Encounter with Nature. Review on Mysore

It was early morning that I woke up. I was sleeping on the top berth of three 3-tier arrangements of seats. The seats below my berth were still crowded and there was no place for me to seat. After freshening up myself and having breakfast I settled down with my book “Horse Sense”. It was amusing to know about the big breaks, big people had in their life, like Bill Gates, Mac Donald’s etc.

By the time we reached Dharwad, which is around half the distance to Bangalore from Mumbai, the train became quite empty. I took a side window seat. As it is the song,

“aap ke haseen rukh pe aaj nayaa noor hain

meraa dil machal gayaa to meraa kyaa kasoor hain…”

was humming in back of my mind, all the time. The nature was at its best approaching the twilight slowly. The train was rushing madly towards its destination at an infinite distance. The lonely tracks which runs through the fields, villages, and mountains and over the streams and rivers. I was transported into my own world of thoughts and observations; it was like taking a break from our regular life and getting into meditation, all alone, within oneself.

The sky was covered with a soft white cotton sheet. In between, the sheet of white clouds getting stretched and exposing a small window of light behind it and again being covered only to open a new window somewhere else. The white clouds being replaced by gushing flock of dark clouds and then drizzling of rains, it was like I was in a time machine of some scientific fiction novel moving speedily from one season to another. The darkness and the drizzling landscape painted by these clouds, made me hum the song,

“Raat Kali Ek Khwaab Mein Aayi

Aur Gale Ka Haar Hui…”

The fields passing across my eyes were so beautiful and colourful, sometimes never ending green paddy fields, then all of a sudden a big patch of evenly placed coconut trees standing like a batch of disciplined soldiers in rows. In between these you have a beautiful hue of red colour mud patch, properly ploughed looking so fertile and ready to give birth to new crops and decorated with a boarder of green cactus. Then while my eyes are grazing through this combination of green and red, I see another beauty of long date trees and banana trees with its long heavy leaves swaying in the breeze. In between the shades of green and brown, you would not believe, I was treated with bright feast of yellow sunflower fields with all their faces turned towards one direction.

“Chaudvin Ka Chand Ho, Ya Aaftaab Ho

Jo Bhi Ho Tum Khuda Ki Kasam, Lajawab Ho…”

The flat landscape of different colours and the facades of changing hues over the sky, and then suddenly my eyes are treated with range of mountains of different shapes. Some made up of beautiful huge stones with artistic grains over it and decorated beautifully by green shrubs in between its creases.

Morning again I was back in train with a small break in a hotel room of Bangalore. So in the morning I started for new encounter with new set of landscapes. This time it had brighter look and it was more colourful too. There were small villages, with few small cottages with beautiful gardens surrounded by small red and yellow coloured flowers. One of the places also exhibited some big purple flowers. The women here also inevitably have white and orange flowers in their oily and nicely combed long and thick hairs.

This morning I was humming the song,

“Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas Tum Rehti Ho

Jeevan Meethi Pyaas Yeh Kehti Ho

Pal Pal Dil Ke Paas Tum Rehti Ho…”

The way to Mysore also had small streams of muddy water gushing below the tracks and between the fields. I had a beautiful vision embedded in my mind, a small group of people sitting in the middle of field and having their morning breakfast. Evening, after finishing my work in Mysore, I couldn’t resist myself from going to Chamundi hill and believe me it was worth it. The way up to 3850 feet above the sea level was through a very gradual sloped ghat of a short distance of few tens of kilometres. The valley below looked very pleasant and calm. On reaching the top of the hill just before the entrance of the temple there is a spot from where you can see the whole aerial view of the Mysore city. The palace, the well planned streets, paddy fields, and coconut trees and small dwellings scattered all over.

After my stay in Bangalore and on the way back to Mumbai, I had another such encounter with nature when the train passed through Lonavala and Khandala. Here the vision was made more beautiful and vivid by the tunnels and waterfalls. Passing through the dark tunnel and then once being placed in front of waterfalls and deep valleys after the next. Its always a surprise what you find at the end of it but one thing is sure, it would be beautiful. The train was descending from a height, so during the start, it was like you being above the clouds which covered the valley below and then gradually coming at par with gushing streams of water and the fields. In this region the mountains are fully covered with trees and bushes and you see only green mountains with some red at the creases. The greenery was also more wild and thick. The sheets of creepers all growing over each other covered the trees and heavily flowing waterfalls all over the slopes. Making me hum

“Kahin Door Jab Din Dhal Jaye

Sanjh Ki Dulhan Badan Churaye

Chupke Se Aaye…”