2012

The makers of 2012 have timed the release of the movie perfectly; when everyone is so very curious about what’s in store for them in the unfortunately near future. Roland Emmerich brings unto you what the end of the world would look like, in a realistic, thrilling atmosphere.
2012 is a movie based on what scientists think will happen to, not a city, not a country, but to the whole world on 21st December, 2012. It revolves around a middle aged man Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) and his family, who miraculously dodge disaster after disaster, when everything behind them is quite literally falling to pieces. While a global calamity brings the world to an end, the survivors heroically struggle to keep the human race from extinction.
John Cusack has acted fairly well and so has Amanda Peet, who plays Jackson’s ex wife. The two kids in the movie, Morgan Lily and Liam James have also expressed themselves well. I liked the creepy guy, Charlie Frost (Woody Harrelson), for his simplicity and great acting. What I disliked about the movie is how everyone is so melodramatic. It was a little over-the-top, making it unreal. Be it the President or the Science Advisor of the President, nobody is going to make an emotional speech when a colossal tsunami is going to hit your ship within the blink of an eye.
The most astounding part in 2012 is that one explosion or earth quake has more buildings and trees and cars collapsing than in a million Hollywood movies put together. The graphics are amazing! Visual and sound effects are the best part of the movie. You feel like you’re flying along with Jackson Curtis, ducking every time a tree or a giraffe (heh) comes your way. If you watch the movie in a 3D theatre you’re sure to go insane.
It is alarming to think of all catastrophic implications the end of the world might have. It is downright frightening to visualize all the things that will be destroyed. Sure, if you use “Earth” as a general term it doesn’t sound so bad. The way the destruction of each little important part of each country is shown is overwhelming. Like the Wonders of the world, Mount Everest, St.Peter’s Church in the Vatican City, the White House, Yellowstone National Park, Caesar’s Palace at Vegas, I mean all that effort gone into building these enormous structures and the respect the buildings have somehow earned going down in flames raises goose bumps.
So 2012 isn’t a movie that’s gonna slap you in your face and say “You are doomed” with a booming voice, neither is it a movie that will just go over your head. It might make you put your thinking cap on and go “why”. Funnily, my friend and I were really happy after the movie, simply because we were alive and nothing else I suppose. All in all a great thriller; a good watch; will keep you at the edge of your seat till the end! Three on five.

Wake up Sid!!

Main apne saamaan ke saath ek choti si khwaab layi, writer banne ki. :)
I’m so glad I watched the first day, first show of Wake up Sid. What with the ridiculous speculation going on about Sid having referred to “Mumbai” as “Bombay”, the movie might even be banned for a while. Go take a hike Raj Thackeray. Coming to the movie, the director Ayan Mukerji has done incredibly well for a debut in directing under the guidance of Karan Johar. The atmosphere of the movie is a lot like that in Dostana, bar the perverted acts.
Wake up Sid is about a young about-to-graduate lad, who goes astray with his friends after joining college. Sid, (A fan of Arsenal!) son of a well-heeled business man, is an immature boy stuck with a Peter Pan syndrome. This spoilt rich brat befriends Aisha, who has come to Bombay (In your face Raj Thackeray! :P) from Calcutta to become a writer. She is mostly craving for freedom and to be able to stand on her own feet and that. Quite obviously, Sid and Aisha become best of friends. The story is a platitude of any other Romantic Comedy in Bollywood, but very realistic and a lot people will definitely be able to connect to it.
Ranbir Kapoor has acted well. I suppose he didn’t have much acting to do because he was just being himself. He looks slightly tipsy all the time. He does NOT look gay in the movie. His t-shirts are to die for! Need I say about Konkona Sen Sharma’s acting? She is expressive as always and looks better than in her other movies. They make their friendship look very natural.
Everyone in the movie has done a good job. The Mumbai Beat office in the movie looks exceptionally innovative; very alluring. The background scores are not very appealing. It almost goes unnoticed. The movie sort of gives a new hope to people out there who think they are good at nothing. It also makes you forget about the devastation caused by rain and look at the monsoons positively for a while. The story is damn predictable but has a nice feel to it. A simple and sweet movie and for a change, a good movie which is safe enough to watch with your whole family. Hehe. Three on five.

A Clockwork Orange

“Hi hi hi there”! A Clockwork Orange is an English movie directed by Stanley Kubrik based on a book by the same name. His last movie was Eyes Wide Shut, starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. According to IMDB, his other movie Full Metal Jacket, is as good as A Clockwork Orange, both being rated 8.5 on 10. A Clockwork Orange stars Malcolm McDowell playing the protagonist, Alex. I was surprised to find that McDowell has done voice-overs for a wide range of cartoons, including my favourite ever cartoon Phineas and Ferb. He has also appeared in TV series HEROES and Entourage.
It’s a tad bit hard for me to write a review on A Clockwork Orange because the movie is very peculiar. It is about a young school going boy Alex, who along with his ”droogs” Georgie, Pete and Dim, goes about his town, wreaking havoc by making outrageous sex offenses. He assumes the surname DeLarge after successfully luring two girls from a music store to sleep with him. Being the leader of his fellow “droogies”, he becomes a “malenky” bit too bossy, his mates betray him and he gets caught by the police, being accused of murder. After two years in prison he volunteers for a therapy that will allow him to get out of prison in a fortnight’s time. The therapy sort of rehabilitates him by creating an aversion in his mind against any sort of crime. So according to the treatment, he is made to “viddy” destructive and violent movies and as a result of it, he gets struck by a wave of nausea and a load of negative reactions in response to “ultra-violent” crimes.
The very first scene in the movie is so bizarre. The first few minutes are very disturbing and might make you want to stop the movie, but once you make it through those petrifying minutes, you’ll be fine. The most eccentric scene in the movie in my opinion is when he is undergoing the therapy. It’s scary and idiosyncratic. The idea of the fake eyelash to make Alex look atypical and mysterious totally works. The intensity of the scenes towards the end is hair-raising! The background scores, a lot of it being Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Symphony9 blends in perfectly. You’ll find a rather strange variation of the British accent and peculiar form of slang among the teenagers. Best if you watch it with subtitles! Alex DeLarge’s character is solid and influential. (The Joker’s character from Dark Knight is inspired by Alex’s character) The movie completely deviates from the normal thriller or drama movies. Very unusual and different. An extraordinary, brutal masterpiece! Four and a half on five.

Twilight (The movie)

I know it’s too late, I wanted to write it anyway.
What on Earth were they thinking when they made the movie!! It looked like the director, Catherine Hardwicke had a good idea in her mind but the movie turned out completely different, possibly, the opposite.
Twilight is a romantic story based in a fictional town in Washington called Forks, It revolves around the lives of Isabella Swan, mommy’s little girl and Edward Cullen, a vampire. Bella is pale and dull, yet easily becomes the centre of attraction among the boys in Junior High. Edward Cullen is essentially the heart throb of all girls in Forks High School but is unconditionally in love with Bella. Their love leads to complications with others of The Cullens’ kind, and ends with a dramatic, suspenseful build up for the second movie.
Robert Pattinson has been given this supposed-to-be vampire-ish look, and it’s a disaster. He might look like a vampire, but almost everyone who sees him will immediately think he is homosexual. Heck Taylor Lautner (Jacob Black) looks more like a vampire without make up! Edward Cullen is supposed to be this real intense character, with impeccable features but I don’t think anyone who has read the book would appreciate Pattinson’s portrayal of the character.
Kristen Stewart, not a beauty contest winner, just another American face, has miserably failed to represent Isabella Swan from Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. She might look it, but she is just not it. She cannot act for nuts! She shakes her head a little too much and has the same expression when she is supposed to be able to clearly display a number of emotions. The facial expressions play such an important role in the book!
I just got a hunch that the actors might not have read the books at all to get a feel of the character. If you don’t want me to compare the movie with the book, fine by me. The movie, by itself, to a lay person, will be appalling. Nobody can act in the movie, nobody looks good, the viewer might be confused because too many things that need an explanation are taken for granted and the dialogues are not clear.
There was this particular scene I was shocked by. I was waiting with bated breath to see how they made Edward Cullen look in the sun light. The book gives a beautiful description of him-serene, beautiful, and other worldly, “you shine with the light from the sun” sort of description. There was no mention about silver sparkles poking out of his face in an obscene manner. The baseball game was presented well though, the only part of the movie that was shot well.
The background scores; I don’t even want to think about them. The music was positively appalling! To me, it was like a two hour Kannada movie. There was background music almost throughout the movie, where it was completely unnecessary and it wasn’t nice. The hero getting thumped by the villain before coming back to life was too Sandalwood. The movie is absurd and incongruous. I couldn’t wait until the movie got over. If you really have nothing to do but kill time, after having done all possible things that you can do, then go ahead and watch the movie. Otherwise, it’s not worth it. Half on Five.

I never got to say goodbye...

IN LOVING MEMORY
Thanks for all you’ve done
I’ve missed you for so long; I can’t believe you’re gone.
You still live in me.
I feel you in the wind, you guide me constantly.
I never knew what it was to be alone, no.
‘Cause you were always there for me,
You were always there waiting..
Now I come home and I miss your face, so.
Smiling down on me, I close my eyes to see, and I know,
You’re a part of me
And it’s your song that sets me free.
I sing it while, I feel I can’t hold on.
I sing tonight, ‘cause it comforts me.

I carry the things that remind me of you.
In loving memory of, the one that was so true.
You were as kind, as you could be.
And even though you’re gone, you still mean the world to me.
I never knew what it was to be alone, no.
‘Cause you were always there for me, you were always there waiting.
But now I come home and it’s not the same, no.
Feels empty and alone, I can’t believe you’re gone.
And I know,
You’re a part of me and it’s your song that sets me free.
I sing it while, I feel I can’t hold on,
I sing tonight, ‘cause it comforts me.
I’m glad I set you free from sorrow.
I’ll still love you more tomorrow and you’ll be here with me still.
What you did you did with feeling,
And you always found the meaning.
And you always will.
And you always will.

