Sunday, April 29, 2007

Badida Hoovu.......

I have learned a lot from my observations of this wicked world...but lot more to c..... those were days when a young girl in her teenage in a remote place of india dreamed of her future life with her husband.... young women of india had sacrificed a lot they were never allowed to go out in search of freedom, home was their world..... and serving their husband was the world to them....every women had lots of respect for their husband......

She was married at a very early age to a young handsome man as much as i know he used to work in a hotel in chennai at that time, it was during the time of 2nd world war..... and then he remembered of a duty to be completed.... a duty which is considered as divine in the hindhu philosophy serving of the aging parents....the young man knew that all his brothers had gone to various places in search of their lively hood now it was his responsibility to return to his village home "permude" near mangalore and look after their again parents......

They were the jamindar of that village and had lots of lands, the young girl was very happy with the new world but was very scared of the forest around her house....the reality of a real innocent girl and how she matures and graduates to the real world.... she had even seen tiger coming near to her house and even killing their cattles all at the young age....but she was a bold women who graduated very early in her life and decided its her home and she is gonna live there till her death....as india got its independence lots changed and all the lands the family had was slipt and given to poor.....

Life teaches one and everyone a lot...... she graduated to great levels of maturity at a very tender age.... she had to take care of the whole family in a age where in she was suppose to enjoy the life..... lots were very difficult.... she had to take care of the cattels, serve the family... and help her husband in the lands.....

Life kept teaching this young girl a lots.... things were changing fast.... so also her dreams.... she could see everyone enjoying in the cities but considered that it was her duty to be with her husband and serve him till her death..... God was not happy with her scarifies she was overloaded with the responsibility of leaving a life in the forest with no children.... wat a great responsibility.... she cried in the lonely house all alone day after day but no one to her rescue in the lone house..... she tried to forget her sarrowness serving the god.... her day to day work included praising the god for all the "dookha" he has given her in his life......

I first met this great lady at an age of around 15, there was something in her which pulled me inside her.... she was a women of character who knew what she is going to get in life and was ready to face in life..... that time she had told me she just had one wish in life..... she had served all her life to her husband and the god and now she wants to rest in peace before her husband.....

She used to prepare one of the best food i ever had in my life....she was the best cook i know till date she had an amazing characteristic of cooking food from what u have.... she could have prepared food from what ever resources available for the day with minimal effort a great lady..... i was lucky to have tasted her food the remote indian food which is almost in extinct now....

It was my cousine's marriage in udupi i called this lady and told her i am coming to meet her.... she was very happy.... she had found a child in me.... but till date i cry for myself that i was never her child.... but this god had something else in his mind..... within in a day he can change lots..... i visited her next day but to my shock she was admitted to hospital with a sever stoke... she was paralysed and was bed ridden.... she didnot open her eyes i took her hand in my hand and tears rolled over my eyes.... i wished god .... i cant see this pain anymore please end this up.... looks like this time god heard me..... she rested in the eternal peace with in few days..... to be frank i was very happy.... that was end of a great journey of life..... she had lived every moment of life with sarrows but still she fought her battle of life till her end... today i miss her.....

i spoke to her husband today and he is all alone in the village house and he is also missing his wife a lot.... he told me great words.... he told.... he is seeing her in everycorner of the house.... very obvious they began and spent the entire life in that house..... looks like he has lost all the interest in life..... i called him to live with me.... but he told she died here i am gonna wait for my death here.... she was a great soul and lucky women left me all alone ...........

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Kemmannugundi and Hebbefalls Trek

Every time i trek i see new things and learn new things from mother nature..... i love the freedom i get in the open world away from everyone and living to myself.... We planned to go to Kemmanugundi.....for a weekend trek... and we planned to leave on 6th april 2007 .... lots of things were heard before the trek that its the most odd season to trek in kemmannugundi and we would be roasted by the hot sun....lots were wrong about these words.....this time we were a team of 23 members few nem members to our group....its always great for me to meet and know more and more new people.....as usual i was on time..... in fact 15 minutes early...at vijaynagar bustop so thought of going for a small walk around the market...looking at men moving around like ants....felt a bit bad looking at how things are changing...in the society...felt we are loosing the great culture we had and everything is been seen through money.....

