Weekend Getaway...

I had written in one of my earlier posts about the thrill that one gets in being the creature of the moment..not being shackled by routines and flying on the wings of your fancy...well...after a long time...I did something like that...

It was just another Friday evening with another potentially boring weekend in sight. We were munching down on our so called "Special" Friday snacks. Conversation was going on about something or the other till someone mentioned the word Pondycherry. I don't know whether it was sheer abandon or the craving to leave everything behind that prompted me to ask whether we were up for a weekend visit to Pondy. A phone call was made and the decision was taken...we were going to Pondycherry for the weekend.Planning to decision in under 2 minutes. Now that's what I call dynamic decision making. We didn't know anything about Pondy. Where to stay, what all to see...everything were just question marks. But there were no second thoughts...

Nearly by Friday midnight, we caught a bus to Pondy from Koyambedu Bus stand. After trying in vain to sleep on the bus, three sleepy headed young men disembarked at the Pondycherry bus stand at around 3.30 in the morning. The plan to go see the sunrise was pushed back to the next day in favour of grabbing some shut eye. We found a hotel room which was just big enough to hold a double bed and was charged at 300 bucks per night. The operative words for us being "double bed". We were asleep within no time and got up at around 9.30.

Plans were discussed over breakfast. Where to go? First idea was to visit Auroville- The universal village. But as Her excellency The President of India chose the same day to visit Auroville, we had to postpone our plans to the next day. Then from among the other places to see, a place called Raj Niwas looked good. It was where the French Governer used to stay. We caught an auto and he took us promptly to Yatri Niwas, which is a government guest house. On further discussion with the auto driver, we came to know that noone recognizes the name Raj Niwas. That building is called Governer House. (Lesson Learnt: Don't trust the info on the net to be be all and end all).

We asked some of the locals as to what all we could see around that area. The prominent sights were the Aurobindo Ashram, Vinayakar temple, park etc. The catch was that entry to most of the places like the Park, beach etc would be open only from 2 PM. We visited the Aurobindo Ashram and the Vinayakar Temple.

It was still 11.30 only when we finished these places and we were at a loss as to what to do next. We wandered around, trying to get more information about any other places worth seeing. Finally we decided to rent some bicycles and continue our expedition on wheels. So after lunch, put this plan into action. First pit stop was the botanical garden. Next was the war memorial on the beach and after a 15 min nap on the beach, it was time to check out the rest of the sights. 2 churches (Sacred Hearts Cathedral and church of our lady of immaculate conception) were visited and we had to search a bit for the Joan of Arc square (Those who don't know who this lady is, check her story out on wikipedia. It's worth knowing) which finally turned out to be just in front of one of the churches. After paying our respects to St.Joan, it was time to call it a day and chart out the course for the next day.

First action item of the day. Watch Sunrise at the beach. Result: Failure. Reason: Heavy Mist.

We just walked along the beach for some time and returned to the hotel. We checked out from the hotel and started to our next destination- Auroville. Auroville is a universal village where people of any nationality can come and stay. It's a nice concept. First shock of the day- Autofare to Auroville Rs. 150. Second shock of the day: There is no transportation to return from Auroville which is 8km from the main road. We had to ask the Auto driver to wait for us and he charged us Rs. 100 extra for the return trip to Auro beach.

Auroville is pretty good place. Very calm and quiet and a really nice place if you want to retreat from the helter skelter of the daily life. The whole Auroville township is in the shape of a spiral galaxy. At the centre, we have a structure called the Matrumandir.

It's a quite awe inspiring structure. We spent about 1.5 hrs in Auroville and had our lunch and proceeded to Auro Beach. There I found a starfish.

We had a fun time cavorting in the sea and soon it was time to head home. It was a really fun 2 days. We had been planning to visit pondycherry for the past 6-8 months. I would have never thought that it would come to fruition in such a way.

A Homecoming...

You know how it feels when you have travelled the whole world and finally return back home? Well that's how I felt when I started my Malayalam blog. I did'nt want to have the malayalam posts in this blog because this blog has readers for whom malayalam, greek, latin etc fall under the same category. So any malayalees who happen to come across this blog, check out my brand new malayalam blog at www.kathiyadi.blogspot.com. Lots more to come there....and here too...so keep checking this space...and the other one too...

Aping the West...Way to go....

