Until one odd monday evening when you are walking alone and that moment flashes back from memory. And in an instant you understand what it means to have reduced someone to tears with your words… You know for a fact that it would have been possible only if they truly understood what you meant. And then there is a moment you truly understand the importance and futility of things… And wonder if you should have been the one showing the gratitude rather than the one receiving it.

The search began a long time ago, looked every which way… in places where you expected to find it and at times even in the most ridiculous of places. Searching for things you lost is so much more easier than for things you have never seen… and after repeated failures the thought slowly began to set in ‘maybe it does not exist’. I was at that phase almost a year ago…

Over time I realized that my search for it was my naive way for finding something which each and every one of us has thought about and felt that it is what is required. I guess my thoughts matured over this time and realized that finding it and what is symbolized was not important to me at all… This was when I decided to walk away…

There was a line from Lost which has stayed in my mind for a long time now, “The only way to find what you truly want is to stop searching for it.” The line is almost like a puzzle and once you have figured it out, every conquest in life becomes so much more easier. I heard this line only a few months ago and after yesterday I can say I believe in it absolutely.

So there I was yesterday ignorant of what the universe was bringing to me… I was so ignorant that it took me a few hours to fully contemplate and understand what was just given to me. Now that I do, all I want to do is thank… I will pass my gratitude to the carrier of this ominous message which has in its own way rejuvenated my vitals and made me fall in love with life even more(if that was possible)

…And then I saw her face,
Now I’m a believer…

Let me start on Friday when I took a leave from office as my cousin was getting engaged…

Briefly: Went to HSR Club for my Cousins engagement… A tractor’s tyre exploded as it was going past my parked Santro, the impact of the explosion threw up stones that destroyed(yes, destroyed) the rear glass of my car(pics after the link). The impact also resulted in my cousin’s car losing 3 of its windows.

Saturday Morning… After almost 2 years I got back to some Soccer. Frankly when you are playing Soccer its important that you are playing, the scoreline does not matter much(unless you score or win :P More importantly I fell… nope no body tripped me I basically just slipped and hurt my left side pretty bad. Added to that every other muscle in my body has started hurting as well… Damn I love Soccer

Sat Noon… Had planned to catch a movie with Theju. He called me up to ask if I was coming, I said I was and he told me to be there at 1:00 pm. Problem: I thought there was PVR when it was actually Uma theater . I’m in Forum Mall and realize its too late to drive across town so I go to LandMark and pick up a few books. Since I was there I checked if my sis wanted me to get her some tickets(she keeps asking me if I can book for her) I get to the counter and find out that tickets are not available and turn to leave and bump into my friend Pragna. He was also there to book tickets and since it was around lunch time we decide to grab lunch in Transit. We hv just ordered our lunch and are waiting for it to be ready and I see Arpit (another close pal) a few feet away from me. Turns out he had been there to catch “Lady in the Water”. I spend some time with them after lunch and head home trying to beat the rain and catch Qualification for the F1 race.

Sunday involved me meeting my friends and more importantly meeting my friend who is leaving… Then evening was basically watching the race. Yeah my sunday was a bit better than boring

Pics of the Impact:

The moment I knew that I will probably never forget Darjeeling was when I opened the curtians of my hotel room. The scene that greeted me is to the right.

The journey from Gangtok to Darjeeling was all but familiar… we were retracing our steps back to Baghdogra and stopped at Rangpo. This little town is right after the Sikkim border and we stopped there grab our lunch… For the first time in the trip we found a place which sold South Indian dishes. The best part was not the idly/dosa it was the Rasmalai. The sweet was given in matkas and was the best I had ever tasted (Btw this has been my favourite sweet ever since I can remember).

My only regret from this trip is that I did not hv enough of Bengali sweets

The ride up the mountains was beautifully scenic(as usual ). We stopped along the way again to allow our car to be washed. At the place we bought some plums which were delicious… I mean they just melted in your mouth(my mouth waters just thinking of it). The fruits and veggies in this part look so healthy and delicious that you just want to bite into them

As we entered Darjeeling a huge traffic jam greeted us. It seem there was a conflict earlier in the day between a policeman and a taxi driver and it resulted in manhandling and the drivers decided to strike. It took us 2hrs to cover a distance that would normally take like 2 mins. We were dropped off at the raliway station and told to use porters to transfer our luggage. These guys hv amazing strength and carried half our luggage supported by their forehead.

