Bandipur

It was midweek and the four of us, me, Roshan, Arpi and Ro packed our bags for Bandipur. Early morning 6:30, we got in the Innova and made a 5 hour journey to an escape from the view of tall and towering buildings. Bandipur reminded me of my mama's place near Nepal. It has the countryside view with a flowing elevations of small hills and a promise of silence kept at the end of the narrow road.

After unpacking, we all had a nice warm cup of tea and after Arpi's idea of playing Name, place, animal, thing met a dead end, we all started sketching. It was a strange moment, seeing everyone engrossed in drawing. I chose to draw the house, but the clouds started drizzling and I moved on to drawing people around.

The Night came with a few songs, conversations, filled up glasses, silence and my camera, we wrapped the summary of the night in this photograph.

We had planned to get up early for a climb to the hill in front of the house. But, the rain was soaking the ground in its own pauses. I drew the front area of the house before everyone finally decided to just go for the climb.

The climb got over pretty early to my expectations, It was a beautiful view from up there and the coconut trees planted near by looked like clones in Roshan's words. On the horizon there was a screen of raining clouds approaching. We hurried our way down for some breakfast. Cheese sandwiches and sausages literally drugged me and I was sitting in the enveloping arm chair for quite sometime. Though the football we had got with us and the challenges of the game got me out of the chair. ( We had to shoot the football into an old bucket, easy it may sound, but quite a challenge. ) Soon, it was the time for my first ever safari ride.

With the friendly gesture of Nanu Uncle of 'Tusker trails', we hopped in the jeep that took us into the green wraps of the Bandipur Jungle. It being a rainy day ending with a glitter of faint sunshine, only a few animals were visible in the bushes and trees around. Each one of us kept our eyes open for the slightest view of a striped orange skin or a noise of elephants plotting a chase on us. But, It wasn't the day of such delights. Never the less, a good ride through the jungle.

The 'Tusker trails' guys had a gathering of cats. There are supposed to be hundreds of them around.

The second night and the legend, Shivanna ( the care taker ) lit a fire for us. We sat around it, playing with the wonders of night photography and anticipating that a few elephants might show up in the late hours. Tired of the many activities during the day, we all went to our beds.

The morning was full of sunshine and I drew my last sketch there. Kicked the old football, packed our bags and left for the city-scape from the city-escape.