My Wildlife Encounters

  A thick carpet of withered leaves some decomposed losing their form, some stern and intact with a rustle. Tiny ground beetles hopping away from my steps, wriggly worm curling between the undercover, pale shades of mushrooms growing out from this leaf bed. Such busy was living below my boots. Above these was I walking amidst a dense forest, so dense that it never showed me the sun despite being a hot afternoon. I had to constantly reassure myself that it was day and not dusk while encountering pillars of sun rays that escaped the leafspaces of the canopy. Unfamiliar calls, creaking noise of the bamboo, damp intuitions of something staring at me filled up space. In a state of quandary, I maneuvered through this wild land. Slowly, consuming a lot of time did I reach a place that underlooked the towering continuous mountain ranges of the Western ghats. Many shades of green and a single shade of blue speckled with white were the natural hues that my eyes could perceive until the farthest