ZOO

(was going through the pictures of our three week old visit to Bannergatta national park.It's better to post and preserve,than never to do so)
“Oh no ,it’s Sunday”,groaned Mr.Bear to Mrs.B.
“This means I have to brush my teeth and comb my hair,and take that walk,and pretend to be busy sniffing at grass,HUMMPH.”
”Well,isn’t it fun to watch a bus full of caged humans,all owwwing and awwwwing, dear.They do look so cute,”she consoled him. The little cubs eagerly followed daddy B,for a live demo.


At other end of the forest, an anxious tiger paced up and down.The cause for concern seemed to be the new entrant, the white tiger.”Damn!!! These fair skinned ones.They seem to be grabbing all the limited female attention.Sigh!”
Well,it was a fact known to all that the poor guy had stuck to an exhaustive abs routine and a low fat -only -lean -deer diet,for more than six months now. However, yet another tiger felt there were other matters more important than those of the heart and the meat. He wasn’t the least bit amused at this intrusion of privacy.”Don’t we have any laws of the jungle here?”
“Well, this is the jungle right.”Except a few flies no one had responded to his statements.”Maybe we need a new government,and a change of the King,err animal.Maybe a no- confidence motion,he asked the grass and the trees.
“There’s more wilderness in the human parliament than here.”He sighed and went to drown his sorrows in the next watering hole.




The Bannergatta national park
1. High expectations will ruin your visit. Please remember you are visiting an Indian zoo and you shall be more than pleased with what you find and see.
2. Despite all the discouraging reviews,it was a pleasant surprise,and if you have a child in you somewhere,you will def enjoy seeing the animals at close quarters.
3. A particular reviewer on a travel site,said that the animals looked bored.Well,what do expect from life that has been caged.Remember that the animals are in the jungle and not in a circus.
4. The zoo’s policy and effort at keeping plastics at bay is quite laudable.(they empty out all plastic wrappers into paper bags,right at the entrance itself. It’s amazing how much plastic they had gathered in a few minutes)
5. The safari is bumpy but good(but since we were quite used to Bangalore roads,it didn’t feel very different),as you really get to see a variety of animals.The conductor is really helpful in pointing out and taking pictures for you(err for a tip of rs.20,he deserved it)
6. The cages are quite well kept and neat.The snake exhibit is amazing. Don’t miss it.
7. The butterfly park is definitely the high point of the park.The feeling is magical. As you enter the enchanted door,hundreds of butterflies come to kiss you with their feathery wings.


8. TIP OF THE DAY
Start early in the day,if you wish to visit on a Sunday,for the crowd that builds up,makes you wonder and pray about the security of the animals and thank god that they were caged.

five to go

“I’ve got five minutes,!”.I console myself(convincingly) rather than threaten.Five minutes and I have to juggle both breakfast and lipstick,both into dangerously close quartered areas.The few initial attempts taught me that the former should go first..Experience is a good teacher.The past two and a half months ,have taught me the value of all small things in life.Five min,never seemed more precious,and its amazing how much of reading I can squeeze into those five min,while whizzing off in a noisy auto,along with half a dozen of other noisy autos,over J.P Nagar’s dirt tracked roads(it’s amazing to see the number of ORTHO docs mushrooming in the neighbourhood)on my way to pick up a colleague.I cherish those five min of solitude with my book. The progress is slow,(targeted)at 2 pages a day.I have made considerable progress,since I began.From half a page,I have inched to two a day.Slow but satisfying.After all, Five min is all I have,and…..I don’t want to get too ambitious.


the only bright spot,in the near perfect gloomy day of the almost- on -the -fag- end-of the monsoons,weather.Mr.Bindra,you have proved a proverb COOL LIKE A CUCUMBER,true and a nation proud.