Brook field Zoo

Bindu’s house was next to a pond in one of the Chicago suburbs the name of which has escaped my memory. The path around the pond itself was good enough for my morning walk but I could explore farther without fear of losing my way as Bindu’s father Shamanna, who is my cousine, was also there visiting his daughter and I had his company for morning walk. It was his second visit to Chicago and he knew the place well. When we returned after an hour’s walk, the sun was rising and the Canada geese near the pond were getting ready for the day.



Our day’s plans were the Brookfield Zoo, Balaji temple (more for lunch, than for worship)and back to Canton MI. We reached the zoo around ten in the morning. The Brookfield Zoo, located in and named after the Chicago suburb of Brookfield is spread over an area of about 216 acres. It houses about 2300 animals belonging to 450 different species. They are generally categorized according to the ecosystem they live in viz ‘the swamp’, ‘fragile desert’, ‘rain forest’, ‘living coast,’ etc. I like to watch the animals. I remember that as children, our trips to Mysore, which were quite frequent, were never complete without a visit to the Jayachamarajendra Zoo there. I could have easily spent a day in Brookfield but we only had a few hours at our disposal. I got to see many animals which I had never seen earlier, the grizzly bear, poison frog, bald eagle, colobus monkey (reminding me of ‘catch me a colobus’ - Gerald Durrell), okapi, dwarf crocodile, to name a few. I liked the enclosure of the polar bear from which one could climb down and see the bear in water through the glass wall of the tank. I found it to be a very graceful swimmer and spent a considerable time watching it swim.



The Brookfield zoo was the first place to start a dolphin show in the US and it was a pleasure watching Dolphins in their huge tank moving like bullets. They covered a distance of forty to fifty feet in seconds. I saw the otters, whales and various fishes but dolphins seemed to be the fastest.

The zoo has cafeterias and rest areas spread over its 216 acres, and most of the people seemed to have come to spend the whole day. They moved around leisurely enjoying the sights, eating and resting.



We spent about four hours in the zoo and were off to the Balaji temple . There was a huge crowd of devotees who had come to worship the canteen just like us and we had to wait in a long queue for our turn. Having filled our stomachs with pongal, vada , dosai, curds rice and mango lassi we turned home wards. I was afraid that Vishwa may nod off on the wheel after the heavy lunch and tried to keep him in conversation. I woke up when we were nearing Detroit. We were at home by eight in the evening.