Nature creature

Day before yesterday when I was driving down the road towards my apartment, I was suddenly taken aback with the beauty, calm and serenity of the locality that I leave in...

To make matter more clear, I live almost at the outskirt of Hyderabad city near the Golconda Fort... (The Fort is visible from my balcony and terrace and is a joy to watch each evening with the sun going down)

The entire place is an army cantonment area with the Artillery Centre of the Indian Army situated in it... Though the place has seen a lot of ravages in the last 6 months (due to road widening work in what happened to be a thickly green area with old trees providing the road with their shadow on both sides of the road) however thanks to the cantonment area and the thick green cover in terms of tree planted by the army, the area has not lost all of its charm...

Apart from the historical siginficance, the area is also famous for the Gandipet lake (which is the main source of drinking water for the burgeoning city) water park, Children's fun world, lush green resorts etc etc which makes it a popular weekend destination for all and sundry....

So what I was saying was that it never stuck me how beautiful my surrounding ambience was until yesterday...

All my life I have longed to live in such a locality with calm, serenity and peace reigning all the while... Yet when I got to stay in a similar locality I could never really notice it even after staying here so long.. May be in the hustle and bustle of daily life I have somewhere forgotten to enjoy and appreciate the sheer beauty of the place that I live in... Each day I drive to and fro to my flat without realising the rich beauty which surrounds me..

Thinking of nature, beauty and serenity I am transported to another world when I was a kid and we used to live (and still do ) in an area called Tulasipur at Cuttack which was relatively less populated with most convent and missionary schools located there... I still remember with fondness the walk that we as a family used to take through this beautiful locality with the church bells chiming in the background, a stray cuckoo singing in its beautiful tone, or of the calmness in the park by the river Mahanadi which did not have a big crowd and where we could play the see- saw, the swing and run around to our heart's content... I still remember how I used to get afraid by the mighty banyan tree with its roots hanging down.. in the darkness it used to give the impression of an old man sitting by the side of the road with his beard down...

Coupled with this I also have fond memory of my school days of traveling by this roads in rickshaw in wintery evening (when the evenings would set in early) and how we would sit in the rickshaw all petrified till we reached home...

Thinking of all the past blissful time I had with nature and the sheer joy of being in such a surrounding, my mind goes back to a poem titled "Stopping by woods on a snowy evening" by Robert Frost which I read during my school days and I quote below:

"Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. "