These images come to mind when I hear Daroji Bear Sanctuary. Located in the Vijayanagara District in Karnataka, this place is famous as a habitat for sloth bears. It also happens to be under 15 km from the UNESCO World Heritage site of Hampi. Even more than the bears, the majestic rock formations all around arrest my attention. These rocks are some of the oldest and the most stable land formations and have been around for nearly 2.5 billion years. Life as we know it had not even evolved when these rocks formed. Yet, these unforgiving rocky landscapes have sustained much life, whether ambling sloth bears or the grand capital of the erstwhile Vijayanagara Empire.