New York

“Buck Fush”. That’s the most captivating line in the newest Bollywood flick New York, starring John Abraham, Katrina Kaif and Neil Nitin Mukesh. Kabir Khan has made remarkable progress in movie-making after Kabul Express. Neil Nitin Mukesh has been given a nice sober look and of course, his acting is top notch. He is a typical lover boy of the 21st century. Katrina Kaif is like a fresh ray of sun light. She looks extremely beautiful and has expressed herself more clearly than in her other movies. As for the protagonist, John Abraham, he looks dashing as always and has performed well. He has vague expressions at some parts of the movie, but fits the role perfectly.

It is not possible to decide if New York is a movie about Terrorism or about the American FBI. I consider it the latter, given that the whole movie revolves around the life of three friends, whose lives change drastically due to the FBI’s doings, post 9/11. There are few twists in the movie but many scenes may shock you and antagonise you, especially the torture scenes; they have been shot very well. The basic plot of the movie is not very original. I rather felt they copied a few ideas from the Hollywood action flick The Departed.

The filmy gaane, as I always feel, was unnecessary. They don’t make a difference in the movie whatsoever. There are a great deal of scenes in the movie that underline the fact that New York is a Bollywood movie, like they three of them running on green fields, slow motion running and that. The movie might make you walk out of the theatre cursing George Bush and the FBI or might just make you unsure of what to think, because the main intention of the movie is not put across very clearly. All in all, an entertaining movie, worth watching once, with friends or family. I’ll give it three on five.

(The funniest part of the movie was when the guy in front of us yelled at Avi because she was talking too loudly. This was only when the advertisements were playing! Priyam got pissed off and told us to close our ears and told the ending of the movie loudly and the guy turned and said “Thanks a lot!” Priyam hid her smirk, smiled brightly looking at him and said “You’re welcome”. Haha!)

The awesomest creatures!

Kathleen and Simon, you guys rock!!
This was one of the coolest and best days of my stay in America. First of, my cousins and I went by ourselves to Los Gatos Downtown. Well, every county has a Downtown, which is pretty much like Brigade Road. Restaurants, showrooms, malls, etc etc. So ya, we went Downtown. We took a bus, a very colourful one, after a long wait! I think our coin rubbing magic trick to summon the bus actually worked. :P We went to Willow Street and had some cheesy pizza and pasta, followed by some delectable chocolate ice cream in Cold Stone. After walking back for around ten minutes we felt rather snoozy and called Suman aunty to pick us up. While we waited, we bought some root beer and water to quench our thirst. It was a pleasant day, but I was warm because I chose the wrong day to wear a jacket.
We were hardly back home when Suman aunty's friend came to pick us up to her friend, Kathleen's house, a nice big house by the country side, with a lot of animals in it. Perfect for me! Surabhi told me that they had a dog, Jazzmine and that was it. Little did I know that within and well, outside the residence too, there were two bearded dragons, a black mammoth lizard whose breed no one could quite recognise (it hissed angrily when it's shelter was taken off, creepy!), a snake, around eight goats, a cat - Black jack, an African Grey Parrot - Corky and around forty other birds. Unbelievable eh? Believe it! :P I was head over heels with excitement! Each and every animal had me astounded! I caressed Jazzmine and the dog next door - Champ, fed the goats and alpacas from my hand, spoke to Corky and petted the bearded dragons. Petting lizards of any kind had been one of my dreams (if you could call it that). I was up on the clouds when Kathlene put them in my hands. First I felt a little odd but then holding two reptiles in my hand felt so absolutely normal. Contrary to my expectations, the dragons had very dry and rough skin and were extremely well mannered. The didn't stick their tongues out and neither did they poop while they were in my arms. Hehe. Now that I have touched them, it is my dream to OWN one of them, although I don't foresee anything of that sort happening in the near future. Anyway, later we sat in the back yard, sipping some lemonade and munching on some strawberries, overlooking the freeway, reservoirs and hills that lay far away. I felt royal actually, sitting at such great a height in a comfortable hammock with my feet at ease in a foot rest. In a while Mr.Simon came along, after "playing around with some liquid Nitrogen' apparently and was introduced to us all. He greeted us in typical country style, "Howdy! How you doin?" Hehe. We got a tour around the house and saw beautiful paintings and mechanical toys that Kathleen had built herself. One of the coolest things in the house was the handwash in the restroom. When you turn on the tap, the water is bathed in blue light! How cool is that! Having a light inside the wash basin!! I am very glad to have met both of them, who are so talented and bounteous. We watched the bearded dragons through the glass, sticking out their tongue, mistaking our fingers for prey. Although they do nothing, they are entertaining and make amazing pets! If only I had spent more time with them, this post would be longer. Hehe. So long then!

It's a Small World

DISNEYLAND!!!
Yayy!! I was so happy when we left our home to LA! We readied ourselves with food and water for a six hour drive and I was impatient till we got there. As we turned around the corner of the house, my aunt saw in the rear view mirror that her red jacket had fallen, next she found a black jacket fallen on the road and then we all turned back to get a clear view of the road and all the jackets because the trunk door wasn't closed. We all had a good laugh! So that is how hasty we were while leaving! During our drive, we played Name Place Animal Thing and Food. Lol. I know, lame game, but it was fun nevertheless. We took freeway 101S, the longer but scenic route. We went to UC Santa Barbara, drove through the campus because there is a possibility of Surabhi going there next year. The campus is not very big but has lovely pink bougainvilleas in abundance. We stopped at a gas station and bought some Sour Skittles(Sllllurrpp!!), more sour candies and Cheetos. On our way, we found a temple and went in, but it was closed. We all prayed from outside and made our way out. Passing through river gorges, valleys, deserts, vineyards, canyons and reservoirs, we soon reached Malibu, the beachfront community in Los Angeles. It is just a tiny stretch of land and has houses built less than 100 yards from the beach, which unfortunately block the view of the beach. It is also known for the countless Hollywood actors that live on hill tops in beautiful, isolated, castle-like houses. Every time I saw a big house I would jump in my seat and say ''Do you think that is Jennifer Aniston's house?" "I think that is David Beckham's house!" It was so exciting! The beach was nice and warm. Sudarshan and I built a mountain and it never got washed off by the water until we left. 21 Miles of absolute scenic beauty I would say. We reached Los Angeles in no time and I started clicking away pictures of everything possible! Bill boards with celebrity's faces, *click* Fancy Stores, *click* Sunset Boulevard, *click click* Beverley Hills, *click click click click click*. Hehe. We parked in a mall from whose rooftop we could see Hollywood. It was a pity we couldn't see Universal Studios. We didn't have enough time. We went to Grauman's Chinese Theatre, located at Hollywood Boulevard. The theatre is most famous for it's concrete blocks, set in the forecourt, which bear signatures, hand prints and footprints of popular actors and musicians, from the 1920's till today. It was intriguing to see Hollywood's most priced assets' hand prints fit into a single square yard. There, I met Master Yoda, Sponge bob, Edward Scissor-hands, Jack Sparrow, a cowboy, some blacks doing their thing(street dance, they were amazing!), and more. The names of famous bands and actors were engraved on the pavement, so you could just keep clicking pictures of things you liked. After spending some more time there, we went hunting for our hotel room. We were so exhausted and there was so much traffic! I saw a limo with windows heavily tinted and I'm pretty sure there was a celebrity inside. It went riiight next to our car, next to my window and I got irritated because I couldn't see who was inside, so I made a face at whoever. Lol. I made the usual "sticking the tongue out" face. We saw UCLA from outside and Hollywood Downtown far away, one of the most prestigious places where Jennifer Lopez and others would do their shopping. After an hour through the city which has the maximum number of cars in America, we reached Best Western and checked in. We got the best looking room anyone had ever seen. Heck it wasn't a room! It was a suite! Surabhi made a joke "Sweet suite sweet!" Hehe. It looked so classy with a drawing room, a kitchen, a bedroom with two majestic black beds, the most comfortable restroom and that. We felt royal with two flat screen TVs, one in the bedroom and one in the drawing room. And we had two such suites!! Kickin' ass eh?! We started a pillow fight to mess up the room because it looked too clean. We watched TV for sometime while eating and after a nice hot shower, I went into a deep, royal slumber.

