Brahmagiri

I was really longing for a trek,longing to breathe in the cold wind,stand atop the hill and see the miniature world below,to feel alone yet so alive.

Brahmagiri!!Thank god it happened,was beginning to get a little whiny that no trek was happening:)

A super comfortable bus journey to gonikoppal.The rajahamsa was so empty ,i stretched my 162cm body over two adjacent seats and slept like a baby.The other three I'm sure,slept warm as well.We were rudely awakened by the conductor ,cursing him mentally,the 4 of us got off at gonikoppal,one eerie dark town at 4 am.Slight drizzle,we parked our rear ends and sacks of course,in front of a wine/liquor shop:) .

The characters: Ajaxi-The tamil iyer boy from Purdue:)

Protima-The strong aspiring law student from kolkatta.

Boda-The Sapient man with no hair:)

and me,of course.

I don't blame you if you get an image of 4 superheroes!:)

Boda was getting a little restless..all of thought of reasons why.Hmm..can't give clues,but it was early morning after a long confined journey in a bus.;).Boda made the first expense of the trek,150rs,for something,he believes was well spent,and something the rest of us will still laugh about.The sun shining, and the drizzle gone,we satiated our hungry stomachs to lots of breakfast(considering we were definitely going to skip lunch that day).Took the first bus from gonikoppal to sri mangala.The lazy range officer would give us permission only at 9am,so we had about 2 hours to while away before he came.APB didn't even think twice and found a nice spot in the bus stop and snugged by their sacks and dozed off.I walked around aimlessly,stole ajaxi 's camera,took pictures of the peak:),the white dogs and well...them,sleeping.!

9 am ,found the range officer and paid for our permission.Took the bus to iruppu,where our trek would start:).Reached iruppu to find discouraging guides(rather,i think they were lazy to take anyone).They scared us about how brahmagiri was called Mt.Everest of the south(phbtt!).

Finally,one of them had to come and so did:)We were chilling by the cool waters of iruppu falls,where our guide met us,armed with an umbrella,a small cloth sack of salt(for the leeches) and one small bag of his belonging.

It was about 3 hours to reach the guest house,not a very tiring up climb,decent enough..not much rain and nominal leeches:).The guest house was already brimming with 12 boys,cacophonous and well..guy-like (!!).The guide refused to take us to the brahmagiri(what a spoiler!),some reasons of rain,mist,wild elephants.Nah! we didn't understand:).Boda did a good job of persuasion and instead of settling down in the room and cooking our lunches,we decided to go to the peak.It was a long,tiring,meandering route to the foothills of the peak,but breath-taking scenery's all through the route:)a joy!:) .

Now the climb! where do i even start? It was raining,a nice heavy rain,4 of us started our way to the top.Slippery as banana peels with minimal rock holds for support.The initial climb till a quarter of the distance was decent.Then the fright started..well,i speak for myself,i was beginning to think of it as impossible,mainly because climbing it was easy,but i couldn't comprehend how we would climb back down.That thought scared me.Boda and protima stopped midway.Ajaxi was well ahead..i decided.what the hell,lets' go.The hill was a killer!steep to a good extent,say 75 deg inclined.I kept making noises and whined all the way to the top,but i guess ajaxi didn't pay heed and assumed i ll come:).It was exhilarating.Well,the peak was beautiful..but unfortunately covered by mist,so,we couldn't see anything else,except each other,rock,rock and grass:).But gauging the altitude we were at,we felt good:) It was everything i had asked for:).Peace!! This lasted a little time,and we had to climb back down.Wow!one scared chicken i was.Again,whined my way down..about my amazing floaters that didn't give me grip,about how scared i was,everything.Thanks ajaxi:).finally did it,climbed back down,with my floaters in my hand.It was EXCELLENT! :) a warm,strong feeling of pride filled my heart:)

Back to the guest house,boda and ajaxi were excited as young kids to do shahi pulav.It was...umm..good:). The 12 guy-like guys spent the night..like guys! :) drinking,smoking and chicken:) they bothered inviting us thrice.Ajaxi,split in his mind about the chicken,politely said no!:).The night wasn't very cold,but only noisy:) the little said about that night,for many reasons,the better.