The bad news did not stop there… The strike meant that the vans needed to transport water to the hotels and homes did also not ply… So there we were in Darjeeling the place we wanted to be and hating every moment of it. Thats when I went to my room and opened the screen I knew it was clearly worth all the trouble

The strike made us chage our plans, we decided to interchange the itenary for the next two days as one of the days we needed to leave at 3:30 am this would be difficult to negotiate with all the drivers off on strike . So the next day we headed off to a full day Mirik Lake excursion.

The lake was beautiful beyond words… It was amazing that even though there were mountains around we could hardly see them from the tree cover. The flowers were amazing not to mention animals were in galore.

On the way back we stopped at a market… The unique thing about the market was that it was well… in Nepal . So I for the first time crossed over the Indian border(Another first I did this trip) I always remember that ad on tv whose tag line is “When was the last time you did something for the first time”

This market was amazing… we had everything from blankets(local stuff) to digicams and other electronic stuff. We were totally unprepared for this sort of a market and having a 1 hr deadline to get back(our driver always seemed to be in a hurry :P we could not get much shopping done. My mom and aunt were in literal paradise and were enjoying every moment of the bargaining and stuff. An idea of how cheap stuff there were I overheard one man tell to another that an Ipod was available for Rs 5k… not sure which sort of model but I think it was one of the mid range ones.

On the way back from the market to our hotel we had to stop again coz my uncle’s driver had not shownup. I took the nice chance to snap up a few more pics

The next day was the one I was looking ahead to for the entire trip We were supposed to leave at 3:30 in the morn and I was ready by 2:45 am… A trick Im not sure how i did . The early morning rise was to catch the sunrise on Tiger Hill and to watch the sun bathe Mt Kanchenganga… ofcourse I was excited

By the time we reached the top of the hill there were people all over the place. I had almost given up hope as the sky was almost blue and that usually means that the Sun is over the horizon. What I very soon realized was that here there are 2 horizons unlike most places… the earth and the clouds… The sun has to be over the clouds(covering the hills) to hv fully risen. We had enough time

We had to all purchase a ticket to enter a building which allowed us to get elevation to view the event. When we reached there the room was already crowded but we managed to get a place from where we could eazily see out the window.

The light was slowly but steadily getting better and all of a sudden a guy to my left screamed and started shouting saying he saw it… he saw it. I was like wtf and there was chaos everywhere… ppl did not want to miss it and the sun was still not clear. I realized that this must be the guys first ever viewing of a sunrise and was laughing on the inside… by now ppl knew it was a false alarm and sat down.

A few mins later the sun did come out from the cover of the clouds… They say pictures speak a thousand words so here they are…

The above pic shows how many people had gathered there… And that was just the ground level.

We then headed for the Ghoom Monastery. For some reason the most wonderful experiences in this trip were the monasteries. I some how loved being inside one and always someone had to pull me out(very different than getting thrown out )

Next in queue was the Batasia loop… a War memorial created to remember the valiant troops that gave their lives for our great country. The memorial is in the form of a soldier standing in front of an obelisk. The mountains in the background just made it perfectly pictersque.

After breakfast we headed to the Padmaja Zoological Garden. I dont actually like zoos that much(believe that animals must roam freely and must not be caged) But this place also had the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and a Mountaineering Museum. I was not allowed to take pictures inside but could take a few pictures of the resting place of Tenzing Norgay(One of the first men to reach the summit of Mount Everest on May 29, 1953)

As we stepped out we decided to drink a cup of tea and stopped at a chay-shop. There i saw this amazingly cute pup Man was he brave not at all scared when I picked him up (If I feel that any animal is scared when I pick it up I usually keep him down and step back so as to stop scaring the poor animal) I spent a few mins petting him and playing with him. He even was kind enough to pose for a few snaps

During our sight seeing we passed by a rock named after Tenzing Norgay. This rock is used to train amatuers mountaineering.

And the place Baichung Butia got his training before he became captain of India.

The next day we moved to the final destination of our vacation Kalimpong. The mist in Darjeeling the day we left was the highest in the entire trip.

This place is not in much elevation compared to either Gangtok or Darjeeling but this was the rest phase of our trip. What this meant was that we had a few hours of sight seeing and had 2 days for ourselves to relax .

We visited the Cactus garden, a beautiful assortment of cacti…

The last pic in the above set was a cactus whose thorns did not hurt… they actually felt like cotton . We then went to the Zang Dhok Palri Phodong monastery… Again ppl had to pull me out I was particularly interested in the lamps which had an intresting form of oil keeping it running(I think now that it is just ordinary oil but became so coz of the cold ) And took some pictures of the Stupas which I thought served as tombs of temple masters.