Disneyland day!! Everyone was ready and inside the car by eight thirty after a hearty meal, the complimentary breakfast. To feel more like we were on a holiday, we cut down on healthy food and had doughnuts, muffins and waffles for breakfast. Yummy.. We parked in the Pumba parking lot and waited for the Pumba shuttle to hitch us a ride to Disneyland! As we sat agitated in the shuttle, I kept looking out to see the entrance. I saw a board decorated with colourful balloons that said "Welcome to Disneyland". Trust me, the feeling is overwhelming! I was the first one to jump out of the shuttle when it stopped and run to the entrance where they were checking the tickets. We had printed tickets but the lady there fed the paper to the computer and gave me my very own Disneyland entry card with a picture of Goofy on it. I took my own time to take a good look at my first view of Disneyland. So many people, so many colours! There was a big flowery Mickey Mouse in the garden with Disneyland written beside it. It looked really pretty! Although it was quite early, there were many people and some wore Mickey ears while some wore Goofy hats. The place has such a happy atmosphere. Wasting no time we boarded the train to New Orleans Square and literally ran to the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, one of the best at Disneyland. Twenty enchanting minutes in a ship, surrounded by pirates who are basically out of their mind, shooting with laser guns randomly! It was so realistic! Next we went to the Haunted Mansion. We wanted to finish up the best rides before it could get crowded. A fat guy outside the mansion was trying to frighten all of us with his spooky stare and by saying "terrifying" things. Inside the mansion, about 50 of us were stuffed in a room and then transferred to another room with eerie pictures of creepy folks. After a while we were put in seats and sent on a ride. With freaky ghosts flying around and pianos playing by themselves, blood curdling screams coming from some corner of the mansion, it was thrilling! Our next adventure was on the Splash Mountain. You can figure out what kind of ride that is, right? It was super fun! I was really glad that my mum and aunts and uncle also joined us on the ride because as far as I know my mum doesn't even come close to such rides. We got all the wrong parts wet sitting on the ride and waited till noon to dry up. Hehe. Next we went on a Jungle Cruise in Adventureland with a rather peculiar and funtertaining guide! If not for the amusing guide, I think the safari would have been very dull. We got fast passes for Indiana Jones and moved on to Frontierland if I can remember right. We went on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, probably the fastest ride in Disneyland. You see Disneyland has unique rides! You will not find a normal roller coaster or giant wheel like in California Adventures or Great America or even Wonderla. The rides will transport you to an entirely different world! It is something that one must experience in his lifetime! We had lunch at Redd Rockett's Pizza Port, a giant pizza slice each and a little bit of salad. Since we had just eaten, we didn't want to go on any big ride, so Sudarshan and I went on Dumbo, the elephant (kiddie ride) and the rest of them went to the parade area. The parade happens every few hours and it is the happiest thing ever! First we heard the music, "Heyy, we love, we laugh, pumpin up the party now". God that song is so catchy! I totally love it! Then came the dancers, so full of enthusiasm! Surabhi and I could never get over the fact that those guys are so happy all the time and so full of energy. It was with great joy that we watched them and I taped the entire parade. We saw Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Pluto, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Chip and Dale, Mad Hatter and so many other characters! There was this part in the song where "Celebrate YOU" was sung over and over again, with the singer pointing it at different people and out of nowhere the singer pointed at me and my heart skipped a beat. :P I was mind-boggled! Hehe. I started giggling and felt like shouting "yay me!!" :P I felt very stupid after sometime though. I never wanted the parade to end. Later we went on "it's a small world". It is such a beautiful little boat ride. It's a heart rending song really and the little toys in there are so adorable! It's amazing that they have fit the whole of Earth under a giant clock. We went on many other rides like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Winnie the Pooh, Pinocchio, Tea Cups, Buzz Lightyear, Indiana Jones and in the Tiki Room. They were all so magical! We were spellbound by each and every ride! We also watched Honey I shrunk the audience in 3D. It wasn't all that great. I met Minnie mouse and got a picture with her and she let me see her house. I sat on her bed and at her table and ate her diet cookies. :P After an hour's wait, I met Mickey and saw his house too, and the little bed for Pluto that he has. Most exciting of all was when I saw Aladdin and Jasmine! I seriously flipped! Surprisingly, no one had noticed them and I ran to get a picture clicked. Aladdin looked so good and I blabbed "You guys are my favourite!" Disneyland is such a happy place! It makes you forget the rest of the world! Birds singing, flowers blooming around you, green trees swaying gently, colourful balloons everywhere, little kids running around with Princess clothes and Mickey walking around with a smile that never leaves his face; sounds like a dream, doesn't it? Well, if I have to describe each and every ride, it's gonna take me forever and I'd also be spoiling it for you if you intend to visit Disneyland in the near future. So I will not disclose much information about the rides. That night at Disneyland was the best night ever! We watched in awe as awesome lifelike creatures came soaring out of the water and amazing special effects ignited the night! Mark Twain's ship brought in it all Disney Characters you can imagine! It had the seven princesses and even pirates fighting for Davy Jone's treasure. I saw the best fireworks I had seen in my entire life! Rockets after rockets! I couldn't help but think of Diwali when all of us would lie on the terrace staring at the big black sky, waiting for someone to send rockets and light up the sky! Prerna would always scream on top her voice "If you love God, burst more rockets!" Hehe. Such a lovely sight! We were rooted at the spot looking at a Fantasmic show of fireworks! What brilliant formations in the sky! At the end of the show, the roads were covered with Mickey shaped confetti. It was all such a happy affair!

California Adventures is also an amusement park by Disneyland, much smaller and is just opposite to Disneyland. As soon as we got the Guide Map, I spotted an Aladdin Musical Theatre in it. I made it clear that I wanted to go there some time in the day. The first ride we went on was California Soarin'. Honestly, I thought the ride wouldn't be all that great but when we took off, it was simply amazing! I was so proud of myself that I had seen almost all the spots that we flew over. Such a sensational experience! Next we went on Grizzly River Rafting. The board at the entrance said "Caution:You may get wet." We knew what they meant when we sat in the ride. It was like rafting on a river, downhill. It was so much fun! All of us were dripping! Sudarshan and I chose to go again, and got drenched for the second time. Our next expedition was at California Screamin', a High Speed, 360 degree Roller Coaster ride. Since everyone else decided to ditch us, Sudarshan and I waited twenty minutes for a twenty second ride. It was wild! Mainly because we didn't know beforehand that it would go upside down. We watched two 3D movies, "it's tough to be a bug" and "Muppets". Both of them were excellent! The one with bugs was exceptionally good! We had lunch(Submarines) watching what was claimed to be a magic show. Later we went on Monsters Inc. ride. It was quite fun riding through their city, watching monsters that said "We scare because we care." Those monsters are so cute! Finally, the Aladdin Musical! We waited an hour to enter the theatre but the wait was totally worth it! I had no idea what the show/ride/movie/whatever was about! Only after it started did I realise that it was a play, the Aladdin movie. Even better I thought! The play was mind blowing!! The guy who enacted Genie was outrageously funny! When Aladdin saw Genie for the first time, he asked "Who are you?" Genie, being his sarcastic self said "Hi I'm Mac and you're PC". That got everyone cracking! The entire play was filled with jokes about modern movies and TV shows and all of them were so appropriate for the moment! They were all witty and perfect! Who knew Genie could be such a smart ass! The play was grand and superb! The part where Prince Ali is introduced to Agrabah was absolutely terrific! They presented huge man-made elephants and a whole parade before us and the dancers walked among the audience and astonished everyone. Aladdin looked as good as ever and even the carpet did it's role so well! The technical part of the play was most impressive. They made Aladdin fly on the magic carpet, they made genie appear out of nowhere. They made people disappear in a split second and Genie certainly surprised everyone with his spontaneity! Since Aladdin is my favouritest cartoon character, is was flabbergasted. All day I sang "A whole new world" and irritated my cousins. Hehe. Soon after the movie was over, we made one last trip to Disneyland, mainly to go all around Disneyland by train. It was quite interesting. We saw Dinosaurs and Canyons and all that. After that we went to the Disney store to buy some novelty stuff as souvenir. We were just in time to listen to the music at the parade and that sure did raise my spirits higher! After taking one last good look at Disneyland, we all made for the Lion King tram to get to Timon Parking lot.
I don't generally give advice to anyone, but take this. Go at least once to Disneyland, the place where dreams come true!
Disneyland. The place where happily ever after happens everyday.
Disneyland. The most magical place in the whole world.
Disneyland. A world within the world, without the world.

Lake Tahoe and Yosemite

Lake Tahoe is a large fresh water lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains of United States. After an hour's from Davis we reached the lake. Amma and I ran to the water as soon as we saw it and Ashok, the paparazzo came running behind us. Hehe. The water was a clear blue and we could see the bottom so clearly. It is supposed to be one of the cleanest lakes in the world. The lake was freezing though. I touched it once and my hands turned blue and started hurting! God was not on our side so he made the weather cloudy and it began to rain. For sometime we enjoyed the rain and appreciated the snow capped mountains in the distance. Before long, it began to pour and we had to get into the nice, warm, cosy car. We drove around the entire circumference of the lake until we returned to the point we started. It's not a short drive. We had to drive a hundred miles, from the South of Lake Tahoe to West, North, East and back South. It was a cheery drive, with the lake just beside the road, through tunnels and lovely trees everywhere. We even exited California and were in Nevada for a while. During the drive, we stopped at many vista points, one of which had a waterfall. We were on top of the waterfalland the water was roaring on it's way down the rocks. There was also the Fannette Island in the lake, the only island in the lake, also known by the name Hermit's Island. There is what is left of a Tea House built a long long time ago by some knight. After we got too cold we drove to a Diner called Denny's and had some Hash Browns and I drank hot chocolate. They are very generous with food, these Americans. All drinks have free refills!! Cool eh? They put whipped cream on my hot chocolate to make it look delicious and tempting and I got a kick out of just licking off the cream and getting whipped cream refills time and again. It was fun! There was some sort of a Renaissance festival going on around Lake Tahoe so a lot of people were dressed up in bulky costumes. I got a picture with a fat guy who had an awesome mug of beer in his hand! After some more driving we reached our shelter for the night, Best Western. It was the best room we had had so far. It was huge and comfy and had Lake Tanya shining under the sun just outside the window. The manager of the hotel, an Indian, overheard us talking about what we would have for dinner and offered to make some burritos for us for free. Good old man! Our hotel, I realised, was just one mile inside Nevada. Just next to our hotel, was a casino, that is where I had my dinner. I ordered for cheesecake imagining the yummy blueberry cheesecakes I eat in Bangalore. The waitress slammed a slab of cheese in front of me and poured strawberry sauce on it. Sigh! I didn't complain because I love cheese and I ate it happily. Later we went to the casino where I saw my aunt lose her mind! They didn't gamble at all in Las Vegas but they lost dollars over dollars in the Topaz Lodge Casino while I, being a minor, picked up some crayons that was kept for little kids and coloured up some fish. What a pitiful life! I saw some drunk females fighting over something, the result of which, security had to chuck one lady out of the casino. My aunt and uncle won some money but lost it again just for the heck of finishing off the cash. They actually spent almost two hours gambling in the casino! When we were about to exit, we went out the door and my uncle didn;t feel like leaving, he turned to go back inside but came out on second thoughts. I watched half of a lame Cheetah Girls movie back in the room and went to sleep.
The next day was Yosemite day!! We had a pleasant drive to Yosemite, with our surroundings giving competition to Switzerland and edging ever so close to the snowy mountains. Soon enough, we found snow just by the road and there were lakes formed by melted snow. It was simply too perfect! Beautiful blue lake, fur trees behind it and snowy mountains in the background. It was not even too cold! I jumped into the snow and oddly, started feeling hot. So I took off my jacket and made snow balls and started throwing them on people. It was so cool! I even put some inside my mother's jacket! Heehee! We walked around, fell down, got our shoes stuck inside deep snow, put handprints and shoe prints, wrote our names in the snow, made our hands numb and had so much fun! It was the best time I had had in a long time! Our next stop was at a spot from where we got a distinct view of the Half Dome, and that is what Yosemite is most famous for. We could also see the Bridal Veil falls, although it looked like a tiny stream of water coming out of a tap. Next we stopped at a higher point, close enough to the Half Dome, to see people climbing it. It's a pity we couldn't hike anywhere. Well, there's always a next time right? After ten minutes, we found ourselves walking through the woods towards the Bridal Veil falls. The water is blown away from the rocks because of the wind and hence the name, Bridal Veil. It was like a soft shower on. Amazing tranquility between the water, the trees and the animals. Ah!! Serenity!

