Hey @ionhandshaker do you use your feed like a diary? I just find it fascinating. You write complete analysis, that I didn't understand, of stuff, that I didn't understand, but it seems very interesting. Is this literature?
@DinkaChica Haha. I used it more like a place where I can note down my observations. What you see are largely reading notes from a Tamil literary series called Venmurasu. It's a retelling of the Mahabharata done in a modern literary style, over 26 volumes. I've been reading it over the past three months and jotting down notes as I read along. You could read this Twitter thread to know more about it.
https://twitter.com/artisuch/status/1283805290039828482?s=20
@ionhandshaker oh this is very interesting! Are you reading all the books?
@DinkaChica Yeah. I am reading the thirteenth book of 26 currently. Hope to finish it in some three more months.
@ionhandshaker that is some speed! It must be a really interesting series then.
@DinkaChica Oh, it's been written beautifully :) I quite love it!
@ionhandshaker you're lucky to be reading beautiful books. I'm stuck with the most boring ones. But eh they have their own merits and interesting points.
@DinkaChica Haha. What are you reading currently? :)
@ionhandshaker India Since Independence by Bipan Chandra, and 3rd ARC disaster management report when I take a break from that
@DinkaChica Bipan Chandra sounds nice. I've only read Ram Guha. How do you like it? :)
@ionhandshaker I haven't read Ram Guha. Bipan Chandra is quite good. He tries to maintain a balanced, non-biased approach which I like. He has done quite good analysis of a lot of points. And he calls the doomsayers (pessimists about Indian union's stability) Cassandra which I find funny.
@DinkaChica Cassandra sounds like a perfectly placed word! :) Guha is quite good as a writer and is an efficient historian, and even if you disagree with his conclusions, the books are extremely well researched. Give them a shot when you find time :)
@ionhandshaker Definitely! Currently I'm trying to limit my sources though cause I'm racing against time. And yeah Cassandra is a perfectly placed word, specially now that their predictions are kind of coming true but no one believed them before.
This is Mur 
@DinkaChica @ionhandshaker
I am reading Butterflies of Western Ghats 
@DinkaChica
I didn't knew about this poll 
@ionhandshaker
@mur2501 Oh! It was to file a request to environment ministry to declare a National Butterfly for country since we don't have one. People voted on their favourite candidates, and top 3 were forwarded to the ministry, along with a detailed draft on why they should be made the national butterfly. It was a good campaign. Raised awareness amongst people about butterflies. But ministry hasn't replied yet.
@DinkaChica @ionhandshaker
I don't really have a favourite in butterflies, every one of them is unique and beautiful.
@mur2501 true! I don't have favourites but I do have some biases.
@DinkaChica @ionhandshaker
The most unique butterflies of India are found in the Western Ghats.
But then they only represent the Western Ghats only, if you want something found all over India then you have to go with a common swallowtail or something.
@mur2501 that's the beauty of india. We have so much geographical diversity, every place has different species. There's a lot of unique butterflies in North east and Andamans too.
@DinkaChica @ionhandshaker
I personally wanna explore Lakshadweep, they are very beautiful and unknown.
@mur2501 I wouldn't say unknown, there's hardly any place that we've spared. But yeah beautiful definitely!
@ionhandshaker
@DinkaChica
Actually there were many navy bases in Lakshadweep so till this year the tourism there was very restricted that's also why the islands have retained the corals which now are vanishing in the andamans.
@ionhandshaker
@DinkaChica @ionhandshaker
By the way the State butterflies of Maharashtra and Uttarakhand are the Blue Mormon and Himalayan Common Peacock respectively
@mur2501 Tamilnadu's is called the Tamil Yeoman butterfly.
@DinkaChica
@ionhandshaker that was among the initial candidates but it got disqualified because it's already the state Butterfly, and they wanted a unique species.
@mur2501 I know that😂
One of the many reasons why I voted for Krishna Peacock was because it's related to Himalayan Common Peacock.
@ionhandshaker
@DinkaChica @ionhandshaker
I like the state bird of UK the Himalayan Monal. I see it as a compact version of peacocks.
@mur2501 Monal is beautiful! Actually I think that the criteria for state ' ' was beauty in our case. Be it the animal or bird or tree or flower or anything.
@DinkaChica
Our State bird is a fucking pigeon 
The Yellow-footed Green Pigeon
@ionhandshaker
@mur2501 It's a beautiful pigeon though!
Pigeons and sparrows used to be very common in my area when I was a kid. Gradually they disappeared. Now we rarely see sparrows, and only a few pigeons can be spotted in early morning. Though other birds like parrots and kingfishers and of course crows are abundant. And this extremely beautiful white winged bird that I don't know the name of but it's always flying in the sky, no matter what time or season.
@DinkaChica @ionhandshaker
Possibly the white bird could be a Egret though a more specific description of the white bird could help.
Here pigeons are everywhere 
They poop on me, my scooter, my house everyday 
Apart from pigeons,
Sparrows are abundant here as well as a little lesser number of crows.
Mynas are also present. We can't forget the Ibises who have sex at 3 AM in night and they scream loudly while fucking. White Eyes are common to see as well as the Magpie-Robins. The Ashy Prinia is an energetic small bird housing small trees. At the end we can't forget the Bulbul who just keeps pecking at my window all day.
@mur2501 wow that's a lot of birds! Here we had unchecked development within a span of a decade and a half. Cut down a lot of forests, so all the wildlife shifted to the comparitively untouched parts, i.e. the protected forests. I'll also admit that I don't have a lot of knowledge on birds so I can't identify most of them. But they are definitely much less diverse now than what I remember as a child.
@DinkaChica @ionhandshaker
My town is also urbanizing very fast especially cause Mumbai now has no space left for development so the population is pouring out to the surrounding, but as the town provides water to Mumbai and other cities this is a green zone which means no factories or stuffs here, still alot of forests.
@DinkaChica @ionhandshaker
Though I like our state animal which is a very fluffy squirrel 
The Indian Giant Squirrel
@mur2501 meet Musk deer. Our state animal. It is known for it's natural fragrance. And that's why it's endangered too.
@DinkaChica @ionhandshaker
I love the Kashmir Stag 
But it will go extinct 
@mur2501 I love Markhor. Awesome horns!
And chinars will probably go extinct in Kashmir too. They are my favorite trees :(
@DinkaChica @ionhandshaker
I think we should go extinct
@mur2501 Superb! Did you vote on the poll for national butterfly? My candidate made it to top 3.
@ionhandshaker