We stopped again at a garden which was covered in the mist and cleansed by the morning dew. I got some truly beautiful pictures of the dew drops on the leaves and one prized scalp of a spider web

We also went to a garden higher in the mountains but hardly anything was visible over the cloud cover and the mist…

Then it was time to head back… The flights were non terbulant and I was partially exhausted by the time I reached home but I was so happy with the trip that I hardly cared.

Its wonderful when I look back and wonder how those 8 days just flew by… I guess it will be another year before my next vacation… I think the plan is Singapore but I want to see more of India, Let me see if I can convince them to do Rajasthan and its beauty next year (Deep down I wanna scuba dive… Well that can be arranged in a trip over the weekend so guess that will be sooner that later )

Some more random pictures from the trip:

These were from my cell cam:

Veggies anyone:

Earth and the Sky:

Read the first part of this trip: A Walk In The Clouds… My Sikkim Trip

This quote from my cousin near Tsango lake is a spectacular way to explain what we felt through out the trip. She said(to her mom) “Ma, I thought I would never touch the clouds but I even did that today…”

Words escape me as I try to sum up those feeling in words but one things for sure… This trip has been the most exciting 8 days of my life and I hv photos to prove it

Our journey started early Sunday(22nd May) morning… we had a morning flight to Kolkota and another flight a few hours later to Baghdogra. Its amazing how busy an airport is without regard to time… As we got through the tedious process(its no longer exciting considering I travelled in planes for the first time last year) of getting our luggage tagged and then checking in one thing was clear to me Kingfisher airhostess are really distracting . With all due respect to all the other airlines and all the pretty people on them… Vijay Mallya is great at what he does

Entrance to Sikkim.

Baghdogra Airport is in a very remote location very close to Sikkim. Next was a 4hr taxi ride to Gangtok. Most of this journey was along river Teesta… The river flowing in the vallies and crevasses of the great Himalayas is truly a sight for sore eyes.

A few hours later we were at our destination Gangtok, the Capital of the state of Sikkim. We reached around 6 pm and we thought we had enough time to freshen up and go to the local bazaar but interestingly things happen much earlier in these parts. The sun is up by 5 am (compared to the 6 am rise in Bangalore) and in the evening most of the shops are shut by 8 - 8:30 pm(a fete which is unthinkable in Bangalore). I took the time to get a few snaps of the hills from my window.

The next day we spent mostly sight seeing. This was the day we needed to get used to the chill of the hills and few places we visited helped us to warm up to the occasion . The visit to Rumtek Monastery was a experience I will probably never forget. The monastery is placed on top of a mountain and the walk from the gate to the Monastery is very tiring(considering our lifestyle in Bangalore we hardly get any exercise :P. Once we entered the Monastery this aura of calmness just runs us down… Its amazing how relaxed you feel inside one of those places maybe its how they build them or maybe its just that I encountered peace and quiet after such a long time

The monk above can be best described as A “Monk who never had a Ferrari to sell” The man was very kind and soft spoken. He was kind enough to let me take his picture and the calmness in his expression says it all .

These flowers(below) at the Monastery were very intresting… The plant had flowers blossoming in different colors what is even more intresting is that the colors are from different ends of the spectrum . There was also a group of ppl building what I initially thought was one giant rocket I guess it was a long pole(similar to Dwaja Stumba’s we have in front of our temples)

We then visited a flower show… I was initially of the opinion that this should only take a few mins but the variety flowers we saw in the show was simply mind boggling. The time we had chosen for our trip was perfect as most flowers were blooming with all their glory This was a special treat for my mom(she simply adores flowers )

This flower reminded me of this entry in my friend’s journal

In the evening we walked through MG Marg, A street in which you could find all the shopping you will need . This shop literally stood out from the rest. Its width was around twice my cubicle’s and the length was like 40-60 ft. Its intresting how different buildings are in these regions compared to home.

The next day we headed to lake Tsango. The lake is at an amazing height of 12400 ft above sea level. The drive to the lake saw us going though Indian Army camps… The lake is very close to the Chinese border and the whole area is covered by the military. We stopped at the Kyanglosla falls… A brilliant falls at such a height and the water was crystal clear, I doubt the water from our water filters are this pure.

We then went past lake Tsango to go to a memorial a few kms ahead. Our driver informed us that this memorial was of a soldier that had drowned and that they consider the place very holy. Once we reached the place… holy or not this place was beautiful. The clouds were all over us and it just kept drizzling. When you are inside a cloud its feezing, It was so cold I could actually feel the muscles in my face as the drops hit it. The air had a weighted feel to it and we could not see beyond a few feet ahead of us. After a while the clouds cleared and I took the opportunity to click a few pictures of the place.

