Big Cats

Mar 21 2008
Holiday on account of good Friday. Long weekend ahead. Think of escaping from Bangalore. Couple of hot product escalations pin me down to Bangalore as I had to check mails periodically and step in if necessary


8:00 am
Weather is gloomy. Thick clouds threatening to burst. And this is summer time we think. Me & veena decide we'll take kids to bannerghatta national park if weather holds good. Plan not to tell kids about it since they'll get disappointed if they know and it starts pouring & we cant make it.


10:00 am
It starts raining. We finish breakfast and the customary weekend tea. We decide to get ready for the trip anyway hoping rain'll subside by the time we leave.


11:30 am
all of us are ready and veena has packed a picnic bag with lunch & munchies. As we hoped rain stops but weather stays gloomy


12:15 pm
we reach bannerghatta. it is hard to imagine that there is a national park & a thick forest behind it only 19 kms from home. the thought of staying so close to natural habitat is exciting.


12:25 pm
we enter the animal park and realize the queue to safari is nearly zero. thanks to the gloomy weather & festivals of hindus, muslims & christians falling on the same day (holi, id, good friday)


12:45 - 1:45 pm
we enter the van that'll take us on the grand safari (covering herbivore, bear, lion & tiger safaris) . ticket cost is 125 bucks for adults. kids under 5 ride free provided they sit on the adults' laps. van driver & helper hint us to take the two seats in the front. we accept their graciousness to get a broad view of the safari thru the windshield. realise, it is a ploy of them to ask for bigger tips at the end. we play along with them as we get the best view in the van


the herbivore park has a few spotted deer, sambar, black bucks, bisons. wild pigs. only the wild pigs interest kids thanks to 'gaalipata' movie where anant nag loses & regains life in his legs due to a wild pig and his hunting attempts


we move to the bear safari. just a few ordinary bears there lazing under rocks. kids are disappointed that they are not moving around and lively.


I'm cajoling nidhi to befriend the van driver & helper so that she can sit with the helper and get the best view of animals. that would give me some space to move my legs as well. driver asks me if neha & nidhi are twins. I say yes. He responds ' namdu twins idhe'. I ask him really, you also have twins? he says not me but there are twin tiger cubs in the safari. I fell stupid and veena grins loud and says 'blog this'


we enter the lion safari. expectedly the male lions are sleeping. the female lions are more active but inside the cage & we do not get a good view of them. nidhi gets disappointed & does not want to look at the lions. reason - lion is shown in orange & brown in cartoons, books... here the lions are pale brown & with dirty brown hair. she tells me why they're not orange like in books. I tell her the lions aren't exactly orange in color and these ones are a little dirty as well. she tells me & the driver to get the lions bathed and then show them to her. alright queen, we'll do that!



the tigers were the most impressive and majestic. kids love them. so do we.




we pay 30 rupees tips to the driver. he is not happy. i think 'cant do much'.


2:00 pm
back in the park or zoo, we start our lunch. kids are eating kurkure & want to feed the crows. we finish lunch. kids survive on kurkure & icecream. we want to show them leopard & zebra. they are more interested in playing swing & see-saw in the play area. we tell them you play it everyday in the apartment complex & better see the animals. they win the argument & we end up getting some peaceful time on the stone benches while kids play & sway.




4:30 pm
we head back. there is a butterfly park to see but legs are aching & kids are tired. we skip it & head back home. i get stupidly adventurous & try an off track road to connect to kanakapura road. end up driving 10 kms more & reach home by 5:30

Some recent lovely moments

A collection of fun moments in our lives recently:

snaps 1 & 2 - neha & nidhi using clothes line as a swing. this is in spite of us having a big swing inside the house

snaps 3 & 4 - neha caught in some funny poses. first one was when she was searching for a marble behind the table & second, when she was sleeping

snap 5 - i call this height of optimism. neha & nidhi trying basket ball. nidhi was using a small light weight plastic ball (on the ground) while neha was using a tennis ball (mid air if you observe closely)

snap 6 & 7 - neha & nidhi flying kite. it was one of my dreams in the last few months to buy a kite and show kids how they fly. we managed to do this about 3 weeks back. you have to search for the kite in snap 7. fyi - the kite flew much farther than shown in this snap :-)

snaps 8 & 9 - kids on top a tree branch on NH48. When we were on our way from hassan and stopped at a dhaba for tea

snaps 10, 11 & 12 - it snowed in our house! veena had brought some thermocol sheets to exercise her artistic talent. kids scraped the sheets to bits before veena could show her skills.

Trip to Shravanabelagola

A job change has meant lesser time at home (or office :-)) to update the blog.

We visited shravanabelagola (SBG) last saturday on our way to hassan to attend a wedding. The journey was usual with breakfast packed for kids to be eaten during journey, kids' favourite movie songs playing on the car stereo (they also listened to 'gaalipata' songs {new kannada movie} and fell in love with them instantly), breakfast, snacks messing up the leather seats & flooring of the car and kids changing seats & moving between passenger & back seats about 7 or 8 times. First stop was kunigal to visit the stud farm at around 10:30. Thanks to my cousin Teju, we feel pretty privileged to have seen this farm a few times and it is a wonderfully maintained 200+ acres farm with some majestic breeds and their promising kids. teju showed us around the farm and kids saw a few animals - horses, dog, cat, monkeys, cows, rabbits. So many on that farm that nidhi mistook it to be a zoo and asked teju, where are the deer?

After breakfast for us and probably the best tea i've had in my life, we moved on and reached SBG at around 12:45 or so. I had visited SBG when I was a little older than what neha & nidhi are now and that is 25+ years back. I still had a vivid memory of seeing the monolith but had forgotten how hard it is to climb up & see that. or maybe my mom or one of my uncles would have carried me for a while. There are 590 stone steps to reach the top discounting the really small 30 odd steps on the rock slope near the summit. It was scorching hot summer afternoon and we felt it'll be a hard challenge to climb up with the kids. we were hoping that neha & nidhi would climb atleast 30% of the steps themselves and that would help us manage our energies well. what happened was pretty amazing. neha & nidhi started racing on the steps and we were following them closely behind to make sure they dont slip. after about 100 steps, we were panting and started taking stops to catch breath but not these two girls. they climbed up all the way themselves and took their only stop at around 400th step. that was the only time they felt they were tired. we forced them to stop once more cos we were exhausted by the 500th step or so and took longer to climb. Also the first 50 steps or so are pretty hot & cos burns on the feet. Cool breeze calms the heat on the steps higher in the array.

Once we reached the top and entered the temple premise, it was telepathy at work. I & veena did not plan or discuss it but we both moved away from the kids (about 20 ft away) and temporarily disowned them. and the reason for that was the anticipated embarassing situation. neha & nidhi saw the 59 feet monolith in awe for 2 or 3 seconds and then in chorus blurted out "shame shame poppy shame, all the monkeys know your name, maami" (maami is god in kids language). They got the queer look & smiles from the 20 odd people there who had braved the sun & climbed in mata mata madhyaana. We gave the same look as well (remember we did not know them temporarily)

SBG is a great place and you can feel the tranquility of the place and calmness in the temple. A nice place to meditate, great view of the flat fertlie lands around the hill and a nice exercise to climb up.
It was a day well spent.