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.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
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. :)
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. :)
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Trip to Kumaraparvatha (NOT!)
Chun Chun Chun. Oops!
(To be sung with slow, low “Om”s and high pitched Chun Chun Chun’s in the background.)
If you are smart enough, then figure it out. (Chun Chun Chun)
If you are dumb enough, then you’re in without a doubt. (Chun Chun Chun)
With Lungies so tight and heads so shiny,
Everybody here has a brain so tiny!
If you ain’t a hunk, then you can become a monk,
We tried so hard but the knowledge never sunk.
This place is fantastic; I’m just being sarcastic.
Oops! It’s my college!
Hehe, that song is dedicated to Cosmo’s college-AIT. What a perfect way to end the song! That’s the first thing we did in the car, on our way to Kukke. We departed at around 11pm from Addy’s place, stopped at dhaba for dinner where we played a round of truth of dare just to get to know each other better. The only thing we actually got to know was that Suraj hated pigeons. :P
After dinner, we relaxed in the car, talking, playing, telling each other ghost stories, etc. We all tried so hard to sleep but none of us could. We got out of the car at around 4am in a small town, in order to wait for the bus that was coming along with us. We found an old man exercising near a pole and we told him that Cosmo thought he was a ghost :P (C’mon! Who the hell wakes up at 4am to exercise!). The four of them played football with a coconut for a while until we decided to leave. After a shot of tea and some biscuits we left to Kukke along with the bus. In an hour’s ride, all of them managed to get at least 45 minutes of sleep while I stayed up to give the driver company. :P
(To be sung with slow, low “Om”s and high pitched Chun Chun Chun’s in the background.)
If you are smart enough, then figure it out. (Chun Chun Chun)
If you are dumb enough, then you’re in without a doubt. (Chun Chun Chun)
With Lungies so tight and heads so shiny,
Everybody here has a brain so tiny!
If you ain’t a hunk, then you can become a monk,
We tried so hard but the knowledge never sunk.
This place is fantastic; I’m just being sarcastic.
Oops! It’s my college!
Hehe, that song is dedicated to Cosmo’s college-AIT. What a perfect way to end the song! That’s the first thing we did in the car, on our way to Kukke. We departed at around 11pm from Addy’s place, stopped at dhaba for dinner where we played a round of truth of dare just to get to know each other better. The only thing we actually got to know was that Suraj hated pigeons. :P
After dinner, we relaxed in the car, talking, playing, telling each other ghost stories, etc. We all tried so hard to sleep but none of us could. We got out of the car at around 4am in a small town, in order to wait for the bus that was coming along with us. We found an old man exercising near a pole and we told him that Cosmo thought he was a ghost :P (C’mon! Who the hell wakes up at 4am to exercise!). The four of them played football with a coconut for a while until we decided to leave. After a shot of tea and some biscuits we left to Kukke along with the bus. In an hour’s ride, all of them managed to get at least 45 minutes of sleep while I stayed up to give the driver company. :P
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Ghajini
Right. It was a cold night while returning from Ghajini. We went to our favourite theatre- Cauvery. We rode on the footpath while going. It was utterly crazy but we had to make it there on time. We walked in around five minutes late. The first face I saw on screen was of Jiah Khan. I think she tried to get the “Priyanka Chopra tan” but it got two shades darker by mistake. Anyway, it suits her pretty well. As much as I dislike her, she has done a good job in the movie.
Aamir Khan, who suffers from a loss of Short Term Memory and Insomnia in the movie, has amazing presence. His acting is immaculately perfect! When required, he is an adorable, sweet chocolate boy. When he is not hot and awesome, he is a mad dog. Seriously! He growls, bites, kicks, scratches and what not! He has that mad look in his eye that can make chills run down your spine. He loses his sanity from time to time and makes you squeeze whatever you have in your hand real hard. In the second half of the movie, I actually sat in my seat, shivering from head to toe, not because I was cold but because I was that excited. I watched about five minutes of the movie through my Santa cap because I felt it was a little too gory. I heard a little kid say “Mummy, Taare Zameen Par is only nice”. Heh. Poor chap! When there were around ten minutes left, I sat there hoping the movie would never end. Brilliant action!
