3 fools, 2 smarties, a tiger and a leopard

As said in the previous post, I was in Mysooru over the last weekend. Same group of us who went to Chamundi hills, decided to go to Bandipur. Plan was to leave for Bandipur by 10 in morning, roam around and come back by 5 in the evening, as Subba and I were supposed return to Bengalooru in the evening . Previous day before going to bed, it was decided that we all should be ready by 8am, which I was sure would never be possible, as we had a nocturnal(read Sudhi) among us. I was a fool to get up by 8, get ready and wait for other lazy fellows. Somehow, 3Ss: Sudhi, Subba, and Seena managed to get ready by 12. Subba, Seena and I left early to visit Subba's granny at Nanjanagudu. A small boy who used to give witty answers to our naughty questions, made us forget how late we were. When asked "Bandipuradalli enide?"(what is bandipur famous for?), he replied "Bandi"! By the time we bid adieu to the kid, it was nearing 3 and Sudhi and one more friend of him, were already near Bandipur. We joined them by 4 and ate at a Resort(so called) till 5.45. I wanted to return, but others insisted that we should pay a quick visit to Bandipur and then go back. I reluctantly agreed. I didn't regret it later. I thanked them :)

As soon as we reached Bandipur and stopped to appreciate the friendly(?) deers, few other visitors told us that a Tiger just crossed the road near the small lake down the road. We were cursing our luck that we missed a life time opportunity to see a tiger in the wild. We rode on till the Tamil Nadu border. All along the this stretch, we could see lot of deers, sambars, a beautiful peacock too. While returning, I rode the bike fast as I wanted go back soon. Seena was pillion rider.

As I rode back, I was wishing that, that tiger would finish is his rounds, and again cross the road. To my astonishment, we saw a leopard crossing the road! It was at about 40-50 meters from us. It stood for a second and saw us and ran in the bushes. Even though I had read leopards were timid animals, I was scared, and applied the brakes. Seena shouted at me for that and asked me to go near to it. I rode on fast, as Seena turned to right side to see the leopard, turned back and watching us. Subba and Sudhi were way behind us and they missed sighting the leopard. We waited for them to join, and told them in excitement what happened there. They cursed their bad luck and we carried on. After riding for about 5 more minutes, Subba and Sudhi again disappeared behind us, as they were slow. And this time, there was a real surprise for us. A Tiger! A tiger was crossing the road. And it was closer than the leopard. Within 20 meters! Well, I really can't explain what Seena and I felt at that moment. We were excited and scared at the same time. Without our knowledge, legs started shivering! Again, I applied the brakes, this time some how I rode on slowly, and dared to turn right and look into bushes where tiger had gone in. We could see tiger walking away, slowly, like a king. I had never seen a Tiger in wild, that too this close, and imagine, we were on a bike! Subba, Sudhi and co, who were shooting(with camera, not with gun) peacock, joined us after the tiger disappeared. Again, we had to narrate the story in excitation to them. Do not ask for photos. Yes, I cursed myself for not carrying the camera :(

People go far safari and return without any luck. And we were very lucky to sight tiger and leopard withing one hour of ride. Recently a tiger got killed on Mysooru - Manandavaadi road. Now administration seems to be taking precaution to avoid such incidents. All along the Ooty road in Bandipur, there were photos of the dead tiger urging the drivers to go slow, so that they don't kill more of these endangered animals. Read in newspapers that the Manandavaadi road would be shut during night. Long live tiger!

flying saucer!

I had been to Mysooru over this weekend. Sudhee had been pestering me for past two months visit him there. I was stuck with some or the other work on all the weekends for past two months. This weekend he happened to visit Bengalooru by car. While going back there was space for two more, so Subba and I hopped into his car. Past the city traffic, we started arguing over how one should drive, slow, fast, in left lane or right, high beam, truck drivers, blah, blah, blah... Sudhee was getting good lecture from his dad on the same. He even tried deceive and go faster by closing windows saying it would give aerodynamic advantage :). We reached Mysooru by 11pm. Seena joined us at Subba's home.

Soon we decided have coffee @ Ginger and go to Chamundi hills. As we drove up the hill, we could see clouds forming atop Chamundi hills. Clouds became thicker and moon disappeared behind the clouds. It was all misty above and we got out of car at view point and appreciated the view of Mysooru in night. Palace, the ring road, all looked beautiful. Later we drove on, circled around the temple and stopped at the edge. Suddenly everything down disappeared due the heavy mist in front of us. And I noticed some flat elongated glowing object very far off. It looked as though it stood very high from ground. "Whats that?", I drew attention of others. We stared at it. "It's rotating!", said Seena. To me it appeared as though it was fire in some distant forest. Someone said it might be a building lit in the night. But it looked too high to be a building at that distance. Slowly one more image slightly longer than the first formed above that. "Flying saucer!!!", I shouted in excitement. The two images looked as though they were coming closer and getting bigger and rotating... We seriously started thinking that they indeed are flying saucers. But, as the clouds became thin, the images grew large and combined to form a circle. Slowly we realised it was moon! For just few moments the moon playing hide n seek made our imaginations fly :). Then we laughed at ourselves. I liked the excitement it generated :)

blog through e-mail

Just trying the blogging through e-mail feature. The fact that you see it here, the feature has worked :D

funny thoughts of a kid...

When I was kid, there were lot of funny thoughts, funny now but not then, were in my mind. I'm damn sure it would be same with others too. I recall them and laugh at myself. One of such thought was that women gave birth to baby boys and men gave birth to baby girls! I don't know how this great thought occurred to my mind :D
There was one more, that wind was due to fluttering leaves and branches of tress, and not the other way :). I also thought that the good old TV antenna was just used to indicate that the particular house has TV, he he :D. Along this weird thoughts, there was a list of experiments which I wanted to carry out. One such was, connecting a live electric wire to sea and then see if the water becomes hot! There are lot more like this. I am thinking of writing all of them down. It will be nice to collect all such funny thoughts.

Does these make you laugh, smile at least?!