Juniata College India Marine Science

My first sight of it, with its beaked nose and white feathers surrounding its yellow eyes, I thought it to be an eagle, but after noticing the size and its squarish body the head rested on, I reconsidered. Then this creature made a sound that made my heart want to explode out of my chest. The beak opened and an eerie, high-pitched “you-who” like call came out and scared me. I didn’t run away though, it would be impossible to run. So I followed it around a corner and spotted 3 more of these bizarre creatures resting on the slab of concrete known around my house as the back porch. “You-who, you-who” they called for me to get closer, I wanted no part and slowly backed up and planned on escaping to the woods behind me before these things became inevitably hostel. Then before I could step into the woods, two flew off like they had been spooked by something. From behind me, I sensed something really big, a bigger one of these beasts. I was then certain of it when I heard it earth-shattering, ear-sheering “YOU-WHO.” I needed Pops to come out and witness these things and help me should one try and attack. I wanted to yell, “Dad, come out here right now!” All I could manage was “Ahhhhh!”

And then somehow, there I was resting on my bed in my room, with my mom in the door way watching and smiling at me. I wanted to move my head to get a better view of her, but for some reason I was paralyzed and couldn’t move anything. She started laughing as she saw me struggle to move and so I yelled again. “Ahhhhh!” I just wanted her to come close and stop this craziness that was happening to me. “Ahhhhh.” And then I snapped out of it. I watched my bedroom transform and morph back to the hut I had been actually sleeping and resting in here in Pondicherry.

I was upset, cold and sweaty. I wanted to be at home because I missed it there. To see it flash away so fast was unsettling. But, “it’s all part of the game,” I thought and then I was OK. It was one hell of a rush witnessing what had just happened. “Do it again,” I thought as I rolled over and went back to sleep. Sorry for waking you up Josh.

Back to reality. Back to Pondicherry. Yeah Mangalore and Goa were fun, but it was time to return to Pondicherry for the second half of our marine science program. We arrived in Chennai around 2:30pm and darted to the nearest restaurant. There was hardly anything to eat on that 22 hour train ride. It was again a pleasant ride, I was able to sleep pretty well through the night even though my feet were always blocking the door that led to the other car. Every time someone would open the door during the night, my feet were there to take the hit and wake me up.

Two dosas, a watermelon juice, piece of cake, and some ice cold bottled water to wash it all down later, I felt satiated and I think the rest of the group felt better as well and then we were on the road back to Pondi. It’s a nice ride between Pondi and Chennai, we’ve been on it several times and I have enjoyed it each time. There’s always something to see through the window. The highway is right along the ocean, so there’s some nice beaches to look at, there’s some salt flats where big pools of sea water are held to evaporate the water exposing the salt to be harvested, cows, goats, and always a hand full of guys road side answering the call of nature. An hour later we got back to the huts, to the mud pits, to the middle of no where.

After the four busy weeks in the cities, it was nice to chill out in the quietness around the huts. The quietness would soon, however be interrupted by an exciting Saturday night.

It was Saturday night. Loads of people showed up to enjoy the b-b-q Ravi and Anu had planned. Dr. Paula Martin was here this week all the way from Juniata College. She would be in our company for the next week enlighting our knowledge of marine invertebrates and functional ecology. I never had the pleasure of meeting Paula at school, so fortunately I had the opportunity of working with her in India.

As for the party, it was nothing less than a perfect way to start off 8 more weeks of India. The chicken was great, the ice cold beer that I drove through traffic on a mo-ped in Pondi to get was great, the guests were great, it was a great time.

Rauf was there, you’ll hear more about him in my future blog about the Andamans where we first met him. Rauf is a good friend of those around FERAL and of Neil Pelkey. He is very intelligent and likes to drink a lot. He was making some of students laugh so hard that they had tears in their eyes so I sat in on what he had to say and couldn’t understand any of it. It was all nonsense what he was saying, but funny at the same time. He then yelled and scolded me for taking Mefloquine saying that it is awful for your liver. I felt like informing him that the liquid in his glass that smelled like WHISKEY has the same effect. But after my lecture, he told me a dirty joke and he left to refill his glass.

The week of Paula was great. Really relaxed, it was an gentle way to ease in to the second stretch. She had us write about our experiences with invertebrates that we had encountered in India so far and describe their lifestyle. I chose to write about the symbiotic relationship between clown fish (Nemo) and anemone. Throughout every biology text book that’s been put under my nose at Juniata, there’s always been a section on symbiosis, always with a picture of a “Nemo” fish buried in a blanket of toxic tentacles of a sea anemone. I also saw them together at the Baltimore aquarium but still never thought much of them until I saw them in this huge aquarium called the Indian Ocean. When I saw them during a scuba diving trip, I fell in love with them. It was all put into a different perspective, instead of them being brought to my world, I was brought to their world. Very cool, but I’ll save that scuba diving stuff for my next blog.

