there is something about....

“Dude!!! What s wrong with you? she s not attractive, she s not good looking, she s not fun to be with, she dose not like sports… I can go on on for days. But you!!! You say you like her. you say you think you love her. are you crazy? Find yourself a good one. Actually you don’t need to find anyone. There are lot of girls eyeing you. Look at Neha! She s fun, she s hot. And almost the whole group knows that she has a crush on you. But you go on to chose Sowmya. Tell me one good thing about her yaar. And you tell all this now on communicator instead of telling it to me during the trek. We had 2 days. When we did nothing but walking and talking.” said i to Srinivasa“I don’t know. But definitely not Neha!!! She s not the kind of girl I want to spend my life with. Agreed that she s fun and all but definitely I cannot imagine spending my life with her.”“Alright. Not Neha. But why Sowmya? Just tell me one good thing about her!!!”“Man!!! A girl does not have to be beautiful or attractive or fun for you to like her or fall for her. It is something about her. I don’t know how to explain.”Long silence…Then again srini started…“ ok answer my questions. Are you very intellingent? Were you the topper in you class?”“No I was not topper”“are you very good to look at? Very handsome? With 6 pack abs etc etc?”“No I am very ordinary.”“are you very obedient? Do you listen to everything your parents tell you? Have you never disappointed them?”“no I am not very obedient. I have disappointed them couple of times.”“but still they like you. Why is that?”“that s because I am their son. You are talking about 2 completely different things”
“No just because you are their son does not mean that they should always love you. They do so because they find something in you. Something which may be you don’t know. Ok forget about them. We have been friends for a long time. We have fought, may be I have at times hurt you and may be you have at times disappointed me. But still here we are. Good friends. I know that I can always count on you. Dose this have anything to do with being handsome or intelligent or fun?”“No. I don’t think it has anything to with them.”“exactly. We are friends because i know that deep within you there is friend whom I can trust. And who is worth a lot. I hope you think the same way about me too.”“ya I too think the same way. But what s your point? How is this similar to your case?”“sowmya is good to be with.when she s with me time just slips by. I used to go to beach every evening and spend some time alone. I used to feel good doing so. But now every time I go to the beach I remember her, not that I do not remember her otherwise. But now when I go there I wish she were with me, walking hand in hand along the beach, the sun almost settling down into the sea, waves kissing our feet, wind blowing her hairs, making them touch my face…”“Ok buddy. Better stop imagining and return back to the topic.”“yes. All I wanted to say is that there s something about her which drags me towards her. Something which makes it easy for me to relate to her. I don’t know how to describe that something. It is not some kind of attraction or crush. I never felt that for any girl.”“hmmm if so then she must really be something. I know one thing for sure. She has her heart at the right place. She is a good friend. If you really like her then tell her.”

shades of nature(last part)

After a tiring day any food tastes good, but the dinner that night did taste well. And we had a peaceful sleep. Next day s Sunrise was really worth getting up early. But we had 2 big LOOSERS Narayan and Shridhar, who missed the sunrise.

Below the temple there is a cave which is supposed to reach bababuDDangiri. We left muLLiyanagiri soon after having breakfast. By the time we left the hill was getting covered by mist. We used a different route for the down hill trek. As always down hill trek was not tiring. On reaching the main road we decided to rest for a while but soon a goods carrier came by. Looking at us on the road the driver stopped and asked us if we wanted a paid ride in his carrier. Another quick photo session in carrier was in progress when we reached the town. He dropped us at the bus stand. After a royal lunch when we reached the bus stand buses for all 3 destinations – mangalore, mysore and Bangalore were ready to leave. Parting off we got into our respective buses with beautiful memories of the past 30 odd hours…

shades of nature (continued)

Before reaching the tower we realized that we had some uninvited companions with us. Huge flies which were hungry for our blood. They accompanied us almost till the peak.

The path we trekked was really thrilling and challenging at times. we walked on the ridge, along the edge of the hill. Crossing rocks added more to the fun. Shola forests look good. Patch of forest in the valley. Especially during this time, after few rains, different shades of green, flowers in some trees all this looked really good.

In one such patch shridhar decided to go in search of water. I accompanied him for some distance. someone else had sensed the presence of human blood. Leaches. I noticed few of them and warned shridhar about them, he did not find and presence of water source and returned back. Hungry leaches had got hold of human blood, good that shridhar noticed them immediately and got rid of them. I was planning to take the a couple of them back to Bangalore and gift them to smitha but decided against it as they would not survive the dry warm climate on the way back to Bangalore.
At one such place we decided to have lunch. We had balcony seat, watching the colorful shoal forest below us. By this time it had started getting cloudy. We expected rain very soon. As usual I took one of my favorite group pic, us sitting along the edge of the hill with our back facing the camera.

Having lunch under open sky, in presence of such catchy scenery is an amazing experience. After lunch and relaxation we put on our backpack and continued towards our destiny.

