a short story of 1115 days

About a month and a half back, "Buddy, come out, we need to talk," he said with grave shades to his voice, as though he was planning to sell me the cocaine. I followed him out of the office building. What the hell in this world could make him this serious?
This wasn't the Vatsa I had seen for the last few weeks.
Did his dentist tell him that he had forgotten where he had put the screws to fit the mesh?
Did his owner finally not agree to bear the stench of unwashed clothes any longer?
Did his nubile neighbour jump onto his terrace to propose to him?

"I made it through, maga," he announced, "Got selected at XLRI."
"WOW!!!".
Two years!!! Two years of apprehension, competiton, grit, efforts and sweat had paid off.
Two years of the distant dream, suddenly a reality.
Two years of 'bullet idli' at Prasiddi hotel had made the difference.
"Congratulations budd," I was overcome with emotions. It was a great moment. A moment of joy?
Not entirely. It did have a blend of sadness, as he would be moving out of our lives in a short while.
But, for the greater good.
Yes, this was indeed a moment of joy.

I would not lie that I still remember the first day we had met. No. I don't. I was too scared, and waiting nervously for the interviewer to call me into the slaughter room, at CTS. Vatsa claims he remembers me. Maybe because I had lent him my pen..... or vice versa. I have no recollection of the same, as I believe that my split personality had taken over to combat the interview. :D

I did see him at the induction sessions at CGI. We did crib a lot with each other while signing all those autographs below the big lot of yada yadas.

The first and the most interesting trek that we have been to, would undoubtedly be the screwed up Sakleshpur railway track blunder. "One small step for Vatsa, one giant leap for CGI" he announced in his nonchalant style, when we began our trek at Donigal.
But the small steps never seemed to end.
The most vocal of the sufferers, Bharath, asked after some hours of trek, "Vatsa, est kilometru bandhidhivo?" ('Vatsa, how many kilometres have we covered?')
"Allond erdu, mathond mooru...total eidhu," ('Two before, and a three, total five') screamed back Vatsa to the Bharath's disappointment, who had calculated it to be ten.
After three more hours of dragging our aching feet over the stone laid railway track, Bharath asked, "Vatsa, ivaga estappa?" (How many now?)
"Allond erdu, mathond naalku...total aaru," (Two before, and a four , total six) screamed back Vatsa.
"Le Vatsa, vadhe thinthiya," said a frustrated Bharath.
"Ena....bargain maadthiya?" the evil guffaws erupted out of Vatsa.
The trek did turn out to be an adventurous one, with a lot of Sandy's valour and Vatsa's humour to add.

We slogged for the most dicey CAT together, two years back. It would definitely be one of the most memorable six months of my life. We worked together, separately, and sometimes argued endlessly over trivial topics which we presumed would help us in Group Discussions. The sadists on the other end of the exam saw to it that we never reached the GD stage.

He was definitely the favorite of the Shastry sir. Not only he said 'maga' the maximum number of times (which Shastry sir had forbidden from using while on the trek), he also had sprinkled holy waters from his foot on ration that we had taken for the sailing trip. (Now, you know why I started on the 'upavasa' right in the middle of the trip :D )
Yeah right. He was the loudest in singing 'Trekking main aaanaa hain, re....' which had the wilds in the forest running for cover.

He was always the webmaster. Next only to Raghu, he has the honour of making the company get its money's worth of internet use. He has friends in most of the online MBA portals, and has friends in the most singular of places. ( Even the rickety old business school on the outskirts of the capital of Ukraine :D ).
He does make it a point to make his presence felt, and sometimes seduces great looking female ....... names to appear beside his, on these MBA portals. :D
(for more info on how to do this....catch him before he leaves today :D )

A great TT player... who has been busy in the past few days scheduling (fixing up) the tournaments, he is leaving behind a legacy, pretty difficult for others to live up to.

We will miss you man.

We will miss you bigtime.

Something not to be missed are his rare bursts of inspirations, resulting in short vignettes. The lazy ass never pens consistently, but when he does, the God takes a break to read his mail, and smirk silently. Here is one such stuff below that I could conjure up, about a one day trip to Shivagange.....

We will miss you budd. Wish you a wonderful future ahead.

with warm regards,
Teju

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The Shivagange Trip....