The above picture is the only snow we saw in the trip. Since the time was practically the end of summer most of the snow was gone. I was not very disappointed considering last year I had spent a whole day in a snow field throwing snow balls at every one (That was the first time I had encountered snow ever )

Lake Tsango is considered to be very holy lake. The lake is fed by the melting snow and it is huge(considering where it is). There were yak rides around the lake but I decided to skip that. Yaks are one of the coolest animals I hv ever seen(pun not intended) they are huge almost twice or thrice the size of cows and as furry as furry can get. Considering their huge size and large horns they are very timid and docile. The man that owned the yak told us that he had spent Rs. 17K getting one and was charging us 10 bucks per picture of the animal.

The last evening in Gangtok was spent at the Ropeway. The huge structure is a good way to get a bird’s eye view of the beautiful city.

Considering this post has already become so long I shall post about the events in Darjeeling and Kalimpong in my next post

Till then here are some random pics from the visit to Gangtok:

“We are Indians… We are expected to be late”, “Its IST Indian Stretchable Timings”, “I thought you are going to be late too…” People those excuses are pathetic and nothing angers me more than a person who is late and never shows a bit of remorse about it.

Last weekend I had a bad experience with ppl being punctual… The incident left me really depressed and partially hurt…

Let me give you a concept of Time that will help you understand why it hurts me so much… I read this in “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari”. Showing up to a place on time is not a matter of being able to brag about it to late comers… its a matter of “RESPECT”… Arriving to a meet in time is like telling others “I respect your time”… And by slowly and regularly making it on time makes others RESPECT your time… The next time you call someone they will understand and believe that you will be there on time and try their best to be on time as well.

Next time you hv a meeting think of it this way “If I show up on time… I respect XYZ time”. Trust me you will be a bit more regularly on time. Its a weird thing to say but of all the things I can give anyone, Time is the most precious(I ain’t getting it back, you see) So when you make somebody wait just think that you are costing someone something they will never get back… I hv slowly begun to realize that the ppl that get hurt the most are the ones that show up on time… I mean talk about fairness they are punished coz they were considerate enough to show up on time .

You dont need to kill youself or anybody(driving rashly) to be on time… It only matters that you truly tried, Nobody is perfect to show up on time each and every day… sometimes unforeseen circumstances leads to delays and thats acceptable but only a few times…

The next time you are late hope you remember what I said… And please lets try and change the belief that all Indians are late. That hurts me the most…

Things didn’t end on a right footing the last time we spoke and I never called her again or tried to reach her, save one email saying “happy birthday” a few months ago. The last mutual interaction made it clear to me that she was angry with me and I wont divulge into the reasons.

Its weird how you see someone from your past and almost every conversation you had with them happens again in ur mind… you then remember your best and worst moments and relive those old days again…

She was the one who inspired me to put faith in talking in relationships actually. I mean I hv seen close to the worst of what can happen and that made me realize that when u care for someone you call them back and tell them whats bothering you. Which is ironic coz all i need to do was call her and say something… anything and I didn’t.

I’m not sure I particularly enjoyed the reunion but I had expected it to happen sometime(we live in the same city for god sake… (for many reasons)we would eventually bump into each other) And then after seeing her again and thinking, is that her… yes its her… did she see me… ya she did, I was talking loudly on the phone along the way and she must hv been like a few feet away from me…

I doubt she will ever read this(my blog is not that popular). But I might as well say it here in the hope that she will bump into it… rather wait a long time to again see her and not say anything. Well. all I wanted to tell her was… “I’m sorry, I wish I had not said what I said but I know that I cant take it back now but hv ever since regretted saying it. I wish things could go back to a few days before our last phone call but I know its too much to ask for…”

PS: What I said was nothing abusive or not said in any form of fury…

Something has been bothering me for the last few days and it was coz something else got resolved and lets just say that i had got the reading all wrong… You feel like you should hv not done and said certian stuff coz they now threaten to destroy everything else or atleast hurt someone along the way…

I needed to speak to someone and I did so last night… things became a bit more clear and I got more than just my point of view, how I use it and resolve the situation is my problem… I guess I just need a little time to rethink my stand… Thanks S for all ur help

My new host gives 20 Gb storage space and 1 Tb transfer bw at a price of 9.24$… Trust me its a good deal but only for one year.
(In case you are intrested in the hosting go here: http://www.dreamhost.com choose the 1yr package - 112 $. Before you give ur card details it will give an option for offer id give the number as ‘777′ you will get the package for 112$)

Plays galore: Had been to a kannada play on tuesday. “Anukulak obba Anna”(A brother for need) was an hour long superior kannada play. The comedy even though small brought a hugh share of laughs and in the end was worth the effort of travelling so far mid week

Accident on my Friends Bike: I hv mentioned earlier about Kittu’s CBZ… well he is out of town the last few days and before he left I had asked him for his bike. I planned to pick the bike after the play and reached his home at 9 in the night. I dropped off my bike at his place and drove his bike back home.