Arun and Srini had found a new means to entertain themselves. Partly translating kannada songs to English. Brahmanda oomkara became Brahm-happiness oomkara, aatm-happiness bla bla bal…. ide naaDu ide bhashe became ide state-u ide language forever mine-u aagirali, where-e irali how-e irili kannaDave nanna breath-inalli. Had there been any KRV activists they would have committed jumped from the peak.

The trek from Mulliyanagiri base was really beautiful and colorful, where as the trek before that

was more adventurous.

As we approached the peak more clouds were accumulating. We could see the clouds drifting towards us. We were expecting it to pour any moment now. We could easily make out that some part of the range was receiving rainfall.

The shades of nature was of wide range and I am sure that my camera found it difficult to capture this wide range of shades that the nature had used. It started raining as we started the last climb.

There is a temple on the peak. On reaching the peak we relaxed at the priest s house where we were to spend the night. The coffee we had there was really tasty. Now we were at the highest peak in Karnataka at a height of 6820 ft. coming out of the house we notice that we were about clouds. After having nap our lazy leader – Arun came out with us to see the Sun Off for the day. The sky was golden now. My cam must have really found it difficult now with the ever increasing range of colors that nature was exhibiting.

That day we witnessed mist in the morning, a clear blue sky later on, combination of white, grey and black clouds invaded the blue sky by noon getting along with them cool water droplets in from of rain, a golden sky during sunset and a pitch black sky with glittering diamonds embedded in it after sunset. To add to it the sweet songs sung by birds, the beautiful lust green view of everything below us…. As arun said in his message we really witnessed heaven. People who missed this… you know what you are ;-)

last part in Q

Shades of nature (part 1)

May 26, Monday evening. Around 8, travelling back (yes in Bangalore it really is travelling back, not just coming back) from office to my place talking over my cell phone, the voice on the other side said “you seem to be very exhausted. The trek must have been very tiring…”

“Trek and tiring? No it was refreshing.” I said

“Oh My god!! You are crazy!!”

The weekend trek. The best of the treks I have been to till now. But as Arun said “the best trek” keeps changing as and when the number of treks increases. Last week we went on a trek to MuLLiyanagiri – the highest peak in Karnataka.

Friday night Arun, Shridhar and me left to chikmagalore from Bangalore, Srinivasa from Mangalore and Narayan from mysore. Srinivasa and narayan reached chickmagalore at about 1 30 early in the morning. You can imagine how frustrate a person can be to go for a loaf around at 2 am checking out the distance boards, taking their pics, discovering a weird horse which was laying down and sleeping(horses don’t lay down and sleep) making a detained study of the town. And how much more frustrated can he be to check his weight a dozen number of times with all combinations – with shoes, without shoes, with backpack, without back pack and what not.(later that evening when I told this to shruti, she was like “I thought alteast your friends were sane, but now I am having second thoughts.”). yes that is srinivas and narayan for you, sane or insane…

We reached chikmagalore at around 5 30 in the morning. Without wasting anytime went to the restaurant in the bus stand. What can you expect to get at that hour? But when on a trek comfort is our least priority. Srinivas and narayna joined us there at the restaurant after their midnight to early morning “loafing around the town”, as always with a smiling face.

Outside the bus stand a private bus to bababuDDangiri was waiting for us. I was planning to have a second round of sleep, but when we entered it we came to know that it there were no seats for us to occupy. And within no time the conductor came to us and asked us to part away from our dear back packs, which srini was very reluctant to. For him his backpack is more than his girlfriend. This prompted us ask if we could occupy the balcony seats… right bus top seat. This was my first bus top experience and was awesome, it was thrilling at times, each time a the bus came across a tree, looking at srini s face we had to bend down so that we would not bang into a branch… luckily nothing went wrong….

Srini started clicking pics from the moment the bus started (yes sometimes srini can go to any extend with is obsessions). After about an hour of thrilling journey we reached bababuDDangiri. Due to rain during the previous week the scenery was very good. And weather on that day was good too. We were above clouds. Different shades of green on land, blue in the sky. Nature is really beautiful. There we decided to trek to maNikyadhara falls which is around 5 km from bababuDDangiri. I got one more proof to support a fact at maNikyadhara. Something our people are very expert at. Leave them at world s most beautiful place for just 1 day and the very next day when you visit the place it would be very difficult to recognize the place. It would have become the dirtiest place. Manikyadhara looks very much like a shower, very beautiful until it reaches ground, rainbow formed midway to ground,

but resembles drainage tank once it reaches ground. People there have bath and throw their clothes near the falls, the place stinks.

One more beautiful place ruined. I sometimes pray for a miracle to happen and destroy roads to all beautiful places.
Until that moment our plan was to get back to bababuDDangiri, catch a bus to chikmagalore and get down midway and start our trek to muLLiyangiri. But at breakfast (second round, and getting lunch packed) we decided to trek all the way to muLLiyangiri (around 14 km). after all we what work did we have but to loaf around and enjoy nature all we wanted was to get to the peak before sun set. On asking the route to the owner of the small eating place he asked us to got to the BSNL tower from where the path would be easily visible. Thus started our trek to muLLiyangiri.

PS: to be continued