I know it’s been long since I last posted...and every time I blog-surf I feel guilty! Life has been through quite a striking phase in my life and these six months of my life that I was out of work means a lot to me. Perhaps, the best years of my life. It’s been a grand learning, for myself and of course others around me. It is so strange isn't it, one best thing you do when you have time, a lot of time at that is to dream... to get into that state of trance where everything around you flurry out to indistinctness and all that is static and apparent is you and your thoughts and the best of revelations. It is this feeling (I call it the state of “absoluteness”) that I had missed few months back. The time to daydream, to reflect on yourself, to appreciate certain things, to "undo” certain ways, to muddle through certain moves, to dream of what you want to be and where you want be and why you do all that you do everyday of your life. My life these few months has always hummed a lullaby for me. The sweet lullaby of the immoral life that lies ahead. There have been a lot of things I could do and others that I wanted to do but never did. Let me try and rewind this six months of my life slowly...in a long and lovely way as these months were...

I dedicate this post to my life, my inner calling, the dreamer ME, and of course god to you, from the agnostic ME!

corbetto

At 7 45 pm, the infamous Western Express Highway showed no enthusiasm in getting us (me and Kishore) to the Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminal (forget getting their on time!). The copious one-ways (a small rusted board indicating that it is a one-way has anyway been used as a barricade), the would-be flyovers (hopeful to shine above all of us for quite a few years now), the policemen on the road, true to MTV's style (Dharthi ka laal campaign) chew up pan and color the road red, sometimes makes you wonder if that’s the only reason why Brihan Mumbai Municipal Corporation has employed them, edgy fellow drivers who refuse to consider that it is impossible to let a car into a space which is less than 1 ft width, and of course the never-ending phone calls that our taxi driver was receiving seemed more like God's way of saying "How dare you think of having a vacation…!!!"...yeah sure, I didn't need a God to tell me that, it was already 20:50! So much for the countdown that I was religiously following for a month, it was definitely not to go through a moment like that@@@ If not for anything, I needed this desperate break from work…from deadlines and revisions, I just wanted to check what was the big hullabaloo about in my Geography text back when I was in Class VI, listing some 500 odd species of birds...some 200 tigers...1200 sq km of area... which I never managed to remember or show some interest in…now now... getting back to where I was stuck...it was 8 55 pm and we were still outside Mumbai airport, after a lot of struggle (between me, ki and taxi driver). After a lot of arguments (between the taxi driver and some son of a bitch who decided to unload his 100 ton weighing cargo in the middle of the road) after a lot of fight (of course between kishore and Taxi driver...kishore walked out of the taxi…while I was enjoying all of this!) The taxi driver started inching his way ahead. It seemed like an eternal wait… Took our flight at 9 10 pm and we made it to Delhi!!!

Flight journey was...well...ahem...safe...that's the only word that comes to my mind when I think of my journey with Spice Jet (my suspicion started when the pilot announced) "If anyone is found using their mobiles in flight, the flight will return back to the security gate and the concerned person will be arrested. Hope you have a nice journey with Spice Jet"...imagine this in a rusty, drunken voice...it sure gave me the creeps.

So we reach Delhi safe and sound.

There were three possible ways of reaching Corbett National Park, Ram nagar.

a) By train: Train leaves at around 10 30 pm, we reached Delhi at 11.10 pm, so obviously not an option!

b) By bus: The last bus to leave Delhi to Ram Nagar is at 8 pm, will have to wait for an entire day if I want to take it...obviously didn't have all the time in the world, so of course it was never an option.

c) By road: Out of 100 people we asked, 99 of them told its unsafe (dacoits, "terror-prone area"(now, which area isn’t?), risky at nights, not-worth-the-risk)...too bad I decided to get adventurous and take the road, my husband called it "bad planning" and slept through the journey.

Bantoo, our driver was one hell of a guy...knew all the right places to stop and was an excellent driver. At 1.10 am we stopped at road-side dhabha called "saarang". The chill breeze was the kinda appetizer I wanted... rushed inside the dhabha, which is actually on the road, but it has a roof! Had a piping hot chai. Followed by which I had one of the most delicious dinner after a very long time. Alu Parathas with a wedge of "amul" butter... Dhal Makhani with butter floating on top, raw onions (wonder if it was buttered?!)... Paneer burjee and of course Vegetable Kadai (yeah baby…buttered all the way till last helping)...I was so happy that I decided to postpone my diet plan by a week. I could eat guiltlessly...rotis came one after another..., we had to reach Ramnagar by 8.00 for us to get inside the park (ah…well zoo…ah...wild life place, whatever it was) on time. and that’s the only reason why I stopped eating.

The journey to Corbett was truly magical...the roads were long and winding... thick fog playing its way with Bantoo (remember my sweetie driver!)...forests got deeper and denser as we drover further...unable to see anything that was less than 10 mtrs ahead of us...it was more like playing a video game...you never know where the road curves and turns until you actually get there...the only source of light for this long road stretching till Ramnagar was our car's headlight. Lazily, the sun rose along our side to give us some company at around 7 am. To watch the sun rise as we were zipping across the country side was a visual delight. It surely was one of the most beautiful drives of my life. So far so good.

