Travelling Light

I've written before about how I have few personal possessions. I recently moved to Singapore, and my luggage was within the airline's 30 kg limit.

The small suitcase (top right) is carry-on baggage; it fits all the clothes I brought with me. The big suitcase has my photography equipment: several cameras, film rolls, developing tanks and trays, and even my enlarger (a device for making darkroom prints). The rucksack has books, art supplies and miscellaneous stuff.

Some disclosures:

•	In reality my luggage wasn't so neatly segregated; I rearranged it a bit for the photo. For example, I originally packed some cameras in my carry-on, and while the big suitcase mainly had photography stuff, it also had some clothes to serve as padding.
•	I bought some clothes (a few shorts and t-shirts) and household items here in Singapore. But my wardrobe is still quite minimal.
•	It helps that I don't have an immediate need for warm clothing (Singapore rarely gets colder than 24°C) or formals. Some of my clothes, e.g. jumpers, winter jacket and formal suit, are in Kolkata or Copenhagen. I will need to have some of these shipped (or brought) to me, for when I travel to colder climes or attend conferences.
•	Most of my books are also in Kolkata or Copenhagen. I bought a couple of books here, but otherwise I am relying heavily on Kindle and libraries.

Flangamingo

My friend told me she was reading her 3-year-old niece a bedtime story involving a flamingo, and the niece – and I quote – "assumed the flangamingo was a girl. I told her that there are boy flamingos too. She didn't believe me because they are pink."

Cute but also a bit sad; stereotypes catch us early and catch us hard.

Flangamingo was a typo in my friend's text message. Flamingo is already a great word, but flangamingo is even better.

In March my friend (different friend) and I went to the Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary in Mumbai. These migratory birds breed in Great Rann of Kutch, a salt marsh in Gujarat, but their feeding grounds are the wetlands of Mumbai. This year the Thane Sanctuary is playing host to a record number of flamingos – apparently some 54,000 greater flamingos and 65,000 lesser flamingos. A river of pink amidst the blue waters of the creek.

This was an impromptu trip; had I known, I would have brought my DSLR which I generally use for bird photography. In the event, I only had a little underwater digicam whose zoom lens tops out at 120mm (35mm equivalent). All this to say: I don't have a good photo of these magnificent birds in flight; this is the best I could do:

But oh my, it was just glorious to see them in real life. The photo doesn't really capture their vivid colours, nor their gangly grace as they run through the water and take flight.

If you're in Mumbai between November and March, go see the flangamingos.