Last friday, we had a team meeting in our office and before the meeting started,few of us were looking at few ponds near office from the window view of the conference room 😀 , and there were few discussions about the water bodies , during which there was a comment from one of my colleagues , “There are few such ponds in the OMR also and I have seen some birds there during this season ” , to which another one added , ” Yeah , have you visited Vedanthangal birds sanctuary ! This is the bird-watching season and it is going to end , may be 1 or 2 weeks, it is already starting to heat up.” Another said ,” I missed it . I can’t go even this weekend , I am busy. ” I said to myself , ” Aaga , innum Chennaile paakka vaendiya idangal neraya irukku poala! ”
I wanted to visit the sanctuary before the season ended. So , I asked few of friends if they are ready on saturday . But none responded positively and I had to drop the idea. Generally , I don’t mind going alone , but thank God I did’nt do that this time, since it was a three and half hours journey from our place (travelling alone in bus , so long would have been a terrible mokkai 😀 ).
Wednesday was a holiday for Republic day and Tuesday evening I had 2 offers for the next day . One of my colleagues had plans open for Queensland, theme park and Bharathi (Lisieux) called me that evening and said, ” Dey , naalaikku naan inga Chennaile thaan irukkaen , free thaan , bird sanctuary poalaamnye , naalaikku poalaamaa ?” . Finally I settled with bird watching.
We started around 10 from Thiruvanmiyur RTO , took 30 Rs ticket each and reached depot. Because of that ticket , we boarded an empty Deluxe T51 bus (though there were some other express buses, ready to leave even with seats available). We sat in the 2nd row from the driver , myself in the window seat and him in the aisle seat 😉 . There was a mirror above driver’s seat facing us .
He said , “inga paarra kannaadi vechchirukkaanga” and started adjusting his hair .
“Enga da , enakku theriyalye ?! ” . He pulled me and said , ” ippo ingirundhu paaru theryudhaa ” . Me too started adjusting my hair .
“unakku correcta thaan da irukku ”
I continued to adjust and said to myself , “Azhagan da ! ” (just like Karthi says in ‘Naan Mahaan Alla’ :D)
“nee azhagan thaan da , poadhunda ! 😀 ”
“Intha dialogue theriyunthaane !, Karthi solluvaan ”
“Ethule ?”
“Naan Mahaan Alla’le , kannaadiya paathuttu solluvaan ”
“oh”
Then the bus started after 10 minutes and then we went to Tambaram -> Chengalpattu-> Vedanthaangal. It was a 3 and 1/2 hours journey, which we spent by exchanging the songs in our mobile via bluetooth.
Finally , when we reached our spot, it was already 2 pm . There were more than ten types of birds , only on the boards on the sides of the walking path . We could see only 2 types of birds in the pond, may be we were late by 2 or 3 weeks. We needed not more than 20 minutes to cover the entire thing. Then we spent time in photo sessions and by throwing stones in the water and competing for maximum number of bounces before it finally settles down , which my friend won with 4 bounces , yes he was an experienced player ! 😛 . Unfortunately, neither of us had a good camera and we had to be contented with whatever we got from my 2MP mobile phone camera
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