Jungle owlet hoots early in the dawn
And drags me out of my dream
Unwillingly, I molt from the sleeping bag
‘Let’s go commandos’ I hear a call
He’s none other than our Raju dai!
Around the fire, we gather
Rapid fire round ticks in the clock
Heart beats as if it’s gonna explode now
Everyone looks pale as if they are sentenced
to hell.
With the arms and ammunitions (C’mon not for
the war)
Including binoculars, books, note books, pen
and camera
Along the transects we march ahead into the
wild.
Oh, that’s black kite points one
No, that’s Osprey yells another
‘sssh, this is a jungle not a fish market’
We start whispering.
Few steps ahead, we fit our camera traps
Hoping to capture all the animals
When it comes to perform walk test
I am always a Rhino!
We hear a strange noise behind the bushes
Wow, there’s a rhino enjoying his meal
Hiding behind the trees, we try to have a
glance
And enjoy the scene.
Following the pugmarks, scats and pellets
We run across the river, forest, grasslands
Every day is a new learning
And a new experience!
Unloading ourselves around the fire
And howling like jackals
Having fun with no limitations
Followed by some important lessons.
Power-points, paper-works and all the hard
tasks
Inspiring movies and wonderful documentaries
were just amazing
(With the background music of snores was
always well collaborated)
Birds to cats and pugmarks to scats
Butterflies to snakes and frogs to crocs
We kept on following but sometimes it sucks!
No matter how far we walked
No matter how hard we worked
All the memories that we spent together
are fresh like the scats in the bank of
Narayani.
With the aspirations to become
Wildlife biologists, birdist or
Experts of herpeto-fauna and butterflies in
the days to come
We march ahead into the wild!!
