Rendezvous with the Wild

It was on April 5, 2008, a Saturday, at 4.15 pm that Viswa and I alighted from our bike, Royal Enfield Thunderbird at Bandipur national park and tiger reserve preparing ourselves for a rendezvous with the wild. We left home the same day at 8 am and took the four lane highway SH 17 to Mysore, 139 km away from Bangalore. The initial spate of traffic jam at Mysore road flyover and Kengeri took toll of our time and we reached Kadumane, a highway restaurant , 2 km before Wonder La (a famous amusement park on Bangalore – Mysore road at Bidadi) to grab our breakfast.Yummy idli vada with sambar and hot tea refreshed us after combating copious traffic on the highway. About 27 km from here is another highway eat out – Kamat Lokaruchi – an exceptionally good place that serves South Indian vegetarian food with impeccable taste.

Bangalore – Mysore highway is my personal favourite as this super smooth four lane highway unfolds vivaciously with perfect combination of countryside beauty and small shops/refreshment centres at regular spans . You really don’t need to stock up water bottles on travel or plan much for a trip on this highway. Almost everyone was on the highway that day, in an attempt to elude the mundane city life after being gifted a Monday off from work on account of Ugadhi.

We proceeded to our destination Mysore, via Ramanagaram (silk city) , Channapatna (known for wooden and lacquer toys) , Maddur (maddur Vada :)) , Mandya (sugar city) and Srirangapatna (the famous historical town , home of Tipu Sultan , the great warrior) taking good number of breaks.

We reached Mysore at 12.45 pm, found ourselves a room in Hotel Rajdhani near the KSRTC bus stand in the city, the area which houses some very decent , budget hotels and at 2pm, after a simple meal, left to Bandipur, 79 km from Mysore on the road to Ooty via Nanjangud and Gundlupet, the two prominent milestones on the highway.

The highway in the skirts of Nanjangud has vast expanses of paddy fields, well irrigated and caressed by the waters of River Kabini, a beautiful, wide river that bifurcates the Nagarhole tiger reserve and Bandipur national park, followed its course with us as we rode on. On this simple highway, we cruised with the beauty of rustic country side flanking us interspersed by only a few roadside shops at Nanjangud town, Begur and Gundlupet. We had learnt from our conversations with the DCF, Bandipur and some forest department officials that the evening safari lasts from 4pm to 6pm and we were determined to reach Bandipur in good time.

The initial stretch of 10 km from Gundlupet to Bandipur did not offer a great ride, a good number of potholes caught us unaware. Just as we felt grateful for a neat patch of road for some time, we would go “Thud” on a pothole even after meticuluosuly avoiding a dozen of them that came before.

But hard work always pays and the last leg of the journey (about 7 of the entire 17 km stretch from Gundlupet to Bandipur) after the national park entrance/hand post bundled a well laid-out ghat road with lot of excitement. We saw sign boards cautioning one not to stop and not to honk as animals might frequent this section. We were trespassing into the territory of the wild and an eerie sense enveloped me. At 4.10 pm, we were at the Bandipur National park’s reception centre to obtain our entrance and safari tickets.Useful information on government guest houses inside the jungle, their tarrifs, facilities/activities at the national park with relevant contact numbers can be obtained from http://www.karnatakawildernesstourism.org/Tariffs-WLS-NP/Bandipur.htm.

Here we were in the Bandipur tiger reserve, a part of the greater Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve of which Nagarhole in Karnataka, Muthanga in Wayanad, Kerala and Mudumalai of Tamil Nadu are also parts. Bandipur tiger reserve, in Mysore district of Karnataka was one of the first nine tiger reserves created in India at the launch of Project Tiger in 1973.

It bears quite a tellable history of a royal hunting ground transformed into a national park marked with some offences like elephant poaching, sandalwood and timber smuggling even after its transformation and frequent episodes of wild forest fire. This 880 sq.km area , covered primarily by dry deciduous scrub/forests with patches of mixed/moist deciduous vegetation, with three rivers Nugu, Kabini and Moyar running through its span is a haven to tiger, leopard, elephants, gaur, sambar, spotted deer, antelopes and bison. It has two highways cutting through it – one leading to Ooty and another through Sultanbathery to Wayanad and multiple jungle trails frequented by tourists who take the jungle safari.