Random places..

Over the next week, we went around Los Gatos and San Jose to malls and shopping stores. We went to the Westfield mall. It is one of those malls that has outlets all over California. We entered from the back door, so we were welcomed by the restrooms and storage rooms. Not very nice huh! The first store I saw was Hot Topic, a rock band tshirt store. Without further ado, I ran into it looking for Alter Bridge tshirts or of any other band that might interest me. The lady hadn't heard of Alter Bridge, so I lost my enthusiasm and got bored of the store, but still hung around there for half an hour. I saw a Disney store, Apple store, Swarovski store, etc. The most exciting of all, was the Dog Boutique. They have everything possible for a dog! Name tags, clothes, birthday cakes, shoes even! We mostly shopped at a store called Fanzz (I hate it when they use "z" unnecessarily!), which was a sports store. We bought some tshirts for a great deal and left the mall happily. We went to a store called Bed, Bath and Beyond. It is a vast store and one would take hours to walk around the whole store. As the name suggests, it has beds, things you would need in a bathroom, in your kitchen and more. Trust me, kids wouldn't wanna go there! Just beside Bed Bath and Beyond is a store called Diddams. It's the perfect party store. It has everything you need for a party and all the fun stuff possible.
We have been to so many more stores like the Dollar Store, Ross, Tuesday Morning, Michael's Crafts, Walmart, the Indian Store and so on. All these stores are unbelievably vast. We got really tired just walking around in the malls.
We also went to Sudarshan's school to watch their concert. It was so melodious. They played music from Pirates of The Caribbean and Terminator. I did not expect it to sound so good. It was mainly an orchestra of approximately 15 instruments and the chimes added such a grand effect to the entire show! The great music kept me smiling and happy all the time. We went to his school again after a few days for an award ceremony in which Sudarshan won the Math award and gained an acknowledgement in French. We went again, of course, for his graduation. All of us wearing traditional Indian clothes to be formal. It felt really awkward to be dressed in a Salwar where all other people wore beautiful and elegant gowns. We applauded my brother with great pride as he bagged the Most Outstanding Student award among over 300 students. It was a surprise for us as well as him. It was a moment to cherish!
We went to Davis by train to meet my cousin, Kavita didi. We boarded the train in Santa Clara and made ourselves comfortable for our four hour ride. We went by the bay at San Francisco and watched enormous ships sailing(maybe). I soon met my cousin and nephew and niece. They are the most adorable kids! They are so loving, they would always come and say "I love Swathi chitti" and give me a hug or two. We went to UC Davis too see the campus. So green, so clean. We saw s great deal of ducks and ducklings. I saw ugly black ducks following a beautiful white duck. Hehe. (I'm not being a racist!) I also went to Sacramento, the capital city of California, to see Arnold Schwarzeneggar's (you may call him Shivajinagar) office. I found it pretty ironic that Sacramento was the least cultured city among all the cities I have seen so far. Everyone was smoking, drinking, sitting on the pavement and behaving indecently. The Capitol stood out, white and majestic with the American flag waving proudly on top, just above the flag of California. We entered a dignified and well furnished lobby which had a grand statue in the centre. It had passages stretching on all four sides into various other rooms. The roof was translucent with coloured glasses giving the room a glorious look. We walked and ran on the marble floors, clicked pictures and intruded the government officials' privacy. I drank the same water that Schwarzehneggar probably drinks, from a water fountain and I was pleased with myself for that. :)
Hmmm... I have tried a great variety of cuisines during my stay here. I have had tacos, burritos, churros, pesto pizza, falafels, smoothies, all possible fruits like peach, persimmon, blueberries, truck loads of strawberries, pears, grape fruit, the sweetest moosambies and baby carrots of course. I have been eating a lot of fatty stuff like brownies, pastries, chocolates, ice creams, potato and a LOT of cheese. For the first time I had pizza with nothing but extra cheese on it with ketchup. Such a sinful meal! But I'm on a holiday, I'm going to eat all the junk I want to eat! Wow! Just reading this has increased my appetite. I'm going to have some grilled cheese sandwiches. Toodles!

The second weekend

Over the weekend, we went to Petaluma to visit a few relatives I had never met before. I made good friends with a five year old, Ashika. She is one big load of kinetic energy! She didn't let me sit still for even one second! We reached by night; so after a heavy dinner and some raspberry pastries, we jumped into bed. Surabhi and I hadn't had time in the past two weeks to catch up on important things. So we spoke till 2am and fell asleep without realising. The next day we went on a road trip to Redwood Forest. It was a three hour drive I think. It was a pleasant drive with greenery on either side of the road. We stopped at a rest area for a drink and somethings to nibble on.
The Redwood forest has some of the oldest trees in the world. They're so tall and their circumference is massive! Even six of us together could not hold our arms stretched around the tree. It's amazing how a full grown humongous tree can fall off in a flash when it gets struck by lightening. There were countless trees which had been uprooted or burnt. Even they looked good I must say. We went to a bench and ate all the food that we had and drank some juice. Sudarshan, Surabhi and I went exploring around the place into the forest. We jumped into ditches, climbed out, and kept away from poison oak. Just when we turned to go back, I heard the rustling of leaves and a brown and black snake scuttled just past me. It was so close, for all you know, it slid right over my foot! I was so overwhelmed that instead of moving away, I ran after the snake until I was told to stop. We spotted a lizard after that but I couldn't get a picture of it. We lingered around for an hour climbing trees, walking on narrow tree trunks that looked like bridges and admiring the beauty of the Redwoods. We found a small river that was as clear as crystal by the side of the road. Most of us took off our shoes to wet our feet and get them tickled by fish. Ashika was so captivated by the fish, she kept giggling all the time. She sounds really cute when she giggles. We drove back home. The weather was chilly and nice. There was a park before the house, so we slipped on jackets and went for a walk. We played Tag for a while, fooled around on the slides and monkey bars and petted other people's dogs. We came back home, racing each other (running), had a nice supper and made the bed. Unfortunately, making the bed was just a waste of time because Sudarshan and I had a pillow fight right from 9 till 11:30. It was so much fun throwing stuffed toys at him, hitting him, getting hit and all that.
The next day, we went to Berkeley. A very hilly city. The roads are so steep, it's crazy! We went to a summit, called Grizzly Peak. The view from above is not that grand because it's at a height of only 1,700 feet but the drive to the peak was super fun! It was fun because it was a single road that took us to an elevation of 1,700 feet! Imagine how inclined that road would have been! We all went "whoaaa" in the car as if we were ascending on a roller coaster ride. The worst and ironically the most fun part of it was, there were stop signs on that road! How do they expect us to stop and go forward on such a steep road! If you're a bad driver, consider yourself dead meat! Anyway, we finally made it to the top and watched the clouds making their way over the bay and hiding the Golden gate and the rest of Berkeley and San Francisco from view. By the time we could eat a couple of chocolates, we were in the middle of grey infinity.
So we boarded and started to our next destination, Napa Valley, Calistoga. There is an Old Faithful there. "Old Faithful" is the title given to geysers, which shoot out at regular intervals. There are apparently just four in the world and they claimed that this was one of them. Seshi mama refused to believe that it was a natural phenomenon because the geyser shot up every five minutes when we were there! It was a sight to see for the first time, but got boring by the seventh time. It was pretty much like a fountain. It was supposed to be boiling hot, but when I stood under it, the water was dead cold. We could see the smoke rising from the underground and all that but it was strange that the water was not even luke warm. It was there that I saw four horned sheep, llamas and goats. Lots of bamboo too.
That's about what we did over that weekend. Petaluma, Redwood forests, Berkeley and Napa Valley. Good times...

Can't think of a title

On Monday we went to Stanford University. I walked on the same roads where Bill Clinton's daughter had walked. I saw a monumental sculptural group by French artist Auguste Rodin, called The Gates of Hell. It was supposed to be depressing but my cousin and I laughed at them. I wonder why they would want to have something like that in an educational university. The campus is enormous and so green. I don't think anyone will feel like studying there. It is perfect for taking long walks or going cycling or for a picnic. We ate yummy potato sandwiches there, making fun of half dead or dying people, I mean the sculptures.
We went to Lucile Packard's Children's Hospital at Stanford for some work. The atmosphere of the hospital was very pleasant. There was a model of a city with which my mum was very fascinated. She walked around it for twenty minutes. The model had trains, tunnels for the train, an ocean, ships in the ocean, underwater life, the beach and people sun bathing, houses, a forest and people hiking. It had buttons which would either make the train whistle or a ship honk. Basically it was for little kids and it was very intricate.
After that we went to this store called Costco. It was more or less like Metro. They had everything that one would ever need! You name it, they have it! My cousin was really cheesed off because he hates the store. He decided to push the trolley and I decided to pull it. :P We walked around in the alcohol section for a while and then gave up the trolley. They have these tiny stalls in the store, where they give you samples of food. The store has several aisles and a stall at the end of every isle. We went to each and every stall and tasted all new stuff. It was quite fun actually. Free food is always fun! Hehe.

