The 3 hour journey

Saturday had bored me. I wanted to go out somewhere far from the crowds for sometime. Was facebooking in the night when P suddenly pinged me. We were experiencing the same kind of distress. A quick plan was made to some random destination which both of us had never visited. Set an alarm to wake up early, got up late, left the house in a hurry.
P had been waiting in the bus stop by then.
Clouds looked angry, and hinted me not to travel by bike. So I parked my bike in a bus terminus and got into a bus. The main purpose of this getaway was to get some good photographs as both of us were photo-hungry(esp me).
It took 3hours to reach SP. An auto-rickshaw guy was our guide for the rest of the day. We went to all the surrounding places. A temple, followed by a river, a fort, the summer palace of Tipu Sultan were some of the places we visited. Clicking all the way!
All done, we headed to the bird sanctuary. I didn't have the proper gear (lens) to photograph birds. Rangantitto is a very famous place for migratory birds. Variety of birds from as far as South Africa visit here every year, thousands of them! Though it was Sunday, this place was calm and far from chaos, and that is what I liked about it. Both me and P enjoyed the short trip.
Came back with some cold and sore throat.
More of my clicks can be found here : http://flic.kr/ps/YyGAT

do schools like these exist?

What if you open the door in the morning, come out, yawn, and see a wild elephant there greeting you, or a bunch of deer giving you a smile. This is the way they begin their life here. It was a village where I had been to yesterday, and it was a day filled with full of different experiences. As a part of our volunteering, we had been to several villages, specifically the Government schools in those villages to distribute some items like toothpaste, toothbrush, bathing soap etc.. to satisfy their basic needs. The conditions of these schools? Don't ask. This was my first visit to a Govt school. I didn't expect it to be so bad and ill-maintained. If it rains, the classroom would leak seamlessly! Govt has just constructed the school and left. No maintenance what so ever!  We were able to cover about 5 schools yesterday near SH. The children, needless to say, were so innocent, cute, and full-of-themselves. It felt so nice to be among them :)

In the first school, there were only 2 teachers in the whole school and they taught students right from Nursery to 4th grade (this school had only schooling till 4th grade). The teachers here travel for about 4 hours to reach the school. School starts at 11am and gets over by 3pm. I didn't know schools like this existed. Teachers were greatly committed to keep the school up and running. I was taken aback.
After distribution here we moved to the next school. Similar situation. The strength of the school was 30- and that was from the 1st grade to the 10th grade in total. 4 teachers here.

Since all these schools are surrounded by forests, the students had to walk the risk of running into elephants when they commute to school. Though it sounds like a day-to-day usual task for them, can you imagine our parents let us go to school by walk, and that too in a forest inhabited by elephants? I don't think so! That's the way they live. They live in the wild, with the wild. Swamiji taught them some songs, and then we left the school. Moved on. .

After finishing all visits as planned, we had tea in a roadside village shop, and we thought we'd venture into the forest to see if we're lucky to spot some elephants. Man, as it is I was kicking myself for not carrying my cam along. And things happen when you least anticipate them. We climbed up this watch tower to see if we can spot any. (pic taken from my phone)

Whoa! What a moment! We found 3 elephants, big ones. Full happy happy :P But they were far. We wanted a closer view. We got down and walked, climbed, and made our way to a small hillock which gave us a perfect view. There were 6 elephants along with a small baby elephant :) Throughout the way we were pricked by thorns, shirts got a little damaged; but to tell you, it was all worth the effort. We stood there for around 1 hour just gazing at them, their wild, and free life! Amazing sight I must say. We brought home memories, and some pics which I'll post in my next write-up coz I haven't received it from my friend yet. I'd love to write more, but I guess I'll stop here :)

AJ

I met Aj today, my long-time, old school friend. Unlike others, I barely get to meet my school friends. And some people I haven't met at all after school. It is simply because our houses are all far apart, though within the same city..It's been 7 years since school, and I still miss every scintilla of it.

People change. And the change looks so evident because of the attachment we had with each other. But still, our silly parts stick on...same with this guy, he has a big beard, has become very stout, but his jokes were silly, and are still the same, and I don't think that would ever change!. Commuting to school via school-bus was what made us so close. Our school bus gang was different. It was fun. Noise. So much noise that sometimes our driver used to stop the bus in between on the road, come back and hit us with the wooden-scale. He would make us sit apart, me in the front next to him, Aj in the last seat, Ak right behind him, J in between, M somewhere else. We would all look at each others faces sitting in different seats, and giggle :) now I smile.
Hitting chalk-pieces was a game that me and Aj had invented. The cheapest game on the planet.:P After classes, we all used to run up to the black-board, collect chalk-pieces, put them in our pockets and get prepared. In the school bus, we used to sit in the last seat and pelt those chalks on people who were walking or people who were on their cycles. They would look around as soon as the chalk hit them, not knowing from where it came. We would look at their reactions and chuckle. I feel bad for playing this game, because it would trouble people, but because it was "school" I guess it would be forgiven.

The water games, Christmas parties, and what not. I must tell you that one hour journey from my house to school is just un-forgettable. For every-one of us. I would love to write more about my school, but will keep some of it for my later posts. Gn!