A post that is to be deleted

I once read the story of this boy,who lived somewhere in China, or Japan, or thereabouts.

But come to think of it, where he actually lived, or perhaps who he actually was, or what he actually did and all such seemingly apposite questions are actually quite irrelevant.

Oh,now actually all of it seems so stupid, what I did, I can almost laugh at myself. I have since thought over it, and I feel so dumb about it, and very very stupid. Everything I had dared to think, interpret, to not hide a truth, perhaps even slightly hope for, how grossly wrong, on hindsight,how comically emotive!!

I think we are actually blessed with such a big cranium so that conscious intelligence can presage each and every one of our thoughts, words and actions, and not blind instinct. Otherwise one is living in utopia.

Anyways I was talking about this boy. It seems he too had his share of aspirations, passions, opinions and perceptions,and also his principles. He made it a point to always work hard in his life to keep a really open and logical mind towards everything, tried to keep his mind free from any sort of prejudice and tried to understand how everything in the world really worked.
He often gazed at the sky, and it never ceased to amaze him. Its vastness, how it was both so empty and so abundant at the same time. How it would sometimes seem melancholic, sometimes spirited, sometimes thunderously active, otherwise pensive. The sky seemed to have as many emotions as there were.

In the sky,he admired the moon. He didn't know a lot of things, the boy. He did not know much about the moon, for example. But he always admired it truly. He admired it for the radiance it had that brightly over-shone the other stars in the night sky. He always felt that somehow he could see the moon truly as it was, even though it was far far away, and mostly it chose itself to be perceived by the world in a way it wanted, only partially hidden behind the grey clouds.

But he had his feet grounded, the boy. He never had any ambitions about reaching the moon one day.

One night, in the lake beside his house, the boy saw the moon. The bright, beautiful, radiant moon in his lake!!. What was it trying to do?

At least for a moment, the boy selfishly thought what he should do.Should he jump into the cold water? Won't his parents scold him if they came to know he jumped into the cold dark water, going after the moon? what will his neighbours think if they hear a loud splash in the lake in the middle of the night??

But once this moment of selfishness passed, the boy bravely decided, hell to the rest of the world, and blindly jumped in.After all, it was the moon which had come to his lake. He thought only about it.The moon which he admired, and adored, had come to his lake.He even asked himself whether he had at least for a moment, may be even unconsciously taken his feet of the ground.
So he jumped in. Into the big lake. In the dark night, into the ice cold water. He just couldn't help it.

When the cold water splashed on to his face, the harsh reality woke him up.

The moon had never come to the lake.

The moon was always up there in the sky, where the boy had always seen it. Whatever he had seen in the lake, was simply its reflection. What the boy thought that the moon had come to his lake, was merely an illusion. Something that had deluded the boy.

The boy was now alone in the water. It was freezing cold. The boy was shivering. And he was sad that the moon, for which he had jumped into the water, was never there.
He swam back to the shore, back to his house.

Then he dried himself up.

Then the boy realized how silly he was. How could he possibly imagine that the moon that was miles miles away, would come to his lake. The boy felt so stupid. How grossly he had misinterpreted a simple things as the reflection.

But thankfully the moon seemed to have pardoned his little folly. As, even now, the moon shined brightly over the boy as he sat beside his lake.

Even if you always try to make intelligent choices, sometimes you blindly trust your instinct. When that judgment you made based on your blind instinct turns out to be grossly wrong, you find yourself in an awkward situation. Sad at first, but when you think it over, you feel really stupid you didn't think about it first. Really, really stupid, you can laugh at yourself. Or , at least smile :).

When I am typing this, I am becoming such a selfish and egoistic individual. Character traits I never wanted to develop. Otherwise I would have heeded to demands to not type this post, not only from me...

the club

there is this club called Last-Minute-Rush-and-Almost-Get-Fished-Up club.
An analysis of the activity of two prominent members of this club , a couple of days ago when they were trying to catch a train, gathered the following data.