On the way back, I was speeding on the outer ring road and it happened… This Indica a few feet in front of me went over a hump on the road and slowed down almost to a stop. I had slowed the bike to what was required to cross the hump but banged right into him. The bike fell down and an indicator took the max damage.

I was in this trance when it happened and all that I cared about was the bike. I spent 5 min checking the bike in all angles. It took me a few mins to climb back on it and ride home. I called up Kittu and informed him about the accident and all he was worried about was if I was hurt. This was when I realized that I was bleeding on my left knee and took some medication.

I was so down during the whole thing that if someone had handed me a gun I would hv shot myself. I know what the bike meant to him and I so felt like I had betrayed his trust. This is the thing with me I hardly would hv cared if it happened to my bike… actually my new car got a huge dent 3 days after we bought it. It was parked in front of my house when some one rammed into it and ran away. I looked at it and the only thing in my mind was “if it can be fixed… its ok.” Kittu’s bike was another story… I hardly got any sleep all nite and the first thing I do in the morn is go and get it checked at the showroom and get it fixed.

I then gave the bike back to Kittu, who was very calm about the whole thing. What ever you say Kittu, what u think caused the accident… did not cause it.

I guess the whole experience taught me to respect other peoples possessions a lot more than I used to (ie I will prob never borrow any vehicle from anyone )

I was supposed to catch a evening snack with * (* for all future references is ‘this person’), I was waiting from 5 and tried calling a couple of times but no answer… I thought * must hv gone out with *’s family(considering it was a sunday).

I get a apology the next day and an assurity of a call later in the day. The call never comes… I just go to sleep waiting(I didnt call * for reasons)… There is an apology later and another promise for a call… This time I dont wait up for it(Once bitten twice shy…) It never comes.

* had also promised to hv a cup of coffee with me this weekend but it never happened too. (I did not rely on * showing up totally).

Now to the part thats most irritating… I meet * over the weekend and its like nothing has happened… * gives a smile and a ‘hi’ [Thousands of knives stab me all over] and I reply politely with a hi and a smirk(I find it almost impossible to be rude to ppl)

* point of view might be different. I know for a fact that *’s week in the office was the worst ever… * might hv simply forgotten to tell me, well * did apologise twice for it. I will definately tell * what I felt coz I tell friends when they piss me off… It totally reduces any form of miscommunication or misunderstanding and gets me a good nights sleep as well.

Any Suggestions feel free to drop them…

UPDATE:

* apologised and things are pretty much back to where it was… Well, I hv not asked out * again but we hv kept the phone company in business a lot lately

“Spur of the moment” is the current mantra and the Trip to Shravanabelagola will go down as one of those.

The initial plan was that Theju, Sidharth, Prasad, Pramod, Musavir, Varma and I will travel to SB in Sid’s Alto and a Santro. The planned time was leave 3 am, Reach there 5:30 am, Make way to top and spend most of the day on top of the hill and return by 9 pm.

What happened was totally different…

Varma first dropped out a few days ago(me had to pick up a friend arriving in the city), Musavir also had to back away from the plans, Pramod was still indecisive about making the trip. The day before the trip Theju, Prasad, Pramod, Sid and I spent the night in the office planning to leave at dawn… thats when we were infomed that we need a pass to view the abhisheka… (We had none ). We enquired and found that the general dharshan was at 3 in the evening and Planned to atleast make it to that.

Sid decided he wont be coming oweing to his train to Cochin at 10pm. Pramod said that he would make it as he was spending the night at office and would get his next days work done. I planned to get back home early morning, get some decent sleep and rush back to go to SB. Theju and Prasad were doing the same.

The crunch time came in the morning and we realized that only Theju, Prasad and I were going and talks of driving there in bikes came up. I was not totally for it considering my recent fight with cinus(want to avoid cold air as much as I can now… atleast for sometime). We decided to take Sid’s Alto… Suddenly the girls decided to join in… Shruthi, Preethi and Vidhya joined in and the 6 of us set rolling.