Date: April 2oth 1999

Place: Columbine High School, Jefferson County, Colorado

Two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a shooting rampage, killing 12 students and a teacher, as well as wounding 23 others, before committing suicide. It is the fourth-deadliest school killing in United States history.

Date: December 11th 2007

Place: Euro International School, Gurgaon, Haryana

A 14 year old Student, Abhishek Tyagi was shot dead by his classmates. He was shot 5 times including one on his temple and two on his chest from close range.

Well...overall it seems like we are about 8 years behind the western civilization. Whom do we blame for this? For the blaming game on the former incident, watch Micheal Moore's "Bowling for Columbine". He blames everyone (and most of them rightly so) from Lockheed and Martin to Kmart for what happened in the Columbine High School.

A bit more details on the incident in our own backyard. The 2 murderers (Yeah I know they are minors. But what they did was murder. So don't expect me to take their age into account) are sons of a prominent real estate developer. They had a fight with the dead boy. They are in the eighth standard. Who has not fought with their classmates in eighth standard? Now it gets interesting...Their father had a licensed revolver which that dumb witted idiotic son of a bitch used to leave on,of all the places, the TV Trolley and that too with live ammunition. The kids having enough exposure to our Prime time television to know what a gun does and how to pull the trigger, saw an easy way to settle the fight. They smuggled the revolver into the school by hiding it in their socks. Remember how cool the hero looks when he pulls out a pistol out of his ankle holster? No wonder they wanted to do it too. Then they hid the pistol in the bath room and waited for the school to end. Once the school left, they got the gun out and it was bang bang time. The first boy shot the victim 4 times and handed the gun to his brother who shot him once more for good measure.

What really shocked me was all the planning that went into the act. Sure we have settled fights when we were kids. We have gone to the extent of letting the air out of our antagonist's cycle tire. But the cyber age kids are a really different breed I guess. Having grown up on a healthy diet of violent television and FPS(first person shooter) video games, pulling a trigger didnt seem like a big deal to them. Eighth standard is not a time when you have full grasp of the concept of life and death. For all I know, they thought that if they shot him enough times, he would turn to dust like the enemies do in their video games. But still, the thought that went into the action was apalling.

So tell me, whom do we blame? Do we blame the kids? I don't know. I am not able to even grasp at their mind set when they thought of doing such a thing. Do we blame the school for not keeping a closer eye on their students? Well who would ever have thought of finding a gun in an eighth standard student's bag? The worst they could have imagined would have been an issue of debonair/chastity or a pack of cigarettes. But a gun? No way. There is one person whom I can blame without a shadow of doubt. The moron of a father that these kids have. You have 2 kids studying in 8th standard who have just begun experiencing life and are willing to try anything. You have a loaded gun. Leave it on the TV trolley where the kids watch their television every day. Good call Stupid. Guns and 8th standard kids don't mix well together.

This post might seem a little different than my usual posts. That is because this was a venting out of rage or frustration whatever you would like to call it. I somehow cannot digest the fact that two kids planned to this extent to take the life of their classmate. I really feel sorry for all the parents. What assurance do they have that their kids are safe at school? The world is getting less safer by the minute. In another 5-6 years, when I would want to have kids of my own, will I be brave enough?

Mangalore Madrigal....

A pleasantly cold night......An open terrace.....Stars above and friends with you....chatting the night out....THE best way to spend a saturday night if you ask me. This is exactly what I did last saturday night.

After our fantabulously succesful Tada trip, our plans for other trips were dying an early death. We planned several trips only to have them postponed indefenitely due to some reason or the other. That is why this Mangalore trip deserves a special mention. The plan was born on Nov 19th and by Nov 30th, we were on our way. Planning to conceivement in 11 days....

When the idea was born, it was a company of three which had decided to go to Mangalore on a weekend to meet a friend and visit the much-heard-about St.Mary's Island. When it finally happened, it was a gang of 8 travelling to Mangalore with 3 more people to join from there. Don't you love it when things work out in a really big way?

We started from Chennai on Nov 30th at 5 PM. Had lotsa fun during the trip including a hilarious round of Dumbcharades.....We reached Mangalore at around 9.30 in the morning and after a quick round of freshening up, were on our way to St.Mary's Island.

Legend has it that Vasco da Gama had landed on this island in 1498 on his way to India. He was the one who named it 'El Padron de Santa Maria'. A unique feature of this Island is the hexagonal volcanic rock formations on one side.