On tuesday, we went to Monterey. You must have heard of the place. It is a small county on the Monterey Bay. The ocean is completely restless at the shore because of the rocks underwater that they crash into. It's quite a sight! You could sit and watch the water splashing forever, ofcourse until you get sick of the smell. The sea weeds don't smell so great. You'll also find sea otters lying in the sun shamelessly in big numbers. But since it was their mating season, they had covered that part of the beach. Phew! I wouldn't wanna see that! Sure, underwater they might be the most graceful creatures, but out of water, they're so sloppy!
We went to 17 Mile Drive in Monterey. It is a very prestigious area with majestic looking villas and manors. The more expensive the houses get, the higher the fences go, so you can't invade their privacy. You'll find some of the most expensive and luxirious hotels and restaurants and one of a kind designer clothes and accessories. There are three or four golf courses in the city, one of which is the Pebble Beach. Apparently Tiger Woods plays there when he gets time. I was so thrilled listening to that! Most of the "city" is the Del Monte Forest, so the golf course goes through the forest and it also extends into the sea. Imagine how many times the golf ball can go flying off into the sea! There are Cypress trees all over the place and because of the strong currents of the wind, they're all bent in one direction or in a few cases, the trees just fall off. There is this one tree called the Lonely Cypress. It's a wonder that it is still standing! It has stood its ground on its rocky perch from 250 long years, and it is the tree closest to the ocean! 17 Mile Drive can easily be called "the greatest meeting of land and water in the world".

On Wednesday, we went to a Shiva-Vishnu temple in Livermore. It looked like any other big temple in India. It had idols of Krishna, Rama, Ganesha, Shiva, Vishnu, Lakshmi and others I can't remember. (You'll have to read all that with an American accent. Hehe.) There were few people in the temple. Someone had offered a bouquet of orchids to God. That is something different. No malli poo or shamanthige hua. The pujari did something really funny and I've never seen anyone in India do that. He was chanting some mantras and suddenly clapped and snapped thrice loudly moving his hand about the idol. I had to stuff my mouth with my fist to control laughing! :P
We went cherry picking after that. It is a really different way of having fun. There are numerous farms on the highway that say "U-pick cherries." You pick up buckets, go into the farm and pick cherries from the trees and you have to buy all those that you pick. In course of action, most of us tend to eat more cherries than pick them. We have to taste them don't we? There were two types of trees. One with red cherries and one with orange cherries. Our pursuit of sweet cherries was delightful! I climbed up ladders to reach the top most branches of the trees, gave other people sour cherries just for fun. I had never eaten cherries before honestly. All I had eaten was those on pastries and ice creams and those are terrible! These cherries are very big and they're shaped like apples! They were utterly delicious! We kept pulling out cherries without realising that we already had 8 pounds! We saw walnut farms, strawberry fields, vineyards, white and yellow peach farms and loads of other fruits. Unfortunately, we don't have enough time to explore the whole of California.
We ate at an Indian restaurant in Fremont. I'm really surprised they make exquisite chaat and paranthas in America and the quantity too is vast! It's a rip off though. You have to pay $5 for pani puri which you get for Rs.10. Once in a while, it's alright I guess.
That's about what we did in a week. Have to go swimming now. Until later!

The Great Canyons

Bryce Canyon: A long straight road, green fields on either side, mountains half obscured by mist bordering the fields on the far end, a light rain and Taylor Swift's sweet voice humming in your ear, just perfect!! And when the rain lashes against the windshield, the wiper cuts a neat semi circle and the tiny water droplets glide upwards because of the car's speed, making it look like someone was blow painting a setting sun on the glass. That's how the drive from Nevada to Utah was. Just beautiful! We passed a fair number of spots that made me get all excited, Summit 7777, Mount Carmel Junction, Scofield Avenue, etc etc. The Virgin River Gorge looked exceptionally beautiful in our scenic drive. After a few hour's drive we reached the toll booth to enter Bryce Canyon National Park. When we started our drive inside the national park it seemed quite cloudy. The first spot we went to was Sunset point. Oh well Sunrise point was also in the same spot but obviously in the opposite direction. That's how high and vast the Canyon is! We can see both the sun rising and setting from the same spot!! The canyon is like a whole lot a Indian temples made of red mud running in a line. Or like a HUGE fort. It's astonishing to see how deep the river must have been to have carved out such a magnificent piece of art! I wonder why the Bryce Canyon is not one of the wonders of the world. It certainly is one of a kind and totally deserves to be on that list! My mum amused herself and other tourists by finding face shaped sedimentary rocks. She found one that looked like Bart Simpson and a firangi guy was so happy that she showed him that. The weather was pleasant, but cold for our standards. My cousin had told me that California is warm and pleasant. I was so skeptical about it. The statement itself seemed to be a contradiction!! After seeing Bangalore's rising heat, I never imagined warm could be pleasant. I learnt that only after stepping into the car from the cold winds outside. "Ah! Warm and nice", I would say. Hehe. We went to the Bryce Point, from where we had the best view of the canyon, to Inspiration point, Natural Bridge, the Rainbow and Yovimpa points. The last two points were at a height of 9115ft! We had a picturesque view of most of the national park. Just as we finished the last point, it started pouring. So we ran to the car, with my aunt thanking God that it didn't rain when we were sightseeing. We drove to Panguitch, where our hotel was. It was maintained by an Indian guy so it didn't meet my standards. :P I watched a movie called "Me and My Prince" or something and I so badly wanted to correct whomever concerned that it should be "My Prince and me". When will they learn!!
Grand Canyon: "No language can fully define, no artist can ever paint the beauty, grandeur, immensity and sublimity of this wonderful piece of architecture by Nature's own architect. One must see the Grand Canyon to appreciate it". It has been rightly put by reporters in the 60s that just writing about the Grand Canyon will do no justice to it. So I won't write about it. :P Ok too bad I'm kidding! The Grand Canyon, Arizona, is a gorge created by the Colorado River. We can see the river from above, but it looks like a tiny little stream. It's actually a mile deep and a great deal of people have lost their lives in the restless rapids of the river. If one is lucky enough, he can hear the river roaring from a mile away. There are many trails for hiking too. So if one is all set to trek, it should be the ideal place. But we read of incidents where people lost their lives hiking at the canyon because they carried insufficient water n all that. It said about 250 people are rescued in a year when they get lost hiking. I love reading about such adventurous people and how they died. There is a watch tower at the entrance that was designed such that one could see the entire Canyon from there. That's quite a task. The Grand Canyon was once occupied by the Native American Indians. So they had Indian art all over the inner walls of the tower and a guy was playing the Indian flute. It was enchanting! We saw the remains of the Indians' village which was nothing remarkable really. Was just a few rocks arranged neatly. I saw five chameleons there! :D We saw the Canyon from all possible angles from different spots, that could be accessed easily with the help of a car. The National Park is gigantic! I think it's almost impossible to walk around all the points. We first went to the Desert Point, from where we could clearly see the Mojave Desert. Then we went on to see Navajo Point, Moran(moron) point, Grandview Point, Yaki(yucky) point, Mather Point and Yavapai point. (The words in the bracket mean no offence. I just like calling those points that.) Each of these points gave is new and different versions of the canyon. It's surprising how things can look so different just from quarter a mile away. It was delightful to watch the changing play of light and shadows. There was this place called Hermit's Rest which was accessible only through a shuttle. So we hopped into a shuttle, made some Indian friends. They had a baby which was a year old. It kept wailing till we reached Hermit's Rest! So annoying! The Hermit's Rest was a tiny cave, which they have modernised now. They're turned it into a store I think. After a nice mug of hot chocolate, (the weather was still very cold!!) we made it back to the car park. We exited the park and went to an Imax theatre. To everyone who goes there, the Grand Canyon movie is a must watch. The movie was so impressive! They have shot the Canyon so well. I loved the way they showed the wildlife at the National Park. All hail the movie makers!
I saw llamas and elks; I only half believed these animals existed because I had seen them only in animated movies. We had a nice time in the car. I learnt a lot about what happened in Ramayana from my mum, aunt and uncle. Listened to them talk about the silly things they did when they were young. I kept (still keep) my eyes open for characters from Prison Break. :P This trip totally inspired me to be a travel journalist! So yeah.. It was a great road trip! In my opinion, Bryce Canyon is better than Grand Canyon. Then again, it all depends on perspective!

Vegas baby!! (Joey Style)

Oh yeah! Vegas!! :D
Our drive to Nevada from Los Gatos was 7 tedious hours long! We passed the Mojave desert on the way. It is the first desert I have ever seen. The hills look like sand dunes but they never let you decide if they're sand or just brown solid rocks covered with hay. Even when they're ten feet away it's hard to decide. We passed endless vineyards and almond tree farms. The sky was clear blue, with a few white lines which were aeroplane trails. I found it hard to believe that the temperature was above 45 degrees. I could actually see mirage on the freeway, not only just above the ground but till the top of a truck! (It's like the streets of Mexico as shown in Prison Break. You can literally see the heat.) I fell in love with the bikers!! Their bikes are omg so HOT and they look amazing with thier black leather jackets and tattoos! No one ever uses gearless bikes here or ugly bikes. They can easily put Pulsar 220s or Avengers to shame. Even the trucks look so good! They're shiny and clean and are say, respected as much as the cars. I once saw a pink shiny truck. That was sorta goofy. The trains we saw were pretty boring goods trains. So anyway, my uncle drove at 80mph constantly and we reached Vegas earlier than expected.
As soon as we entered Nevada, casinos started appearing on either sides of the road. The very first one I saw was called Gold Strike. We reached Four Queens, the hotel and casino where we were to stay. I was so agitated and hyperactive that I was in Vegas! I was being all girly and tried on five or six tops before we went out. Hehe.
I saw some of the most happening places in the whole world! I saw casinos like Bellagio, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, Paris, NewYork NewYork, Caesar's Palace, Golden Nugget, Stratosphere and Circus Circus. (I don't know why they repeat these words twice. Maybe they're very excited about it.) Then there were replicas of Europe's most famous land marks. I saw numerous strip clubs, night clubs and wedding chaples at the end of every street. There were really hot cars zooming around and a stretched limosine was parked in the basement of our hotel! It looked absolutely gorgeous! We went up the clone of the Eiffel Tower. It is about one third of the original size I tihnk. As soon as we stepped out of the elevator we were swept off our feet by a breath taking view of Vegas! Instinctively I said "Whoa! Bling bling!!" The lighting is nothing less than spectacular! EVERYTHING is golden and silver or some other shiny colour. We had a great view of Bellagio's fountains. The lights in the fountain looked like tiny diamonds sparkling with all their might. The casino at Paris was gigantic! My aunt, uncle and mum gambled. I wasn't allowed to gamble!! Waaa!! I'm supposed to be 21! I walked around looking at everyone losing their money hopelessly, secretly laughing at them. Once outside, it was dark and we saw a dazzling display of fireworks and a lot of advertisement boards kept flashing at us. I saw "the second" good looking guy (first was the Walcott guy at the airport). He walked around the streets wearing a suit with a lot of other men in suits. All in all it was very nice seeing people from all over the world on a single street and the very fact that there were billions n trillions of dollars stashed up in one lane and that I was on the lane was overwhelming!
We went back to the hotel rather early, considering Vegas lives by Indian Standard Time.
So this is the funniest thing that has happened so far. Guess what we did after going to the room?? We ate uppit!! We ate uppit in Vegas!! :P All that time while I was eating I kept laughing about how funny it would sound when I wrote "We ate uppit in Vegas" in my blog. Hehe..

