c u on top - satyabrata dam

I fully agree the above title is rather on the face, as I am already in a wild place, looking for wild things and going even wilder than I was intended to become, but even then this is the best I could come up with. I am deliberately skipping the first day at Kenya since it was spent at Swara Plains Ranch, where I shall return soon and would get to experience it in a more leisurely manner. For now, let’s dive right into the wild wagon and swing free like a chimpanzee straight into Born Free office Nairobi. Even before I had arrived I had done some amount of digging into Born Free, a UK based NGO that is proactively working towards wildlife conservation. They have a huge presence in Kenya and are doing commendable work across all fields of conservation and related community outreach programs. Born Free Kenya had graciously offered me a field trip with their country manager, Iregi Mwenja, into the far flung reaches of Samburu Region in the Northern Highlands. Sandy drove me to Born Free ...

For once the rapidity of the incidents unfolding around me has by far out maneuvered and outwitted my mental agility (many of you my staunch supporters would perhaps say, that is always the case) and consequently I am bit incoherent, confused and short on verbosity in this fine evening as I sit under a dark canopy of twinkling stars in the remote town of Wamba in Samboro Region. Very soon the moon would be up and would bereft of my soliloquy with the stars. Therefore, let me begin with a quiz that is an answer in itself; so no prizes if you get it right. Prize might come your way if you don’t get the answer actually. And don’t even ask me why should my first story from Kenya come with the above title. I hope you would understand it by the time you reach the end. So here goes! Q. Where on earth can you accomplish and successfully achieve all of the following within the span of the first 24 hrs of arrival: - Cross the Equator twice Gaze at the two highest peaks of a single continent Shak...

I am Kenya bound in less than a week. The obvious conclusion most of you would draw is that I am going there to climb Mt Kenya, Kilimanjaro and jump into Lake Victoria and Turkana and perhaps try to put my head inside the jaws of a hungry lion, if only to see what happens! I have already done all of these before, well may be not the last one, yet. While not intentionally, but providentially some or all of the above may happen, but this trip to Kenya is vastly different than my previous ones. I would be there for more than two months, spending most of my time with the wild animals and with the people who-often selflessly-are trying their best to keep the animals wild. It’s an exciting project I would be working on and gaining immense on ground experience in wild life behavior, habitability, man-nature conflict issues, and myriads of other. While there I would be writing regular posts and filing my stories as and when possible to access the net. You would be able to follow my journey th...

How far will you go before you know you have gone far enough! Well this is a question that cannot be answered hypothetically or theoretically. You need to get out there and into a situation where you would be stretched out both physically and mentally to know the answer. Even then you may never learn the real answer to the above quest. I haven’t, though I often go far, sometimes really far; and after going the distance when I turn around to return (for reasons of practicality) I know it deep inside my heart that I hadn’t yet gone far enough. I don’t know if indeed there’s a horizon that would be my furthest where my heart would finally succumb and declare that I had gone far enough and it was now time to return. I don’t know if there would be a day when I would find this horizon even if it existed. People say I am living on and off the edge anyway. But how far is really far for me personally is something I have no clue about. Even then today I will relate to you of an incident that was...

This is not a tale of courage, or intrepidity. This is a story about a promise made by a fool, influenced by foolish chemicals rushing through his non-existent brain; a promise he fulfilled and in the process almost did not make it back to the one he had made the promise; much to the predicament of the latter. But overall it’s a story of how minds react and body overreacts at high altitudes where air is thin and summits even thinner. Enjoy this harebrained tale of a foolhardy cavalier, who has since then learnt his lessons; or has he! It has often happened in my life that when I disappear for long extreme adventures, I had an amorous interest; but not after I return. The person either presuming that I wasn’t going to return, would herself disappear or would opt for someone else more earth and civilization bound. This has been and is an oft repeated reality of my life – no complaints though. The fault, if any, lay clearly on my court since I simply refused to promise that I would return...