Dreaming of rhinos - by Harini Nagendra

February can be a bleak month. How do you overcome periods of lethargy and re-energize yourself creatively and otherwise? 

This has been an especially bleak February - I'm recovering from an awful cough, and I passed it onto my mother - who is now recovering from a bad bout of pneumonia. Not fun.  

Here in Bangalore, it usually gets warm by early February, which is when we begin to see some of the earliest signs of spring - but it's been unusually cold this year, and the chill persists. The effects on my writing have been visible - I should have started writing book 5 in The Bangalore Detectives Club in January but thanks to all the chaos at home, weekends have passed without a word. 

How do I re-energize creatively? Well, I was in one of the most gorgeous places on earth recently - in the incredibly beautiful grasslands of Kaziranga National Park, in early January - and got to see rhinos up so close. I have seen rhinos in the wild before - in 2000, when I was in the buffer zone of the Chitwan National Park, on foot, and we spotted a rhino in the distance - and quickly retreated. That memory is a bit of a blur. We scooted away as fast as we could. 

But on this trip, we went on a safari, in a jeep with an experienced driver - who took us close, safe but close. 

Kaziranga is home to the largest population of the Asiatic wild buffalo. Here they are, in the background.

 

Yellow footed green pigeons on a tree - just before sunset. Aren't they gorgeous?

We saw otters, hornbills, wild buffalo, swamp deer - and rhinos. Their armoured hides are spectacular, but even sweeter is the memory of watching a rhino using its soft flexible lower lip to suck out massive quantities of mud from a hole and gulp it down. 

A rhino crossing the road - we stayed a safe distance behind, but it seemed to take no notice of us.

Mud, mud, glorious mud 

When I'm feeling blue, one of my best cures is to switch on music, close the door, and dance like a maniac. Or - to get out into nature, head out to a park, or take a walk around a neighbourhood lake. But nothing can come close to a forest - so this February, the memories of Kaziranga and its rhinos are what's keeping me going - that, and the hope that I will eventually be able to buckle down and dive into writing book 5!