Wanderlust

A visit to the Great Wall

2007-12-05T20:50:00.000-08:00

Well, after a couple of days. Office was routine. Lots of knowledge sharing sessions, some training to the new guys, early supper, post-suffer coffee at Jackie Chan's Tea & Coffe cafe in the Mall next door (with the cute girl at the counter who could speak a smattering of English). Stuff.
However, I did have free weekend and decided to make full use of it. Then I heard that Ricky (who was visiting from the UK) was planning to go for a trip to the Great Wall. So, I decided to tag along. Kevin Jin, a colleague, offered to come along and help us get around. So off we went early in the Saturday morning to see the Great Wall at Badaling, around 70 Km from Beijing.
We hired a taxi for the whole day for around 500 RMB and drove down to the Great Wall. The journey itself was uneventful except for the fact that we had to finish our breakfast at KFC as that seemed to be the only place open so early in the morning. Never had fried chicken earlier than this and the coffee sucked (as expected).
At Badaling, it was freezing cold. The plants around dried in the autumn and covered with frost. We hopped on to the cable car that took us up there.

The Cable car ride to the Wall
Many say that the walk up to the Wall is really exciting and I was all for it except for the fact that we had a few more things planned for the day and would have liked to finish that as well. Walking it up would have meant that we would have to spend the whole day at the Wall.
Anyway, the car ride was not bad though not very exciting. Once at the Wall, we quickly realised that we were not the only ones there :). In fact, it seemed as if half of China was there at the Wall that Saturday!

A stretch of the Wall - full of people!

Anyway, we hanged around and took a few snaps and walked for a distance along the wall till we found an exit. Then we took the slide train down to the other side of the mountain. It was a good experience, almost like a roller-coaster ride. More snaps here on Picasa.

The Great Wall

After the great Wall, we headed towards the Ming Tombs, a mausoleum of the great Ming emperors. However, we saw that this again was far too crowded for our comfort and too expensive as well so we headed back to town.

In Beijing we went shopping to see what does the city offer. I wanted to pick up some Chinese movies and we were guided by other guys in office to this place called Tom's. Tom's was a shady little place in a basement of a building located in a posh locality in Beijing. Once inside, I was surprised to see thousands of DVDs staring back at us from 2 floors of shelves! I need not mention, each one of them was pirated. What's more there were some Hindi movies too! However, I was surprised that I would recognise only Krrish among the movies there. The others were some low budget flicks I have never heard about! Bollywood needs to market itself more fervently. Even the pirates don't know what films to pick up!!!

After Tom's, we went to the Sunny Market next door which is frequented by foreigners. It is like one of those Burma Bazaars we have here in India. Cheap, slick-looking stuff on sale - from Toys to clothes to electronic goods. It is just a 3-4 storey building with small shops. Most of the shopkeepers speak English and if you like to bargain - it is paradise! I picked up some toys - Dash and Violet from the Incredibles, a small BB gun, a helicopter, etc. - and got it all dirt-cheap. My most prized find however, was a small Hasbro Darth Maul figurine. Currently it graces my cubicle and keeps bluetooth viruses and managers away.

Darth Maul in my Cubicle

We split soon after and Kevin was kind enough to drop me back at my hotel. So here's thanking Kevin for spending his entire day guiding us and keeping us from getting lost! You have been very kind Kevin. Thanks for everything.

Mr. Kevin Jin

Beijing Diary - Day 1 and 2

2007-11-20T20:21:00.001-08:00

Well, Day 1 was pretty routine and went by before I knew it. It was Matt and Viv's late day in office before they left for London and spent most of the time catching up. Luckily Douglas (Lord Hetherington III, as he prefers to be called) is in the same hotel as I am. So walked it up to the office with him.
The office is amazingly well done. And the coffee maker is excellent as well. I had a hard time to walk an the new resinated pathway though as my new shoes squeak like hell. Then I noticed Matt has the same problem :). Met up with the Chinese team and they seem to be a friendly lot. During lunch, went to the nearby 7-storied electronics store which had every electronic gadget one could imagine of. It was amazing! One could easily get lost there.

Sunset at 5 (view from the office)

Viv had his customary team dinner at this really nice place called The Middle 8 next to the office. Lucian and Ricky (himself a visitor from London) joined the group. Ate very good Hunyan food cooked and served traditionally. I tried my luck with chopsticks again and managed to scrape by a bit. Also tasted the famous Qingdao (Tsingtao) Beer and loved it. It is a bit like Indian lager but less bitter. After an early dinner, bade sad goodbyes to Matt and Viv and moved on with the team to more informal watering hole.

The team Dinner

The other side

Kevin, our local boy, took us around to this place called Lush. It was a tiny little noisy bar full of foreigners. But the prices were great! What's more - the happy hours were from 8PM-10PM! So we sat down for a couple of good noisy rounds of beer along with a few drags of Sisha. I guess I must have had a bottle of beer too many (I remember downing four). It was good to experience a regular Beijing pub - a refreshing change from the formal eatouts we usually tend to go. We had a ice bucket with 7 chilled beers for just 65 RMB (each bottle would cost 12-15 RMB usually). And I noticed that the prices for a Tequila shot was just 5 RMB (this I found unbelievable - that's less than 30 rupees!). Plus we had a very pretty and equally shy waitress serving us. Add some old(ish) English tracks by Oasis and Deep Purple, low lighting and a group of new found friends to this milieu and you can easily see we had a ball of a time.

Beer @ Lush
We took a taxi on the way back to the hotel and I noticed that the prices are really reasonable. The rates were 10 RMB for the first 3 KMs and then 2 RMB per KM. But make sure you have the address of your destination in Chinese. VERY difficult to find your way otherwise. So my advice is to keep a piece of paper with the address of your hotel/office written in Chinese in your wallet. Tattoo it on your chest if you need to, but don't ever make the mistake of straying too far without a homing address in Chinese.

Day 2 started very late. I woke to Doug's call to realise it is office o'clock already. So skipped breakfast and reached office at around 10:15. Day was mostly uneventful, went to a Korean joint for lunch. Got some very good sauted corn rice and pork for 25 RMB. Very quick and easy on the taste buds. Later in the day spent a few hours doing what I was supposed to do here: introducing the Chinese team to our architecture.
Among the highlights of the day was I and Doug getting our Chinese names - I am Ge-Lu Wan.
After office, I went walking around for a few KMs around the hotel looking for some clothes. I forgot to bring an extra pair of jeans so I desparately needed to buy. The Levis store here seems to be quite expensive. The average price here seemed to be in the neighbourhood of 600 RMB (> Rs. 3000, for which one can buy 2 Levis jeans in Bangalore). Quite a shock that. Finally, after roaming around for more then 4 KMs I stumbled across Wu-Mart, a HUGE underground supermarket. After hunting a bit I found a store where the lady could speak passable English and I picked up a pair of cordouroy trousers for just 128 RMB (not branded, of course). Then also purchased a fairly good belt for 40 RMB. And now I am good to go. Ended the day by picking up a bucket-sized cappucino from Jackie Chan's Tea & Coffee store nearby and watching a couple of movies.
More tomorrow.
Word of the day: xiè xie (謝謝) == THANK YOU. Pronunciation: SHY-AY SHYAH - the first SHYAH should start high (sssshhya-h) and the second one should come out quickly, almost abruptly.

Beijing Diary - Day 0

2007-11-18T16:29:00.000-08:00

Had to come over to Beijing for a couple of weeks to help the new Beijing office team ramp up. Flew down from Bangalore on Thai (via Bangkok). Pretty uneventful flight, I must say. Good to see that my international roaming is finally activated (and, at the same time, find it utterly useless as the roaming charges are far too high for me to actively use it :P).

It's freezing out here in Beijing! I had a window seat from Bangkok to Beijing and could see the entire approach to Beijing. Man, was that treacherous! Lined by high, rugged moutains and completely enclosed in thick clouds, it reminded me of Mordor. The sun was hardly to be seen (and it was just 4 o' clock in evening!). By the time I landed and collected my luggage, it was as dark as night. Luckily I had asked for a pickup from the airport and this turned out to be a really good thing as the drive was very long.

Checked into Hotel Beijing Sariz International in Haidian. This is indeed a very cool location - right in the centre of the city's Silicon valley, walking distance from my office and in the same building as a mega mall (The Gate). This is a new hotel and, for a change, my room was exactly as one on the website :-

a href="http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/guru.kini/Wanderlust/photo?authkey=Zl4S8icP7c8#5134347113615351650">

So it has been going pretty good (except for the annoying incident of the bell boy who insisted that he wants to give me a massage - an offer I totally refused!).

Beijing comes across to me as a cross between Bangalore and Bangkok. I could spot a lot of vehicles (Maruti Swift and Alto and something that looked like a Baleno). The bus service is reminiscent of the new Volvo BMTC buses back in Bangalore.

The people are friendly for most part but unfortunately there are very few English speaking people. Luckily most restaurants have images of the dishes on offer with a small caption in English so you can see what you are ordering and point to it(no guarantees that you can pronounce the name of the dish, though).

That's all for now. Time to go to office with my bag of chocolates. 再见 for now

London in pics

2006-07-25T01:55:00.000-07:00

Some snaps from the trip:-

We went to a Indian restaurant (it was run by Bangladeshis actually).
L to R (around the table): Matt, Richard, Doug, Vinatha, Gleb, Rajeev and Adbulaziz

This glow over the London Eye is due to the last few rays of the Sun. It was around 9:30 PM in the evening and I was enjoying a pint with my colleagues, when we saw this awesome scene

L to R: Rich, Matt, Doug, Doug's sis and her BF..
We were chilling out on a ship-coverted-into-a-pub by the Thames. The London eye in the background

London...

2006-06-20T09:51:00.000-07:00

Hmmm...after a very uninteresting turn of events, I have landed in London, in transit on my way to Belfast to attend a technical fest of vendors from all over. Pfftt... Have got just a SLR along and haven't yet started using it hence no snaps to keep you interested.
For some weird reason, British Airways decides to start its Bangalore-London direct flight at 6:30 AM Bangalore time. The part of my brain that sometimes reasons out things tried to shed some light on “why”, but couldn’t get too far. One possible explanation was that this flight timing made sense for people who will be catching another flight out of Heathrow. But logically speaking, even if this is a fact, I guess there will be a fat majority of people who will be travelling to London and not beyond. So such travellers will be inconvenienced by the timing. Or maybe there are forces beyond my powers of reasons that are at work here. Who knows? The net result of catching a plane in the wee hours of the morning was I wouldn’t quite sleep the night before and hence couldn’t quite wake up the following day.
The 10 hour flight was as uneventful as it could have been. Rajeev Tewari, colleague and companion extraordinaire, was seated right in front of me. Apparently our travel class was something BA prefers to call “World Traveller Plus”, “World Traveller” being a minor variation to the seating theme. By far, this was the most inconvenient international flight I have boarded (oh forget the IA/AI ones, they should not count). Good that I was too tired to complain. I must have slept 8 out of the 10 hours that I was airborne. Lousy choice of in-flight movies didn’t give me any extra reason to stay awake either. The crew was OK, nothing to add in favour or against them. My new found friend, Lawrence Simpson, dropped by to chat a couple of times and that kind of broke the monotony while I was awake.
The emigration check was not too much of a problem and the official seemed to be quite keen on the “Shantaram” novel that I was carrying. But I must advice that if are travelling to the UK, you better make sure that you have your papers in place. Something there gave me the idea that they won’t exactly roll out a red carpet if you fail to produce any document that they ask for.
A kind looking Spanish taxi driver was waiting for me outside with a Toyota. I jumped onto the front seat to get max view of London as we drove down. Finding Mercure, the hotel where I was put up in, was not a big problem. The driver seemed to Southwark Street and spotting Mercure doesn’t require too much of an effort.
I checked into the room, dumped my luggage and decided to trace the way to our office, lest I have to grope my way through next morning. On the way I thought I will pick up a bite to eat. Unfortunately, I came to know that the people here in Central London take their Sabbaths a bit too seriously as I could not spot a single joint where I could have something to eat. Sure, I was not exactly look at the right place. Maybe I should have gone down the road connecting Waterloo station to Southwark Station. But hey, I am in the middle of a business district with lots and lots of restaurants and pubs flanking the street – but NONE of them were open.
Anyway, I spotted the office easily and made a few phone calls to friends and decided to loaf around till I find some pub. And that I did soon. A neat place called The Stage Door, which derives its name, I guess, from an actual door of a nearby theatre (Old Vic by name). It was a smart little English pub and I decided to try some cider. To be on the safer side, I decided to settle for a half-pint for starters but I kind of liked the taste of cider and gulped down another half pint pretty soon. All this as I was watching a match between Australia and Brazil. Good match that one. But the pub was getting a bit loud and boisterous and I was feeling a little out of place alone, so I decided to retire back to my room.
After a pint of cider and some good live football action, you would expect any man with blood in his veins to be charged up in life about things. Well, I must be a lesser mortal as I came back to the room, saw some of the match that remained and slept again!!!! I think I woke up sometime at 8 o clock in the evening, but I saw it was quite bright and went off the sleep again. Next day, I was told by a friend that I didn’t even wake to receive calls!!!

