me and my thots

2012-01-11T22:07:00.001+05:30

normal is pure bliss...!!

wow.

feels alive.

Yet another !

2011-11-23T11:07:00.001+05:30

ray of hope, there is always, ALways hope :)

have never ever been wanting to get diagnosed with something so eagerly.

with something that atleast has a cure.

all excited !

Fight ON !!

2011-11-10T00:37:00.006+05:30

after an year of pain in the neck (#$%@), cervical spondylosis, here I come,

get ready to get your ass(neck) kicked....!!

yeAH...!

life is good.

2011-10-09T19:50:00.001+05:30

do what you like,

like what you do.

:-)

that funny sound.

2011-09-01T19:47:00.003+05:30

Now that the funny season is over, well almost, let me tell you what I think about it. What makes is even funnier is the amount of effort people put in for it. Of course its funny for me because I do not believe in it. People who believe in it (either genuinely or for sake of being a part of society) do not mind doing what and how much they do.

let me stop making jalebis, the word that I find most funny is marriage. For me, its a heavy chain you get tied to, to fit in - society. The people who are invited are witnesses for the crime committed. Most marriages are in some ways more about show-off, gossip and a lot of non-sense rather than families getting together at a happy occasion. Its about everything else on this earth other than being happy for them. If something is not performed in its usual ways, you are a criminal. Someone always finds fault in how things are done.

and after all that drama of getting married is over, its not really over. If you do not have a kid in the next few years - 'oh, something must be wrong between/with them' - ha.! Yes, human beings are very social animals and they always want something to 'talk' about.

If two people genuinely want to spend thier lives together, they will. they do not need any rules to live by. why are there so many expectations..? why have I committed a crime if i did not attend a friends wedding with my physical presence. I am happy for them, but is that the only to convince them? sigh, hate social obligations.

Even though India was free years ago, one is not really free. You are supposed to / expected to do things this and in that way. I believe in complete freedom, not just from the perspective of being able to do what you want to do, but also giving freedom to the people whom you know or are close to. Do not try to tie them, set them free. They will be close to you if they really want to. Constant expectations will sometime, cross the threshold and the bubble will eventually burst.

In fact, I believe freedom should be base for any relationship. Maybe people are just scared to do what they really want to do, or maybe they do not know what they want to do. Anyways, I believe in companionship, rather than the funny word. and if at all you see me with someone, be sure of one thing - that person will have truck loads of freedom! (lol, sounds like some offer!)

Its not me, its that funny hangover which made me puke this post..!

me and my memory

2011-08-23T19:22:00.002+05:30

I the great,

was wondering the whole day and still did not figure out

why the hell my home did not not have power,

even though the generator wasn't running.

Conveniently assumed that I have already paid last two month's electricity bill.

Here is where I get over confident about having a good memory.

Only people with poor memory have the guts to do so.

The third month bill clearly shows a high amount, which again I forget to pay.

aaaaaaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhh sigh :(

A friend finally figured it out for me. ah, blessed I am.

maybe I should eat more fish.

hmmm.

meh.

2011-08-23T03:19:00.004+05:30

fresh as morning..! whats the problem with that..?

only its 3am :(

horrors of the on-coming day haunts me now.

wonder when will I get rid of this stupid sheep.

meh-eh.

laughter

2011-08-21T08:59:00.001+05:30

my favorite medicine.

wow.

2011-08-21T08:49:00.001+05:30

Silence is music to my ears.

tub tub-a-tub

2011-07-29T19:51:00.002+05:30

my fingertips hurt to touch the keys as i write this post

eyes can't think of anything else apart from dropping down shut

back asks for a good rest

every muscle aches

hectic work is the devil here

wish i had a tub full of warm water to soak myself in

and let the warm water do its magic

Sigh.

scream...!

2011-07-14T17:42:00.002+05:30

So much noise around,
so many expectations,
so many obligations,
am so tired of everything.

So badly want to be in a peaceful place,
with just calmness for company.

miss the mountains,
and the soothing calm beaches.

Sigh.

Freedom.

2011-06-08T20:54:00.003+05:30

The only religion I believe in and

follow it religiously too..!!

'am loVing it :-)

left? right?

2011-04-21T21:32:00.003+05:30

when nothings going right,

go left.

what if left does not go right??

never felt so helpless before,

hate being in this state.

:-(

ditto

2011-04-16T10:06:00.003+05:30

only i dont have a tiger to hug.

this is it.

2011-04-01T11:28:00.002+05:30

one last hope down the drain. guess will just have to learn to live with it. Will have to do, exactly how much they - fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome will let me do. As if parents weren't enough. Such a contrast, to how i was and how i wanted to be.

friends don't help much too.

one says - oh you sleep like a baby, 11 pm must be midnight for you.(technically, its just an hour close to midnight, but, not for this era, where sleeping at 12 or 2 is cool or norm)

another says - i thought you would take your own sweet time, as usual.

yet another says - why do you have to be so strict about eating on time always?

some say - slow shilpa.

other says - how come you are still standing? - when i was sharing how low my vitamin D3 levels are.

and a peculiar one is hell bent upon proving that its all in my mind, since almost an year. this one was suprised how i could do a one day hike and enjoy it on a 'sunny day' of my health after about an year of illness, instead of being happy for me. and now, this one never misses a chance to taunt me about why am i not trekking these days.

how do i tell them that - Just because i dont say "uuh aah ouch" does not mean that i dont feel the pain. pain is so much part of my life that, pain is normal and no pain is like a huge party.

i better not tell anyone anything anymore. those who want to understand will, those who dont, never will and those who want to prove something, will be at it.

I no longer have that kind of energy to have a healthy discussion, to convince or to please. Have to save up my energy store, to live my own life atleast close to how i wanted to live it. SO, all you guys can go take a hike :P

one last time.

2011-03-24T18:11:00.002+05:30

Have my fingers crossed,
i hope there is hope.
//gulp\\

great!

2011-03-21T20:42:00.002+05:30

greatness is not in being HIGH UP in the sky,

greatness is in being down to earth.

-me

its strange how some people put in so much effort,

in pretending to be normal,

in being different from the rest,

to go with the flow,

to not to feel awkward,

to always to have an upper hand,

to always be on the guard, to defend,

to not to let anyone point anything wrong in them,

to satisfy their ego,

to always find fault with others,

to argue, to pretend to be good...

Gosh, some people have some energy.

...and some people do not have enough energy to be kind,

to accommodate everyone, to once think form others perspective,

not be rude, to be considerate,

to wait, to be patient, to be slow,

to accept who they are, to accept different opinions,

to accept their faults,

to understand, to be silent if they don't understand,

to let go, to let it be.

whats happening??

2011-03-13T21:22:00.001+05:30

Just friends,

Just less than strangers.

wonder if i can ever

2010-10-26T17:00:00.003+05:30

wonder if i can ever trek again, miss it so much. There were days when i had my regular dose, now i can't even if i want to. miss those mountains, those sounds of forest, miss those green, misty, water falls, feeling the breeze, on the mountain peak.

getting out of city, has become sucha big effort. travel was the only thing i wanted to do all my life.

why me..hell...why me :(

but sometime, i do hope to.

'normal'

2010-09-15T01:03:00.004+05:30

thats one thing i have been craving for, since a long long time.

more than chocolate, more than travel,

more than sunsets, more than sunrises,

more than yumm food, more than anything else in the world.

had this constant pain which made me feel the other way,

all i could think of, is to sleep, be it day or night.

some days i felt good, some days i felt fresh,

some nights i slept really well, some days i could even smile.

but soon i used to crash so hard that,

it took me almost a week to recover from it.

even though i was strong in mind and hopeful,

physical pain used to pull me and my mind in the opp. direction.

only on good days, i realised i was in pain all this while.

only then i knew what 'normal' felt like.

but it was short lived.

and i wondered, if i would ever feel normal again in life.

But now, am SO glad that craving is being satisfied.

Am very happy to feel and to be 'normal'

so happy to be able to walk 'normally'

so happy to be able to run and play,

so happy to wake up next morning without pain,

even after an late night meet with friends,

so happy to be able to drive long distance,

had completely lost hopes on driving long,

and still not crash afterwards!

yay yay YAY SO very happy :-)

more than eating chocolate,

more than being on a mountain peak and feeling the wind,

more than being on a thumping bike,

more than anything else in the world,

at last i feel 'normal'

and i can still say - there is always hope :-)

touchwood!

always..

2010-07-20T15:02:00.003+05:30

fingers crossed

Green Rain

2010-03-14T21:04:00.004+05:30

waiting for it to rain
waiting for rain to wash it clean
waiting to see the lush green

2 years since i missed the rains
this year i shall not again !
waiting to get drenched,
till bones are wet !
waiting to get soaked
waiting to walk in rain
waiting for it to rain !

Zanskar trek - The Flight

2009-09-21T13:39:00.000+05:30

After very little discussion, we decided to do the easiest 5k mts trek - padum to darcha. The only one which could fit well in our 2 weeks holiday schedule. It was first time north for Thammanna, so he was ok with any place. For Sandy, it was a long, rather very long needed break. For Vihang n me, it was more of yearly tradition. This was my 4th time towards himalayas and gosh, am still not bored of that place!

All four of us were quite tied up with work to meet up enough, for a prep discussion for the trek. So, with little emails, calls n some googling, we ended up deciding on 2 tropical tents, 2 wildcraft entry level sleeping bags, 2 thick fat lafuma sleeping bags, 4 ponchos and 4 sleeping mats. The tempratures online for padum seemed quite managable.

Thanks to vihang, i got the last ticket to blore-Srinagar direct spice jet flight which was on discount offer. which also meant i travel alone till delhi. while i was waiting to board my flight wishing a friend on his birthday, i saw a familiar face. someone with whom i had been on a trek before. It was Thejas with 3 of his frnds going for Badrinath trek. Wished him good luck and boarded the plane. thankfuly my seat was next to the window - find it very boring otherwise.I saw a lot of kids boarding the plane and was just hoping that none of them make noise. But the world would have been quite a different place if all your wishes came true, isn't it?

Guess what, Thejas and his frnds were right next to me ! nice co-incidence? i guess so :) I remember on that trek, thejas got shouted on for being jovial and cracking dirt cheap PJs all the time and for not taking some things seriously. well, i had another taste of it. Just when i was cursing all the kids for not going to sleep and for crying out loud, these 4 grown kids were no less competetion for them. they made noise as loud as they could, behave as cheap as they could. Air hostess were giving me "oh poor girl" looks. but i must admit, i giggled a few times and the noise these grown kids were making was much better than the younger ones. Anyways, hate any kind of noise and not being able to take it any longer, with the boring cloudless sky, i fell asleep for most of the journey. Thejas took the chance of me taking a brk from sleep to exchange seats with me.

I was so glad to get to delhi and bid good bye to all delhi bound fellow passengers (read noisy kids and noisy grown kids). This was my first direct flight with a pit stop. It felt different to see ppl coming in and cleaning up the plane before srinagar passengers came in. Had always seen it happening in train. Anyways, i got to enjoy a good look of the cockpit. i wudn't mind learning to fly someday ;-) actually.. no need to learn, i can have a co-pilot who can take care of all those confusing buttons/controls and i can just take care of the steering :D

Enter my kitchen

2009-09-20T15:29:00.000+05:30

With so much cooking going on and my bad memory, i thought of writing it down for mine and others good.
http://menmyknife.blogspot.com/
hog on..

Luckys' walk out !

2009-09-01T20:52:00.004+05:30

not that he walks inside everyday, just that i took him to GKVK (read a bigger place) for his morning walk last sunday. he associates shaky ground (read travelling by car) with someone making him uncomfortable (read visit to SPCA/Vet) and obviously dislikes it. Parents never really envouraged driving with him, except SPCA visits when he is ill. Although he did whine initially, he was excited and was growling at the other dogs on road. He took a while to adjust to balance on the seat, which was quite funny to watch :) Once he landed @ GKVK, it was party time for him ! he was SO excited that he just didn't calm down, even after a nice long walk. On the way back home, with a view of empty highway ahead, he tried to jump outa car from the front glass - guess he wanted to RUN ! :)
wonder whats next? planning to take him out to a beach :D

My Tata Vista Experience

2009-03-12T12:17:00.008+05:30

I decided to buy Tata Vista diesel for myself, after ruling out Swift diesel and Fiat palio. First pit stop at Manipal Motors - they were not offering a good deal. Decided to check out Prerana and Concorde. Concorde too wasn't keen on any offers/accessories and response from prerana was GOOD !

Met this person Deepak Jayram at Prerana Motors who assured me that with the fully loaded Vista, i would get central locking, Teflon coating, Sun film, mud flaps, idol an perfume free. Sounded like a good deal and since my friend had bought his Xeta from Prerana without any problems and with a similar deal [he was lucky!], we didn't smell a rat at all and trusted this person.

Deepak Jayram promised to deliver the car within 12 days. On Jan last week, while booking the car, he asked us to pay by cash. When i insisted on cheque/DD, he said it would roll out to next month and his monthly sales would get effected and also there might be a delay for my car delivery since it would come in the next batch ! [he should open a on-the-spot-bahana teaching school, he will really do well :P]

So me n my friend, decided to help him to help us ! [i should stop helping ppl so much!]. Paid cash, got an receipt, filed for loan, got it approved and paid the DD. Now we were eagerly waiting for the delivery ! Here is how the receipt i got looked like.

Deepak took advantage of few long weekends and my hectic schedule at work and kept postponing the delivery. Finally when the time came, he tells me that he had misused the advance money I had paid and that's the reason, delivery is not happened yet !

I was shocked, checked with bank abt the DD money transaction and rushed to the showroom.

we then learnt that he had confessed of playing around with 12 lakhs of money [money paid by cheques also!] and that the initial recipet was a fake one..! Mr Ranganath Sales head at Prerana handled the situation very well, took care of my advance money and assured the car delivery within 2 days and he did. Here is how the original receipt looks like.

Deepak had done all this fraud INSIDE the showroom ! Not that this can happen only in Prerana, but please make sure you make all the payments at the cash counter ONLY. Having a chit-chat with the management won't hurt too. Please do alert your friends and family. Oh, one more thing, Manipal motors is on the verge of closing down. Thankyou.

Himalayan Biking: W-I-D-E Day

2008-11-16T22:11:00.011+05:30

24th June, 2008. 6:00 am

You anyways can't sleep longer with those heavy quilts and all that chill around. A beautifully clear blue sky studded with bright white clouds was waiting to wish me GOOD Morning :) oh yeah...those majestic snow capped mountains too...wata perfect morning to wake upto...aahhhaa...! called home whenever possible, felt good, spoke to bro this time and made him all J :D

while having breakfast, Gowtham comes to me and gives me his Nikon D70S and tells me that i can have it for the ENTIRE trip ahead..! i was shocked..! esp. when he had refused to give me the cam previous day...! with my eyes WIDE open, i wanted to jump all over the place :D was really very happy...!

With all tanks full, we started our journey with Sarchu being our destination. On my way, i saw a place called "Bom Shiva" which reminded me of Bom shiva near our base camp in kasol during my Sar Pass trek. seems like most of the smooky places in North India are named same :P i totally enjoyed clicking with wide angle lense.
After some rough patches, we saw Deepak Gaba waiting for us, his bike chain was out. Well, Srinath to rescue and i had time to click in peace. few kms further we see this little pretty blue pond called Deepak-tal. totally untouched by pollution, it was glowing pure blue under tender warm sunshine. [How i wish all water bodies in our country were not polluted..sigh !]

Just after this little blue beauty, we see Patsio army camp, which was a town in itself, middle of nowhere.. We cross the Army camp and we see 2 of our bikes waiting for us. Pulsar had a punchure and the plastic on its seat cover had to be removed too, Parag had slipped and had a great fall sometime back. Thunderbird was giving them company while waiting. So all guys went to fix things and i couldn't resist getting close a pretty stream flowing near by. the water was brrrrr.. freezing...could not even touch it for 2 secs...! me and akanksha had some fun time here and i collected some natural souvenirs for myself - some pretty stones from the stream [have loads of them at home from almost all my trips]. we also did some photo sessions for the only thumper in the gang. All fixed, we moved on, not even a km and pulsar gets a punchure again ! phew, decided to change the tube this time and we move on...talking and singing..

