3 days - under nature s care

at last i was going on a trek!!!
after a long long long break.
it was 1 year ago that we(harte katte) had been on a trek...
we do learn from our past experience.
arun made it clear that carry mat and sleeping bag is a must and he would not allow us into the bus without them...

28th night
time 10 pm swaroop and me had just left shridhar s house after collecting the carry mats which were hoplessly packed.
the bus was supposed to leave majestic at 10 30 and we were sure that we could not make it.
what a start for the trek!!!
we decided to catch the bus at satellite bus stand (mysore road).
probably for the first time arun was late though not late enough to miss the bus.
satellite bus stand was empty... good for us we (swaroop, his sis, and me) made our best attempt to roll the carry mat, and this is what arun had to say: " thu! angDi avnge carry mat roll maaDakku baralla. waste fellow". swaroop decided not to take the blame on us :-)

finally the journey begins...
more than half the luggage in the bus was ours.
it was not a very eventful night. usually we end up getting scolded by our co-passengers for making noise, but this time probably they were lucky!!!
not much noise, the usual "hi, how are you?" s, some small chat. i tried my best to sleep. but was not very successful..

29th morning
the same maDikeri bus stand welcomed us. santosh who was to join us here was not to be seen anywhere. in some time saw a strange figure get out of sleeping bag...
and out comes santosh. in some time srinivasa and shreyas also joined us. after ablusions (better not use the terms we used) and breakfast got into the bus to hatti hoLe which is around 20 km from maDikeri. arun had described the place in a mail few days ago. this is what he had said "crystal clear water-u, very tempting-u but we wont be getting into water during uphill trek". indeed it was very tempting. we only went near the stream for photo session and then back to trek

it was not a normal trek where you just keep walking. it was almost a relaxing uphill walk but for the load we were carrying. had to walk along the stream for about 2km. here we exchanged our secret angle gifts. every one kept guessing as to who their secret angle was. santosh must still be wondering who calls him "gangster". keep guessing santosh. keep guessing santosh until you get "secret angle revealed" message from our moderator who by the way has done a very good job.

our yoga expert srinivasa rajan was telling us about some yoga aasanas. we were passing next to a paddy field. in some time we came by a house. looking a dozen of people in wierd clothes, carrying huge bags, with some cylindrical thing attached to it induces curiosity not only in humans but also among animals. and one such curious dog came out of the fence. i might have had a tough time judging us, to decide whether to bark at us or to wag its tail and come behind us and join us in our quest. at this very moment our srinivasa demonstrated 'simhaasana'. his ferocious roar scared the hell out of the dog. it yelped, and ran away with it s tail between its hind legs. poor dog sri, you probably made it skip a beat :). but you know what you missed a very beautiful place on monday.

crossing the hanging bridge and making it swing on purpse was real fun. arun spotted few birds here. and i captured some nice pics. eating "sweet, fresh, tender baTani kALu" was nice fun (thanks to seema). we were all marching at snail rate. enjoying nature and taking rest at every possible place. there were many small streams which provided us with chilled sweet water, and each halt at the stream was really refreshing.

we were all hungry, very very hungry when we passed by a house and each one of us could smell the food cooking. this made us even more hungry. people might think "what are thes fools doing here on a holiday in stead of staying comfortably at home" but at the end of the day its really worth the efforts. not everyone can understand this.
due to public demand we halted at around 1 near 'a dried up stream'. had lunch. all possible combination with poori was tried by arun and santosh - poori with chocolate, grapes, jam, pickle, saagu and combination of these (cocolate + saagu + poori + dry grapes what a combination!!). i saw trace of water on a rock a bit above and we went water hunting. a bit more of adventure...which all of us love :)

a short rest after a tiresome day, especially after lunch is most welcome. and once our group sits it is very difficult to make them get moving. as for arun he finds more peace under cool shade of tree (even if it is in the middle of the road, and on stones), than on soft comfortable bed at home.


finally everyone managed to get up and get going. every 5 min someone would ask arun "how much more to go?" and he had only this to say "just 2 more km" or "10 more mins". at one point of time seema told "i ll just walk for 10 more mins, be it peak of not i am going to halt there" and arun said "dont worry. in 10 mins you ll reach the point from where you can see the peak".