She also took us on a field trip to the wetlands of Kaliveli. We mucked around in the mud and collected some bugs and brought them back to the lab to check out and research.

March 1st. My b-day. It was a fun day. I wanted to do something crazy to celebrate so I jumped in a well. Ravi and Anu have a well outside their house. The drop to the water level is about 25 feet, but when you jump in from off the roof its about 30. So I did. What an incredible rush. All of us man or woman enough to jump in made the plunge in and swam around for a while. Getting out was the tricky part. There are no steps or ladders. Just a ring of bricks lining the circumference of the well placed every two feet from the top to the bottom. So we had to rock climb to get out.

Then we swam around in a mud pit behind the huts. That too was wild. The surface water was jacuzzi hot, but from all the clay and dirt in the water, the water on the bottom that never saw daylight, was bitter cold.

That night, we made our own dinner. We asked for special ingredients of this and that and prepared the dishes that we miss most from the states. I made toasted cheese sandwiches over the fire pit. The first 6 I made came out a little funky looking, but still tasted good. After those six, I had them grilled to perfection and the last 4 were just like home. Some creamy tomato soup would have made it a birthday to remember, but I wasn’t going to be picky. We finished the night at Seagull’s for a round or two of drinks.

Having my birthday without my friends and family was sad. All the people here treated me well and I had a fun day, but I just remembered the awesome time I had with my friends at school last year for my 21st birthday. The mefloquine really started hitting me hard with the depression. The last day here with Paula was the worst. We went to Auroville and I just remember not having an enjoyable time. All the sites were really cool, but my mood was not in the best shape to appreciate them. I was worried about this and that and was disgusted with the fact that we had to eat the regular FERAL dinner. I hate complaining about food, because I know some people don’t always get it, but I was just really upset knowing I would have to choke down rice for the next 7 or 8 weeks.

So the depression would hit me for like an hour or two, always right as the sun goes down. The sunsets are always picturesque but I remember for a few of them that I couldn’t careless if the sun had just exploded. There’s always something that picks me up and snaps me out of it, so that’s good. Sometimes it’s a Strokes song, a message from my buddy Quinn, or even one time walking to a near by town I passed a cricket game and a grounder was hit right my way. I stopped lowered the butt, put the hand’s out front, fielded, crow-hopped and delivered a strike back to the pitcher. Text-book example of how to field and throw. One guy on the field yelled, “nice fielding.” Damn straight “nice fielding,” I wasn’t the starting first baseman for my high school championship team because of my good looks. Instantly, I felt better about India.

After a week and a half at FERAL, we traveled south to a Marine Biology school located in Porto Novo. It was only a three day trip and sadly the best part of the entire trip was that the rooms in the guest house where we stayed had A/C. Two of the three professors that had presentations for us were not good. The first one taught us about crustaceans. She had to keep reassuring us of all the books she published every time she noticed the sketchy look on our faces after she flung out some hard to believe facts about squilla and crabs. I almost felt like saying, if she would have mentioned one more time about her dumb books, “Well you’re just a regular Bill Shakespeare aren’t you, after writing all these books.” That might not have been nice though. But seriously, everyone was disappointed in her presentations and her books were not informative. They were just drawings of crabs. My little brother could have made something like it and he’s only in first grade.

The next guy was a no better. He went on and on and on about sea shells, just about their appearance. Tell me something about which creatures eat them or how they burrow in the sand or something more important than, “the Cockel shell has ridges.” Wow, thanks, I don’t have eyes to tell me that.

But the mangrove professor was worth the whole trip. Him and one professor we had at the Fisheries College, Dr. Katti, both make me want to be a better student. I don’t remember his name, but I do remember that his last name meant “rising sun.” Superb teacher. It was like he was telling us this mystical adventure of mangroves in the foreign land of India, like something spectacular. He held our attention very easily with his enthusiasm and extensive knowledge of these highly important trees. This guy was fired up about mangroves. Guys like him and Katti almost make me want to become a teacher. That’s how you have to teach, be excited about it, make the students excited. I’m fired up about them now.

And now we’re back here. In the huts. Jumping in wells. Riding mo-peds. Back to work. Fear and loathing in Pondicherry.

Zak Kupchinsky