Inveigled

Disrupted by the telephones rankling harp

Our sleep broke off at Five Thirty Sharp

The somnial interruption motivated

By what lay ahead for us,

Soon we were off on the Safari

Climbing on to an open jeep

With the zestfulness of a seasoned Shikari

We were made to listen to a surfeit

Of instructions, the preparatory dos and do nots

Eventually it would end nothing short of deceit                                                          

Despite our ventures into bio-diversity hotspots

But for the nonce these were the frills

Adding to the morning thrills

Taking the middle road between a groggy Briton

And a bunch of exuberant wildlife shutterbugs

Strengthened by a chilling wave of frisson

We embarked on pursuit of spotting exotic wildlife

Expectations though far-fetched and bombastic

Weren’t altogether unrealistic

Sightings of big pawed feline

Creatures turned out to be no more than mere cervine

A few peacocks, scattered groups of boisterous monkeys

A couple 'o' snake pits, sans the snakes themselves

One solitary serpent eagle scrutinizing in close proximity

And a volery of birds replete with euphonious chirping

But we couldn’t, care any less for ourselves

We were least impressed

Only keen to see the much vaunted tigers

Trying to discern a rustle from beneath the vegetation

And hoping one would jump from the viridescence into our midst

After two hours of peregrinating in circles

The circuitous journey concluded

Metaphorically speaking, on retrospection the only tigers we experienced

Were the marketing tigers at the resort

To whose effective inveigle we easily fell prey

A premonition which I had earlier sensed

Had our intuitions been more adept

We might have not gone in search of wild fauna

We might have as well as slept

Or tooled off to the waters of the sauna

So much for a bloody Tiger

Rues the pen of this blogger

Tyger Tyger Burning Bright

In the forests of the night

Sung Blake in his antediluvian panegyric

To honour the noble animal

To us not a trace, nowhere in sight

Back at the abode, we snuggled back into the bed feeling contrite

Putting back the hours into our sleep, abandoning our revile

Seemed like the best thing to do by a mile