The drive was amazing… Roads beautifully flat… the best trip wrt roads I have taken in a long time. Theju did most of the driving, Preethi and I did a short stint in between. It was a pleasure driving on that road , it truly made driving a pleasure

We arrived at Shravanabelagola by 4:30 and spent sometime trying to find the parking space. The whole town had transformed for the Mahamastakabisheka, there were hotels and cops all over the place… It looked really well organized.

The climb to the top took us 50 min(I actually used a stop watch to time it )… we would hv taken a fifth of the time if they did not stop the queue every 20 steps … understandably it was to make sure no stampeding occured.

The number of doorways to the enterance absolutely surprized me, its my second trip to SB and the last one happened 12 years ago(looks like im destined to view the Gomateswara after ever Mahamastakabisheka). The last time I remember the steps and all but the number of doorways were just 2… well guess my memories will now be updated

The architecture all around was spectacular. I remember an intresting quote by my uncle a few days ago

“Like the best of our generation have been put into IT (debatable), the best of the earlier generations were put to Architecture”

I truly agree

The pictures speak a million words and I will let them do the talking… The Gomateswara is incredibly beautiful and once you are in front of it you just go speechless. For people who dont know this is the tallest monlithic statue in the world.

For some reason I feel an unusual bond with Shravanabelagola and the Mahamastakabisheka in the 2 times in my lifetime its happened I have seen the monolith around the same time. When I was watching the Mahamastakabisheka on the first day, I acutally sat watching it for an hour and if it wasnt for the wedding I would have seen it all day(It may sound wierd but it made me feel spirutual)… Will write about this later

We were done a few mins after reaching the top. We stopped for some masala lime soda and Cucumber(my favourites) at the bottom of the hill before heading to the car and back home. We reached home at 9:30 pm tired and really sleepy

Websites for info on Mahamastakabisheka Mahotsav:

http://www.shravanabelagola.com/
http://www.mahamastakabisheka.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shravanabelagola
http://www.karnataka.com/tourism/shravanabelagola/

Check out Theju’s Photos here
Stills from the trip ….

The columns are the best part of Indian Architecture… Its amazing that Indian kings tooks so much intrest in how the holy buildings looked…

The size of the monolith can be seen above wrt to humans… Its spectacular well done… the body is very smooth other wise it would retain parts of the abhisheka material on it(the kalash just flows off the skin)… marvellous.

The ratio of size of head to hands to feet is amazingly accurate… wonder how the architect did it… I struggle when i sketch simple images on paper… guess its talent

It looks like a lot of polluting but almost everything in the abhisheka is biodegradable so like the Jain way “Live and Let live”.

Its sad to see vandals decerate holy monuments… saw similar stuff at the Taj… Its really disgusting (above left snap)

Lake on the way back…

The most beautiful thing this week was getting close to most of the rituals that surround a Hindu Wedding… Its one of the most magnificent set of rituals I have seen ever. Not to mention the amount of attention I was getting (more ppl congratulating me coz now my “line” is clear ).

This week was the first time in almost 7 months that I went without updating my blog for 4 days in a row (cool na).

It all seems so worth it when ppl come to you at the end of it and say ‘it was nice’.

My only true regret is forgetting to call so many of my friends… Im sorry guys, I plead guilty and my only excuse is that I was too busy (not to mention a little sick) and remembered atleast 10 people I should have invited after the wedding was over. If it will make you feel better I will invite you to my wedding for sure .

Things will get back to normal soon and I hope all the body ache is gone sooner … So, more posts from me soon and a few pics from the wedding too and not to mention photos of my new car .

Bought a cool Ford Fiesta 1.6 SXI today noon . I can say I was in love with it the moment I saw it and cant wait to have it delivered. The way it all went about was really fun…

9:00 Am Dad decides to get the car(my approval was always there) after discussing it with my uncles

10:30 Am We reach Cauvery Ford and Look at the cars

12:30 Pm Most of the paperwork is done (Trust me its a pain signing over a hundred times )

2:30 Pm All required documents given and signs taken(I was happy to stop signing )

WOW, I love doing things in the spur of the moment

Anyway, I will be busy most of this week… considering I hv had like 30 min of online time in the last 2 days, I dont expect things to get better till Sat. My next post will be after Sat…

Keep Smiling

You breathe every second of your life,
But the seconds that really count are the ones that take your breadth away…

That line makes so much more sense after a weekend like the last one….

Last weekend Team Applibase set out to spend a couple of days in Bandipur. Firstly special thanks to Anant… he got the booking done for us at Bandipur and without that we would have had a lot of probs wrt lodging(considering the Tiger Census and all).

