Bharati being a very recent station is also amongst the antarctic bases with best design. It is made of 134 prefabricated containers. The station broadly has 2 floors. The ground floor has laboraties for summer scientists to do the lab work and store the collected samples, a store room for equipment, 3 generators, workshop, garage, 2 entrances each towards East and West, dangri room where the dangris and shoes are left, food store, compacting room, RO area and store for station systems related equipment. The 3 generators and RO area including all other station systems, are maintained by the team of station engineers. The first and main floor has 24 rooms for members with double deckar beds including one for the leader. A lounge with a bar names 'Desi Bar' and smoking room at a corner. A theatre room and TT room, Laundry room, bathrooms and Sauna, Toilets, internet room with a PC, container library, Kitchen, in-station refregirators to preserve food (including frozen), dining hall and gym. Other spaces include Leader's Office, Communication and BMS room, ISRO control room, medical room with OT and prayer room. Is that all? No. Lets climb up another floor. The top most floor has an AHU room and other systems the station engineers take care of but of my intrest her is the terrace. Here is an article on Bharati architecture though I cannot guarantee if the information is all true. After the initial orientation and welcome, we now had to get acquainted to the place, its facilities and surroundings besides taking over duties from previous team so that they can be relieved to go home. Everyone was busy with their respective handoverers.

New Home, New Food

What better than food to start with. Rice and roti are a part of everyday menu at Maitri and Bharati. When we arrived, there was also a hope we would bring with us atleast a part of Bharati fresh vegetable cargo with us in the feeder, but we brought none. Whats with the hoping for vegetables? Lets see! Since we left home, we did have fresh food i.e. fresh vegetables and meat. Even when we came to Maitri, we could have the fresh vegetables they just received from Capetown, though the meat was old and frozen. But Bharati being located near progress runway, accessed through feeder flights, sending fresh food is constrained with respect to feeder payload limit. What about nonveg? Chicken was almost finished and some kept for occasions and parties including Christmas, New year and for later just in case, the ship arrives late. And we ran out of eggs. So all we had was others. And so far this season, Bharati has not received any fresh food and hence, we started having frozen vegetables only after reaching here. Initially, the taste was fine, or may be its too early for us to even start missing fruits and vegetables. We will know!

Bof Architekten

Pic by Dr. Nidhin

Bof Architekten

Pisten Bullys

During Bharati Installation
PC: Installation expedition team

Garage entrance
by Dr. Sukumar

Two Teams in Two States

The members of previous team had a lot to do. Finish the handing over process, collect photographs dispersed among the members, pack their bags for home and yet use every opportunity left to go for a walk. There were people who made it a schedule to walk up to bharati top and take a long route back to station post-dinner. Bharati top is the local peak on Bharati island. And it has some wonderful views to offer that differ with each season. And post-dinner looked like early evening because those were polar days. While the new team is excited and ready for their expedition. There were also some repeaters including ones who were about to overwinter for the 6th time. For them, everything is just normal.

What Next?

Dining discussions were something that happened majorly during breakfast, lunch, tea-time and dinner. We heard members discussing their expedition and the nostalgic memories that only made us more excited to venture out not on work, but to explore. Takeover did have visits to the antennas. In a matter of just ~3days, we took over the operations and the previous team offered to do the work while we could go out as a team. Given our work, the entire AGEOS team could not venture out except for few situations. And when we do, we cannot be away for longer than about 2 hours. One of us needed to be in the station. And afternoons were the best time since Bharati had visibility of very few IRS satellites during afternoons thus leaving gaps we could use. We worked in three 8 hour shifts (05:00AM – 01:00PM; 01:00PM – 09:00 PM; 09:00PM – 05:00AM), each person in a shift. And we rotated our shifts every 15 days. While leaving Maitri, at Novo airbase, my two colleagues had a fun bet. But they had 3 options to choose, so they asked me, “Ankitha we have this bet and we both chose one option each, now its your turn”, and I had to choose the only leftout option. We decided that the person who wins gets to choose their shift when we start our work at Bharati. And guess what, both my colleagues chose the wrong options. Looks like I got offtrack, coming back...

Corridor and rooms

Scuva by Dr Priyankar

Snow Petrel by Dr John bennet

Towards Bharati top from terrace

Scuva by Dr Priyankar

Snow Petrel by Dr Priyankar

Sea-view from terrace

Scuva by Dr.John Bennet

Storm Petrel by Dr Priyankar

Panaromic view-Bharati terrace

On the frozen sea

36-ISEA Bharati Winter Team

First Outing

After takeover, when we first went out, it was snowing. Serene white powdery blankets was all that was there. In the snow, we walked like little toddlers who just started walking, occasionally catching glimpse of the summer migratory birds. Among the others, mainly 3 bird species migrate to this part of the continent, the scuva, snow petrels and the storm petrels. We had seen scuva even in Maitri, but the other two species weren’t there. Snow petrels, as the name says, are white and beautiful . While, storm petrels, go by the name flying swift like a storm. Even when the winds and snowfalls seem little harsh to humans, we would see them out with open wings. They come here and stay in the rocks of island that have been carved over the centuries by winds, to give them idea rock nests. They breed in summers and migrate back on the onset of winter.

What else we did that day? We will know in the next chapter. We have only just started to see the wonders, there are more beautiful all around Bharati.