A Journey that wasn't awesome

Last Sunday I just wanted to head out somewhere. Somewhere where it wasn't crowded, polluted or hyped. Somewhere where I could listen to myself. Just be at peace in the nothingness. Because I was( am ) tired of watching mundane movies, roaming in dazzling malls and hypermarkets, tired of driving through the crowded roads. So I googled for places around Bangalore, picked one ( without researching ) and there I was, on the road, in search of calmness, serenity and beauty. Along with me was my friend Binay who without asking the whereabouts hopped on. I was headed to Jayamangali Black Buck reserve, in Maidanahalli. I was using Google Maps to navigate through. For first thirty kilometers the road was fine. And then, we were struck with a grim reality :P. The ROADS. Seemingly. It was more of potholes than the road and Google was still showing 70km to cover. I wasn't in a mood to turn back. So we went on. On the way I shot some birds pics from the car. They would not mind a car stopping by but as soon as I got out they flew away. Here are some pics:

 We just had brunch around 11:30 a.m and we were stuck in middle of nowhere, searching for ANY shop where we could get some snacks. It was already 3:30 p.m. Driving through potholes and roads flooded with water, we found a shop where we could buy some snacks. After munching on it for sometime, we continued the journey ( completely trusting Google navigation ). Around 4:00 p.m, google navigation announced - "You destination has arrived"! We were in the middle of a small village and black bucks were nowhere to be seen. We kept telling to each other, "yaar C*** ho gaya" :-/
I was still hopeful that Google couldn't be this stupid. So we tried asking locals there and that was a challenge as well. I didn't know how to translate "Black buck reserve" into Kannada.  But luckily, the local said something about "Jinke", which means Deer and I knew it because it is called "Jinka" in Telugu :D. He directed us to travel for 3-4 more kilometers to reach that place. And we sighed. :)
And unbelievably, that was place completely aloof, with only few farmers, herders around. There was a soiled road to get into the reserve. It was already 4:30 and we knew we only had an hour or so before it gets dark. On the sides of the road, there was brown grass glistening gold in the sunlight. I wanted to stop there, but we hadn't seen any deer around and we kept going on ( I regret not stopping there ). But in the haste, I took a shot of a guy herding the cow.

Soon we found some deer crossing the road. At that moment we didn't know that it was the moment we got the most close to herd. Here are some pics.

Soon the herd distanced us and I couldn't get any decent closeups. Here are some more more pics. The below one I liked the most.

We went in search of more encounters, but sadly there were none. We wasted lots of time there. I managed to get few bird/grass shots.

And then we came back to find some more black bucks/deer in the distance. So again, no closeups ;(

They would stare for sometime and walk away.

Tried some B&W as well. :)

Soon we found a flock of sheep and a cute shepherd dog :)

Below is a picture of a distressed sheep. At first I really didn't understand why this lone sheep is resting here. She was pregnant and soon we witnessed the birth of a newborn lamb.

In fact there were two of them. Below is a picture of the sheep nurturing their newborns.

Soon the entire landscape became dark and we saw one another beautiful sunset.

I couldn't really get a meaningful sunset shot. But nevertheless, this was the best I could do with my leftover energy. Here are pre and post sunset shots. The colors and the ambiance dramatically changed within few minutes and settled with darkness.

While I was shooting the landscapes, I was interrupted by few inebriated guys. They came in an old Esteem car, honked and braked right where I was standing. They asked if I was video-graphing. I gave them a bland reply of NO. They didn't stop there. They asked if I was a nature lover. I said "YES. Now please go." They looked at me for sometime ( while I was getting pissed off ) and left after seeing my reaction. Thankfully, they didn't get violent. I was already tired and after this encounter I packed and left.

While going back I observed how the people around were living a simple unadulterated ( with technology and other hi-fi things ) life. Here's a picture of woman cooking food in an open-air kitchen :) while on the other side there were farmers drinking and feasting ( which I didn't dare to shoot ).

I headed back to Bangalore and kept shooting some pics on the way, while there was just a bit of light and electricity ( while there were no street lamps ). The ambiance kept interesting me. I stopped at a shop to get some snacks. That shop didn't have any electricity at all and was lit by a primitive bottle lamp ( a bottle filled with oil and wick protruding out of a hole made in the cap ). It was really beautiful. I asked the owner if I can take a picture but he refused and I obliged :(. He was really shy. Then I decided to take some pics from the car itself. I was really desperate to capture the ambiance :D

Ended up taking these shots.

Hope you liked the pics. My thirst for capturing nature's beauty is not quenched yet. Hopefully, I will have better times with better shots and better journeys :)