The jungle safari organized by the Forest department lasts for a 45-minute duration in a mini bus and one and half hour duration in a jeep. We resorted to the option of jungle safari in mini bus as jeep safari was overbooked.

As the mini bus traveled into the wilderness, we spotted sambar deer, spotted deer, langur, kingfisher, wood pecker, jungle fowl and peacock. For the innumerable trips made on jungle safari trails with a pack of noisy tourists, we were sure we will not spot a tiger.

Some elders exclaimed on sighting a monkey, some complained that they did’nt spot a tiger or a leopard, some even sulked , most were busy shooting through the lens. Kids cried and whined, kept quiet on ripping open a bag of chips, devouring them and completing the final act of littering a plastic free zone. The mini van had all kinds of people inside it – a true mixed bag.

If you require freedom of movement and space for a 360’ view, opt for a jeep safari. It will be a sure treat for photographic skills craving to capture wilderness unlimited through the third eye. But the path treaded by a mini bus and a jeep are not very different , therefore the animals one would spot in both these options essentially remain the same.

Fortunately, our safari into the wild lasted for an hour , a very patient driver who stopped by at important places, gave us enough time to soak up the beauty of the wild jungle adorned by thicks of dry bamboo; wild, tall grass with green caps due to recent showers, muddy and shallow pools of water, orange red skyline at sunset trying to merge with the hilly fringes.

As the journey came to a close, we were treated with an awesome sight - a herd of spotted deer – about 20 to 25 of them, had gathered for an evening graze. Some distance away we could also see two baby elephants and another similar herd of spotted deer. Truly, a splendid evening !!

Filled to heart’s content, we got back to the bike to return to Mysore, making a promise to come back, stay in a cottage in the thicks of the jungle, trek into the wild and soak up more from this wild paradise.

Hats off to Indian Audience

Rave reviews, extravagant figures stating box office collections, Baadshah of Bollywood-the “six pack” Shah Rukh’s exalted status, all this and much more than all this – “ long time, not seen a movie…” syndrome got me to watch Om Shanthi Om in one of the premium theatres in Bangalore for a hefty cost.

In less than an hour, I started moving restlessly in my seat, seriously contemplating, if OSO was a movie or a lengthy spoof.

The first half has all necessary ingredients to be termed an ideal Bollywood movie in itself – high quotients of emotion from an over sentimental MOM, an unspoken and unconditional love for a damsel from an ordinary, yet super good-at-heart guy who is ready to jump into fire a zillion times to save her. We have another good guy, a supportive, true friend of Shah Rukh, Shreyas Talpade. After a flawless performance in a challenging role in the movie Iqbal, he has been utterly wasted in this movie. That’s the first half in brief studded with mockery of most actors/movies of the 70s, not even sparing the favorite of down south, Tamil Superstar, Rajinikanth. I must say that the attempts to imitate him have come out pretty well, the 5 minute sequence leaves you in ripples of laughter.

Here are the most awaited details of the villain – Arjun Rampal. Hail all those scenes with Deepika and him on screen! They look too good together, both are tall, athletic, trim and quite magnetic – where on the contrary with Shah Rukh, poor Deepika manages most scenes bare foot and with a deliberate hump to give a tall boost to her co-star.

Well, that was a deviation. All that concerns us is that Arjun Rampal is the bad guy who kills Deepika mercilessly after fiendishly trapping her in love for mercenery benefits. He also squashes Shah Rukh’s dreams and his efforts to save her. The good guy loses his life, witnessing his dear one’s end in vain. The movie does not end there as the hero firmly believes that “Everything in life ends well, must end well !”

So the Phoenix rises in the second half, new Shah Rukh is born, now in an affluent family. He combats his current identity in an attempt to unravel his past and wreaks vengeance for the bloody death of his lady love. All that happens thereafter in the movie paves way for punishing the wrong doer and avenging the death of the innocent one.

