LETTER TO A FRIEND

It was Thursday night (3/3/2011), I came home from work at around 9:00. Just as I entered my house I got a call from My3’s dad (Kumar uncle) and that was when I remembered that we had to go to a nature camp the next day. To my surprise and utter shock he had called to say that my3 had sprained her ankle and wouldn’t possibly be able to attend the camp, half of my enthusiasm about the camp died. I went to her place to see what was wrong and there I came to know that she had fallen from stairs and sprained her ankle and wasn’t able to move her leg properly, what’s even more depressing was she wasn’t even able to speak because she had a soar throat . My heart sank even lower at the prospect of me going alone to the camp and my enthusiasm had almost completely died with that. It was more like I had started dreading going to this camp. The next day (4/3/2011) I got up with trepidation about going to camp as I started doing my daily chores. At around 11:30 I got a message from My3 which made me smile and start thinking positively about the camp all over again (the msg read something like this “I am going to buy some things for the trip if you need anything then let me know”). After that I started packing and doing everything at double the speed. And it was already 2:10 by the time we boarded the bus. Most of the time went in sleeping and we had already reached Kengeri when we got back to the present from respective dream worlds. We got down at University gate by 5:30 and called kodandaramiah sir to know when they would reach there. After coming to know that they would be reaching there by 6:45 we left for my aunt’s place (thinking we had 1hr to kill) as my aunts place is opposite to NLS which is very near to Blore University(I am telling this keeping in mind the traffic in Blore). But my calculation went terribly wrong. And to my dismay I had delayed everyone by my misjudgment (because I had not considered for 1s about the verity of what would happen if we dint get a rick back. And that is exactly what happened and we had to walk all the way back before we got a rick). And by the time we reached it was pretty late and everyone was waiting. We were feeling guilty and sheepish for making everyone wait. But we were so happy and overwhelmed to know that despite our delay no one even pointed out 1s that we had impeded the journey by atleast half an hour. I felt that if the starting even with the setback from our side went this well then the journey would be better which was encouraging because we were traveling with kodandaramiah sirs group for the first time and were a little anxious. But as the saying goes “All’s well that ends well” so I felt it was a very nice beginning and there would be very few things which would damper such a pleasant start. After an informal introduction we continued towards yeshwanthpur to pick rest of the group members. After everyone boarded the bus in yeshwanthpur we proceeded towards our destination which is Daroji Bear Sanctuary.

Daroji is a reasonably dry and hot region with rock strewn hillocks that stretch between Daroji village of Sandur taluk and Ramasagar of Hospet taluk in Bellur district located in the eastern plains biogeographic province in Karnataka state of South India. It is about 350km from B’lore and 15km from the ancient city of Vijayanagar, Hampi (which is situated on the banks of Thungabhadra River). It covers an area of 5,587.30 hectares which was declared a sanctuary in1994. It is a home for more than 120 Sloth Bears (Melursus ursinus). But apart from these it also houses leopards (Panthera pardus), wild boars (Sus scrofa), Pangolins (Manis crassicandata), Monitor lizards (Varanus albigularis), more than 80 species of birds and more. Also it is said that the mighty “Jambuvantha” who along with the army of languor’s helped lord rama fight Ravan was from Kishkinda mountain were the bears found are called sloth bears. Also Rudyard Kiplings very famous and well known book ‘The Jungle Book” has a character of a bear named “Baloo” a friend of Mowgli is inspired by the bears from central India and area around Kishkinda.

At around 8:10 we stopped on the way in a petrol bunk to have dinner. But before that on the bus only we were given a sweet (horlicks Mysore pack) [the happening’s in this span of time is best described by Deepak sir]. As you might know by now My3 is more social person among the two of us, so she volunteered to serve dinner the same way she had volunteered to give out the sweets on the bus. So My3 and Vasantha mam served the rest of us Dinner and we hogged on it like hungry bears. After our dinner we continued towards Daroji. And on the bus vasantha mam encouraged us to sing some old Kannada songs which Deepak sir (who happens to be a very good singer apart from being a good dramatist, mimic and ofcousre a great lawyer-one of the many facets of sir) sang and the rest of us enjoyed listening to. And as time passed on Deepak sir started narrating the numerous incidents that took place at the time of his drama rehearsals and also at the time of live performances which was so hilarious that all of us were rolling with laughter.