trekked a lot and I’m still getting over all the leech & tick bites. The rains have been a letdown though. Where has the monsoon gone ? Anyway…

Chasing the monsoon – year II

It’s that time of the year, when we pack our bags and chase the monsoon that’s about to hit us this week. After last year‘s successful monsoon chase, me and yathin have decided to do it again and this time Vijay Cavale will be with us as well (fus, you will be missed). This year, we are planning to drive upto Anamalais starting early tomorrow morning and spend 5 days exploring the thick rain forests around the place. I hope to shoot some of the most endangered and endemic species in India over there. The monsoon is expected to hit…

Jumping Ant’s assasination

These ants are called the jumping ants because they really jump in the air when they need to escape or when they need to catch prey. They are a very large size ants and can give a nasty bite to humans. Another interesting thing about this ant is that unlike regular ants, these use large objects around them like tree’s, houses etc for navigation. The ant is even known to follow direction based on the position of the sun. This shot is my best macro shot till date and I managed to get it just at the right time. Look…

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