"Don't be a gama, in the land of lama" said a board right in front of Zing Zing Bar! :D

Himalayan Biking: 1st breakdown: 1st lesson

2008-08-13T20:50:00.002+05:30

After the 21 hairpin bends and approximately 40kms before keylong, our only Enfield broke down - battery discharge problem and fuses had gone ! no spare fuses. i was wondering how these guys were managing to stop and repair the bike in that cold - wind was blowing loud !![no other choice] Enfield lost its headlight. Aleem and Gautham took over and gave Enfiled guys a brk. prashanth had to hold a torch for Enfield, later we stuck a head torch on the headlight.

lesson learnt - keep those headlights ON with ur bike not in neutral, so that the battery gets discharged properly - else carry enough spare fuses :) 40 kms at night took a really long time and we reached keylong only at 11:30pm. with no energy to eat, struggled to sleep with those heavy quilt on :S

Himalayan Biking: Click day :)

2008-08-05T21:39:00.005+05:30

23rd June, 2008. 5:30am
went for a early walk. it was awesome walking in those fields with birds chirping around. clicked some pretty flowers - was fultu in click mood today. Today, we were riding past Manali and i remember that road to manali very well from my last years trip. its beautiful and goes along the river - so decided to be on the bike and do some clicking. Went with Shashang and i totally freaked out clicking and of course the ride - totally loved it. Freak, those rapids in river gave me goose bums :D sigh ! how i wish i can travel and click all my life. Any travel freak looking for a personal photographer..? ;)

After lunch, the climb started and so did the headache - wat else do u expect, day 2 of ride and we crossing a pass. Totally freaked out on enfileds on the way up - esp. those modified ones, there were mostly foreigners riding them, loads of such groups. It was a scary, freaky, beautiful and yet sexy ride to and through Rothang pass. scary coz our 4 wheeler climbed a hairpin bend with great difficulty ! [there starts trouble for our car]. we also saw some ppl doing paragliding on our way up. Rothang was a very crowded place with ppl enjoying skiing on a small dirty patch of snow and yak rides. parul told us that just few weeks back there was loads of snow at that place - summer of course. saw a modified gypsy [one of my favs again] on our way - used to beat snow i guess.

we stopped just after the crowded place for some clicks. it was very cold and i was shivering, although not much snow around, it was quite windy !![all that headache wasnt helping for sure] Gautham let me click some shots with his D70S and i was SO high [literally !] 18mm is quite decent a wide angle but dil mange more :D i was SO happy clicking that numb hands didn't even bother me - of course i can't click with gloves on !

Himalayan Biking: No click day :(

2008-08-05T20:41:00.003+05:30

With all raincoats on, we took off and soon we entered Punjab. From cloudy, windy and rainy start to Punjab heat now. "behind a truck - Dekho, magar pyar se" [on the same lines as "buri nazar wale thera muh kala"] We saw anu riding their Rx now and she seemed like a nice confident rider - way to go lady ! somewhere in Punjab, we got stuck bad in a jam. The bikes had moved on. Aleem and Seenu got down and actually managed to clear off the jam, so now we had new congestion control officers in black :D "Board on the road said - Do not lie like fools, obey traffic rules" :)

Soon the Ghat section started, and the green mountains, roads through them, beautiful valleys, hairpin bends [oh love those curves!] seemed SO much familiar - felt as if i was meeting a friend after a break [ had to be - this was the 3rd year in a row i was meeting them :)] I SO wanted to ride ! not that i can ride on ghats but it was quite tempting. Forget riding, i was not even confident of being a pillion rider for such a long duration - with not so strong lower back and sucha long biking for the first time.

Anyways, The ride ahead sounds interesting as i hear stories about them from the experienced ones in our group. But i really was not able to click at all today. Really cudn't stop and click coz we had to keep up with our team - missing shooting those vast green fields and those mountains too. Oh i love gazing at roads and of course clicking too. was kinda feeling low coz of not much clicking - gosh am really click addict, no wonder some of my friends call me sycho. End of day one - and i have this desire of owning a bike and riding it here !! we crashed at Bajaura.

Himalayan Biking: Sexy Look :D

2008-08-01T20:54:00.003+05:30

[well.....somone clicked..!!]
At our breakfast stop at a Dhaba, i just could not take my eyes off the thunderbird! It was parked on its side stand. I just love its look when its parked this way, seems like its leaning on one of its arms :D and all that water dripping from it made it look SO sexy ! :D kept on looking at it [didn't even click !!] i was wondering if i had ever thot the same way about any guy :D and i don't remember doing so ! Gosh.. me and my thots.. Got to know Akanksha also loved Enfields and when i shared my thots with her, she too thot the same way ! see see am not the only crazy one :P

Himalayan Biking: Lets vrooooom..!!

2008-08-01T20:49:00.002+05:30

22nd June, 2008. 2:30am
Everyone keenly woke up and started getting ready. Left IMF with flagoff at around 4am. Empty roads are SO tempting ! 4:30am and it was already bright. Shiridi sai baba songs that driver was playing reminded me of my friend saumya who used to insist on playing bhajans in morning atleast for half an hour whenever we used to go for drives from bangalore :) Had a cloudy start and after we crossed Delhi-Hariyana border, rain made us take our breakfast stop. I just love reading different quotes written on trucks and even the sign boards along the road esp. on the highways. So, whenever i see one i would mention them in double quotes - watch out.

Himalayan Biking: Gang Intro

2008-07-23T20:53:00.003+05:30

We totally had 7 bikes and one backup vehicle and we were 15 of us.

Pulsar - Deepak Gaba [Lead biker]
Rx135 - Anu and Gautham
Rx135 - Shashang
Unicorn - Sideshwar[uncle]and Ajay
thunderbird - Prashanth and Gupta [ahem, need to make friends with prashanth :D]
Pulsar - Alagesh and Parag
Pulsar - Manish [Deepak Gabas' friend]
Backup Vehicle - Aleem, Seenu, me and Akanksha and of course our driver Parul ji :) Aleem and Seenu were backup riders and me and akanksha were backup pillion riders :)

Best part of this trip [considering most of us were first timers for biking] was - who ever got tired or felt sleepy would shift to backup vehicle and we used to take turns on bikes. So, no one really got stressed up.

Himalayan Biking: Cook-up at IMF

2008-07-20T21:42:00.008+05:30

Peacocks' calls outside was so tempting to get out and go for a walk but i had to wait until the rest of the gang was here. Managed to shoot a squirrel from window. Went for a walk after rest of the gang came in, but could not find any peacocks, tho i was able to hear them. I saw a beautiful road on the other side of IMF, with loads of greens and pretty flowers on either side, obviously
tempted, started walking on it. Halfway, i realised there was a security guard and a man in white dhothi trying to
drive me away. opps, that was some temple area where outsiders were not allowed [wonder why :p].

I liked the dining hall of IMF but not the strict meal timings. Dining hall was kinda cozy with large windows opening on to greenary behind. I loved eating slowly enjoying both the view and my food :) Our cook Mr. Kand Pal is a very friendly person.I could hear peacocks for most of the night.

20th June, 2008
Peacocks really woke me up and it was very relaxing to sit out and hear all the birds chirping around early morning. I was surprised to see peacocks climb such great heights - they climbed IMF building and even the climbing wall !! Sun rises quite early here. 7:30 am and our cook was there to invite us for breakfast and rest of us had hardly got up, the tea kept on the table at
7:00 am was already cold - the only disadvantage of having our dorm close to the dining hall :)

The market area here opens up only around 11:00 am - that's quite strange considering its morning quite early here. Anyways, it was good chit chat with Amit and Aleem and good fun to listen to fun stories from their basic mountaineering course. At 11, we headed out to market and each of us had something to do.I get in an Internet cafe and they asked for my ID. oops, is
something wrong the way i look..? nope, they did that for everyone. one way good to track cyber crime i guess, but fake id is no big deal. probably these guys are strict because there is a college right opposite to this place.

Back to IMF around 12:30pm and we were invited for lunch :-) we had no choice but to go in. Mr. kand Pal would ask almost every five minutes about how his food tasted and i would reply that it is very nice each time with a smile. And it was simple yet tasty food indeed. He hates the food served out in restaurants - he says they are not healthy. he loves to cook and feed others :) By the end of my lunch, i was tired answering him.

I was looking forward to meet my school friend Kavita [kavi] today as we had decided. Spent the afternoon with those kids again playing UHNO - i had got them addicted to this game. came eve no signs of kavi coming - she was held up. started to feel a little low and home sick by now [SMI was -ve] - which was quite strange as it was just 4th day i was out - guess it was mostly coz i didn't have anyone around to bug. Aleem was busy with his work and Seenu was busy sleeping.

The pricking heat and sticky humidity confined me to the ac room and soon i took a power nap. I was looking forward to meet all participants who were supposed to drop in by tonight. All participants were at IMF at around 10:00 pm and it felt GOOD to have them all around. It was nice meeting Anuragha and Gautham after three years. NOW, the dorm felt like one :)

21st June, 2008.
loads and heaps of sleep - heat was tiring. My mp3 refuses to get charged and i was missing my music :( but today was saturday ! had plans of meeting kavi and an x-moto friend. Also, today was our briefing day for the expedition. Mr, Deepak Gaba - our leader for the ride, had asked all of us to be present for the briefing with pen and paper [:P]. But i was more worried about meeting kavi as i was not sure of meeting her after our ride. Afternoon, i was busy playing UHNO with Amit and those kids and my cook friend was looking for me everywhere for lunch !. Our adda for playing was right behind the IMF building, where there are smaller walls to climb. He finally made aleem call me up for lunch. This time i felt like having a board around my neck saying "apka khana bahuth badiya hain" [:P] he used to ask me at every meal. [arrey aram se khane tho do] [but he is a sweet person :)].

After my lunch, he asks me what i wanted to have for dinner
[woah..!!!], since that would be our last meal at IMF. we were
leaving really early the next morning. I said anything would do. He asked if i liked soya-chunks sabji and i couldn't hold my smile..! [that's one of my favs..!! yumm] i said that would be perfect :) I bunked briefing and met kavi - felt SO good to meet her after a long time and this time our meeting was definitely more than 10 mins [after my 9th std i have had just one chance to meet her at Delhi stn for 10 mins] :). All homesickness gone and i was all charged up [SMI 6 :)]. I was back at IMF at 8:30pm only to find out that my friend had asked everyone around about me a hundred times! I was surprised to find him inside our dorm looking for me ! he asked me to come for dinner when as soon as i entered our dorm :D i quickly freshened up and went for dinner and after i was half way thro, he makes
me have one more roti..! you can't even say no :S totally enjoyed the soya-chunk sabji tho :D spoke to him for a while after dinner and bid bye.

oh i completely forgot to tell you guys about my wall
climbing experience. Today morning during the practice
time, i tried wall climbing and it was good fun [tho i felt
climbing natural rocks is more fun]

Himalayan Biking: MY HOME IMF

2008-07-20T21:02:00.003+05:30

Amit, Aleems' friend was waiting at IMF entrance to
help me out with the baggage. As i entered IMF- Indian
Mountaineering Foundation, i felt very nice - felt as if i
have come HOME. It was good feeling to see those
mountain peak pictures at the notice board. A trek to
these mountains is SO tempting !! I am keen on high
altitude treks. A library at IMF was very inviting. So, was
the IMF campus - so calm and green.

While i was guarding all our baggage, as Aleem had
asked me to, i met some kids who had come there for
their regular wall climbing practice. It was good fun
talking to them. They even played UHNO with me :)
After they were gone for their evening practice session,
i met a person called Ashish. He said he was just back
from the Everest Summit. I really did not believe him - i
thot he was just blabbering. Anyways, no harm in talking
and even if he has done it, lucky him. I asked him
something i really wanted to know [asked him anyways].
I have heard that Everest Base camp is really dirty and
that no one bothers to clean it up. For this, he said, its
all false and Base camp is regularly cleaned. This guy
happens to be a shooter in STF ! [he did look around
to make sure no one was around before he said that
to me] - wokie !

Himalayan Biking: Clean and Green Delhi

2008-07-17T12:20:00.004+05:30

Delhi felt a lot cleaner as compared to Bangalore or Bombay. Was it
the CNG vehicles around, or the VVIP area or just that i had not
seen enough of Delhi yet. Driver had told me that most of south
Delhi is Eco friendly zone and it was made green recently.
Delhi roads are awesome, at least the traffic jams take lesser time
to clear off. Totally loved the fly overs and the convenient U-turns
under the fly overs.

I was surprised to see that Delhi metro work was still going on esp.
in South Delhi near airport area. I was under the impression that
Delhi metro was a completed project. It will take ages for Bangalore
to have such an infrastructure. CNG should be followed in all major
cities - cuts down on lot of things. Anyways, nice to see clean and
green Delhi - only thing irritating was the Humidity. Wonder how
Delhi manages to have such drastic changes in humidity..

Himalayan Biking: Slipping ride to IMF

2008-07-15T13:24:00.006+05:30

19th June, 2008.
Reached Delhi around 11:30am and we hated the humidity
after our ac coach travel. we would get to take our bikes
only at 3:00pm. So, i took off to IMF with all our luggage
in a pre-paid auto. Aleem and Seenu stayed back for the
bikes.

The auto driver was a old punjabi guy settled in Delhi for
his job. It was very sweet of him to show me places
around along the way to IMF. [i was really surprised and
maybe lucky to have a nice auto driver in Delhi !! haven't
really had good experiences in Delhi and i do not like the
general crowd here - not at all friendly]. I was seeing
everything i had read about - Lodhi Gardens, Railway
museum etc. we were passing through VVIP area -
the embassy place, Pm's house and other political
leaders' residence. Driver was showing me the places with
his one hand out pointing at the place and oops our auto
slipped !! car in front had braked hard. Our punjabi uncle
handled it well with a "V" shaped skid !

He continued to show and tell me about places around. We
had to ask around people for the way to IMF, since the auto
driver didn't know the way. when were kinda close to IMF,
he asked me if i wanted to go that place where ppl climb
mountains. I said yes [i got what he meant]. He then very
confidently drove towards IMF saying i should have mentioned
this to him earlier and that he knew the place very well as
compared to other auto drivers. Too bad, my wallet wasn't
handy to give him few extra rupees, I thanked him for
everything and he left with a smile.
PS: sorry, have still not touched my cam, so no pics yet..

Himalayan Biking: Celebrities drawing attention in train

2008-07-13T10:18:00.007+05:30

Celebrities drawing attention in Train

We FINALLY boarded the right train and here we are at our compartment. Apart from three of us, there were a guy and a girl, a guy - student maybe and two men. Long journey ahead and i badly needed some sleep. It wasn't very difficult for me to sleep with all that snoring with different pitches and tunes, i was really very tired.

18th june, 2008.
Oh, i just love no alarm mornings :). But it was quite dark even when i woke up late, guess what, our comparment windows were tinted - how dull and boring ! Missed my fav and THE thing i wanted to do - gazing outa window and of course clicking too. Breakfast was serverd right at 9:00 am. At least THAT woke rest of us up. Seems like they feed you pretty well and on time here.

The whole day in front of us and what do we do. I slowly pulled Aleem and Srinath [Seenu from now] to play UHNO with me, soon they got addicted to it :D. we were kinda noisy shouting and laughing at each other. The guy and girl seemed intrested in our game and they were following our game too. we included them and we just got more noisier :) They were called ashish and chandani. ppl frm next compartment started to lookon too. no no can't include them, we just had 2 packs of UHNO.But,they seemed intrested and were peeing time to time. they finally cudn't
resist and asked if we had extra cards, but we were sorry.

Soon ppl walking by started to stop and have a look at us play. Gosh..we felt as if we were some celebrities playing some kinda tournament ! Maybe we should charge all watchers for the free entertainment :D Of course the UHNO heat was on and all we could think of was draw 2, draw 4, skip, reverse and making rules as we face a new situation. Soon it was 8:00 pm and our lunch was just a quick break. we had become UHNO addicts and of course celebrities.

