LT COL NOEL ELLIS 31/III/2025 We are in the season of nesting. All birds have either laid their eggs and are in the process of hatching them. Some ‘Late Lateef’s’ are still constructing them. Many are making second nests because the partner rejected it or a tragedy happened. But the gist remains that love is in the air ‘full on’. Last year, I saw these shy birds called the “Wire Tailed Swallows” sitting in one of the windowsills on our roof. There had to be a reason for their visit. Now I know. These girls come down to the lawn right infront of our house, especially when the sprinkler is on. It is so absorbing to watch them collect mud and dry grass which they mix with their saliva to make a mixture which is stronger than cement to build their nest. The birds are super specialised ‘masons’. I had seen these birds in hundreds sitting on a high-tension wire which passes behind our colony touching our boundary wall. With tha...
LT COL NOEL ELLIS 31/III/2024 What comes to your mind if I say ‘ कतरन ’ (Cutrun)? Most of us won’t know what it means. Probably, people belonging to UP/MP might relate to it. It was a very commonly used term in the days of yore. ‘Katran’ means cutting, piece or shred. It is what is leftover, unwanted and unused. Mostly, in relation to cloth or paper. In layman's terms कतरन were rags, waste cloth, especially leftovers with tailors, who after cutting the cloth to the measurements had shreds and fragments that were thrown away. Those cuttings were in a haphazard pattern but were bits of extra/wasted cloth during the garment stitching process. There is another word called ‘Cut Piece’. That I shall discuss sometime else. Suffice to say, one can call it a sort of कतरन and it used to be a pre-measured cloth from which you could make a garment like a shirt or a pair of pants. Generally, the tailor would tell you that pants for a ...