A Weekend Trip to the New Delhi Zoo
So this weekend was spent with a visit to the zoo with a few of my friends. Let's get a recap of why this visit was important.
Oh, for the picture, they are my friends without whom this trip wouldn't be completed. From left to right, Mitiksha, Ayushi, Ayush, Kartik and me. One more friend was also there and he was Nilanjan clicking this picture.
The Beginning
Although I am living just about 70 Kms from Delhi for four years and for about 6 months, I am staying in Delhi, I never went to visit the city. I had planned numerous times that I will visit the places of interest in this city, but the plan never was put to action.
27th December 2018
Me and Ayush were working in the office and suddenly the worm of travelling came alive in me. I decided to check out places in Delhi. The immediate one that came to my mind was the zoo. I checked on the internet about the details of the place and found that it will be worth a visit. So I asked Ayush if he wanted to go and he agreed at the first time. We decided for to skip the Friday as we were dead tired and really wanted some rest. So the date was decided on Saturday. Later I came to know that on Fridays, the zoo remains closed. We asked Kartik to join us in our plan and he readily agreed.
<Friday went away Sleeping and doing household chores>
29th December 2018
The appointed time to meet at the zoo was at 11:00 am and I didn't want to be late, so I prepared early but due to unavoidable circumstances, I couldn't leave before 10:00 am.
I booked a cab to the zoo and when I landed over there, I came to know that my friends will be a bit late so I waited and waited and waited. I the meantime, I had the chance to get some delicious and overpriced South Indian Thali at the nearby cafe. Finally my friends showed up about an hour later and we proceeded to enter the zoo.
We were six in all. Me, Ayush, Ayushi, Mitiksha, Kartik and Neelanjan.
The first thing which we saw was that there were options to travel by foot or take battery operated vehicles. We decided to go by foot. We had a gala time over there photographing the entire place. Initially we were seeing deer and I was trying to click a picture of them either running or making some activity. But slowly, we realized that the whole zoo is almost 40% of deer and after a certain time we were getting irritated by it.
What we saw was that many of the animals looked a bit malnourished. We were waiting anxious to see anything beyond the deer and the empty enclosed areas. Then finally we saw a few species of birds and that was a bit different.
The only animals we saw in the zoo were variety of deer and ducks, few of the types of apes and then the white tiger and the Bengal tiger. Also, we managed to see a few other animals and reptiles including the Himalayan black bear, jaguar, leopard, gharial and the crocodile, hippopotamus and a few others' which I don't remember.
We really missed the lion, who was sleeping at the top of her hillock turning her back at us as if really offended at us.
The white tiger with all it's glory
The final thing that really set us off was that the one thing which we were interested, the reptiles section, was closed for visitors. This thing was so heartbreaking to us that we entirely forgot the elephants, both the African and the Asian elephants. The funniest thing is that I didn't even remember until I was writing this blog. Slow claps for me.
At the end, I would like to say a few things, just figments of my imagination and observation.
It's really cruel to lock-up up animals in cages, but Delhi zoo is doing a slightly better job by not keeping them in cages and instead using natural methods to create a barrier between the humans and the animals. Also the inside of the enclosed area is designed at par with the natural surroundings.
Most of the animals were looking a bit malnourished. I assume that the zookeepers need to take a bit of attention towards their health.
After the zoo was closed at about 4:00pm, we decided to head off to the most hyped place in Delhi, the Connaught Place and the Palika Market. I saw both these places for the first time and although C.P. wasn't that interesting except for the crowd and the scenic beauty, but Palika Market amazed me. An entire market situated at subterranean level was definitely a sight to behold. All in all, the day went as one of the best spent weekends. I would like to thank Neelanjan to allow me use his camera to click all these awesome pictures. I would also like to thank Ayush for introducing me to two of the craziest girls in the history of girls.They are Ayushi and Mitiksha.
Also, I really appreciate Ayushi and Mitiksha for accepting me as their friend on the very first time we met. It felt like as if we were friends for a really long time. Thank you so much for that :-)
Here is a picture gallery with the best pictures in this trip.
Thank you so much for reading through this blog. Let me know in the comments what is the next place I should visit in Delhi.
