My new friends.....

This last trip to India was full of new discoveries, surprises and astounding experiences both in good/bad way :). I had the opportunity to spend sometime away from the city, in the wilderness. Getting close to nature and staying in the wild, makes you appreciate the beauty of nature. So, I decided to camp in one of mountains for some days and the experience I had was one of its kind; physically challenging, mentally rewarding and personally fulfilling. The good part of living there was that I had to be very alert in my activities (hiking, reading, star gazing etc), as if I was not alert that would have been the last thing I would do (you get the point :). This experience when the mind is focussed 100% on whatever it is doing always gives me a sense of deep satisfaction. 

Someone told me there were snakes in the area, but fortunately I did not find any, though I was able to find a lot of monkeys, a few mongoose and deers here and there. Not only that I made some monkeys my friends, at-least as far I am concerned; I do not know what was going on in their mind. I fed them with stuff I used to eat and they used to freaking enjoy that, to an extent that after sometime some of them used to hold my hand and feed themselves. Out of the many things I watched about our ancestors/my friends one of them stood out; which was the way they used to peel banana. Their style is more efficient than humans. Briefly, instead of opening the banana from stem, they used to open it from the opposite side i.e. pinch the other side and peel off. It works guys!!! 

Other than that I had a great time watching stars, , satellites (I think they were satellites, as they were moving) and planets during the night time, which unfortunately is impossible to do in the city. On one night I counted close to a 6000 stars after which I fell asleep/tired/confused.

Thats me @ twilight.

In total, it was a nice experience as it always brings a silence (mental and vocal) to my senses, a state I find hard to resist. 

Me - just an hour before leaving for the city. Friends bidding a goodbye.

Goodbye

AM