Asin looks ok-ok in the movie. Should she shed some pounds, she’ll look stunning! Her acting is remarkably good especially when she is scared to death sitting in the Pooja room. That scene will give you goose bumps. You might see a little over acting when she gets one dabba Ambassador, then again, nobody is perfect.
The songs were unnecessary. A R Rahman is definitely not at his best. No comments about the lyrics of the songs. (They are terrible. :P) And what the hell is with Aamir Khan’s clothes?! He really doesn’t look like the CEO of his company. He looks like he came dressed up for the shooting of Matrix or James Bond. Nevertheless, he pulled it off!
Overall, brilliant movie, thanks to Aamir Khan’s flawless acting. If not for him, the movie would have been like one of SRK’s action flicks. (Ahem! By SRK I mean Shivraj Kumar. :P) Enthralling and action-packed, the movie will make you yell “hodyo ounna” every ten minutes or so. Hehe. I’d give the movie 4 on 5.
Aamir Khan, who suffers from a loss of Short Term Memory and Insomnia in the movie, has amazing presence. His acting is immaculately perfect! When required, he is an adorable, sweet chocolate boy. When he is not hot and awesome, he is a mad dog. Seriously! He growls, bites, kicks, scratches and what not! He has that mad look in his eye that can make chills run down your spine. He loses his sanity from time to time and makes you squeeze whatever you have in your hand real hard. In the second half of the movie, I actually sat in my seat, shivering from head to toe, not because I was cold but because I was that excited. I watched about five minutes of the movie through my Santa cap because I felt it was a little too gory. I heard a little kid say “Mummy, Taare Zameen Par is only nice”. Heh. Poor chap! When there were around ten minutes left, I sat there hoping the movie would never end. Brilliant action!
Asin looks ok-ok in the movie. Should she shed some pounds, she’ll look stunning! Her acting is remarkably good especially when she is scared to death sitting in the Pooja room. That scene will give you goose bumps. You might see a little over acting when she gets one dabba Ambassador, then again, nobody is perfect.
The songs were unnecessary. A R Rahman is definitely not at his best. No comments about the lyrics of the songs. (They are terrible. :P) And what the hell is with Aamir Khan’s clothes?! He really doesn’t look like the CEO of his company. He looks like he came dressed up for the shooting of Matrix or James Bond. Nevertheless, he pulled it off!
Overall, brilliant movie, thanks to Aamir Khan’s flawless acting. If not for him, the movie would have been like one of SRK’s action flicks. (Ahem! By SRK I mean Shivraj Kumar. :P) Enthralling and action-packed, the movie will make you yell “hodyo ounna” every ten minutes or so. Hehe. I’d give the movie 4 on 5.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Bittersweet Memories
Out of 366 days of 2008, I bear in mind very few days.
Jan 18th - Su’s birthday. I lost my phone (V3i) that day but I also found a new love. Appa found Simba on the road that day. What a great day! I think that’s the first time Su got her hair straightened.
March 4th – It was appa-amma’s 25th anniversary. Great day. :)
March 16th – My sweetheart’s birthday! :P
March 17th – My board exams began. First day, I had Chem. I walked out of college with a smirk on my face looking at so many people weeping. I had smashed the exam and I scored a ninety! B-)
April 17th – The day I took a major leap towards my goal. I decided to ditch CET and stopped studying for it. What a waste of time! I had studied till then. Sigh! Anyway, I do not regret my decision. I love Journalism and I’m very glad I did not do Engineering. I see my friends suffering all the time.
May 19th – The crazy trek day! Guess you all know that day pretty well. Hehe.
May 25th – Mangalore trip for Katti’s wedding. We went to Blue Waters. I think I saw two girls making out. :P
June 1st – The Kudremukh trek. I witnessed one of the most beautiful and majestic sights that day. The scenery was completely breath taking! Plus the leeches were awesome!
June 6th – Supriya’s birthday. The first time I saw a really disgusting insect, some sort of an ugly giant cockroach. I bid goodbye to Su as she was going to live in Pune for two years.
June 11th – First time I entered Mount Carmel College as a Carmelite. I missed Supriya who had been by my side for 14 years! I called her, my eyes brimming with tears. I felt totally at sea.
The next few days were void of any major happenings.