We were already in MP after crossing Maharashtra and it was intresting to notice the change in cryout styles of various sellers. felt like making a audio collecion of them :D. Half of us contniued playing UHNO even after dinner and other half struggling to sleep with lallabai on - snoring with different tunes :)

Himalayan biking: Guarding the CANT station

2008-07-11T12:14:00.002+05:30

I noticed a doggie sleeping very cozyly at the CANT station. He was SO similar to our lucky at home - the brown and white patterns. when me and my frnds were waiting for our train at the platform, some other train stopped by picked up its passengers and left. This doggie was barking so furiously as that train was arriving, as if the station was its home and trains were some strangers visiting home. he would just move along the engine and keep barking at it. Our train came and he did the same. i was wondering what goes on his mind - So many trains come and go and this guy has still not got used to it or he just likes his home so much. Apart from the context, I just Adore them SO much for their unconditional love.

Himalayan Biking: Eventfull and painfull start

2008-07-10T12:48:00.003+05:30

17th June, 2008.
Woke up at 4:00 am and started to pack my luggauge. That's the only time i got to pack from my
busy schedule. We - me, Aleem and Srinath were supposed to take Swarna Jayanthi train at around 11:30 pm [guessing the time] to Delhi. Aleem is my friend and organiser of this expedition and Srinath is our mechanic. Aleem had asked me to find out the station at which this train would stop in Bangalore and at what time. So, i googled and could not find any banaglore station in the list of stations for this train to Delhi ! i was wondering why aleem is asking me to find out station details, when it would be there on the ticket.

Anyways, i had to rush to work for a meeting. So, left a little bit of packing for eve and started driving around 10:30 am. calls started pouring from work but could not attend any. Reached office parking lot by 11:30am and i get a call from Aleem. He said train schecdule has changed to 1:30 pm and that i had to leave everything i was doing and get to the station..freak..!!

Aleem was taking care of the five bikes to be transported by train at Yeshwanthpur Railway station that morning and he himself didnot know about the train schedule change. Our other friends - Balaji, mahesh and Srinath were on their way to Yeshwanthpur railway stn with his lagguage. soooo without wasting time at work i had to rush back home. Got home only by 12:30pm - thanks to bangalore traffic, and stuffed in whatever i could think of and rushed to the Yeshwanthpur railway stn. Bro came to drop me.

Met everyone at the station after a lot of confusion and roaming around. Aleem had just got the tickets in hand from someone. I then got to know that our train is actually at 7:20pm from Bangalore CANT station. Gosh...all this was sucha pain in addition to my sleepyness [remember i gotup at 4?] and tiredness [driving for 2 hours IN bangalore Traffic]. Just wanted to crash. Got home, packed properly this time and it was time to leave again - phew !!

I was there at CANT station at 6:30pm as i was told and all other VIPs come at 7:05pm for the 7:20 pm train - grrrr. i Ask them which platform to come and no one knows properly. I ask them the train number and no one knows properly. I was fuming now. Thankfully CANT station has just 2 stations ! so finally met them. couldnot talk much for a while - was waiting for my temper to cool down. I just hate messing up with time. Naveen Sir came there with some sweets to see us off - he is sucha sweetheart. some old adds and the song "mile sur mera tumhara" playing on the station Tv put a smile on my face. Later when enquired, i got to know that the travel agent had actually booked KK Express train but had put the details of Swarna jayanthi train on the ticket AND the schecdule for Swarna Jayanthi train had just changed a week ago frm 11:00 pm to 1:30 pm. aaaahhhh...someone stop me before i kill that travel agent.

greeen :-)

2008-03-10T14:18:00.002+05:30

Magic.
February 4, 2008 at 9:01 pm ("Fifty Five Words ", poésie)

Stepping onto the grass bed,
Smelling fresh breath of moist air,
Sight of dew on those tender leaves,
The sounds of the swaying angels,
With green in every corner you see,
Long trees, wide branches,
Variety of flora on display,

Puff, went my tiredness,
zap, went away boredom,
Alakazam, Total happiness,

Magic!
Magic of green!

A very refreshing poem by a sweet friend "inspired" by my "green" IM status :-)

2008-01-23T18:19:00.000+05:30

last two weekends have been ABSOLUTE FUN !!

catching up with frnds is all i did and i still have to catch up with SO many more..!!

i had SO much fun that my cheeks hurt and i had cramps in tummy !!

boy, talk about talking after a long time :D

had been to guruvayoor for a frnds wedding over the weekend - find snaps here.

Also, you can watch an amazing dance here.

Enjoy :-)

No plcae for friendship

2008-01-04T10:05:00.000+05:30

friends..few near n dear ones are my only srouce of affection after my
bro..and when these friendships are questioned i really have nothing more to
say than just friendship..seems like no one can accept just plain straight
friendship in this twisted world..

Recently on a trek, i was asked these questions regarding a good frnd of
mine:
"do you call him anna [bro]..?"
"are you married then..?"
[after i answered]"
oh..then u must hunt for an adventurous person"
[so pissing off]

have also drifted away from another close frnd too for the same reason..everyone moves on..lotta things happen in life...but does that mean there is no space for friendship at all - atleast an inch..?? seems like there just isn't place for friendship in this dirty world, makes me sick.

I say..

2008-01-03T18:17:00.000+05:30

you always have time for something you REALLY want to do..

wax..

2007-12-26T09:18:00.000+05:30

Thaare Zameen Par

2007-12-24T10:37:00.000+05:30

Just recently, one evening, when i was on my way back after hectic work, i suddenly remembered all kinds of fears..yaa...all kinds of fears we used to have as kids - for every small reasons as they seem now, but back then, they used to be no lesser than Mt. Everest..!! Am sure each one of us have been through such fears...

..remember, how we used to pack our bags daily..? first make a pile of books according to the time-table. Arrange the books properly in our bags - half on one side and other half on other..then fit in our pencil box and lunch box.. have not forgotten the brown cover and the name labels.. :D

..and sometimes if we had forgotten some particular subject book, we would get scared as to what would the teacher say..n then try to manage that particular period by opening "middle page" of some other subject book [:D ssheeeshh so silly they seem now :D] and even by mistake, if the teacher asked something from the previous lessons, then tho gone case..! can't even flip the pages...!! and remember when we used to pack books for a different day time-table by mistake..??? [ya ya i have done that too, day used to be real bad :(]
man, what life it was..buying something from school canteen was such joy full event..!!

Saturday used to be my fav day !! maybe coz of the only day with different uniform..remember the times when we used to be checked for our uniforms everyday after prayer and getting punished for not being in proper uniform..!! even students coming late to school were included in this punishment-sabko sath main, generally in the ground.. hehehe n then the feeling of entering the class and everyone looking at u..lol..!!

getting signatures on makrs-card was the worst thing..!! phew..!! and and if parents were called to school then tho u would have had fever only..!! :)) our moms have had such difficult times - taking care of everything right from getting ready to school to preparing for exams..

Anyways, SOrry for getting carried away.. i watched this beautifully sculpted movie, my all time fav actor - Mr. Aamir Khan has made - Thaare Zammen par.. very well directed and beautiful cinematography.. and that too with my school friends - Ankur and Preethi, sadly Banu cudnt make it :( All these things about school just re-surfaced.. but it was great fun to meet them after sucha long time..!! Thanks guys..that was some comfort and rest for me :-)

some pics..

2007-12-19T19:30:00.000+05:30

cake by mom n deco by dad - its so true that we grow to be kids :)

dad n mom just cudnt take a pic without shaking, but i kinda like the blurr :D

ya ya thats lucky ! he is really lucky !! :D

Cheers..!! [cling] ;-)

2007-12-18T19:08:00.000+05:30

pic by Celtic Dragonfly

Wish you a very very happy birthday..!! cheers..!!

u might be thinking: [eeh..? wata crazy girl..wishing herself on her birthday..? full nutcase]

me: [wait untill i say the full story i say]

Today is my bro's birthday too :-) [ya ya i know nice planning ;)]

will never forget the look on your face, when i made you do your first bungee, remember..? :))

miss our late night dinners..

miss u dear :(

Happy birthday to US :-)

and to all of them who are born today :) [am little generous today :D]

Cheers..!!

On a lighter note..

2007-11-20T12:01:00.000+05:30

Considering the drama going on with karnataka Govt, i think the politicians should give theatre-drama a shot, am confident that they will do very well :)

Black

2007-11-13T09:54:00.000+05:30

Sorry guys, no Diwali pics. I initially plan to click few, but got so irritated with noise and that suffocating smell [i used to like that smell before-crazy me!!] that i was really missing being in a jungle.

Tho, i heard that, there was 50% reduction in overall cracker bursting this year as comapred to last year [last year there was 40% reduction as compared to its previous year], which is a good sign, but not so good, it doesnot match with the rate at which the nature is being destroyed.

Just the other day, i was having this conversation with a frnd of mine abt global warming. but, i really wonder what % of ppl in this world are actually aware of it and its consequences. Maybe some ppl are aware but they just choose to ignore it.

I have been watching lots of documentaries on global warming - and trust me, its very scarry..!! Everything has a threshold limit. Nature will soon burst, not being able to take it anymore.

not scared yet..? read on..

Recently, when i flew over bombay, i saw sky scrapers, many of them quite close to the sea. Also, i heard that most of south bombay is built upon reclaimed land [greedy humans!!]. Wait untill there is just a teeny tiny bit of increase in sea water level and i am sure more than half the bombay will be washed away..!!
i got goose bums when i saw how bombay was surrounded with sea.

what scares me even more is that, by the time most of us realise this - it will be too late to do anything. I just hope, more and more ppl realise the effects of global warming sooner and not add on to the aggravation.

....

2007-10-18T14:28:00.000+05:30

2007-10-17T09:07:00.000+05:30

:-)

2007-10-09T14:15:00.000+05:30

Just feeling happy

no reason

wanna dance

:-)

no respect..? humans don't deserve to be humans

2007-10-03T17:56:00.000+05:30

50th post - hah !!
sad that i have to post this as my 50th post - anyways what's in a number..

check these out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmf3Ifed48w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWX9JG_WSuU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1J0ULa3Yfg

My heart just melts into tears for these poor animals..
i just hate it when there is no respect shown..
i don't say - GO VEG
i don't say - STOP KILLING

BLOODY hell - give them some RESPECT..!!
They DIE to "entertain" your taste buds

why can't they atleast make sure that these animals die with minimum pain...???
oh yeah i forgot..!!
that would need some most "precious time" , "effort" and some more "money"

If humans - The "most superior" animals lack the ability to respect others,
they don't deserve to be humans

all work no play :(

2007-10-01T15:58:00.001+05:30

pic by svanes

Weekend Getaway - Coorg

2007-09-24T15:39:00.000+05:30

....wanted to getaway for sure, where to go - not sure, come wednesday and Coorg it was, left ealry sat morning, with all lazy bums on their toes :), beautiful roads - greeeeen, very
tempting to drive, pathetic Pjs, fun DC to keep us busy, golden temple, monks, cute monks on
bikes :D , soopky roads, our cottage

relaxed, hogged, yummmmmmmmm coorgi food - sluuurrrrpp..!! mouth still watering :) evening walk - more greeeen, leaches..!! ewww - gross to look at, some blading session ;) a volleyball court in middle of no where - had to play sometime, skipped sunset walk, evening together - played UNO n bluff - fun, hogged at dinner - yyyyuuummmmmmm - sorry can't stop doing that :P ghost stories, fun cornering Rahul :), some sleeeep - finally..!!

early morning walk, cold, misty, beautiful, dead baby snake, few games of volleyball - played after a long time - gr8 fun :-) ohhhh, hogged breakfast..!! walk again - tonnes of greeeeen, some more bladding sessions :D it rained..! got drenched finally..!! :-) some fun in a stream, hogged lunch till we would burst..!! reallly it was that delicious..!!
let me do it one last time - yyyyyuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm :)
bid bye - wanting to come back soon - didn't want to leave actually :P
bye green - See you soon.

Hit post tittle for more pics.

GSB

2007-09-18T16:06:00.000+05:30

GSB..??
oh Gopal Swami Betta..!!

Friends wedding,
A reason..!!
left early morning,

racing a train,
kids promptly posing for a pic,

loads of happiness,
sparrow eating moth,
injured butterfly,
once again,
i meet green

=> Army of trees crawling up..
hit tittle for more pics.

what we are..!!

2007-09-07T15:20:00.000+05:30

Check this ppls..
something so simple and so evident..

Chak-de India

2007-09-05T15:55:00.000+05:30

With SRK and Yash Raj related to this movie, i was never intrested to watch this movie.

But saw this movie over weekend and i must say that its a very well made movie and i was surprised that nothing was over done as it is in "typical" hindi movies :-)

more than "based on women hockey" part of it, i loved the movie for "INDIA" part of it. The way all girls play for India being ONE team, irrespective of the language they speak and state they come from, made me feel like playing..!!!

I really hope many more ppl watch this movie and "absorb" the India part of it and not remember our flag for just for one day in a year and forget all about it the rest of the year..!! and hopefully discrimination based on colour, caste and language disappears soon..!!

Break-free..!!!

2007-09-05T14:34:00.000+05:30

......was on the verge of getting mad with all that hectic work getting on to my nerve, wanted to BREAK-FREE from the concrete jungle very badly, but didn't have a plan inspite of having a long weekend !! wats wrong with me :S

During movie marathon II, Saurav suddenly agreed for a drive - yeppiee..!! i really didn't have to work hard on convincing him :D we both convinced ranni and we left, just the 3 of us on a lazy sunday afternoon :-)

I wanted to see chikmaglur-had heard lots abt this place, but decided to go to jog since these two had not seen it before :-O - a must see !!
hit tittle for more pics - enjoy !!

"LIGHT" poem :D

2007-08-29T13:24:00.000+05:30

PS: Could not resist posting this very funny poem i got as a mail fwd.

He didn't like the curry
And he didn't like my cake.
He said my biscuits were too hard ...
Not like his mother used to make.
I didn't prepare the coffee right
He didn't like the stew,
I didn't mend his socks
The way his mother used to do.
I pondered for an answer
I was looking for a clue.
Isn't there anything I could do
To match his mothers shoe
Then I smiled as I saw light
One thing I could definitely do
I turned around and slapped him tight...
Like his mother used to!!!

:-))

Ratatouille :D

2007-08-26T21:54:00.000+05:30

Finally, after a very very long time...
a movie that i TOTALLY enjoyed !!
every single min of it - tic tic
felt as if, i was part of it,
what else do u expect, if u get the first row :P
felt for Remy - the rat - a lot !!
was happy for him, when he was happy
was almost in tears, when he was sad
VERY funny movie :))
savoured every expression, of every character..
all in all
felt a LOT better after the movie :-)

PS: A MUST WATCH IF U DON'T HATE ANIMATED MOVIES

Drive..

2007-08-14T12:19:00.000+05:30

Puta, Nikhil, Madhukar, Naga, Maga n me.
decided to go for a drive..
devrayandurga our destination - really?
6 of us, 2 cars..
good fun.

check this performance [break-dance] by a green creature which made us hit the brakes..!!

Hit the title for more pics.

Nandi hills @ 6 am !!

2007-08-11T20:21:00.000+05:30

After the fun friday evening, we decided to go to Nandi hills early saturday morning[aug 4th], yeah when i early, i mean EARLY..!! so we got up around 4:30 AM n left by 5:30 AM. Only bad thing about getting up so early is that you feel hungry :S, good that i picked up chaklis from home, they were our saviors..of course puta had to go through the torture of having tea that i made, that too after so many years :D but guess it wasn't that bad too, she was doing fine :P.

With naga's car n him driving, we were at the foothill by 6 AM !! ;-) Nandi hill was totally covered in mist..!! we were all enthu to go..!! we saw army jawans jogging ealry morning here..