We started for one great trip at around 10pm....not many were in a mood to enjoy...so many of them slept of immediately....i toooooo went to last seat and slept for some time.... the fun began from morning.... we were around 30kms away from kemmanugundi and we were suppose to travel through the ghat sections... myself, chandru, gilli,sripad and vijay sat on top of the bus few knew about this.... it was a great moment to sit on top of the bus and move through the curves feeling the cool breeze....watching the beautiful coffee estates all around... this was an experince i would cherish..... sitting on a open top and travelling feeling the air around me....

Around 7 we reached the rose gardens, had our breakfast and a small photo session and then we started to move towards our trek point to visit hebbe falls... i had never seen hebbe before....neither i had a look at it in google wanted to see it for the first time so that i dont miss the fun of surprise.... we reached the start point at aroun 8 and started getting ready for the 6km oneside trek... good thing was the weather was very pleasent ....lots of clouds all around it was a great surprise for us since it was april.... wat a luck to start our trek...

Once in the world of trees i was lost in my world....feeling the clouds passing me... the smell of the wet mud because of the morning moisture... everything was pleasing my minds.... faar away from the human world..... the green leaves of trees which is hard to find in bangalore until it rains.... could also see lots of trees thats been cut by the humans....walking along was great fun in the woods.... we did pass trough few coffee estates...saw the coffee flower for the first time and also felt the pleasent smell of the coffee flower it was some wat similar to a jasmine flower... We can also prefer to come along a long way by jeep but we prefered to walk all along.... we did get small mangoes on the way and tasted the same it was great....i could see tall trees and could also hear lots of monkey shouting but only could see few of them looked like they were very safe of top of those huge trees.... the last few kms of the trek was very steep and looks like this is were i hurt myself for the first time after soooo many treks.... donot know wat happend to me....but my left leg knee started paining a bit.... something like a muscle tear....


On the way we need to pass through a small stream and the risk part was that, the rocks below were very slippery and kusuma did slip and got a kiss on her head from the rock.... for that moment instantly we could see a bubble on her head but the side effects we are still seeing even after 15 days heehhehehe...

My first view of hebbe was amazing...it was a big falls.......well i never expected it to be so big...it was big and also the best thing was the water was not very steep so u can get into water......... its always an amazing feeling to find a falls in between the woods and have a bath under it ....great moments i took some snaps from various angle of the falls...then i couldnot resist myself and moved towards the falls slowly... the water was very cold and also.....the rocks were very slippery its a bit dangerous to go towards the falls as the rocks are very slippery and the force of water may thrown u down rashly and you might hurt urself badly.....i creeped on the rocks lying down slowly to move towards the falls....at the end i was in a position to sit below the water an amzaing moment.....the water was flowing all over me the cold water....would bang your head and flow over you... closed my eyes to feel the same.....the silence...the sound of water....and the green all around.....all of a sudden hebbe has become one of my favrouite falls as this has allowed me to come into it..... we played in the water for some time and then started moving towards the vechile back again.....
I could see everyone exhausted after getting out of water....we thought of breaking the treck to have food....well as expected the pick of this group lakshmi all alone ate around 9 chapatis when a normal man can have around 4-5 thats when he got the name ..... "Bakasurana 9 neee avatara" hahahaha....
After lunch we started moving towards the vehicle again and the few meters were really tough as the sun had come out completely and it was very steep also....every step looked difficult.... at last we reached our vehicles and then i dont know wat happend for another 2-3hrs i was dead.....

I woke up at around 4-4.30 ,we had plans of going to the sunset point...Z-point and we started again to walk.....This is were i asked gilli about a different path we could see some people going along and decided to go along the difficult path but this was worth.......we reached some X-point after around 20-30min trek... One of the best trek i had even undertaken was from this X-point to Z-point...it had its reasons both sides of the narrow path we could see the furious depth not at all good if u have a fear for heights....the breeze which gave a feeling like it will take you along with you....and the worst thing was my left leg....it was becoming worst and i was loosing the trust on my left leg and i was scared to trust the same.... it was amazing walk on the narrow path....We reached Z point and sat there i got lost in the sun, watching him going down ....end of day for him....day after day he does this job without any change......strange to understand the concepts of nature.....

