Over the weekend - 2

Imagine actually experiencing that proverbial "breath of fresh air" and realising that it feels exactly like how you had experienced it in your mind. There is this playful breeze that runs around the estate and keeps coming at you as though it knows that you are there to enjoy the feeling of the air on your face, as though it knows that these are things that you will truly appreciate as you are one of those who dying for a lungful of the crisp mountain air.

Imagine that all that you can see is hedged-in fields that have been ploughed and which await the first showers of the monsoon and you wait for first drops of rain to fall with the same enthusiasm of a 4 year old who has seen his first rains and has had to wait for a full year for the second one. Imagine wishing for the rains to come down just to have the smell of the earth after the first rains fill up the place around you for hours together.

Imagine walking in these fields and forests barefoot, and feeling the cold earth from the banks of a river between your toes. You feel the squishy mud underfoot and expect it to be slimy and slippery but it affords considerable grip to you bare feet much to your surprise. You walk thru the mud and twisted grass and come across the foot prints (and dung) of an elephant that seems fresh to your untrained eyes only for your escort to tell you that these are half a day old.

Imagine no television and none on the mundane news channels or the ultra-soapy soaps that channels insist on foisting on our senses. Suddenly you realize that you have so much time on your hands that a normal 24-hour day seems to be twice as long and you have all the time in the world to go for walks, to stop and smell the flowers, to just sit and stare into the distance with no thought process cranking away at the back of you head. It almost like you have an agreement with time for 24 hours where you are at the receiving end of the bargain.


Imagine, no faces other than the ones that you want to see; a bunch of people who seem appear out of nowhere when you want something and just seem to melt away into the foliage when they are done with their tasks. A welcome change from the congested and crushed daily lives that we live in the cities without any space to even stroll at night without one of those pesky call centre vehicles or those obnoxious autos honking just to announce their presence.

Imagine you are a dog lover who petted every stray and waif in your locality but could never get a dog of your own and you suddenly have access to not one but 4 dogs and one of them is an absolutely adorable spaniel who will flop down by your side with his cute little moist nose on your leg and just expect to be petted for the only reason that he likes it. He will nudge you if you stop and believe you me when i say that those eyes can talk and express contentment like no human can. I say this to anyone who says that spoken language is a need for communication, just look into the eyes of any animal (man discounted) and you will see an emotion, the likes of which you might have never ever seen before and may never see again.

Imagine your surprise when you realize that this estate in a land far far away is much much more environmentally friendly than you ever imagined (yourself) to be. Bio-gas fuel for cooking, management of bio-degradable waste and a mini sewage management unit, which actually cuts out the crap :-) and then sends the water to do better things than ending up in a drain that leads to nowhere!

I did all things and much more at this place called Swarga in Sakleshpur and enjoyed every single moment of it.


Next post: The driving experience.