Members of this club do not plan anything early, and leave most things to the last moment, and the rest to chance.
Members of this club realize on the day before their 'planned' trip home after many months, that tickets are required for travelling.
Members of this club contact all their contacts, and their friends who have contacts, to somehow arrange for a couple of last minute tickets.
Members of this club realize on the afternoon of the day of their journey that they, with the help of their good friends, have procured three times the number of tickets required!!
Members of this club stay in their office in CVRaman Nagar till 1-30 pm when they have to catch the train from majestic at 5.
Members of this club, when they finally leave office at half past one, suddenly realize that they have not yet packed. One member rushes to his house in JB nagar, and the other to his uncle's house in white-field.
One member of this club suddenly remembers he has some work left, and leaves his half packed bags behind for half an hour more in office.
The other member of this club rushes back from whitefield to get to his friend who has returned to office only to discover that the back-gate of the tech-park remains closed in the late afternoon. He also realizes that there is hardly ninety minutes left for the train to depart.
This member of the club also suddenly realizes that he has to make a small trip till inner ring road to return the keys of his uncle's house.
By the time they have an hour to catch the train, these two members of the club are ready to catch the auto to majestic.
Members of this club never pay an unfair amount to auto-wallahs, even if time is not there on their side.
Members of this club, after they board an auto, suddenly realize they have to get to an atm to even pay for the auto.
Members of this club coax and persuade and threaten and plead to the auto driver to get them on time to the station.
Members of this club somehow board the train when the light is turning from yellow to green.
One member of the club suddenly realizes that the train travels via alleppey, instead of kottayam, where he has to meet somebody.
This member of the club suddenly decides he would get off at ernakulam and take the next train to kottayam.
The other member of the club faithfully bids farewell to his friend at ernakulam station at 530 in the morning, and successfully reaches trivandrum on time.

Please feel free to join this club if you are not already a member of it. ;)

watching galbi

I met this guy from Bristol; and somewhere i remembered reading that McLaren had a brief stint there as a player, you know,before he started coaching, and a small comment about the english national team's performance since the last euro when he was sacked and the italian took over, was enough to kick start a lively conversation with this guy.
Rupert, if i still remember correctly, his name was, he wouldn't forget mine though, he has it written down well and good, with my email id.
He too was wandering about somewhere, in the north eastern part of south korea, as i was, with two of my good friends. He was a teacher, he said, working for the past two years somewhere in a small town near Busan, teaching eight and ten year old kids English. South korea is slowly realizing the importance of teaching the younger generation the language, and guys like this Rupert are making hell of a lot of money out of it, as he himself admitted. But what with the political, cultural and military alliance with big uncle sam , only a small minority of all the foreign teachers hired were from his side of the atlantic.
Anyways why i still remember this guy so well, was because, may be ironically, he was travelling to India in the space of three weeks, when his teaching contract would end. His plan was to start somewhere near Kathmandu, and trek all the way to India, and finally land up in Banaras. How interesting a way to spend three weeks of vacation, isn't it?.
But what actually amused me more was the reason why he was travelling to Banaras. He seems to have gotten this idea from somewhere that Banaras was the site of some ancient nuclear war, and that it still showed some abnormal radioactivity in some places!!. I am not kidding here, he showed me some grave looking printouts and news clippings, which he later folded back meticulously and kept in his small bag.
I have since tried to do some research on this subject, but even genius of google does not seem well informed on it. Anyways I gave him my mail, to just let me know if he has any breakthrough on this subject, or if he ever planned to visit kerala in the foreseeable future.He seems to have done neither.

Mr Rupert is one of the many foreign nationals i have been able to interact with, during my brief stay here in south korea. Ever since i heard Hugo Weaving say it the way he did in the matrix, i have also always wanted to classify the human species!!. Hence based on my brief interaction with around a score of koreans, half a dozen americans, a chinese, two russians and this one brit , i would say that the americans are the most arrogant and boisterous, - actually i don't know about this; may be it is because most of them i met were in a heavily intoxicated state!! - koreans as perhaps the humblest, russians as loud mouthed, the chinese as indifferent, and brits as very learned. Of course i don't classify indians. We indians are better than all these people in all these respects.

