Peasants, Pigs & Astronauts

I am posting some pictures from my trip to Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh last month. It was just an amazing experience being in the Jungle, soaking in the jungle sights sounds and smells :)


Kanha is also the setting for Rudyard Kipling's famous Jungle Book.

The trip started with a day out at Bhedaghat, about 30 Km from Jabalpur (base town for our trip). The picture to the left now is of the incredible marble ghats at Bhedaghat and that's the sacred Narmada flowing through those ghats. The river at places is over 300 feet deep and rises much higher during the monsoons. The ghats are home to a veritable potpourri of marble rocks, I had never quite imagined marble in black and pink before.

The river has also cut quite interesting patterns in the marble rocks as can be seen in this close up.

The Chousat Yogini Temple at Bhedaghat


Next day, we were off to see the King of the Jungle , The Tiger. We did manage to spot the tiger, thanks to some spirited efforts of the elephant mounted spotters who scour the jungle from early in the morning and radio back the location of the tiger once it is spotted. That then is followed by a mad dash accross the jungle in an open top Gypsy, to get as close to the tiger by road as possible. We rode the final few meters off the road on the back of our very accomodating elephant, "Jung Bhadhur", to get next to the tiger.
There are usually a horde of tourists on any given day to see the Tiger and I felt rather sorry for it. It seemed to too much of an intrusion into the poOr cat's life. I personally vow not to return to see the tiger in the wild.

Finally got around to deciding on a pair running shoes. I believe I was born with the proverbial two left feet for I can't seem to find a pair that fits equally comfortably. I actually spent significantly less time deciding on my house than I did for these pair of shoes :D

I took these snaps behind my office.

Apparently this is a fairly poisonous flower when ingested, but this flower finds medicinal uses in Ayurveda. It's Sanskrit name is AgniMukhi, meaning Fire Face.







Ever heard about Square Cucumbers?

Quoting a post at ubcbotanicalgarden.com
"A specially developed cuccumber, which is box shaped. This is to facilitate the production of cuccumber sandwiches. The square slices fit on the bread without overhang...."

:)

The first picture is the night shot (for a perspective) outside my balcony without any lightning or flash ( the small white streak is from a street light):







And finally the pièce de ré·sis·tance.

The Thapas - round boats at Nagarjuna sagar. These things are hard to paddle, I failed fairly miserably at trying to row them in any one direction. Our boatman got the boat to spin round really fast; it was just lucky that I hadn't had my lunch yet.

The Boatman : He described himself as a "Gaja Ethagadu" or master swimmer. Apparently the Govt. employs him on occassions to dive to the bottom of the lake to retrieve any articles of interest. The lake reaches about 500 ft in depth and as can be imagined, diving at those depths can be pretty hazardous.

My Bike - Thunderbird

Sunset

The other side of New York



Sanitation trucks with Chrysler building in the background



Central Park

Brooklyn Bridge - A view from the Top



Metlife and Grand Central

Statue of Liberty - A view from the Helicopter



Bombay Dreams on Broadway



Time Square (One)



Times Square (Two)



Indian Prime Minister is Big News at Time Square



Madame Tussadds at Time Square



People flock the Avenue of Americas for a Street Fair ( Radio City in the Background).