sri, santosh and me were the first to reach the peak. sun was about to set. waiting for us to reach the peak and appreciate the beauty of the valley with mild evening rays on it. santosh as usual sets the timer on for group phots and runs to sit amongst us, scaring everyone while doing so, many voices saying "no hurry, you still have time" could be heard.

the sun tired of his journey from east to west was soon covered by a blanket of clouds and was no where to be seen. and the stars which were shy of sun and hidden somewhere started appearing one by one. moon still lazily slept somewhere. now the stars took over remote control to AC from the sun. they unlike sun were not in favor of high temperature. they kept decreasing the temperature slowly. it was really tempting to get into the sleeping bag but we wanted some fun... there were lots of glow worms around. many of us mistook it as shooting stars initially. aditya taught us a game 'mafia' - a really complicated game. it took some time to seep into our mind but it was fun. police got killed by the mafia, innocent arun was convicted as mafia by the jury which till this day he keep reminding us... 'The Mafia' (shubha) sacrificed her faithful helper to gain supremacy...

it was dinner time. a trek is incomplete without a campfire. shreyas and santosh were successful in starting a campfire. i can never forget - the clear sky, millions of stars smiling on us, cool breeze, no work tension, no pollution, no idiot box, just the 12 of us and not a single soul (we thought so). with in no time 50 chapathis were over. dumb cheralds by the fire (no one ll forget arun enacting gothika), the noise we made, veda getting afraid to sit without a 2 body guards, aditya s 'logical reasoning' behind everything...
with this the day came to an end. campfire was put off. everyone went to the warmth of their sleeping bags. for the first time in my life i was sleeping under open sky for the whole night. only orion i could recognize, and of course ursa-major and pole star early in the morning. it really was a nice experience.

dec 30 sunday.
probably no sw engineer would have seen the morning sky before sunrise on sunday (on any day actually). i thought i saw river in the valley, which i somehow had not seen the previous day. only then i realize that it was not river but clouds. we were above the clouds. the view really good. the sun was still sleepy. slowly he came out of the blanket of clouds. his transition from apple red to golden was amazing.

we had variety of stuff for breakfast - fruits, bread, bun, biscuits, peas. not only did shubha (snacks incharge of our group) loved to eat bread n jam but also to apply jam to bread slices for each one of.

santosh, srini and me waned to have a dip in the stream which came along with for around 2 km last day - hatti-hoLe. the rest of the group had decided to enjoy water the next day. so we left the group behind us and went down hill at a higher pace so that by they reach the rest of the group reached the stream we would be ready to join them. so the 3 of us started... and it so happend that the same dog which srini had scared the previous day met us on our way down, and it recognized srini. it was so scared of him that i thought more than million times whether or not to eat the biscuits srini had offered it. and finally making up its mind, gathering up courage it came close to us and eat what was offered... we had a faithful follwer till the stream now.

the water was really cold. but didnt feel like coming out of it. after a day s trek, dip in water was refreshing. srini demonstrated some more aasanas in the stream. it was almost 3, rest of the group had not yet come. we started to think that they might have halted for lunch somewhere. we had a bag of snack, didnt know its contents though. we had emptied half of it when the others started coming. apparently we - srini, santosh and me had missed the adventure (which we are happy for). they were attacked by some insect similar to honey-bee. that was one bad experience for all of them.

lunch time at last. after a long walk, sitting in cool shade, on the river bank, having food together. and then a short nap.

wow!!! what a life. my new year resolution - have such an outing atleast once in a couple of months.

srini had to go back to mysore that evening. so from hatti hoLe he went to maDikeri and the rest of us went to somwarpete and hired rooms there. 11 of us in a room chatting all night, arun patiently read everyone s palms. which was followed by adventure and ghost stories narrated by different people made the girls hesitant to turn off the lights for the night.


dec 31

i had just slept (at 3 am) when i heard a voice "vivek get up, time to leave". it was 6 already. everyone had their eyes half closed. swaroop came to the room where i was sleeping and jumped onto the bed murmering "wake me up before arun finds me asleep"....

the journey to beedaLLi was hopeless one. some fool may be drunk and pretending not to be drunk was screaming on top of his voice. none of us could enjoy the journey. even the conductor got pissed off. to add to it

somehow swaroop got the brilliant idea of having lunch at some "home-stay" place near the bus stand which worked out really well...

the walk to stream (kumaradhara) was not tiresome. fun indeed. swaroop narrated some really interesting ghost stories. santosh was the first to dive into the river (not sure if i can call it a dive, water was only knee deep). again sooper-cold-crystal-clear water. spending time in water somehow make one feel more hungry. to add to it we did not have proper breakfast that morning. deprived of hot tasty food for 2 days we were... hot, delicious lunch served on fresh banana leaves - what more could we ask for!!!

