October 17, 2023

Tuesday, 11:00 PM

Zostel, Bundi, 

Rajasthan

Right in the morning, the first thing we did was go to the Chambal Barrage, which is part of the National Chambal Ghariyal Sanctuary that we talked about earlier when I went to it the first time in Palighat. But back then boating had not started. Now, the boating is on, and it is great fun except when the fishing net get stuck in your boat, as it happened today with our boat. There is a lot of illegal fishing in this area, which has been a cause for concern at many levels.

I found the Indian eagle owl I have been trying to click for a long time. And as he took off, I managed to get a satisfactory picture of it. Sadly, there was a lot of garbage around, which could not have gotten there except by way of human beings throwing things around carelessly. 

Chambal is an unusual river in that it flows the unusual way, from South to North as opposed to North to South, as most other rivers do. So the Chambal flows into Rajasthan from Madhya Pradesh. There is a statue of Goddess Chambal, representing river Chambal, with two children. One of the two kids in the statue is standing close to the goddess, and that kid represents Madhya Pradesh, whereas the other is asking for water, which the goddess is providing through a vessel, and this other kid is Rajasthan. 

And then I met another group of people who have been following my work for a long time and who had come especially to meet me and wish me well for ATR. We decided to visit places this group of people had picked for me to visit. More about that in tomorrow’s post. This is it for today.