a walk in the park

this time we took to the waters...being amphibious does have its advantages.

The destination was a place called Vile. I dint know such a place existed…let alone heard about this place, and that too in my own backyard – Pune. We were of us this time. all colleagues from infy. The mode of transport was by ground until we hit the waters. The carriers included a BMW(urs truly !) and a distant relative, an Alto.
We started off from this place called sus road. Was happy as germany had won the battle for third place. But then again was sad that argentina had to go out early in the quarters L still hoping that italy would win the world cup, we all went ahead with positive mindsets…

The first pic has our group xcept for me n a guy called sunil. Well I was takin the snap n sunil…no idea wat he was doin. So we got up early in the morning like 4:00am (hope me wont go to hell !!!) and did out stuff(brushed our teeth) by 6:00. as usual we were pretty punctual to reach the meeting point at 6:30. actually there were 4 groups(4 vehicles…the rest two cars werent worth mentioning in the same mail where the BMW was being mentioned…neways for the record it was a Innova and an Indica). We all reached there n we were given a map to the final destination. It was pretty damn complex. There were lotsa dots …each dot was some significant place enroute…and thee toughest part was that all the dots were in a straight line…u call that a map. Shit yaar…we could’ve just had a straight line with pune in one end and Vile at the other. J J

Neways we 4(me sunil, himanshu n hrishi) hopped aboard the BMW n set off for this unique n adventurous trip. Well we were all prepared for all obstacles . had all the documents ready. Including a Rs. 500 backup in case cops wanted some out-of-this- earth document. sufficient fuel n air…the BMW serviced recently. The only thing that cud’ve stopped us was a direct hit by some off-course meteorite RZS-230T but we had out seat belts on tooo. So that too would just scratch us !!!

the best or one of the best parts of the trip was the trip itself…that’s a statement I have read in several travellogues. But in our case the best or one of the best parts of the trip was the trip itself…mite sound similar but it wasn’t similar at all. The road was really smooth for a major part…like 87%. Also for most part of the journey, the roads were flanked by thick greenery – be it in the form of forests, trees or village lasses dressed in green. It was very beautiful. Another good thing that happened was that we had intermittent rains – very heavy at times during the trip. Also for about 30km’s we couldn’t see wat was in front of us due to thick fog/mist/meteorite dust caused to a meteorite fall just before we reached there. But the effect was just awesome. Pic(2) shows me destressing in between the fog !!! we drove bravely thru this sexed out weather n reached the destination in 2 hrs. took several snaps in between too. There were a lot of waterfalls too all thru out.

Finally we reached the base camp. It was a small hut where the organisers had an office kinda setup. We got ourselves draped in all adventure gear – a swimming trunk and a life jacket ! man was I lookin svell in it ! we were taken to this evil looking river(the calmer face can be seen in pic(3) ). We could hear the roaring rapids from far. But the thought of us rafting thru these rapids took us forward. We were given separate instructions for rafting, rescues, swimming..where to swim n where not to swim n where its useless to even try to swim J we were tought the commands that would be given n stuff like that. For me , since I had the xperience of rafting before from mysore itself…all this was a walk in the park.

So there we were …7 of us in a raft…1 being the instructor who was the only person in the raft who knew wat he was doin !!! 7 brave souls started rafting. 7 brave souls ended the rafting as we successfully anchored at the take out point 15km’s away. There were around 10 rapids in between. Some as cute as the rosy cheeks of a baby girl and some as wild as a drunk bull. But we 7 brave souls bravely manuovered thru these. The instructor looked real tired at the end though Jwe trekked for like a aouple of miles afterwards and reached civilization where a sumptuos meal was awaiting us. Lotsa wada-pavs n poha n onion pakodas. They tasted real nice !