The leeches started getting on my nerves,was getting a little paranoid.Don't blame me,i found one in my bellybutton!.The morning that followed was relaxed,we washed vessels by the stream like one happy family!:) .Started on the journey back down,lazily and relaxed,the leeches had a field day:).ajaxi and boda,a little disappointed about not having done upit in the morning:).We reached iruppu falls and sat down by the stream,for what seemed like a light year:) patiently removing the leeches and letting the cool waters run through our hands and legs.A nice Saturday afternoon lazing by a natural stream of cool water.Unmatched!:)Paid off the guide and boda and ajaxi managed to give away our rations to a cook and have their beloved upit made:) what joy those two boys expressed:)! Took a hurried bus to mysore,to get down at 9pm.dinner and bus to Bangalore,to get down at 1 am.Walked to boda's house.hot shower and a long night followed!:)

What i loved .The place.My trek mates.The greenery.Every trek teaches me a few lessons.I've learnt a treasured set of lessons in this one as well:)

whats your last name?

Sitting here ,on a very lazy morning at my grandmother's house,i realized how unfortunately racist Indians are.
Sunday afternoons at granny's place is like the family scenes of the movies.A vast backyard, a garden coffee table with men of the family talking.Kids running about yelling,the women of the family cooking delicious food.Just perfect:).My general routine was to help with the paysam(the only thing i was good at making) and annoy a few of my younger cousins.Today,i decided to listen to my uncles talk about stocks,employers,business et all (it was the only way to escape my aunts conspiring to get me married!) .Sitting there on the grass silently listening to them talk,I couldn't help thinking,how racist all of us are( sadly,so am i).

Uncle1: "That gowda's son got an MS seat in this US university,I tell you its all about the money"
Uncle2:"But didn't he get an average score in that GRE entrance?Sonu(my pet name at home :P),how much did you get?"
ME: squirming as i wasn't too enthusiastic about telling my scores> "Ummmm,1270 i think".
Uncle1:"Kanna,that's good no..see that gowda's son got only 900"
Uncle2:"It's all the money from his land i tell you ,His grandfather owns a quarter of the Kushalnagar".

I was making a mental note to ask my dad about my grandad property in chennai :P.

Uncle1:"My employers are asking for so much money these days! "
Uncle2:"Murugan right?These tamilnadu people are so clever.They work less and ask for more holidays,"enn machan oda anna kh kaliyanum"

Everyone laughs in unison.Are we from tamilnadu?Don't we have bro-in-laws whose brothers get married?

Uncle3:"Yes,it always better to take these biharis and assamese people..They diligently work,and are satisfied with whatever they get".
Uncle1:"These reddys are looking for an alliance for their son,MS in finance i think...expecting a Volkswagen and apartment in dowry,you know him no sonu?venkatesh"
Me:Why o why ! My feet felt like making a run for it...
....and i did:)
Well,it just so happens,that we youngsters still continue to call names gowds,iyers,iyengars.

That's unfortunate.
This blog wasn't meant to degrade my uncles or hurt any feelings.Just an honest observation.:)

What do you want to be when you grow up?

All of us,unfortunately,are still plagued by this question.We think that we know where we see ourselves in 5 yrs,but..we really don't.I speak for the people i have come across in my life,with a few exception,of course.With at least 70% of the teenagers in India taking engineering..its ironic that 70 out of every 100 young people use their brains in technical aspects.Forget the swarms of aspiring engineers we have. I hear a few of my friends complain how taxing medical studies are that it can begin to disinterest you at times.I hear few of my friends who have taken the arts(painting,writing,journalism,architecture) shudder under the pressure of been "REALLY " talented to stand out from the crowd.I know,now you are perplexed and shaking your head philosophically,life is hard,whatever it may be.But,my question is,do you feel the burden sometimes?All of us sometimes feel,maybe i would have made a better singer than an doctor,or a better journalist than a engineer.I could have made a better rallyist,a better tennis player,a better photographer..Every single person has,had these stray thoughts.What do YOU do about it?

There was a mad phase in my life.I used to play basketball endlessly,thinking i could really get far.There was another phase in my life,i was engrossed in creativity,writing,poetry,crafts,so many ideas i used to come up with,I used to stare at the TV and think of better Advertisement ideas(and i must honestly say,they were good),I thought i would come up with an excellent idea.Then the more mature ages came along,i loved MATHS,still love it actually.You would find me solving math problems even in the train to Chennai,to meet my grandparents.Time had come to CHOOSE,after 12th.I yelled my lungs out,journalism journalism journalism.Wished my parents heard it clearer. But i don't blame anyone or anything.I'm happy,to an extent,doing engineering.I don't think i would have wanted to do anything else.I'll tell you why,I have so many interests!!just too many.But life is not constant.I know for sure that i won't remain a hardware engineer for the rest of my life. I would want to write,be a freelance journalist someday.Try my hand at business sometime.Or go on a year long break and take millions of photographs of the world.