2 more hours for bus. empty bus stand. we were about to get settled there when thousands of spiders fell on us from the roof .
so it was 2 hrs spent by the road playing DC again....

3 fun filled days had come to an end. first day started with breakfast in maDikeri bus stand and ended the 3rd day with dinner at the same place. every such trip shubha gets home made chocolates which btw are very tasty. i was wondering why we were deprived of them this time when she took out 2 boxes of those yummy chocolates as new year sweets...

3 fun filled days, which are among those which i can never forget. 3 days under mother nature s care. and of course under arun s care.

dream or real??

it was few minutes for midnight when someone tapped akhila on her back...

there was nothing great about that day, better call it 'working day' as akhila had been working all day and well beyond 'normal working hours'.
she had planned to leave early when she got a call from her OSC to finish some work ASAP, EOD (add any other terms which you know)... cursing him she stayed back to finish whatever crap or work he had assigned... it was around 10 when all her project mates left for a small break, which she knew would get extended for more than an hour. but she wanted to finish it ASAP and find some peace in her comfortable bed.

the entire floor had a deserted look. there was not single soul other than her s in the entire work area. it was hard to believe that this was the same place which used to be jam packed with people till day break. akhila had never experienced such silence. even water droplets from the tap in pantry was amplified n number of times. only voices to be heard were that of the guard s wireless, when he had to report status every 30 min. and sometimes voices of few house-keeping ladies who were cleaning the adjacent work area. it was very welcoming to hear a human voice now. any weak hearted would have fled from there at first possible chance... but our girl was brave(or rather pretended to be brave). probably the fact that the entire work area was illuminated was a bit comforting. she started working like a dog.

in about one and a half hour akhila finished her work and was ready to leave. she called up her flatmate whose shift ended at 12. akhila asked her to let her know when her shift was over so that both of them could leave together. she was very tired and fell asleep with her keyboard as her pillow...

it was few minutes for midnight when someone tapped akhila on her back...
it was hard to say if it was in her dream or someone had really come by. may be it was here flatmate who had come by to take her home. or may be her project mates had finally decided to come back and finish their part of work. but when she opened her eyes she could find neither any one around her nor anyone hiding to scare her... same silence greeted her... same sound of water droplets, same messages of wireless.

but something was different. what was it???
hmmmmm
oh yes. there was no light in the entire floor save her cubicle s. she perfectly remembered her monitor being on, but now it had been turned off someone had visited her cubicle for sure. also there was a note on her board saying "do not waste power"
'it must be abhishek, he and his stupid "save power" ideas!!! but where is he now?'thought akhila.

just then she heard some voices coming from pantry.
it became clear in sometime. someone was playing a song...
"gumnaam hain koi... badanaam hain koi... kis ko khabar, kaun hain woh anjaan hain koi..."
this is enough to scare anyone in a deserted dark building, that too past midnight!!!

gathering up all her courage akhila went near the pantry and the sight shocked her... there were white smoke like figures floating in air. her legs knew exactly what to do... RUN!!!.
but she was afraid to make any noise so quietly she went to her cubicle and was about to leave when she saw someone approaching. phew!! what a relief to see a living soul...
he came near her cubicle...
in a voice as low as possible she whispered "do not go near pantry. i saw strange white figures floating in mid air. they are ghosts!!!. do not laugh at me now"

he : " i wont laugh at you... i know there are few in pantry... infact i thought you were one too"
she: " no i am not. i am still alive"

he looked a bit disappointed...