Warning: Trying to climb those rocks...however low they may seem can be dangerous for your leg. You may have to wear a crepe bandage and buy a new pair of sandals to suit your swollen feet.

On the other part of the island, the beach is made solely of shells....with enough patience and time, you can collect all sorts of rare specimens there.

As they say in Titanic, we were "Unable to stay, unwilling to leave" from this piece of paradise. But the call of the boatmen had to be heeded to. Back we went to the other side.

Seeing how this weekend was turning so much differently from our usual ones, we decided to take it a step further. Have dessert and then the main course dinner. This took us to Pabbas ice cream parlour where the injured members of our raiding party were taken care of. Once the hurt were safely taken to shelter, off we went into the night of Mangalore to hunt....for a place to eat...about a 2km walk at night...was a lovely experience.

This was when the plans for the next day were made. Majority said Bakel fort and being a democracy, the voice of majority was to be upheld. So the where was resolved. Now came the how and the when. This brought about some interesting results which led to our night out on the terrace.

Bakel for could not withstand an assault from us the next day morning and it fell. We underlined our victory with a re shooting of the famous song from the movie "Bombay".

All in all it was a really memorable trip. There is just one regret when I look back on the whole thing...Try as we might, we couldnt get the sun to rise in the west.... But then that is another story for maybe another time.....

Placement Blues

The most anticipated time at any B-School is the time of placements...It's the time when true colours of our co habitants come out(for the better or for the worse). It's the time which decides the future of dozens of wannabe business tycoons..and it's also the time which gives birth to several interesting anecdotes. The focus of this post is one such incident and the word "fantabulous".

Answers.com defines the word fantabulous as a slang, meaning "marvelously excellent".

So the incident happened in the cold winter of 2005. The IITK MBA placement season was just starting. The first companies to find its way to the MBA placement committee were the likes of TCS who was offering us a pay at par with the engineers- something around 2.4 lacs per annum. This was looked upon with disdain. Lots of inner voices went like "Saala B@^&#(^*d....2.4 de raha hai....phir 2 saal hum ne yahan pe ye Ch******p kyon ki hain?". A more polite version of this would be "The esteemed company is giving us a package of 2.4 lacs. Pray tell us why we went through this 2 year course in vain". Then one fine morning, a mail comes announcing the arrival of GCEB (Identity masked to protect myself) bank on campus for their PPT(Pre Placement Talk). For those who are not aware of the structure of a PPT, it goes like

1. Introduction
2. A brief about the company
3. The details of the openings they have
4. Pay structure
5. Details of the selection process

Most of the audience present would be hanging on point no. 3. There were people who were willing to betray their specialisations for the proverbial 30 silver pieces. i.e. If paid enough, a guy specialising in operations was willing to stab his specialisation in the back and grab a marketing job.

So once the news hit the campus, the well oiled ppt preparation machine sprung into action. 3 piece suits were being broken out, shoes were being polished, the history of GCEB bank was being researched and then some more. There were lots of banking enthusiasts who were willing to give a pound of flesh to get into the banking industry. Being very sure that I wanted nothing to do with the financial sector, I stayed away from all this. Little was I know what I were to miss. The PPT was at 1000 hrs one day. When I met my batch mates at the lunch table, they looked as if they had seen a ghost. Their faces were drained of colour and I heard one word being repeated often- "fantabulous".

After lunch, with lots of questions on my mind, I approached one of my close friends who had gone for the PPT. Then I came to know the whole story.

All of them reached the venue well ahead of time with the full back ground preparation to make that killer first impression. The bank officials came and the PPT started. The kicker is that their PPT never went beyond pt. no 2 on the above list. They spent about an hour extolling the virtues of GCEB bank and how kind they were to come to our institution to offer us job opportunities. (ok. the second part of the statement is a bit exaggeration. Learn to live with it.). So once the PPT was over, obviously there were lots of questions. Especially regarding the points 3 and 4. The excerpts from the question answer session is as follows.

Enthusiastic Student 1: Hello Sir, My name is ES1. Could you tell us a bit on what kind of profile you would be offering us?

Overenthusiastic Official 1: Don't worry about the profile. Wherever you join in our bank, you will be growing exponentially. In the post you will be joining, you will be handling lakhs of rupees every day. It will be a job that will require tremendous mathematical aptitude and qualities like honesty and diligence.