Santa Cruz and San Francisco

I have made good use of the past two days.
I went to Santa Cruz the day before yesterday. It's a small city with a population of about 55,000, situated along the West Coast of America. The ocean is friendly to surfers and Santa cruz is also the home of skate boarders apparently. We went to what seemed like a biotechnology research centre. There was a skeleton of a full grown blue whale that had once crashed into some rocks on the coast and died. It was remarkably huge! The ocean has rich marine life and was a little stinky. We saw sea otters, pelicans sitting on the Pelican Rock, sea gulls and a seal. We sat by the light house and had a delightful meal. I saw a great deal of people walking dogs. Petting dogs is probably a fad here since so many of them have it! The dogs are given manicure and pedicure and fancy hair cuts. I find that quite unnecessary.
We drove around Santa Cruz, past the multimillion dollar houses facing the mighty Pacific. They're all beautifully ventilated and they're the kind that would make you wanna live there. I love the Spanish names of the places around here. They first belonged to Mexico, I believe. That's that.

We went to San Francisco yesterday. We bought subs from Subway for lunch. As usual I wanted extra capsicum in my sub. I said "Extra capsicums please" and the lady there seemed confused. They don't understand our Indian accent. D'oh! So I corrected myself and said "Extra bell peppers please" full on with an American accent and she obliged. I feel I sound like Russell Peters imitating Indians here. Trust me, it's not a very nice feeling.
San Francisco is around 50 miles from home. We reached in less than 45 minutes. I might have said this before and I'll say it again. It's a real pleasure driving here! Or watching my aunt drive. It's as smooth as going by plane! We went to a beach where the water was freezing! The wind blowing there was bitterly cold. Apparently it blows from Alaska across the Pacific ocean and reaches San Francisco. It was a bad idea to assume California would be hot and not bring a jacket.
There was this steep road where we ascended slowly and my aunt said "you're in for a surprise" and I was literally holding my breath to see what lay ahead! Slowly coming to form in front of me was a maginificent city with kazillion houses, all stuck to each other, and a hundred high-rise buildings! Never before in my life have I seen so many buildings! It was outrageous really! Looked like a whole lot of houses thrown in a godown or like they had been arranged there for Dussera. It is a very crowded city and all the houses are single storey buildings because the city is prone to earth quakes and what's more? Each house looks exactly like the one next to it so they're all painted in flamboyant colours. We went to the Twin Peaks, a view point and also one of the highest point in San Franscisco. From there we could see almost the entire city. The Golden Gate, the financial centre of San Francisco, the port of San Francisco and other elegant structures that stood out in the residential areas. From there we went for a drive on the Golden Gate itself. It had me singing the theme song of Full House (Everywhere you look everywhere you go, there's a heart there's a heart). It was such a pleasant feeling! We went to different places and saw the Golden Gate from different angles. At one point, the wind was so tempestuous, I almost lost balance and the camera wouldn't stay still to click a picture! It was a permanent colossal gust of wind! (I couldn't find a better way to put it.)
Also, I learnt that San Francisco has the higest gay population in America. They had their rainbow coloured flag faluntering high up in the air! We also saw about five or six couples.
On our way back we went through the market street of San Francisco, one of the most happening streets. The streets are always either rising or decending because the city is built on hills. I was so cheerful to see that Princess Diaries might have been shot on one of those streets! (The scene where she loses control of her car and crashes into the tram was stuck in my head!) I saw electric trams, the Golden Gate Park that stretched from one end of San Francisco to the other and other specialities.
I'll be visiting SF once every week to see all the places. Can't wait to go to Ghirardelli and gobble up a few ice creams!
Right then. Good day. Till tomorrow..

May gets me trippin!

May 18th, the longest day of my life! Literally! It was 36 and a half hours long.
We reached the airport on time. There was a light drizzle and cool breeze all the time. You know it has rained every single time I've gone to the new airport! Bangalore just doesn't want me to leave!
We checked in easily (although amma panicked a little when she thought she had left the air tickets at home) and filled up the immigration forms. The guy there read my name and immediately asked if I was a Mandyam Iyengar. After a nice little chat with us he retunred our passports and we entered Gate 20 and waited by our terminal. In there, they have constructed a miniature mall. It has every damn thing you would want! As soon as you enter, you'll find every bloody brand of booze! I was delighted looking at this one thing called Absolut Vodka. Looked very inviting. :P I went there to buy chewing gum. I hadn't bought any because my brainy sister told me they'll give it on the plane or that I could buy it at the airport! So I asked the guy there for a pack of gum. He showed me the way to the chocolate and gum section and gave me a choice of two. The chewing gum was 7 dollars!! I said "Thanks but I have no cash" and walked away. I bought Pepsi for 50 bucks and sat reading my book. I was reading Airport by Arthur Hailey sitting at the airport! :P By the time I read the first page the guy sitting next to me dropped my Pepsi. Grr! Curse him! I noticed a 12-13 year old wearing a Manu shirt and gave him a stare. He saw my Arsenal bag too and we kept giving each other stares till we reached San Francisco. Heh..

Soon we were called to board our flights. We went quickly to the door and entered a tube which connected us to the plane. I was very fascinated with everything because it was my first international flight. A couple of airhostesses invited us inside and directed us to our seats. We went by Lufthansa and everything was written in German. "Schwimmwester unter Ihrem Sitz" is the first thing I read and understood. I watched the small guidance movie they showed and listened to the audio in German. I didn't understand a single word! The take off was without much turbulance. The flight was like riding in a bus on a smooth road. I stayed up till 4:30 am, had dinner and drank some vodka that was from Finland. It was sleep inducing. I slept till 6am and we reached Frankfurt at around 7:30 where we had to board our connecting flight, which was at 10. I got a glimpse of Frankfurt from the airport. So now I can show off that I've been to Germany too. :P

After sitting in my seat, a huge guy who had a body like Lincoln Burrows (from Prison Break) sat down next to me. So we were pretty cramped in there. I was bored of checking out the German airhostesses. They all are so tall and rather sturdy I would say. I ate, listened to music, ate, watched Slumdog Millionaire and Marley and Me (cried hiding my face under the pillow when Markey died), read, ate more and drank a lot of juice. I didn't get a wink of sleep through out the day while my mum slept for 10 hours continuously and my aunt just got bored. We reached San Francisco without much turnulance while landing. The Immigration queue was a long one and luckily we walked quite fast and didn't have to wait much. All the officers there were Non-American. We were called upon by a lady (Maybe Asian) for the interview. She was pretty friendly. While talking to her this security guy came into the cube and my stomach literally did a flip! He looked so good! He was Black but looked just like Walcott! He is the best looking guy I have seen in America so far. We picked up our luggage (none of it got lost! Woohoo!) and saw my uncle and aunt waiting outside for us. This trip had been planned so many times and cancelled before that they both seemed real thrilled that it finally happened! We went to the parking lot, only to find that each and every car is an awesome car! I saw a Bentley and around four Audi's as soon as I entered the car park. You'll see the same number of BMWs here as the number of 800s in Bangalore. We drove a good 50 miles in half an hour on the freeway. The drive was great! Our minimum speed was 100kmph I think. People hardly use two wheelers here. I spotted only one. California is so green and full of nature. It's such a pleasure to drive and everything is so organised. I'm very impressed by all of it! We reached home in Los Gatos. The whole town is like a resort. Very pretty houses with nice big gardens. My uncle's house is very well kept and has an attractive swimmimg pool in the backyard. I picked up my cousins from their schools and took a good look at school life that I usually see only on tv. Kids with skate boards, sleazy vynils on cars they drive, etc etc. After I came home I was extremely sleepy and didn't do much. I took a shower, ate and enjoyed a deep slumber after that. Was a great long day! :) Cheers!

Delhi-6

First of all, Sr.Philomena, we all love you very much. RIP.