she: " you came here thinking i was a ghost??? are you nuts? i would have run if i were you"
he : " why would i run from a beautiful ghost?? ;-)"
she: " very funny!! now dont make noise. you might attract them. lets get out of here before they notice"
he : " do not be afraid of them. they are friendly ghosts. they haunt only people who had caused them trouble when they worked here. of course if you waste power or do not respect nature you must be careful about prithvi. he was environment freak... the rest of the lot haunt their clients, onsite-coordinators appraisers etc etc... you dont have to be afraid of them."
she: " you seem to know a lot about ghosts. who are you"
he(moving his hand forward) : " oh! sorry i forgot to introduce myself."
she was about to touch his hand...
he : " i used to be Nischal"
she(looking up): "used to be?? have you changed your name? "
he was silent for a while. they had eye contact for a while. it is true that eyes say a lot of things... then his sight gradually rolled down... her s followed his. now both' s focusing at her tiny, gentle hands...
she did not take much time to realize what he meant by "i used to be...." her had hand passed through his...
realizing that she would panic he tried to comfort her.
he : " do not be scared of me. as i said earlier we wont harm you. i used to work here. when i started i wanted to be the best, so worked very hard. i used to be here even during weekends. later on my onsite guy started burdening me with more work. i was going crazy with work. my brain could not get the rest it required. it cracked up. you can say i was mental..."

there was a silence

he : " then one day i was riding my vehicle. i liked high speed. it used to be a tranquilizer. but that day something was wrong. a bus came in front of me suddenly. you might find this funny. but by this time work had affected my brain to such an extent that instead of searching for breaks my brain was searching for Alt Ctrl Del. and with in no time my body was under the bus and i was floating in air the other ghosts you saw in pantry...."

silence again. she knew not what to do. run away from there or comfort him, to be scared or to laugh out loudly.

he: " i have been observing you for more than 3 months and the way you are working, i can say that it wont be long before you join us."
she:" you have been observing me from the past 3 months?? where ?? and how come i didnt see you ?"
he :" we do not have to show ourselves to everyone. i only came in front of you because you looked tensed. you know i have a huge crush on you. that toy chair on you CPU is my favourite place. i sit there the whole day. your face looks very beautiful from there. you look really pretty with your lip gloss... i ll be waiting for you. not that i want you to die soon... live long and live happily... but just know that i ll be waiting for you."

listening to this she sank to her chair and lost consciousness...
then

it was few minutes "past" midnight when someone tapped akhila on her back...
she got up with a shrill cry to find that all the lights in the floor except her cubicle were switched off. her monitor was was also turned off. there was a note on her board saying "do not waste power".
her flat mate was stand behind her, asking her to calm down...

to this day she is not sure if it was really abhishek who had switched off all lights and her monitor, or if it was that ghost...
to this day she is not sure if it was all her dream or she had really met the ghost who had a huge crush on her...
however today she does works "normally"...
even today she has that "toy chair" on her CPU . she didnt want to hurt the ghost s sentiments i suppose ;-)

Spot the difference

few days ago i was in infy bus. the adventure had almost come to an end(end of hosur road)...
the bus in which i was traveling was scantly filled, there might have been just 10 to 15 people at max.
just then a BMTC bus passed by(well even the bus in which i was traveling was owned by BMTC). there was not much difference between the 2 buses.
only difference being that bus scantly had any space left on the foot-board...

my mind had no work to do and this small incident kindled a stream of thoughts...
my mercurial mind starts pondering over some topic, sometime later only to find out that it has ended over a topic which was in no way related to the initial one...
anyways here s what my mercurial mind thinks
the 2 buses symobolised 2 different worlds...

one which could accommodate plenty of people yet the door was shut for outsiders... representing countries like canada, australia and may be usa too where there s lots to be exploited by future generation(in canada and australia governments promotes 'having more children');
where there is lot of natural resource, where they are unaware of 'conservation';
where people are too stubborn to believe that they are imperiling our furure generation(can as well include us)by their ignorance of damage their act is causing to the environment;
where people are..... ok let me stop here. my fingers are not as fast as my mind...
this bus symbolizes ideal world...

the other bus, the crowded BMTC bus represents 'real India'.
where population density is at a level of saturation;
where there hundreds contending for one place;
where 1 out of 7 go to bed 'empty stomach' everyday;
where inspite of having a good yield a farmer is under loss;
where having shortage of food,cloting and shelter does not prevent people from having children;
where (as said in RDB) from our childhood we are taught - 'swalpa adjust maaDi'
bla bla bla...

