It was just a while back that I finally got an opportunity to visit one of the places I had been wanting to visit since a long time now - the Ranthambore National Park, which is situated in Rajasthan, India. It is famous for its tigers and is one of the best locations in India to see the tigers in its natural habitat.

Here they have divided the entire jungle into zones and some of these zones are open for tourists to witness the actual life at a jungle, without any human intervention. The forest authorities have fixed slots for safaris, in which tourists may visit the jungle and that too only in registered vehicles with registered drivers. They don’t allow private vehicles inside the jungle premises. This is done to protect the animals from any poachers and to minimise human intervention into their natural habitat as far as possible.

The general public need to pre-book the safari slots, and in a single trip, a single zone is covered and its duration is 3 hours. However, government vehicles have access to all the zones (the ones which are open for safaris) and they may switch between zones in a single safari.

Since Ranthambore is just 8 hours’ drive from the place where I live, we decided for a road trip. By the time we reached Ranthambore, it was evening and we were exhausted. We had an early dinner and retired for the day, as we had a safari booked for early morning the next day. This being my first open jeep safari I was extremely excited and found myself lying awake the entire night.

Soon it was morning and we all got ready and mounted the jeep, ready for the safari to begin. Once we entered the jungle premises, we were advised not to make any noise as it would disturb the animals. So we sat silently with our cameras ready, to capture all the glimpse of forest life that we could witness.

At this point, I should say that these jeep drivers are very well trained and experienced. Our jeep driver kept telling us all about the history of the jungle as he drove through the zone, but simultaneously he was fully alert of any unusual movement or warning cry that the animals would make. Whenever he would feel he heard the cry of any animal, he would stop the jeep and ask us to silently observe. This would happen at multiple occasions.

One thing that I observed at these occasions was that, the less powerful animals like the Deers and Sambars(a large deer native to the Indian subcontinent, South China and Southeast Asia), seemed to live under constant fear of being attacked by the mighty predators. Deers and Sambars usually roam in herds. If any of them feel or smell danger, they give out a peculiar cry to warn the others of potential danger. At even the faintest of sounds, they would stop grazing and become alert of any movement in the bushes or in their surroundings, ready to run for their lives.

These animals seemed to live in constant fear of their lives. They need to be aware of their surroundings at every point of time as there may be a predator lurking around anywhere and anytime. They can’t even sleep peacefully at night. They can’t leave a moment unguarded.

This got me thinking of how fortunate we are. We live at the comfort of our homes with all the possible securities taken care of. We have the army protecting us from the terrorists, the police protecting us from criminals, the doctors curing us of any diseases, and the list goes on. But who do these animals have to save them and help them to get rid of their sufferings?

Most of the times we know we are safe. Yet, majority of the humans suffer from depression, anxiety and insomnia (to state the least minimum). Nobody is happy or satisfied with the life they have. We always want more and keep complaining about every single thing. We have forgotten to count our blessings. Human nature is such that we only focus on the negative, which may just be really minute if compared to all the blessings that have been showered upon us.

We all need to stop for once, and try to focus on how blessed our life is, in comparison to so many less fortunate than us. Focus on what we have rather than what we don’t. Wouldn’t life become boring if there was nothing our heart could desire for? Would there be any purpose to live then?

Life is beautiful because of the way it is. Had it been any different, it wouldn’t be worth living for.

A beautiful quote about life I came across goes as follows: