A former professor at the Bhavan’s New Science College, Hyderabad, V A Manga’s love for the wild often created trouble at her household. Having grown up at Srisailam where her father was an electrical engineer, she was often chided for running into the forests and picking rare flowers and turning up home late. Though she had her heart in chemistry, she had to pick botany in her graduation for academic reasons.
One aspect that fascinated her about nature was the association between trees and birds.“While one revels in silence, the other one is full of sounds and life. It’s a beautiful contrast,” Manga elaborates. Having taken voluntary retirement from her teaching stint, she felt compelled to unveil stories around nature. It was also a time when she was gifted a camera. Manga took that as an opportunity to unleash the photographer in her. “I felt the urge to move away from the four walls and lose myself in nature. Practical experiences in my arena involved more lab experiments than physical activity. It was a good excuse to make full use of the camera,” she adds.
Over the last four years, her days have begun at 4:30 am, when she drove alone towards the outskirts of Hyderabad, literally chasing birds and trees, from one season to another.
When some rarely spotted birds like the Rain quail that produces a dual sound, the Indian roller and the Grey hornbill greeted her with regular appearances, she felt nature was conspiring to help her. The experiences also helped her bust certain myths surrounding nature, like how nectar is a biochemical cocktail and not a liquid that is merely sweet.
“There are certain birds that appear on the same branch forks only once a year on the tamarind tree during the flowering stages and disappear later. What would they do if the trees are cut? This is my bid to help protect birds and trees and not render them homeless.”
A sight in Ghatkesar of how various holes in a stem were occupied by myriad parakeets fascinated her. The mythical value of certain trees and birds contributed to the experience, such as the banyan tree which she metaphorises to be longevity.
She has stayed hours together in the forests not only for the photographs, but to observe how the birds went about their daily lives. This also inspired her to document the natural diversity of Telangana in photographs.
“Many a time, we don’t realise what our true calling is. I feel I’ve not spent enough time in the wild. In a smartphone era, spending hours together staring at a bird or a tree is an immensely gratifying experience. If not for this experience, my life would have been spent in only dealing with external and internal morphology of the species,” Manga remarks.
Now, Manga presents her experiences in the form of a coffee table book One Tree: Many Birds . “Many people feel metros lack diversity, but this book is proof of the variety that Hyderabad possesses in terms of flora and fauna and the lakes.”
Her unfulfilled childhood desires realised through these trips and photographs, she often found herself surrounded by snakes and insects “But, I didn’t mind losing my life in the wild,” she concludes.