ES1: That sounds very promising sir. What post would that be?

OO1: You guys will be joining as Assitant Cash Managers.

This reply was the beginning of the very painful end. Some of the pessimistic lot had a suspicion about this embellished job title.

Pessimistic Student 1: So what exactly would we be doing in this post?

OO1: You will be in charge of collecting the cash from our customers at the bank and ensuring the correctness of the accounts.

PS1: You mean we will be working as Cashiers?

OO1: We have abandoned all those derogatory job titles long back. Now we use the term Assistant Cash Managers.

There were still some people in the crowd who if paid enough were willing to be a cashier. Well if you get paid 5.5 lacs to do nothing but count money each day, some would say it's a bargain.

Optimistic Student 1: So what would be the pay package be like?

OO1: Don't worry about the salary. You will be compensated adequately.

OS1: Still, it would be great if you could give us a ball park figure.

OO1: According to your qualifications, your pay can be up to a FANTABULOUS 1.75 lacs per annum.

This was the last straw that broke the camel's back. Those who were bad mouthing TCS for their low pay were now assigning the dream company title to TCS. They had no retorts for the bank officials. This was a blow below the belt.

One thing that came out of that fiasco was embellishment of the vocabulary of the whole class with the word "Fantabulous".

Tail piece: Although we stumbled at the first step, we soon started galloping afterwards. The placement week of 2005 was an unprecedented success with big wigs like IBM, Accenture, Citibank and Infy all recruiting heavily. After all these, the story of the bank officials offering a fantabulous 1.75 became one to be laughed about over a cup of chai and an aloo pyaz paratha at the Hall 8 Canteen.

Writer's Block

It's been more than a month without a single blog entry from my side....seems like I am going through some sort of Writer's Block. For those who don't know what that means, Wikipedia defines Writer's Block as

"a phenomenon involving temporary loss of ability to begin or continue writing, usually due to lack of inspiration or creativity"

That defines it pretty well....It's not that I haven't had topics to write on...After all, I had been to Antaragni at IITK and attended the first ever performance in India by the Finnish band, "Poets of the Fall". I could have written about how great it was or about how disappointing Atif Aslam was on his Professional Night. But the words were just refusing to come out....The fire in the belly which said "I gotta blog about this" was just not there.....and I didn't want to just go through the motions and post something....Maybe life is becoming a bit too routine and that is draining away the creativity....you become creative when you are exposed to new stimuli...doing the same thing over and over again all throughout the week hardly counts as new. The fact that we have been planning many trips, none of which worked out doesn't help either....maybe it's time we got one of the plans into action...a trip with friends to a new place, clicking a few photos and just unwinding may act as a defibrillator to my fast flat lining creativity....Or as they say in "Dr.House M.D.", call a code and get me 10ml epi...stat......

To Walk or not to walk?

In the last Ind- Aus ODI, which took place in the Wankhade Stadium, Mumbai, India was saved the blushes by two of its front line bowlers, but not with the ball- with the bat. Murali Karthik and Zaheer khan put together a gutsy partnership of 51 runs to take India home. In the post match ceremony, Karthik admitted that in the course of his innings, he had nicked a delivery to the keeper and as it went undetected, he did'nt bother bringing it up himself. When his turn came to speak, Australian captain Ricky Ponting suggested that it would have been nice if Karthik had walked. For the cricket ignorant, 'Walking' is the term used when the batsman knows he is out and does not wait for the umpire's signal to go back to the dressing room. This is seen as a show of sportsman spirit and upholding of ethics in the game. But as we know, talking about ethics is travelling on a very slippery slope. So get ready to slide..

There are 4 major perspectives on what is Ethical: Rationalism, Egoism, Utilitarianism and Deontology.

Rationalism says that end justifies means. i.e. even if you do something wrong to achieve a good purpose, it is justified. This might be the principle Robin Hood lives by. Steal from the rich to feed the poor. Even in Mahabharatha we can see an illustration of this perspective. When Krishna asks Yudhisthira to lie to Drona that Aswathama has died, he says that telling a lie to achieve a greater good is not a sin. So this view point has been in force for quite a long time.

Egoism says that whatever done for the benefit of one's own is justified. You can lie, cheat or steal as long as you are benefitted. Sounds like something our politicians would just adore.