The second half in a nutshell is about how Shah Rukh with the help of natural and supernatural forces accomplishes this task. You will have no doubts about how multiple events lead to this happy climax as the director has left no stone unturned and no question unanswered.

The only question that remains unanswered : "Is this 3 hour long spoof worth all the hype revolving around it?” I accept that one must shed all logic and reasoning while watching most Bollywood movies , but watching Om Shanthi Om requires much more than this.
It really is an ordeal!
Bottom line – against all reviews that state OSO, an wholesome and promising entertainer, here is my perspective – OSO is nothing more than a THREADBARE entertainer.

Just when you thought , gone are the days of running around trees and running behind somebody else’s girl for Shah Rukh, just as you felt immensely satisfied with Shah Rukh’s swashbuckling performance in Chak De; he lets you down big time with OSO proving he likes to and has to run around trees, fall head over heels in love for someone else’s girl.

And hats off to Indian audience with an insatiable appetite for such meaningless movies who strive to see him this way, in movies after movies, expecting no less and no more.

All this can probably define IRONY

Prologue:

This article is no litany of complaints or an ostentatious display of personal frustration, dejection and disapproval. The points stated below are purely written on the basis of what I have heard, observed and imbibed. It is not an exhaustive description as my experiences are limited by my age and outlook. Just that these have made me think hard, think hard of life and the IRONY that intertwines it.

TAKE 1

For instance take India, etymologically trace its name to the word Indus which in turn is derived from “Sindhu” in Sanskrit. We all glorify womanhood and claim India as Mother India, yet census reports show the ratio of females to males as 927:1000 and we see figures worse than this when the antecedent dips down to a meager 780 in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. The practice of female infanticide prevalent in villages in Tamil Nadu, with its intensity at apex in 1992 -95 received world wide attention – many schemes were introduced since then to prevent the infernal practice.

Ironically, we still see cases where a husband refuses to lift his baby because it’s a female child; turns his back in perfect sync with his relatives, to the nurse holding the new born in her hands while the mother is still lurking under the influence of anesthesia and is as oblivious to the treatment meted out to her first child as she is to her fate for having delivered her. I have seen this happen 5 years back at St.Isabels’ Hospital, Chennai.

TAKE 2

We have our President talking of dreams, igniting minds, the Indian youth being the country’s livewire etc – there is absolutely no grievance with what he preaches but can he EVER do something about the 1017 of this YOUTH who have gone missing since the break of militancy in 1990 in Jammu and Kashmir.?

Ironically, the parents are not even aware if their kids are still alive or dead. Over a decade, they have waited faithfully for their return, sobbed on media which reaches their doors when they cannot gather much news on Bollywood, Ash-Abhishek affair and Cricket.

The government has been so indifferent to their outcry that the parents and concerned relatives have formed an "Association for Parents of Disappeared Persons" – their only hope - to see their son/brother/husband alive (or atleast, know if they are still alive) who went missing from a tea shop or a bus stand years back; they hope battling against all odds, against the high probability or the harsh truth of their getting killed in fake encounters. Read more on http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/mar/07sri.htm

TAKE 3

I have seen some Tamil communities displaying this very strange behaviour - when a girl attains puberty, they celebrate it in so much grandeur that it appears a week long festival. Relatives come in from all possible places, feasts are thrown out to the whole village, men party all night. What merely needs to be treated as a physiological change and left aside is publicized and exhibited in all elaborate ostentation!
Ironically, if the same girl is harassed/molested or sexually abused, there is none to fight for her justice or punish the wrong doer. More than a handful exist who willingly curse the girl for her fate, for having brought disgrace to the family and this handful leave her in such deplorable state that the worst episode of her life can neither be battled nor be forgotten.

TAKE 4
This thought struck me after watching the movie “Black Friday”.