“You sure THIS is the ‘small’ hill you had mentioned??” With the sly affirmation from my friend, the climb began….



February 19th was a bright sunny Saturday. Not that I like waking up early in the morning at 9:30 to appreciate the beautiful cosmic creation, but couldn’t help when my mobile buzzed the umpteenth time. After a few obscenities and curses, I finally asked my friend, why he had called. And he uttered- ‘Shivagange ?’ He went on to explain the purpose of his call in a fuller detail now… ‘It’s a small hill… 8 of us… back by night…be ready by 10:30…Bye’. Armed with this encyclopedic knowledge, I took a quick shave, shower, breakfast, and a steaming cup of coffee- I sincerely don’t remember the order.



And I have to mention, my friends are punctual… to the second. So, wasn’t surprised at all when the junta arrived at 10:50 in 2 cars… I jumped in to settle in the old but luxurious Tata Indica, screaming my hi’s to the lazy bums in the other automobile… a brand new, but cramped Santro Xing. We stopped at the Food World en-route to load our cars with a few oranges, a couple of coke bottles, a handful of milky bar chocolates, and a few strips of wrigley’s mints. With one more stop somewhere on the west of chord road to pick up the final moron, we, the ‘adventurous 8’, headed for the Tumkur road. For once I felt good for all the tax that I had coughed up in the last fiscal- The highway was… just perfect… With broad 2 way double road lanes, zero pot-holes, sparse traffic (not many are insane enough to go on a trek on a lazy Saturday ! ), and Formula One freaks behind our wheels, we sped on at 110+ kmph with the Yuva beats blaring through the Sony rear speakers. Only when we stopped for a minute at the toll gates to pay the Rs 18 fees for using the really good highway, did I ask my friends about the destination... and it was only then that I realized that they knew almost only as much as I knew… except that they also knew that we had to slow down some where near a Big flyover some 18 kms before Tumkur, to ask about the route. Great.



It was 12:50 when we reached that Big flyover. We stopped at the beeda shop near the underpass to ask the route. We were told that we needed to take a left, and that Shivgange was around 6 kilometers. I don’t know if all the Choyees are soft spoken and kind hearted, or the dehydrated look of my beefy friend rekindled the spirit of humanity in him, for he warned us it was too early in the afternoon to venture on the climb uphill, and that we could come back after lunch so that, in his own words, “The sun won’t be on your heads, Saar”. So be it. We got back to the Tumkur road hoping to find a dhaba nearby. And there it was- ‘Kamat Upachaar’ standing majestically to the right side of the highway. We settled for South-Indian-North-Karnatic-Full-Meals-With Leamonade. With the bills settled as dutch, and our tummies satiated, we were back to the short drive to the Big flyover, and through the underpass, we took a right to get to the ‘left’ road, and smiled our ‘thanks’ to the omniscient choyye.



If the highway was a tease on the speed skills, the 6 km in-road was a test of maneuverability… which the adept drivers passed with grunts and curses. And across to the right, there stood a couple of mighty hills marking the dry landscape. With a couple of complains about the zooming capabilities of our cheap digital cameras, we reached the temple town of Shivagange. After parking the vehicles at the compound opposite the temple, we took out our bounty of foods, and titled our heads to look at our destination. And then it struck. HUGE would be an understatement to describe the hill. I asked- “You sure THIS is the ‘small’ hill you had mentioned??” With the sly affirmation from my friend, the climb began… When someone screamed that it was already 2:30, we made a few discrete inquiries regarding the climb up-hill with the local vendors on the temple steps, and were relieved to know that we could be back by 6.



