Elephants, Monkeys and Tigers
Last week, sriramb was out of town and a lot of work was stalled for various reasons. So I decided to make a quick dash into the forest and boy, oh boy what a trip that was.
At Bandipur, I got to see tons of elephants. In 2 days, I think I saw more then 50 elephants and they posed for me real nice. On one of the days, me and bunch of other folks trekked from Gopalswamybetta to the entrance of the national park. It was almost a full day trek and I’ve had one of the scariest encounter’s in the wild. While we were walking, we heard elephants near by, but we could not pin-point their exact location. We were searching for them and suddenly, this male tusker is heading straight for us (backwards). This elephant was fighting with another one and in that process, they came across us. I don’t know if they realised we were there, because we just turned around and ran like there was no tomorrow. We only stopped after we ran for half a kilometer. For the first time in my life, I ran for my life in the jungle.
From Bandipur, we headed to BR hills. Remember a while back, when I was accepted into the monkey family at BR hills ? Well, apparently monkeys have quite a good memory. It was very touching when I got back to the forest after almost a month and all these monkeys came rushing towards me and this young fella who gotten quite used to me, just came running and jumped on my shoulder. Then he spent an whole hour playing with me. I’ve put up bunch of those pics.
Jane goodall moment
Also at BR hills, I’ve had my best sighting of the Tiger till date. ravi and his brother were there too, to witness the tiger. It was 8:30pm in the night and we were driving on the main road in the jeep. We spotted the tiger and I stopped the jeep right next to it. The tiger was so close, one could have touched the tiger from the jeep. Unfortunately, I was driving, so could not get good shots, but it was amazing. Infact it kept on moving up and down the road, and we kept on following the tiger. At one point, I was really close at which point the tiger started to growl. We spent a good 15min with this tiger.
Wild tiger, up close and personal in darkness with my maglite
Another picture of the tiger where my flash actually fired. I’ll post rest of the pics in the coming days. Ok, now it’s time to get back to work.
Woah
I know who I have to hook up with as soon as I get to Bangalore. ( Dec-ish).
Amazing stuff.
Truly lived.
I am so bloody happy.
This post has a Jane Goodall moment as well as a Nick Nicholes momemt! 😉
Simply amazing!!
Two days and all this?!
Looks like the jungle doesnt want to let go of you 🙂
d monkey seems to be very considerate..
…checking for ur healthy and clean hair!
the pic is too kewl!
Re: Simply amazing!!
i agree..
And finally, we have your snap in a forest!
Question: Who took this snap? The EXIF info shows the snap being taken by a Cannon EOS 20D.
wow that’s awesome dude. 🙂
I had seen “Kaal” over the weekend.. so I can so-relate to the tiger sighting u had.
Who clicked the photos of you and the monkey?
hey kallu.. awesome pics da..
btw you are in dire need of a haircut 😉
Monkey pictures look really sweet! *Father playing with his kids*
Hair is meant to be grown! Look at all our swamis…
You should have seen teh glee on my face after this happened 🙂
Shot by Pittet family. He makes camera traps and he along with his family was with me on this trip.
And yeah, it was a 20D
http://www.csic.iisc.ernet.in/Facprof/FacultyPerpro.asp?elid=apittet
He was there with his family along with malini who worked as a naturalist with me for a while.
heh, I just got back from a nice haircut. It was long overdue 😀
The monkey pics are awesome, definitely a Jane Goodall moment, cheers!
great
you seem to have fallen into their league…
i wonder what kallu will look like with long hair..
actually i cant bear to picture it..
What insights!
Hmm his sister ?
real nice
Once again u seem to have the best shots. Just had a question though…how does one go about reducing the red eye dist at such a situation…(short notice..the tiger n all)…
Re: real nice
Almost all the camera’s these days try to get rid of the red eye automatically for you and almost all the camera again have the red eye reduction feature. So far, I have not had the issue with red eye at all.
Great pics…
Great, include us in for a trip to the jungles….
K…great pics by another good photographer. Thanks for the post. Hope you continue to be able to make these getaways!
Nice pics 🙂
S W E E T
Awesome
Hi, I cant even recall how I came across your blog, but I am blown away by what you are doing!
It is so cool to see someone who shares a passion for wildlife and animals. Maybe someday, a day in the distant future, I will just ditch all this techno-management stuff and get into something like what you are doing. But right now, I have too many commitments…
I did go through your website and the fact that you did a BE and then went on to do what you are doing now is truly an inspiration. To me, it is like a testimonial that not all is lost even if one has a BE (as far as I am concerned, doing engineering was the worst mistake of my life).
Good luck in all that you do!
—
Best Regards,
Pradyot
http://pradyot.blogspot.com
That’s a very nice picture of you….and a Fantastic picture of the Tiger… Love the light! envy you! envy you! envy you! 😉
Another envier !
Man ! . I heard about this blog from a friend of mine(www.sunran.com). I have been a freq visitor ever since . I have personally been to Bandipur and Parambikulam many time in my college days . All i wanted at that time was a little money to buy a nice camera and then spent atleast a month or two every year in the wilderness photographing ..
Well i have a camera now but im quite far from wilderness ..So i spend a good amt time watching National Geographic re-runs and drooling of the pics of NG magazine .
As many here, i envy you.For now a have that nice pic of Toad as my wallpaper .. A constant reminder of what i want to do .. someday ! .
Good luck and keep up with good work ! .
cheers,
Ajayan.
PS : it will be great if you can put the lens specs with the photos .
Thanks for a wonderful time!
Hey, this is Shashi,‘s brother. I had a wonderful time at BRT, thanks in no small measure to you and the wonderful staff there. I am wearing my BRT Camp shirt now, and fondly recall my days there. Convey my regards to Arun (?), the asst manager from Hassan, and Narayana, the local god!
Good luck with your security startup too, and if your voyages bring you to Northern California, look me up!
Some people simply keep gettin luckier
Hey kalyan,Im praveen from bangalore,I hope u rem me we spoke on the phone a couple of times.Im a lil disappointed thet u ve quit wild life as a 24 hrs job but that dosen matter as ur a lucky man.
Well jus visit this link and u may feel good.
http://www.ngm.com/wildcamafrica.
take care
Praveen(9845223287)
Superb snaps
First time here… Cool pics!!
Brilliant stuff! Came here via
Anonymous · November 7, 2005
Via Desi Pundit! It’s so amazing to see someone so passionate about life beyond office and desks.