As I slowly open my eyes, the sun is yet to shine and the monsoon clouds are threatening the sun from coming out. The scenery infront of me is a green grassland fully wet, droplets on leaves that are shining like silver to my photographic eyes and an occasional human attending to nature’s call on the field. As the train gains speed, the view outside my window keeps on changing from farm lands, mountain range, little peaks, small villages, a lonely tree, old bridges, dried up rivers, herds of sheep grazing what's left in the land and never once boring. I get excited as a child would on all train journeys. There is something wonderful when travelling by train that I couldn't pin point. I sit in our side lower seat (the most preferred when I travel by train) and try reading the station names during the brief time the train takes to cross it. One of my favourite pastimes after staring out of window. The language on the station board changes from familiar Tamil to the sprawled jilebi characters and then turns to omnipresent Hindi announcing the crossing of various states indirectly.
All these beautiful scenes are on our way to Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve, one of the few places in the world to spot to tigers in the wild and this time our focus is only on safaris on all four days. Try to soak in as much of the forest as possible before returning to our concrete jungle. We are hoping the monsoon wouldn't play spoilsport on our safaris. Fingers crossed.