Utilitarianism says that if you do something that benefits a majority, that is ethical. For eg, say you do something which benefits X no. of people and harms Y no. of people. If X>Y, then according to Utilitarianism, what you did is ethical. People like Terrorists are usually judged by this principle. They crash a plane into the twin towers and Al Qaida is benefited but the people in US are harmed. Since the population of US >>people in Al Qaida, it is deemed tha Al Qaida did a wrong thing. In the same way, US bombs Afghanistan in retaliation. Again, some people are benefited and some harmed. In this case as the latter is lesser, US stands justified in its actions (atleast according to Utilitarianstic theory)

And finally, Deontology. This is somewhat the other side of Rationalism. Where rationalism says that Ends justify means, Deontology says that means is also as important. i.e. stealing from the rich to give to the poor does not make you any lesser a thief. This is the theory which governs most of the law and order in our society. This society does not look kindly to an orphan who steals bread for his hungry sister. He is also as guilty as a hustler who makes millions cheating the public.

So now lets see if Karthik was justified in not walking.

Rationalism: Ends justifies means. In the end India won. That should be justification enough for Karthik's not walking. If he had walked, there was no guarantee that the last pair would survive long enough to take India to the shores of victory. So in this context, Karthik's actions are justified.

Egoism: Do what benefits you. While bowling, Karthik had put up a record breaking performance of 6 for 27. It was quite obvious that he did'nt want to see his bowling efforts go to waste. Who can blame him? Here too his actions stands justified.

Utilitarianism: Do what benefits the majority. Another defeat at the hands of australians would have plunged millions of Indian cricket fans into a state of depression. The reaction of the Mumbai crowds after victory was sign enough that they didnt remember that we lost the series. They just remembered the day and on that day, India won. Seeing how the population of Australia is not even a distant competition to that of India, what Karthik did benefited the majority. So here too he stands justified.

Now here comes the twist.

Deontology: Not just results, Actions too matter: If you have to win a game, win it fairly without any external help. When he knew he was out and still stayed at the crease, Karthik was cheating. He didnt play fair and whatever the results, his actions were wrong. Or so says deontological ethics. So here he does not stand justified.

In any democratic society, usually when 3 out of 4 people have one view on a topic and the last person differs, the majority view is upheld. I am not judging or anything. But if 3 mad guys call you mad, who is really mad? Is it you because they are the majority or are they in spite of being the majority?

Go Karting etc

The word 'Promenade' means a leisurely walk...It was on last saturday that HCL Telecom team decided to take a promenade to Mayajaal Resorts...Well we were not walking literally...coz that would be stupid given that the resort is about 40 km from Chennai....But still it's the thought that counts....So off we went to Maayajaal, promenading in buses...It's a quite happening place..A multiplex, Indoor games, Resort, Swimming pools, Cricket grounds and last but never the least...A karting ring...I would not be describing the activities there and how good or bad it was...coz if I were doing a PR job, I would never do it for free (or maybe I am just not in the mood)....So sorry guys...no accolades for the organizing team and no criticisms to our bus coordinator who managed to get us lost even before starting the journey in earnest....The point of today's post is (no prizes for guessing....Ya I know you read the heading...)Go Karting....There was an hour long break after lunch when we were free to waste time as we saw fit...jump into a swimming pool...Go to the waterfalls..No its not a natural one....or just sit there...Noting already that there was a karting ring in there and not wanting to just sit there, me and my comrade in arms Vinayan, went to pay them a visit...The charges were steep..Rs.150 per head for 5 min..But the call of speed needed to be heeded to (need, speed, heed..nice alliteration...Man I'm good)...Soon wallet was Rs.300 lighter and we were buckling up for the ride...Pedal to the metal and off we went....it was a real good experience...I would do it again in a jiffy even if the prices were a little more steep...There is a wishlist of activities that I have always wanted to do...Trekking to a desolate place and Karting can be crossed off the list now...The remaining items include Parasailing and Bungee Jumping.