The plan was simple… Go to Bandipur, enjoy Trekking and the Safari, Trek a mountain or two on the way back and be at Bangalore early monday morn. The execution was very different…

14th Jan 2006 4:00 Am

I was still weary from the last two days… My fever seemed to have reduced considerably but Mom was still anxious to see me go when I was not perfectly healthy. Dad was to drive me to the station, Dad simply tossed me the key and said drive.
(At this point I would like to say I have never driven my car. The reason being that when I got my license I was too happy with my bike license that I never drove my old car and when we got a new one dad was too scared to let me drive… I had not driven for like 2 years.)

I had been practicing driving lately on weekends and I promptly took the keys and half fearing missing the train I drove it. We were at the train station at 5:45 and the train was set to leave at 6:30.

Pramod decided to skip the trip thanks to some work( ) but the rest of em where there. Anant was busy in the weekend and could not join us and Musavir was out of town all week so did not make the trip. Shruthi and Vidya also had managed to excuse their way out of the trip

6:30 Am

The train finally started moving and we were all seated next to one another. The initial part of the journey was all getting used to the train and putting the luggage in place. Soon the black sky parted and a streak of orange appeared in the horizon… We spent most of the time talking to eachother and taking pics.

Our next major station of intrest was Maddur… Thanks to the famous “Maddur Vade”. We managed to buy a few of the Vades and they were really delicious. I by this time had forgotten all about the sickness and was biting into the roasted dish.

We then got down to playing cards… Asha suggested the game commonly known as “Donkey” (I guess the creator was not very original atleast in the naming part ). The game involved luck and a lot of memory… Theju and Asha seemed to have played the game before coz they were all ready with stratergy and all… the rest of us ended up learning the game the hardway .

A few rounds of “Donkey” and we realized we were arriving at the Mysore Railway Station. Mysore was the capital of most kings that ruled Karnataka and surrounding regions, its not hard to explain why… the city looked royal right from the start and if you get near the Palace it gets as royal as it can be.

10:15 Am

We got out of the train and headed straight for the prepaid auto stand. We had 7 of us so one auto had to hv 4 ppl and Asha, Preethi, Theju and I boarded that one. Sid, Prasad and Varma climbed into the other one. We asked the auto driver to drop us off at a decent restuarant near the Bus Station.

A few mins later we had had our breakfast and headed to the Bus Station which was right across the street form the Resturant. We had to wait for a bus heading towards Ooty as they went thru our destination. We got busy again taking snaps while we waited for the bus. We had just missed a bus and had to wait like 30 min for the next one.

As soon the next bus came there was a rush to get seats and it became so crazy that ppl who were getting down could not manage to get out of the bus thanks to ppl trying to get in. Many threw their belongings in thru the window so as to reserve the seats… Have to mention that Sid did the same… but almost a few secs later another bus to Ooty arrived and the crowd split into 2 and we managed to get seats in the second bus.

We were tired and this bus journey was comfortable enuf to get some rest… I was sleeping in almost no time… The bus stopped once for about 15 min at Gundlapete, where the driver and most of the travellers ate their lunch.

Pretty soon we were on our way again, our destination was only an hour away. The scenery got picterusque in a hurry and everywhere we looked it was either beautiful fields or green mountains under clear blue skies. We requested the conductor to stop when we reached Bandipur and he promptly did it.

3:00 Pm

The first thing we did was head to the office and see if our cottage was available. A few min of walk and a look into the register informed us that our rooms were available and we could have them. The next concern was food… suddenly skipping lunch did not seem like a good idea. We luckily found a mess but only Dosa was available and we ordered one each.

We spent some time taking pictures of us in the beautiful surroundings.

The officials later informed us that they did not allow treking anymore. Our only choice was the Safari. We decided to get acquainted with the surroundings after unloading our stuff in the room. Theju and I got busy taking photos of Deer that were close to our room. I got one of my best snaps of a tree in B&W(below). The walk was refreshing through the woods and we tried following sounds of footprints(we were pretty sure they were deer)

Our walk ended when we reached the pond near our cottage. Sid decided to make “Blair Which Project 2006″ starring Theju… they ran arround with the cam as if theju was being chased by a wild animal… the video was just too hillarious.

We were then infromed that were were not allowed to go into the forest(we were already in it ). At this moment a group of elephants were just arriving for their bath. The Mahouts had mounted a female elephant while her calf was scrambling behind her. I was totally intregued by the animals and decided to get some closeup snaps. The mother was in the mood to be photographed and posed beautifully for me. The calf on the other hand was as curious about me as I was about him and started moving towards me. I guess I kindof wanted space and moved back and it came faster towards me… at this time I thought it was charging me and jumped way out of reach of the little elephant.