After coming back to the vehicle our plan was to reach Sandy's farm house.... we reached around 8 and best thing was everything was well arranged the food was very good and everyone was very hungry......and after food no one new until morning what happend....
I got up early and in the early nights dissapeared in the arracnut and bannana plantations for my morning duties.....but it was fun to watch chandra chase lakshmi with his camera hahahahahaha..... i hope no one ventures into the plantations for atleast another 3-4 days......We could hear from a local boy after breakfast that a elephant had visited the farm house probably last night as he had seen elephant dung ....then we had to convince him that we had seen lakshmi going tat side hahahahahaha......

After a wonderful breakfast we started going towards the kemmannugundi mines but at that point we could see that we had to walk around 4kms for that and that day we were not lucky enough and the sun had come out in full flow and also the path is very dusty and hence we had to give up the idea and started moving towards kalhattagiri falls.....

At the first glance of the Kalhattgiri falls i was very disturbed it was destroyed by the overflow of people there is temple over here and the people pour in from various places and have spoiled the beauty of this place....we treked a bit towards inward along the direction of the forest and then we could find some place where in we could feel ourself away from the humans.... we got ourselves into the water... and played for some time.....

One of the worst thing about this place is there are very few good places left and i c people venture into the same spoil the beauty of the same.... throwing plastics, liquor bottels, wasted food into the water how sad.... some of the places were so bad that i couldnot even think of getting into the water there..... and a bit below the same water was drunk as sacred water.....pooor stuff......well our group has a good motto that we dont throw any of the plastics inside these woods..... the worst part is people take drinks and then throw the bottel into the water never even think that the glass might cut the body of people who get into water....and one more bad thing is the government have not even kept a single dustbin in these places......

After kalhatgiri falls we stoped at a dhaba had food and started our journey back to bangalore....this is real fun as we had the urdu news from.... bhanu...and the autobiography of lakshmi's childhood in his own words....hahahaha amazing stories..... and full flow dance of the entire team....adding to the fun was vicky's american accent kannada hahahhaa....

End of one more meaning full trek.....all thanx to Sandy... i have not met him but it was amazing to see a person who could help to this extent of serving 23 people even though he was not part of the trek and also not wishing anything back i mean even for the food....something rare to see .....well i am publishing this doc today and its his marriage.... i wish him all the sucess for him future life...thanx sandy....

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Plastics

I belive changes can be brought in.... by a wave of change in thought and implementation of your thoughts.... my love for treks has given me an oppurtunity to go deep inside the country away from the so called human civilization... but what worries me where ever i go...is pollution... of various format....its a great oppurtunity for me to meet so many people of similar interests and thoughts in banaglore all of a sudden.... these people of mukta have common goal a better society... we do wanna depend and live on the change made by others...rather we make the change...we will begin the making of the change..... today one of the member raised an issue on plastics so i thought i pen down my thoughts on wat have i seen on the same at few places around........
i consider temples to be a place where in i get some respect to be left alone and give a thought to my mind....and what i see in today's temples...is just commercialized.... overcrowded.... now i feel its a breeding ground for deceases for the unhigenic practises we follow.... until we never implement the education we got what is the use of the same? the basic purpose of education is to give a thought to ur actions..... i see people wash clothes on one side of the river and the same water is drunk by few others thinking its scared water..... how sad...whoz responsible for the same....
i see lots of young men go to trek these days but many are spoiling the beauty of the places.... These beautiful places have become the dumping ground of plastics all around.... it so happend few days back that in a beautiful waterfalls few people had drunk and thrown the bottle into the rocks how sick it could have seriously injured others.... We need to enjoy but a thoughtless enjoyment cannot be called enjoyment its madness....

Today i saw a very interesting mail from one of the friends addressing 2 issues

1)Reuse polythenes
2) Electricity

Every day we are running short of resources we need to understand the same and minimize the same.... few who read this might feel its all in the words...sounds good....but i want atleast a few friends of mine who read this to follow few practices.... which could atleast motivate others for the creation of a better society....

If you go to a beautiful place donot spoil the beauty let others enjoy like u... dont throw plastics...dont think u alone cannot do this....u start the job...there are 100s of people waiting for a start.... once we start going.... people will defnitely join.... try to bring atleast 10 plastic bags from a beautiful place u visit....use the handbags....

i want people to read my blogs with a thought...of implementation and a feel.... others please dont atleast make fun.... give a thought...u live in the same world as i do.....

Come out with various innovative methods of avoiding plastics in your own way.... u r the leader of your own thoughts....dont belive in others nor follow...do it the way u think is right......

