The Game Drive of Mobula

After having worked for a week... day and night in Joburg, it was more than required to have a break in real African wildlife.

I also wanted my new Nikon D80 to start its score from wild environment and compare my earlier Canon stuff with Nikon. So, we decided to go to Mobula for Game Drive... a must try in South Africa.

In South Africa a Safari is known as Game Drive...a trip into the wild to see animals in their own habitat.

We chose to go to Mobula..almost 200 KMs from Johannesburg, owned by UB group. Mobula Game Drives are spread in about 1200 Hectares. They have got all Big 5 there- the lion, the African elephant, the Cape Buffalo, the leopard and the rhinoceros. They are called big 5 not because of their size, but because it is difficult to tame or hunt them.

Mobula had almost freezing temperature in Game drive...when we were returning from the drive in the evening, our friends had real tough time in resisting to the cold winds. In the morning drive, we could see a white layer on the grass all over the Game Drive. But we braved the cold waves and apart from enjoying wild life, we also witnessed lovely sunset and sunrise in that wild Mobula Game Drive.

We got to see four out of Big 5 in our two game drives..the leopard could not be traced, because they move very fast and their whereabouts cannot be traced by footmarks, as in the case of lions and elephants.

Apart from these big 5, we got to see the herds of zebras, hippopotamus, giraffes, antelopes and many more wild species.

I also got to capture some of the lovely birds chirping all through the Game Drive.
Our Game Lodge was also typical African experience of living...this experience got enriched with typical powerhouse dance performance by young South African Bafnas (boys...for this very reason South African Male football team is called Bafna Bafna) and Banyas (girls).

It was no doubt a wonderful experience, but I wonder why could not we develop such infrastructure in our country, where we have better habitats of wild animals and have better climate and unique palate of culture too...

Indians: neither White-enough, nor Black-enough

The world is dealing only in Black & White these days.

We have seen the treatment of Indians in the white world..be it in Australia or Europe. The colour was not in our side. Indians face all kind of discrimination in all walks of life. Having earned all kind of pride and honour at NASA, Silicon valley and all other places, Indians could not earn the due basic respect of being an Indian.

But the fate of Indians in the black world is also not any different. Contribution of people of Indian Origin in the war against apartheid in South Africa and other parts of world is recorded in history, but all this is not enough to get appropriate space in new character of governments in countries like South Africa.

After Nelson Mandela, people of Indian origin have deliberately been marginalised in all spheres of public life. You do not read as many names (familiar to Indians) in politics or bureaucracy, which used to be there in post-apartheid era of South Africa. People of Indian Origin are targeted as bad as whites.

We are not white enough to be respected by white world and not black enough to get sympathy from the world fighting for the respect of black world.

I think now this is the time for Indian to really do serious introspection and listen to the call of the time. We need to rise and come out of proud passive history..We need to let world know that Indians are Indians...neither dressed in white arrogance, nor lost in black excuse.

Let the Indian enterprising skill overpower the inherited culture of co-existence, harmony etc. for time being and show the world a face never seen before- the aggressive face of vibrant India. If we can invent chips for computing, we definitely know the skills to fight any aggression towards our Indianness.