The little one seemed much less intrerested in me by this time he ran for the pond and started swimming. It was really beautiful watching the baby elephant play with the other elephants, it was having so much fun.

5:00 Pm

We headed for the evening Safari, we were one of the last groups to get to go to the Safari. Initially we had planned to take a night Safari but that had been stopped since sometime now. To add more to our displeasure we had to take the regular safari with a bus as all the Jeeps were booked. We booked a jeep for the morning and climbed into the Jeep.

We had no luck with Tigers in this trip but we saw a lot of Spotted Deer and other animals. The bus stopped near herds of deer at which time all the people in the bus leaned over to one side to get a glimpse of the animals. The Deer were not very scared and continued its grazing keeping an eye on us.

We returned to our rooms later in the evening feeling a little satisfied with our wildlife interaction. We decided to take a walk later when the sun had set and in almost complete darkness. We were amazed by the count of deer around our room. All we could see were their eyes and there were hundreds of them all around us.

We played a game of cards in the night and that was followed by a game which Sidharth invented called “Robot” (christened by Sid… NOTE: not at my approval ) Will blog about that later .

Sunday 15th Feb 6:00 Am

The morning safari was more like the one we expected. We were up and ready early and really expecting to see something. The Safari did not disappoint… we started like the previous day with a lot of deer but things picked up soon. As we were driving on our path stood a magnificent Single Tusker. The elephant kept heading towards us and our driver took a u turn making our backs face the animal then drove a safe distance from him. He stopped twice to kick sand and throw it over his body, the elephant was amazing and we had to stop at a fork in the road and hope that he took the other route so we could continue with our journey.

After getting past the Tusker we saw a few monkeys and a lot of deer… The rest of the safari was almost uneventful (compared to those 10 min with the Tusker).

Once we were back we packed our bags and headed for GopalSwamy Betta… We had heard so much about the place that we had to drop by. We stopped at a village called Hangala ( 10KM from bandipur and 8 KM from Gundlupet ). We had to hitch a ride to the temple at the top of the mountain from Hangala… After asking around we settled for a Pick Up… The guys climbed onto the back and the girls sat up front and off we went.

The drive up the mountain was simply amazing, the wind blowing thru our hair and the feel of speed on our faces. The ride up the mountain was filled with some of the best scenerys I have seen.

The Temple on GopalSwamy Betta was beautiful… There was a story associated with the place which the priest at the Temple was explaining the tourists. I got to listen only the ending part which said that there were no crows on the mountain (the reason was what I missed ).

We spent sometime taking photos and taking some mid air snaps which I totally loved.

On the way back down we stopped at a pond and took a moment to enjoy the clear beauty surrounding us. We climbed up some rocks and sat down on top to savour the spleandor of the mountain.

The driver seemed to be in a hurry coming back and drove really fast. At one point my cap flew off and I had to run like 300 ft to got retrive it back .

We got a bus to Gundlepet and then took a bus from there to Mysore.

3:00 PM

We reached Mysore hungry and rushed to a nearby restuarant to grab lunch. After lunch we unloaded at the room and after resting for a few mins we walked towards the Mysore Bus Stand.

We had made plans to climb Chamundi Betta. We got down at the foot of the mountain and walked on the road expecting to see a section of the mountain where steps were laid. We walked for almost an hour and we finally came to the steps. Sadly it seemed we had chosen the wrong road and had walked a long distance to get to the steps. The steps led us to the huge Nandi. The beautiful stone bull was halfway up the mountain. By the time we got to the top it was almost 7 in the evening and the sky looked beautiful with stars.

We entered the temple and bared the crowd to get a glimpse of the goddess “Chamundi”. We ate some bhel puri and chaats outside and took the bus back to town.

The dinner was at a very badly lighted restuarant. I finally got to taste some wine and a scumptous dinner before getting back to the room. We played cards till almost 2 in the night and then decided to get some sleep before heading home.

The train was at 6:30 am and we managed to make it and get seats. The trip back was uneventful as the group was seperated coz of the unavailability of seats in a row. We finally reached Bangalore at 10:30, a little late coz the train had to stop at 2 places for a crossing.

This trip was truly special and here is hoping for many more trips…

Some other photos from the trip I loved :

PS: Sorry for the late entry, considering this trip happened about 3 weeks ago. I blame sickness and the size of the entry for the primary reasons. Theju has an entry posted on the same trip (he did it earlier today )