Drive while climbing the hill, was just too good. we cud hardly see the road ahead, wonder how naga was driving..!! but it all looked very spooky n very very beautiful... really missed the rest of the gang..all lazy bums !! :P

After taking the entrance ticket, we drove inside [i never knew we cud do that !!].. we knew we would find huge gang of guys here n we did see a lot of huge groups of guys taking a walk early morning..they must have stayed there overnite.. we parked our car n then naga started leading us to some place, as usual he has his own spots..!! we started walking, walking were we in clouds..!! its was just oossum..!! so chill, loved the cold.. n where do we reach..? to the actual nandi.. cool..!! had been to nandi hills a zillion times before but, never had seen this..!! there was a tree right in front of the nandi on which ppl had tied loads of little pieces of cloth - loads of wishes and prayers. we walked ahead thro all that mist, beautiful was that walk i shud say. we then settled at a place where there was a wall facing a cliff. all three monkeys got onto the wall :D

naga n me quenched our photography thirst n we spent a little while at this place..i cot puta dancing n naga in photography mood :D

we then started walking to have breakfast.. while walking, i cot puta's jump, while walking :D

we then had breakfast - got only bread n maggi at this time. we then went to the other side, where there are rocky cliffs. it was amazing to just sit there facing the strong winds.. now it was really cold..!! wind was so strong that, it was difficult for us to even stand.. even a huge tower cudnt bear the wind n had come crashing down..

just before leaving, we walked up to the park like area n sat there in silence - just loved it. it was good breather for me as my mind was in one big mess. hit the title for pics - enjoy them. will rite soon, bye till then :-)

HORROR :D

2007-08-10T12:02:00.000+05:30

Yesterday tho being a weekday, i decided to spent sometime with my schooltime buddies, since a friend was still hanging around and had come all way from calicut, we all met up at a frnd's place for the nite.

After all the chit chat n hogging FOOD [boy, everyone were SO HUNGRY], we decided to watch the movie grudge 2. i was all enthu abt it :D so we started watching the movie at around 12:30Am, and what do we see..it was the "original" version of grudge 2 , guess it was japaneese, lol..!! but thats ok.. we really didn't have to listen to what the ghost had to say :-))

I had high hopes from this movie, but when the movie started, it turned out to be pretty sad, very bad direction..!!! very bad background music..!!! yeah that too for a horror movie..!! how the hell are u supposed to get scared??? few scenes were ok ok, but they cud have done a better job, it was quite a funny movie actually. but guess what it was GOOD fun..!! how..? here is how..

I had GOOD fun watching two of my friends getting scarred..!! yeah hehehe such kids they are.. one even missed few scens 'coz he had closed his eyes, then he would rewind 'coz he had missed it..!!! LOL..!!! movie was badly made, two other friends were having serious discussions abt the story hehehehe..

all in all good fun :-)

but i am still looking forward to watching a GOOD HORROR movie, haven't seen a decent one after THE RING I and II. Am i that bold or what !! ;D
Any sugesstions..???

The Gap

2007-08-03T16:31:00.001+05:30

The Gap

still remains..

that can never be bridged..

but still have to walk along..

side by side..

till it ends.

together, still alone..

Hic !? Hic !?

2007-07-25T11:37:00.000+05:30

Recently this Q is on my mind, lets see if someone can help me get the answer..!!

okie, the question is WHY is "hic" associated with someone drunk..?? i have seen so many drunk ppl and got drunk myself, but i never heard anyone go "hic hic" but this is shown in almost all movies and even in cartoons...!! wwhhhhyyyy..???

waita min, if i am right, none of the POC movie parts had "hic" but still my Q remains..

any answers..??

Sar Pass-chapter III - Party in Castle !!

2007-07-18T14:08:00.000+05:30

The trek was now officially over, we all took our own sweet time to get up n get ready for the drive to Naggar, where the Castle was awaiting us :D we made sure kush n tanny don't have a heavy brkfst except for tanny "tasting" everything. The drive reminded us of our fav murgi song :D On our way, our driver took a deviation to avoid all the traffic, when we enquired, he said this was a shortcut and he just had to cross one bridge.. and guess what that bridge was meant only for pedestrians..!!! and our taxi wheels just fit right between the two bars..!!! now that was scarrry..!!!

Not having proper breakfast was good idea for tanny and kush, they seemed much better on
this drive. Tanny n abhi fighting for ipod, kush pulling my leg with the book i was reading "who will cry when you die" esp. considering that i was the only one enthu for paragliding :-))
they were all a little concerned for me and were trying to convince me that paragliding wasn't safe enough..but then risk is everywhere..kush went on saying that i was reading just the right book, i too burst out laughing :-)) Plan was to do rafting in Pirdi - THE palce for rafting and then go to Naggar - THE place for paragliding, but 'coz of some confusion, driver had taken the route to Naggar and had passed pirdi.. :(

So, we reach Naggar castle, made of total wood and stones - loved the concept, calm, surrounded by beautiful mountains, totally mesmerizing..!! we checked in and the very thot that we wud be staying here for three days was freaking us out..!! After checking in all of us just sat for a while, totally lost in this place..not a word..not a single soul around..all silent.. :-) Lonely planet says the Naggar castle restaurant is a strict NO NO, but we just took a chance and it turned out to be SUPERB or rather YUMMMMYYYY..!!! The dining place was just too good and yeah Mr. Pooran singh serverd us lunch with a smile :-).

we did walk around the castle, i got some contact info regarding rafting n paragliding, checkedout some shops around, munched on some yummmm cherries, they are so commonly available here..and also we got to know that there was some mela happening that evening.. hurray..!! me an tanny didn't find the mela intresting and walked around a bit hogging on ice creams :-) we all then met up at the castle in the evening, the pillow fight was just too good..i got belted royally..!! i just cudn't hit anyone with a pillow..!! :-(( but cud punch directly -sorry abhi :D hehehe :-))..came sunset time and we all spent the evening soaking ourselves into that place.. watched a beautiful sunset..birds come so close here..and the best part was the crows on this part of the castle loved to glide close to the balcony, it looked like they were doing the moon walk hehehe.. night was even better..!! sitting out after dinner with it being pleasantly cold and some "goodies" to add - NOTHING like it - totally awesome..!! and yeah with some music on it was like having hot choco sauce on warm choco cake, loved that eve, muuuuuaaah..!! :-)

On lazy morning next day, while having aweosme brkfst, which Mr Pooran singh served with a smile, as always, we saw some ppl paragliding, and everyone totally freaked out, they all wanted to do it now and now i had company :D kushal being a very responsible brother said NO to it for both himself and tanny :( am sure tanny wud have loved it,but no big deal, some other time tanny ;-) i called up my contact and booked for paragliding for next day. abhi got a little sick again today :S

now the Q was, what do we do today?? i was raving abt hiring bikes n riding somehwere but for our bad luck, Naggar was a very small village and NO ONE had bikes for hire :( nearest place was Manali :( no big deal, someother time. we read abt a place called Johnson's Cafe in Manali, which is supposed to be really good according to lonely planet. By now, we were so convinced with lonley planet that we blindly decided to have lunch at Johnson's Cafe :) inspite of not feeling well abhi just joined us [thats the power of Johnson's Cafe ;-))], and we all went to manali by bus. i just loved the roads and trees around and thats y riding/driving is so tempting in these palces, tho i wud prefer riding over driving.. Reached Manali and walked around a bit the main shoping road..poor abhi got sick n had to use loos, am sure he must have visited all the restaurants on that road :) but poor him he was in a bad shape and he defn'tly was looking fwd to Johnson's Cafe since LP had mentioned abt that place having grt loos :D

so we go there n wooooaah..! wata lovely place i say..! they even had games to play,which totally rocked..! they had dart game, snake n ladder, building blocks, etc.. ya i know - kiddish, thats wat u think right..? but its just FUN to get kidish once a while :P so, after our order was placed, me, tanny, abhi, vi n ksuh started playing the dart game, smita started building blocks, architect after all and mu was enjoying this place :-) we guys had lunch at this place for abt 4 hours and totally enjoyed this place and i must say, its a must visit place ppl. we all were so full, filled with FOOd n fun, but still i cudn't resist when i smelt something chocolaty and asked ppl for sharing brownie :D we orderd one n everyone said they will share. he gave a delicious looking brownie, with hot choco sauce and nuts seperatly..! well i made the brownie ready and everyone just pounced on it..!! it was yuummmmmmmm total blisss :-)

After this we all set out shopping and since girls shopping is diff than the guys, we dicided to
meet up at the bus station at a particular time. guess what ppl..!!! me n tanny heard the murgi cong while shopping..!! we were so happy..!! i bot the cd ;-) we did meet few of our trek frnds when we all met up at the bus stop. we booked a taxi back to Naggar, had a chilled, quite nite n dinner.

Our paragliding was booked for 8 in the morning next day. morning, me , smita, mu n vi set for the cafe, 3 kms away frm naggar, where we were supposed to meet the paragliding guys. abhi wasnt feeling well, so he stayed back with kush n tanny. we guys thot of taking an auto but one very funny thing happend. you first talk to the auto guy and then get in, only when he agrees right..? atleast tats wat we do here in Bangalore. but there, when we were talking to one auto guy, one lady suddenly gets in auto with her kids and commands the auto guy to take her to some place...!! and the auto guy looked so helpless and he actualy went ahead..!!! this was crazy..!! i was thinking ppl here were very sweet but this was pretty rude :( we decided that next auto we see two of us will go first sit in it..!! grrrrrr....!!!! stupid ppl..!!

we finally got a bus, but by the time we made it to the cafe, the first ride had already gone up the hill. so, we had a light brkfst and waited for the second ride. just when we finished our brkfst, we saw the first parachute taking off, it was quite windy, which i thot will be good for the glide but later learnt that it wasn't. the jeep came back for the second ride and we hopped on. we picked up all the pilots and their glides on our way uphill. The jeep guy drove like a mad man who was totally HIGH !! he drove so fast on that uphill road with so many twists n turns, that it was very diffi for us to even sit holding the support bars inside the jeeep..!! :-O that was one hell of a thrilling ride..!!

After we got down that jeep, we learnt that weather was getting bad for glide and thats y that guy drove like that. we then had to trek up a little to get to the mountain peak. i was the only one who opted for the stunts while gliding which costs a little extra. so this pilot called "mark" [mukesh :P] said he would take me first. we were all set n ready and were just waiting for the wind to melow down a bit. got a window of few secs and we both took off..!! the point where you take off the cliff is the best part..!! he takes care of the parachute n you just have to run towards the cliff - i know this part is scarry, but its fun ! watch here !! after tht it was like sitting on a chair n gliding down like a feather..!! good that i opted for the stunts, they were ooosssummm fun..!! paraglding is nothing without the stunts - trust me on this.!!

My cam was on for shooting the video. After the stunts, mukesh gave me the parachute for a while, it felt goood..!! :-) the landing was just so perfect..!! like stepping down stairs.!! i felt he was talented guy. he told me lot of stories abt himself, half, no no most of which i don't
beleive :P :P wonder y guys bluff so much in front of girls :P After we landed, i helped him fold his glider and were waiting for the other guys to come. when i check my cam, i get a shock of my life..!! cam is all blank..!! and not responding to anthing..!! lenses not going in..!! :-O i was totally dull for soimetime, forget the video, my cam ...!! :(( then i warmed the batteries a bit and checked the cam, it was alive..!!! PHEW..!!! it was just outa batteries..wata relief..!! :-) after a while he said they r not gonna do it, so we walked
back to cafe. i was the only one to glide that day [lucky me !! :D] and my other frnds were
pissed, but it was the weather to be blamed..

after this most of us had plans to visit the trout farm, so with pinky n mu being total veggies,
headed back to the castle. me n vi walked up till the trout farm to check it out. it was a very nice place, placed very close to a stream, so close that you cud hear only the stream :-) we both liked the place n asked kush n tanny to join us. here is where i tasted apple juice which wasn't "canned" and it was mind blowing..!! i knew i had to carry few bottels home :)we all belted fish royally here after kush n tanny came. ya i know, u guys are surprised to hear
that but yes, i did have fish. i knew i was breaking the rule which i have for myself but i justdid wat i felt like doing that min. and no i don't regret it now [i rather enjoyed it] but this won't happen again with me.

we took bus back to Naggar and had a nice quite eve to celebrate :) pinky n mu had been to the Roerich Art Gallery that day n told us that its a must visit place..

next day, it was our last day here in this beautiful castle.. pinky, mu and vi had thier
paragliding again at 8 today. i thot of doing it again and taking a good complete video this time :D but i got sick this morning and cudn't even get up my bed :( :( so vi, pinky n mu carried on.. weather was pretty bad today too, i was just hoping that these guys wud get to jump..me , tanny, abhi n kush had a lazzy morning n a lazy brkfst.. i was constantly watching the sky to see their jumps, but they were just waiting for the wind to melow down, poor ppl :(at around 10:30, i decided to go to the Roerich Art Gallery, none were intrested, so went ahead alone. it was fun walking around alone. i spent a lot of time in the gallery, clicking alone, wathcing the painitngs and of course watching a very ferocious looking, but a very friendly cat :-) we were supposed to check out at 12, but i managed to come back only at 12 :-) we checked out and had our last meal at this palce - lunch. Mr, Pooran singh didn't feel lazy to serve us with smile even at this last time too :-) very sweeet person.

Had booked a taxi to manali, frm where we had a bus to catch at 5. we reached manali a little early to do the last min shopping, the guys wanted to [it has to be always last min with guys ! phew !! :P] mean while me n tanny managed to visit our fav palce Johnson's Cafe for a good dart game :D tanny always won :( but i won Once..!! just once.. after we had that brownie :D we both totally freaked out on it..!! i was also buying few bottels of apple juice frm this place, coz these guys had told me last time that they hava farm of their own n they sold apple juice only in bottels.. so me n tanny had a good time :-)

got in bus, felt very sad to leave this place, mountains all around us.. :( we met few ppl frm
our terk on this bus. this bus was to delhi. we had a flight to catch on next day a 1 pm. some
more YHAI trek ppl joined this bus in kullu, we can tell looking at them, they will have burnt
faces and cracked voices :-)) they were frm much later batches than us and they told us that one person who had produced a false certificate in their batch, dies of heartattack while doing rock climing :-(inspite of words of caution, kush n tanny "tasted" watever they felt like tasting..! nutcases..!! bus journey wasn't that bad as i thot it wud be, pretty soon it was morning n we were on the grant trunk road in hariyana..!! thats when we guys were talking that we visited 4 diff places on this trek - rajasthan [flight landing in jaipur], delhi, HP [trek] and Hariyanapin bus] :-) after a brk for morning tea, we started and this road was never ending..!! one LOOOONg st, road..!! i wasn't aware of this road untill now. we went thro panipath [remember history??] and then finally reached delhi.

our plan was to have paratte frm paratte wali galli in chandani chowk. accroding to vi, they were to be tasted atleast once..!! so we got down at ISBT and took a bus to chandani chowk.. with quite some walk in that busy place, we found the paratte wali galli and setteld down at a parata place. they had a Wiiiide variety of parattes, imagine pappad parata, rabadi parata, banana parata..!!! :-O vi had already told us that these parates were "FRIED" in ghee in a kadhai...!! and not roasted on a tawa..!! :-O

trust me just one full parate of size of a BIG papaad is enough to fill u up..!! fried after
all..!! but we all managed to taste almost all parates on sharing basis :-) the lassi here was
like amruth...!! just 2/3 sips and it makes ur tummy feel nice and puts u to sleeep..! i really
felt thats how amruth must taste..!! :P after this moving was a prob, so me, tanny n abhi stayed back and rest of the gang went ot near by haldirams to busy sweets.. we all then walked up till the nearest metro staiton to get to airport. waling around with such heavy bags was killing me..!! both my bags were fully loaded, my shoulders n chest was hurting..!! yeah more than the trek :( getting into metro was some relief..!! it was a forty mins ride till airport.. Pheew..!! we made fun of not reaching banaglore on time, since flights were not to be trusted..!! but thats ok, no one was in a hurry to reach bangalore now :D except for one of us [ i guess abhi ;-)] :D.

we landed in bangalore on time and i was damn sad to leave that lovely place behind :(
trust me ppl, for weeks after we got back, i didn't feel good at all..!! felt as if everything
around me was meaningless, worthless and i wished and still wish to vist the heaven again ;-)

:-) :-) :-) :-(

2007-07-17T11:30:00.000+05:30

Very happy for you dear, truly..!!
May you have one hell of a ride ahead, rock on..!!
will miss u a LOT for sure :((

bored..