By the way, Koreans just love eating galbi.

requiem for a blog post

I sit here in front of the monitor,the speakers currently blazing Chopsuey, the late evening unusually warm by the city's standards, the window beside me, as always, crudely covered with newspaper to avoid the peering eyes of the ever evasive mysterious neighbour, the kitchen which we have fully furnished with our PC and our washing machine emanating an increasingly irritating stench - of detergent combined with dirty water on the floor that had overflowed from the sink and also the remnants of what was once some tasty curry somebody ordered to eat but forgot to throw away after.
For the better part of the last ninety minutes I have been tapping away at the keyboard for what would be my blog post celebrating the completion of one year after college, the first of my corporate life, and my life in Bangalore.
I am about to post it, and do a last re-read of the draft, when I suddenly notice its flaws. I realize that its literary content is too contrived, the articulation too laboured and artificial, its philosophical allegories too convoluted, and its political connotations way too aggressive to do justification to the topic and to the subtly intelligent title I had given it.

Hence I decide not to post it. Delete it. Make waste all the time that I had typed, and whatever my head had churned out. Erase it. Force the data into oblivion,the hundreds of bytes that had been stored in some server in Lenoir or Mountain View.
I look for something new to fill this blog with, both now, and in the future. There is no need to look far ahead. In a few days , for the first time in my life, I will be walking on soil that is part of a different country. In my opinion, there is nothing more stimulating to the intellect than visiting a new place. Travelling. Seeing new things and new people is very exciting. Making new intelligent observations, and trying to correlate with already made intelligent observations makes your mind work. Turning on your brain and making you think, it is like reading a score of good books or watching a dozen David Lynch movies. Also you get opportunities to evaluate whether you are as adaptive and flexible as you claim to be.

nanage kannada gothilla

yaava mohana murali kareyitu
doora teerake ninnanu
yaava brindavanavu seLeyitu
ninna minchina kaNNanu

hoovu hasige chandra chandana
bahu bandhana chumbana
bayake toTada beeliyoLage
karaNagaLadee ringaNa

sapta sagaradaache yello
supta sagara kaadide
moLeyadalegaLa mooka marmara
indu illigu haayite

vivashavayitu praana - hah!!
paravashavu ninnee chetana
iruvudellava bittu
iradudare-dege tu-divude jeevana

yaava mohana murali kareyitu
iddakiddale ninnanu
Yaave brindavanavu chaachitu
tanna minchina kayyanu

yaave mohana murali kareyithu
doora teerake ninnanu

A very nice poem by the great kannada poet Mogeri Gopalakrishna Adiga

the writer or the director?

my list of the books you must read before you watch the movie. If it is not there on the list, it means i have not done either, or it is not good enough. The order is based on the book more than the movie.

1) Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank redemption. Nothing much to say about this stuff.
2)To kill a mocking bird. Relevant for all times.
3)The green mile. What to say, oh King!
4)The city of god. For once, perhaps the movie sort of outshines the book.
5)The godfather. How could Coppola ever avoid that moment of shock from his script.
6)The Jurassic Park. Steven who? the genius is Crichton's.
7)Requiem for a dream. No comments, except how seriously difficult it is to find some books.
8)The silence of the lambs. shhhhhh!!
9)A painted house. They should have left this gem of a book alone. But they didn't.
10)Schindler's list . Don't know. Never really could understand the hype.

The list is not endless!, though the number can be more than ten!

28 days later...

Oh, what has the world come to?.... now I stand accused of misleading people through my blogs!!. At least two of my good friends think the 'easy way to office' has been blocked because I wrote about it in my post!

But seriously it is really a bit surprising that two of the three things I mentioned in that post actually did happen. One you already know, and the other I won't elaborate here for want of protecting the dignity of my friend who almost got himself drowned.
Thankfully though, it seems dogs don't read blogs.

