“Mom, who will get the crown — Krishna peacock, orange oak leaf or the Indian jezebel?”
A citizen poll had short-listed them for the title of national butterfly, and my daughter and I are excited that the benign beauties may be attracted to the lantana plant in my balcony. “Indian nawab, northern jungle queen, yellow gorgon and five bar swordtail have lost out in the race,” she reminded me.
To the uninitiated, the names may sound like those of Derby horses. The selection criteria were charisma, significance to culture and ecology, not too rare and not too common, not a pest, attractive to the younger generation and not a State butterfly. To me, the criteria seemed tougher than what my daughter had put down for a prospective groom and suitable for selecting a national leader.
Flutter in the garden
We had the privilege of living in a large colonial bungalow in Jamshedpur, surrounded by a spacious garden, and had seen butterflies of many hues and sizes fluttering among the plants. We had noticed seasonal variations in their visits and passed it as a natural occurrence.
I took out my collection of photographs clicked in the garden to check if any of the three finalists had ever visited my garden. I could identify the white and yellow Indian jezebel with a dash of orange that used to fly high among the trees, but none of the other contestants.
The largest one in my folder was the blue mormon, a black butterfly as big as an adult hand. The name refers to the attractive light blue hind wings with black spots. The smallest one, the tiny grass blue, was just the size of a thumbnail and was light grey in colour with small black dots. I had pictures of evening browns, and a large luminous lunar moth that had descended from the adjacent Dalma hills.
About 50 years ago, Edward Norton Lorenz, mathematician and meteorologist, observed in his computer model that small changes in nature can have large consequences. To drive his point, he posed a provocative question, “Does the flap of a butterfly in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” Since then, the butterfly effect has been interpreted in several ways. I believe that my curiosity to know about the names of butterflies and growing a feeding plant of lantana for them in my balcony will have far-reaching consequences.
When our national butterfly is announced, many will like to care for them, keep a patch of biodiversity in their well-manicured gardens, stop cutting trees and leave patches of urban jungles among concrete towers. Yes, a plant in my balcony has the potential to trigger a butterfly effect.
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