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

MOONLIGHT TREK

This trek was very special all because it was done in the night...... i can say it as a moonlight trek....The place selected for the same was Scandagiri around 70kms from bangalore near nandhi hills... The entire trip was organised by our MR (Mountain Roarers) group co-ordinators gilli, nikil,loki and chandra... The plan was to go to Scandagiri by bike and then park the bike on the bottom of the hill and climb the mountain in the night, watch the sunrise and then return back to bangalore in the morning.

It was planned for everyone to meet at 8pm opposite ISCON temple on 31/3/2007 with their respective bikes. We were around 16 people with 10bikes. As usual i was on time along with my friend vikram at around 8pm only to see no one around, but slowly people started coming in....we started around 9 from there and our immediate plan was to reach a dhabha...near yalahanka....and have dinner.. I have some fond memories with these dhabhas these are very close to my first organisation where in i started my career integra micro systems. After having a good dinner we started towards Scandagiri... After around 70kms we need to take a left from highway and move towards the base of the hill. Just around 5kms before chikkballapur.

We reached the base of the hilltop at around 12.30... looking at the small hill everyone thought this is a very small hill for the people who have gone for KP and KC.. and lots of comments started floating out...We took help of a local guide to help us, also we asked him to take us through the toughest path and he agreed for the same... initially the route started with every one being troubled by the thorns in the small hubs.. everyone got scratches on their hands and body....later we were left with some steep and slippery rock to climb in the night....

Since it was dark my observations didnot go beyond a beautiful moon and the feel of the pleasant air around.... the cool breeze just pleased the minds when it erased the tiredness of climbing the rocks.... At some places the rocks were very steep and slippery..... lakshmi slipped a bit and got scratches on his stomach and hand..... poor lakshmi.... but for him he should thank his tummy because that acted as a rubber grip and managed to hold him to the rock....

We managed to reach the peak at around 4 am, only to see too many people on top of the hill...it was a pleasant place far from the crowded streets of bangalore, but what i didnot like there was.. we go to a good place to have fun and enjoy the nature and spend some time with the nature.... i could see people spoiling the beauty of the place by drinking and throwing the bottles along with plastics.... how sick these people are just a curse.... until they themselves understand the need of preserving the beauty of a place nothing much could be done in avoiding nor we can blame government for the same...

We thought of having a small nap in the early hours but it was very cold and many of us couldn't sleep even a bit... so started collecting some sticks around and raised a campfire to beat some cold...it was a great fun sitting around the fire and warming ourselves....a good moment to watch the fire dance because of the high breeze..... Since we had put the fire on the rocks there was no issue of spreading the fire into the dry grass surrounding.....

At around 5.30 we could see some light and a complete red moon going down at one end....wat a view... the moon had done its job for the day and was moving away from us.... a strange thing to understand the concepts of nature.... a bright white moon in the night who guided us in the steep slopes of the mountain had turned complete red at the end of his day......
We kept waiting for sun till around 6.15 but couldnot see the sun rise even though there was good light and signs of sun already have come out....people around even started making fun that since it was april 1st the sun fooled us hahaha....but all of a sudden the sun came out of the clouds and what a spectacular view it was.......Every time i see a sun rise or sunset the colour around the sun on the clouds always fascinates me.... every time i see this there is something new... what a creation what a variety...gives a view that everyday is different and a new day....the nature invites and tells learn more and more from me....

After a small photo session we started moving towards our bikes...but this time we took an easier and longer path since it was very difficult to climb down through the path we came.... we reached...down at around 7.30 and started back to bangalore....


Here one of the worst things happened for me... at around 20kms away from bangalore the engine of my bike got seized and was not in a position to move....thanx to viky for noticing a trolley auto...and stopping the same...some how i managed to put the bike on the auto and took it to the bjaj service station in bangalore....but looks like this was costly deal of getting my bike repaired again...it has gone to the worst possible condition....

I was very tired as i didnot sleep the whole night along with the bike episode....i reached home around 11 and could only manage to sleep till 5 in the evening....

But all in all this was a very new experience for me the moonlight trek...on the slippery rocks.... and there was also a great amount of rock climbing without any gadgets for doing the same.... it was fun ... i love to enjoy and be with nature in my own ways....this was one such moment...the night with the rocks and the moon...