The blasts that took place in Mumbai in 1993, that gory episode of bloodshed and violence which took toll in three if not four figures has left a spectre, still looming in the air, of the possibility of terrorist attacks or communal riots; anytime, anywhere in the nation and across the globe.
Sixteen full years, it took to solve the case and get the culprits to terms of imprisonment and all that colossal loss of life and property was to wreak vengeance for the act of demolition of Babri Masjid that stood for a long time and was considered holy by a group of people who have as much right as anybody else in the nation to practice their religion and stick to their faith.
And what had to be built at the site of demolition after trampling upon people's faith and clearing all the debris ? A Ram Mandir –YES, in veneration of Lord Rama who left to forest for a span of 14 years giving up his rights on rule and kingdom, solely because it was a request from his ailing father.
Also ironically, in praise of a lord who suspected his wife on her virginity and put her to litmus test(that's the closest term in English I can get for Agni Pariksha in Hindi) more than once even though she loyally waited for her husband to return and accept her with all affection.
What are we endorsing? All husbands can rightfully and endlessly suspect their wives and put them to test whenever they want? Probably, Lord Rama had many qualities to make him an example worth elucidating but this trait of his which I read from the well acclaimed epic has been one hard fact for me to digest.

The element of irony gets only better in that I am apparently one of those who pens down “Sri Rama Jayam” a 1001 times in my notebook on the Rama Navami Day upon instructions from Mom. In fact, it has become such a regular practice that I no longer require any instruction from her, I do it pretty faithfully and I am no atheist :)

There are many more such instances which reflect irony at its best- the Indo-US nuclear deal, the recent friendly ties between the two nations, probably a thing that needs to be welcomed with an open mind. Just that, it is ironical to note, a country looked down upon us so heavily for more than a decade during the period of cold war, it now wants to embrace us so fondly.
Not to forget, an all time low between US and India in 1970s, when Pakistan backed by USA inflicted atrocities on people in East Pakistan and perpetrated genocidal activities (refer to the blood telegram - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_telegram for more information).
Neither the then US President nor the Secretary of the State did anything to control the atrocities.
And what does the United States of America do TODAY - classify Iran, Iraq and North Korea into an AXIS OF EVIL, join hands with India to fight acts of terrorism which it full fledgedly bolstered for years, discuss at table whether Darfur(Sudan) conflicts need to be classified under world's list of genocides AND for every single minute spent in such discussion there is a home getting destroyed/displaced in Darfur. ....... ....... ............................

An endless list of such things exist about which I think of and where thinking leads me nowhere, that's precisely what Irony is all about – a water tight compartment of every aspect and routine of our life – probably, the one that adds spice to it as well.

That would be one Great Compliment :)

A Beautiful Mind – that’s a book I grabbed some time last year not really knowing it would serve some excellent reading. A book written by Sylvia Nasar, on the life of a Nobel Prize winning Economist and Mathematician, John Forbes Nash, "A Beautiful Mind" describes the professor's childhood years, episodes of college days at the Princeton and MIT, his battling a mental disorder by the name schizophrenia and emerging a winner, a winner of Nobel Prize in the year 1994.

The book,undeniably, is some good material for yielding motivation and provides great insight into how consistent personal efforts and undying support from near and dear ones can be effective in overcoming any disorder, whatever be the degree of severity.

The better part comes in now – in that I happened to watch the movie, loosely based on this novel and by the same name recently. The movie has Russell Crowe playing the lead role and was released in the year 2001. The movie has some exemplary performance by Russell Crowe, our own Gladiator :) , one of my favourite actors.

Right from the start, every scene of the movie was studded with commendable performance by Russell Crowe, his days at Princeton as a very reclusive,“Better with Numbers” kind of a guy to the days when he serves for the Department of Defense – hallucinating all the time and paranoid, his erratic conduct and the multiple schizophrenic episodes he tries to battle, his self-sequestered way of life when he gets back to teaching after the illness, backed by a personal drive and an unceasing support from his wife and some close friends, thereafter, the mettle to achieve greatness - WOW !! its just a treat to watch such multifaceted performance, all in just one movie.
There is a scene where some students come and place a pen in front of Prof.John Nash (Russell Crowe) as a mark of respect – AWESOME is the word for it or you get me a better adjective !

Well, that’s not the end – there’s more to the movie… that’s when the Professor is announced a recipient of the prestigious Nobel Prize in Economics for his outstanding work on Game Theory.
All eyes on Russell Crowe when he climbs on to the dais to deliver his speech and you are rendered speechless.

Here are the words – simple yet as beautiful as words can get.

I have always believed in numbers, in equations & logic that lead to reason. After a lifetime of pursuit, I asked “What truly is logic and who decides it reasons?”. My quest has taken me to physical, metaphysical ,delusional and back and I have made the most important discovery of my career , the most important discovery of my life. Its Only in mysterious equations of love that logical reasons can be found. I hit it only because of you, You are the reason I am. You are all my reasons.Thank you.

And you see the Professor's wife shedding a secret tear with a radiant smile on her face - the audience in standing ovation.WOW !!
I am not sure if the professor in real life said these words when he was on the podium receiving the honours but those clips in the movie,I must say, are worth watching, any number of times.

That night, I dreamt of my husband (I am not married as yet but I guess you have all liberty to dream futuristically ;)) winning an award – not necessarily a Nobel Prize … but some award, some big honour and delivering a speech along similar lines.
And I stand upright with pride, all priase for him with thick glasses and grey hair and yes , of course, with secret tears in my eyes.

It sometimes means a bigger honour and invokes a greater sense of pride to stand by a person you love and respect , at all times, against all ordeals and see him/her reap success and achieve a sense of greatness from that. It is more remarkable an achievement than you being out there on the dais yourself.
And lines like those stated above, will make the world’s best appreciation , an endorsement, one of its kind, the only one. For all the support and love extended, the above would be ONE GREAT COMPLIMENT!!

LINES WORTH REMEBERING: EMILY DICKINSON

There’s this poet whose works I always loved to read, understand and remember.

I am referring to Emily Dickinson and this special attraction to her poems began with a simple and short one that I read in high school.I remember it till day, every word of it, including some punctuation marks. Emily Dickinson is known for awkward placement of punctuation marks, extensive usage of dashes and inappropriate capitalization of script. Just glancing through a set of poems from her "Complete Works" will suffice to prove the above statement.

Probably, remembering the poem itself is not a big deal but I must say that this was the only poem (of 12 years of English lessons at school) which meant a lot and made a lot of sense.

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne’er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host

Who took the flag to-day

Can tell the definition,

So clear, of victory,

As he, defeated, dying,

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Break, agonized and clear.

I am sure each one of us would have felt something of this sorts "so near .... yet so far" at some point of time.The above poem offers a more meaningful reading for all those who fit into the
"Always a bridesmaid, never a bride" category.

It is said that Emily Dickinson led a very introverted life, her life merely confined to a small room in her family’s house in Amherst,a village in England;a room that had a single window which opened out to a graveyard. Many quote this as the reason for her morbid fascination for death as the subject for a large number of her poems. However, some say that she was influenced to a great extent by works of Emerson and Blake who largely spoke of life and death, a perception of life beyond that provided by the five senses etc.

This is a famous line from Blakes’ works- “If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite”
I have still not got down to interpreting this statement too very well but I just happened to read that this one line found a prominent place in literature,movies and music.

Here’s another of my favourites from Emily Dickinson’s works – pretty simple and nice.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain;

If I can ease one life the aching,

Or cool one pain,

Or help one fainting robin

Unto his nest again,

I shall not live in vain.

http://www.bartleby.com/113/ is a good link which provides the entire set of Emily Dickinson’s poems.A casual analysis into sections of poems on Life, Time and Eternity will make us sit back and wonder about the mysticism that wraps her works;ponder how an agoraphobic, reclusive female who dropped out of school in mid-teens could grab such an unusual view of the world around her.

Some of her poems are very difficult to comprehend, some are intense and depressing but for those who love poetry, Emily Dickinson is the most perfect embodiment, an epitome of literary class.

Here is a line by her to conclude this post – A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say , it just begins to Live That Day.