We reached our hotel "Wild club" adventure...true to its name, the place is set in the middle of lush green farm, small huts with make believe beds was where we were going to stay for the next two days in Ramnagar. The cottage was a self sufficient place. Water comes from the river flowing below us, vegetables from the farm behind us, were an entirely family of cow was grazing happily. An equally wild chef lived right there. Oh…the chef….,mmmmm

Couldn't wait any longer to plunge into the forests ...Corbett National Park, there we go. The bus that took us around the place was a very cute one...to go in a bus like that was by itself great fun. It was supposed to be a whole day safari....as the bus set off...the cool breeze kissed our face once in a while, reminding us to make a conscious effort to unwind and let go off everything back in aamchi Mumbai...

an hour into the journey we didn’t spot a single animal...

I thoroughly enjoyed the silence...the wholeness it creates and the emptiness that it recreates in me...the silence that urged me to do something about everything around me...the silence that I never knew of could contain so much meaning...silence like I have never heard of...hmm….I was lovin it!

Around 2 in the afternoon...we had spotted a couple of deers...monkeys…trees here and there...may be a peacock…

I could see us getting restless…disappointment that was suppressed. Blame it on national geographic and animal planet.. when I headed to the forest I was geared up for some hard core....errr....action!

Wild thoughts chasing my mind, maybe a tiger chasing a deer...maybe elephants bathing and tigers pouncing for its attack.,...or ..or...maybe a group of deer’s hopping its way to defense...from the clutches of tigers...never got anything of that sort.... or at least a couple of bees or lizards mating… something WILD! I was waiting patiently...for that defining moment...a picture perfect snap that I can show-off to people at work (well... we never carried a camera with us J heheh) . Nothing worked…we got bored. And what’s the best thing to do while bored…EAT!!!

We head for lunch in the middle of the forest...a place where. other than the group of ppl who came with us in the bus...a lot of monkeys gave us company...as we went to attend nature's call, we saw this bloody monkey (read male) aggressively protecting its counterpart (read humping) every time any of us got near it) and this happened as long as ppl were near that area. So the monkeys humped their way to glory! I thought of this to be a good sign...rather god’s way of saying...baby there is more in store for ya!!! Oh n I sure know intuitions come right!!! So we head for the rest of our journey with a lot of optimism and of course eagerness!!! After a full three course meal (wait a min more than that)....a long drive to nowhere (at least we didn’t know where) ... thick green land...deer’s hopping...birds perching...fresh air (now I know what pollution is!!!)...no sidey ring tone noises...it was bliss....I wake up to realize WE DIDNT SEE any tigers...but that’s Okie...that was the best nap I have ever had in my life!!It was so "Nice"...yes I was a lil disappointed that I didn’t see any tigers in a tiger reserve. but what the hell there is no democracy left in democratic India either...so it' fine! so we head back to our resort after that lovely long safari!!! The only reason why all of us happily got back to our cottages was food. The chef had these magical fingers which churned out delicacies after delicaies...he must have thought we were some kind of wild boars deprived of food for our lifetimes...

We had a 10 30 train to catch....chilly dark night...kurkure...and a cozy night's sleep was sure something I looked forward to. Especially travel within India, I feel is best experienced while going by trains. It’s an amazing experience by itself...the kind of energy the chai waalahs and wada walaahs exuberate is something else! Our train journey was quite exciting...with Kishore and Darshini doing some mind numbing math...not that we would have cribbed to chip a few extra silvers...nevertheless they took up that mind nerving exercise...we reached Delhi much earlier than the scheduled time.

Our next train to Mumbai was at 7.00. We bid each other goodbye after a nice cup of chai and promised to meet again at the Gir forest. having 3 more hours in our hand ...Kishore and I lost complete control over our bowels...and started our “clean toilet” hunting in Delhi...ended up in a "not so" clean one/....and decided to have breakfast right after that...some simple Bread and butter...and we were off to our station. Right from the beginning kishore was extremely averse towards the idea of traveling in a II class... I thought it would make traveling a lot lot better...people to chat with...the typical railway scenario. Reality came crashing on my face...It was horrible...sticky. Stinky...noisy.... lousy!!! :-( It was sad...nevertheless....reached Mumbai well and safe. It felt good.

It has been three months since I have been writing this post...not that I have put in as much thoughts or ideas or my prolific writing skills in it...have been busy and equally lazy to complete this task. By the way the Gir forest mission hasn;'t happened so far. Murali and Bhavani...have already moved on to UK for their studies...me and kishore very much in mumbai... Darshini & Saurabh: Very much in Hyderabad, although globe trotting! Mandar has got married recently@!!! Scott and Greg must have gotten back to the US!!! Anyway...managed to finish it atleast today :-)