First day at work
Next day, I woke up at 5. And I knew there is no way on Earth I would go back to sleep, not even if I drugged myself. I had enough sleep to go without any more for a week. Anyway, toying with what needs to be done, I finally managed to find my way to the bathroom. After a 15 min struggle with the stubborn shower, I finally managed to tune it to the temperature I wanted.
Next, I dressed up and headed for breakfast. They were charging me around £14 for it, so obviously I expected a full-scale English Breakfast. However, I was quite disappointed to see that there is only cereal and toast available. Surely, there would be bacon and eggs and stuff but there wasn’t anyone to prepare it for me. The waitress waltzed by my table once and filled my cup with some coffee, but that was the last I saw of her. Maybe tomorrow I would catch her and demand a proper breakfast. Watch this space.
So, after some toast and butter and cereals with cold milk, I dashed to the office and soon realised that it could be quite difficult to get into the office without an access card. All my well wishers had forgotten to mention that one needs to pay a visit to the Boundary Row office to get an access card done. Anyway, I had reached there by 8:30, so I suppose I didn’t have too many choices this early. Luckily, I bumped in Alison, who works for Project Office and had been to Bangalore a few weeks back. So that could have given the security guard some assurance that I am not exactly here to steal Symbian property. After some difficulty, I managed to reach the 5th floor but the local security guard was missing. So I decided to hang around till someone came by and a lady sure did come by pretty soon and helped me.
As I was wondering where on Earth does my team sit, I came across a familiar face, that of Laurie – my Mentor-Friend with whom I have had a few good discussion on life, universe and defect status in general. So we did finally meet and he showed me around. Vinatha was also at her desk (which was next to Viv’s).
For the better part of the morning, I was jostling with the Lotus Notes account on my (borrowed) laptop and meeting people as they walked in. The day, by itself was uneventful, though I was to fill in for Graeme as the Defect Co-ordinator for the day. Doug took me and Rajeev over to Relax@Symbian, the cosy (if tiny) restaurant on Boundary Row. I had some chicken curry and rice, which was quite filling, IMHO. Post-lunch we walked down to the riverside, as Doug showed us a few landmarks around.
On return, I was dragged into surprise meeting (since Graeme wasn’t in) and I had to quickly run through dozens of numbers (all of which I forgot by the time the actual meeting started). I don’t think I have been so ill-prepared for any meeting. Anyway, no violence ensued and I moved on to another meeting (the OMA Test Fest meeting). We spend an hour discussing what needs to be done and what went wrong last time, etc.. Not that we got too far with it. But at least it broke some ice, especially with David with whom neither I or Rajeev had interacted much.
Did nothing much through the day, just routine DC work. Left by 6 and went to the riverside with Rajeev and his friend Sanjeev who had shifted to the UK office recently. Tried some Guinness but it wasn’t as big a hit as last day’s cider with me. Anyway, I played along and after spending a couple of hours at the pub, headed back home.
At the Waterloo station, I picked up a HUGE cup of latte which was too much coffee for me to handle. Felt like throwing up all of it by the time I reached my hotel room. Not being very hungry, I thought I will pick up a couple of chicken wings to munch on. I entered some dingy joint off Southwark Station where I found this gang of Indian waiters from God’s own country (Kerala). The main guy was clearly quite excited to see a fellow Indian and before I knew it – he supersized my take away with a couple of extra pieces. Thanks, bro.
Walk back to the hotel was not very exciting either, nor have been the last 2 hours that I have spent in the room. Wondering what to do. That should explain this overlong account of my day. Till later (with hopefully more exciting stuff to report). Cheers…

Goa reprise!

2006-03-27T05:22:00.000-08:00

OK, picture this. You just back from a 9-day road trip, covering half of India’s west coast from Mangalore to Goa and up to Mumbai…you have hardly come out of your holiday mood and have just started paying attention to work…you have already spent a major chunk of your salary on the last trip and have hardly anything left to keep you going through the month…suddenly, a gang of over-enthusiastic and unpredictable friends plan another hurried Goa trip – what would you do? No way – right? You have work piled up to your nose; no need for another holiday and (most importantly) no money. No one would blame you if you call it off. That’s common sense.
However, I was never blessed with common sense. I decided to toss a coin and decide. As fate could have it, the toss decided that I should go and there I was – packing my bags again with my traveler’s cap on.
The chief culprits who lured me into this were Girish Shettigar and Pushkar, who countered all my objections and tried to associate this new trip with all that should ever matter to the Brahman and the world in general. Bhatti was also one of the chief collaborators in this scam and I guess it was difficult to fight such a formidable set of instigators. Anyway, the toss further settled the issues and we all started early from office on Friday, the 10th of March 2006 to catch the bus to Goa. Apart from the 4 of us, there was Roshen Cariappa, Bhatti’s ex-colleague who had joined us once in a Goa expedition long back (in 2002).
We took the Paulo travels bus from Bangalore and trust me, it is the worst possible ride in the world. I mean, I have done the Mangalore-Panjim stretch on a no-frills, non-luxury Govt. bus (which is actually a tin can with wheels and red paint smeared on it), but this one beats it hands down. The bus was packed with an unbelievable number of tourists – both foreign and Indian. You move your limbs and they invariably crash into some stowed away luggage or some random body part of a tourist. Man, it was CRAMPED! And this ordeal lasted for a full 15 hours! I will take the train or the flight next time.

Anyway, we hit Madgaon finally and we planning to go to Calangute, which is our favorite place in Goa. However, on the way, Bhatti had a brain wave and suggested that we strike camp at Kolva this time. Avoiding further discussions, we decided to toss and leave such complex decisions to fate. Bhatti was overjoyed when the toss favoured him. This is how we headed towards Kolva.

Kolva!
Among the more popular beaches in Goa, I think Kolva has the best stretch and very fine white sand. However, it is pretty laid back compared to the effervescent Calangute which seems to bustle with life and activity. A side-effect of this is that finding accommodation of your choice is a tad difficult in Kolva than in Calangute. We spent a good 2 hours trying to find a reasonable piece of lodging and finally had to settle for a hotel about 300 metres from the beach. After dumping our luggage we started off to the beach (the fastidious ones actually took a shower before starting. A shower while holidaying?- Well, I ask you).

Lazing on the beach

Me - almost asleep!

Pushkar used his knowledge of demography quickly announced that we should move as far away as possible to find a fairly deserted beach shack that will charge us reasonably. Well, you didn’t have to be Einstein to agree with him and so we headed south and walked on and on till we finally found a fairly decent shack that we all liked. This, folks, was the “Papillon” (spelling as is); and this was going to be our roost for the entire trip.

Me: climbing down the Papillon steps

At the Papillon, an enthusiastic Bengali import by the name Pradeep attended to us. The whole day we did little but drink, dive into the sea and eat sea-food exotica (Kingfish masala, Prawns and Mayonnaise cocktail, fried prawns). And trust me when I say this: there are very few better ways to spend time. Our sun-lounging sessions came to an end with the sunset and we decided to move on for dinner and we wandered off to the northern part of the beach. This was a big mistake as we bumped into this flashy joint called Silver Spoon or something and one of us ordered crab. It turned out the dish was just a couple of tablespoons of crab-meat in an empty crabshell and it cost us 650 bucks! Most irritating part was that they were closing the place down (it was just 9:30 PM!) and we had to hurry with our bar orders. Stay away from this place.
At the end of the day we realized that we didn’t have a proper meal through the day. And Roshen, having slept most part of the day, declared that he felt a real vacuum in his stomach. Anyway, there was little we could do so we suppressed our hunger pangs and vowed to make it up the next day. The sunset was awesome, as always...

Boat

The sun goes down on Pushkar and Bhatti

Pushk: Walking into the sunset

Moon rising over Kolva: I took all the sunset snaps, turned around and saw the moon rising! Cool, eh?

The next morning was nice and pleasant and we headed towards Papillon again (stopping at a mediocre shack for breakfast on the way). Pradeep and his crew welcomed us and we all settled down for another sunny day by the beach. We did absolutely nothing and boy! what a blissful day it was! We were not the only regulars on the shack. There was this English backpacker named William (Billy Bones being his “art-name”), a carpenter and designer by profession and a musician by inclination. He was actually lounging in the shack for a week then and had actually composed a song on the shack. He mentioned how he witnessed a movie shoot during a recent visit to Kerala and how the filmmakers lured him into acting for a scene in the movie. He was bloody impressed by the general reception he received in this part of the world. Well, “Athithi devo bhava” as we put it. You are most welcome to Indian hospitality, William.

Billy Bones

One for the record: The gang with Bill's guitar!

Lunch @ Papillon

We packed our bags well before sunset as we had a bus to catch from Madgaon at 7:30. While waiting for the bus, we picked up a few packs of Bebinca, a Goan sweetdish made out of eggs – a must try delicacy.
It was a tiring journey back by the same Paulo Travels bus. Next to me was this Indo-Swedish girl called Maya Verma, who was on her way to Pondicherry to meet her parents and relatives. She was an Economics student who had called off everything and decided to pursue art (paintings and sculpture). She was as appalled at bus as we were and seemed happier when I told her this is probably the worst she would get to see now.
We reached Bangalore late in the morning and shuffled off to our respective offices. In all the excitement, none of us realized that it was Girish’s birthday! Anyway, I guess we more than made up for it later on.
So that was it. 2nd Goa trip in 2 weeks. Some times the fun just goes on and on. Thanks guys for a good time.

The Great vacation - Goa

2006-02-28T02:48:00.000-08:00

I and Vikram reached Dakshin Kannada (D.K or South Canara) early in the morning. DK was beautiful, as always in the dawn. The gentle first rays of the sun chasing away the layers of mists over the lush paddy fields, the first light illuminating rivers and canals by the highway.
Reached home to have a sumptous breakfast of boiled banana and ghee with the staple idli and thick coconut chutney. There are really some things money can't buy. :)
Mom was thrilled to see her do anmol ratans back home together and embarking on a hazardous journey together. After breakfast, I headed towards the town and booked my tickets to Goa - decided to leave the same day. Mom was not very happy, of course.
The TV channels were rife with the Jessica Lal murder case. NDTV is pursuing it now "24x7" like. Vikram lapped it up as fast as he can.
The stay, otherwise was quite uneventful. The evening was a pain as we soon realised that opting for the bus over the train journey was a big mistake. The bus was a certain Mahabaleshwara stable and horrible would be too mild a word to describe it. I guess the body of the bus would have been built somewhere during the reign of Tipu Sultan. For some reason, the area around our seat smelt as if the the Sultan's men were given the liberty to let their bladders go there and no one's bothered to clean it since.

