The Journey

We'd been to Coorg and planned to visit Nagarhole. We got our cab confirmed and the driver promised to be there at 4am! Yes, that early 'coz we wanted to be at the national park by 6am! As planned, we all got up and checked out at the middle of the night, bundled into the Indica. In spite of my layered clothing, I was feeling pretty chill. And, it was quite misty too as we stood outside out hotel. 

We happily started off - I never thought it would be one of the crazier rides I've ever done. Dense fog/mist, small roads, blaring headlights, sharp bends, and patches with more potholes than tar - what more can you ask for a crazy trip. Oh! don't forget the time - 4am - so, darkness too. 

Turn a bend and we were out of a town - and had the dense fog in front of us. It was like a white sheet a few meters in front of our car. As tired as I was, I was wondering how on earth the driver was still on the road and I'd doze.. a few minutes later, we are far from civilization, they din't even bother adding streetlights. So, once in a while, the fog would light up - like the headlight of a train in a tunnel. Our driver would pull over to the side - as far as he could - and blink lights hoping the truck/bus driver would notice the car in front. 

Once that vehicle goes by, we'd continue our ride in the dark with the white sheet leading us! I didn't realize I had dozed off until we reached this final stretch of the road -that was as bumpy as any can be. Any of our city roads mutilated by the civic roads would be put to shame. It was as if no two inches were at the same level. From there on, it was a slow, painful, bumpy ride - through the mist. Hoping against hope we'd turn a corner and find the park.
 

From Coorg

Two and a half hours later, we finally reached the park around 6:30am. Phew! Wasn't I relieved to be off that ride. Sadly, the park itself didn't turn up anything as interesting as this ride. We had a crazy ride back to Mysore too - but, I guess, I'll save that for another day!

Memories: The Frog

There is this moment from my childhood stuck in my head for no good reason - well, at least I can't think of a reason. 

Place: Our home in Palayamkottai. It was a mansion (by today's standards) - a huge, old house with big granite blocks for steps, tiled roof, and a huge garden. The garden was big enough for us to dig trenches for water - we had a lot of banana trees, a coconut tree, a bunch of neem trees, a tamarind tree, cotton trees, papaya, drumstick (with the caterpillars), a big bush shoeflower, mom's flower garden, and granny's greens patch. And, we had a lot of space to play after all these. It is a best of all places I've lived in. 

Anyways, I didn't mean to describe that place so much! What I wanted to talk about was a frog that sneaked in everyday. Those days, dad had a bicycle and nothing more. And, every night, we'd find this huge froggie on the seat of the bicycle. It was quite a mystery how this guy got there - because the doors and windows and pretty fine mesh to keep the insects out and the cycle was parked inside. Well, it was a mystery until we caught mister froggie making his way in. He was squeezing his way through the mesh - and I couldn't believe he could do that! 

And ya, that's the moment I so clearly remember - some kinda freeze frame moment!