its me adi: September 2006

was wondering for a long time on what to write next. yesterday nights incident gave me a chance to fill this useless blogpage...

the plush green IIM Lucknow campus (200 acres in all) houses a jungle in the center. in recent times, wildlife started drifting out of the jungle. could the reason for these instances be the building of the new GMP hostels which is eating away into a small part of the jungle? this part though small is very important as it forms a link between two big patches of the jungle. this construction divides the huge jungle into two small pieces, restricting the movement of these animals.

The yellow patch you see in the IIML map above is the place where the new hostel is getting constructed. this clearly divides the forest into two parts as shown on the left and right sides of the construction site.

All i wonder is, what is gonna happen to this place when more jungle is devasted to build in new hostels and class rooms in next few years to accomodate the increased batches of students thanks to the OBC reservations (sorry if this statement is offensive!!! but i have my own reasoning)

now to hear about some wildlife of IIM Lucknow... this place is inundated with a number of birds like peacocks, kuils, mynahs, woodpeckers... also the seasonal visitors like cranes.
there was word that a fox was once seen a little away from the main gate. Personally i have seen a nilgai. it is a wild animal frmo the cow family and is much larger than the domestic cow.

sorry, the picture is not very clear. but the animal is very huge.

recently my neighbours have seen a huge sized chamaleon in their balcony. my personal experience is the night when i went jogging alone and saw two porcupines cross the road a little in front of me. another recent visitor is the huge monitor lizard that roams the new hostel 13.

this is the picture of the monitor lizard which is atleast 5 feet in length. it is an expert in crawling walls

talking of these reptiles, snakes are not very uncommon on campus.

this is the picture of the russell viper that lives near hostel 5. this is only an example and there are many instances of snakes being spotted at different points of time.

lastly! coming to the reptile spotted yesterday. a huge python.

the above pics show parts of the about15 feet long python spotted yesterday near the director's residence.

after so many animals, no idea what the next one is gonna be!!!