2007-07-11T10:57:00.000+05:30

Am so bored today..

a lovely day outside..

walk or climb..

savandurga would be perfect:D naaah am not yet bored of that place, must have been there at least 10 times now ;-)

Sar Pass Chapter II - THE TREK

2007-07-10T13:09:00.000+05:30

PART II

Next morning - day5, woke up agian at 5am and left for morning walk by 5.30am. This time i went ahead and did a lot more walking n climbing rocks to get a nice clearing for sunrise, but with being on slopes of mountains and quite a thick forest around, didn't get much of it - just got a glint thro the trees..

The walk on this day was pretty dangerous, without help of our guide, am sure we would have faced ugly scenes.. our guide for this day was a 18 year old boy named Raju, since we guys were walking in the end, he was with us and talking to him was just FUN !! he was trying to teach us the local language "pahadi language" which is very much similar to hindi but a little funny :-)

For saying walk faster they said - chaka-chak-chal :D and yeah Raju had a habit, habit of forgetting stuff, he tried his level best to remember our names [we were 4 of us] but he just cudn't, we pulled his leg majorly..!!

when we asked him,about how he manages to remember the trek route, he said "arrow marks hai na" [arrow marks are there] he wasn't dumb :-)) oh yeah, at lunch break we did see a group of mountain sheeps, they really looked different. Talking to Raju, we didn't even realise when we reached out thrid camp - Zirmi [11,000ft]. The tents were a little far from the place where they had put the welcome banner
for Zirmi, and we were relieved to see the welcome banner :P.Very beautifuly placed with a very nice view..a pic with Raju was a must :-)

abhi looked weak today, but he managed to do the trek with some help frm our group leader - nice guy i must say, his fever had increased and he was grounded in tent for that eve. rest of us of course went for our usual eve walk, got sunset n rainbow pics!! i cudn't help noticing the oxygen cylinders kept in the camp leader's tent. He said they had it incase someone has breathing probs - hats off to YHAI..!! they have some dedication..!!

day 6- This was the day for trek to our highest camp. After brkfst, we picked up packed lunch as usual and started walking, but boy ! this was THE most beautiful stretch we had walked till now..!! green all over and clear skies felt like heaven..!! we just freaked out clicking..!! i was totally lost into nature on this day, the trees around had changed, there were different now with different kinda leaves, so were the shrubs and flowers around..only today i realised that mu's condition was really bad and he had a tummy upset :(. me, kush and vi shared some of his load..he was carrying atleast 1 kg of batteries..!! that too with the
plastic cover around it...!!! mu - am sorry but u r sucha NUT..!!! ppl try n carry as less as possible n U..!! anyways, our group leader helped mu with some dry fruits n electrol..

we hit a lot of snow today and it was snow ball fight time..!! i was kinda not in a mood for one, so stayed away - all nice n warm :D and no one dare did mess with me except for one snow ball from abhi :P one stretch of the trek today was very steep..!! but looked very beautiful.. took my own sweet time, enjoying every second of it :-) didn't even feel like eating at the lunch time :D can't forget tanny coming to me with lunch box n making me eat-like my granny :-))

There..we could see our camp but hey, no welcome banner this time, beautifuly palced just below the Sar Pass peak, at 12,500ft according to YHAI..but when we reached the camp, it was sad to know that no one was allowed to walk around n stay put in the camp :( our camp leader here was very strict n of course all was for our safety..!! :P i so wanted to climb a peak behind which the sun was about to set..:( instead had to just sit there n gaze at everything, coz everythng was so beautiful..!! just cudn't stop clicking..

our camp leader also showed us the way we would be walking the next day to cross the Sar Pass and trust me it looked really exciting..!! man i was just waiting to go.. also he said that we wud need to start our trek by 3 am next morning :( since the weather gets bad after 12.. our trek way was just below the Sar Pass peak..i wanted to climb the peak tho :( have always dreamt of climbing a snow capped peak..but okie for a first time this was enough :D

oh how can i forget abt food at this particular camp..! for all the hard work n effort we had put to reach till this camp in one piece and in one group, we were treated with roasted peanuts for chai and gulab jamun for dinner...!! that too two gulab jamuns for one person..! ppl totally freaked out..! yeah, u got it right, i don't like sweets :P but it was really sweet of them to do that.. and ya we all were put to bed by 7 in the eve, our camp ppl even told us tht there were bears around this area, am sure they told us just to keep us to the tents :P, i wud have loved to see one tho.. must say it was pretty frezing there.. and the water there was VERY COLD. my hands went numb while washing them..brrrrrr..

Next morning - day7, woke up at 2:30 am n started walking by am..all..dark..and yaa..today roll number 23 responded..!! we all used to take a count before leaving our camps on all days and number 23 NEVER used to resond..keeping everyone wondering who the hell was number 23..grrrr....!! and this day when its all dark..a guy responded..damn cudn't even see who it was..!! grrrr.. am sure this as done on purpose hehe..!!

Anyways.. rule was guide first, girls next :P n then the boys..so we were all walking in one BIG line..we were given instructions NOT to click pictures untill we reach the peak, where we would take a break.. man the trek till the peak was pretty steep and very very tiring..!! i was taking brk every 10 steps..! was breathing harder..oh boy, it staretd getting brighter, sun had already risen but was hiding behind the mountains n i cudn't miss capturing the sun rising frm behind the mountains for nuts..!!! i started clicking hiding frm our guide n few grp leaders..must say i was fast in taking out my cam frm my pouch, clicking n then quickly putting it back as if nothing hapend..heheh..its always fun to brk rules ;-) all that was worth it ! got some amazing shots :D

Many had probs on this day, quite a few were pukish, loadsa mint going around.. struggling thro the steep climb, we finally reach the peak, and i felt i was on "TOP OF THE WORLD" i seriously can't explain u this in words but will try.. imagine you are standing on a mountain peak n u see mountains all around you, yes i mean 360 degrees..!! and beautiful valleys seperating the mountain you are staning on frm the rest..!! get that..?? felt totally oooosssuuuummm..!! worth
all the pain, worth the wait, worth everything that pissed me off..!! sabko maf kiya, i feel like god :D :-)) i was craving to be in sucha place so much since long time..!!

After a brk n few chocs, in a single line, ya girls were sent first, we started walking again on the mountain blade.. it was all ice till the Sar lake.. yeah we were told by our guide that there is a lake up there which is moslty frozen n called Sar lake, hence the name Sar pass. so, ice was pretty dangerous to walk on, with deep valleys on both sides, but not bad, our shoes were pretty good.. i just cudn't stop myself frm dancing...!! was SO HAPPY !! was living my dream..!! am sure whoever saw me dance must be pretty much surprised, 'coz i had ppl coming n telling me that i don't talk much n all,,n yeah i didn't, was mostly silent, enjoying myself, they must have thot that i am a grumpy lady..but watever..!! [ya ya SMI was hitting HARD at 10 ppl ;-), some of you guys know what i am talking about n how it is :D]

Soon we hit the lake and another brk, some photo sessions - all girls pic, all boys pic, grp pic..!! and we start walking again.. btw while walking we weren't supposed to click untill we had crssed the pass, but am sure you all know me by now ;-) i was pretty scared for tanny - the little one. i was holding her bag [without her knowledge initally] but she did amazingly well..!! i am IMPRESSED !! hats off to u tanny.. :-) after all who was ur mommy for the trek ;-)

walking across the snow covered mountain slopes was scarry again, one slip and after a short slide u go AAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaa....!! i was damn scared for all, and btw, i did much better than i thot, i wasn't even using a stick.. am proud of myself :-) after crossing Sar Pass i heard that one guy did slip down but luckily stopped after some distance and the guide who was walking behind got him up - he had a dislocated shoulder, oh boy :(

we took a brk again when we hit a portion of mud, loadsa sunscreen lotion did the going around this time, i somehow was feeling very lazy to take out mine :P lucky me, i just got tanned -thick skinned u c ;-) tanny turned pink n red after this day, so did others hehehe..!! while walking thro the sar Pass, i was looking at the peak n it was so tempting to climb it :( damn donno when will i get to climb a snow peak..another dream, yet to live.

we now had crossed Sar Pass and had biskeri pass in front of us, boy this strech of snow was pretty long and we had no mud patch in between.. we took rest at the edge of the mud patch n started our walk thro biskeri pass.. it was very tiring but was over soon. as soon as we all hit the other peak which was a mud patch, our guides said goodbye to us n started walking back to the camp and i was stunned to see them walk back, they were walking as if they were walking in a
park..!! piece of cake for them.. so arram se..!!! wooooah...!!

hmmmm we knew we had some slides while climbng down the mountain and we were all excited and looking fwd to it. but when we were standing on the other peak after crossing both the passes, we saw the place frm where we had to slide down, n trust me i was scared - something ran down my tummy :S even the slide stretch was too long.. our group leader went first to show how it was done n he is one heavy body. seeing him go down actually scared us atleast me..! but we had to go thro it..! no choice..! after seeing many ppl go down the slide, i felt it won't be all that bad and decided to go first in our gang, so that i can go down n take their slide videos..

wata RUSH the slide was..!! totally amazing..!! i had to stop myself somehow after i reached certain point to take the videos, else i wud have had one long amazing slide..!! we all had to slide with our bags, since this was a big one. boy, i cudn't feel my butt after the slide, they were so numb.!! it was fun watching everyone else coming down, some screaming with joy, some tumbling down hehehe :-)) trick was to keep ur legs together, but some ppl just didn't get it
right :-)

I was a little mad at our grp leader 'coz he asked us NOT to use plastic cover for the slide since it will make us slide REAL FAST...[that's what i wanted !! grrrrr] and i saw some of his frnds using it n they were having all the thrill :@ grrrrrrr had I i used plactic for my ride, i wud have had one big awesome slide until the mountain base..!! :P Anyways, after all my frnds came down, me n vi tried having a slide race, but :( didn't gain much speed.. everyone was in a playfull mood n ya snow ball fight was a default :D i had fun sliding on the snow. after this we had another slide, which took us all the way down.. these slides actually saved us a LOT of climbing down, slide helped us come down atleast 1000ft..!! look at
the pic to get an idea, yeah, we did slide down that mountain...!!! too cool eh..?

After this we had a stall n everyone enjoyed garam garam maggi and warmed our numb butts :-))our next camp was abt an hours walk frm here, this palce again was very beautiful, green all around n best part, pink n yello flowers all over..!! very beautiful..!! we started walking n i somehow managed to seperate frm others n got lost :( i cud see the camp n there were very big shrubs betwen me n the camp, i just had to manage to cross it and i just had to get lost..!!
anyways, with lot of walking n falling near a small stream, i mangaed to reach the camp. it started raining n our camp leader was standing there to welcome everyone wearing a poncho..hmm some dedication man..! and ya the welcome banner and the camp were quite close by for a change ;P

We girls were shocked to hear that there were NO tented loos for us here, we HAD to get adventurous here :( tanny went on n on abt not eating much :-)) this eve we didn't click much, since we had clicked almost all mountain peaks around us :-) we played dumb charades and had a very musical evening by the camp fire , it was amazing to sit beside the fire in that chill :D

Day 8- I had totally forgotten about my blisters in all that excitement of Sar Pass n the slides, applying cold cream didn't help tho :(.we started walking down the steep slopes together n slowly everyone cot their own pace.. we walked and walked and finally reached a place which looked like a park..!! yeah, so green all over n not a single patch of mud around, am not kidding..!! it looked like someone actaully maintained that palce..!! that was our lunch point, we even had a stall there :-) we had fun pulling each others leg there. i saw many cows grazing there n felt as if they were trained specially to cut the grass to the same level to maintain the park u c :-)) we started walking again saying hi to small streams, mountain goats n horses on our way.. but suddenly the terrain got steep, n i got slow, very slow :-) i was "feeling the power of blisters" :D we all
could see the welcome banner for our next camp, but we knew our tents wud be a little far away..

i struggled to reach the top n what do i see, i mean what do i NOT see..our tents..!!oh boy..!! all i cud see is more of land to walk..!!! :( this was just heights..!! welcome banner dalke ullu banaya :( we crawled on this land, it was beautiful tho :-) crawled n crawled to see colourful tents..!! yeppiee..!! the whole picture looked very beautiful, colourful tents in that place looked like heaven..!! mu n kush were helping each other walk with both of them holding the same stick hehehehe we were all very tired :( we all dragged ourselves to our tents very slowly to see our group playing cricket with full josh..!! :-O wat energy !!i was happy to see that we had so many colourful tents in this camp and this time it was just 5 ppl in one tent, some treat this was :-)

With my floaters on [aaahhhh...getting into them was sucha relief n treat !!], i started clicking THE criket match, felt as if the whole grp had become one :-) it was good fun to watch them play, they were all playing like kids, shouting, cheating , cheering, runing around -some fun !! even rain didn't stop them..!! everyone right frm our group leader to our camp leader, were totally involved in this match - felt like Indo-Pak ODI :P, we even had 3 girls cheering the players. our camp leader had to wait for us to finish our match for giving his welcome talk n instructions for the camp..!!

After the fun cricket match, our camp leader told us that this camp had NO rules..!! hurray !!but again no loos here for all :( but by now we all were adventurous enough :P after everyone had reached this camp and our eve soup, everyone got together n started playing dog n the bone. everything seemed fun and it made me wanna jump with joy and run around like a mad kid, i too wanted to join these games, but kept quite, since my feet were in a bad condition :( abhi then asked me to join for a while atleast and i did [i just wanted a push :D]!!
but when my turn came during the dog n the bone game, while taking the bone away, i tripped n fell very badly and the long gone knee pain started again, i was damn scared. "any damage to my knee ligament n i wud not be able to trek all my life" is what scared me most :( i quitely took my cam n sat on a rock, watching the games and this wonderful glowing valley..!! yeah, it was around 4 n mist all over the valley, the eve light, was making all the mist glow..!! rain in the valley to add to this..!! it was an amazing sight..!! this thing stayed for almost an hour n i freaked out clkcing..!! mean while ppl had started playing kho-kho, it was fun watching them.

it started raining soon and everyone inside tents..!! it was fun watching the rain frm our tents n heyy, there were hailstones..!! small n cute ones ! :D it was tea time n am sure everyone wanted their tea served in tents, but they had to wait untill it stopped raining :P

Over chai, we were having a discussion about what can be done after the trek and kush, vi n abhi tried convincing me not to go for paragliding, but they failed :D we spoke to rest of the trek group, most of them were heading towards either delhi or kullu/manali. we were happy that we were the only ones to be in Naggar. Most of us exchanged mail ids, numbers. also spoke about making
groups on yahoo and orkut. i somehow wasn't too enthu.

soon it was dinner time, which was actually the sunset time, pretty soon huh..? the sunset was a spectacualr thing..!! the whole valley was glowing golden..!! kush n vi left dinner half way n ran to capture this.. i somehow preffered to finish food fist [nothing like garam garam food in that cold :D !!!] and then capture this sunset.. it was beautiful..!!

nite was painful tho, 'coz of the cold air leaking in :S, our tent didn't close fully.. but by now i had got used to it - not having a good sleep. almost all of us hadn't slept well since our trek had strated. i so wanted to sleep on a proper bed and have a GOOD sleep !!!