Go...aaah!
After an harrowing journey to Panjim, one that left my olfactory senses permanently scarred, we ventured to see what is the best way we can reach Pune from Goa. However, over breakfast, we agreed to such logistics are not of acute interest, especially when the Sun, Sand and Soma are beckoning with their arms wide open.
Vikram, being the bushy-tailed-dreamy-eyed dude he is, had some grand plans for Goa. His idea was not far removed from hiring a grand villa overlooking a beautiful beach with some scantily clad women serving us food and drink. After a few reality checks over idli and coffee (both sucked!) I convinced him to settle for a rented room near the beach on Calangute.

"Decent enough place"

This time we managed to find a decent enough place overlooking the sea. Incidentally it was Carnival time in Goa and there were hordes of tourists. And trust me, there was nothing remotely reminiscent of Baywatch anywhere along the beach stretch. Hot bodies are groomed and reserved for television; in the real world one would just find overweight, confused-looking tourists absorbing in the warm weather. We had a 2nd breakfast at the beach and decided to spend the day on the sun-beds that. For company, I had picked up Srinivas Ramanujam’s biography by Robert Kanigel which was fast becoming a good read. I tried to introduce Vikram to the short stories by Roald Dahl but it didn’t quite impress him and he ended flicking my book from me.

Vikram doing pushups :)

Vikram with his artwork

My attempts at art

Drinks and dips...

Lunch is served

...and in between drinks and dips, I spent some time talking to the lady managing the shack and the dude that served us. I wanted to know more about the Carnival but they could enlighten me only so much. It turns out that the Carnival thingie is a fairly new trend (20 years old) and is supported by the Goan Government to boost tourism. A no. of Goan towns participate; each with floats and shows that highlight the town’s specialty. Typically this fest lasts for 3-4 days and there is general gaiety everywhere. Good time to be in Goa (if you don’t mind the crowds)

The La Maria Shack @ Calangute

Kids playing in the sand

Fruit Seller

Being in Goa this time was not easy. Goa stands for all the good times we had when we were in college. Almost every place, especially in and around Calangute, has some memory associated with it. Association is just a painful thing to get over; wonder why do we “associate” it with intelligence.

Beautiful Goan sunset

A Red carpet to the sea

Couple watching the sunset

By dinnertime, both of us got mighty drunk and walked down to the Calangute market; Vikram was quite drunk and wanted to eat have some Goan Pork. Unfortunately, we had great difficulty finding a decent enough place for eating. So we settled for some sea-food platter and Vikram quite enjoyed it. After that, we went to check out the song-and-dance jamboree (keeping up with the Carnival spirit) at the Calangute football grounds. It all started fine, but then some local punk DJ came and spoilt it all by playing really cheap trance music. It totally put me off but Vikram seemed to swing to it naturally. On the way back, he tried to update me why I should shed away my inhibitions and give in to the music and dance. I was like, “Yeah, right bro.”

The carnival

Vikram (in black) dancing away

Heart to heart with little bro
After this we went back to drinking at our room and I had a heated discussion with Vikram on the concepts of civilisation. I was quite appalled when he said he thought we, as a race, are uncivilised. However, I couldn’t get a satisfactory answer when I asked him to define what “civilisation” is. Anyway, those were his thoughts and these are mine; and “never the twain shall meet”. J. It was very late when we decided to call it a day.

After a late breakfast, we packed our stuff and said goodbye to Mr. Fransisco D’souza and started off to Panajim to arrange for the Pune journey. The booking was done and we realised that we still had hours to kill before we start. So we headed towards the city and did some shopping – bought Coffee Liqueur, wines and some fenny. Seriously guys, shopping in Goa (or anywhere else) is such a bloody pain. Also we managed to get into Ritz, which is supposed to the best place for sea food in the city. Vikram asked for a sea-food “thali” while I feasted on rice and Shark Ambotik; we were not disappointed – do check out the place if you are around.
Finally, it was time to go and we took off to Pune in a Kadamba Volvo – it was decent enough journey except for the lousy “Maine pyaar kyun kiya” movie that was playing.
So that was the Goa trip and it ended with us reaching Pune (and finally Mumbai) for Meeta's (my bro-in-law's sis') engagement. The Pune-Mumbai episode should be covered later (hopefully) in a separate blog entry. Cheers till then...

The Great Vacation - Prologue

2006-02-28T02:34:00.000-08:00

Looking back, it has been years since I took a vacation. As in a REAL vacation. I have been touring places to attend weddings, anniversaries and engagements of late. In fact, all the trips last year were dedicated to events like these. Finally, with the office stress getting on to me, I decided to call off everything and hit the road. Vikram, my younger bro, had just finished his MBA exams and wanted to chill out till he joins his job in April - so he too decided to join. My good friends, Mr. Pushkaraksh Shanbag and Mr. Nitin Tiwari sounded very enthusiatic about the trip and expressed their desire to join us, however as usual, they ditched at the last moments. With friends like these....
Incidentally, Meeta (my bro-in-law's sister or my sister's sis-in-law or...you get the idea) was all set to get engaged to Vinod Mallya of amchi Mumbai on the 3rd of March. So we planned our trip so that we can cover this event as well. I took a whole week off and booked my tickets. The itenerary was: Bangalore-Udupi-Goa-Pune-Mumbai-Bangalore. Vikram was to stay back in Pune for some more time.
So we started our odyssey on Sat, the 25th of Feb and headed to our parents' place in Udupi. The rest of the entries in this series cover what happened after this flag-off...

Hyderabad Blues

2005-11-19T00:32:00.000-08:00

This post was overdue for a week now. Just didn't have any time to sit and type out.
Had been quite some time since I had been to Hyderabad. Last weekend, I was suddenly asked to go to Hyderabad for a conducting a walk-in. All this at a very short notice, typical office-ishtyle. Anyway, being a single software engineer (otherwise uncharitably termed as a "Stag" in the socially vibrant circles), a weekend working trip was most welcome for me. I think my manager knows about my social-inertness, that explains why I happen to the take the maximum no. of interviews on weekends around here.
So off I went, pestered the HR department and the Facilities guys till I received my tickets (3 hours before departure). Took the office shuttle to get off at the airport. A kind colleague on the bus suggested that I get off a certain point and catch a rickshaw or a cab to the airport - it would save me time. Being the sucker I am, I took her advice and got off where she suggested just to realize that that is a long, lonely stretch of road in the Army area and there are no taxi or rickshaw stands for miles. :-w
So I walked, and walked, and walked (for some 1.5 Kms) till I finally managed to find a rick. The airport was just 4 Kms from that point but it took me 20 minutes to cover this distance, which should explain the pathetic Bangalore traffic. As I approached the airport, it dawned on me that it was too late, I would have surely missed the plane. Lady Luck smiled, the plane was delayed by an hour. :)

A Chance meeting
When I went in for the security check, the guard told me that I am too early, perhaps I should loaf around and come back later. Taking his advice, I wandered off to the loo. To my surprise, there I bumped in Girish Nanappa, husband of my old college-mate Accamma aka Krithika. This was our second freak meeting, the first one being at a CAT examination center 2 years back when both of us landed up in the same hall. He was on his way to Kuala Lumpur for a convention. Chatted with Girish for a while, mostly about our lines of work. It turned out that he had done a case study on Symbian while he was in ISB and happened to know a lot about the current mobile industry trends. That was cool.

The flight to H'bad and the first goof-up
I was accompanied by Harish from the Phillips ODC here who was waiting in the boarding area. The Air Sahara plane we boarded was the smallest aircraft I have been in. It was the size of a mini-bus, with 40 seats. Most cramped up flight ever, our office shuttles are more comfortable. Reached H'bad within an hour and during this period, my bright mind noticed that I cannot see my return ticket and raised a Panic!
Also notable was the way the pilot read out the messages in a most mechanical manner. "captainchauhan...andhiscrewcouldliketowishthepassengers...averypleasantjourneywewilltry... theirbesttomakeyourflightcomfortable". Then he read out the same message in Hindi just to prove his disregard for punctuation is even for all languages. And to top it all, I was reading "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" by Lynn Truss during all this!
After collecting my luggage I headed straight to the Air Sahara kiosk and was ready to give them hell as, in my near-schizophrenic frame of mind, I was convinced that they have screwed up with my return ticket either during ticketing or at the boarding pass post. After some mild discussion, I noticed that I have another document in my travel-agent folder. This I thought was some kinda bill or receipt for the tickets booked. It turned out that it was my return ticket!!! :)
My return ticket was booked on a Kingfisher Airlines flight and they are all set to revolutionize the Indian air-transport with their new e-ticketing technology. Only morons like me are no so up-to-date with these developments. So this scrappy bit of paper I had with me was actually an e-ticket! Red-faced, I profusely apologized to the Air Sahara staff and quietly stepped outta the airport. :)

Amruta Castle
We were put in this hotel called Amruta Castle, a obnoxious looking structure designed in imitation of medival European castles; complete with the stone walls roughed up with an acid wash. I remember as I kid I was pretty impressed by this hotel but now it looked too loud for my taste. The hotel had an overdose of woodwork; it would have just taken one careless smoker to bring the whole structure down in a matter of minutes. Plus, the rooms were dull & musty and had a depressingly low ceiling. The rooms and the conference rooms were named after the Knights of the Roundtable and other celebrities - Lancelot, Perceval, Galahad, Tristam. There was even a non-smoking suite named Salayman the Magnificent. :) Our conference room had the grand name - Magna Carta. Then in of slab on a stone wall on the 5th floor, I noticed some love-sick Romeo had declared his love for his lady. Stupid F*ing place.

The interviews
It took some time before the interviewees walked in. Then there was steady flow. I was quite disappointed at the candidates. Would shortlist only 2 after interviewing around 7-8. Sad scene.

Evening
After the interviews, we (myself, Harish, 2 more techie guys and Pravin, our HR head) decided to paint the town red. A short walk to the Hussain Sagar tank made all of us sigh in awe. 6-lanes on each side of the road!!! Plus a massive flyover to decongest any traffic woes. For any Bangalorean, it is what heaven would look like. I remember, in the flow of strong emotions, I offered to kiss the road but was discouraged by the oncoming bus. :)

Sri Makrand Pare
While the rest of my colleagues were still deciding on what should be their POA for the evening over chai, khara biscuit and pauna (a sweet, cream-based Hyderabad speciality tea), I quitely gave them the slip. The reason was, I had made an appointment with Mr. Makrand Pare (aka Munna) of the grand St.Mary's Convent class of 1996 fame.
I was meeting Mak after a period of 9 years. Luckily we had no probs recognising each other. :) He was wearing a tight t-shirt which accentuated his physique and the recent deterioration thereof. I behaved myself and restricted my amusement to a joyous smile but when Mak headed towards his steel-steed - a huge Yamaha Enticer cruiser - I lost control and burst out laughing, much to his disgust.
Anyway, he took me to his fav joint - a pub called Easy Rider and settled down with our beer and exchanged notes on life, universe and everything. The pub did play good music (Dire Straits, Led Zep, thankfully no hip-hop) and we downed gallons of beer. Mak knew the DJ quite well and I vaguely remember being introduced and the DJ whatsisname telling that he comes and plays at Peco's and Purple Haze in Bangalore.
From there we went hunting for a coffee shop at midnight and finally landed in at the Taj Banjara (or was it Krishna, don't remember now). They had some midnight buffet (or perhaps leftovers from the dinner buffet) and we devoured the grub. Then we settled down for coffee and continued our discussion. I was disgusted to find out that the Taj coffee shop served coffee from a stupid Coffee machine, the same model we have in our office canteen! And they charged 75 bucks for a cup of lousy coffee. Hate that place.
It turned out that Mak hasn't changed a lot (and I suppose he has the same opinion abt me). We would still relate to the things we had done in school and now are leading similar aimless lives as software engineers.
Rode the Enticer back. H'bad roads are heavenly, repeat...H'bad roads are heavenly.
It was 4 in the morning when I finally reached my room.