I am actually a bit squeamish about heights...Looking down from the top of a tower makes my legs go numb...but still bungee jumping has always been something that I wanted to do...Once during my school days, a carnival at Ernakulam introduced Bungee jumping to the public in Kerala...When I expressed my desire to try this out to my mother, she assured me with utmost sincerity that if I did something like that, she would beat my life out of me...But the temptation of the adrenalin rush was too much and I was ready to risk a date with the cane for that...Being a high school student, my collected earnings at hand totalled to about Rs. 275. Keeping apart the money for the bus tickets and auto fare, my ability to spend topped out at Rs.250. I was determined that even if it took every paisa of those Rs.250, I would tie myself to the bungee cord and take the leap...I reached the carnival, marveling at the structure set up for the Bungee jump. I was just beginning to get excited about it when a board there nipped my hopes in the bud...Per jump Rs. 1500....I had fought through threats on my life for this but at the last step, I was thwarted by the root cause of all evil....Money....and now, when I have a job and money is not that much of an obstacle (well my mom would still flog me if she came to know I spent Rs.1500 on a potentially life threatening spectacle)...there is not a bungee jump in sight...So my dear readers...if you have any information on places where this adrenalin pumping, mind numbing experience is available, please let me know. People living outside India need not bother reply..Yes I know there are lots of spots in US that offer this..but I don't have a free ticket to US (and back).

That brings to mind an anecdote about a bumper prize won by my friend..Just this more and I'm done for the day...This friend of mine bought a Sony ericsson phone lately and won a Bumper prize...an all expenses paid vacation in Thailand...but as alway's there is a catch...travel is not included (it costs "just" Rs. 30000)...If you manage to reach Thailand by begging, borrowing or stealing, they will take care of you for the time period of the stay till you have to begin begging, borrowing or stealing to get back to India....I am sure now he wishes that if only he had got the second prize...which was an apple iPod.

Everything is Forgiven....

As Indian cricket fans, we are proud of having a short memory span...All it takes is a victory to purge our hearts of all the past defeats.....but it cuts both ways.....a defeat after a huge victory does not deserver forgiveness....But now is not the time to dvelve into such matters....now is the time to rejoice....till another 20-20 world tournament comes along, which could be real soon going by the success of the first one, the bragging rights are ours....India stands as the King of the 20-20 mountain....left in the dust of this trailblazing journey are the horrible memories of the carribean....After 22 years, India has won a world championship...Everything else is forgiven....

Dreams.....

This thought process was started on our 60th Independence day. I was thinking about how we holler that we are free and celebrate our freedom every year......but are we free really? What does freedom mean to any one of us? Does freedom mean only that we are able to select our own representatives to govern us? How is that different from the freedom of a convict given the choice of poison he needs to take? These thoughts were swirling in my head but till today I was not able to structure it well enough to put it into words...Then today morning while mailing a friend, something I wrote took me back to all these thoughts...and the result is given below for all of you to see...I have titled this..."Dreams"


When I was just a child,
I was told"dream"
And let your dreams run wild
Knowing only to obey, I dreamt
Dreams of a world well kept
I dreamed of days without bloodshed
And nights without fear
Where everyone was well fed
And a smile was always near
I dreamt of a world where love prevailed
And hate was never there to be blamed
I dreamt of a land where people were free
Free of all the bonds, free as they should be
But still there were chains that tied them together
Golden chains of love, tying brother to brother
Silver chains of trust tying man to man and
With hand in hand to the new future they ran
And then I woke up with a start
I heard them shouting from the rampart
"Hear ye Hear ye all who are free"
"It's been sixty years since freedom was given to thee"
Still dazed from the sleep, I look around
And I don't see any freedom to be found
All I see around me are chains
Not the gold and silver of love and trust
But dirty black ones full of rust
Chains of lies, hate and betrayal
And man in them in a state of denial
He chooses to close his eyes
When with a final cry, his brother dies
My dreams return to haunt me
And they show me a picture of what has to be
It's about time we stopped dreaming
And make a little sacrifice
A small sacrifice of dreams
To realize the ones we've already dreamed.....

??

Last weekend, I had gone to Trivandrum to attend a friend's wedding. While coming back, a board in the Trivandrum Railway Station caught my attention. I still don't know what to make of this.....

See the soft and yellow petals, touch the morning mist and cry

Holding out green velvet fingers in conversation with the sky

Tamasoma Jyotirgamaya...

(Lead me from Darkness to Light)

Chak De....