PS: i was narrating this incident to shruti - a friend of mine and before i told her what according to me the 2 buses symbolized she said - 'oh, i know what you are about to say. they symbolize infy mysore and infy bangalore'

PPS: i have been comparing the 2 DC s a lot. infy mysore is spacious where as infy bangalore is jam packed...

the tree way of life

winter is at the door...
soon trees would be shedding off their leaves.
i like this season, although trees do not look good without leaves...
trees let go off a part of them in hope that something new, something fresh fills them, in due course of time.
time to adapt 'the tree way of life'

the question is....
what should i let go off??

one day....

it was good to be back in school again. back among the cheerful crowd. back to a 'no tension' place. back to a place which is 'far far away' from the cruel world. back to a place were friends are everything. back to the world where you do not need an expensive bat and ball to play cricket, where you can play cricket with a ball made from plastic and use examination cardbord as bat...
it was class 10. i felt different... something special. special may be because class 10 is very crucial or may be because next year i would be out of this magic world.
about me...
nothing special about me. just an average boy. a last bencher initially because i was tall. later on because i was so used to last benches that i could not imagine sitting in the first row and miss all the fun in the last row.
sitting next to me were ramu- another average guy like me, shamu- who sometimes gets irritated unnecessarily and rahul- fun loving, always cracking jokes and making everyone laugh...
in the bench next to ours were the so called 'beauties of the class'.... always in their own world. boys trying to impress them always. they were all pretty. but i dont know... there was nothing appealing in them.
it was an english class first thing in the morning. i never paid attention during english class. my mind pondering over the most weird things would travel around the globe during this class. and being in the last bench helped a lot. the teacher would never get up from the chair to disturb my wanderlust mind...
the class started...
rahul as usual was trying to play some prank on the boy sitting in front of him. i thought of giving my mind some work so that it would still be in class. hmmm ...what should do... maths!!! Of course!!! within 5 min i finished what i wanted to do... and now again my mind was free to wander about. it took hardly few seconds for me to reach the western ghats. it stayed there for some time. but was brought back by rahul who had succeeded in his prank...
then suddenly something attracted my mind. strong enough to hold it inside the class only to be disturbed by the teacher...
what a cherubic face that was. had never seen her in my class before. where did she come from??? i was not sure if it was my mind which was playing tricks on me or if she was really present. aah that pretty smile... she was really there sitting among the 'beauties of the class'. how was it that she materialised from thin air. for the next few minutes my concentration was at it s peak. never had it reached such peaks. probably she could have felt my concentration. i could have bent an iron rod with my concentration...
but you know... life is made of 'if s and but s'...
my concentration was very powerful but... there is nothing a teacher can not do.
the teacher asked "which lesson was i teaching yesterday".
that question was not for me, even if were for me, gawking at the teacher when asked any question was no new thing for me.
again. "BUT"...
i was so mesmerised by her beauty that i blurted out "Snow White"...
probably for the first time i was the centre of attraction in the class.
i am not the kind of person who would volunteer to answer questions asked by teacher.
Again. "BUT"…
That day I was doing nothing normal. My Central Processing Unit was not working. Some other Processing Unit had taken control. And it was not doing its woks, or many be that s how it was supposed to work.
so when the teacher looked at me and said "pardon me" instead of a signal from my 'Central Processing Unit' my vocal system got a 'control signal' and 'data' from 'the other Processing Unit' and my vocal system amplified the data promptly...
i said 'Beauty and the Beast'
then for a moment i felt as if i were in a laughter club, where everyone was having a competition on who would be the loudest, and who would laugh for a long time.
now she had disappeared. i am not sure if she was a ghost, a really beautiful ghost, or a character from Harry Potter 's who could appear and disappear anytime...
now the other processing unit too stopped sending signal. hell lot of 'exceptions' were being 'thrown' but no piece of code to 'catch' them. what could the poor processor do but terminate!!!
it took some time for my CPU to take control.
during the break next day i came across her fortunately or unfortunately. this time my CPU was in full control. it was sending precise signals and data...
again."BUT"...
this time there was some problem with the amplifier of my vocal system. the same system which had blurted out 'Snow white' in the class was not able to whisper the data sent by my CPU...
finally my amplifier was getting some power when everything happened...
my PL who was supposed to be in a meeting came right to me. caught me writing a story...
PL: "what are you doing???? you were supposed to finish the documentation by EOD today and you are documenting a story!!!! come back to your cubicle, from your imaginary world.".
me: "ok i am back. will get back to booooooring documentation now"
PL: "you better do that. keep your CPU busy on this documentation now. dont let anything else interrupt it"
i must say, my PL s amplifier is pretty strong(i should add an appropriate filter to my ears).