Anyways as it is said, sambhavikkunathellam nallathinu . Thus for the common good and security of all the people in the techpark, some of us should be prepared to spend a little more on petrol - and I am not sarcastic here :P.

But come to think of it, wouldn't it be nice if you could influence others thinking by writing blogs?
I really should find a method whereby I can alter others' minds by just typing. Then I can write about my sinister political ideologies and pernicious philosophies, and four weeks later there will be zombies running around all over the place, only this time , unlike in the movie they wouldn't be affected by any virus or anything, but would have been influenced by my blogs. I will have them at my command and will use them to take over the world !!

the Parin business model

There exist in this great city many a tech-park, where some work hard, many work not so hard, but everyone earns a lot of money.
There exists a lake, in the middle of one such tech-park.
In this tech-park also, not everyone works that hard, but everyone earns money.
This lake, being in the middle of such a tech-park, is surrounded by skyscrapers, which perhaps not so much as touch the sky, but are filled with people aspiring to do much more.

The great city is also home to many a man, who works his heart out, but still doesn't earn a decent living and keenly awaits the next opportunity to make some dough.

This lake is surrounded on 3 sides by a mud road.

Digressing with your permission, when one talks about this mud road, one cannot help but guffaw on the intelligence or rather the lack of it, of the security guys in the tech-park, but out of fear that the easy way to office will be blocked, one doesn't elaborate further.

Anyways, this mud road is similar to most roads in the city, in that when you walk in the day, you are lucky if you are not chased by a dog, and when you walk in the night, especially after a long day in the office, when darkness had set in half a dozen hours ago, you are lucky if you don't step on a dog.

Also, if you think that taking the same route on your bike reduces your risk of requiring a dose of HDCV, then rest assured, your canine nemesis will chase you, till it runs out of breath - or you run out of fuel; this of course, assuming that even in the rush of adrenaline,you have enough skill to manoeuvre your 2-wheels and the crank shaft through the narrow slippery muddy road without falling off into the lake.

Anyway, coming back to the point, to most people in the tech-park, this lake is nothing but a taken-for-granted speck of blue on the landscape, a natural crater which if not for the water that fills it would easily have been the site for yet another multi-storied building for yet another multinational company. The lake is yet another epitome of the apathetic attitude of 'whoever is responsible', as "obviously, it would have been great if they introduced boating here","and how nice it would be to sit beside the lake after work, if only they put a fountain and some lights"....

Not surprisingly though, certain other people see this lake as an opportunity. To them, the lake as they see, is nothing but a water body literally brimming with fish, this in spite of the filth the surrounding buildings pump into it; and these people have realized that the opportunity is too good to let go.

Thus, perhaps even showing the way for the tumultuous global economies, the growth of the fishing industry in Bagmane has been amazing. All in the space of no more than a fortnight, they now have sophisticated net structures to catch the fish, a tent set up in the middle of the mud road, where the deals take place, and a dedicated queue of customers. In fact, one can sometimes even see them with their nets on a boat cruising long on the lake! Oh the ironies...

recitations from a herbivore

Here, I try to defend my practice of vegetarianism, and I fail.

For many people, the philosophy of vegetarianism begins in what Marx described 'the opium'.
But does, and more importantly, should, religion really take such a tough stance regarding our everyday aliment? Does religion really advocate vegetarianism?, and if so, what justification does it give for it?

