Sitting in the lap of mother nature, far away from the noises of the city, breathing the fresh air, watching the flowing river, listening to sound when the river crashes with the rocks, along with the sweet music being sung by the birds, feeling the its cold water in my warm hands, I think of how life can be simple, pure and without any worries  in the beauty of nature, how I don’t have to care about anything but food and sleep if I live here, how I could just flow away in my thoughts with no disturbance, as if I were in oneness with this nature, a part of this picture I see right here in front of me, not just for a day or two, but for all my life. I feel envious of the birds, of how they can fly, how they play, kiss the water and immediately take a swift flight above to feel the wind, how they can watch the sun set everyday, from different views, sometimes sitting on a rock in the middle of a river, sometimes on a tree by the riverside and sometimes from jungle. I feel envious of the deer, of its big beautiful eyes, of its speed, of its gracefulness in its runs, of how, whether morning or evening all it has to do is enjoy the graze in the bright greens and blues with its friends and family. I feel envious of the trees, of how they stand along the riverside in the cool breeze, in the jungle seeing the sights that I might never see and being a part of mother nature’s purity.

But the more I stay here, by the riverside, in the jungle and in this beauty, the more I realize that it has rightly been said that not everything is as it meets the eyes, that sometimes the prettiest looking things are the most dangerous. As a traveller, I enjoy this river and jungle, but by the principal of marginal utility, its beauty is not as mesmerizing to me on the third day as it was on the first day, as it was when I laid my eyes on this view for the very first time. The more I live here, the more normal and less mesmerizing the views feel. So do I really need to feel envious?? For the creatures who reside here the views are not as pretty as they are for me and mostly it is about survival and not beauty for them. Should I be envious of this tiny pretty colourful birds who are prey for the bigger birds and animals or the deer who are prey for the tigers and jackals of the jungle? Can you really enjoy anything at all when you have to constantly worry about getting through the day alive? Do I really need to be envious of the trees which have to survive the creepers or the tiger, the king of the jungle, who has to go on for days without food as the other animals unite against it and give warnings to each other at its every movement. The seemingly beautiful and harmless red-yellow flowers throughout the jungle that I appreciated yesterday are actually weeds that are destroying the habitat of the animals in the jungle. They don’t seem so beautiful today!

I have, in the past, often wondered what would life be like if there were no cities, there was no civilization. Back then I mostly felt that I would have enjoyed that better, I would have enjoyed roaming in the jungle, just worrying about food and nothing else. But now, here, in this beautiful place, I am changing. As much as I love nature and dislike cities for their noise and air pollution and for its constant pressures and worries, I am glad that civilization was formed, that cities came into existence, that we do not have to live in the jungle anymore. The only rule of the jungle is survival of the fittest, civilization on the other end provided a chance for everyone to survive. Though civilization work on the principal of prosperity to the smartest, it isn’t as ruthless as the jungle. It offers an opportunity to every person to survive. The laws of the civilization though sometimes hamper the creativity of the creative, they mostly help us live in a reasonably secure environment. I smile at myself as I realize my folly at being envious of the birds, deer, trees and tigers. I realize that as strongly as I may love beauty of the nature, as strongly as I may believe in not altering the creations of mother nature from the way they were meant to be, I am glad to be a human, living in a civilized world!