This was always in my mind. Every friday while coming back from office I spend some time thinking how to spend the weekend. Shall I go to some other place, far away from the crowded streets of Bangalore, or watch a movie, or whatever. Bless the bachelor life, but these are some shortfalls of it. You need to think how to kill time, especially if you are someone unsocial like me :). I love Bangalore, yes, I do! but there are some moments when you feel the urge to go out of it, just to come back and rediscover it, or even to appreciate its offerings that we generally can not realize in our daily lives.
So that time it was Mudumalai. I am saying that time because it happened almost one year ago. Call me lazy to write things up after such a long time, but honestly I always wanted to write about it someday, not to give out any free suggestion, or suggesting a nice hotel there, but to satisfy my own self. However, I have this habit of roaming around the topic while writing. Forgive me for this. If you have not anyhow noticed it yet, then lets keep going.
One tuesday while still at office, I got a call from one of my colleagues, and then room mate. "You want to go to Mudumalai this weekend?" "Ah yes.." I replied. "That has been a dream of mine for a long time". Finally the bookings were made, we were off to Mudumalai on a friday mid night.
We zoomed pass Bangalore at a silent and clear night, past Mysore, and took turn towards Ooty. As we kept going towards Mudumalai, the landscape kept changing. From highways and freeways in Bangalore we were soon within the arms of nature. Somewhere near the Karnataka - Tamilnadu border, we noticed a long queue of tourist cars parked by the road side. Someone told there is an elephant sighting. Finally we found them! A small elephant family gazing in the morning sun. I don't know how exactly they felt, but I would not prefer visitors standing by and clicking photographs while I am having breakfast with my family. Silly people, can not appreciate other's privacy. In that morning, I felt really bad to be one of them. Yes, I also clicked a photograph of that family, but somewhere inside it was hurting me, these creatures are the residents of this forest. we are only visitors, and no offence, the worst kind of visitors we would ever like to have at our own place. However, life goes on, and we moved from that place to reach Deep Jungle Home.
Did I mention earlier we booked Deep Jungle Home, a small accommodation surrounded by the famous Mudumalai forest. It was by all means fantastic. People like us who spend the major part of their lives in cities, and are used to city lives, really welcome this change in their surroundings. It gives you a feeling of being alone, isolated from the entire world, of course with all kind of facilities you even could not imagine inside a forest. Simply sitting there and listening to the forest sounds can revive your urge to live some more days.
After some breakfast we went for walking along the forest border. People living city lives should at least once visit a place like this, away from your daily habitat, in such a place where you can have ample time to appreciate what we get free of cost from nature, and what we are destroying so violently in the name of civilization. Sometimes it really feel sad to be among the race that is destroying their invaluable assets just for nothing. And you call us intelligent! Makes me laugh out of my heart. We kept on walking and discovered many small pleasures. I never imagined finding a fresh elephant pug mark just beside a wild pond could be so much of excitement. It was not silent at all, not in any sense. It was rather noisy, but the noise soothed my ears. It was not coming out of a vehicle, it was from nature. Birds chirping, some unknown animal howling from an invisible location, bees buzzing around, everything reminded me that I am a stranger here, having one day break to visit this daily life activity of thousands of animals. How can someone think of destroying it! How can someone think of making a resort at this place, just to accommodate us, the tourists at the cost of driving the locals away! Sad, isn't it? At the same time if they did not have done this, I perhaps never could be with nature in my lifetime. Everything has two faces, it is up to you which one you choose. Trust me, it did not feel glorious to be within the human race that time.
We had a little chap with us. A boxer pup. He was especially happy in the surroundings! Poor chap! could never see such a place till then. It was very difficult to catch him, as he was enjoying his first freedom by running up and down in the cottage lawn. Finally when he got tired and decided to rest a little, I could not help myself from capturing the moment! Let me tell you this fellow is very cautious about its photographs. Earlier it barked at me many times whenever I tried to capture it in frames. But this time he also did not resist. Perhaps it thought OK, these guys brought me to such a nice location, lets be a nice dog and let him click! Nature changes everything, the way you think, the way you act in your daily life, seems very small when you are in the arms of nature, far away from the faces you see everyday, the person you had a clash with, every small things. It brings another human out of you, and this human is much more HUMAN in all sense!
Yes, we did a night safari on a resort jeep! Jungle at night is something unimaginable. Scary, if you are scared of darkness, or beautiful if you love it. I belong to the latter category. The pitch black darkness, and sometimes the glowing eyes of animals from the bushes around the road will surely thrill you to extreme. But again, somehow it felt bad in side. Disturbing these animals, invading at their dinner time, focusing car headlight inside forest just to see some glowing eyes, and probably a glimpse of a deer, bison, or sometimes tiger! People are thrilled as most of them never watched these animals outside of a zoo! Some are calling names, some busy adjusting their camera mode, some clicking photographs. Really we are the worst kind of guests one can expect!
Next day we went to touch ooty, but that I will mention in some other post. Finally we started coming back towards Bangalore! I know only two days are not enough to even imagine the vastness of nature, leave alone seeing it and understanding its rules. But it was needed for me, to take a break, and to get lost in a faraway place, where I would not be forced to wake up in the morning by a stupid alarm clock! The journey was hectic, it covered a lot of kilometers, but somehow I felt refreshed like I never felt before. Nature has its own ways of healing your soul. You find a new perspective to analyse everything. Those two days were curved forever in my memories!