Let's quote.
There is nothing on earth that is superior to meat in point of taste. There is nothing that is more beneficial than meat to persons that are weak, or afflicted with disease. Eating meat rapidly increases strength. It produces great development. There is no food, that is superior to meat.
These words are orated by Bhishma, on his death-bed, to Yuddhishtira, in the Mahabharatha. But, he continues, the merits are great that attach to men that abstain from it.
Now what these great merits are, that attaches to you if you abstain from eating meat, you can read Bhishma's (not so convincing?) discourse in defence of vegetarianism and understand yourself. There are enough and more translations of the great epic available on the net.
In the Gita also, there is a discourse on three types of food, and the three types of people who eat them, and though it does not explicitly mention non-veg food,if you really want, interpretations can be, and are easily made.
It seems there are explicit discourses in other ancient texts like the Manu-Smrithi, that mention one should eat only plant-products. But since I have not read them yet, I cannot give my opinion.
But, in whatever little I have read in the ancient texts, the strongest advocate of vegetarianism I have felt, is Bhishma, when he talks to Yuddhistira, in the Anusasana Parva.

Anyway, the underlying doctrine of any religious reference exhorting people to undertake a strict vegetarian diet seems to be that of non-violence. Non-violence is the essence of vegetarianism.It basically means, and I don't need to explain,that you don't cause others harm - whether it be humans or animals - you just don't hurt any living being.Period. There should be compassion to all living beings.And just for the record, this is not such a bad principle to follow.

Now, just because it is mentioned in an ancient text that you should discard meat, should you?

Ofcourse, it depends.You can read the religious texts with an objective mind, always doubtful, as when you read any scientific text. Also, you can read them with a mentality that if you don't follow it word for word, you are doing something wrong. Though I personally would recommend anyone to do the former type of reading, usually it is the latter form of reading that takes place, if at all it does.
All things mentioned in the ancient texts need not seem logically correct to everyone. Infact, just to emphasise on this point, consider this, that in the same discourse, Bhishma emphasises on caste being determined by birth(contradictory to the Gita!), and more relevant to the present topic, he discourses that though animals may not be killed to be eaten, they may be killed for sacrifice(If I remember correctly, Bhishma quotes Manu here), assuming the proper rituals are conducted before they are killed . According to Bhishma, all other slaughter other than that for sacrifice is to be avoided, as they are useless slaughter!

Now,how much ever I think about it, I can never get over this hypocrisy. I mean, you either don't mind killing animals, or you really do. How can it be that you can't kill animals to eat (which atleast does some good to your health), while you can kill to sacrifice them? This is not non-violence.

Hence in my opinion, if one does become a vegetarian for religious reasons,following the religious text word for word, one does not have a logical explanation for the troubles. If you don't agree, please enlighten me on how sacrifices are non-violent.
Of course, you can still become a vegetarian due to religious reasons,following the religious texts, but oppose the killing for sacrifices, in which case, you are not strictly following the same text which bound you to be a vegetarian in the first place!
I don't know if I have made my point clear, but what I am trying to say is, your choice to be a vegetarian or a non-vegetarian, can be, but need not be decided based on what is prescribed in religion.

