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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