Last day, I had a chance to visit Nandan Kanan (NK) (Open Zoo + Botanical Garden). It was a very pleasant weather with cool breeze and a little drizzle... Weather set the mood for an excellent visit...
I had been planning to visit Nandan kanan since I had to Bhubaneswar. But somehow the visit didn't work out till the last day...These days; people prefer to go either to Beaches or to hang out in City... But hardly people visit places like zoo...
I along with Sanchit, (one of best IT professional I know in industry) reached NandanKanan (NK) at around 2pm....We were praying through out the bike ride that It should not rain...and Rain god heard us and he spared our visit with rains...
To my surprise There were lots of people visiting NK, mostly Bongs (famous for their Tourism habits), people from interior Orissa with rural background unlike urbane guys like us..... NK is 40-50 years old habitation and is really big... I guess it was recognized as Zoo of National importance in 1960s. Last year I had been to Antwerp Zoo. www.zooantwerpen.be/ . See pics at http://photos.yahoo.com/anshuman_jai ), In comparison to Antwerp Zoo, NK is very big and very dirty.... We Indians have habit of dirty habitations...and we hardly care what it means for animals (most of them are endangered).
First on the list was Orangutan our fore father, It was the cutest animal I saw at NK. It was sitting very far from the enclosure. To our surprise he started walking, towards congregation of people and started waving towards us... What was that???? We were utterly surprised.... we got the answer in few seconds... A guy threw an alpenliebe (candy) towards Orang who was waiting for it. Orang opened the candy and started eating it... Then I realized that Orang has got habituated of getting food items from ppl... But sad part is that it is prohibited for people to carry food items and still they carry it due to lesser civic sense and slothful zoo authorities who hardly take care of the rules which have been set by themselves....
We saw snakes , fish in aquarium(not a good collection) , group of foreign birds like pelicans, swans etc... The biggest attraction was seeing The Great Indian Bengal Tiger and Majestic White Tiger.... I was seeing the white Tiger for the first time (although I hail from land of White Tiger)... http://www.seemyindia.com/madhya-pradesh/madhya-pradesh-history.htm they were looking restless and starving in Big enclosures. At every enclosure the daily diet was written... 12 kgs of Buffalo Meat etc for a Tiger... I am 100% sure that they don't get the desired diet every day...
I tell you an interesting story behind naming of zoo as "Nandan Kanan". Nandan was Tiger and Kanan was a Tigress. It's mentioned on an enclosure as Kanan enclosure where Kanan jumped and crossed the enclosure to meet her boyfriend (Nandan). She sacrificed her freedom to stay with her boy friend in an enclosure...........There after she lived and died in the same enclosure after spending and seeing her cubs and cub’s cubs grow.....Hence in remembrance of evergreen love of a Tiger and Tigress, the zoo was named after them.... Interesting isn't it??
You can go fromNK to Botanical Garden on ropeway. We also tried a ride on ropeway. It was good experience seeing the lake separating the Botanical Garden and NK below us with people enjoying boating..... We reached the Botanical garden on ropeway and there we were supposed to get down..... But again a new surprise was waiting for us, the ropeway didn’t stop and we were on our way back to NK... On querying the ropeway managers we could get to know that it’s second Saturday and Botanical garden is closed today.... I can’t fathom when we would learn that places like Zoos, Museums, and parks can be visited by people on Weekends and holidays.... and not on Weekdays... Still we have Govt. holidays on Second and third Saturdays....We need to learn and inculcate best practices and government governance (coined the term on lines of corporate governance). We are best in abusing Angrez but we are still continuing the legacies of British because we lack independent thinking in India....
We moved and saw various breeds of deer and antelopes... We moved on crossing toy train tracks.... We were bit exhausted and sat near the lake, eating the green mangoes picked by Sanchit from Mango Trees with many couples around us who were enjoying the breeze and pursuing their romantic discussions...... and Sanchit and I were discussing the whether Picking Mangoes is an act of vandalism or not....
I swear its one of the best place to spend time with ur girl/boy friend in Bhubaneswar!!!!
We spent and 3 hrs in Zoo and were on our way to go back to home... We Came outside the zoo ate 11 aalo vadaas (locals call them aalo chop) and 3 Tea from nearby stall and started riding back to home after spending an excellent trip to Nandan kanan.
Visit http://www.orissatourism.gov.in/new/nandan.htm
Sunday, March 12, 2006
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3 comments:
It was nice to hear the wonderful experience at NK. Well, i had a not so similar experience a few months back. We will leave that for another time. But what i really doubt is the naming incident of NK. Thats a definite fabrication by the Indian Govt to romanticise the place(good marketing strategy), becasue what Nandan Kanan really means is "The Forest of Eden" and you will find many places with similar names like Eden Gardens(Kolkata), Nandan(Cinema Theatre in Kolkata designed by Satyajit Ray). Good marketing ploy. I had seen a simialr ploy in Radission Fort in Kolkata, where there was a love story between a British Soldier and a Bengali girl and how their love story bore fruits at the fort. Difficult to believe but a definitely good marketing strategy. Looks like the Tourism guys at the govt are putting their creative ideas to some use other than how to siphon money out the govt coffers. :-)
Nice experience Anshuman. I was a regular visitor of Bombay zoo when I was a kid. However, for one reason or another, I could not make it to the zoo during the lst few years.
And you never told me you went onsite!
Anonymous>I am waiting to get a taste of your experiences....
Even I am apprehensive about story behind Nandan Kanan. But I can't believe that Tourism guys are ingenious enough to invent and deploy such "marketing ploy"... But nice to hear stories of similiar nature from Kolkata....
Neel>Hey I might have told about my onsite trip. But nevertheless it’s immaterial in our industry where it’s hard to find a person who has not been to onsite....
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