The first 100 metres or so was just like any other temple… wide steps with railings and a couple of deities worshipped along the halls on either side… But after that, the steps started getting narrower… after about 200 metres, they were no more than marks chiseled along the rocky terrain of the hill. Following these, we reached a small resting ground where a couple of local youths were having a heated argument on the pending budget and its implications… Knowing better not to interfere, we just asked them which of the two routes that deviated from that place would be better to reach the top… and this time it was ‘right’. So we treaded along the right route, the steps being a convenience of the past, now were replaced by huge irregular boulders scattered randomly by the weathering forces. After about 10 mins of this ‘bowdlerized’ stretch, we took a break to see far we’d reached…. On one side, the foothill looked very distant…. Our cars could be identified as small colourful bricks… On the other side, the hilltop too looked very distant… We had a lot more to climb. And just when we were about to start moving again, we had company… our ancestors-monkeys- had found us curiously interesting… so they ‘gurrred’ at us… scared the hell out of my beefy friend… who dropped his water bottle in carnal fright (but to this day, he maintains it just slipped out of his hands), and we minus the water bottle, left the place rather hurriedly, throwing fleeting glances at the private joke the monkeys were sharing over the water bottle. After another half an hour and one thousand three hundred thirty two more digital snaps, we reached one more resting ground. This time, there were no welcome parties, and we were left alone to gaze at the deceptively near hill top, and the certainly far-off foothill. We still had some more climbing to do, but we were certainly close to the top… as we could clearly make out the outline of a huge Nandi statue sitting at the topmost point. Ahh… So near yet so far…

The last 200 mts were straight out of Cliffhanger settings… There were narrow passages, boulders, chiseled steps, and what not, all arranged in steep angles of 60-90 degrees (whoever thought 90 degrees is ‘right’ angle!! It certainly isn’t!!!)…. With only one rusty railing bar weaved across the route to hang on to. And before we knew it (this is the only lie in this whole write-up !!!), we were there on the top. Standing next to the Nandi statue, the panaromic view of the miniature ground all across was breathtaking (literally!!). We moved on towards the temple there… said a few prayers to care of us and only us! And then moved on to Shantala Drop- a suicide spot at the other end of the hill… after making sure that it certainly was a suicide spot, we relaxed for sometime in the late afternoon sun, munching away the bounty we’d carried. After one final circuit of the hill top, and a thousand more snaps, we started on our way back. As they say, the higher you climb, the harder you fall… The climb down was certainly more difficult as it was more precarious, and our hefty thighs were trembling to keep our bodies upright. We reached the resting place after about half an hour, helped ourselves with the refreshing butter milk from an old vendor (wonder how he carries the pots everyday this high…)… reached the second resting place, had ‘chai’ from another Choyee, and took the other route down hill. We found a cave there full of water, but due to our respect for the sanctity of the temple and our fear of being beaten up by the locals, we didn’t venture into the cave. We finally reached the foothill at 6:00 pm. We had one last gaze at the hill top and bid adieu to the place.

Back on the highway unscathed, we sped back towards Bangalore at a speed that cannot be mentioned for record. The warm evening breeze carried away our sweat with it. Before, and After this particular point of time, a lot many things happened that cannot be published without the censors objecting. So anyone who wants to venture on this one day adventure can settle all their doubts with me in person!! And yeah, if you want to know the historical significance of the place, the height of the top most point, the story behind Shantala’s suicide spot, and the number of mosquitoes in that water logged cave, please google them out after office hours.

Happy Hilling!!!!

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Awarded in ISKCON Photography Contest

junta,

am pleased to tell you that I got the first prize in Creative Digital Print category of the photography contest organised by ISKCON, Bangalore, held last month.
Also, secured the second award in the Ceremonies and Festivals category of the same contest held by the temple.
I must admit that I did get some assistance in selecting the successful pictures from an elusive female.

Here are the links for the same.

Creative Digital Print

Ceremonies and Festivals

This contest was held under the name 'Capture Krishna'.

About the contest,

The 'Capture Krishna Photography Contest' was held from 13th Apr, 06 till 26th Apr, 06. Generally, this contest is held during the Brahmostav festival of ISKCON. The Brahmotsav festival is held during the month of April, every year (the photography contest is not held every year), to mark the anniversaries of the temple.
The unique blend of modern and ancient architecture of the temple is a temptation to any shutterbug, at any time of the day/year. But during the ten days of Brahmotsav festival, the temple lights up in the most glorious of colours, beyond words. The various activities of worship, the cultural activities of international quality, the great work being done by the temple in terms of 'Akshaya Patra' (quality mid day meals for more than 3 lakh school children, everyday!!!) and other religious activities provide ample opportunities for some of the heartcatching pictures.

The temple does not allow photography at any other time. The invited photographers would be given special badges, which would enable them unrestricted entry with the cameras. (Ofcourse, there are some rules about some things which should not be photographed). The selected pictures would be copyrighted by the temple, and cannot be used by the photographers for any other occasions, without the permission from the temple authorities.

