Bharatpur I: The birds
Nothing works better than a rickshaw ride to experience the sights and sounds of a place. If you travel through the by-lanes of old Delhi, you may come across a decorative doorway here or an ornate arched balcony there amid the chaos and congestion; a rickshaw ride in north Calcutta alleyways opens up another world, which is struggling to retain the past, but not at ease with the present. When you visit the Keoladeo National Park in Bharatpur, Rajasthan, a morning rickshaw tour means getting to see a series of bright and colourful picture postcards of birds, unveiled by nature on both sides of the pitched road cutting right through the forest. I was there last weekend, with two friends. Looking even more gorgeous in the mild sunshine of the early hours of the day, perched atop the branches of the Babul or the Ber, and spread all over the wide wetlands, the members of various avian species rule this forest, which was declared as a bird sanctuary in 1956 largely due to the efforts of In...
