nagarhole

I was forced to wake up, and found our car came to a halt at the access way of the Nagarhole National Park, also known as the Rajiv Gandhi Wildlife Park. Everything was so faint in front of my eyes; I saw the security person hand over the ticket to our driver. And we moved on.
The don’ts read as :
Do not horn
Don’t drive fast
Don’t disturb the wildlife

But we saw a group people doing exactly this to a herd of deer, and another car speeding away as if in an emergency!!! Anyways… as we drove, we spotted this elephant behind the dense shrubs. The enchantment was turning into anxiety and fear, because all of us had got off the vehicle and were trying to get as close to the elephant as possible. There was a spine chilling silence around the place.
After a while I was picturing the sight of that wild elephant running after us. We wouldn’t have a clue about the direction in which we would dash off in. the elephants can actually run at a high speed on a terrain where we wouldn’t even be able to walk on. Phew…
The sight was brimming with lush green vegetation against the backdrop of the blue skies. The rich bamboo, succulent ground cover and the swampy areas support the wildlife, the rare and the endangered species. Few minutes passed, we spotted a couple of elephants again, and this time too… we got off and had the grit to go close to them. We also were lucky to the spotted deer in all its elegance, wild hen, bison and a few birds.

The landscape here is a pleasant blend of soft grades and valleys, with daubs of water ponds, marshy areas, and a few residential clusters.

Enquiries of the jungle safari were not too positive, so we decided to spend more time at our next halt – the iruppu falls. The safari generally takes about 3 hours, and the gates of the national park close by 5:30 p.m. So one really needs to get in before this time.

Iruppu, ofcourse is splendid with water in all its might and spirit, gushing down different levels. One simply can’t leave the place, without enjoying the water. You would be missing something, if you did.

recession time :(

Recession period guys!!!
It’s just amazing about how I spend 9 hours in the office these days.
My mornings are no different these days... at home I still pretend that I’m as busy as I used to be. Have a quick shower and make sure I’m in office by 9:30, making my way through the traffic on Infantry Road (phew!!) and M.G. Road.
My terminal is on the second floor… so I puff and pant and pull myself (well, don’t wonder- we don’t have a lift yet) to my floor which is generally devoid of any human trace till about 10:15. At a snail’s pace, the floor starts filling up…7 of us fill our floor. Most of the chairs on our floor have never had anyone sitting on them. The lower and the upper floors have people heaving for space and breath though.
10:30a.m- waiting for the beverage which the guy labels coffee. Actually I just look out for a break even when I’m not doing anything (can’t beat that, can anyone?). We kill the next half an hour with all the talks on the most inconsequential topics, which possibly can surface. All the possible websites are visited after that. I can see people playing computer games, a few others staring at the computer screen-zooming in and out (on the same drawing that has been open from the last one week, without any addition of lines or whatsoever), and most of the times-it’s a right click and a “refresh” command.
The most exciting time starts at 1:00 p.m... Yes… lunch time!! Precisely at 1’o clock, monitors are switched off (not that it was different earlier), lunch packets are picked up… and suddenly everyone becomes visible around the lunch table. So much is the hustle and bustle about what each persons’ food packet contains, all of us are only interested in snatching the others persons foodstuff. “The grass is always green on the other side” they say.
A situation of an absolute interlocking of hands.
A walk after lunch for a tender coconut (like as if whatever we ate, wasn’t going to be enough!) is accompanied by all the yakking without sparing anyone on the street.
We slaughter time for the next 2 hours till the chap with the coffee or tea revisits all of us, and sees that we have been carrying the same lifeless expression of sagging eyebrows and drowsy eyes through the day. He greets all of us with the most sparkling smile… and in return he is greeted with a very grave look on each of our faces, few of them who have just woken up from a siesta or a few lucky ones who have some work on their hands-anyways.. . The expression remains steady though.
5:30p.m… its time for the hotels to make some modest gain from us. Our office is located on one of the most eventful locations in the city, the M.G.Road which is a home to some of the finest tea and coffee shops. 6:00p.m is the time to return to office only to kill the next half an hour, somehow, someway or the other, only to shut the systems down and return home unless other plans are on the cards… such are the maddening times going on… wonder when all this is going to end.
Well now, one must be able to guess about how jobless I am, considering I wrote this during my “office” hours. Recession is driving me mad!!!

Coorg journey!

December saw me planning for a trip… turned into a well deserved break that I needed from a few memories, moments that had come too close to me, even before I realized. I needed to think fresh and new, so 7 of us decided that Coorg was the destination.

13th was to be the day. 5’o clock was the first pick up… guess most of the guys could not pull themselves from their beds on that frosty morning, so as usual we were late by a full one hour!!!!
Ultimately, we set out at 6’o clock. It was stinging wintry weather, our window sheets rolled up, we couldn’t help but take a catnap.

Srirangapattana saw us stop for a “kaapi” to chase away the drowsiness. We could sniff the early morning potent brew of the coffee and the attendant got us our “lotas” of kaapi. I see the tradition of pouring the kaapi back and froth still going strong, especially when it’s a filter coffee, in every south Indian house, including mine. The froth somehow adds to that splendor of the coffee. The thick lather, the creamy golden color and the strong aroma- all of this was in my cuppa coffee… hmmm!! True ecstasy in every way.

Our next stop for breakfast was at Mandya-the sugar city of Karnataka. Our tables were adorned with an array of South Indian Breakfast delicacies. Masala Dosas, Rava Idlys with carroty shreds, the golden brown Vadas and the piping hot Sambar and freshly grated coconut chutney! I bet none of the delicacies are complete with the S&C.
Getting back to our places, we got started again. The journey was vibrant. Scenes of a herd of cattle straying back from the fields, smoke from the cooking fires of the rural exposed brick houses, ladies in multi hued drapes carrying firewood, children clinging onto them, aromas of the rural flavor- the air was laden with all these.
Minutes later, I was fast asleep with pictures of the by-gone flocking my dreams!!!