Visual Literature - Nature as "Text" | Deep Attention, Internal Sensitivity and Topophilia in the MCC Scrub Jungle Today 💚💚💚

Connecting with Nature the Krishnamurti Way!

#todayinMCC

These snaps taken by our students today - Open Forum Day - bespeak to the fact that, they have a fantastic eye for nature photography.

Be it capturing the dynamic, mid-action shot of the Indian palm squirrel scrambling its way along a bare, twisting branch, or getting such crisp details on the Common Pierrot butterfly with striking black spots and patterns, resting delicately on a cluster of green leaves, that takes real patience and skill, or highlighting the rich biodiversity and the unique scrub jungle atmosphere that makes MCC campus so special, they’ve done some amazing nature photography today.

A classic shot of the bell tower during mid-noon today, suspended between two solid yellow pillars, was lovely!

Lovely snapshots of a bright green parakeet navigating the branches, and posing pretty happily for our snaps was indeed a treat to behold! Just adjacent to the parakeet you find the natural tree hollow that these birds often use for nesting.

There’s also this lovely snap of a resilient sapling – a bright green shoot stubbornly growing out of a deep, dark crevice in the rough, reddish-brown bark of the large tree.

That’s exactly where literature steps into the realm of bioregional literary studies.

In fact, Bioregionalism relies heavily on developing and celebrating a “sense of place” aka Topophilia.

MCC is well-known for preserving and nurturing its treasured native scrub jungle. In this regard, these photos act as visual literature, documenting the unique “spirit of the place” of this specific bioregion.

In bioregional literary studies, observing the landscape is treated like reading a text, albeit with deep attention. By zooming in on the Common Pierrot butterfly, or the tiny sapling growing from the bark, or the pink Orchid Tree blossom, the students are practising what ecocritics would call “deep attention” or “slow looking.” And by doing so, they are celebrating the micro-narratives of the ecosystem that usually go unnoticed in the rush and hustle bustle of our daily life.

Yet another theme of bioregional literary studies is the celebration of our interconnectedness. These photos do exactly that. Be it the parakeet in the tree hollow or the squirrel on the branch – they beautifully exemplify the fact that, the campus is a shared habitat, were humans and more-than-humans co-inhabit in an interconnected consciousness.

Especially, the macro shot of the bright green sapling pushing its way out of the dead, cracked bark is a profound visual metaphor for resilience and regeneration. I’m reminded of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ famous quote here –

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

Coming back to the lovely Krishnamurti connect,

J Krishnamurti believed that a deep, quiet awareness of the rustle of leaves, the quality of light, or the movement of a squirrel builds up a lovely “internal sensitivity”. Moreover, truth isn’t found in books or rituals, but in the direct observation of life. Nature, then, to him, was the primary classroom for empathy.

Hence, a student who is sensitive to the struggle of a tiny sapling growing out of a rough bark is cultivating the same empathy and sensitivity required to understand human suffering and joy.

Finally, JK emphasised on the fact that the observer is not separate from the observed; Hence, to ignore the scrub jungle around us is to ignore a part of ourselves!

How true!

PS: All Photos Copyright © Ms. Rakshaya, Ms. Aarthi, Ms. Rangineetha and Ms. Vishnupriya