A day spent zooing! ;)

Hello awesome people! If you're among those readers I so adore, that is, if you've been here long enough (hey new guys. I like you too :P ), you remember reading two crazy posts about two crazy days with two friends with crazy stuff we did, and the crazy fun we had? My two oh-we-might-meet-twice-a-year-but-we're-awesome friends, Aneesha and Richa? Henceforth, A and R. The point is, I was feeling so cruddy yesterday. I mean, that's not the point, but the beginning of the point. A pinged me on Facebook and then this happened (not exact):

A: Mausam is so cool! Let's go enjoy in some park-kinda place!

Me: Really? I'm in! I'll ask R if she's free to go tomorrow! Decide the place.

A: I'll Google.

Just like the cute friend she is, R agreed, not forgetting to giggle at the random plan. :P

A: Let's go to Indraprastha Millenium Park. Pragati Maidan. Metro+Auto.

Me: (asks parents who say a weary yes. - It's so not easy getting permission.) Yeah sure. :D Whatever it is :P

So then I had this dawn of intuition that my morose mood wouldn't last for long. And jeez, I love the guy who discovered intuition. Thanks dude! (or dudeni. Uh, I should probably curtail the excitement-which-leads-to-weird-lingo-and-unnecessary-length-in-my-anyway-long-blog-posts! :P) This morning the weather turned hot again! That rogue! But A still said we'd go. What a my-kind of friend she is. :D I picked her up on Scoot on our way to the metro station, and as she hopped on pillion, she said, "We're not going to IP park." 

Me: Why? Where then?

A: I have no idea. Let's just go, then we'll see. :P

R met us at her station and then we decided (when I said like a drooling child, please!) to go to the National Zoological Park, a.k.a, Zoo! I said how I've been crying and dying to visit it since the past two-three years especially, ever since I learned photography and have a camera, and the last (which also happened to be the first) time I visited was when I might have been a ten year old. A and R too, had just been there as kids and I had brought along my camera (supposedly, we wanted to have a nice photo-session) and we were oh-so-excited! Since it was initially my idea, supported by A and an okay-alright-R, they said they were depending on me to get them safely to the zoo. Oh my dear friends have so much faith in me. No wonder I talked to an auto wallah who overcharged. Sorry guys. :P

I'm going to try to make this post short, so I'm just pointing out the highlights. 

# 1: We were just really excited and happy. You know, that forest-y feel, natural environment, okay-type weather, each other's company and an interest in such stuff. You know how it is! After looking at (and I don't need to mention, photographing each of those) a few basic animals and birds, we saw an enclosure with a huge pit, jungle-y kind of a place and just a railing to ward people off. I mean, to keep us out, because like A said, "this is their home and we're the strangers here'. Aww A, sometimes you're just profound. (Okay, sorry. :P). So, I looked at that pit and had a flashback. Ten years old and mom telling me the pit is important so that those animals don't jump out and eat us alive. I said how there might be something big over there, and then read a warning sign, "Dangerous animal: keep off the railing". That got me excited (I'm normal okay? This stuff just excites me! :D) and then we went further ahead when I spotted a sign! Eep! It said, 'White Tiger'. By the time I literally shouted, "Tiger!!!" my eyes adjusted to a great beauty standing right at the edge of the pit, just looking at us all as if we're the novelty around here (which for it, might be true :P ). I mean, it looked so good, so white with black stripes, just standing with an attitude. Really, those beasts have attitude and it shows! I heard small "aaoohhh" and saw R and A looking scared and starting to go back! Getting scared because the tiger was out in the open and it did not occur to them that there's a whole pit to save us and that it's unlikely it'll jump on us. :P

As expected, I took out my camera and clicked! And it posed. And I'm not kidding. I always had this photography dream to photograph wild animals, and today it seemed like they were just waiting for me, saying, "after all this time?" I just had the time of my life. Yeah, so when I had clicked a few pictures and adored the animal, with A and R now looking at it with awe too, it moved and went to hide in those bushes. :P Ha! I was just so happy! (I've said that already how many times?)