The next day and back
I woke up late on Sunday, my other colleagues had already taken the flight outta H'bad. I checked out and placed my luggage in the cloak room. Mak, always the genial host, promptly arrived with his Enticer at my service and we headed off too see my aunt who says in Gandhi Nagar. We found the house after some difficulty and just stopped long enough for a coffee and some Diwali sweets. Next was a visit to Paradise Corner for its fabled biriyani.
On the way, I co-ordinated with Thomas Abhrahim, a college-mate. That fellow claimed never heard about Paradise! Anyway, we hogged at our biriyanis and it was really, really worth it. Folks, while in H'bad, do visit this place. Went to Mak's place and dozed off for a while and then it was time to leave.
I almost missed the return flight as I was waiting a boarding area on the wrong floor! But made it safely back to Bangalore. Even as I was savoring the H'bad memories, I rudely awaken to the harsh reality of Bangalore life when I had a big row it the taxi driver. That son-of-a-bitch. Ah, well, that's Bangalore. Full of blood-sucking cheats, right from the landlords to the cops to the taxi wallahs - bastards all of them.
So Mak: here's looking at you, pal. Thanks a lot for bearing with me and thanks a lot for your hospitality.
P.S.: For those who missed it - H'bad roads are amaaaaazing. :)

God's own country

2005-07-16T22:33:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, our good friend, Mr. Renjit Rao got married to Ms. Manjusha in Chertala, Kerala. I had been to Kerala before but this was the first time that I went there as a pucca tourist. Keval, myself, Girish Shettigar, Pushkar, etc. had planned this trip weeks back and were looking forward to it ever since.
The idea was to take an extra day off and spend some time on the houseboats in the scenic backwaters of Allepuzha (formerly called as Alleppey). This densely populated coastal district has a complex network of canals running over hundreds of kilometers. I believe Marco Polo described this beautiful place as the "Venice of the East" (a title that it shares with Bangkok and Udaipur).
This time of the year, when the monsoons have just started, is considered to be "off-season" for Kerala tourism and if you witness the rains the Kerala - you will know why tourists stay away. However, for us, the weather was just perfect. There was lush greenery all around and the rates were rock-bottom. We couldn't have asked for more.
The marriage was on Sunday and we had decided to land in Allepuzha on Friday morning, spend a couple of days in a houseboat and then attend the wedding. However, both I and Girish were a bit stuck with work so we had to drop the plan. Keval, however, did manage to arrive here with his good friend Subhod (who played an excellent host to us during our Chennai-Pondicherry trip way back in Dec 2004). Both of them rented a houseboat as soon as they reached Allepuzha and spent the whole day calling us up and letting us know what are we missing in life.

The Road to Allepuzha
I, Pushkar and Girish started off from Bangalore on Friday night to Kochi, as we could manage to catch the Allepuzha direct bus. En-route they played a Malayalam movie by the name "CID Moosa" which we found amazingly funny! Early in the morning, we were woken up by a row between the driver and a passenger. Since most of this thread was in Malayalam, we couldn't follow most of it. However I was delighted to Kerala in the rains. It was raining mildly outside and from the front seat of the Volvo bus, I could see an all-encompassing view of God's own country! The trip was fairly uneventful otherwise.
We landed at Kochi (Ernakulam) and managed to find the way to the local bus-stand, feasting on some Appams and Mota(Egg) curry on the way. We were lucky, in a way, because Keval told us later that the Govt. buses were on strike that ended just a couple of days back. You don't want to get stranded in God's Own Country, trust me! From there we boarded a "Fast Passenger" State Govt. bus to Allepuzha which dropped us off at Allepuzha bus stand where found Keval and Subhod waiting to receive us.

Arrival At Allepuzha

The Houseboat Adventures
Immediately after the short reception, Keval informed us that they have rented a bigger, better houseboat which is waiting for us. We picked up some booze from a "Foreign Liquor Shop" (which was way too expensive by Bangalore standards) and headed towards the boat. En-route, Keval showed us some of the snaps from his previous day's exploits and we were stunned.

Houseboat

Peeping Bun

Puttu

Subhod at the wheel

Tharavad Prow

Keval, the Malabari gangster
Keval, being the resourceful guy he always has been, had made good friends with one of the guys who runs a tourism agency there and has access to a number of houseboats and resorts and arranged for the best deals available for us. And the tourism agency guy couldn't ask for more from us - Keval and Subhod rented a houseboat for a day and the next day more people come and ask for a bigger, costlier boat! Keval, with his acute business acumen, observed that that we were "already repeat customers in just 24 hours!".
The new boat was like a complete house by itself - 3 bedrooms with attached bathrooms, a kitchen, a drawing room, a CD/DVD player, even air-conditioning! With the boat they had a crew of four people - 2 for handling the boat and 2 for the kitchen. Food was prepared on board and he we could request the cook to make anything we want (subject to availability of materials, of course). The food costs were included in the houseboat charges. In fact, Keval told me that the last day they had stopped over, bought some prawns and asked the crew to cook. There were no hangups about "outside food stuffs not allowed".

Bedroom

Aisle

Kitchen and Cook

Boatman
The journey started with a round of hot tea and we soon followed it up with quick rounds of beer and vodka while the cook churned up a Pineapple treat and fried prawns.

Pineapple treat!
Through the day there was precious little for us to do but to watch life in the backwaters. This part of the country has such a well connected network of canals that the locals use waterways for commuting more than they use the roads. We could see ferry pickup points at regular intervals. There are dedicated ferries for schools! There are entire colonies and bazaars along the canals - I spotted a BSNL telephone network provider office, a PWD office, schools, you name it! The best part was when the boatman informed Keval that there is even an Engineering college somewhere just off the canals. We had a good time imaging how it would have been going to college on boats, with the rich kids coming on there swanky speedsters. LOL!

A Parking lot for boats
We talked, took photographs, read our books, lazed around - all in equal measure.

And of course, a trip to Kerala would have been incomplete without a visit to the local toddy shop. Our boatman took us across a huge lake (lagoon?), which I guess was called Vembanad (I am sure if I heard that right), right in front of a toddy shop. We picked up some fresh toddy and finished off 2 litres in no time!

Toddy shop!
Soon lunch was served - boiled rice with cabbage, sambhar, fried karimeen, prawns and some fish-curry. After having more than our fill we crashed heavily.

Lunch is served
Apparently they crossed the lake and reached a church which is on the other end. I was some deep asleep that I never realized till Keval woke me up rudely at tea time.

Tea time
Through the day, the weather was nice - warm but cloudy, with the sun peeping once in a while. Soon after tea, when the houseboat started off towards its parking slot, it started raining. However, it was a pleasant sort of rain, not a heavy shower or thunderstorm. The waterways looked even more beautiful!

Rains!
At dusk, they parked the houseboat next to a huge stretch of paddy fields. We continued with our drinking sessions, while the cooks made some chicken and served it rice and chappatis. We started discussions about college, work, career, money... One by one, we hit the sack - with Pushkar leading as usual. In the end, only I and Subhod sat and exchanging fundas about why does Communism thrive in Kerala. And Subhod, basically being a Kerallite, showed surprising knowledge of how things work (or rather don't work) in Kerala. Among other nuggets of trivia that I gathered, one interesting fact was that most marriages are scheduled on a Sunday. The reason being that Sunday is the only day when no strikes or protest marches are scheduled. Apparently the Kerallites believe in observing a complete Sabbath on Sundays. Finally, I went to bed at around 3 AM. Keval had crashed on one of the sofa seats and Subhod decided to join him there, which meant I had a whole room for myself. I guess I was snoring the moment my head hit the pillow.
By the time I woke up next morning, the boat had already started off to the jetty - our 22 hours of glory were over. All good things have an end, etc. They fixed up a very mediocre breakfast of idlis and thick sambhar. It was still raining mildly.

Morning

The Wedding
We quickly bathed and shaved and freshened up and by the time we hit the jetty - we were all set to go. The tourist agency owner (a certain Mr. Madhu Mohan) dropped us off to the bus stand in his car (poor guy had to make 2 trips). We bid him farewell and headed towards Chertala (or Shertallai) - the venue of the wedding. We were received very warmly by Srikanth (aka Boom-boom), our MIT colleague and Renjith's relatives. We dumped our luggage in a room and dressed up there for the occasion. We were right in time for the wedding and got to see most of the ceremonies. It was the first Mallu wedding I had attended so I expected it to be exotic; however, I realized that they were following standard GSB marriage rituals. Some snaps of the wedding:-

Nuptials

Renjit and Manjusha

The Baraatis (From L TO R: Pushkar, Girish, Renjith, Manjusha, Me and Renjith's dad)

We MITians have 2 protocols to follow when at a wedding. One is "Greet and Eat", i.e., first greet the couple, give the gifts (this is becoming increasing rare nowadays - victims, please excuse us, it is just that our memory hasn't been serving us that well these days - buying a gift is something we think of after we enter the marriage hall) and then hit the food court. The second is "Eat and Greet", which is to have your fill and then walk up to the stage and whisper in the Groom's ear that he is a lucky bastard. However, as Pushkar observed, their was a 3rd strain of the protocol which was being followed by most attending this particular. "Eat and Run" was the name Pushkar coined for this. And very appropriate too, the junta rushed towards the lunch section even as the marriage was in progress and after lunch there was hardly anyone to be seen. This, of course, excludes the relatives who stick around offering their suggestions on how married life should be.
After the wedding, Keval, Subhod and Srikanth went their way - they had to catch their rides to Chennai. We, the Bangalore junta, didn't find any direct bus to Bangalore from Kochi or Allepuzha. So we decided to go via Coimbatore. Since the bus was at 11 in the night, we came back to Allepuzha, booked a room - slept late into the evening; had a grand dinner at Alleppey Prince (supposedly the best hotel in the district) and finally managed to board the bus.
We reached Coimbatore at 4 in the morning and thankfully the bus dropped us right next to the railway station. We managed to catch the 5 AM Kurla express which dropped us off at Bangalore by afternoon.
Sorry for this "pedestrian" description; but I really don't think it would have been possible for me to do enough justice to the wonderful time we had in Kerala. Too amazing - try it out at least once.

Wild Valley

2005-04-18T02:07:00.000-07:00

Prelude
Had been a long time since I took a break. The 16th of April was Tulika and Samarth Sinha's 3rd wedding anniversary. Samarth, ever the adventurous soul, decided to surprise Tuli and arranged for a weekend at a relatively obscure jungle resort called Wild Valley. He asked me if I and my other friends are willing to join. I readily agreed once I saw that bank balance approved it. Others (Rat, Summya, etc.) had some pressing work on the weekend, so they were not able to join. The fun part was : Tuli was not supposed to know about this till the date of the journey! Kunal (aka Tikloo), Samarth's nephew and Siddarth Singh, Samarth's classmate during his BIT days, joined. With Siddarth were his wife Mahima and their 11 month old baby - Anirudh.
Kunal and I joined Samarth and Tuli at their place on the 15th night, had some beer and dinner. Tuli demonstrated a few steps she had choreographed for her office cul-fest and was just getting in the mood for a night-out when we Samarth faked a headache and went to sleep. Tuli was probably a little suspicious at my unannounced arrival and my decision to stay back (something I hadn't done for a while). But on the whole she was unaware of what lay ahead.
So before D-Day dawned (at 4 AM on the 16th of April), she was rudely woken up by Samarth and was told that we are to head for that jungle trip! Oh Boy! I wanted to see her face while she digested the surprise! Unfortunately, my lazy ass refused to get off the warm bed...

The Journey
We started early and by 6:30 AM - we had already hit Kanakpura Road on the Sinha Family's Esteem. Samarth took the steering with Kunal as the navigator while I, Tuli and Chaiti (Tuli and Sam's one and an half year old daughter) sprawled over the back seat. Siddharth and Mahima joined us further ahead on Kanakpura Road. We stopped in between and quick introductions were made. Kanakpura - Malvalli - Kollegal passed by quickly but after that the journey was a bit treacherous with a few landmarks and road signs to guide us. However, Samarth had sourced the microinstructions from Andrew, the guy handles the bookings etc from Bangalore - that saved the day. On the way, we crossed the Odeyarpalya village which is a Tibetian settlement (very much like Bylakuppe in Coorg). It seems like an interesting place to see. Finally just at the Tamil Nadu check post, we took a left and asked for "Daniel's Farm" and everyone seemed to know where it is! It took us about 4.5 hours to complete the 190 km journey. The journey was by and large uneventful.