September 3rd – I became an aunt to Aryan! :)
September 9th – Simba ran away. Horrible day. I’d rather not remember it. Hope he is happy wherever he is now! Louu ya Simba! :)
September 10th – Hrishi left to London. The day my solitude hit me real hard. I felt very bad and wrote the post “Is life beautiful”.
September 11th – I got a call from Emirates that day; I suppose you all know that day too. :P Man! Hrishi had hardly left Bangalore and he was already making me jealous!
September 13th – Appa’s birthday!
October 10th – Awesome-a’s birthday. :) Both our exams began on that day. Hehe.
October 25th – We went to Tumkur and Devarayana Durga. There we saw appa’s Engineering College and ate tattey idli in a hotel where he used to eat back in the 70’s. I was so proud of him that day. :)
October 27th – Opposite day! (Gee! I’ve used that term a little too much!) The day Utt and Su straightened their hair and I curled it!
October 29th – We went to Nandi Hills. Awesome drive.
November 23rd – The day I went to Dew Drops with Poo, Sne and Sup. Pooja and I went mad after that and clicked a million crazy pictures!
November 28th – Pooja’s birthday! We surprised Pooja with a super tasty cake. Then we blew up her cash at Pizza Hut. :P
December 4th – Amma’s birthday!
December 13th – My 18th birthday!! Yay!! :) I dressed up all girly. I got a Nike football, got a Chocolate Mousse, had superb lunch at Aromas of China and later got drunk at Le Rock. Perfect way to celebrate adulthood! Hehe. I also got a Nike Sweat shirt and a brilliant book! I went to sleep happily. :)
December 20th – Jim’s birthday! She got a tattoo! It finally happened! :P I treated my friends later in the evening at Dew Drops. Good times. I got a poster of Theo Walcott! Woohoo! : D
December 22nd – Paarrrdyyyy time!! I got my ever-awaited original Arsenal jersey right from Emirates! :D :D Also a ticket to enter Emirates! :D Although it was already used. :P
Now I’ll go to sleep peacefully. I’ve been waiting to write this post from November! Was waiting for my birthday to get over! Hehe.
Merry Christmas everyone! Happy New Year 2009! :)
Thursday, December 4, 2008
If I have only one year to live, what I will do with my life.
First of all, I will be super shocked. That will lead me to make hasty decisions and perform peculiar tasks. I will tell all my friends that I have only one year to live and watch them cry, just to feel good about myself, knowing that I’ll be missed. Jokes apart, before I kick the bucket, I will get a tattoo, go bungee jumping and maybe sky diving. Since I’m passionate about trekking, I will climb Mount Everest. If that is impossible, Kudremukh will do. Since I will die in a year, I will be ready to do anything precarious.
I will go to my dream destination, London, and visit the Emirates stadium. I will definitely watch a match, my favourite team against the team I hate the most-Arsenal vs. Manchester United. I would love to meet my favourite player, my heartthrob, Theo Walcott. I will learn to play the guitar and play on stage once (Doesn’t matter how big or small the stage is).
I’ll go watch John Petrucci, Joe Satriani and Mark Tremonti play, wherever they perform. I will listen to music day and night till I die!
I will spend the better part of my year with my family. I will watch Princess Diaries with Supriya how many ever times I can after watching all other legendary movies. I will call the writer of How I Met Your Mother and make him tell me how he met their mother. Hehe. I will take endless walks with Uttara on sixth main. I’ll talk over the phone to Pooja forever. I will eat blue berry cheesecake with Supriya ceaselessly. I’ll text I Ain’t and Strum till the end of time. I will make Su quit her studies and spend time with me. Make her shop for me and stuff. Those are the things I do most often. Basically, I won’t let anyone leave me alone. No, actually, I won’t leave them alone.
I will make sure I play for my college football team and win a trophy. I’ll spend a lot of time at Sankey. I will eat all the orange candy in the world. Time and again, I will go to Pizza Hut. I will eat benney dosey thrice a week. (I wouldn’t want to be fat when I die.) I will go to Hard Rock Café just once more. I will eat a rainbow Lolly Pop. I will dress myself up in a beautiful gown once and do my best to look nice. I would love to hold a tiger cub in my arms once. I will write a Will bequesting my most priced possessions to my favourite people. Last, but not the least, I will make it a point to report at least five minutes of News on ESPN, which would make me feel like a successful Journalist.
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