Like Issac Asimov said,Change is the only constant.You'll want to be a chef someday,you'll want to be an interior designer.You'll want to be a rallyist another day.Or a photographer.:) There's only one life,Its normal to want to be so many people at one time.So the next time you are cramming for an exam and thoroughly hate the subject and think why did i take this field!!....you think you hate the subject,but its the time frame you hate.Cherish all the dreams you have,and don't stop to defend yourself when someone says "you are so fickle minded and aimless",reply back with a contagious grin.."you have one life,make the most of it.":)

Love

Yellow skies,

Love is the resounding laughter of your friends.

Red skies,

Love is the foxy grin and sensuous perfume.

Blue skies,

Love is the serendipitous pictures you click, that bring you joy when you later see it.

Brown skies,

Love is the egoistic compelling football match you just played with your rival.

Pink skies,

Love is the super expensive shoes you and your girlfriend giggled over.

Purple skies,

Love is the family time you had and having been missing for so long.

Green skies,

Love is the last time you smelt the soil and the watched the sun set.

Beige skies,

Love is the soft fluffy coat of your dog.

Black skies,

Love is gradually replacing hate.

White skies,

Love is time you smiled back at the mirror.

Traffic

Traffic is barbaric in Bangalore.I didn't really experience Bangalore traffic until recently.Riding to and fro 15km to ISRO and back tires me mentally and physically.The kings of the road (take 3 guesses)..got it at the first guess?Autos! Stubborn monstrous yellow creatures.They occupy the centre of the road and won't budge till you give him a headache by honking.

My rules for happy riding in Bangalore:)

1. It's all about respect.If you're riding an activa,let the enfield behind you pass:).Don't be too over ambitious.

2.You have all rights to annoy autos! It's pay back time baby!

3.Plug those headphones into your ears.The best way to phase out the chaotic honking and engine noise.

4.I'm not preaching,but stop at RED!.Don't risk it even if it's 5 s.The other person might just intentionally drive into you if his signal is green.

5.Cover yourself completely!Wear your prettiest scarf/helmet/jacket .If not, you'll surely be coated with a layer of pollution and dust.

Happy riding!

Breathe . .

Tattered dog bitten clothes,

A distorted tattoo on his arm.

Smoking a low-quality beedi,

and a well-knit quit to keep him warm.

At a pathetic age of forty,

He was nothing but a shrunk nicotine and tobacco poisoned dying man..

..sitting by the tea stall,flanked by two diseased stray dogs.

how everything had changed in this short time span!

Racing back 20 years,the same tea stall,

a hot blooded educated man of twenty,

Smart,athletic,hyper-active and popular.

A graduate certificate in hand,patiently sipping tea.

He smoked occasionally with the excuse of "celebration",

he didn't realize that his celebrations lasted more than a pack.

Life was generous then,a decent job and a hefty bank balance.

With the superfluous money,his tobacco and nicotine addiction was back.

The urge to smoke,the pleasure of floating in nothingness..

..compelled him to resist his sane mind.

He became an independent man ,intransigent to what others said.

In his own egoistic lonely bubble ,he remained confined.

The heaviness of his lungs didn't bother him,

The coughing and blood didn't bother him,

His presumptuous arrogance exacerbated his failing lungs.

Chances of survival was slim.

Knowing well that his death is imminent,

He sits numb with the beedi in his hand.

He chose to spend the last few days with his greatest foe and best friend...

.................the cigarette.

Bubbles

She was tired.Tired from not doing anything.Tired staring fixedly at her cellphone,waiting for a message.Why aren't any of my friends free today!! It frustrated her. It was partly her mistake .she made excuses of having to study,or of her bad moods,of her painful stomach.She realized it was herself,she was frustrated with.

Her digital watch beeped.It was 6 'o clock .Her boredom reached the 5 hour mark.She pulled on a jacket and grabbed some money.She knew just what she wanted to do,she had been wanting to do it since a week.Bubbles!:)She shook her boredom off and began to walk to food street.It's always a carnival here, balloons sellers,delicious food,and finally the person selling the soap mixture that produces bubbles:)

Happy with her little purchase,she set off to the huge water tank.she hurriedly climbed the winding staircase.She loved the peace and the view of the city from up here.Blowing bubbles into the vast skies,she felt her little frustrations depart slowly.The lines on her forehead reduced.She was beginning to feel happy.FINALLY!