Now, when you put forward your well thought-out 'non-violence towards animals' theory of vegetarianism to non-vegetarians, even your close friends, a gleaming face asks you a counter-question regarding the 'violence' towards plants. When you cut part of the stem to get a potato, for example, or any other vegetable for that matter, or even when plucking the curry leaf, are you not hurting the plant? I know this sounds like taking the debate a bit too far, but it is really amazing, all the sort of questions people can ask!
Before continuing this particular aspect of the debate, one can notice that, in the ancient scriptures, which usually answer all possible questions that can arise, as far as my limited knowledge goes, the question of violence towards plants has not been addressed. This is because, until Bose came around, even scientists did not know that plants responded to stimuli. Don't tell me that even if your teacher hadn't taught you, you would have guessed that plants respond to external stimuli just like animals do.
Anyway, now that we know that plants do have 'life' as in they respond like animals do- infact you also might have read somewhere that trees do send out something like pheromones, when they are in peril, so as to sort of warn other neighbouring trees- this 'violence towards plants' counter-argument to vegetarianism is really valid.
Having said that, scope for an argument always exists, doesn't it? You can always argue that the damage done to plants is minimal, compared to animals (it can always re-grow its root,or leaf or branch, but can the chicken regrow its leg?), or more selfishly, if you only care about what you feel, rather than what actually happens, you can argue that we cannot sense the 'pain' of the plants, while for the animal the pain they endure is clearly visible. Because of this reason, you can argue, plants are a sort of 'lesser life' and eating them does not alter your conformity to non-violence.
One argument which I like, and which I read somewhere, is the comparison of killing plants to a murder in self defence (you need to eat atleast plants to survive) and the slaughtering of animals to murders by a serial killer. Here again, proponents of non-vegetarianism can argue that murder once and murder many times is the same sin. This debate never ends.And, this debate happens at a different level of thought than that required to understand the pleas of PETA. Depending on which side of the fence you stand, and what beliefs you have, you can argue and counter argue as much as you want to.
Now let me try answer why I still practice vegetarianism. I would really like to say it is because I am a great exponent of the principle of non-violence, but I am not. I would also like to say I am very religious and follow correctly everything in the religious texts, but other than the occasional sandhyavandanam, and the yearly avani-avittam in which I perform some religious rites, more out of compulsion from my mother other than anything else, I am not that into religion.
Hence let me be frank. I am a vegetarian, because, from childhood, I was taught to be and brought up as a vegetarian, bound by religion, ofcourse. And even though there is no defence, or no logic in favour of it (or against it, for that matter!),and why should there be?, I find no need to change, and why should I?. Infact, I would like to think of it as yet another temptation, with which you can test your control over yourself by trying not to yield to it.
Thus let me make my opinion clear.I believe that there is nothing wrong in following a vegetarian diet, and there is equally nothing wrong in following a non-veg diet.You can choose to eat the food you like, and feel no obligation to justify your choice to others.
But there are actually two things that seem wrong to me.
First of all, if you are a non-vegan, and you think being a vegan is something stupid or inferior, then you are totally wrong. A very large number of such people do exist, even writers and movie makers - how many burlesque dialogues we have seen taking a jibe at vegans.This also includes those 'vegetarians', who 'secretly' eat non-veg food, and think they have done something great, and even brag about it and try to coerce other innocent vegans into the path of their new found greatness. I marvel at the nescience of such people. For them, I have nothing to offer except my pity, and my finger.
Then again, there are those vegans, who carry forward a sort of contempt or disgust to non-veg food and people when they eat it. This attitude is also very wrong. But at least, hopefully this attitude can result in the lives of some animals to be saved!

the grad

Hmmm....
8 months since i came to Bangalore
Seven months,the time we worked on our final project.
6 months since i last visited home
Five months into eight semesters.
4 months since i last took a leave from work
Three months of classes attended in an year.
2 months since i last washed my jeans. Filth. But people are so surrounded by it they don't notice.
One month per year in front of textbooks.

10 months ago i passed out of college.

Yesterday i got a certificate as proof of that. :)

A simple puzzle

Actually in this post I was thinking of completing the description of the interesting trip we had to central-west Karnataka.
But it is becoming a tad monotonous to continue writing about it, and I still have not uploaded the photos. Hence I am taking a 473 radian turn here, and writing about something entirely unrelated. In any case, as the journey has already been completed, let the travelogue remain an open chapter, with the option of being closed sometime in the future.

Maybe you have already seen this one before, or maybe you have not - either way there it makes no difference to the simplicity and charm of this puzzle, given to me,like many other interesting ones, by a very tall and very thin (genius) friend. This was in the context of those cycloids and trochoids we learnt in first year graphics.

The puzzle itself is very simple.
There are two wheels of same diameter. One is fixed and the second one is rolling around this fixed wheel, touching it. The question is, how many rotations will this second wheel undergo to complete one revolution around the fixed wheel?

If you are seeing this puzzle for the first time, please, please, think of your answer.


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The solution
The answer is One.
The approach to find this answer is normally like this - We find the total distance the rotating wheel has to travel. To do this (the engineering approach :D) we assume the circumference of the fixed wheel is cut open, and laid flat. Then we can see that the distance the rotating wheel travels to complete one complete revolution is 2pi*r.
As its radius is also same, to travel this distance of 2pi*r, the rotating wheel has to complete just One rotation, right?




