River Safari

Wow.. another jewel on the crown of Singapore wildlife reserve.  I have been to Singapore Zoo many times before , every time i was wondered by the cleanliness and the way they are maintaining . I was really excited when the announcement came about the River Safari project some years back, even more excited when the Pandas from china arrived .

The River Safari consists of 'World's largest repositories' of river dwelling animals. The park is divided into 2 zones linked by bridge. The two zones are

1) Rivers of the world : This zone consists of animals from  seven rivers around the world. The rivers includes      
   a) Mississippi River
  The beavers were not moving at all. We thought they were sleeping.. I have never seen one before.

Paddle Fish 

Alligator Gar

         b) Mekong River

Mekong Cat Fish

 

Arowana

         c) Ganges River

This are was very crowded and i was not able to take any good pictures.. but the crocodile looked awesome.

         d) Nile River

Giraffe Cat fish

         e) Congo River

Giant Buffer fish

         f) Murray River

          This area was also crowded not able to take pictures.. in fact very tough for us to even look through the tanks.

         g) Yangtze River

Yangtze crocodile

After going through these seven river comes the main attraction of the River Safari - the Pandas . What a lovely creatures.. I thought Pandas are slow moving and lazy animals. yes they are lazy but they are moving faster than i expected.

Giant Panda Forest:

Red Panda

Always eating...

There are two giant pandas there , they are Kai kai and Jia Jia .They are put under the simulated natural climate and this bio-dome is kept an cool 18 - 22 degree Celsius .  Singapore Post released a set of stamps in honour these two lovely pandas . I have the stamps too.!

2)Wild Amazonia

    This zone consists of
   a) Amazon River Quest : This is a boat ride which will take around 30-40 minutes.Here we can see close to 30 animal species. It was a wonderful experience .  For more details click here.

  b) Squirrel Monkey Forest :

       c)Amazon Flooded Forest:

Ghost Fish

Electric Eel

Red Bellied Piranha

Manatees..

 

Ray Fish..

Top View of the Ocenarium

View from outside..

   This is the world's largest fresh water aquarium !! Awesome... specially the Manatees ....!! For more details click here. 

Over all a great experience! Lovely way to spend 2-4 hours and be mesmerised by these wonderful creatures.  Don't forget to take water bottles as there are no free water taps as in zoo.

  

Six Acres and a Third - Fakir Mohan Senapati

I never heard of this book before. As i was browsing Flipkart i found this book and the summary was interesting and i bought it. I should say i was lucky to find this book . It is truly one of the great novel of Indian literature.And it is the first novel to explore the zamindari exploitation of poor peasants. This book explains how corrupt the Zamindari system was  and how those zamindars imposed their own rules on the poor people.  Along with this system came a intrusion of foreigners as well as their culture which made life even more miserable for the ordinary people.

The narrator directly speaks to the reader - in some case he explains everything and in some other cases he leave without saying much and allow the reader to think or judge.I personally like this style and i really enjoyed the way the author uses satire to explain the day to day life of the people. I think, most probably, the land disputes which is the main theme of this novel must be taken from the author's experience but i'm not sure. The reason i believe that because  the story was told in first person manner and very real. The setting of the village with its unique place for different caste and community was told beautifully . One can understand how the caste system shaped their life.

The author describes the main character Ramachandra Mangaraj not only as a evil landlord but also a pious man. The author uses this duality in a great way to satirize Mangaraj and make the young readers to know more about the local culture and not just go behind the colonial culture. Because that was the period where more Indians started following the western tradition and looked lowly at the village people.  The author uses the gossips to explain how the communication of events took place in those days, but i think its valid till today.

The three characters which symbolizes the goodness of the human spirits .The very pious and non greedy couple Bagia and  Saria and the wife of Mangaraj, Santaani. The author explains the human goodness through these three characters. And human evilness through Mangaraj who took the very fertile land belongs to Bagia .

The author summarizes the story in these lines  "  nothing in its rightful place is ever a source of trouble. Forget  about things , consider our small plot of land , measuring six acres and a third. People said that in all of Gobindapur, it would be hard to come by a fertile plot. Yet this piece of land was a destroyer of families : it ruined the Baga Singhs, it caused Saria's death, and everyone knows that what happened to Mangaraj."

The many metaphors used by the authors explains many things like comparing closure of water lilies during day to "like young Hindu daughter-in-laws","cranes churns the mud like lowly farmhands looking fish all day long , and kingfisher which appears and conduct swift raid and gorge all the pickings . "oh, stupid Hindu cranes, look at these English Kingfishers" etc.

The author mocks the Indians who adapted western culture. The author asks "Ask a new babu his grandfather’s father’s name,he will hem and haw, but the names of the ancestors of England’s Charles the Third will readily roll of his tongue. To be considered a scholar , it is necessary to have read about the English or the French; there is no point in learning about oneself or one's neighbor" .  

Wondering why  none of the Tamil writers wrote anything about this wonderful book.

A must read for Indian literature lover!