Day 9- After brkfst n our group photo session, out group leader told us tat, this day we had to trek till barshaini village n frm there take a bus to Kasol. yes, this was out last day of walking :( it was pretty sad walking away frm the mountains back to civilization, i didnt feel like coming back :S

This day, the walk was pretty bad atleast for me, my feet gave in and i was walking very slow. blisters were just hurting too much, wanted to get into my floaters so badly but had to trek with my shoes, on that terrain :( kush n vi sticked around with me till the end -such sweethearts :-) we three were the last ones to reach bashaini vilage to see some of our fellow trekkers waiting for the kasol bus. abhi, tanny, mu n smita were already on a bus to kasol. we 3 had to wait for the next bus. we somehow could reach them n told that we all would meet at our fav place - the german bakery :D most of our frnds got down at nikaran for a bath in hot springs after 9 days of not taking bath :D

we all finally met at german bakery, had a NICE long lunch :D you guys can't imagine how the choco cake tasted [SO MUCH better] after those 9 days of simple food..!!! after this vihang n kush set out to look for a hotel room, pinky n tanny went out to make calls [psst. they actaully went to check out cakes for mu, next day was his birthday,its a secret no one is supposed to know at this point of time ;-)], abhi actaully went to make calls :-) me and mu waited at the bakery wathing the lassa the bakery owner had. it was damn cute :)

Finally got into a room, kush , vi and pinky got all our bags frm the base camp. all our fones and battries on charging and everyone called out the order of taking bath :-)) i hit the bed straight with my music..aaahhhh....my back had never felt that nice :-) everyone took more than hour to take bath, pretty obvious huh..?
we were supposed to be at base camp for our Valedictory function at 8pm and we all just made it on time..!! smita decided to start it off with a prayer, way to go pinky..! we never knew that she sings..! all of us were in high spirits and were shouting on top of our voices..!! we all got our certificates and bid good bye to our group, and of course bye to our fav place the rock next to river parvathi :-)

while rest of us waited for dinner at a hotel "namaste ji", abhi n pinky
went to order a cake for mu. all of us were still addicted to smiple food :-) The day didn't end here, by the time we reacehd our rooms, it was close to 12 ! cake cutting time for mu, wishing time and make up time for us:-) after we were done, we called some of our frnds frm the trek who were staying at the same place for more make up for mu :D oh yeah how can i forget birthday bums to mu :-)) not to mention we were all very sweet ppl, everyone kicked softly :-)

oh man, how can i forget to tell u guys abt FOOD..!! ok,, this was our menu for trek, our meal timings changed according to the camps but here is the jist - morning chai, brkfst wud be either bread-butter and boiled eggs or wheat porrige [very healthy] or puri bhaji [nope, bhaji wasn't just aloo as we had heard, they had variety..! soya chunks, tomato, gobi, bhindi etc] or poha or upma, evening chai with snacks - which used to be bisuits or pakodas or roasted peanuts, night
dinner used to be roti sabzi rice dal papad pickle and some sweet for dessert. oh yeah i know i missed lunch, they used to give us packed lunch in the morning, which we carried in our lunch boxes, mostly rotis and yeah milk before going to bed. every meal was very healthy and they fed us real well :-)

Everyday we use to start walkin by 9 or 9:30 and all of us used to reach the next camps by 3. rule was that no one can get in tents beofre 3 thats when our leader comes n assigns us tents. but i totally enjoyed walking behind everyone, enjoying the silence n clicking :-)

The trek "officialy" got over..

To be continued..

Sar Pass Chapter II - THE TREK

2007-07-03T14:51:00.000+05:30

PART I

Still in outskirts of Kasol and ah...there we see the YHAI welcome banner and little down somewhere we see the camps..We reached base camp !! but wait, Vi first went down near the camp just to confirm if this was the one for sar pass and mind u he was in his shorts..even before he could open his mouth for asking, "no shorts allowed here..!!" screamed a guy..!! stunned vi then explained him that we had just come and was that the base camp for.. " yes yes this is the base camp for sar pass" the guys tells im...phew..!! oh, btw, base camp was a 6500 ft.

We unloaded bags and went down, got registered and got our tents, meet some frnds whom we knew from bangalore and THEN we see that our base camp is right next to river Parvathi..!! woooaah..!! had seen such things only on TV..!!! we then had chai on a rock closeby with the roaring sound of the river..and pine cone trees all over the mountains surrounding us..man it was SOME moment..!! well.. it was just the begining..

oh how can i forget to tell u guys abt spotty, yeah thats what we named her, a cute n soft fur ball, a puppy :-) well she was the most pampered and most spoilt puppy if the camp.. there was also this huge hairy black but friendly dog apart from another brown one, all in the base camp..it was good to have them with us.

Everyday, one group came down to the base camp, done with their trek, and which ever group was two days old would perform n entertain everyone, after which certificates were given to the grp who had conquered the Sar pass. Also, everyday morning at eight we would cheer the group leaving for trek that particular day. This happened daily.

It was a treat to sit beside the river on the rock after dinner with no one uttering a word..!!

Well, we had to stay here for TWO days before starting our trek - phew wata long wait..!! anyways, we had to get up at 5:30 AM n go for jog n exercise these two days at 6 :( man, i cud hardly jog :(oh yeah, forgot to tell u guys abt the water here..!! they used it right frm the river next to us - yes, ice cold water..!! yeah yeah, its fun touching this water at 5:30 in the morning :P and yeah not to mention the rat which came into my side of the tent to wish me Good morning on day one ewwwww...!! and yeah spotty too used to squeeze in our tent, inspite of some girls pushing it out :-))

On day 1 we had a small trek with our bags filled with our sleeping bags n rugs just to get the hang of how our treks gonna be and we climbed about 600 to 700 Ft of altitude, tho they claim that its a 1000Ft altitude climb :P
After trek, we walked around this village-Kasol and yeah how can i not talk about bikes..!! There were Enfields all over this palce..!! each one having a different design, different colour.. phew..! couldnt take my eyes off them..!! my fav was the red one i saw with a lady drawn in black- too good ;-) the guys riding them were :P mostly Israelis - who come here for dope..:P was tempted to try it tho.. :D

After lunch, we wanted to go to Manikaran - another village but a little bigger than kasol and yeah 5 kms away. we had to buy raincoats for all and shoes for abhi. so we started walking towards it along the river :-) soon we hitch hiked a sumo kinda car. ahem ahem, no way !! uh uh, nope, am not letting out the secret of how i managed to stop that car ;-)

Had read about the famous hot springs of Manikaran, but they weren't a pretty sight, more like community bath place :P we did our shopping n started heading back - boy we were late, we were supposed to be in base camp by 6. while walking back, we hitch hiked a truck [it was abhi's magic this time ;-)] and guess what all seven of us fit in the front part with the driver n his friend..!! wooah..!! hope our song " mian nikla gaddi leke.." cheered them both. after the fun ride back, we had awesome dinner at German bakery, we were late anyways :D

Day 2 was reaaaaally boring n thats when i got real pissed.. they took us for rapelling after our morning jog n brkfst n i was all excited abt rappeling..!! but after i saw that the ht was only about 20Ft, puuussssssssss all enthu died.. moreover the two jerk instructors were such show offs, yeah frm 20 Ft..! hah..! anyways did it just for the heck of it but i managed to sneak out the rock climbing sessions we had after lunch :P didnt see anyone around according to our "plan", so i set out alone. went close to a stream which later joins the river Parvathi, sat there for a while and yeah collected few pebbles as i always do [ ya i have them at home, abhi threw one of them tho grrrr]. and while climbing few rocks, i managed to disfiugure my gogs :(

Walking around this village was fun, went into almost every shop, Israelis everywhere..!! went in all the side roads..i just didnt feel like going to our base camp..atlast tried being online, but net was utterly slow [10 mins for a page to come up, am not joking !!] and they charged 60 Bucks for an hour !! :-O man Israelis are looted here..!! anyways, chucked that n called few frnds - felt much better :-) met rest of the gang close to the German bakery in the eve. went over the much talked abt hanging brige with Vi [ i like swaying the bridge :D] and
got down to have a close look on the hot springs.. i was so shocked to see them..!!! didnt really expect them to be SO STEAMINGLY HOT..!! and that too so close to the ice cold water river flowing right next to it, bole tho just 2 feet away..!!! :-O wonderful nature is all i can say..!!

These two days, we heard from grps who came back frm the trek that few parts of the trek were real steep and it was very difficult climb if it rained :S Anyways i was all happy that these 2 days were OVER n tom we wud get started with the trek. oh btw, the ice cold water bath i had on day 2 eve was CHILLING..!! brrrrrrr but some fun !! have to agree VERY REFRESHING !!

Day three, we are all set, waiting outside base camp for local bus to Sheela village and it starts to rain :( out comes our poncho's and all of us look like funny looking penguins hehehe some were pink n green too :-) soon the bus came and with most of us [oh, btw our grp was the biggest of all 53 ppl in total] on top of the bus, we totally enjoyed the half hour drive n the rain and screaming everytime we neared a tree or wires or rocks..!! boy the bus ride was FUN on
those steep roads..!!

My jaws drooped when we just started walking.. the first valley we were about to cross..mist all over..dreaaamyy..!! i wondered wat was next in store for us.. Vi, kush n me started walking in the end as we enjoyed all the silence and all the time for photogprahy to add :D as soon as we reached our first tea stall [local men n women walk ahead of us open up a stall for us-they sold hot maggi, eggs and chai n snacks], it then started pouring heavily..!! we took shelter in a huge
empty house with lotsa rooms. after the rains clearing off the sky, we could catch a glimpse of majestic snow capped mountains..boy! that was some sight..!!

We started walking again, fearing very slippery walk, and noticed taht there were arrow marks for the trek, but still some of us who were walking behind managed to take a different deviation and get lost..!! woooow..!! we are talented or what..!! anyways, before we cud figure things out, we heard one of our team members shouting n asking us to come from the other side of a stream. so we
did, to see the ENTIRE gang wating for us, felt like we had commited a crime with all those eyes starring at us..!!

we had reached our first camp - Guna panni [ i am still wondering how they selected these names for all the camps]. we saw more of snow capped mountains and our camp leader told us that we were really the lucky ones since the mountains were hiding behind the mist n clouds all these days ;D Here comes the best part..!! walking around the camp, i just loved doing it but vi went a little ahead of all n we were worried untill he got back. Here is where i saw a very differnt way to cross over the fence..! logs both sides formed a ladder..! pretty neat huh..??

oh yeah, our camp leader had a good telescope and he showed saturn rings to everyone, after a good session on astronomy. but i got really bored and i was trying to grab some sleep :D

oh i totally forgot to mention abt the loos, girls always had tented-loos, but guys had to get more adventurous :D but in this first camp of ours, we had few houses around and one aunty actually rented out her loos and bathrooms.. and yeah we had 24 hrs of constant supply of ice cold water at every camp, pretty neat huh..?

Next morning - day 4: me , vi n kush went to capture sunrise. with quite a walk, we reached a clearing but still had to wait untill the sun rose above those mountains. not to mention we got up at 5:30 again, thanks to those 2 days of jogging :P we met karan and Yathi on our way and now we had a grp of photographers..!! those two guys showed us rose plants which had grown naturally and holding so many rose buds on just one stalk..!! sunrise wasn't great, but we 3 decided not to miss walk every eve n morning. u never know - u might just be loosing an oppurtunity if u didnt..! :D

After brkfst and packed lunch, we started off and thats when i got into the groove, the trek groove, i had never trekked with sucha heavy bag ever in my life..!! we hit ICE on day 2 itself, some snow which had slid down the slopes. i used to get tired very soon, only later i realised that it was the height factor and nothing to do with my stamina going down :P only thing which pissed me off during this day trek was TWO hours of break for lunch..!! where our camp leader was trying out some of his cooking skills...! numbskull...!! it takes time to get
back n groove..!! Grrrr..

but boy ! the second day trek was the steepest of all. we were climbing on all fours just before reaching our second camp..!! and yes, our second camp was on mountain slopes..!! and it was called faul panni [wonder y]. After our welcome drink, we were alloted our tents.. This is when i realised that i had blisters all over my feet :( my right feet esp, was in a bad shape..getting back into my floaters was sucha relief..!!

After eve chai n pakodas and garam garam soup, i set out for my eve walk, vi already had gone ahead early, too bad he missed his soup :D i loved this particular stretch of walking untill i hit a rock where i found rest of the photo gang. i placed myself a little higher on a bigger rock with a huge tree, it was totally awesome sitting there and just waiting for the sunset and cliking every 2 mins, coz the colours and cloud patterns wud change every 2 mins..!! totally
savored sitting n clicking alone !! loved it !!

While going back to camp, tried my hands on the streaking effect on stream photo, since my college days, i used to think that such pics of streams with milky water were morphed and unreal.. but only after i got to know the funda behind such pics, i cudnt stop myself from trying it out :D

Got to know that abhi has fever, just what i was scared of, but was just hoping that none of us get into a bad shape..

That night, when everbody were very tired and trying to grab sleep in those sloping tents, a group of guys had the energy to sing songs on top of their voices..!! when almost everyone had slept and i was treating my blisters with some cold creame, these guys started singing "mere desh ki drthi" song with full volume and spilling emotions, i just cudnt take anymore, i burst out laughing loud..!!

To be Continued..

good ones..

2007-07-01T17:51:00.000+05:30

had been to a photography exhibition yesterday at CKP, not only i was amazed by the pictures, i loved their captions too..!! have collected the ones i liked the most, hope u enjoy them as much as i did :-)

- Anything simple always intrests me.

- Nothing is perfect except change.

- Love of beauty is taste, creation of beauty is art.

- Confusion is mightier than sword.

- Waste not fresh tears over old grieves.

- Fortune is a woman, if you neglect her today, don't expect to regain her tomorrow.

- A clear conscience is a soft pillow.

- Friends are like fiddle strings, they must not be screwed to tight.

- I want freedom to express personality.

- You should live everyday like its your birthday.

- An ounce of emotion is equal to a ton of facts.

- Him that i love, i wish to be free, even from me.

- If i have lost confidence in myself, i have the universe against me.

- A goal without a plan is just a wish.

- We need not think alike to love alike.

- You will never know what is enough, unless you know what is more than enough.

- A picture is music without notes.

- Art is not a thing, it is a way.

- Gravitaion is not responsible for people falling in love - Einstien.

move it move it..!! ;-) :D

2007-06-29T13:50:00.000+05:30

Get this widget

Track details

Sar Pass Chapter I - Adventures of reaching Kasol.

2007-06-18T16:43:00.000+05:30

I had never tasted YHAI, wanted to.. even though i prefer organising a private trek. Inspite of people, who were supposed to make it, dropping out, a newly formed grp of ppl booked up for the trek with YAHI.

The Gang[clk wise] - kushal[kush]-centre, Abhishek[abhi], Smita[pinky], Murli[mu], Vihang[vi], Tanvi[tanny] and of course me.

With most of us being first timers for an Himalayan trek, and with a busy work schedule and exam times for tanny, we managed to do all the shopping and preparations and we were all set to go..

On Friday, May 11th, our flight was suppose to leave Bangalore at 5:10 pm and reach Delhi Via Hyderabad at 7:30Pm. we were to catch kalka mail at Old Delhi Railway station at 10Pm and from Kalka we had booked the most famous toy train to Shimla. we were all very excited about the toy train and you know what..? some of our tickets were on waiting list 1,2,3 when we booked tickets for it 2 months back..!!

We had just the right amount of buffer time to make it through the Delhi traffic on a friday evening [hah !!] to the Old Delhi Railway station. But to our luck, weather was bad at Delhi and our flight had just the right amount of fuel to reach Delhi and not enough to circle on delhi airline in case of bad weather :(
we had to land in jaipur for refueling..!! and yes, ours was the ONLY flight which did that..

