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My biology text book had a chapter about birds when I was in ninth standard. I vaguely remember Salim Ali being mentioned as the father of Indian ornithology in the text. The chapter went on to give an overview of a variety of habitats like fields, open areas, human dwelling and forests and described about the kind of birds that inhabited each of those terrains. When the lessons were completed, our biology teacher Hussain gave us a field assignment. We were asked to look for birds in the vicinity of the school for a few days and make field notes based on our observations.

An Indian Coromorant enjoying its breakfast
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Last year, I along with a friend went to Mathura and Vrindavan. This was sort of my mother’s plan. Since I was in Delhi, my mother asked me to go to Mathura and Vrindavan, the birth place of Lord Krishna. Actually, a lot of her friends had made a trip to these places and so she was keen to see the place. But she does not like to travel. So I was to have the pleasure of these holy places. Having said that I want to say that I watched the Krishna serial and I was therefore equally delighted to go to the places where Lord Krishna was born and played.

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My trip to Mussoorie happened by chance. A friend of mine wanted to attend her school reunion. She studied in a boarding school in Mussoorie. She asked me to accompany her since she had no one to accompany her. I was reluctant to go at first but later seeing her plight, I decided to go with her.

We took a local bus to go to Dehradun which is a drive of 8 hours. We reached Dehradun at midnight. My friend was hesitant to take any private vehicle so late in the night to Mussoorie so we opted to stay in a hotel. As a consequence, we missed the school reunion.

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Dwarka is one of the most pious places in hindu religion. LORD Krishna selected this area as his home and kingdom after leaving mathura. This is the place where krishna’s friend sudama came to meet him for help. I visited this place on diwali for my religious trip. We had started from SOMNATH at 6.30 am in aG.S.R.T.C bus ( 110 rupees)and took the scenic route of somnath -harshad- porbandar-dwarka. On this route road runs parallel to the sea and we see many windmills on this scenic route.

& A treat to watch are various birds nestling in water. The road brings out the romantic in you even though we were traveling in a not sooo romantic but comfortable bus. While my husband was dozing off i watched few trailers full of pink lobsters caught freshly from sea being taken to the nearest cold storage. The wind mills are quite lot in number and very near to the road….

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