As time, as flowers go by
The British Library holds an album of 68 Mughal flower studies, compiled by Prince Dara Shikoh in 1641-42, which reveals how the Mughal court artists emulated western botanical and zoological studies. The album was presented to his wife, Nadira Banu Begum, whom he married in 1633. The delicate execution of the paintings has led to the album being regarded as a ?treasure? among the library's vast collections.
We shall lose to searing summer the rainbows of flowers that bedeck gardens, rotaries and tricity parks in such resplendence. Also will be gone in shrivelled, unwanted piles, the colourful, peeping eyes of trees shadowing roads. The leaves of spring, dyed in auburn, hazel, rust, scarlet, gold, pastel greens and in so many other indescribable hues, will prove transient. The unusually-chilly rains of March-April saw flowers droop prematurely, like falling necks and heads of poisoned vultures.
The tricity’s flower-loving folks can seek solace. Flowers are forever and they promise a reunion next spring. Flower-thirsting souls can also seek flight in preserved ‘smiles of the soils’ or painted flowers in the interim of a blooms’ drought. For, an artist’s flowers never die, never fall petal by petal. Digital curation by museums across the globe ensures that old, painted flowers also never fade off their canvases!
Let us turn time back to an artistic trove whose muse lay in gardens long gone. The British Library (BL), London, holds what it terms as a “treasure” among its humongous collections. A Mughal album of flower studies of such delicate execution that their sway over the human eye reigns immortal. The album comprising 68 paintings reveals how Mughal court artists absorbed influences from European floral prints and sought to emulate western artistry in zoological/botanical studies.
“This album was compiled by (Prince) Dara Shikoh (1615-1659), the eldest son and heir of Shah Jahan. More inclined to philosophy than statecraft, the author and connoisseur was eventually executed for heresy by his younger brother, Aurangzeb. Shikoh presented this album in 1641-’42 AD to his wife, Nadira Banu Begum, his cousin, whom he married in 1633,” wrote the BL’s Ursula Sims-Williams, Lead Curator, Persian Studies.
Thrice dumped
During the big-fish thinning operation at the Sukhna last month, the nets came up with alien Amazonian Sailfin catfish dumped surreptitiously in the lake by aquarium owners.
While one dead specimen went to the zoology department (PU) for research, another was handed over to the UT fisheries department. I requested the Fisheries department for a detailed look at the beautiful catfish, which displays an exceptional pattern of supposed “scales”. But the fisheries staff had already dumped the catfish.
On my request, they searched hard and to my joy and surprise, retrieved it intact from the dump. The scavengers had not gotten to it. This is because only crows are able to pierce the catfish’s armoured “scales” by using hard beaks to prise open the belly and gouge out soft eyes. The dogs don’t touch this catfish because sharp, thorny “scales” lacerate their tongues. After I took photographs to my heart’s content, the staff heaved a sigh of relief and promptly dumped the stinking specimen, finally. Thrice dumped had been this hardy catfish’s fate...far, far away from its native Amazon! And, therein lies a glimpse into deep time.
“The genus Pterygoplichthys, to which this catfish belongs, is different from other Sukhna fishes. Carps and trout have scales but this catfish is covered by vertical rows of dermal plates (which may appear as scales to the uninitiated eye),” freshwater biologist at Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, Aashna Sharma, told this writer.
“Millions upon millions of years ago, almost all fishes had scales. Some evolutionary event triggered a few species, such as these catfishes, to decide on shedding scales. Later, catfish came to understand it was not a good fit for them and decided to regain scales. However, this retrospective selection was not possible genetically. So, the catfish expressed a new gene of ‘dermal plates’ which formed a bony armour or an exoskeleton, ie, a skeleton outside the body. One dermal plate overlaps the proceeding one resulting in a tightly-packed exoskeleton. This reduced the capacity of predators to pierce into the catfish’s muscle mass. Interestingly, all these evolutionary adaptations --- from scales to dermal plates --- occurred around 500-410 million years ago, long before dinosaurs appeared in the Jurassic period. So, you see, these Sukhna oddities are pretty old!” Sharma further added.