There goes our toy train, down the drain..

did u just ask me which airlines..?? Dont worry i will let it out..i dont want you too to experience sucha thing..!! it was spice jet :( without even having evening snacks to catch flight at 5Pm, we were all hungry, it was around 9:30Pm !! and guess what they had to serve us, candys and good day biscuits :(

We started having chocos that we were carrying for our trek.. they were THE saviours..!! but hey, we had some good news..!! we found out that our train was late by 2.5 hrs..!! hurray..!! it was now at 12.30AM. we still had faint hopes, inspite of the time we were having, and praying that we make it to the kalka train.
During all this drama, the sky was just BEAUTIFUL changing colours every single minute..it was magical and i just couldn't believe it even though i was SEEING it..!! damn my cam was inside abhi's bag :( when we were back on Delhi airline, thunderbolts started to strike..! that did it..!! i couldn't stop myself.. asked if anyone had thier cam out and yeppiiee..! kush had his cam in his bag and i cot thuderbolts ;-) i had just recently cot the fever of shooting thunderbolts and here i am shooting one from a plane..! had not even thot that i wud get a chance to do sucha thing..man ! i was damn happpy..!! :D

We finally landed in delhi at 11:45PM. kush ran out to book a taxi and rest of us got all the bags. we rushed towards railway station, boy! the innova guy drove REALLY well through the late night traffic and some Traffic stop for some VIP..!! made it to the railway station by 12.35Pm and to our surprise, the train was still on the platform waiting for us :-)

we RAN as fast as we could with all those heavy bags [thats when i first realised how heavy our bags were..!! and how difficult was it to do anything other than walking slowly with those bags..!! phew!!]. Got in train, on our seats and we all ask kush..

All: where are the tickets kush..?
kush: its.. its.. hey, i had them right here..

[Tickets not found... :-O :-O !! GRT..!! now what..???]

Vi: hey, i think i know where they are..!!
ALL:huh...???

he had seen something fall from kush's pocket while running towards the train..!! :-) Vi comes back empty handed..:( we decide to show our Ids and pay fine to TT..

[some heavy voice frm train window]: seat number 61,62..who is it..? come outside..!!

[it was the TT and i just knew that we had just got our ticket, somehow..! :D]
me and tanny watched the bags n rest go out..

TT: so, you guys are on 61,62....?
rest: yes.
TT: where are ur tickets..?
rest: we dont have it, it fell somewhere on the way..
TT: you guys are running..? ur tickets have fallen and you guys are running..?

[all this conversation was in hindi, the english version sounds hillarious :-))]

someone had seen the tickets fall and tried running behind us, but we were too fast for him, so he gave the tickets to our train TT and took his number to make sure he gave them to right people..!! can u expect anyone to be so sweet in Delhi..? that too Old delhi railway stn..?? PHEW..!! boy..! we had the luck on our side..!!

we appologised to TT and settled down. we finally started to Kalka at 1Pm. we were just thankful that we got the train.. it seemed like a impossible mission. The kalka train made it up for the delay n reached kalka on time and we hit the toy train.

Boy ! it was cute with all nicely cusioned seats and curtains..!! and the whole stretch was very beautifull with loads of tunnels and bridges..!! definetly worth all the risk n adventure we went thro.. They even served brkfst, few slices of bread, which wasnt enough, thats when we reasliesd that we hadn't eaten proper meal since last afteroon lunch..!! had no choice, had some more
choccs..

one very strange thing that was hapening was, whenever we were going thro the tunnels, we cud hear kids screaming. we initally thot that there were some local kids waiting for the train inside the tunnel to scream at the train.. but it was later, when we saw kids peaping out of our train, we reaslied that kids frm our train were screaming.. we gave them tough competion thro the follwing tunnels ;-)

Mu and pinky had not got the toy train reservation and had reached Shimla before us and had booked rooms for all. All settled and freshend up, we had YUMMY [ya ya everyting tastes good when u hungry] lunch at a very famous veg place called Deepak. lunch was really yummy..!! and yummmmm buttermilk was like icing on the cake :-)

With tummy full, we all hit Shimla roads. Mall road in Shimla is very much similar to Brigade road in bangalore just taht it doesnot have traffic running on it and its got these beautiful comfi benches to sit on and watch the crowd - best thing to do ;-)
Bangalore sure does have something to learn from Shimla for this..!!

Oh yeah, roads here are either steep accend or decend..!! very few stretches are straight terrain, no wonder everyone around here are in good shape ;-) I felt Shimla is kinda cute place, with most of ppl walking around and not much traffic-loved the mall Road :-) also, they have put up those cute benches all along the roads where the views are good..

We then went to Gorton castle, which is now a office of the Accountant General of HP. so, cudnt go inside, just went around..cute palce. then walked up to this place called Indian Institute of Advanced study. it was good walking. The Institute has a botonical garden and i totally freaked out on macro photography..!! oh bTw, did u tell u my cam story..??

sorry but i have to tell u my cam story..
my cam got screwed just before the trek :( took it to the service station n that guy asked me to leave it atleast for a week for the repair.. the power button was all gone bad, i no longer could focus on a object and lock the focus.. :( but i still decided to go take the cam with the manual for the trek thinking something cud be done with manual mode.. Guess this says it all doesnt it.? :-)

we were so much into freaking out on macros and sunsets that we missed the guided tour of tht place [ it apparently has a very imp place in our history ] last batch for which was at 5Pm :( but anywas, after sunset, the chill started kicking in, n we enjoyed garam garam pakodas, coffee and tea. [ this reminded me of my auli trip, where we used to do this everysingle day, pakodas and hot chocolate !! yummmm...!!, no wonder i didt loose wt in that trip :P]

we then went to mall road before dinner n managed to settle down on one of those benches, waiting for rest, but totally enjoying looking at the crowd :-) After dinner, booked a taxi to kasol on our way back.

Had seen a church around, Abhi and i decided to go there ealry morning. we went there by 6:30 am, only to see that it opens up at 9am :( so we decided to trek uphill till jhaku temple. Never say no to treks-even if its to a temple :P , the roads to jhaku temple were killingly steeeeep..!! so steep that they had made steps in one corner of the road..!! boy..!! i strugulled to reach top, to see Mr Lambu waiting there. Good practice for the trek huh...? ;-)

It was a pretty place with a pretty walk, but i was so outa breath that i didnt take any snaps on the way, else would have shown you those steep roads.

Apart from the main temple, where there were group of people doing pooja with full concentration and lot of noise, there was this small temple just beside it with monkey statues on either sides, guess its hanuman temple..? anyways got some pic of monkeys there..

All set, we left to kasol in a taxi, our driver played some cool music of which the "murgi" song was the best and we played it over n over..!! he said its composed by DJ murga :D whoever did it, did a great job , its very creative..!!

Get this widget

Track details

kush and tanny got a little motion sickness but managed through the drive.we reached Kasol by evening.

Hit the title for more pics. To be continued..

i wish..

2007-06-07T12:10:00.000+05:30

fine day today !!
pleasantly cold and cloudy..
wanna go for a ride..
wud be good if i get to ride :D
wud be great if it rains ;-)

.......

2007-05-09T14:18:00.000+05:30

:-) :D

2007-05-02T11:23:00.000+05:30

Boy !! i dont feel like giving them away..!!!

:( :( :(

10th day !! Hurray !!

2007-04-24T10:50:00.000+05:30

:-) :-) today the pups at home turn 10 days old and guess what, they have just opened their eyes !! and trust me the feeling is damn goood :D and best part is that they dont realise that they can use thier eyes and walk around yet :-)) they still smell around and walk.. hehehe...very adorable :-)
more pics later -just cudn't take clear pics this morning, they were very restless when their eyes were open n later they went to sleep !! so later :-)

Calicut..

2007-04-18T13:48:00.000+05:30

[March 24th, 2007]

Had been to Calicut with my school friends on march 24th, this was the first time i was going out with these friends, tho they are my school friends ! :-O

25th was Ranni's birthday, we went to Gov's grandparents house and had a very relaxing weeeknd..!! Sandy had come with his cam and i totally freaked out on photography - very much satisfied :D click on the title for pics.. Enjoy ! :-)

:(

2007-04-13T18:20:00.000+05:30

:( will miss u..

Waynad trek..

2007-04-10T17:48:00.000+05:30

[March 31st,2007]

Always wanted to go to Waynad, had got lot of opportunities - Finally grabbed this chance..
Went with a totally new group of people and it was good fun !! really sweet people and great fun to be with - felt like a part of them at the end of it.

Meeting people on a trek/trip makes so much of a difference in levels of knowing a person..i feel on a trek, you really gel along [not every time but most of the times] well and get to know people really well - age, caste nothing really matters.. its really different from meeting people otherwise.. i got one more gang now :-)

As for me, i had a grt time !! we did Meenmutty to Neelambur on day 1 and Edacal caves on day2 instead of chambra peak as planned. This was tough thing to do and i totally enjoyed it..!! brought back the memories of the days when we used to do the tough ones..with not much comfort and not enough sleep...got the taste back ;-) and the pain after the trek....ahhhaaa...very sweet..totally enjoyed it at every step !! and guess what, this trek made my ligament hurt disappear !! damn cool haan..!?! ;-) This was my "test trek" after four months and i passed [fingers crossed, have to do the big one yet !!] and this was the first time ever i went to work on a Monday after a trek on weekend !!! :D

while leaving for the trek, i totally forgot my cam at office :( have to say, this was THE worst preparation i have ever done for a trek, forgot my tools [chaku churi ;-)] and medicines also :( but managed somehow.. as for cam, as usual i picked up cam from friends and the results are quite satisfying :-) BTW, click the tittle for pics :D they have the story in them i need not say more. Looking forward to more treks with you guys :-)

New field of adventure :D

2007-03-30T17:02:00.000+05:30

salwar with dupatta, bindi, ear studs changed, kajal...
thats my new field of adventure :D
just something new to try out n trust me its FUN.
i love the expression, when someone sees me-shocked :D

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

2007-03-30T15:38:00.000+05:30

After having many ups n downs over past two weeks and lack of sleep [i hardly slpet :(], yesterday was a MIRACLE day !! was really very happy !! felt FREE, was so happy that, i wanted to JUMP as high as possible n SHOUT in my loudest tone and tell the whole world that i am happy [ trust me only i know how i controlled myself :D] was so happy that i cudn't even eat [cud eat junk tho :D]or even sleep properly..!!! [:-O wata crazy nut i am !! :P]

its just my first step, not sure if i will be able to cross the river but i am happy still :-) :-)

FEVER !! CRICKET FEVER !!

2007-03-15T11:37:00.000+05:30

hmmmmmm...now that Cricket - World cup has begun [ realised this only today :( ] and considering the match timings, i think Cricket fans must be having a TOUGH time.. poor people JUST cannot miss on the matches and they HAVE to work during the day also... but this might be similar to the late night working routine for some software engineers, but this time you cannot tell your boss that you came late, since you were watching the match :-) its a different case if your boss also comes in late, but he might still ask you this question :D

I have kinda lost interest in this game, but i still find it FUN to watch it with a huge group of people around, its really fun !! here are few instances..

-- long long very long ago, i was watching a match [ did you just ask which match..? cricket of course DODO, look that title again :P :-)) ] with family [ all four of us at home :-O] and my mom was blaming both my dad and bro for saying things suddenly, which coincidentally used to come true most of the times :-))

-- once with friends, one friend was actually blaming another friend of ours for sitting at a particular place while watching the match, 'coz whenever he used to sit at that place, India wouldn't play well... :-)) beat that !!

[ya ya i know, that's two posts in a row..!! but i am in NO mood to work today, after working my ass off yesterday !! :P ]

Anger X-(

2007-03-15T10:44:00.000+05:30

Anger Management is something I need to learn these days.. boy ! i have changed !! initially i could control it..but now..i get furious..!! just cannot control my anger.. and when it hits the RED line..thats it, i cry :( totally unbearable !! [wierdo haan?]
i generally avoid talking to anybody when i am angry...but if you still insist, you might be the victim for all my anger..
These days when ever I get angry, ALL i can think of is a GUN and LICENCE TO KILL !!!!!

and I also get irritated very soon these days :-S

wonder what is the reasont for all such changes :-S :-S :-S

:-) :-) :-) :-)

2007-03-09T15:30:00.000+05:30

Happy hap hap happy happy !!
just feeling happy today ! very happy ! for no reason ! :-)
if you know my mood swings, and you are aware of SMI, then am right now at 8.98 :-))
just feel like dancing in the middle of the road !!! :-O :D
dont wanna loose any time !!
lets go !!
wanna come..? hop on ;-)

[PS: nope, i have NOT gone bonkers :P]

[CODE: wanna read this post...?? you need to work a bit HONEY :-))]

Holi FUN pics :-D

2007-03-07T14:28:00.000+05:30

Holi..!!

2007-03-06T13:22:00.000+05:30

Holi..!! Had been to mysore last weekend,
and best was part - Holi was on the same weekend !!
After having a relaxing saturday, came [s]funday :D me, anu and vicky were
supposed to meet all our other frnds at Aleem's store at around 11. Aleem [DUH] didnt even realise that we wud play holi, even after we telling him that holi is on sunday and not saturday..!!

After yummmy breakfast, me and anu attacked Sangeetha aunty first, uncle second and then vicky!! :D and very soon hall was in a mess !!
and just when the devil mind was hunting for the next bakra, aunty gave a hint, she was talking about her neighbour - Rama aunty ! huuahahaha.. both me n anu barged in her house [i wud like to metion that we were meeting her for the first time ! :-))]. we knocked and she came wearing a white sari !! hehehe perfecto ! but she let us put colour on her very sweetly - guess she was shocked to see us barge in like that :-D and after this she even posed for a pic ! very sweet aunty :-)

okie time to head towards our main adda.. just before going, i put all the colour i was holding onto Sangeetha aunty :D and grabbed the pack of colours, so there was no way she could put some back on me !!
after i was done, she came close to me and i just looked at her wondering what she was upto..

me looking at her [there is nothing u can do, i have all the colours !]
aunty looking at me [am smarter than u think girl !]

she said she wanted to hug me !! [hmmmm.. now why would she wanna do that considering what i had done!] only after she hugged me, i realised that she was transferring all the colour i had put on her cheeks onto my cheeks !!
boy! that was a smart move !! i realised this in sometime and could not
stop laughing !! :-))

we then headed towards anu's x-pg place, where our next targets were waiting for us ;-) gayithri and vibhor ! hehehahaha ! but they went a step ahead of us..! gayithri got besan to put on our face and vibhor got water ! their house was in a bigger mess !!
we soon ran out of colours.. so we teamed up with bala [who had enough stock of colours] and went to our adda - aleem's store..and wat do we see..two scapegoats :-)) both aleem and bharath neatly dressed !!

have to compliment Aleem here - he was looking damn smart ! ;-)
too bad we didnt take his pic at this time else i cud have uploaded his "before" and "after" pics !! :-)

they said they have a meeting with a client and can't play holi with us untill 5 in the eve !! :-O and they thot we wud buy this hah ! bharath managed to escape but aleem got caught and very soon he was all colours :D at this point some kids also joined us..

after playing for a while, we all just sat down and were trying to call sheersha and bharath..and SPLASH !! sharath put a bucket full of water on anu :D !!we asked sheersha to come to the store and we saw bharath talking to a client very close to the store ! oops ! so there was a client indeed..!! big deal its holi today!

so all of us just waited untill bharath was done with his client.. bala was waiting just behind the tree very close to where bharath was standing, vicky n sharath were behind a car and aleem, me, anu and others were inside store waiting for bharath.
As soon as bharath was done talking and said bye to his client, we attacked him..!! now he was one of us and we were all waiting for sheersha to come..! he had no clue wat we had in store for him !! mean while sharath was getting very naughty ! he went on pouring coloured water on everyone !! and there was this naughty kid who jumped and broke an egg on bharath's head ! :D
oh yes, this is getting even better !! i was pulling bahrath's leg asking him how does it "feel" to have egg on his head !!

now everybody wanted to catch hold of sharath, who was pouring water n
colours on everyone !! i went towards him, as if i really had to talk to him, i was
telling him that i dont have any colours with me..and SPLAT !! i got a egg on my head too ! :( i turn around to see it was that naughty kid !!! giggling away Grrrr... i cudnt even catch hold of him :( now i know how it feels to have egg on ur head [ it stinks of course !!] anyways..it was quite clear that everyone wud get an egg on their head :P
both sheersha and avinash, who were invited and had no idea about
wats gonna happen to them, managed to escape :( but no porbs! some of us chased avinash and then we all dropped in sheersha's place !! after dropping in prithvi's house !! :D the way prithvi got egg on his head was amazing !!

he had already given avinash's head good conditioning and was thinking who next holding another egg in his hand.. vicky made him put egg on himself !! :-)) that was some fun !
hmmmm now we were all at sheersha's place..the prob was all of us had egg on our head and we cudn't get inside 'coz sheersha is a very strict bhramin.. we put colours on his wife and kids..but he just didnt come out...finally me, vicky and aleem went in n colured him !! :D

and for the grand finale.. sharath got a bucket full of colured water !! hah !!
FINALLY !! :-)) all satisfied and sadistic smile !! :-)

while roaming around the city in cars n bikes we all looked like a huge group of rowdys:D and i was really very tempted to put colour on the traffic police guys, white shirt n white hat..verry tempting ! but i dint take the risk :P

and YES it took a lot of efffort to get rid of all those colours..but its fun to have the hangover with pink n purple nails and having my scalp multicoloured..! :)

This holi was just too good, after so many years, played like a kid ! last time i totally enjoyed holi was sometime in school.. SOME FUN ! :-)

love like a dog !!