Wrong.
Try it out with two coins.

It takes not one, but 2 rotations.

The Proof as suggested by Newton - not Isaac Newton, but an (equally brilliant) alumnus of model school - is as follows.
Just find out the distance the wheel travels - only, without cutting the fixed wheel open.
We can see that, when revolving around the fixed one, the centre of the rotating wheel actually travels a distance of 2pi*(r+r), compared to simply 2pi*r that it travels on the flat ground, when the fixed wheel is assumed to be cut opened and flattened.

Thus,the curvature of the path has introduced an additional 2pi*r distance, to travel which, the rolling wheel an extra rotation.

Ya, it really does take 2 rotations. You can keep the two coins back now (If u tried with them in the first place :P).

Another explanation to this is based on relativity, and different frames of references. This is quite difficult to imagine and validate, especially if you have not put your grey matter to much rigorous use for some months. Hence I am not explaining it here. If you are really interested, there must be some sites (I couldn't find it in any puzzle forum i normally visit) that give you the explanation.

Regarding the implications of this puzzle - again too complicated to write about here.

If you are wondering why I had the sudden impetus to explain a puzzle in my blog , it is because I watched the rather stupid and extremely self indulgent Aronofsky movie called Pi , last night. Some dialogue in the movie reminded me of this puzzle.

a Travelogue -III

So we started our trek from that place.-->>

Walking on the narrow road through the jungle, we had no idea where we were going, 

or how long it would take us to reach where we

would reach. 

But all of us were very enthusiastic, and full of energy, hence sarcasm overflowed. Now, in hindsight,I think if any one of us had any idea what awaited us, we might have tried to conserve every bit of energy we had.

By the way, this was tiger territory. In

between our jokes about how a yellow-with-

black-stripes-predator of prey would jump suddenly in front of us, we suddenly heard a loud commotion very near to us, in the jungle.

To tell you the truth, all of us were stunned by the noise, and at least for one second, we were petrified. Then it dawned to us that the animal was not yellow-with-black-stripes, but simply black. It turned out to be nothing but a wild buffalo!. 

Fortunately or unfortunately, this was the first and the last encounter we had with any sort of wild animal throughout the trek.

Thus we continued our walk. Now I am saying 'walk', but at that point all of us were thinking we were trekking.

Actually what we were doing then, seemed to us like a 'trek' because except one, all of us were trekking for the first time, and the path on which we were walking had steep ascends and steep descends. Each time the path

 descended for a small distance, we would look back and wonder how we would climb up the sam

e way when we returned - whether we would have the energy to do so?.

This (in hindsight) irrelevant question arised because of our ignorance. Like all humans, we too had a fundamental flaw. We lacked the power to see even an hour into the future.

After about an hour of walking, we caught up with this group of four malayalees, whom we had earlier seen walking into the jungle ahead of us, just before we had started. They told us they were frequent visitors to the place, and then they dropped a bombshell.

It seemed whatever we were 'trekking' till then, was just the approach to the actual hill. The Kodachadri hill, as they pointed to us,  stood towering before us, almost challenging us to ascend it.

  

From the small clearence we were standing in, we could make out that it was around 2 km till the base of the hill, and god knows how many more till we reach the top. But there was no need to ask god. Those guys themselves told us. It was around 6 km. Add to this the four kilometeres we had already walked to get a peek at the hill, and the total distance we would have walked before we (hopefully) reached the hill-top would be a staggering twelve kilometres.

This is no kidding. It is like walking from HAL to majestic, that too against the one-g force that was literally sucking you down, towards the valley.

The Tresspassers.

Thankfully, just when the journey was becoming a little monotonous, and just when all our bisleri-water bottles were empty,we saw a small tuck-shop. This tuck shop was also owned by a malayali. Hence language was no problem. There we re-energized ourselves, drank morin-vellam  and lime juice, ate the fruits which we had bought back in Shimoga, and after a brief rest resumed our journey.