value of money?

standard of living has increased for many of us and for the rest it is the cost of 'basic-expenditure' that has increased.
people are ready to spend money to get the comforts they need.
probably if he who wore only a hand woven dhoti and fasted some days thinking 'if i fast my fellow citizen could eat my part of rice' would die of heart attack looking at the rate at which his descendants spend money.
i was at my aunt s place. her neighbors were having a grand deepawali. i saw one of them opening a box. just a small spark was enough to wake up the sleeping dragon inside that box. the sky was filled with colors. rockets of all kinds were shot from that box. the show might have lasted for about 1 or 2 min. what a show it was.

later i came to know that the box had coasted 5k. 5k for 1 or 2 min!!! probably that s annual expenditure(and in many cases income) of an average working man in India.

agreed that happiness is nothing compared to money spent. i would really spend anything if it is to make my parent happy. but really!!! 5k for just 2 min show!!! that s when i began to think...
do we really value money?
as rightly pointed by a friend of mine we can not learn to value something until we have a lot of...

what is that i want to do...

it was a bright sunny day. all its friends were working hard for accretion food for the coming winter. out little baby ant was sick of it all. it envied its grass hopper friend cause it had no enduring work to do. for baby grass hopper summer was the season of revelry. it just enjoyed its time singing and dancing with its fellow grass hoppers.

baby ant wanted to go out there looking for fun, adventure. so it went to queen ant and said "queen mother, i am tired of this monotonous life. for how long are we supposed to be collecting food? we have enough food for now. why cannot i enjoy the pleasant day like my friend - baby grass hopper enjoys? why am i to work the whole day stocking piles of food, carrying load heavier than my body. there is lot of food out there. why cannot we just hunt for fresh food daily. why do we have to stock food?"

queen ant listened to baby ant s complaints. and then calmly it said "son if you want to enjoy now surely go out with your friend - baby grass hopper and enjoy. but first listen to this story....
(the queen ant narrates the famous ant and the grass hopper story).... and then when the grass hopper was starving from hunger all the ants lived happily for ever....."

(moral of this part: work when you have to, else you will regret later)
baby ant (BA): " is it a real story queen mother?"
queen ant (QA): " of course it is son. do you not read news paper? news paper is abysmal source of information son..."
BA: "i do read news paper queen mother, but only the comic and the sports section"
(moral of this part: keep yourself updated. do not hasten up to a decision without pondering into the matter. and of course have some fun, do read the comic and sports section of the news paper)

(now to the important lessons)
BA: "but queen mother, dont you think that we ants have become an example of avarice? we keep accumulating food..."
QA: "no son. now you are strong. who can presage about tomorrow? there might be a famine next year for all you know (touch wood)... so be sure that you have enough to sustain yourself incase of an emergency"
(moral of this part. be provident)
BA: " alright queen mother, i will work hard from today. but i always feel that i am adjunct to all my fellow ants... they have done so such. uncle architect ant has constructed our fortess so well, aunt nurse ant takes care of sick-ants. aunt nutritionist ant gives us a balanced diet. uncle doctor ant takes care of our health(the list goes on).... i too want to do something, something different but i have nothing new left to do. i feel so inferior... why am i so talentless queen mother?"

QA: "son... if you really want to do something then you ll definitely find something to do. you just have to be attentive to opportunities that knock your door. 'chance pe dance kar beta'. and do not say that you are inferior. to me each of you baby ant is a prodigy "
BA: "alright queen mother. i will work hard from today. and will find out that thing which will satiate my thirst"

(the same question- "what is that which i would like to do to satiate my thirst?" keeps haunting me.... and may be may other i guess. hope everyone finds an answer to it in the near future)