Hey,
have been pretty busy the last couple of days, had got an allotment letter for an institute(SMVDU) in jammu, left in the evening day before yesterday, arrived early morning tomorrow, oh yah and for 3 days, me and my dad haven't even seen a bed,forget sleeping in one. one hectic journey this, travelled by bus, a painful 12 hrs journey(try spending a night on a bus seat, y'll know how painful it is) got down at the bus stop, brushed our teeth, had a bath,breakfast, left for the institutes office(not to mention an hour trek in the sun trying to find the place with a suitcase in one hand), another 1 hr bus ride to campus(swell place!!) admission formalities-filling out forms, checking out hostels, canteens etc, getting back to the bus adda(yup another bus ride and a 500m trek to the bus), another 12 hr bus ride(ok try spending two consecutive nights on a bus seat) and finally back home at 6:00 am yesterday, boy just writing all that stuff gives me the creeps.
anyway finally got admitted to a college, will be staying in a hostel there so my next blog could well be from katra(yah that's what the place is called). loved the place, situated right in the middle of a valley, need travel an hour by bus on a typical mountain road with, numerous twists, turns, tunnels and oh yah -pink face,red buts,long tails and a weird expression, you guessed it right-monkeys!! the place is monkey country. anyway back to the campus, beautiful place, red brick duplex buildings, vast fields, canteens, coffee shops, mountain streams, a hude auditorium,awesome hostels(brand new, expecially for us baby!!), surrounded all 'round by hills, one hell of a place, i would give up my guitar to study in a place like this(come to think of it, maybe i am giving it up). campus life starts on 4th of August and school starts 8th.
am really looking forward to the place, a bit nervous, but hey if i wasn't nervous, then maybe i wouldn't be excited either(or vice versa)!! only cons is that the place is slightly cut-off from journey which is not a big deal unless you have a lot of luggage (which i will have the first time i go there), lot of construction work going, numerous building coming up but will be complete sometime in the next few months,and looks like they would turn out to be great pieces of architecture adorning our campus. the nearest town is about 12 km away(katra enroute vaishno devi) and of course there's jammu but you need a one hour bus ride to reach the city. hope this the stepping stone i was looking for all these years.
as for jammu, great place, well planned, good roads, green trees, but bad weather capital!! hot during daytime(hotter than delhi i think), the sun drains out all your energy and a 20 min walk
could end up looking like a 20 days trek(trust me, i've experienced the pain). guarded by army and police throughout the day and the year i guess(oh yah!! the place is sort of a volatile region, talk 'bout thrill) , public transport systems are pretty good but a taxi ride could cost you a bomb! most building are new and the place is one street shopping paradise.
and now for the part i've been waiting for the most, a few days back an unexpected guest decided to crash land into our garden cum balcony. early morning 7:00, mom goes to water the plants and suddenly screams out my name loud!! i reach there to find out a baby pigeon, that crash landed in the balcony during it's first test flight and was hiding in the sanctity of a flower pot. i tried to grab hold of it, but it was faster than me and hid behind another pot, we tried to remove it to get to it, but it just ran to hide behind another(talk about birdbrain, being smart), after shifting a few more pots and a few unsuccessful attempts to get to the bird, we came up with a plan, mom tried to scare it so that it ran in a direction where i was already standing with my hands wide open for the bird,Gottcha Tweety!!.we decided to put it on top of an almirah in the balcony where a couple of pigeons were already breeding(yup our balcony is pigeon country),but just as i was about to put it down, it's wings gave such a flutter that i was taken aback and i let it go and it landed in a corner near out cooler. agian we tried to scare the bird out of the corner, but when it didn't budge we poked it with a it ran and hid.. in a corner of the balcony where it was impossible to get it out. but as we weren't having any more dead pigeons in our balcony, ahem, i went ahead and dragged it with my hand and i think it bruised its neck in the process(so we had a pigeon with an injured wing and a bruised neck).set it on the almirah and gave it food(rice grain) and water and went away so that it could it, but 'birdbrain' refused to budge and kept calling it's mother(instictively i guess), but heard a flutter after a couple of minutes and saw 3 grown up pigeons fly away, while the younger one while trying to fly crashlanded again, on top of the cooler, placed it' food and water there cause it squeeked in protest every time i tried to move it, so we just let it be. also covered it with an old piece of cloth as the sun wasn't taking mercy on anybody, and it was scorching hot, every time i tried to force the water container into it's beak it just stayed there withit's beak in the water refusing to drink any. when i came back after a couple of hours, and forced the beaker into his beak, he turned and looked at me for a second and i guess with a look of gratitude(or stupidity?!), went back to the conatiner and started drinking like it hadn't had water for days(probably it didn't), it was crazed by the heat and didn't care anymore if i was friend or foe. looked much better now, now that he had quenched his thirst but still refused too eat. spend the night there with us, staying at the same place, sis and dad also seem to hav taken a liking to the thing, even though sis maintained a distance. looked much up and about the next day, and though i didn't see it, i guess he had some the grain and water without me forcing him too. about 12 noon heard another sqeaking noise from the bacony, and made it just in time to see him make a runup, jump from one pot to another and then finally takeoff,maybe a bit experienced but he managed to fly a couple of metres before landing on another balcony, and after another trot, took off and flew around a wall where i couldn't see him any more. well goodbye little buddy, hope you enjoyed your time here, come back any time you want to and hope you have a great life.
cheers to the baby pigeon,
ishan 'juggernaut' roy
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