Monday, May 05, 2008

Another Mysore trip

Whenever we have a long break and we can't think of anything to do, we make a trip to Mysore. Avid readers of my blog would have figured out by now that I love that place like it was my own. Well, actually, it is my own.

Due to the little uns with us ( 5 years or younger), we were obliged to do the zoo. Not the most exciting prospect for me as I have been to the Mysore zoo about 2 times in my 40 years. The last trip was in 1988 where a misguided bunch of us college students ended up with the animals no doubt pursuing game in the nature of the fairer sex.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that they've really cleaned up the place. It used to be a dump with the man eating Bengal Tigers resembling cows from drought stricken areas that are often shown on TV and educe a few dismayed clucks and head shakes from us before we change the channel to understand who Kareena Kapoor is doing now.

Ok, back to the zoo. Lots of private sponsors have transformed the animal pens into remarkably clean and healthy environments. True, it’s quite sad to see a full grown tiger in a cage but at least they have a lot of place to roam around during the wild-life office hours (8:30 a.m. – 5:30 p.m.).

The kids of course had tons of fun and the one thing that struck the human adults (me included) was the enormity of the African Tusker indifferently munching branches the size of a Cessna.

I also got to see some snakes, an ever fascinating sight. All the animals, birds and reptiles looked in good physical form. The only drawback of the private sponsorships for the animals was that the names of the sponsors appeared in large bold type (Font Size: 450) and the actual inhabitant of the cell or cage had it’s name in an unassuming size 20 font. This resulted in us having to put our face about 6 inches from the sign to figure out if we were looking at a white tailed African Mongoose or Mr. & Mrs. Chellamulla Vandrapondi.

Due to a non-committal remark by my aunt to the kids that there was a water park in Mysore, we were pummeled into taking the brats to GRS Water Park, a behemoth of a park with all sorts of fun things to do in and outside water. The park is actually quite good and as usual the kids had a blast. Mysore being what it is, the water activity areas were resplendent with large, dark women fully clothed in saris and salwars frolicking mindlessly in the water. There were even ladies with dupattas in the water, not to forget all their jewelry which was probably a good thing since I doubt those trinkets had been washed since the weddings in 1954.

Always a nostalgic time in Mysore, we finally bid adieu on Sunday and got back to the pollution, noise and traffic that passes off as Bangalore City, or is it Bengaloory City-yu?

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