Summoned by nature - on the nature trail.

Summoned by nature - on the nature trail

In the corporate world, Friday is usually a day adorned and awaited by many, relaxed by the so called assumption of the approach of the weekend and relieved by the fact that all which is left out has a monday to it to worry over. A thought of a break from the five day burn out and stress is all what is needed from this day and all preparations towards the later part of the day are focussed to achieve that break. Although, the friday of 2012, Aug 24th was not one of those when it started. Heavy chains of work had anchored the day to keep the ship laden with work from swaying over the thought of the coming weekend, a lot had to be achieved and attention span had to be focussed towards completion. It was at 4 o clock in the evening, that the day's events took a U turn as the team announced the strong desire to spend moments of relaxation by watching a movie. This meant that all work had to be completed and systems had to be shut down latest by five since the show started at six. Plans were made and quickly everyone left, the theatre was a long way down. The road was stomped with traffic and was exclaiming with desperation. We set out in towards the destination, by the time we reached it was almost fifteen minutes past, and some of the movie was lost. Another two hours, it finished and then we all had dinner which took a bit long, because of a fluster of events which proved to be good at the end. Transportation took another hour an a half and it was already 12:30 in the morning of next day before I reached home. It was a long day, which had become shorter by the thought of an early awakening for the big event that day - an amble amidst the nature. The alarm rang, and before the realisation of the new day crept in, the hustle to get ready started its rage.