Wild Valley Farm
Wild Valley is situated in Germalam, on Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border, 4000 ft above the mean sea level. It is some 190 kms from Bangalore, out of which the last few kilometers are barely motorable - bikers, be warned. It is an actual 100 acre farm overlooking the Western Ghats, not a landscaped holiday resort with airconditioning and room service. This place is supposed to be one of Veerappan's hang-out while he was around. They grow a lot of vegetables, spices and coffee. Within the farm, a small flat stretch of land has been dedicated to the camp.
There are about a dozen canvas tents put up in semi-circular fashion over concrete slabs. In the middle of this arrangement is a pit for camp-fires with stones laid out (as Siddarth said) in the Stone Henge pattern. The camp-site overlooks the majestic western ghats hills on 3 sides and the farm land on one side. The tents have no electricity and you have to rely on kerosene laterns, which are placed in front of the tent for light.
However, the camp doesn't actually require one to rough it out. Though the accommodation is bare bones, there are modern toilets, a well-equipped kitched, attentive staff around. Their website even mentions that there are "rooms for the less adventurous", however, I never saw one nor did I inquire for the same.
We were welcomed with glasses of chilled lime water - really refreshing. Soon a late, hastily prepared breakfast of idlis, omelettes, fresh fruits and coffee was served and devoured as hastily as it was prepared. Next we went to visit the nearby stream. This was just the beginning for the rainy season and the stream was not very strong or swelling. However, we made the most of the situation and we "boys" jumped in and had a dip. Though the stream was dark green with moss, the water was really clean and fresh. That was our only contact with water in the 2 days that we spent there. :-) There were minor accidents - Siddharth forgot to take out his cigarrettes and matches before jumping into the stream and I almost fell off a tree I had climbed as a dead branch gave out.

Mr. Daniel
The farm is owned by a certain Mr. Daniel. Now, he is one interesting guy. His father was a top space scientist who was awarded a Padma Bhushan for his contribution to the Aryabhatta satellite program - which was India's first satellite. Mr. Daniel went to Allahabad Agricultural Institute and did an advanced course in Genetics, securing one of the couple of seats which were offered at the Institute. This was 20 years back. After his studies, he bought this land, which was almost unapproachable and totally wild back then. He has developed this farm on his own in the last twenty years. He is a very interesting person to talk to. One wouldn't expect a well educated fellow walking around in the wild forest, speaking Queen's English as well the local Tamil dialect with equal ease.

Babies' day out
The 2 babies - Chaiti and Anirudh had a field day at the camp. Though they were a little too young to enjoy the treks and the beauty, I am sure that the sense being out in the open would not have escaped them.

Tuli with the Kids

Baby Chaiti, all of 19 months had a hard time initially. First of all she had to deal with the presence of the 11-month old Anirudh who was demanding all the attention. She spent most of the day sulking away and plain ignoring the brat even as he climbed all over her, stepped on her toes, pulled at her hair. Boy, that was kinda cute - watching these basic human emotions develop so early. Wondered what was my reactions to such situations when I was a toddler.
There was an interesting incident which highlights the unconditional caring and love only babies can possess. Chaiti, for some reason, has always been afraid of flowing water. I guess the racket of the waves or water crashing against the rocks unsettles her. Samarth, I, Siddharth and Kunal were playing in the small waterfall along the stream when Chaiti started howling, crying out "Papa, ja; Papa, ja"; which translated meant that she was sure that her dad is gone - swallowed by the evil waterfall which scared her so much. Samarth was forced to yield to her protests. But Chaiti commanded all of us to get away from the waterfall - she wouldn't stop crying. I was happily drying myself on a tree, when she spotted me too and cried out - "Gullu, ba" (Guru, bahar - get outta there now!). Boy! Do I love to hear her call me! She stopped crying as soon as we stepped out of the stream.
Anirudh is probably one of the chubbiest babies I have ever come across so far. He is just 11 months old and "is a complete flirt, girl of any age will do", as his mom Mahima puts it. He kept smiling and flaunting his single lower incisors which had sprouted recently. He had a way of smiling at strangers when he was in a mood to socialize. This his mom describes his diplomatic smile as a "Chinese smile" and sure enough, he does looks like Fa-hien when he smiles - eyes narrowed to slits, round face, small nose. He is a cutie!

Siddharth and Anirudh

Rest of the day
After the dip and some beer, we decided to crash out and postponed the short trek downstream which was proposed. The people at the farm obliged and provided us with extra cots which they laid out under the shade of the trees at the edge of camping site, as the tents were extremely hot in the afternoon. We slept away to glory till evening. Coffee was served by our bedsides by the time we woke up. Aah - these small sinful pleasures!

Out in the wild - Siddharth (with Anirudh), Me, Tikloo, Tuli (with Chaiti)

By then, a large, noisy group of young professionals had arrived and were making their presence felt. Now these were a normal lot of fun-loving guys, playing and chasing each other and singing at the top of their voices - something we have done all our lives. But somehow all of us felt annoyed at the sight of them. Probably, we were feeling a little too old. :-
As the skies darkened, the campfire was lit and the youngsters started singing and dancing around the fire and we decided to move away to a remote corner of the camping area and had a separate camp-fire lit for us.
All of us discussed our respective college days and recalled the most stupidest things we had done or seen over a course of wine, whiskey and rum. After a round of good laughs, the babies asserted their need to be fed and put to bed and we yielded. A quick dinner followed. We then complained about the noisy group and they obliged and shut up. Pretty mean of us, but the babies were getting disturbed.
Anyway the couples called it a day and Kunal too crashed. The noisy lot dispersed and I was left alone by the side of the smouldering camp-fire. I got my blanket along and sat for a loooong time star-gazing and in introspection. The night was so clear that I could see stars from one end of the horizon to another. The sky looked full of constellations. Unfortunately I am no authority on them. However, it is always great to lie next to a fire in the open and watch the sky. Gives one a sense of peace, a sense of humility - if one thinks about how distant, how old, how massive the tiniest of the stars are. There was no sound expect that of the crackling firewood and the cricket and foxes (or jackals) far, far away in the jungle. Peace, defined...

Elephant Dung Trial
Most of us, with the exception of Tuli, broke our promise of getting up at 6 in the morning. The original plan was to go for a short walk downstream as the sun rises. However, it was 9ish by the time we finished our morning ablutions, had our coffee and prepared the babies for the day that lay ahead. Mr. Daniel sent 2 guides with us and went downstream following the elephant dung deposits. Along the way, the guide showed us the hideouts of the poachers and we spotted quite a few elephant bones. Poor creatures. The kids also enjoyed the trip - probably this was their first visit to the jungle. Unfortunately, we missed a herd of deer by minutes as they ran away because of our chattering (the kids specially were very excited).

Elephant Dung Trial

The jungle was full of the weed-like lantana species. Siddartha mentioned that this weed is an accidental import from Australia. This species has covered most of Indian tropical forests and can prove to deadly for other plants as it consumes all resources available. This weed grows really fast. Daniel further added that there was an Indian botanist who came up with an award-winning discovery of a bug which eats lantana. This, however, proved to be little comfort because in an experimental run, these bugs were set free on a wild crop of lantana. The bugs finished the crop entirely but perished soon afterwards because there was nothing more to eat! As the bug species perished, the lantana magically grew again, thanks to some scattered seeds.

Tuli Me and Chaiti
The return
Breakfast followed the short hike in the woods and we packed our stuff, paid the bills and set off to Bangalore. We thanked Daniel for his help and Samarth asked him if he expected any more guests today. "No," came the reply, "the weekend's over. Through the week we are just farmers"...
It was not one of the most lavish places I have been to. But what's appealling about the place is its honesty. There is no landscaping, no forced eco-friendly stuff, no ultra-trimmed grass, no room service. It is nature just as it is - slightly tamed to make it easier to handle. The food was plain but tasty. The service was excellent. Overall it was an excellent experience, more so because of the great company. All thanks to Samarth for arranging this. And here's wishing Tuli and Samarth a very happy anniversary!
Yet to develop and scan the snaps - will upload them as soon as I do.

Here comes 2005

2005-01-04T04:27:00.001-08:00

The Kalends of January
Ever wondered why the heck do we celebrate the coming of a New Year? The answer is of course, there is no need to know as long as the event stands for partying and merry making, and if you also have a holiday declared on the 31st of December and/or 1st of January – much better. Anyway, when I was in school, I always used to wonder why is December considered to be the end of the year and why January, the beginning. Because as far as I could see – January is the most boring month, there is nothing to look forward to. In college (and after that), I did a bit of research on calendars and came across the various Calendars employed by the civilized world, the solar and lunar calendars and their significance. For those interested, I would suggest “Mapping Time: The calendar and its history” – an excellent book by E. G. Richards (ISBN 0192862057, Oxford Univ. Press).
By then I had also came across the fact that earlier the year had 10 months – starting from March, hence, “Sept”-ember (7th Month), “Oct”-ober (8th month) and so on. Starting the year from March does make sense. March marks the arrival of the buoyant spring and the end of frigid winter. In other words, the cycle of seasons starts all over again.
January and February were added by the Romans in the 7th century B.C. or so. There was, I believe, a thirteen month added at that point too – called Mercedonious (comes from “merces” (wages) – the workers were paid extra during this period). This was a funny month with some 22 days which was added to the calendar only in leap years after February. This was done because the calendar then was faulty with only some 355 days. The problem was the Roman calendar was essentially lunar (Kalends – New Moon day, Nones – Half Moon day, Ides – Full moon day). DISCLAIMER – I am not really sure of the length of the months.
Even then, the year started in March and end with February. During this period, Rome was structuring itself into a Republic and the senate was becoming increasing important. Roman Consuls were becoming so powerful that it became a common practice to name the year after the presiding Consul. Since these Consuls were elected in January, 1st of January (or Kalends of Januarius), it became an important date and the Julius Caesar, with his Julian Calendar, declared it as the beginning of the year (at the same time, realigning the months and dropping Mercedonious). Of course, it took hundreds of years and dozens of revisions for the calendar to become what it is now. But in short, we celebrate New Year’s because the Roman plebiscite elected 2 old, power-hungry politicians as consuls on the first of January!
As long as I remember, NY has been something to look forward to. Because there is invariably a party on 31st December. In fact, we are so addicted to the NY blast that if we miss out on it – we get upset. This NY eve was planned with élan with Mr. Keval Prabhu spear heading the program. The Union Territory of Pondicherry was selected to be the destination for the grand party – journey tickets were booked, accommodation was arranged. Even as we were weaving our plans – tragedy occurred. A powerful earthquake (9 on the Richter) and tsunamis devastated the east coast of India, flattened Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Over 1,50,000 died and even after a week of the disaster, the toll is rising.
Pondicherry is around 150 km South of Chennai and just 100 Km north of Nagapattinam – the fishing town in Tamil Nadu which was worst affected in India. For a week, newspapers were full with new stories of the unfortunate victims. Of course, all of us have a heart and have contributed in whichever way we can to ameliorate the situation in the affected areas. After our initial donations, we got back to our regular lives and realized that holidaying in Pondicherry is just not possible. However, most of us had some time off during the NY eve and meeting up was indeed desirable. So we rescheduled our plans and decided to visit Chennai instead.

The Govt. Goof-up
The day before we were to start for Chennai, some Govt. Agencies issued a warning that more Tsunamis may hit the west coast. This would have caused wide-spread panic but luckily things were fairly under control and as it turned out – it was a false alarm. It was pretty irresponsible of the Govt. to issue a public warning without confirming. Chennai, which was getting back to normal, hardly witnessed any trade that day. Dilly-dallying with the idea of going the Chennai, we finally decided that we will risk it and leave anyway. Some of us wanted to visit the relief camps and “do some good” while others desperately wanted some time-out. So we left Bangalore – a gang of 6 – on the 30th night on KSRTC’s Airavata Volvo buses – quite comfortable and reasonably priced too.