It's not a well known fact among my friends that I am a loyal Shah Rukh Khan fan. It's true that I don't have his posters adorning the walls of my bedroom or the desktop of my PC (Those are reserved for a Green eyed beauty.......). But I watch any movie as long as SRK is in it. I have endured movies from the really painful Badshah to the overhyped underperforming KANK. I even watched a dud named "Shakti" just because SRK had a guest role in it (and also because it featured a certain someone in the "Ishq Kameena" song). So it was just a case of time before I churned out Rs.90 for a ticket to SRK's latest movie..."Chak De India". A sunday matinee at Satyam Cinemas, Chennai and all I can say is "Wow".

Chak De is an out and out sports film. This genre has been largely overlooked in Hindi movies. Except for some utterly forgettable movies like "Avval Number" and a real rarity like "Lagaan", Hindi Cinema has seldom focused on Sports. Even in Lagaan, the cricket was just a means to an end. Although the movie focused on the match, there was always a bigger picture. So I wouldn't call that a real sports movie. In Chak De, Hockey is the means and the end. Hollywood has had lots of real good sports movies. "Remember the Titans", "The Replacements", "The Mighty Ducks", "Coach Carter","Any given Sunday"....the list goes on. When I mentioned to one of my friends that "Chak De" is not doing good overseas, she remarked with typical innocence "Foreign teams ko haraaya hai na...Isi liye nahi chal raha hai...". Well maybe she is right...or maybe it is the fact that they have seen loads of such movies and its not a new thing to them....Whatever be the case, this was certainly the best movie that I have seen since Lage Raho Munnabhai...

Now coming to the movie, The topic is nothing new to those who watch English movies...Firstly, there is a disgraced player who was supposed to be the best of his time...then you have a team from which noone has any expectations...then you have the amazing turnaround...standard formula for a sports movie...Kabir Khan was India's best Centre forward in Hockey till he missed a crucial penalty stroke in the world cup finals against Pakistan. Then ignominy follows and he disappears for 7 years. He then surfaces to apply for the coach position of Indian National Womens Hockey team. The team is a mish mash of players from various states including Jharkand and Mizoram. It has some really interesting characters like Komal Chautala, who according to my friend is a "typical" Haryanvi and Balbir Kaur who is a "typical" Punjabi. The rest of the movie is all about how the team bonds and how they reach the pinnacle of glory in the World Hockey Championship. There are some really good scenes in the movie...one that needs to be mentioned happens when the girls take on a gang of boys who were hitting on them...one of the boys try to hit a girl from the back with a cricket bat. SRK stops him and says " Hamla karna hai to mardon ki tarah saamne se karo...Kya hai ki hamare hockey mein Chakke nahi hote"....The writer couldn't help taking a potshot at Cricket. Afterall, hockey is supposed to be our national game and it has been largely looked over in favour of Cricket. The Hockey-Cricket divide is also portrayed in the relationship between one of the team members and her boyfriend. Anyways...the best scene of the movie belongs to none other than King Khan. It happens when India wins the world cup. There are no dialogues...just acting at its best....the look of a man who has found a meaning to his life that was lost till then....You gotta see it to believe it....News is that the DVD print has already hit the IITK LAN. So I will be getting a CD written...coz this is a movie for the collection....

This makes it all worth it....

Base camp 2

Taking the first steps..

The Gang - 1

Boys Gang in front of Oneness University

To Mother Nature's Lap...A Trek to Tada Falls...

Well….how do I begin….It often happens that when you plan something to more than a certain extent, you build some expectations around it and when finally you are there, you feel let down…as your expectations were much higher than what it actually turned out to be. We had done our share of planning for this trek to Tada falls…For the uninitiated, this is situated near the Tamil Nadu- Andhra Pradesh border, in the district of Nellore…It is about 80 km from Chennai and is a piece of the world that commercialization has seemingly forgotten or overlooked…..So as I said we had done our share of planning for this trek….meticulously go through every blog written about treks to Tada, try to forsee any eventualities that might occur, etc…what we were not able to do was get an idea about how the whole thing is going to be….thats the difference between knowing the path and walking the path. When we finally walked the path, it was beyond our wildest expectations...one of the best saturdays in my life...The call of the wild was heard and heeded to...and back we went into the embrace of mother nature...

We had planned a 5.30 A.M start from Chennai. It should be said that our planning was a success because we were on our way by 5.50 A.M. Our gang consisted of 7 people…Seven is supposed to be a very powerful number in the world of Magic..thats why Lord Voldemort wanted to have seven horcruxes and all…anyway…I am drifting from the topic…7 people, 4 boys and 3 girls. Selwyn, Vinayan, Vimal, Aswini, Nandita, Vibitha and myself. One thing bothering us when we started was the tax for crossing the border of which we had read about in the blogs….I’ll come to that in a moment. Our first photo opportunity was the Oneness University.

