This flash essay is part of a collaborative, constrained-writing challenge undertaken by some members of the Bangalore Substack Writers Group. Each of us examined the concept of ‘BANGALORE’ through our unique perspective, distilled into roughly 500 words. At the bottom of this snippet, you’ll find links to other essays by fellow writers.
“There’s a monkey at the window,” an anxious text pops up on our resident group chat. Over months, similar texts have popped up, some amusing, most accusatory — with monkeys being blamed for everything from plundered dustbins to missing shoes, from stealing fruit to ‘attacking’ children!
We’ve waged war on these wild wanderers, just as we have on pigeons and cockroaches. Ironically, we fail to see how our mixed signals of poor garbage disposal, unkempt kitchens, and eaved windows have encouraged these wild creatures to cohabit our spaces. I’m not saying we welcome these tenants, but I lament how these encounters tarnish the reputation of all the other wild creatures around us, and our interactions with them.
Perhaps, this story plays out in many other cities in India. Yet in Bangalore, with its grand epithets of ‘garden city’ or ‘city of lakes’, this seems particularly ironic. Punctuated by lakes that serve as wetland refuges, with dense, old-growth trees that create shaded canopies, fringed by farmlands, plantations and scrub, Bangalore plays host to rich biodiversity. Apart from the weather, I think Bangalore’s greatest delight lies in its wildlife.
Of the city’s iconic, endemic denizens — geographically restricted species — is the elusive grey slender loris (Loris lydekkerianus), which needs a continuous canopy to thrive. These creatures are often found in tropical rainforests, scrublands, or semi-deciduous forests. Their presence in the heart of a city with rampant development, is testimony to the resilience of wildlife.
Another less-noticed, nocturnal species that bears the city’s name, is the Bangalore geckoella (Cyrtodactylus srilekhae). This beautiful reptile takes refuge under leaf litter in mixed deciduous forests, or skitters over the mottled stones characteristic of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu’s hillsides. Seeing this gecko around Bangalore underlines its role in connecting the biodiversity between the Western and Eastern Ghats of Peninsular India.
Bangalore’s very seasons are marked by its wild creatures: the resident bird choir is loudest in the summer and spring months, the pre-monsoon showers are heralded by electric cicada song and firefly glow, the monsoons are marked by brain-fever birds and the peacocks, and winter migrants add their faint notes to the year-round symphony. [Also read: Forest Fugue: The Seasonal Sounds of Avalahalli, a tribute to my favourite wildlife refuge in Bangalore).
A species needn’t be rare, endemic, or musical to be appreciated. Bangalore’s insect diversity from colourful butterflies to dusky moths, fuzzy-bottomed bees to narrow-waisted wasps, winged termites to jewel-bright beetles, and other bewildering critters, offer the perfect distraction from our routines. They flutter into our houses in search of a place to build their nests, flit ahead of us on our walks, or are desperately drawn to our lights.
These wild denizens are reminders of our place within the intricate web of life, if only we could learn to appreciate it.
Here’s a list of other flash essays by fellow Bangalore Substack writers:
A Love Letter to Bangalore by Priyanka Sacheti, A Home for Homeless Thoughts
A Walk, A Pause by Mihir Chate, Mihir Chate
Between Cities by Richa Vadini Singh, Here’s What I Think
Bangalore: A personal lore by Siddhesh Raut, Shana, Ded Shana
There and Back Again by Ayush, Ayush's Substack
Bangalore, once by Avinash Shenoy, Off the walls
Belonging by Shruthi Iyer, Shruthi Iyer
A Haven? Awake in Bangalore, by Lavina G, The Nexus Terrain
My love story with Bengaluru by Rakhi Anil
Bookless in Bangalore by Vikram Chandrashekar Vikram’s Substack
Blossom Book House, Bangalore by Rahul Singh, Mehfil
My love affair with blue skies by Sailee Rane, Sunny climate stormy climate
The Street Teaches You by Karthik, Reading This World
A City That Builds Belonging by Sathish Seshadri, Strategy & Sustainability
Bangalore Down the Lane of History by Aryan Kavan Gowda, Wonderings of a Wanderer
Movie Dates, Bangalore and Them by Amit Charles, AC Notes
Nagar Life by Nidhishree Venugopal, General in her Labyrinth
Looking Down over Bengaluru by Vaibhav Gupta, Thorough and Unkempt
The bird lists across the city are impressive enough, the insect lists more so. The greatest joy is how very accessible all of them are, if only we cared to look.
I learn so much from your writing, especially about the things we often take for granted.