Destination Chennai
It has been quite some time since I had been to Chennai – and had fond memories of the last short trip I made. Chennai didn’t disappoint me this time either. Our good friends – Mr. Ratnakar “Rat” Pai (aka God) and Mr. Keval Prabhu, both residents of Chennai played the perfect hosts and came to pick us up from the Central Mofussil Bus Terminal, Koyambeedu (which incidentally, is the largest Bus terminal in South Asia) in the wee-hours of the morning. We discussed the POA over a hot cup of coffee. Keval was for a preposterous plan of driving down to Yercaud – a hill station some 300+ Kms from Chennai – this was because there are no spots which will be readily available for partying at such a short noticed. Finally, common sense prevailed and we decided to cool our heels in Chennai. We headed directly to Rat’s home after that, were we freshened up and had some breakfast. After that we booked a couple of rooms in Hotel Ranjith in Nungumbakkam. After dumping our luggage in the rooms, we headed out to explore Chennai.

Our bit of contribution
We bought some clothes and some extra cash we would spare which we intended to donate towards the Tsunami Relief fund. Hunting for a collection center, we landed at the Theosophical Society campus. A certain Mr. Venkatraman, apparently an ex-army man, was overseeing the arrangements. Being quite the chatty fellow, Mr. Venkatraman explained at length the kind of problems they are facing and what sort of donation would they require the most at this stage.
Mr. Venkatraman surprised us when he told us the conditions the volunteers in the relief camps have to deal with. Apparently, now as things are settling down, the disaster victims are being a wee bit unreasonable and have started taking things for granted. For example, Mr. Venkatraman told us that they are NOT looking forward to accept donated clothes because it involved a lot of sorting and arranging work and plus the disaster victims have started demanding for clothes of their choice. Of course, the volunteers cannot deny the poor people. Incidents of people who are piling on the relief camps though they are not affected by the tsunamis have also been reported. Being a volunteer at such relief camps needs patience and courage. It is not easy for one to handle situations like with a calm head. Hats off to all those volunteers who haven’t spared any effort to make the rescue and relief operations successful.
Mr. Venkatraman told us that it will be better if we donate cash because it will help in the reconstruction phase which is about to start in the affected areas. We pooled in and handed over whatever cash we would spare – and it did make a decent amount. I followed Mr. Venkataraman to the cashier’s office and got a chance to briefly explore the sprawling campus. Old colonial buildings which housed the various offices of the Society. The Adyar, Chennai center is the International base for the Theosophical Society, which was H.S.Olcott and H.P.Blavatsky in the late 19th century. Annie Besant nurtured the organization and it remains one of the best known landmarks in Chennai. The society also houses a good bookstore which will any theology buff’s delight. Do try and visit the place if in Chennai.

Let the show begin…
After making a small contribution and feeling the Good Samaritans, we were all set to get back to indulgent ways. However, this time, I wanted it to be a “foodie-trip”. Chennai is known for its wide variety of cuisines. So, like true tourists, we decided to indulge ourselves in the comestible exotica which beckoned.
To kill our time, we saw a movie – Ocean’s Twelve (directed by Steve Soderberg) which had an unnecessarily contrived plot and “all-style-no-substance” characters and was quite a disappointment. It was somewhat sad to see that the movie-goers there are a shade less well behaved than their counterparts in Bangalore. Mobile phones ringing, latecomers fighting with the ushers and a few incidental reunions within the theatre kept us distracted from the screen. Anyway, the theatre was pretty good and reasonably priced plus it served some wonderful chicken puffs in the cafeteria – no overall there were no regrets.
We hit a Chettinad joint next to our hotel – Anjappar by name. As expected, the food was amazing and reasonably priced. Though we had run-of-the-mill non veg thali, it was enough for us to realize that this place holds some promise. A siesta which threatened to continue till the late night ensued. It took Keval and all his might to shake us out of our sleep.
It was clearly a bad time to party as Chennai mourned the loss due to the Tsunamis and many parties were cancelled. Not being a party animal myself, it hardly had any effect on me but the other social animals might have been slightly disappointed. Anyway, we headed towards the hotel’s rooftop where they have a fairly decent restaurant called Pinnacle. The hotel’s management proved that their business acumen has not been affected by the tsunamis as they presented us with a new menu which was designed especially for suckers who will visit them on the New Year eve – with bloated prices, limited choices, et al. Anyway, we decided to stick around. One strikingly annoying thing about Chennai is the booze scene. For reasons better known to Amma (aka Jayalalitha), “phoren” liquor is not readily available – which means we had to choose from Old Monk, Old Cask, Romanov, Green Label, Royal Challenge etc. the indigenous brands. Anyway, we made the best out of what was available. We were joined by Subodh, Keval’s friend from school. He was to spend most of his time over the next 2 days in our boring company.Keval tried to break the ice by proposing that we should start on a retrospection trip and evaluate the year that went by in a) Professional b) General Personal (material satisfaction) and c) Personal Personal (love life, family, etc.). We were to start with the “headlines” and later elucidate on the details as we downed pegs. However, it was met with only some partial success as we soon realized that nothing each of us have done through the year is going to keep the others sufficiently interested as an audience. All this was punctuated by calls from friends and well wishers from all over the world – Damu, Ajeet from the States, Premchand from the UK, etc.
At around 11, most of us felt that this was the most sedate NY eve celebration they have ever had since preparatory school days. Keval suggest that we barge into a party at Leather – a high end joint just down the road. However, by the time we reached back to our rooms, none of us had the drive to go on. So instead we decided to lie down and loaf around in the rooms itself.

Last meal of the year…
Subodh got a couple of bottles of Royal Challenge Whiskey and we realized that we have no soda to have it with. Hence, I, Rat and Girish decided to walk down the streets of Chennai and pick up some stuff to go with the whiskey. On our way, we discovered another excellent Chettinad restaurant called Khurrinji (which apparently is a flower which blooms once in 12 years and is found in regions around Udhagamandalam). In Khurrinji, we found a whole range of exotic dishes and we picked up whatever we would –Vankoli (Turkey) Biryani, Kaadai (Quail) fry, Mutton Chukka, etc. What a way to finish the last meal of the year! This was washed down by cans of Sprite which Girish picked up from a Pizza Corner outlet. If this sounds tempting – try out a Chettinad joint today!

2005 dawns…
We woke up by 8 AM and had the complimentary buffet breakfast provided by the hotel – nothing great. In the day’s itinerary, we had plans of going to Mahabalipuram (aka Mamallapuram). Before that, we tried getting a seat at the famous Sarvana Bhavan restaurant, but were unlucky. Hence, we had our lunch at the restaurant “Standie” self-service joint downstairs. We polished a Quick Lunch (mediocre fare with 2-3 varieties of rice) followed by rounds of 14’ idlis (14 tiny idlis floating in a sea of sambhar), 7 taste uttapams (7 tiny uttapams with various flavored toppings), Kara Dosai (Masala Dosa with spicy filling) and ice cream, finally washing it down with strong filter coffee – aaahhhhhhhh.

Mahabalipuram
Subodh was the angel in disguise and came down with his Wagon R and we distributed ourselves in the Keval’s and Subodh’s cars. On the way to Mahabalipuram, Keval’s friend Subha joined us. The Chennai Pondicherry stretch is covered by a beautiful expressway called the East Coast Road (ECR) which runs along the coastline all the way till Pondicherry. There were rumors that the ECR was closed down for precautionary reasons hence we were a bit insecure. The drive was beautiful but the sights of various relief camps which dotted the stretch were quite disconcerting – reminding us of the terrible tragedy that occurred just a week back. However, life was getting back to normal as we would see kids play around and men smoking and chatting. Most of these camps were a few hundred meters from the sea. I wonder why did they put up these camps so close to the sea.
Mahabalipuram is a small town situated some 55 Kms south of Chennai just off the ECR. The town was a port city during the reign of the Pallava dynasty some 1400 years back. Now it has been recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Site. Now it is known for its splendid monuments and its skillful sculptors. Also, like Dwarka, it is the Indian equivalent of Atlantis as many monuments are submerged under the sea over the course of time. In fact some recent studies have found that some of the submerged monuments are about 8000 years old – which would make this the oldest civilization in India. The town is named after the mythical demon king – Mahabali.
In Mahabalipuram, it was life as usual. We spent some time at the Temple Bay resort managed by certain GRT Leisure group. It is an excellent resort with a private beach and sea facing chalets and a lovely swimming which seems as if it is spilling into the sea. The resort suffered some damage due to the tsunami. Some of most exterior cottages were damaged and the boundary wall collapsed in many places. It is hard to imagine the force of the waves which could have shattered the 2 foot thick wall. Luckily, no lives were lost at the resort.
After downing a couple of beers at the resort’s bar, we headed towards the world famous bas-relief called “Arjuna’s Penance” which is carved out a face of a single rock and depicts the various events in the Mahabharata. Though it was dark by then, we could still see the immensity of the work and finesse with it was executed. Unfortunately, we would not see the Pancha Rathas (five chariots) which are supposed to be dedicated to the Pandavas. The various monuments are the perfect examples of Dravidian Architecture – our architect companion, Girish, was overjoyed for sure. Keval also took pains to show me a huge rock (called Butter-Ball Rock for some reasons) which was resting on a very tiny base and is “rock-steady”.
From the promos, it looked as if they had a classical dance competition right in front of the bas-relief. Would have been a great spectacle – if we had the taste for classical dance.On the way back we stopped over to have tea near the ECR Dhaba where we met an enthusiastic salesman who showed us around the place which was complete with a pigeon farm and has had a few Emus!!! After a quick tea we headed back to Chennai. We almost finished the bottle of whiskey Subodh had brought the other day and indulged into heavy discussions, mostly regarding the status of mega cities like Chennai, Bangalore and Mumbai. After our fill, we headed towards Khurrinji again and had a lavish Chettinad Biryani each with some lip-smacking Turkey Masala for company. During all this it was decided that we check early next day and head towards Pondicherry!

A quick trip to Pondicherry
Early Sunday morning, we settled the hotel bills, checked out and dropped our luggage at Rat’s place. Keval had some prior commitments so he decided to join us later. Subodh, folded up the backseat of his car and made plenty of room for four of us to sit on the car floor. It was like those school picnics again! Yippee! At my insistence, we stopped over at one of the Sangeeta joints which is renowned for its excellent food fare. We feasted over 2-3 rounds of Dosas and Vadas and Pongal and finally topped it with a cup of steaming “Kumbakonam Degree Coffee”. If your day starts like this, you really don’t care how it ends. J
We stopped over at Mahabalipuram again. Decided to visit the Shore Temple which is just off the Beach. Unfortunately, the temple was closed for renovation. This ancient temple was almost destroyed after a cyclone but was restored at a separate place stone by stone. Our architect friend, Girish, had a field day capturing the temple from various angles while the more adventurous Sumeet Pai decided to try out his equestrian skills on the beach front. Luckily, Summy dismounted the horse before there was any harm done to either and I captured him in action on film.
Next destination was Auroville, which is an international township situated near Pondicherry. It was Sunday and most of the places to visit (like the Matri Mandir) were closed for the day. We just spent a couple of hours and did some shopping. Auroville is known for its innovative craftsmen. Bought a few hand painted T-shirts. Keval and Subha managed to catch up with us at Auroville. We headed towards Pondicherry next.
Pondicherry, of late, has come out of the closet and has promoted itself to be a haven for stressed out professionals from all over India. It seems have revived its characteristic French roots and lifestyle. However, for Chennaiites, Pondicherry is: cheap booze and plenty of liquor brands to choose from (and of late: Breezers!). Well, whatever the reason may be we were in Pondy and looking for a place to park our butts. An Indo-Italian-French restaurant called Satsang (what a name!) is pretty well known for its seafood. However, with the tsunami devastating the fishing industry – we decided to skip seafood as the quality of the sea food would have been questionable. Unfortunately, we were informed by the waiter that no hard liquor was available – with which he tried to narrate a cock-and-bull story about the cashier missing with the cupboard keys or something – we didn’t stay long enough to hear the rest of the story.
The next option was Rendezvous. We just about made it in the restaurant as they were closing for the afternoon. After living off Chettinad food for the last 2 days, we now ordered continental cuisine. Chicken in red wine sauce, Chicken Sizzlers, ham stuff – don’t remember what we ordered. Surprisingly the food was not as bland as I expected it to be. A full bottle of Smirnoff Citrus twist ensured that we remained in good spirits. Soon, as the place closed down, we were left alone on the roof top wing of the restaurant and MIT stories were revived, much to the annoyance of Subha and Subodh – the only 2 non-MITians there (though both of them were at their diplomatic best).
Subodh had a problem. He was expected to be at a office function at 5:30 PM wherein he was supposed to hand-out awards. It was already 4:30 PM by the time we finished. All of us, in general, and Keval, in particular persuaded him to stay a little longer. Poor guy was dodging phone calls all the while. Subodh – thanks for bearing with us man – you are a helluva guy!
Finally, we decided that it is time to leave and we started for Chennai. It was 9 PM by the time we reached Rat’s house to pick up our luggage – just to find Rat’s parents were all worried because their only son decided against giving them a call all the time he was in Pondicherry. We quietly picked up our luggage, acting as if we were not involved at all, even as Rat was getting a blasting of his life.
So, after a fairly satisfying trip, we were on the way back to Bangalore. Even at the bus stand, Rat almost goofed up. We had to cancel one of the return tickets as Ashwin Baliga wouldn’t make it. Rat thought we had 2 extra tickets and “sold” the same to an old couple who were hunting for tickets. Later we realized the error and the seats were salvaged by begging the old couple to give them back again. Anyway, finally we managed to get back to Bangalore.
This trip only left us wanting for more of Chennai and the Coromandel. Pondicherry is definitely on the cards later this year. Velu Military Hotel and Sarvana Bhavan are yet to be explored. So are the many shacks and sea food joints in Chennai. Bangalore has gone to the dogs – in the last 2-3 years, it has overtaken Chennai in terms of population. Wish Bangalore can become more like Chennai soon. Amen!