I’m quite cheerful after watching the ‘First day, first show’ of Delhi-6. I hardly ever do that. Abhishek Bachchan has again performed very well. First Dostana, now this. This guy is on a roll! He looks incredibly handsome, especially when he is angry. He plays Roshan, a young NRI who comes to India with his pious grandmother, who happens to be suffering from a fatal disease. Sonam Kapoor plays Bittu Sharma, a boisterous Dilli ki chokri, who aspires to be the winner of Indian Idol. She is showcased as a rebel, who wants to be different from the typical Indian girls. She looks extremely beautiful in Indian clothes. There is another lady in the movie that looks remarkably good. She plays the role of Bittu’s bua.
The entire movie is shot in Old Delhi. India has the same, clichéd cow-in-the-middle-of-the-road and no-space-to-breathe sort of look. But it looks striking from the roof of the house where Sonam Kapoor dances with a lovely dove. If sources are to be believed, the director had to shell out rupess 13,000/- per day for the bird in hand.
The whole plot revolves around a certain “kala bandar”, which causes a nuisance and creates panic in the hearts of thousands of naïve Delhiites. It gains the attention of the media and makes a big issue of itself. The first half of the movie is light with a little humour here and there. The second half takes on a serious note. There is a little misunderstanding between the Hindus and Muslims, who had till then lived in harmony. That’s a rather delicate topic to handle but Rakesh Omprakash Mehra has carried it out very well. The story is partly depicted through the famous Ram Leela.
Roshan and Bittu eventually develop a thing for each other, making the spectators hope things will go their way. Like all other Bollywood movies, this one has a moral, put forward by Atul Kulkarni. The music is pretty different and fits the movie perfectly. I got mixed reviews from people in the theatre. In my opinion, it is over all, a run of the mill movie and definitely not Rakesh Mehra’s best. Rang De Basanti was ten times better than Delhi-6. I would say it’s worth watching the morning show in a multiplex when you’re assured of getting attendance in college. That’s that. Three on five.

A whole lot of Squish!

“Rise and shine!” That’s the first thing I read in the morning. It was 5am and Addy had given me orders to wake him alone up, assuring me that he would manage to wake everyone else up. I did as he said. I was sandwiched between Preethi and the side of the tent. With great difficulty, I found my phone, which was beeping loudly and held it high up in the air so Addy would hear it and wake up. When no one stirred, I yelled out “5 O CLOCK!!” To this, Addy responded saying “5 minutes”. He didn’t even open his eyes. I shrugged and went back to sleep. Every five minutes my alarm rang and I announced the time each time but there was no point anyway. (It seems like only Suraj didn’t hear my calls. He was completely unaware of the announcements when asked about it later in the evening.) Eventually, all of us got up at 10am. There! We blew up our plans of trekking early in the morning to KP. Mr.Prepontaneous was up before any one of us. We went to Battey maney and brushed, washed our faces and answered nature’s call. Preethi made bread cheese breakfast for us. It was very tasty. Addy and Suraj licked the box clean and threw it aside. We went back to our tent and realised how amazing the shape was! “Wah!” :P It wasn’t even a triangle! Sheesh! We sat near it for a while. It was a “plan meeting”. We planned to stay back that day at Bhatta’s house and leave to KP in the evening. In order to kill time, we started exploring the places around Battey mane. We saw a small stream where I saw a guy wearing an Arsenal jersey. As always, I got damn excited. His gang (mainly comprised of old men and a few boring nerdy guys) was sitting by the stream. We walked up along the stream looking for snakes and in Cosmo’s case, crabs. We found a small pond covered with leaves and maggots. Addy wanted to clear it up and make it a Jacuzzi. Haha! Yeah right! We went back towards the gang of old men and sat somewhere close to them. We sat idly for what seemed like an hour. We were relaxing, you see. Addy came up with a game, which required us to put on our thinking caps. He challenged us to create something with all the junk lying around. (Remember TV, Microwave oven??) It was when the boys were having some stupid competition with their Kings; Prepontaneous came up with the word squish. Hehe. Finally after enough rest, we went back near our tent to put our plans to action.
Then again (it’s almost predictable now!), the super girls foiled the plans. It was around 35-40 degrees and we had absolutely no interest, curiosity or anything to do with KP whatsoever. We called Addy’s mum and explained that it was too hot to trek. Addy spoke to her for about ten minutes. This conversation included heated arguments, convincing his mum about how hot it was, general discussions to do with the number of tents and all that. Finally we heard Addy say “What? (Oh shit!) Happy Birthday ma!” Hehe. We all started laughing. He reminded her of some gift that he had given her and spoke nicely for a while and hung up. It was decided that we would go to Madikeri after trekking down so that we could “chill” at Abbey Falls. :P We packed our tent, went to Bhatta’s house, took our entire luggage which now included the bus people’s tents too! $&%^**! It was around 12 noon when we started to trek. The boys dipped their tshirts in water before we could start. Lucky bums! Anyway, we were full of energy. Suraj led us and I followed. Cosmo was behind me, closely followed by Dimps and Addy. We started a small game where Su would sing a word and I would add another word and we would go on until we had a nice one-line song. Hehe. The only sensible sentence we made was “The drums sound so weird”. So creative! :P We had gained superb momentum and it was hard to stop. As we were singing, God blessed us with network and Cosmo got a whole lot of text messages. We heard him say “Holy Cow! A guy from my hostel died!” We were all shocked for a second and did not know what to say. Cosmo broke the tension by running down the hill, full speed and then falling, skidding and yelling at the same time for five seconds. Lmao! None of us could control laughing. I asked who died and he said “Bhaskar! Oh no! Now I have to go to Udupi!” Hahahahaha! Prepontaneous enquired Cosmo about the idea of running down the hill. He said Cosmo thought he could go and save Bhaskar if he ran. Or maybe he planned to run to Udupi. God knows what made him run! That incident was so damn funny! He got a message that said “Bhaskar died” and he just ran! Hahahahaha!! Only people who were there will understand. Hehe. The whole process of climbing downhill was funny. We all seemed dazed and confused and wasted. We laughed at absolutely anything! Cosmo promised to give us all anything we asked for if we reached down in two hours. We took up the challenge and trekked down swiftly. Addy was suffering from ankle pain and was finding it hard to walk. We found the “2500 mts” part and sat down there for fifteen minutes. We sang the Chun Chun song and we realised that Dimps had a very weird way of saying “Om”. She would say “Aaaum” in a so-called “deep” voice. Hehe. Laughing about it, we all ended the break, this time with lesser enthusiasm than the beginning. Slowly, the break frequency and duration started increasing. Cosmo and I saw a gigantic snake. It was brownish with black stripes. We made Suraj so jealous. We met some mental guy on the way who said we had 6 more kms to descend. The bloody thing seemed endless! We went on and on and on and on and on. Finally when we could trek no more, we broke down. With no fuel to energize us, we lay there, rummaging our bags looking for signs of food. We were starving like mad. We ate a packet of raisons and ellu-bella hungrily. Our last resort was cheese. Sigh! We opened a box of cheese and ate it. Addy said “oota kodi” to passers by. Such was the misery that fell upon us! That was the longest break ever. We wasted a whole hour sitting there. We put peanuts in cheese and ate it. We put cheese in ellu-bella and I was dared to eat it. Big deal I thought and ate it! I actually enjoyed it and ate more! Hehe. By now, the Brahmin – Gowda – Golla – Browda argument had long begun. Each of us argued about our status in the society. Hehe. God pitied our pitiable state and gave us power to walk again. We got our asses off the hard rocks and trekked down with determination ready to face a long, irritating path. To our pleasant surprise, we reached the bottom just after two bloody minutes! We wasted an hour for two minutes’ trek! Shit! We laughed for two days at this thought. Hehe. We quenched our thirst with Citron from a small shop. There were around four black cats lingering around. The white shirt flirt came down the path and said “Hi yaar. I expected something from you guys. Why didn’t you go up?” We told him we went to some other peak. We asked him how the view from KP was. He said “the view was….” And he made an action like he was trying to wriggle out a cockroach from his shirt. Lol! Addy completed his sentence with ‘beautiful”. Hehe. Laughing at that bugger, we entered Kukke. We had a nice snack at Neo Mysore Café or something like that. (Wow was it called Mysore café?) We got rid of our bags and headed towards the temple. Addy was adamant about the whole idea of going to temples until he got to know that the ladies in the temple were topless! (LOL!) He was suddenly Subramanya’s No.1 devotee. He was damn excited when we entered. He threw his eyes around for hot chicks. :P We told him he’d find them inside the room where the idol was kept. We went in search of the water body, which is usually there at temples so that Cosmo could throw the thread that he was wearing. We went through a market place where bhajans served as a background for our crappy talk. We sat by the peepal tree and spoke about how Ganesha got an elephant’s face. We laughed a lot generally and prayed to God and went to the market. Addy went absolutely crazy on seeing the fake tattoo moulds. He got five tattoos, which included an eagle, a tiger that read TIGER :P, a hanuman, a ganesha and a politician. Suraj got a KSRTC symbol, a hanuman, an eagle and a snake with a heart shaped head. Cosmo got a flower and an eagle. Preethi got an Om. I got some random design. Omg! How could I forget?!? Addy got one that said “Life Wife” in a tacky heart shape. That was the best tattoo! We laughed our asses off while getting tattoos. When the tattoo lady said 55rs Addy and Su were like “parvagilla” and started walking away. Haha! Slowly we walked towards the astrologer. Cosmo was going to get his palm read. We waited outside for fifteen minutes while Suraj read Cosmo’s palm and said quite a bit that made sense. At least he made more sense than the astrologer. The astrologer claimed that Cosmo would become an artist! He also said that Cosmo would become a man at 40 years of age and that he had “monk buddhi”. LOL! After the chap read his palm, he sat waiting for cash. As usual, all of us ran out. Cosmo gave the astrologer 10 bucks and came out looking embarrassed. We went back to the temple and met Vishwanath. With completely straight faces, we told him that the purohit in the temple tattooed everyone who went in there. I can’t believe he bought that. Giggling, we all ran out of the temple. After one shot of Lime soda each, we sat near the car playing Dumb Charades. Khoon Mein Taley Samose, Monochromatic Destiny, Mother of Incandescence, The Gallous Bladder, all of which are made up movies were acted out with sheer brilliance! We then set off for dinner to Neo Mysore Café again. We had a proper South Indian Meal, which pretty much sucked. Suraj kept giving Strum arbitrary sentences like “there is not one in the Jacuzzi” and “You are a clown” and “You suck at acting” to act out. Hehe. I gave him “Dude where’s my car” and something happened and Cosmo called Dimps a citag and things went a little out of hand. We saw Suraj and Cosmo having a heated argument standing outside. Dimps and I actually got scared to interfere. Later Suraj came and told us that his justification was that Cosmo was a close friend so he could pick on him. He didn’t even apologise! Haha! After dinner, Vishwanath came and gave us some cash for the tents and left.

