PHOTOGRAPHY | NATURE WALK

A Morning Walk

Not a walk in the woods — but the next best place I can afford

I can’t walk in the woods For they are far away 100s of kilometres away So I walk an untrodden path

Living in a teeming Indian metro means walking in the woods would always remain a luxuriating idea. Last week I was in my hometown in Kerala which is comparatively quaint but still, the clutches of rapid urbanization have started knocking there too.

So for the morning walk, I decided to walk to a nearby grassland and paddy fields. I had to cross a small canal to reach there. The was a canal supposedly built for supplying water for irrigation. Now no one does serious agriculture here, still, the canal flows.

The juxtaposition of modern vs traditional, urban vs rustic is best captured by these high-tension lines standing right in the middle of the green patch, carrying electricity to the energy-thirsty city.

As I walk further, I see a farmer has brought his cow for grazing. In this age of packaged milk, finding folks like him is as good as finding a needle in a haystack.

As I ambled down the path I saw the “Touch me not” plants growing wild. I stopped and played with them for a few minutes. It was a good diversion to touch them and see their leaves fold by my touch.

They were so tender.

Further down I could see many wildflowers big and small, yellows, reds, oranges, fragrant and non-fragrant growing arbitrarily.

Where flowers are plenty, can the bees be far away? Their buzzing sounds ricocheted in my ears. They were harping on the flowers and oozing honey.

Busy bees.

Finally, I reached a marshy land. It was an egret paradise. It was an empty prairie kind of place with a lot of stagnant water in between. The morning was up by then and the blades of grass glowing in the rays of the sun. Many egrets were happy and flying, some were standing intently looking out for their prey.

I can’t walk in the woods today, but I had a good walk with green grass, flowers, bees, and egrets in my company. Yes, I did miss the trees and shades, but I am grateful for where the morning took me — through the bosom of mother nature.

I ravish my walk today and wait for a walk in the woods someday.

There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground; there are a thousand ways to go home again — Rumi

Thank you William J Spirdione for the prompt “A Walk In The Woods”.

I enjoyed the walk through the Pune University campus with Shubha Apte and the walk in the American woods with Dr. Preeti Singh