Nostalgia on the West Coast

2004-12-28T03:02:00.000-08:00

It was going be another boring weekend waiting to be salvaged by a good movie or good discussion over booze. However, in Samarth and Tulika decided it will be a great time to go to Manipal and beaches nearby. Well, it was a rather hastily made plan and all of us had to fight hard to make it possible at all. It was decided that we will drive down to Udupi, stay over at my place, roam around in Manipal – show Samarth all our college hangouts and hit as many beaches as we can. Initially, a 3-day weekend trip was planned and both I and Samarth had decided to leave early on Fri and hit the road. However, Samarth landed up with some work because of which we had to shelve the Friday scheme. Instead we decided to start on Sat morning.
Tuli, in the meanwhile got into her social avatar and arranged for other people to join us for the trip. However, because of the short notice and because people already had plans for the X’mas weekend – only Pushkar and Girish Shenoy agreed. In an later development, Pushkar claimed to be terribly ill and pulled out of the trip. J
So I and Girish landed up at Tuli and Samarth’s place late Fri night with bag and baggage. The journey started early Sat at around 5:30 AM when we hit the NH 48 which leads to Mangalore. The onward trip was rather uneventful. Samarth all the way at a very leisurely pace. Tuli and baby Chaiti was a little nauseous when we were covering the Ghat section post-Sakaleshpur and the latter even threw up. But both of them recovered quite fast after a short break. We were quite late when we arrived at Udupi, it was already past lunch time – so we decided to go to Malpe and try the new Resort’s food court. Much to my disappointment, the fare was only mediocre and horribly overpriced – in fact, it was costlier than Bangalore! My suggestion – stay away from Paradise Isle’s food court as long as you can.
Post lunch, we had a brief stop at my place in Udupi during which the guests were introduced my parents and freshened themselves. We decided to hit Udupi’s famous Mitr Samaj – which had fascinated Samarth ever since he read about it in the Outlook’s Weekend Getaway book. We had our evening snack there and order the exalted Outlook Dosa – which is about 2 feet wide and delicious! After washing it down with Lime juice and Filter coffee, we headed towards Manipal – our Alma Mater.
Unfortunately, it was quite late in the evening and the college was anyway closed for X’Mas holidays – all we could do was drive around the college building and see the hostel blocks. There again we were disappointed to see that 9th and 10th blocks – which had sheltered us during those wonderful years – had been put behind guarded barricades. Then we halted at the gorgeous Venugopal Temple where we had tried to invoke God’s sympathies during all the rough phases of life while in college – sigh! Memories tsunamis hit as all of us chose to sit quietly and avoid all kinds of conversation.
After the temple, we hit End-Point where we hanged around and finished the Red Wine we had brought with us all the way from Bangalore. I was glad to see that the barrier that used to guard End-point access has been pulled down. It was great to park next to the cliff and chat. On the way out, we had ice creams at Hanyo which has now shifted to small area behind where it used to be. The erstwhile premises have been taken up by Airtel, who are apparently doing better business than Hanyo.
Most shocking change was that Deva’s shack was missing – I have no clue what happened to the poor guy. I hope he has relocated and nothing more drastic has happened. Amen.
Anyway, we reached back home and Tuli and Samarth showed their eagerness for sleeping down and so we laid load mattresses on the floor and had a good, if short, sleep. Poor Samarth, who was visibly booked out after driving all the way from Bangalore, slept off without changing or brushing his teeth.
Our plan of leaving for Marvanthe at 6 AM on Sunday morning was slightly offset as we decided that an hour of good sleep might not hurt at all. The original plan was to start for Marvanthe early, have a coffee on the way, fool around it around noon on the beach, come back to Udupi and have Idli brunch. However, my Mom, laziness and hunger coaxed us to finish a healthy breakfast before we even start. So we all attacked the delicious “Khottos” which are basically Rice cakes (idlis) steamed in containers made of jackfruit leaves. It went well with everyone. Thanks Mom! J
The drive to Marvanthe was as amazing as it always has been. After spending some time on the highway where it separates the Arabian Sea and the backwaters, we headed towards Turtle Bay resort.
Once there, Samarth lost no time in jumping into the inviting sea. Even baby Chaiti was wearing a swimsuit. However, the baby was not very impressed with the grandeur of the sea and preferred to stay miles away. Probably she had never seen anything like the sea and so much blue might have proved to be too disturbing. Plus the constant roar of the waves might have been too difficult for her to take. Anyway, one of us stayed guard while others made merry in the waters. While were enjoying ourselves, thousands were getting killed on the east coast – due to the Tsunamis generated by the massive (8.9 on the Richter) earthquake in Sumatra. In the last 2 days, the toll has risen to 24,000 world-wide and is still on the rise. We never had an inkling of what was happening till late in the evening. May the souls of all those who have perished in this sudden outburst of nature’s fury rest in peace.
On the way back, we halted at Kundapur at Shetty’s Lunch Home which is famous all over for its amazingly tasty food. After finding the place with some difficulty – we were informed that the most famous item – the Chicken Ghee Roast – will take an hour to prepare. Hard-pressed for time, we decided to skip it and have fish instead. We ordered for Bhangra (Mackerel) Rava fry and chilled beer which we promptly followed up with fish curry rice and boiled rice – yummmm…
The grand dinner was followed by the hasty operation of changing the baby’s diapers which we accomplished by the side of the road outside the restaurant itself. It was interesting to see 3 people putting together all their efforts to change the diapers and cleaning up the baby J
We were horribly late by the time we left Udupi. We only hoped that we don’t get stuck in the Ghats by night. Girish and Samarth took turns at driving. We had a great view of the moon rising against the hills all the way to Sakaleshpur. It was around 2 AM when we reached Bangalore. In the 2 days we had traveled more than 900 Kms. and had slept for not more than 8 hours each. Boy, were we tired. But on the whole, it was a great, satisfying trip. The star of show was the baby Chaiti who put up with the irregular feeding times, bumpy roads, sea, sand, heat and humidity with minimum. 3 cheers for the baby!
Really looking forward for another trip with the Sinha family!

Mahabaleshwar

2004-08-16T08:24:00.000-07:00

Mahabaleshwar has become one of my favorite tourist spots thanks to my Bro-in-law and family who love the place during the rains. This was my third visit to Mahabaleshwar, all three were made during the rains, all three I enjoyed to the core.
Mahabaleshwar is a small, sleepy town in the midst of thick jungles along the Sahyadri range in Maharastra. Its proximity to Mumbai and Pune has made it a very popular holiday resort. I trust if you visit Mahabaleshwar during the tourist (autumn to summer) - it will be like any other hill station you would have been to. What inspires our monsoon jaunts was total change the rains bring about. Mahabaleshwar receives heavy rainfall. So heavy that all the hotels shut down and are sealed with tarpaulins. The entire town is engulfed by the rain clouds for weeks. That's when we drive in, to savour the beauty of the place when there are not too many noisy tourists around.
Mahabaleshwar was established as a health resort in the early 1900s, after which it also hosted a jail for Chinese and Malay convicts for a brief while. It is said that many of these prisoners stayed back in Mahabaleshwar after release. The Mahabaleshwar - Panchgani belt is produce-rich - strawberries, potatoes, beetroot and corn being the dominant crops.
As for our trip this time. We drove down from Pune in their Qualis and for most part the ride was a pleasure thanks to Vajpeyee's Golden Quadrilateral project. This time we stayed at this fairly new resort called Sherwood which is located about 2 KM from the heart of the town towards the Satara road. Sherwood is a beautiful place and thanks to the off-season, we managed to get a wonderful duplex bungalow.
We spent time playing Scrabble, which was quite satisfying. Of course, our visits are always punctuated by trips a beautiful wine shop next to the bus stand in Mahabaleshwar. Bacardi kept us warm and cosy. Apart from that we ventured out to this place called Tapola which is situated about thirty KM from Mahabaleshwar down the valley. Enjoyed the nice little Speed boat rides in the lake, though the water level was down drastically because of the scanty rains. Also visited the Mahabaleshwar temple which gave town its name.
This time had the pleasure of tasting Bhakri (a bread made of corn) with chicken curry (yummm). Also tried some Parsi Brown Rice at Sherwood, which was decent.
On the way back to Pune, there is this new nature theme park called Sherbaug which is quite hot. We were planning to stop by for my nephew Arhan to play around and also for lunch; unfortunately, they was not allowing cars inside that day. Maybe next time, with places like Mahabaleshwar - there's always a next time.

Leave

2004-07-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

After a loooong time, I decided to take some time off from office. Spend some time at my new home in Udupi, then roam around and meet friends, catch up with my reading and stuff. Unfortunately, this vacation was almost ruined because of the sheer dearth of cash in my bank a/c. When I was just about to plan my holiday I realized that my bank account has hit rock bottom. Luckily, Girish gave me some 2 grand which he owed me. Am surviving on that now.
This would mean to I will have to stick to destinations where I can rest assured that I will be granted 2 square meals and a place to sleep free of cost - which essentially means my home in Udupi, my sis' place in Pune and mebbe a couple of friends' places in Pune and Mumbai. :)
In my case, Free time and ready cash have been like the Sun and the Moon - rarely together. This also means that I will have to indefinately postpone my "Nowhere to nowhere trip" again - sad but true :(
On the itinerary- stay in Udupi for a couple of days, catch up with my reading (brought Simon Singh's 'The Code Book', Emile Zola's 'A priest in the house' and some tidbits of Greek and Roman mythology), then head for Pune, a trip to Mahabaleshwar with Sis, Bro-in-Law and others, then meet Manjesh, Ashu, etc. in Pune, then spend the weekend in Mumbai, meet Meeta, Arvind, Makrand, Monu, etc., come back to Pune on Monday and catch the train to Bangalore, come wed and will be in the same office mode. So I have abt 8 days to live my life.
Till then it's goodbye.
Cheers,
Guru.

