The Journey:

The journey of understanding the many facets of western ghats started a long time ago although a filming project was conceived during August-September, 2015. Frogs and their behaviour was chosen as the area of focus. 

There was a serious need to look for narratives beyond the "three Ps" - A Predator story, A Prey story, A Procreate story. The dooms day stories were also making their rounds regularly. Not that these were not true or unimportant but stuck to beaten tracks. 

It was during this period, that an intense interaction with Dr. K. V. Gururaja, Chief Scientist, Gubbi labs, Bangalore at a pristine frogging destination in Coorg, Karnataka led to some ideas. Ideas that matured over a period of time and found creative expression in the form of a short video. 

This amphibian workshop was an outcome of an initiative by bamboo rustles - "http://www.bamboorustles.com/naturecamps/July2015AmphibianWorkshop.html"

A detailed account of the time spent at Honey valley is found here

http://rbstrings.tumblr.com/post/124738851979/bridging-gaps-between-scientists-and-citizens

Thanks to Ms. Ramya Badrinath, Gubbi labs for keeping such a rich diary!

The day after I returned to Bangalore, I started discussing my ideas of stringing together some metaphorical connections with frog calls and Indian scat singing with Sakala, Samartha and eventually Ramu joined in. What followed was an intense 6 months of research, production and post production activity culminating in the screening of "Wrestlers of Western Ghats"! 

WoW! what a journey it was!!

Wrestlers of Western ghats:

The film is about multi-modal communication found among some rare & endemic species of frogs found in “Western ghats”, India.

From time immemorial the graceful courtship behaviour of a peafowl has inspired reams of poetic verses, some one with a sweet voice is always compared to Indian Koel (a song bird) or perhaps the royal Bengal tiger represents everything that is majestic!.

In this film the call of a frog is modeled in to syllables (known as konnakol) used in the percussion instruments of Indian classical music. That makes frogs as percussionists!

Equally fascinating is another weird behaviour - foot flagging found among a certain species of frogs commonly known as dancing frogs. The film throws some new light on to this behaviour buttressed by solid research. The behaviour is similar to foot stomping among Sumo wrestlers.

Through “Wrestlers of western ghats”, the producer intends to encourage the audience to develop fresh perspectives about the wonderful natural world of which we are an inseparable part. The film is expected to fire up the imagination of viewers - scientists and general audience alike.

The video, ever since it was shared for public viewing has garnered some rich appreciation and encouragement and has also been selected at Wildlife Conservation Film Festival, New York!!

You are invited to enjoy the video at - https://vimeo.com/165293085