The Construction of this University is something worth looking at. It reminds you of palaces of the old…We spent some time there clicking photos and were soon on our way. Then came the border crossing….our fears proved to be unfounded as we just had to pay a toll of Rs.15 and move on…We reached the town of Tada by somewhere around 7.30. Hunger pangs were striking most of us…some of us are used to having pretty heavy breakfasts…so they were on the lookout for a hotel…finally we got into what seemed like the last hotel available…Had our breakfast…Iddly for some and Puri for others….We hadn’t lost our way yet, thanks to the blogs and the local support…but after breakfast, we took a wrong turn somewhere and added about 4-5 km to our total distance…the mistake was soon rectified and we were on our way ( the right one this time..). Tada to Varadiahpalayam and from there to the falls…with locals willing to offer help throughout the way, it was quite easy. Then the going began to get tough….So finally we decided to get down and start our trek in earnest.

We had done our homework and knew that we need to walk for about 3 km before reaching a waypoint in the form of a Shiva Temple. We were in no hurry at all. So we took our time. At the first sight of flowing water, some of us could not resist it and had to get their feet wet…aah..what the hell…time for some more photos

Finally we were able to get everyone out of there and continue on our way. The first phase of the trek is actually climbing up a hill…we took a break when we reached the top of the hill. We sat there for sometime taking in the raw beauty of nature. Soon it was time to start marching again. Now the journey was downhill. At the bottom of the hill we came to a stream with an Idol nearby (which we nicknamed Indian Idol). This could be called Base camp 2 (Atleast that was what they called it in the Blogs). Another stream to cross and after a fruitless effort to keep my shoes dry, I crossed the stream.

After another short break, we were again on our way. Finally we reached the last point on the path that was the Shiva Temple. Thereon, there was no clear path to the falls. It was all about charting your own course. The best thing to do is go upstream…or you can also follow the litter…cross the stream..climb the boulders and keep walking until you reach a situation where you can see the falls and a seemingly insurmountable rock formation. This was our greatest challenge….It is almost impossible to scale this thing unless you are an expert trekker or you have friends….I was the one who had most difficulty climbing this..and took what looked to be a nasty fall attempting this climb…But as always in life…in tough situations, there are friends to see you through…and finally I was there on top. I had hardly laid down and there came the next problem…cramps…My leg muscles were cursing me for making the work so hard without any kind of an advance warning…A bit of flexing and a lot of Amritanjan did the trick. In the mean time Vinayan managed to strike a rapport with one of the bees nearby and was rewarded with a sting at the back of his head...I had taken a fall and Vinayan had a sting to his credit. Little did we know that Selwin was planning to better both of us...the final tally was Vinayan: 1 sting, Venu: 1fall, Selwin: 1 fall and 1 sting. As there was nothing to see on the top, we climbed back down..which was surprisingly easy and it was time to give meaning to all the effort…to take a shower under the Tada falls….Pristine ice cool water falling on top of your head…the feeling of being embraced by mother nature…that few minutes spent under the falls made it all worth it.

A few minutes under the fall, a few more minutes to take it all in and we decided to start our return journey as the falls were a bit too crowded for comfort. It seemed we had chosen a very popular day for this trek as wherever there was any water to be found, there was also some company that we could really do without. So we continued our journey back in search of some peace and quiet where we could spend some time in the water. This was found only at BC2. There we stayed for about an hour. On the return journey, one main agenda was to see if Aswini had fallen down...it was more of a question of when rather than if. She had taken to falling to such an extent that we were thinking of changing the name from Tada falls to Aswini falls...But as someone said "Its not about how many times you fall...its about how many times you get up..." To her credit, she was on her feet after each fall in no time...

And finally it was time to bid adieu to this beautiful place. We made our way back to where our vehicle was parked..singing songs all the way and having a great time. Once we got into the van and the return journey started, it was time for some fierce Antakshari. In the end, as always, we showed why boys are better , beating the girls 2-0. All in all, this was a fabulous experience with whole lot of fun and a little discomfort. But after all, as someone has said, “Adventure is discomfort recollected in comfort…”