Into the world of angels - 2

Account of a interesting one day trip to Ranganatittu...part two

Team: Sandy, Anand, Shre, and myself

"During our days, peacocks used to come out into our backyards," the old grandma of my cousin had said when on a visit to her remote village, near my native place, ten years back. “Kaala ketthogidhe," (Kannada equivalent of 'The world is not a good place anymore') she said, and added that nowhere do you get to witness such wonders anymore.
The old grandma was definitely virtuous, but alas! She was wrong. There was indeed such a place. And it was not more than a few hours drive from Bangalore.
This is the surprisingly simple village of Kokkrebellur. The place swarming with exotic birds, in people's backyards!!!

Returning from an enchanting trip to Ranganatittu, we drove to and fro on the Bangalore - Mysore highway, in search of that elusive deviation to Kokkrebellur. Occasionally, we stopped the car to ask for directions. Something that surprised me was the enthusiasm in the localites to jump to our help. As soon as we stopped at a road side petty shop and lowered the dark window glasses, the group picketing there turned to stare at us, like the deer on witnessing the tiger, as seen on National Geographic. But, as soon as we shot the question 'Where's Kokkrebellur?' the scene changed as deer pounced on us to drive into our brains, the exact route to the place.
After some misdirection, we finally got the correct direction from a road side 'Coconut milk' vendor. It is interesting to see such coconut milk vendors, at brief intervals on the highway, in their own makeshift shop, consisting of only a shelter made out of palm tree branches, placed over a skeleton of thick wooden sticks.
The route to Kokkrebellur is announced by a flaking board, on the left of the Bangalore - Mysore highway.

The route is supposedly eight kilometers. The route begins with the sudden change from the ultra smooth highway to the unkempt village road. But, as we proceed further, we begin to notice that the road begins to resemble Mallika Sherawat's clothes, almost hardly visible. Soon, the road loses its battle with the potholes, and gives way to a long stretch of muddy village road.
"How can such a popular tourist place be in such tatters?" I mused aloud, but we were actually happy that the village was not very well connected. If it were, then we would definitely have met up with a few Santro cars loaded with bored software engineers, on the way, carrying crates of beer bottles, which would eventually land up in the neighboring fields.
As we came across bisection in the road (?), we stopped to enquire about Kokkrebellur
"This is Kokkrebellur," uttered the villager, a thick bearded man in sleazy shirt.
"Where can we see the birds, the cranes," I asked him, not sure if this layman would know the location of the sanctuary.
"You can see them everywhere," he said, to our bewilderment, "Just go ahead in this road."
Everywhere???
We drove ahead, curious to know what he meant by everywhere. Wouldn't there be a sanctuary, like Ranganatittu? A lake perhaps. Or some sort of an enclosure where we would be directed, after a nominal ticket charge?
And a parking fee?

Suddenly, we heard the loud quacking, and the chirping of the birds from 'everywhere'. We stopped the car, and peeped out of the window to witness one of the most surprising spectacles that I have ever seen. There were some pelicans atop a tree, totally unguarded, in the backyard of a hut. This was, indeed beyond our beliefs, but definitely true. The pelicans, the painted storks, and many other exotic birds were on the top of these trees, which lay on the unprotected backyards of the village huts!!!

We parked our car, and came out gunning our cameras at whatever we could see. Very different from the ambience in Ranganatittu, Kokkrebellur gave us good shots of the birds, due to the close proximity. As I walked along the dusty, village road, I saw a painted stork on a tree, suddenly bursting into a series of quacks. It reminded me of some priests of Trichi temples, who would suddenly blurt out mantras as soon as they see some devotees approaching the deities, and this forced puja would cost you nothing less a hundred bucks :D

As I got my camera ready, the bird became silent. I held my camera steady, and with focused lens, stood motionless, waiting for the grand bird to break into quacking the mantra. And it did. And I shot.

You can see it here

There was one more interesting shot, where another painted stork gave an ecstatic expression, as it stretched its neck, in an angle beyond belief.

You can see it here

As we wandered around the village, we met up with a lot of friendly villagers. The interesting people were going about doing their routines, some working on silk worm cultivation, some working in the fields, some women carrying water, where as some younger women were busy in cleaning their front yards.

Click!Click!Click!!!

The village kids were captured on the frame, playing around a bullock cart. It was a great experience to show the kids, the pictures taken, in the LCD preview screen (of the digital camera). The excitement amongst the kids, on looking at their images, in this magical 'TV' had an infectious effect as the young women around joined the kids in their requests for the pictures to be taken.

Ladies and Gentlemen!!! For the next half hour, I was the Shah Rukh Khan, who was being sought after by everyone around. :D

Soon, it was dusk, and time for us to leave. But, some of the kids who had accompanied us, and had their pictures taken, started asking for money. This was anti climax!!! All the time I was priding myself for being admired for. And now, it was payback time :(.
I wasn't the Shah Rukh now, but surely, they were the Khans for the day. :(
I gave some money to one of the boys, and told all others to take their shares from him.

A bit disillusioned, but with the satisfaction of having been able to witness the birds in their magnanimous forms, and been able to take a set of good pictures, we drove back the dusty road towards the highway.

As the Sun descended behind the hills, we moved towards the glittering lights of the big city. It was indeed, one day into the world of angels.

Thank you for being a part of my experience for this trip to Ranganatittu and Kokkrebellur.

Hope you have a great week ahead.

With warm regards,
Teju