We started back from vile to pune at around 6:00. on reaching home I was so satisfied with this adventure. Like its not every day that one gets to sail with a group who dint know wat they were doin n live to tell about it J just joking. I was happy n knew wat Fabio Cannavaro would ve felt on lifting the World Cup. To sum it all up, damn…..i had a gr8 time

Get together - part !! - God's own wine n wineyard ! ! !

so there we were...all 4 of us now in God's own backyard...we were welcomed by a warm family...authentic god-fearing kerala christian family.
i''l come to the interesting part. we woke up to a cup of tea in the morning. there was the head of that family, offering us or rather asking us whether ewe would like to taste some 'kallu'. for the unintiated, kallu is a malayalam term for kerala's own intoxicant...actually a soft n tender one at that but once mentored appropriately, it could turn to a killer....literally :)
so we 4 simple, not exposed to the evil of the world souls agreed to try this out of the world drink. that was it. consumed 6 litres in an hour. the last few being our own creations - we prefer to call is kallardi thats 3 parts of kallu and 4 parts of bacardi ! the end result- an awesome cocktail.

after we came back to our senses, which we did in a couple of hours during which we had our breakfasts and completed our daily chores, we left for the next trip - to kumarakom.
Do a google search for this place and u can c wat im about to tell u on this place. kumarakom alone is just another place in kerala beside the backwaters. but add to it its unparallelled scenic sensuality, its awesome fishing industry, its sumptuous food(read sea food) and ofcourse God's own wine - kallu. all this adds to a place that could equal any pattaya or bali and give it a run for its money. we hired a boat n lots of the above mentioned wine n dined on the exotic sea food they had to offer.

we were xperiencing heaven for a while. it started drizzling as well. the monsoons, the buddies, the kallu, the food...the whole atmosphere was just awesome...in a nutshell ...we had a great time. we returned back to his place and saw england go down to portugal and brazil go down to france. well i wasnt a supporter of any of these teams and so it was kinda ok. but the defeat of argentina still hurts my mind :(

then the next day we left for this place called kothamangalam where we were supposed to meet n greet a friend at his bro's wedding. we did that...again had the luxury of good food n wine and then left back for bangalore. me bid adieu to my buddies at bangalore and flew back to pune where life was to be relived as usual.... the celebrating mode :) :) :)


and just for the record, megha...an airhostess in the flight back to pune was really cute...actually sexy !

Get together - part 1 - the doctor, the volvo and the cinema's

its been a while since i have blogged and the last weekend gave me just that panacea(dint find another word to fit here...any reference tothis word in any other blogs is purely coincidental !) to throw up a few words here.

well...like the IBM ad says, it was all a result of 'sudden change of plans'. there we were...a few kind hearted drunkards, all from various backgrounds n lineages but sharing the same passion or shud i say passions. the event that triggered off this sudden change of plans was the decision of one of our like-minded-like-passioned friends brotehr deciding to end his joyous life as a bachelor. so we thought this would be an auspicious venue for us to just get together and ignite a few old habits n memories. it had also been a while since we did get together.

the plan was to travel to bangalore where we would have a short 'coffee break' and then travel to a buddies place in kerala and attend the wedding.

me decided to travel to bangalore on a thursday nite, but instead of the usual route via air, i decided to stick to the grpund...took a volvo. the journey was smooth and the volvo too was spacious. it had just 3 seats in a row instead of the usual 4. so me n my buddy who came to drop me off(thnx to that sweetheart !!! ) had a few couple of ml's of pure unadultereated foreign liquor that like itself to be called Romanov and RoyalStag respectively. that kinda set the mood for the bus trip as i was to (unfotunately) travel alone till bangalore. so all charged up(or shud i say discharged...) i boarded the volvo. got the single seat after striking off some intelligent deals with some nice man. as soon as we were about to leave....did i mention that it was raining cats n watever....so as i was tellin u ...as soon as we were leaving, they put on the movies...man...thank God i was in a mood to crash...4 sick movies back to back...i'm sure i wud've thrown up if i did watch them...
the first being 36 china town. the saddest part of this movie was that i had seen it earlier...so me thought of using one of mankinds most useful inventions - the cell phone and wile away some time talking to some friends of mine. but the 36 china town dint allow that and u dont have too many options in a volvo. so 36 china town it was. but me had an iPod which my brother gifted to me after a year of persuasion n threatening .... so put it in high volume to beat the china town n went off to sleep.