The photography contest was held the last time in April 03.

With warm regards,
Teju

Into the world of angels - 2

Account of a interesting one day trip to Ranganatittu...part two

Team: Sandy, Anand, Shre, and myself

"During our days, peacocks used to come out into our backyards," the old grandma of my cousin had said when on a visit to her remote village, near my native place, ten years back. “Kaala ketthogidhe," (Kannada equivalent of 'The world is not a good place anymore') she said, and added that nowhere do you get to witness such wonders anymore.
The old grandma was definitely virtuous, but alas! She was wrong. There was indeed such a place. And it was not more than a few hours drive from Bangalore.
This is the surprisingly simple village of Kokkrebellur. The place swarming with exotic birds, in people's backyards!!!

Returning from an enchanting trip to Ranganatittu, we drove to and fro on the Bangalore - Mysore highway, in search of that elusive deviation to Kokkrebellur. Occasionally, we stopped the car to ask for directions. Something that surprised me was the enthusiasm in the localites to jump to our help. As soon as we stopped at a road side petty shop and lowered the dark window glasses, the group picketing there turned to stare at us, like the deer on witnessing the tiger, as seen on National Geographic. But, as soon as we shot the question 'Where's Kokkrebellur?' the scene changed as deer pounced on us to drive into our brains, the exact route to the place.
After some misdirection, we finally got the correct direction from a road side 'Coconut milk' vendor. It is interesting to see such coconut milk vendors, at brief intervals on the highway, in their own makeshift shop, consisting of only a shelter made out of palm tree branches, placed over a skeleton of thick wooden sticks.
The route to Kokkrebellur is announced by a flaking board, on the left of the Bangalore - Mysore highway.

The route is supposedly eight kilometers. The route begins with the sudden change from the ultra smooth highway to the unkempt village road. But, as we proceed further, we begin to notice that the road begins to resemble Mallika Sherawat's clothes, almost hardly visible. Soon, the road loses its battle with the potholes, and gives way to a long stretch of muddy village road.
"How can such a popular tourist place be in such tatters?" I mused aloud, but we were actually happy that the village was not very well connected. If it were, then we would definitely have met up with a few Santro cars loaded with bored software engineers, on the way, carrying crates of beer bottles, which would eventually land up in the neighboring fields.
As we came across bisection in the road (?), we stopped to enquire about Kokkrebellur
"This is Kokkrebellur," uttered the villager, a thick bearded man in sleazy shirt.
"Where can we see the birds, the cranes," I asked him, not sure if this layman would know the location of the sanctuary.
"You can see them everywhere," he said, to our bewilderment, "Just go ahead in this road."
Everywhere???
We drove ahead, curious to know what he meant by everywhere. Wouldn't there be a sanctuary, like Ranganatittu? A lake perhaps. Or some sort of an enclosure where we would be directed, after a nominal ticket charge?
And a parking fee?

Suddenly, we heard the loud quacking, and the chirping of the birds from 'everywhere'. We stopped the car, and peeped out of the window to witness one of the most surprising spectacles that I have ever seen. There were some pelicans atop a tree, totally unguarded, in the backyard of a hut. This was, indeed beyond our beliefs, but definitely true. The pelicans, the painted storks, and many other exotic birds were on the top of these trees, which lay on the unprotected backyards of the village huts!!!

We parked our car, and came out gunning our cameras at whatever we could see. Very different from the ambience in Ranganatittu, Kokkrebellur gave us good shots of the birds, due to the close proximity. As I walked along the dusty, village road, I saw a painted stork on a tree, suddenly bursting into a series of quacks. It reminded me of some priests of Trichi temples, who would suddenly blurt out mantras as soon as they see some devotees approaching the deities, and this forced puja would cost you nothing less a hundred bucks :D

As I got my camera ready, the bird became silent. I held my camera steady, and with focused lens, stood motionless, waiting for the grand bird to break into quacking the mantra. And it did. And I shot.

You can see it here

There was one more interesting shot, where another painted stork gave an ecstatic expression, as it stretched its neck, in an angle beyond belief.

You can see it here

As we wandered around the village, we met up with a lot of friendly villagers. The interesting people were going about doing their routines, some working on silk worm cultivation, some working in the fields, some women carrying water, where as some younger women were busy in cleaning their front yards.

Click!Click!Click!!!

