Posts by: Kalyan Varma

Starting Wild India

A new year and a new wildlife production. This time, we are working on two of the three part series named Wild India for National Geographic. The theme is to showcase India’s diversity along with how wildlife copes with extreme conditions. One episode deals with the annual flood in Kaziranga, one on prey-predator dynamics at drying waterholes in central India and the last one is on extereme heat of Gujarat, highlighting lions and animals of the arid region of Kutch. Just landed in Ahmeadabad and pigged out on amazing Gujarati food. Our first stop is Kutch and hope to give…

Broken

I am just a poor boy Though my story’s seldom told I have squandered my resistance For a pocket full of mumbles such are promises All lies and jests Still a man hears what he wants to hear And disregards the rest … In the clearing stands a boxer And a fighter by his trade And he carries the reminders Of ev’ry glove that layed him down Or cut him till he cried out In his anger and his shame “I am leaving, I am leaving” But the fighter still remains – Simon And Garfunkel | The Boxer Another day,…

Living with elephants

In case you were wondering, I’m still alive and kicking. It just has been hectic last the few months and have not had time to write things down. I’m currently working on a small documentary film with Anand Kumar on elephants and conflict in a plantation landscape (Anamalais) in the Western Ghats. Elephants use this landscape–the tea estates, the coffee, the swamps and riverine vegetation, and the remnant forests–as part of their annual ranges. However, every year, between September and February, these elephants spend a substantial part of their time out of the surrounding reserves and in the plantations. The…

Sidewinding

The last few weeks have been very exciting as we have been traveling to almost all the extreme corners of the country, photographing and filming snakes. From Pit vipers in northeast India to Sind Kraits and Saw-scaled vipers in Rajasthan and to more snakes in the Western Ghats. Saw-scaled viper sidewinding in the desert This photograph is one of my favorites from the whole trip and something that I’ve been wanting to photograph for a while now. It was a lot tougher than I thought. I wanted to capture the snake with a wide lens, to shoot the landscape behind…

Narcondam article in Outlook traveller

Sorry about the awful silence on the blog. I’m out in the field this whole month and had to work in really tough conditions in Assam, Rajasthan and Kerala. Meanwhile, this months issue of Outlook Traveller carried the article on my Narcondam Island expedition that I did earlier this year. You can download the pdf of the article here. I really like how Outlook/Geo does the layout of the images with text and captions.

Land scrapes – A photo essay

India has more than a billion people and we have very little land area to support such a large population. This, therefore, does not leave much room for free land or wildnerness areas and every part of the country is used for production or extraction. Most fertile lands are used for agriculture which is the lifeline of the country. Everything else is used for something or the other. Where there are rocks, we quarry granite; where there are minerals in the soil, it is dug and blasted; and where there is neither of these, we modify the remnant natural landscapes…

Postcard from Borneo

If you have been wondering why there has not been any updates on the blog lately, its because of back to back trip from Agumbe and now in Borneo. It has been a mind-blowing trip so far, to experience the oldest rainforests on earth. Just to give you a perspective, I’ve photographed more fungi in the last two days than birds and mammals. Danum Valley, Borneo Currently in Imbak Canyon Conservation Area where the BBC series ‘Expedition Borneo’ was filmed. Heading to Maliau Basin tomorrow. More once I get back.

Expedition Narcondam : The Island

Read previously: Expedition Narcondam : Part 1 The night came in early and soon we were sailing in almost total darkness, but under the canopy of a million stars–the milky way above us. We had started early that morning on a small, private, sail boat and still were not in sight of our destination. As I settled down on the deck for the night, I could not help but think about Charles Darwin and his Voyage of the Beagle. Close to 200 years ago, Darwin with his crew went around the world in HMS Beagle and in his trip to…

Expedition Narcondam : Dolphins

When I started bird watching many years ago, one of the curious birds that I read about was the Narcondam hornbill. Why the name? Well it turns out, this hornbill is endemic to this small little 6.8 sq km extinct volcanic island named Narcondam island between Andaman islands and Burma. Can you imagine? The whole species of a big bird like the hornbill (some people even call it a honorary mammal) is found in this tiny little island. Since then, the goal was set. Visiting this island and exploring this went into my bucket list. It took more than 5…

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