2007-02-22T17:57:00.000+05:30

now that's a crazy topic - that's what u thinking right ???
read on and u might agree with me, if u have a pet or have seen them closely :-)
Have u ever wondered, how dogs manage to love you so much so unconditionally?? they run to you with the same amount of love and happiness every time you come home, no matter what the time is, no matter after how long you come..no matter how many times you are in a bad mood when u have come back and not given him/her a response - just wonderful !!

i got lucky at home, yes he is called lucky :-) and he is a darling !! what amazes me is the way he tires to communicate without actually having a language to do so..

~when he wants to go out, he runs to me and then to the door and he does this several times..phew so much effort just to say that he wants the door open.

~when i am feeding him [even tho he can eat by himself, i like to feed him
sometimes], he picks the food so gently from my hand, taking care not to hurt me - such a sweetheart !

~when he is enjoying his nap on the sofa [which he knows he is not supposed to do] and he gets caught, he goes back to his place and just raises his eyes to look at our reaction something like this pic :-))

~when i am feeling low, he just comes to me and pings me with his nose. as if he were wanting to know wat's wrong - or its just my imagination - it can't be same every time right..??
All such behaviours and many more just AMAZE me !! how i wish i understood his language, knew exactly what he is thinking.. don't u think the way they love is wonderful???

some more Goa stories..

2007-02-15T19:06:00.000+05:30

This was our gang at Goa, can u see everybody..?? :D cool haan?

saw these two dogs playing every morning, found them really very sweet :-)

awesome jeep huh?? ;-)

This hired jeep, which had poor brakes and very tough gear system, was our mode of transport anywhere in Goa.. now coming to the jeep story..

Seeing how comfortably both daddy and saumya drove this jeep, i wanted to try my hands on it.

After visiting the church, with lot of pleading and begging, i got the keys from daddy and yuppie i was damn happy !!

I started with reversing the jeep :D and guess what !!! in all that excitement, i forgot where the brakes were !!! eeks !!! i could have even held the clutch but nope !! i went blank and was about to bang into a two wheeler parked behind..!! dileep ran and moved the two wheeler a bit and meanwhile daddy jumped into the jeep and put brakes !! [thank god they worked ! maybe 'coz we were just outside the church :P] and Mr ranga was trying to push the jeep from behind with all his "power" !!! :-))

Finally, jeep came to a halt...phew !! now i tried shifting to first gear and what the hell !! i could not even move the gear stick by an inch !! not even with both my hands :( [really wonder how did daddy and saumya managed to drive that thing !! boy they must be strong !!]

that was it !!! end of it !! that was my last chance with the jeep :((
Ahem Ahem...
This pic of mine got so many compliments that it just won a place in my blog !! saumya has uploaded this pic in her space and she calls it "pretty woman" now what can i say... saumya NEVER lies :D
Though both daddy and saumya claim that they have taken this pic, all i care about is "woow, ur pic looks damn cool" compliments :-))

Valentine's day - Japanese ishtyle !!

2007-02-14T13:22:00.000+05:30

You wont even imgine how it is like in japan.. read on..

Met a Japanese over lunch and topic at lunch today had to be Valentine's day :-) so we asked him about how it is like in Japan..

It seems that on feb 14th, the females gift the males [poor him, he is missing it this year !!:D]
we were kinda surprised to hear that and as a curious cat prashi had to ask if they had a day where men gift the other sex, for which kushal replied within a blink of eye that "oh yes rest of the days " :-))

The Japanese guy then told us that they have another day called white day on march 14th,
when the guys gift women.

Pretty neat huh !?! :-)

FASCINATING..!!!!

2007-02-12T10:28:00.000+05:30

Had been to areo show here in Bangalore on sunday and was completely freaked out !!

Well this was my first time [ya ya, somehow missed it all these years :P] and with what my parents and friends had told, i was expecting a HUGE maddening crowd, day being sunday and last day for the show, crazy trafic jam and loads of dust flying around !!

To my surprise, there was no traffic jam !! there was quite a bit of traffic but it was flowing smoooth, the way to parking area [which is supposed to be totally dusty] had water sprinkled,so that dust reamins settled down, parking was very well organised, about four entry checkup gates to avoid bottlenecks...

was there no crowd or i didnt feel it !?! boy, i was totally impressed..!!!!

So, we reached on time and were just waiting for the show to start. Daddy, i mean Karthik, was giving us some info about all different kinda planes and choppers and about his poster and plane model collections and aero show caps and T-shirts.. blah blah blah.. :-) This was his 6th time for the aero show and he was totally enthu as if it was his first time !!
hmmmm SOME passion for it !!

As we were talking, we saw a chopper flying, we thought it was just practicing, and VVOOOOOAAAAHHHH !! saw some ten of them skydiving !! well cannot call it skydiving exactly, 'coz it wasn't from that great height for having a decent amount of free fall, well can say parajumping ! but watever it was, it was breathtaking !!

I was envying them so much - was almost in tears :(
am waiting for the day when I get to skydive.

Anyways, the show had started, and after all those LUCKY BUMS landed on ground, we all moved further ahead and took positions, all set with our cams. Initially there were some choppers flying, with some commandos doing stunts [while they were going back, we waved at them and was so so happy to see them wave back !! :D we were such kids !!].

After the choppers and the Sarang team performing beautifully, came the fighter planes..!!

The Sukhoi -30, F16-Viper, F18-Eagle and the Mig-35 :-O :-O :-O :-O

MIG-35 performing the famous cobra stunt..!!

boy, wat sexy planes !! wata ROAR !! and wata feeling !! absolutely stunning !! no words !! wish i knew much more about the planes what all they have inside them to appriciate them more. i was totally bowled over..!!

and YES i do envy Mr. Ratan Tata a LOT for having that OOOOSSSSUUUUMMMM ride for bloody 40 mins !!!! :-O :-O boo hoooo wata LUCKY *** !!!!!!! wish i had so much money !!

some pilots were a good sport and friendly...few waved back, and one even came with the cockpit open and he had the plane's tail fins moving up and down :D :D how sweet !!

There was gr8 music playing all along and i was dancing on the chair thro out :D
had an AMAZING TIME !! will never forget MY FIRST AERO SHOW :-)

OVER AND OUT ;-)

Love them !

2007-02-09T09:23:00.000+05:30

Love these two pics !!

Thanks a ton Daddy and Kushal :-)

pickup lines ;-)

2007-02-08T16:48:00.000+05:30

very funny !! liked the third one the most hehehehe :D

1. Excuse me, do you have a band-aid coz I scrapped my knee when I fell in Love with you...
2. How come you are not tired? You have been running through my mind all day...
3. Do you believe in Love at first sight or should I walk by again...
4. Excuse me... Do you have a map coz I am lost in your eyes...

do let me know if anyone of you tried them ;-) all the best :D

2007-02-01T16:45:00.000+05:30

i dont feel like doing anything !
dont even feel like doing nothing !!

2007-01-31T17:14:00.000+05:30

Fight !!

has this ever happened to you..?
your heart "thinks" in a certain way and your mind "feels" in a different..??
and you are the one who gets screwd :-S
man what a tough war !!
just a phase..

2007-01-29T19:23:00.000+05:30

Crazy !!
Just came back from Goa this morning - it was one hell of a fun trip !!
we did nothing JUST N-O-T-H-I-N-G !!

Apart from breakfast, lunch and dinner [phew ! so much work!], we did a bit of water sports
[just loved the waterbiking-very thrilling-esp. for me 'coz am damn scared of water :-O !!] , i feel like buying it but it costs around 7 lakhs :-S

With great difficulty visited a church - love the feeling in there.
i love the Cross [have no idea why] and love Marry [feel like hugging her].

Guess all the humidity and heat made us all lazy :P, i didnt even touch my camera all along the trip..! can u believe that..?? :-O - am scared if i am loosing intrest in photography :-O
so no pics right now..will upload some later.

loved walking on the beach-feels very good-esp in the eve, and nothing like dancing with your music on at nite-cold water tickling your feet :-)

We went to club cabana one night and they didn't let stag's entry :(
they let non-Indian stags tho X-( which was very sad !! i get the point but then how can generalize to such an extend..!! anybody can misbehave for that matter :P anyways that was a sad story..

guess what..!?! i saw dolphins ! had gone for a walk early morning, after seeing sunrise was just lazing at beach side n there.. saw a dolphin-was very happy to see them so close to shore..there were two of them..this was my first time..i didnt even have to go on the cruise to see them :P

one more strange thing was the sea shells.. each of them had a different pattern !! felt like someone was drawn them n put them back there.. really very strange -had never seen such a thing..some of them even looked like some kid had scribbled on them..watch out for some pics later..

while we were making sand castle, one eve, met an australian - Peter. He had pretty blue eyes :-) he caught my attention 'coz he was picking up all the trash people had thrown on the beach and he was not an Indian. I was wondering why he was doing so.. and thought that he must be a part of some NGO. but i was shocked to know that he was on 3 weeks holiday and he did this every morning and evening !!
he has been visiting Calougote beach since 20 years and he says that it was the most beautiful beach back then - can u believe an australian saying that..? they have amazing beaches there..

man..any Indian should be ashamed to see someone else cleaning our beach.. :( :(
it was nice talking to him - very friendly person. The first thing he said when he got to know that we all were from bangalore was "call centers??" :-)) so thats what they think about us :-)

hmmmm..that's all for now.. this was my first time to Goa and i just loved it.. would love to stay there for a while..

2006-12-27T10:41:00.000+05:30

INSPIRING !!

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
and if I am not for others, what am I?
and if not now, when?"

Read this on the first page of a book called "Delhi is no far" written by Ruskin bond, liked it a lot,
so thought of sharing it. This is my second attempt to read a book/novel - books without
pictures, as i see them. I read about 30 pages within 12 hrs !! which is a pretty
good improvement for me, as comapred to 15 pages in about two months..!! that was my first
attempt sometime during my college :D

2006-11-30T20:49:00.000+05:30

KIDS THESE DAYS !!

Nov 25th, sat, afternoon..

I was on my way to sanjayanagar and was waiting for an auto at ganganagar.
heard a sweet voice saying "where do u want to go?" i looked around n then down to see a kutti girl, almost half my height..

The conversation i had with this little girl totally amazed me..!! read on..

Kid[k]: Where do u want to go?

me[m]: Sanjaynagar.

k: Can u share auto with me..?

m: sure! where do u wanna go.?

k: Sanjaynagar near food world.

m: r u waiting for someone..?

k: no, i am alone. I am waiting frm sucha long time n there r no buses coming
this way..so, i thot i will take auto.. minimum they charge is 5Rs.

m: ok, y there r no buses..?

k: there is some accident hapnd there, thats y no buses frm half an hour
[poor thing i thot to myself]

m: ok, lets take an auto.

we were waiting for auto and just then a bus passed by..

k: why didnt the bus stop..?

m: coz, this is not the bus stop. its shifted a bit further frm here.
do u wanna walk up..?

k: [shrugging her shoulders] no problem ! better than waiting here..

we started walking..i just felt like walking with her n talking to her..
felt something diff abt her..

k: wats ur name?

m: shilpa, wats urs?

k: palak [witha sweet smile]

i made her walk by my side towards the sidewalk and asked

m: how come u r travelling alone..?

Palak[p]: I finished my school, didnt get any bus for long time. so, went to my
aunty's place, had lunch, then called up mom n now going home back.

m:ok, but how do u manage travelling alone..? u r too young to travel alone..

p:[shrugging her shoulders] someday i have to start travelling alone, y not frm
now..? at this age..?

m: [:-O totally stumped !! had nothing to say !!] oh yes, that's good..

[1st thing came to my mind was - wat was i doing when i was this small..?? ]

m: which std r u in..?

p: 6th std.

m: which school..?

p: Sindhi high school.

after a while..

p: [proudly] i dont know much abt this area. i have been staying here frm one
year, but still i can manage to travel.

m: i used to stay here beofre..so i know the area very well..

p: [immediatly] u were staying in own house..?

m: [fell flat..!! - which kid wud even think abt it..???] nope, we were staying in
rented house. now i stay in a diff place.

p: that must be ur own house.

m: yes..[still flat..!]

there was some fire lit up to burn the dried leaves by the road n it was almost
dying..this kutti brave thing started to throw stones at it trying to put it off..!

m: wat r u trying to do..?

p: trying to put it off..there r so many bacterias in that and they r all dying !!!

[my jaws were hanging...!! ppl dont care abt dogs on roads..forget that they
dont even care for ppl..!! i was totally stumped to see someone care for bacteria
and that too this little kid..!!]

i pulled her saying its almost burnt...and we walked further..we saw some street
kids shouting at each other..

p: [seeing them] i feel so sad for these kids, and also for child labour.

m:[still ina state of shock..just nodded my head n said] yeah...

p: will u donate ur eyes after u die..??

[it was as if she was nailing me on my head n i was getting shorter n shorter..
i had always thot of doing it..but had forgotten abt it n had never done anythng
abt it..]

m: well..i shud be donating...

p: am going to donate my eyes once i die.. also each n every possible part of my
body.. u can donate ur eyes with Sindhi Seva samithi she told me..

[i was completely silent n was just wondering how the little brain thinks..!]

she continued..

p: if a blind person can see after we donate our eyes, its so good na..?

m: yes.!

we finally reached the bus stop..

p: what do u do.?

m: i work for Motorola.

p: Motorola..? comapny..,? fone comapny..?

m: yes. [guess she figured that out frm Tv Ads..Trust me TC has a huge effect
on kids]

p: so, today is holiday for u.?

m: yes. wat abt u..? u had half day today..?

p: nooo..we have our annual day coming up and its 78th anniversary for Sindhi
Seva samithi..so we have this play to perfom and i went for practice today.

m: ok.

i asked her exact location of her house n she told it just perfectly..!! was happy
to find out that her parents have tot her so many useful things..

p: so, where r u going now..?

m: to meet my doc.

p: where do u stay now..?

m: near yelhanka.

p: [raising her eyebrows] u stay that far n u have come here JUST to meet ur
doc..????

m: errrrr...yes.[need i explain how i felt..??]

p: can i see ur handset..?

m: sure [HANDSET..??? boy wat lingo they use..!!]

P: can i play a game..?

m: this fone doesnot have games dear.

[i was surprised to see her comfortably navigating thro all the menus..some of
my frnds find it difficult even now.. :-S ]

she st. away went to java world n then to downloads n asked

p: can i download a game..?

m: [had no idea wat to say !!! i myself didnt know i cud do that on my fone :(
man they r smart..!! ] no dear..let it be..

p: how much will it charge just 10 to 15 Rs right..??

m: dont know but let it be..

finally a bus came n we got in n soon there was one vacant seat. i offered her
the seat [dug my own grave !!] n guess wat she said..!!!!

p: u r old, so u sit..!!

[:(]

m: i am not that old dear..pls sit.

p: [raising her eyebrows] well.. u r older than me.!!

m: i shutup n sat.

i was really impressed by her..n thankfully THE END to all the high voltage
shocks..!! man kids have all the time to think abt the whole world..!! u feel so
teeeny tiny in front of them when they ask some simple Qs n u just cant answer
them..!! i really wonder how the generations r going to be down the line....!!!