The village kids were captured on the frame, playing around a bullock cart. It was a great experience to show the kids, the pictures taken, in the LCD preview screen (of the digital camera). The excitement amongst the kids, on looking at their images, in this magical 'TV' had an infectious effect as the young women around joined the kids in their requests for the pictures to be taken.

Ladies and Gentlemen!!! For the next half hour, I was the Shah Rukh Khan, who was being sought after by everyone around. :D

Soon, it was dusk, and time for us to leave. But, some of the kids who had accompanied us, and had their pictures taken, started asking for money. This was anti climax!!! All the time I was priding myself for being admired for. And now, it was payback time :(.
I wasn't the Shah Rukh now, but surely, they were the Khans for the day. :(
I gave some money to one of the boys, and told all others to take their shares from him.

A bit disillusioned, but with the satisfaction of having been able to witness the birds in their magnanimous forms, and been able to take a set of good pictures, we drove back the dusty road towards the highway.

As the Sun descended behind the hills, we moved towards the glittering lights of the big city. It was indeed, one day into the world of angels.

Thank you for being a part of my experience for this trip to Ranganatittu and Kokkrebellur.

Hope you have a great week ahead.

With warm regards,
Teju

Into the world of angels - 1

Account of a interesting one day trip to Ranganatittu...

Team: Sandy, Anand, Shre, and myself

"What the ...the birds are so very quick ma'an. I see their image in the camera, and then click. In the small delay between clicking and the image being taken, the birds vanish from the frame," said a frustrated Anand, holding his Nikon digicam.
We were sitting on the small boat on the silent lake of Ranganatittu, a little more than two hours drive from Bangalore, on the Bangalore - Mysore highway. Ranganatittu is famous for the migratory birds, from all over the world. ('America, Europe, Australia, Africa, Antartica' says the dark guide cum boatman, in khakis. Antartica???!!! Looks like the Cheif Minister's ventures to attract tourism has been successful )
"Try estimating where the birds might come, in that short delay, before they come, and then click," I gave a useless suggestion.
"Correct," he turned back towards the birds.
The next time he clicked, he was able to capture that bird, in great details.
Well, the useless suggestion worked. :D

Soon Sandy, Anand, and myself, armed with digital cameras had taken hundreds of pictures of birds in various activities. Birds feeding their young ones, birds flying, birds fighting, birds looking out for mates, birds sneezing, birds caughing, birds shitting (we would have recieved some of them down below, but for timely dodging). The leader of the pack, Shre, was more careful in taking pictures with his huge SLR camera. He was very selective. He would only shoot if the birds would send in a special request for their picture to be taken by him.
At the end of the forty minute ride in the boat, I announced my score, which had passed a hundred. Sandy and Anand had beaten me by a huge margin. Shre announced his score like disappointed Sehwag, 'Thirty'. But he was smirking to himself like Tendulkar, about the naive trio who had taken hundreds of pictures, not enjoying nature like he did, and take only selective pictures.

Ranganatittu had been a dream for many years now. A boring boat ride in the wrong season, while in highschool, had created confusing ideas about the place from me. All I did see then were few casual birds resembling crows and sparrows, and some lazy crocs who refused to respond to the most hilarious sardar jokes which my classmate was blurting out on the boat, non stop. Was this the place adored by all the photo enthusiasts who had been taking heartcatching pictures of exotic birds?

This time, few friends who had been there just two weeks back, had assured us that we could expect the world, out of a visit to the paradise. The March - April were the nesting season for the migratory birds. As usual we planned to start from Bangalore, by six in the morning, and lived up to the plan by leaving Bangalore at seven. The usual reasons of early morning hot water issue, the missing socks issue, the non starting bike issue were there, including the issue of the pet dog losing sanity. Err..... sorry..... the other issues were a repetition of the last time, but the dog issue was skipped this time.
(And none of us even have pet dogs :D ).
The shockingly good road towards Mysore gave few problems to the ace man at the wheel, Sandy. A quick breakfast at the quaint restaurant 'Kamat Lokaruchi' and we were zooming away towards the chicks....oops.... birds.

