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Caught in the wrong web -- now back to Nature

To write about myself would be like blowing my own trumpet, but still somebody must blow it so why not me myself.

As a young boy I loved to run after the birds, chase dogs in the street, jump on to a horse and ride till thrown off or just sit in the wild watching the birds whistle away a song or even appreciate the way the donkey brayed. I loved the innocent eyes of the black buffalo in the backyard and calf of the cow as it maaa….maa…….ed. When I looked at the cow, it looked like it had ‘kajal’ in its eyes. Everything seemed very fascinating to me.

For me the world was always animals, plants, trees and the jungle. I was always attracted by the jungle. I can never forget the night I was perched on a tree along a rivulet on the outskirts of Kaladhungi forest. When the moon rose like a ball on the horizon and owls around started making scary sounds, I shuddered. But that was my punishment, my mom had turned me out as I was too much of a mischief maker in my teens.

Out from the Delhi University, I was looking around to do something interesting. My interest lay in being a forest officer or else flying in the air force, but a jumping jack would not settle down anywhere. One day I found myself sitting in the editorial department of an English daily. How boring for a person like me to sit and edit shabby copies of reporters. I always looked out of the window, when will I go out in the sun? Finally I did when a I landed up as a correspondent myself in another place. They asked me my interest , what I would write about and my reply was --- nature. Nobody favoured my choice and I was always forced into writing on dull subjects like politics, economics, and everything that did not interest me. I would look at the bureau chief and always imagine getting a noose to hang him.

Then came radio experts from the West and said I could travel to that part of the world to work at a radio station. I went back home, locked myself in the bathroom and read aloud a few lines from a newspaper ---- I sounded awful. Who will take me for the radio ? But they did.

So I went across the Mediterranian, crossing the Alps, into the Rhine valley. It was not the job which interested me as much as the idea of traveling through continents, meeting people who had a different culture and ways of living. But the migratory bird always flies back home after the season and so did I. Landed myself into the country where the landscape always attracted me because it was so varied.

The foothills of Himalayas, sand dunes of Jaisalmer, the Ganga and the Yamuna across the plains, the beaches of the southern part of the peninsula, the wilds of Corbett, Kanha or Ranthambhor.. all adorned in different weathers take you to a different world , the world of nature. At the dead of the night I love to drive through the barren sand dunes of Rajasthan or ride up the hills of Himachal on a full moon night spotting a shooting star or riding an elephant in the tall grass of Corbett – so a Dutch named me Natur Man ( the nature man).

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