Through those Hills..

“The Mountains are calling and I must go…”

Yes hill stations are the beginning and end of the natural sceneries and I was lucky enough to visit one. KODAIKANAL- princess of hill stations is a 21.45 sq. km wide and 2133m high town in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Kodaikanal in Tamil means “The Gift of the Forest”.

The spots of Kodai were no less than any heavenly feel. My bus journey from Bangalore to Kodaikanal was a treat for vision in itself. I went through the eastern zones of Western Ghats with all serpentine roads, lush green hills, waterfalls, lakes, streams, birds chirping, and amidst all these picturesque surrounding our bus zooming through.

It was morning 9 when we reached our hotel in Naidupuram area of the town where the clouds were already entering our room’s window. The view from the window was so amazing with all the tall pines and eucalyptus trees tearing away the clouds, school kids carrying both sweaters and raincoats to school, unplanned drizzles, and a chilling breeze.
Our first place of visit was La Salette Church with many steps and jungle fowls jumping here and there, next was the Coaker’s Walk - it’s basically a few meters walk along the valley which allows you a panoramic view of Kodaikanal and its mixed kind of terrain with mountains and plains all green and fertile. Third stop being Bryant Park, a botanical garden so huge and well maintained. 
Fauna and Flora Museum was a kind of nature museum which showcased many preserved animal specimens which were once found in the town. A variety of falls we saw namely Liril Falls, Silver Cascade Waterfalls, and Bear-Shola Falls. We then visited the great Pine Forest and that view is totally unexplainable. Golf Course, Upper lake View, Pillar Rocks, and the Shopping Streets were our quick scans. Though shopping attracted me a lot I bought few gifts for my friends back at Gujarat and the famous homemade chocolates from kodaikanal's chocolate factory.

Kodai is small yet a very beautiful town and still when I close my eyes and recollect I can only see colourful flowers, green hills and lots of clouds passing by blurring all my vision.

From Kodaikanal we started our journey towards the city of temple – Madurai and the way down the hills was fascinating and adventurous. Many troops of bonnet macaques and birds like red whiskered bulbul, whistling thrush, hill myna, jungle crows were all waiting on the highway to bid me a bye.

And this was my journey through those hills…

The PINE FOREST.

Those HILLS.

A view from that Window..!!

“SET WIDE THE WINDOW AND LET ME DRINK THE DAY…”

We all have that one special window at our homes where we sit down and gaze out aimlessly and just love being alone with that window. Some have a great techno park or mall view outside, some have their luxury car parking, some have a bridge view, some have the sea shore view, while some have mountain views it’s all upon one's personal choice which window to sit at. Well my house too has many windows with many different views but the special window of my choice is the one of living room's which has the garden view.

In a day, often I come here sit all alone with a cup of coffee and watch outside aimlessly, observe things around, just spend some time with the nature outside that window. It’s not just a plain garden it instead is a big life which supports and host many other lives small and big.
Ours is a small, organized and well maintained green garden. We have many plant species nearing to some 70 different pots and plants while few are prominent fruit and flowering plants like Mango, guava, custard apple, pomegranate, lemon, loranthus berry tree and many common flowers like roses, caselpinia, ixora, mogra, lilly, marigold, hibiscus,adendium etc.

The garden doesn't only support these plant lives but also provide shelter to smaller organisms like ants, grasshoppers, cicada, honeybees, many different butterflies, moths and flies, earthworms, millipedes, frogs, wall lizards, garden lizards etc. A number of birds like red vented bulbul, Indian robin, magpie robin, common myna, spotted doves, rufous treepie, tailor birds, purple sunbirds, jungle babblers, greater coucal, asian koel, rose ringed parakeet, black kite, domestic crow, fan-tail flycatcher, green bee-eater, house sparrows, golden oriole and pigeons. Among the small mammal guests we have squirrels, bats, rodents like rats and mouse, domestic cat, and non-human large mammal guests are Hanuman langurs (my frequently visiting friends)

We even have a double sitter swing in our garden which is rarely used by us but more by babblers and doves. It’s just a treat for vision seeing these creatures playing, living, communicating in our garden. We try our best not to disturb them and let them enjoy the natural habitat they found amidst these concrete jungles. I suppose more than them we enjoy watching them in our garden as not many places like this are left out in the town so we take utmost care of all our plants and try to maintain the greenery of the garden so that we have these wanted guests keep visiting.
Looking at all this from that one window is what I love the most. So much things we learn by merely looking and observing things going around in nature. Somebody has rightly said: “Look deep into the nature and then you will understand everything much better.”
We are surrounded by the answers we seek, just an alert watch is what it takes.!

So this is how my window view looks like and how about yours?? Go set out for some lone self time folks..  :)

KEEP FINDING WINDOWS TO NEW THOUGHTS...