We left to Madikeri that night. The driver played kickass Kannada music. Loulou loulou crazy loulou nangay Lou illa. (Lmao!) After that, all of us fell asleep. We reached Madikeri at 1:30am. Since it was a weekend plus Republic Day, all rooms in all lodges were occupied. Even Hotel Lodge! Hehe. We were all dreamy and confused. The driver had parked the car outside a petrol bunk. Our plight was so hopeless that we decided to pitch our tent in the Petrol Bunk and sleep. I am NOT kidding! We were all ready for it when Addy rejected the idea. Then we considered a school ground but didn’t want to seem like aliens in a weird space ship to the kids. Hehe. So we kept driving around when Addy and Suraj found a flight of stairs to the right, leading to some clandestine area. They came running down the stairs. They had found the perfect spot. The rest of us climbed up the stairs hesitantly. It was damn cold. On the right was a silhouette of a water tank and some buildings that looked abandoned. On the right was a burnt down forest. It looked eerie and gave me the creeps. The top looked like a local sight seeing spot. It had sitting area with a roof. We pitched our tent there and I lay down in the tent until I got scared. Everyone else was sitting outside and enjoying a terrific view of the city in the dark, with nice slow music perfect for the night. Addy and Dimps gave the Rang De Basanti pose. No one spoke much. Suraj seemed to be in a bad mood for some reason. He didn’t utter a word! After enjoying the beauty of the night, I went into the tent. Suraj followed. Both of us slept off. I have no idea what happened after that. Maybe Addy or Cosmo could complete the night.

Day of the tedious trek!

The first thing that happened that morning was (as far as I can remember) that I found a cute little puppy. It looked just like my dog. While Addy and Suraj went around looking for a room, I played with the puppy. They came back with news that there were no rooms anywhere. So we were to freshen up in the temple premises. Cosmo and I went first. We brushed and washed our faces quickly. Addy, Preethi and Suraj went next. They freshened up and returned and soon we were on the road handing over sleeping bags and tents to Vishwanath and others. We got rid of some luggage and went for breakfast. It was the most cramped up and crowded restaurant I had seen! We found a table and ordered for 3 masala doseys and two idlis. I think it was then that we were discussing what we could have for dinner when we were to camp at KP and Cosmo made the funniest statement we had heard by far – “We can boil water using leaves”. Can you believe it? Leaves!! He intended to boil water in leaves and make Maggie or something. Hahahaha! I still laugh my head off thinking of that. After tea and coffee we met the people from the bus and left for the trek. We first went through a tiny gully and reached some open space with trees all around. That’s where we found the celebrated “electric” fencing. Hehe. Suraj got a nice long electric shock and was kind enough to get struck again and again by the shock just for the videos. It was LEGEN-wait for it-DARY! :P (You can access the videos from Addy’s Fb profile.) Meanwhile, Cosmo went hunting for crabs in a small stream by the coconut grove.

We started the upward trek by around 9:30, all of us with our backpacks. We took turns carrying the tent we had. Surprisingly, Dimps and Suraj were really fast. Everything was all right until I started feeling ill. It was the thought that I hadn’t got a wink of sleep that troubled me the most. My head started spinning. After climbing up like 500mts I felt extremely sick and threw up! Addy came to the rescue and gave me Pudinhara but I threw up even more. :P (All puking incidents are so funny. I vomited even while going to Kudremukh. Damn! I got out of the bus saying “Wow! I feel good!” and Blearghh!! Haha! Everyone laughed instead of giving me water or something. Bloody!!) Anyway, I still didn’t feel so good. We trekked a little more, and Cosmo carried my bag all the way. The trip was all about crab fishing and snail hunting and carrying other’s luggage for him. Hehe. The boys and Preethi found a nice big tree with branches hanging out like that of a Banyan tree and I found a nice big rock and fell asleep immediately. Addy, Preethi and Suraj climbed up the tree and did some kothi kelsa (Addy, that means monkey’s work) for half an hour. I don’t remember much of that. It was like a dream. By the time I got up, the three of them had climbed down and I was feeling much better. We took breaks every ten minutes. The breaks were the best part of the trip! Our breaks were for fifteen minutes each. While the boys polluted the fresh air, the girls enjoyed the beauty of nature. Hehe. We had trekked for about two hours and we were damn proud that we had climbed almost five kms when we saw a rock that said “Bhattara maney 2500 mts -->”. We were so disappointed and we decided to rest for some more time, simply out of self-pity more than anything else. From then on, instead of speeding up the trek, we extended our break time. Soon the shady forest area vanished and we found ourselves treading on barren land. It was scorching hot! What weather! We perspired so much; we didn’t have to pee for two days. :P We were so eager to reach some Godforsaken Bhatta’s house that Addy and Suraj confidently took a shortcut and led the five of us (the white-shirt-nice-smile-flirt and his friend included). They trekked swiftly and reached the top of the hill we were climbing, only to realise that we were headed in the wrong direction. The morons didn’t even tell us. They just walked away and left us wondering where they went. We marched on in the hot sun, ignorant of where exactly we were going. As the border of the hill lowered, our eyes met a wonderful sight. Bhatta’s house!!! At least we thought that was his house. It was not long before we realised that we completely off track. We stomped on the grass, trying to find our way, cursing the other two goofballs. We had another idiot with us clicking pictures and saying “Wow! Such a beautiful smile ya” every three seconds to Dimps. Cosmo was pissed off that his smile wasn’t being admired! (Heh!) We found a pile of small rocks arranged in a tall triangular manner. It looked very authentic in the middle of nowhere. We clicked some more pictures there and trekked continuously for fifteen minutes. We saw Addy and Suraj waving at us from down below, which was the right path. I remember saying “humph” looking at them. Hehe. The sight of Bhatta’s house and the imaginary food and nice cold water were the only sources of motivation. Only after reaching the entrance of the house did we comprehend that what we thought was the Battey Maney (according to Addy) was actually just a couple of benches.

Bhattara maney was a wide area with two spacious buildings with thatched roofs. One building served as a kitchen and dining place whereas the other one had a cow shed and a bathroom. The first thing we all did was drink cool water from a pipe that brought water for us from a well. The water was so tasty; I filled half my stomach with it. Then we pounced on the food! The delicacies for the afternoon were some sambar rice and majjigay. It is the yummiest majjigay I have ever had. Dimps, Suraj and I had like eight glasses each and were super full and ready for a siesta. We went towards the Areca nut plantations and sought after a shady place. We climbed teeny weenie bridges and found the perfect place. We sat and (ahem) planned the day for a while. We came to a decision and that was to leave to KP at around 5pm and soon I fell asleep. Addy, Suraj and Dimps played 50 games of Rummy (apparently) while I slept. Cosmo was asleep too. Addy termed the sight of our half dead bodies as an African Massacre. Hehe. After we all got up, there was an awkward silence for sometime. I suggested we play Dumb Charades. After two rounds of the game we realised that Cosmo can’t act for nuts. Hehe. We were all too lazy to leave to KP at that time. It was around 6. Cosmo was the only one who was very keen on trekking again. We went to the forest department to obtain permission, almost confident that we wouldn’t get it. To our surprise, the man in charge said we could go at even 6pm and leave immediately and camp at Somvarpet. For some reason, we didn’t leave that evening and again made plans to leave early the next day. I think that day was the dullest day of the trip. We went for a walk uphill, climbed to the highest part of the nearest hill and sat there till it got really dark. It was a starry night. I have never ever seen so many stars in my life! The sky almost looked gaudy with so much jewellery on her. She managed to look gorgeous at the same time. I didn’t take my eyes off the sky because I hoped to see a shooting star. We saw so many tiny dots moving, some quite fast and others at snail’s pace. There was this one particular red and silver dot that led us to a tiny argument. Addy and I said it was a satellite while Suraj, Dimps and Cosmo said it was too fast to be a satellite and that it was a plane. We could frequently see torchlights coming from the path to KP, some of them really bright. They looked gothic. After half an hour’s star gazing, Addy and Suraj started telling us ghost stories. The only one who really got scared was Cosmo. He said “Someone please hold my hand!! Suraj!! Give me your hand!!” Haha! They made a cute couple through out the trip. We left the hilltop with Addy, Suraj and Dimps desiring to call spirits of dead people. Dimps had already done this once, so that encouraged the Hanuman brothers to call the spirit of their friend Ramdev, who passed away under mysterious circumstances. At Bhatta’s house, we had a light dinner and again a litre of majjigay and Su and Addy were off to look for a spot on the hill to pitch our tent. They came back holding the lantern-like tent torch high in the air and gave us a winning smile. They had found a spot on some corner of the hill. Addy, Dimps, Su and Cosmo pitched the tent while I held the torch as high as I could. We put our tents and were checking it. While we were at it, we realised that about just ten yards away, two more groups had pitched their tents and had campfires. We sat in our tent admiring it. It was around 11:30pm. We decided to call Ramdev’s spirit and Dimps wrote down 0-9, A-Z, YES, NO. HELLO and GOODBYE on a sheet and Addy prepared a speech to send the spirit away after “talking to it”. We all held hands and were asked to concentrate on Ramdev for some two minutes. After about thirty seconds Addy and I burst out with laughter listening to some guy singing in Gibberish in the other tent. It was tooo funny! Addy can imitate that guy well. Hehe. Dimps and Suraj had such straight looks on their faces; they had me wondering if they were deaf and didn’t hear the funny song. They yelled at us and made us close our eyes again. We tried, but the song was just too funny. Suraj and Dimps got fed up and refused to do it once more. I think Dimps said something like we were disrespecting the spirits. :P Addy tried convincing them to do it after fifteen minutes when he would’ve gotten over the uproarious song but in vain. Basically, calling poor Ramdev’s spirit turned out to be a fruitless effort. We decided to postpone that along with the trek to KP. After setting three alarms, we fell asleep on the bumpy bottom of our beautifully shaped tent. :)