after sometime, i was awake, reason being one of my fellow travellers had a tough time sleeping thnx to the rock music from my earphone...imagine...that old (looked old) man had no issues with the movie crap goin on but he had to listen to my rock music...neways i stopped it. and lo...the second movie was goin on...15th Park Street. anotehr helluva movie as per some higher mortals. i had the honour of having watched this movie earlier. dint understand much and so gave it some credit...thinking that it was something that appealed to higher thinking....watever...

i slept on...woke up in the morning...the bus had just stopped for breakfast. the place was a nice one. good south indian food and coffee. Got to chat with a gentleman who was a doctor with the indian airforce and actualy, he looked pretty impresed with wat i have 'achieved' in life in such a tender age...i know..i know...these are not my words...these are his words and i kinda agreed...humbly :)

we parted ways as he was in a different bus to bangalore. the trip continued and so did the 3rd movie...malaamaal weekly lottery. Gawd...crap after crap after crap !!! had to c this as i wasnt sleepy anymore nor did i have anything better to do as the charge in the iPod too drained away.
and then came Gangster...felt like shooting myself. thats all i have to tell about these movies.

reached bangalore after around 18 hrs of unparallelled entertainment...reached our home at koramangala. man that place rocks. but try goin somewhere to the city from there on ground and the city sucks...big time. again it was time to travel and this time i had the company of a few above mentioned like-minded-like-passionate gentlemen...actually 3 of us. that trip was fun. we chatted all the way about wat each other missed out on being at different places. it was very enjoyable and we also indulged in some 'quality gossip' .....

....to be continued...

Me just got another breather now...thought me wud update u guys with mynews...me is currently on bench. 'Bench' is a stage in the softwareengineers life where he/she is placed when either there is no work to beassined or he/she becomes a pain in the ass. I for one am not sure asto why I am on bench. But then again its me...me is havin fun now. Stillat times I spent time on my pc due to my raw passion for work.

This weekend was neat...me had been to aurangabad. That's where theajanta n ellora caves are. Again it is home to a nice zoo, thedaulatabad fort, black taj etc etc...the best part or one of the bestparts of the trip was the trip itself...I mean the drive. It is a 4-5 hrdrive depending on the mid way stops. The road is very nice...it canbecome adventurous if u r fortunate to have a few competitive truck/jeepdrivers. Well I did meet a few :-)

It was an overnite drive. Like we left pune at around 11:00 pm andreached aurangabad at around 0330-0400 hrs. we were so sleepy n tiredthat we slept in the car itself. That was fun too...we had a tough timeuntangling ourselves from the car. Hehe...we checked out the elloracaves in the morning. Ajanta had to be skipped as it was another 120kms from ellora. That we dint know !!! neways ellora was not bad at allfor a set of caves. Real neat. There are 34 caves at ellora in all.Includes hindu jain n buddhist caves.



Then we went to the khabr - thts where the dude aurangazeb was buried.Man that was a shit place. We were xpecting something huge n we just gota very small tomb kinda thingy. I called it small when we think of thefact that he was a moghul emperor for cryin out loud.

Then came the daulatabad fort. That was his fort in this part of town.That was awesome. That guy or the architect sure did have grey matter.There is a really huge cannon at the highest point of the fort. It turns360 degrees. That did look real heavy...wonder how they managed to getit that high...and then there is this serpentine wall funda. It's a sort of puzzle. Once u enter its total darkness and then u have all these secret angels and crivices where the home team waits to ambush the hostile visitors. It seems it was virtually non solvable by any visitingteam. But the guy who took us around seemed to know each nook n cornerof that...good for us.

Finally we saw the black taj- its called bivi ka maqbara. That's whereaurangazeb's wife is buried. Its called the black taj for its similarityto the taj but in size it's a 1:5 ratio. The interiors are not all thatbreath taking but for a tomb its neat... :-)


Next week I mite go to hyderabad. Again u never know !!!!!