How did it all start?
In 2006 when I finally fulfilled the 25-year-old dream of owing
a car, life took a turn for good. I was madly deeply and passionately in love
with my car and did everything to spend more and more time behind the wheels.
That is how the DRIVING thing started. Moreover, my first job was into field-sales
and that was another reason which catalyzed my passion for driving. Before I knew,
I was already making those long driving trips across the various states of
India.
In 2010, another life altering incident happened. I got
married! Call it luck or call it destiny, both of us were interested in nature and all our vacations started happening around nature-oriented
locations. We did love wildlife and maybe that was the reason why we went to
Jim-Corbett National Park in 2012 but we were definitely not birders then.
In 2013, we decided to take a vacation which was a
combination of both wildlife and a long drive. We decided to go to Gir National
Forest, Gujarat and planned to drive all the way up from Hyderabad. It
was the month of April, and in some way that worked to our advantage. The
forest was all dry and naked and one could see right through the dense foliage
without any problem. We stayed in Taj Gateway for 5 night and took safari
drives for both Morning and evening, everyday. Incidentally, we spotted the pride
of the Lions, right at the beginning of our trip. Now we still had 4 more days to
go and numerous safari drives at our disposal. Luckily, we were staying in Taj
and their naturalists are one of the best you could find in India. Since we already
spotted the Lion, so now the naturalist started showing us the BIRDS. Here
comes the life-altering role of a naturalist. They keep telling us about
various things, plants, trees, birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, etc. We may
or may not be interested in everything they say, but some of those things might
catch the attention and curiosity of people like us and it might turn us into
what we are today. We can never be grateful enough to the Taj Gir naturalists to
convert us into the hard-core birders that we are today. It was that trip of
Gir that converted us from nature-lovers to bird-lovers and we were officially baptized
as BIRDERS.
Although, after crossing the 800 life-list milestone, the huge craving for birding has come down significantly for both of us. We are now quite content with the birding that we have done so far. We decided that from now onwards we will not be going on core birding specific trips any more, instead we would try to go for leisure trips in India and abroad. This way we can start building memories and experiences for our old age too. I'm not very sure, how long will I be able to continue to drive. I'm not getting any younger every year and driving in India is not always the best experience too. However, till the time I have this passion intact and if my body keeps supporting me for these long drives, I'm going to continue doing it. After that it will only be leisure trips at luxurious stays combined with some casual birding.
What a great way for SOUL-SEARCHING isn’t it?
