Report by Steve and Judy,
November 17, 2001
Dear Family and Friends,
Alex Gelman has very kindly and generously set up a web site, http://iris.nyit.edu/~agelman/weinstein.html,on
which he is posting all of the stories and photos we have distributed.
Only one photo is attached to this message,
but we are sending several additional photos
to Alex and expect them to appear very soon on the web site.
You can also review past photos and stories.
Mussoorie is a place where one is closer to nature. We walk a lot
- to Woodstock School, to friends, to shop, and to take in the views.
Trees on the south side of the ridge are predominantly Indian oaks and
rhododendrons. All kinds of shrubs fill in between the trees.
Dahlias, cosmos and marigolds grow wild on the hillside, probably originally
from gardens. There is a nettle that stings if you touch it, but
a broad-leafed antidote usually grows nearby. One hundred and fifty
species of ferns grow in this area of the Himalayas, and several species
are always in the undergrowth. Moss covers most tree branches.
The north side
of the ridge is predominantly pines, cypress and deodar which is a short-needled
pine that grows very straight and tall. We often see the distant
white-capped mountains through these trees.
In areas near
villages outside Mussoorie trees, especially oaks, are "trimmed" of branches
to feed cattle and provide firewood until the tree looks like a trunk with
stunted branches. West of Mussoorie there is a whole forest of these
weird-looking trees. Environmental laws and forest rangers are supposed
to protect the trees, but they are very weak against an army of village
women who climb the trees armed with sharp scythes, bent on finding fuel
and fodder for their cattle Steve says
we live in a zoo. Two kinds of monkeys, rhesus and langour, range
over the hillside. Rhesus monkeys are mean and are reputed to attack
people. The langours are more shy. We have been warned that
they will come in the house for food. Manju, our ayah, says one did
enter and made off with a jar of garbanzo beans - until the chokidar (caretaker)
got them back from the monkey.
One Sunday
afternoon we watched a troupe of langours climb pipes, swing from electric
wires, and stare in windows on the Woodstock high school building.
Occasionally monkeys are electrocuted on electric wires or they put out
a transformer Feral dogs, who
all are a shorthaired brown species, are all over. They are
generally pretty afraid of people. At one point four of them were
in our yard, now none. Bahadur, our chokidar, says he has seen a
leopard go across our yard at night. Dog is said to be one of their
favorite foods. We hear that the Landour municipal government also
keeps the wild dog population down, with poison.
Of course there
are cows. Two or three belong to people who live nearby and are locked
up at night, but in the daytime they are on the roads or hillside.
We discovered our favorite one likes banana peels but not pumpkin (when
we tried to dispose of our Halloween pumpkin this way). The cows
that wander in the bazaar sometimes sample wares from the vegetable vendors
- when they can sneak something from the baskets.
You read about
my encounter with the flying squirrel. Other animals that we haven't
seen but hear live in these hills are pine maartens, barking deer, mountain
sheep, and black bears.
Birds are hard
to identify, but we've seen a tiny hummingbird on our marigolds, a big
eagle-owl, vultures, eagles and hawks, a mahratta woodpecker, and little
yellow birds that flit through the trees in flocks.
The closest
we got to a snake was one a sadhu carries around in a basket and will show
you for money. We didn't buy. We hear snakes are more likely
to be around during the monsoon.
After Steve
returns from IEEE Board meetings next week, we will tour with Tensing and
Tsering for several days in the Jim Corbett National Park on a guided eco-tour
where we hope to see many native animals including tigers and elephants.
Love,Judy
and Steve