The ruthless Sun was on his way to compete with Kariena to become the hottest star, when we reached Ranganatittu. An unnoticable road to the right of the Bangalore - Mysore highway, 6 kms before Mysore, led us to the place. The turn was so much unnoticable that it seemed like the tourism ministry had taken extra care to chip off the paint from the weak board announcing Ranganatittu. For photo enthusiasts, here is a small bit of info. There is a manned railway junction immediately after the turn, and vendors who make a living out of selling munchables while waiting for the train to pass ( 5 minutes approx). One can get some interesting shots here.
On reaching the place, one can go in the regular boat tours, getting a ticket for Rs 20. This is the boring boat tour that I spoke about earlier, and you can go for this, if you want to write a similar blog later in your life. Or, you could opt for a private boat tour, which charges you Rs 200 per boat tour (not per head).
"Camera sir?" the guard asked for the tickets for our cameras dangling from our necks.
"Yes," I replied.
Not sure if the digicams Sandy and Anand were carrying were still cameras or video,"Video camera?" asked the guard,
"No, Audio Camera," came out instinctively from Shre. The guard took our money with a forgiving look of one who has seen lots of excited young men with first time SLR cameras ;-).
Each still camera costs Rs 20 each, for the tickets.

The private boat started with only four of us. Before a minute had passed, we were moving past the tiny island in the lake, swarming with exotic birds, with orange beaks, reddish brown necks, and pink plumes for tails. "They are painted storks from America," the boatman/guide declared.
Oh! God. These birds had flown down all the way from the other part of the world???
No visa required. No wasting time for flight tickets deals on Orbitz.com.
As the boat moved up the lake, more of the birds were revealed.
There were the herons, the egrets, and the asian bills.
The boat moved through a narrow path surrounded by chirping, and quacking birds. The ambience was angelic, as we suddenly found ourselves amidst the nature, the wild flurried with acitivity. The boat sailed by the side of rocks where smaller birds dipped their beaks to gulp water from the lake, and the bigger storks magestically spread their wet wings for drying.
Click! Click! Click!!!
The boat, began to move towards a small gap in between the swarm of bent trees.
One of the two herons on a curvy branch of a short tree gave us a hurried glance, and took to flight. The other heron was destined to be a star. It sat there, as our cameras clicked away to glory.
The boatman pushed the rough roots of the trees protruding out into the lake, to guide the boat into the swamp.
As the boat moved through the swamp, scraping against the roots, we were surrounded by the mysteriously shaped trees, and bird nests. The chirping and the quacking of the birds reached a new high. It seemed right out of the sets of Jurassic Park - III.
Slowly, the boat emerged out from the swamp to the clear lake, and I could get a clear shot of a Painted Stork perched on the topmost branch of a tall tree. It stood there, like a lonely guard on a secluded light house, looking out into the horizon. Its house back home would have been ravaged by the cold winters of the sub zeros, and the devilishly white snow.
Slowly, the boat began its sail towards the shores, as we tried to capture last few pictures of the beautiful creatures.
A small token of appreciation of a hundred bucks to the boatman and we were done with the boat ride.

So, is that it? Does it end here?

Nope, not for the ones with the little adventure in blood. You could take a small time risk(against the authorities) by moving to the watch tower on the other extreme side, opposite to the entrance. There is a small broken bridge (purposely broken to prevent visitors from going to the watch tower) on the way to the watch tower. But, on observation, one can notice that the depth of the lake below the bridge is not more than a few inches, and one can wade across it, barefoot.
The view of the birds on the giant cluster of trees from the watch tower is worth the risk :D

A short walk back to the parking lot, and we threw ourselves into the black Santro Xing, which now resembled the steaming idli ovens of the darshini fast foods. 'Put on the AC, Sandy' I screamed. Sandy, the owner of the black idli oven ran his fingers over some of the controls of the AC. But, that did not make much of a difference, and our car soon resembled the hot and sweaty compartment of 'Titanic' fame. Minus the palm print on the glass.

The car sped off from Ranganatittu onto the Bangalore - Mysore highway.

The heat, the sweat, the sunburns, and the slow boat ride were not something that we endured to get those rare glimpses of the exotic birds. They only added to the exciting experience amidst the angels.

Hope you had a good time living with me, my brief experience.

Read the rest of the interesting story at Kokkrebellur on your next visits to this space.

with warm regards,
Teju

Pictures of Ranganatittu and Kokkrebellur

One leg wonder
Originally uploaded by thejaskr.