Madhumalai - in the lap of the Nilgiris

2004-06-14T09:06:00.001-07:00

Had been to Madhumalai(Tamil Nadu) last weekend on a stress buster trip - one is organised by our office every 6 months. Madhumalai is small, little known tourist destination situated at the common boundary of 3 states - Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Flanked by Bandipur National Park on one side and Ooty on another - it boasts of wildlife like the former and of beautiful mountainside like the latter.
We started early Friday morning and reached there at 2 in the afternoon. A rather dramatic poster announcing a reward of 5 Crore rupees for the capture of the famous bandit Veerappan welcomed us at the TN border. Madhumalai is placed in the cradle of the Nilgiris, surrounded by dense forests. We stayed at this place called Blue Valley resorts, a couple of Kms from the sleepy town of Masinagudi. The resort had a direct, unblocked view of the Majestic Nilgiris; which, true to their name, loom over the plains like blue giants.
Madhumalai has been "tamed" rather recently - some 40 years ago. It has served as a Jungle combat training camp for the army under the Raj. The wild side of Madhumalai is quite evident as elephants, wild boars, sloth bears, deer, wild dogs and a whole army of wild animals can be easily spotted just off the highway!
We were in Madhumalai at the right time. The air was heavy with suggestions of rain but it hadn't started raining heavily yet. We were greeted by cheerful drizzles now and then - but that's about it.
Unfortunately, the resort itself was in bad repair. The rooms were musty and the food was pathetic. In fact, we even thought that the cook was serving us dog meat instead of chicken and were counting all the mongrels roaming around after each round of chicken served :-) What's more they didn't have a bar!
Fortunately, we went fully equipped with enough alcohol to keep us happy inspite of all these minor glitches at the resort; and quite a life saver it turned out to be.
In the evening, some people went to see the "Elephant pooja", which is basically a group of trained elephants praying before a diety complete with bells and prostrations. This was at the elephant feeding (and training??) camp nearby. A gigantic killer elephant who was "reformed" is also a tourist attraction. Apparently that one killed 20 people! A look
After a night of merry making, the group split next morning. One gang went to Ooty (most of them newly married couples) and the other went for a trek in the nearby mountains. I decided to stay back at the resort and do my bit of reading (had picked Chariots of the Gods and Dilbert Future for some light reading). The trek, I am told, turned out to be quite a wild one as these fellows bumped in a lone tusker and almost raided a bear cave!
We who stayed back took a trip to Madhumalai proper and took a Jungle Ride arranged by the Forest authorities there. There was this dilapidated bus made up entirely of tin and wood which took us through some wild trails in the deep jungle. Spotted a few elephants, spotted deer, a peacock and a bunch of wild dogs.
In the evening, everyone gathered for the Night Safari arranged by the resort. There were 5 jeeps, all taking different routes through the jungle. Luckily, my colleague Jayaraj - a wildlife enthusiast, had struck a deal with the driver-cum-guide of our jeep who promised us to take us where no man has gone before.
So while the other jeeps just taxied up and down the Bandipur highway for the sake of a Safari, our guide took us to the wild, untouched wilderness that sprawled below the Nilgiris. I have to admire the guts and the driving skills of the chap as he rammed into bushes, crossed streams, jumped over cliffs and gave a taste of a TRUE safari.
Unfortunately, June end is a bad time for sightings, as it turned out to be and we failed to spot leopards, as promised by our guide. However, he managed to chase a wild boar for minutes as the jeep made way for itself in the wild, dense forest cover. We also spotted a HUGE colony(?) of spotted deer. The driver took the jeep in what look like a grassy plain and then turn the high beams on. And Lo! there were hundreds of deer all around us. As he turned the jeep through an almost 360 degree angle, we could see hundreds and hundreds of glowing eyes and sparkling spotted coats. That's enough deer for a lifetime.
After the bumpy ride in the wild forest, we hit the Bandipur "Lap" where we saw a couple of young elephants grazing just off the road! The driver almost slammed the jeep into one the elephants to which the animal mock charged, but immediately went back to its meal. That must have been the closest I have ever been to an elephant. Did try to take snaps but the light was bad and flashlights were prohibited within the sanctuary.
Thus ended the trip - on the whole - an enjoyable one.
See the photos @ http://photos.yahoo.com\kya_bakwaas

Chennai revisited

2004-06-14T09:06:00.000-07:00

Chennai, India's 4th largest Metro. Home to over 6 million. Including my good friends Keval and Bhatta. A city I have avoided for long. A City which I brought back memories of unscrupulous rickshaw-fellows, hot humid weather and xenophobic ppl.
This weekend I visited Chennai for the second time after a gap of two and a half years. The occasion being Bhatta's engagement to Suma. To my surprise, I found Chennai amazingly pleasant. The roads were broader and well maintained. The traffic congestion has decreased. The weather was great as if someone turned on the A/C somewhere to control the heat and humidity. There were a lot many places to hang out. And yes, thankfully I didn't have to travel on an auto-rickshaw. :)
I guess a lot of that had to do with my experience in Bangalore which has become quite unfit for living in the last couple of years; with roads all over the place been dug up; unplanned colonies mushrooming all over the place; crazy population explosion and an overload of traffic and pollution. But that doesn't sidelined Chennai development in the last couple of years.
Anyway, left for Chennai on Sat night and landed at Rat's house in the morning. After the ritual ablutions, we (me and Rat) walked up to Keval's home and woke him up. Keval played a perfect host as he took us around in his car and explained what is currently hot in Chennai. After much deliberation, we decided to watch a movie at Mayajaal - a new entertainment complex opened just outside Chennai. But first we visited Keval's office in Adyar and saw the Kewl Keval in his corporate avatar as he scanned and replied to his mails and did other stuff Project Managers are supposed to do.
Keval's colleague - Sridharan also joined us. Since Sridharan's 6'5" frame couldn't fit in the puny little Maruti 800, we had to join him in his Bolero. Picked up some beer on the way to Mayajal which is on East Coast Road (ECR). Now this ECR is the hottest thing in and around Chennai, a beautiful drive along the beach to Pondicherry punctuated by Toll booths - which do a good job of regulating the traffic.
Reached Mayajal and show "The day after tomorrow" by Roland Emmerich starring Dennis Quaid - a SFX extravaganza with a formula script. Met a MIT junior - Ashwin by name - during the break.
After the movie, we drove down to MGM - a watersports complex with a good restaurant by the sea side. Had our dose of booze for the day and light tandoori lunch, eying the beautiful, tidy beach next to us. That is one thing abt Chennai - the beaches (at least at the outskirts) are clean - something other big coastal Indian cities cannot boast of. After lunch we decided to walk down the beach and were surrounded by catamaran pilots who were offering a ride into the sea for 100 bucks each. Me, Keval and Rat bargained a little but jumped to the offer. Sridharan, whose horoscope that morning had advised him to stay away from water decided to stay back and watch our belongings.
The catamaran was exactly like the one they show in the "Anjaana...Anjaani" song in Yuva, only the song was shot in Fisherman's Cove and we were near the MGM beach in Chennai. The difference : we didn't have to wear life jackets :)
In case you have ever wondered how come the catamaran in the song moves so fast, here's the secret : they tie small engines - not unlike lawn mover engines - to the boats. And boy, is it thrilling! The pilots took us a few hundred meters from the shore where the sea was deep and placid and stopped the boat and asked if we wished to dive. Since all of us were almost totally drenched - we jumped into the sea! First time that we had attempted to dive into something so deep. Wish we had a video cam with us!
The water was too salty and it was quite tough to swim there, being outta touch for over a year. We finished our ride fast and had to sit down in the grass to dry ourselves, lest Sridharan refused to let us in his jeep. That is when Keval started with the Andaman plans - its untapped beauty and virgin beaches and total desolation. Sounds great! And plans were made to visit that place. Mid-July is proposed - let's see how things work out.
By the time we reached back home, we were already late by an hour for Bhatta's engagement ceremony. Poor Bhatta, knowing us wayward fellows, called to check if we are coming at all or not. Reached the place just in time for dinner and was glad to see Bhatta with his fiance - all geared to start a new chapter in his life. After meeting everyone we knew and eating a hearty lunch, good-byes were exchanged and came out of the venue. Realized that we still have a hour to kill before my bus starts - so decided to stop by at Jeffrey's. We were joined by Subodh (Keval's old school chump) and Anant (Keval and Bhatta's colleague and the latter's roommate). Anant is, according to Keval, a big fan of mine and Damu's, thanks to our poor parodies on the mob. Why, Anant even recognized me instantly and said he saw my ugly mug on the web. LOL! Thanks for the adoration, pal. Hope my future wacky ventures keep your entertained :)
Now this pub has a strange rule - to ward off guests who come in without shoes - what the fcuk! So we had to convince the manager there that what we are wearing was fine for a formal reception, so it should be fine for their 2 pence pub. To this he offered us shoes for loan which we wore and entered the pub. Crap!
They were serving Kalyani Black draught - something I have not had for years and hence have lost the taste. Barely managed to sip a mug when it was time for the bus.
So the day came to an end and I bid Keval and Rat goodbye and promised to visit the place more often...and this time I meant it! Viva Chennai!

Thailand

2004-05-16T02:06:00.000-07:00

NOT YET COMPLETE
Sometime last year, I was "voted" as the Best Employee for the year 2003-04 at my office. Quite an honor, Thank you. The grand prize was an all-expenses paid trip to Thailand. The trip was kept on hold for more than 3 months (as I couldn't spare any time!!!) and was finally scheduled on the 22nd of April 2004. It was my first trip out of India.
I did my part of research on Thailand before starting off. Thailand, like India, is a land of contrasts, a melting pot for different cultures. One startling difference is that Thailand, unlike India, has been an isolated kingdom hardly influenced by Western forces. From what I have read, the origins of the Thai ppl is quite hazy. It is said that they migrated all the way from China and finally settled in the region now occupied by Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and southern part of Burma. During Emperor Ashoka's period (2-3 Century BC) Buddhist monks from India preached their religion which is now predominant in Thailand. The Hindu influence is quite clear too. They had an ancient kingdom by the name Dvaravati which in Sanskrit means City of Gates - probably a tribute to Krishna's mythical city - Dwarka. Khmer conquests brought more Sankrit derived words in the Thai langauage. In fact, the word 'Siam' has it's roots in Sanskrit 'Shyam'(Dark), which was used by the Khmer warlords to refer to their darker Thai counterparts.
Thailand (then Siam) reached its peak of prosperity between the 14th to 16th century AD, called the Ayuthaya period. Ayuthaya was the capital of Siam those days and was the most prosperous port city in the world. Western explorers were drawn to Siam like flies, but at some point, the xenophobic kingdom threw all the ambassdors out and sealed itself.
King Mongkut, who is portrayed in poor light in all Anna and the King movies, played a key role in the reconstruction of Thailand. He was educated in the west and had an open outlook. He started interacting with the Western nations and expanded trade horizons, mainly dealing with silk, rice and spices. The Indian influence is again very clearly defined here - the royal epithet or rather, general name for all kings is Rama. King Mongkut was Rama IV. This system continues even today! In the last century, after a couple of coups, the military has gained good control over the political scene in Thailand.
So much for history. Let's get back to my trip. We were put up in Bangkok at the Indra Regent Hotel at Pratunam. Bangkok is a big (7-8 million pop) city and is built along the lines of Hong Kong and singapore. With Bangkok becoming an increasingly popular tourist hub, shopping malls are springing up from every corner of the city. The traffic is as heavy as one could expect in a city this size. Bangkok is best known for its massage parlours which offer, er, additional services too. Unfortunately, since I was there for only 4 days and there was a hell lot of stuff to see and buy, I couldn't taste that flavour of city :-(
One thing which will strike any tourist is that the prices in Thailand are quite reasonable. In fact, I found it is cheaper than Bangalore! Another plus is that the people are unbelivably nice. Thais are a very tolerant race. Just remember these few points :-
DON'T touch a Thai's head, even as a light hearted gesture. The head is supposed to be sacred and touching it is considered to be defiling.
DON'T point your feet at someone/thing. Feet are considered to be the lowliest part of the body.
AVOID PDA (public display of affection).