Ah this tiger! ^_^
Yeah, I clicked. I'm a good hobbyist photographer! :P

# 2: Wolf enclosure: I had never seen a wolf before, except of course in National Geographic and so I was making my usual huge eyes even huger and searching the compound and the three cave kinda things for any sign of the wolf. After a while, R and A got excited and R pointed towards the caves and said, "There! Something's moving! It's the wolf!" A was nodding her head but then like me, searched even more carefully. Then I saw those tiny irritable mosquitoes (or whatever they are), hovering in front of the cave in two batches and said, "It's not the wolf, those are mosquitoes!" R kept pointing and saying, "No, it's there! Something is moving. Seee!!! It's moving into the third cave!" I thought she might have some special vision powers because I could only see blackness and my eye sight is okay. By that time, a few more people had gathered behind us, trying to peer into the caves for any sign of the wolf. Then I took out my camera and zoomed in (it's awesome with a 24x optical and 48x -or more-digital zoom) and showed her the whole cave from the inside! It was empty. :P I clicked a picture that shows those mosquito-kind of things. Of course, we left the place discreetly, leaving the rest to try and look for the wolf. :P (On a serious note, if there were those mosquitoes, it might have been there, hidden somewhere like a clever......uh, wolf.)

I still can't see anything except these mosquito-thingies. 

# 3. We reached the water-part (how, I'll explain in point number 5) where there was green, slimy water with a sign that read, "Spectacled caiman crocodile". We peered into the water, into the bushes and whatever part was visible, but could not see it. That was when R said, "it might be hidden because it's wearing specs and looking hideous." Uhh. Okay. :P

# 4: Walking towards some deer and stuff, we stumbled a bit over uneven ground. There were small mud hills and pits big enough for a small animal and a human kid to fall into. R, showing off her genius said, "Do you know why these pits are there?" We shook our heads and she continued, "because in case any animal takes off after someone like us, they'd fall into the pit and we can run away to safety." Just. Hhahahahhaha! :P

# 5. We had been having a great time, what with that White Tiger, and then finding Cheetah and Leopard-in enclosures, unfortunately- and oh, a lion who was just staring at us all the time! I mean, there were more people too, but the lion found us fascinating. No wonder, my dad was worrying that the zoo guys would keep me for show too :P But still, we three together must have been a sight. ;) Yeah, we had been able to look at many animals probably for the first time in years and we were drooling with happiness, if at all this is anything. And we'd clicked a lot of pictures (and yeah, I was thrilled with having had the opportunity to photograph those animals!) and then we saw the time and didn't realize it had only been an hour and a half! Then to add to the awesomeness, we found elephants, all sorts of monkey-ish things: baboons, langurs, chimpanzees, etc, many many kinds of deer! I was seriously crying (not literally) over not having seen the giraffes yet, because I really wanted to have a picture of a giraffe, just to make a lame joke to my brother who is tall and I call him a giraffe too, that I spotted him at his righteous place: in the zoo. But I couldn't make that joke because of course, I didn't find any giraffe. We were near the exit and hungry and tired, but we still hadn't covered one part of the zoo, which forked left from the entrance/exit. 

R didn't want to go, A wanted to eat something and then go and I just forget all kinds of tiredness and hunger when I'm excited! We saw a board with a list of animals and realized we'd seen only half! I had to beg to these guys to just see the left side once :P And R agreed on the condition that we wouldn't go for boating at Purana Qila, which we thought we would do and which was right next to the zoo! Five minutes of decision making and we were off to explore the left. God, it was fun. Mostly water-stuff, so yeah, that croc who was hidden because of his specs, and then a whole lake with water birds! Whoop! We saw storks and ducks and birds whose names I did not care to find out, because they were just so pretty (and so far!) and my camera was literally having a field day. :D Then we found a beautiful cave kinda pathway which was out of the normal path and where R did not allow us, but A and me went there nonetheless. It seemed magical! Then I got to know something about crowd psychology, which I'll explain in my research paper which will fetch me millions of dollars. There isn't enough space here anyway. ;) 

Finally, we had lunch among stupid scary flies-cum-bees who loved our soft drink cups and then left in an auto that charged an amount Rs. 20 less than what we came for. (I said sorry, guys!). We went through the pictures in the Metro, laughing and my constant dialogue of the day, "It was such fun!" :D We were just wishing we could have had a slightly rainy day, so it would have been even better, but nothing beats what did happen and that was a hell lot of fun! As the previous readers already know, and newbies may take note, I always have the time of my life with these two of my friends. They're just awesome! A and R, take a bow! And if I've forgotten anything (I would have! I couldn't possibly explain every single thing we did), you may comment. ;)

Here are some pictures for you to enjoy! ^_^

Note for pic stealers: I didn't have time to watermark them, so please don't steal.

Hi Lion-who-stared-at-us. See how it's looking? :O

One wella baboon who loves to hangofy like this :P

Hi elephant-who-was-jhooming-and-eating :P

These antlers! 

Storks? or cranes? I'm so bad with this stuff. Water birds, it is. ;)

I'm just an awesome photographer. :D
(Yeah it's blurry, but WHO CARES?)

Thanks A and R for just giving me an amazing, to-be-remembered forever kind of a day after so many cruddy days. I love you!!! ^_^