Before I knew it, I was standing on the bus stop, supposedly the last pick up point on the trip, awaiting for the bus to the destination to arrive. I was lucky to have gained the extra minutes on sleep, although hardly noticeable to me, since I was boarding from the last pick up point. The bus arrived, and the three quarter of a dozen of our bunch started getting in. To my amazement, the whole bus was nearly filled up, there were only a few set of seats which were empty. I took a seat preferably next to the one near the window to enjoy the cool breeze and sunny weather the day had bought up. With no traffic on the rather relaxed roads, the bus raced across flyovers and tolls to reach the 'Fountain Hotel' a premiere landmark for the entry gate of the Nagla block. It stopped just before a small patch of ground covered with all trees. The view of the highway was superb, to the right was the huge lake with calm waters, to the left at the farther end was a visible hilly patch covered with all greenery emerging out in an attempt, trying to showcase the joy of the season it was experiencing within. We all got down from the bus and could see a very small gate with a visible small trail of mud & stone covered road going up. We started climbing up the hill. It was a perfect weather, the sun was warm and bright, and the wind was just right to keep the warmth to a level which felt great, there were a few patches of dark clouds which were hovering here and there waiting for a chance to pour their heavy load of water to the earth.  We had all our gear ready which included - the camera's, the food packets which had just been distributed to us and the rather suddenly and randomly needed umbrellas as well. There was a first aid box with the group also which was kept in case required.  We split up into sets of three and started the ascent, each group having its own guide who could actively spot the natural wildlife and could give detailed information about it. It was a tranquil place with no pollution or sound of vehicles, traffic and people. As we walked into it , all we could hear was the chirping of birds, each having a distinct note which sounded wonderful. We had just begun and immediately we saw a wild hen with chicks walking past us, although I think it just noticed our footsteps and moved rapidly to hide into the green bushes. As we moved further, our guide and leader, immediately spotted a tree ant nest built by a single polydomous colony of ants. It was superb and rigidly built standing the heavy rainfall, direct sun or wind and was holding on to the tree firmly. Such nests were a marvel as they could stand like this for long times and house huge number of ants. As we moved on we saw a number of press me nots on the ground, which closed as we pressed their leaves which was spectacular. There were a huge number of butterflies each variedly coloured which were hovering round the woods and bushes. The guide stopped us immediately, he had spotted something which he wanted to show us, to one corner in the midst of tree leaves was a huge cob web. It was perfectly symmetrical and was woven with much care, at the centre of the web was sitting a well relaxed arachnid arthropod with bright yellow colour and black strips with a red huge dot at the back. It looked superb and was not noticeable from a layman's eyes. We immediately took out our cameras and started taking snaps of this wonderful living being. After a long session of photography we moved on, on the way we could see varied type of species of trees and plants which were not found commonly and were specific to this area. It was said that there were more than one hundred and fifty different type of plant species which were present in this bundle of natural beauty. One of the trees had a single branch eminenscing from it trying to reach the sky and was twisted to form a 'z' shaped figure with a single flower on the top. It looked quite exclusive. We saw spittle bug or spit bug, a bug which produces a cover of frothed-up plant sap resembling a spit. As nymphs they hide out in these foamy spit like substances. Some spits were quite big. As we traversed we could see numerous grasshoppers of all sizes camaflauging themselves in the midst of the deep greenery present in the trail. We took snaps of these as they looked quite wonderful. On the trail we saw a number of ginger root and turmeric trees. Some of these trees had flowers which looked spectacular. As we progressed up on the trail, we were greeted with a flock of red bees and flies which were hovering around green leaves of plants in the trail. As we moved further up on the trail, we were accosted by the much awaited downpour, a flock of clouds had gathered on the top of us and were coming down with a heavy downpour. Many resisted the temptation to get wet, although some couldn't. I wasn't in a mood to keep the camera inside and so tried to get a few snaps of the trail with the down pour, under the cover of an umbrella. On the way, we saw 'bombax malabarica', a tree which is well known in the Ayurveda world for its medicinal value. We also saw tall trees with thick branches, roots and shoots, winding and hanging from the top, which in the virtual world were used by tarzan to traverse from one place to another. They were huge and magnificant. On the way up we saw a tree with huge leaves which looked like a big brother of a banana leaf but had no bananas and had a structural similarity of a palm tree. Later we found that it was a palm tree species which looked like a banana tree. As we traversed up further, we could see long climbers and shrubs having fruit which resembled like small black grapes but were wild berries. We spotted a few wasps and grasshoppers here and there which seemed to have themselves well hidden in the confines of nature. We saw different spiders, some of them had a double web which looked like thick coiled wires woven around them in spirals extending into huge webs covering spans of trees. We saw a green reptile like insect which looked like a green viper patiently waiting for its catch. We tried to catch one to have a better look but it was damn quick and vanished in into the greater greener camaflouge in a blink of an eye. As we moved further, we saw various moths and harvester ant nests. They were so called because they have a habit of harvesting seeds . These nests are carefully built and are not affected by changing weather conditions and are guarded by soldier ants. We were lucky to see mating of butterflies, a rare sight quickly captured by many cameras. We saw a lot of small multicoloured bugs, wild mushrooms and a huge caterpillar. There was a huge bush and a tamarind tree from which we picked a few rain washed tamarinds to suit our tastes as we enjoyed the stroll. The rainfall stopped and we reached close to our destination, the small lake. We could see only water with hills at the far end, the view of this water body was excellent. We rested for some time in the tranquil of the clean environment and some of us munched on our lunch packets and took snaps of the beauty of nature before we continued our journey back. As a part of the eco friendly lot, we were cautious to just leave our footprints behind and carry all the rest back with us, and also may be do a little clean up drive as well, if possible. 

On the way back we were welcomed by a row of flowers which was again a snap site for many and a bunch of monkeys. The sun came up and it was rather bright this time. We hurried our way back to reach the end of the trail. The walk was quick, which ended on the highway. Having experienced and enjoyed the quite and clean environment moments back we found it acceptable to hear the sound of vehicles roaring on the highway. All were tired but happy and some of them had their belongings still drenched with rainwater. The buses came and we hurriedly got into the bus. The air felt like a cool breeze touching us with a lullaby in the midst of the day. In short, it was a wonderful trip and it made us realise the importance of the presence of nature and become aware of the fact of the steps to take to preserve it on this earth.