It's not often that I get to go out with my in-laws, and not that I am
not actually looking forward to it or anything. It's just that they had visited
us and wanted to go out somewhere. They were only visiting us for two days
tops, so we had decided to go somewhere near and somewhere the kids would enjoy
as well. Taking all this in to consideration, we finally agreed to visit Bannerghatta National Park. I was so excited to go as soon as i heard that there
was a safari as well. The word 'Safari' brought all sort of jungle images in to
head. The sight of animals running in the wild, in their natural surroundings.
The reason why this got me so excited is that i love to see them in the wild.
We headed out in our car, it was bit cramped and having three
kids in a cramped car is something I'm gonna avoid in the future. Kids are so
fidgety and they keep squirming around a lot. Enough said, I wanted the drive
to end soon and I was really looking forward for the safari. I practically
bounced off as soon as we reached and ran for the ticket counter. We were made
to wait for our turn to board the bus as the first bus was filled with
foreigners. I didn't have a problem waiting as i was taking in the natural and
peaceful surrounding and the kids left me alone :)
I ran to the bus when they called us out to board the bus. I
took a seat right at the front as i wanted to get all possible views for seeing
and clicking away. As soon as we started, I realized with a broken heart that
this was no wild life safari. The park was designed in such a way that it gave
an illusion that it was wild. There were enclosures and electric wire fences. I
absolutely hate zoos for this very reason. I hate when animals and birds are kept in enclosures.
This is NOT the way they are supposed to live. We humans live our entire life
under some kind of enclosure, be it physical or mental. We very well know how
we abhor these restrictions, but still we extend the same courtesy to 'wild'
animals. I couldn't look anymore, I was in tears and only my husband knew why I
was crying (he knows me too well). My son was fast asleep and i used it as a
pretext to look away and shed silent tears. I really broke down when i saw
Tigers and Lions there. That was such a wrong thing to see. A White Tiger
turned around and looked straight in to my eyes and I broke down in to heavy
sobs. All I could do was apologize to it over and over again.Who knew a trip to the park would turn out to be such a traumatic experience??!!!
I love animals wild or not and hate seeing them like this.
Any animal lover will abhor this place. In the name of protecting the animals
we are enslaving them. Humanity has done this so many race of people and now
doing the same thing to animals now. We humans brought down this ill fate upon
them in the first place. I know I'm rambling a lot and probably don't make sense but this experience has really affected me in a bad way.It took me almost a week to gain an
ounce of courage to put my feeling in to words and I am aware that I have fallen
short of completely expressing them.
After saying all this it might look hypocritical to post
animal pics, but I'm posting them because they are majestic creatures and it is nice to
appreciate them.
Bear Enclosures
These gate like structures secluded one part of animal enclosures from the other.
This is the exact moment I was talking about.
More pics to come in Part2!!!!!