After walking for around ten minutes, we reached a junction. There, the road split into two. The branch to the right was very narrow, and seemed to lead into deep,dark jungle. The branch to the left also led into the deep,dark jungle, but it was a tad wider than the other, and seemed the safer one to walk on. 

We had to make a choice.

As there was nobody to ask directions, we took the path that looked safer to walk on, even though it was so obviously leading us in a direction opposite to the hill which we wanted to climb.

After a kilometre or so, we reached a fence. Another glaring sign to turn back. But who are we to be stopped by a stupid fence? 

So we jumped over it and continued, walking for some more time before we reched yet another fence. This time, we could see that just beyond the fence there was something like an adivasi settlement. 

There was some smallcultivation area, and on top of a small hill a little distance ahead, there were some thatched houses. 

In one house, there was a lady sitting with two kids. We waved at her, like bourgeois tourists

do, thinking that it was her duty, as a localite, to show us the right way.

But instead, what did she do? she let her dogs loose, and although I didn't see it very clearly then, but my friends confirmed later, she charged out of her house with something in her hand that looked distinctly like a shot-gun. Amidst noises of barking dogs and gun-shots(just kidding here :)) we ran for our lives (no kidding here :)), and

 finally reached the very junction from where we had de-toured.

From there we took the other path. We were starting 

our  real trek. We were still short of four 

hours of anti-gravity excercise before we would reach the top.

 From this point till we reached the top ,when I try to recollect, I can't remember much detail except the very narrow and treacherous path that was always there in front of us, always getting steeper and steeper as we climbed higher and higher. Exhaustion had mutilated my senses.Then there was the beautiful jungle on either side, with its haunting sounds of small insects that seemed to echo from all sides, and the trickling sound of water from one of the many streams which we passed over.

This was endurance test at its toughest. We were taking breaks every five minutes. I personally was taking ten minutes break after five minutes of trek :).

                              

Finally we reached a clearing, where somebody or a forest fire had burnt 

a part of the jungle.

Through this clearing, we could see down to the valley -  what a beautiful sight it was -  and how 

high we had climbed. We rested there also, enjoying the view. 

Then when we resumed the trek we realised how important the trees were to us. Without the shadow of the trees, we were left to the mercy of the sun, and it was excruciatingly tiring to clim

b the hill in that stretch, in th

e scortching sun.

 And in some places, the climb was almost 90 degrees -MI-2 stuff, as one of my friends put it.

Finally as we again ran out of water, and fruits, and almost ran out of our determination, just at the right time, and at the right place, there was a guy who was selling glucose, and lime-juice. This place would be like heaven, for the poor trekker.

Near the small wooden bench where he kept his supplies, we sat on the flat stones which he had put for tired trekkers like us to sit.

After an extended rest there, and with a lot of gratitude to that guy, we set of for the remaining part of our trek, which was the easiest. We had left the steepest climbs far below us. 

Aha!

Finally, we reached the hill-top. 

We just sat at the top for some time, doing nothing. Not even thinking. Because we were tired.Mentally and physically, we had(atleast I personally had) almost nothing more to offer. Hence there was this calm - a very peaceful ten minutes to be enjoyed. 

And again, the evening was getting very beautiful with the sunset approaching. 

                                             

a Travelogue - II

The beginning

The three of us set off to Majestic.

For the trip, I had 50 rupees in cash, and my flat-mate, 60 in Sodexo coupons!. Our bus was at 10-30 pm. We reached  platform four at 10-27 (not that it mattered - the bus would start late anyway!). The other three of my friends were already there.

After an uneventful and peacefully slept-off bus journey, at 5am the next morning, we got off at Shimoga bus-stand.

Shimoga is somewhat in the central/south-central region of Karnataka. 

Landing there, one myth got shattered - that you can get along well in Karnataka if you know tamil or hindi. Yes, in Bangalore you can.May be this is due to the border Bangalore shares with Tamilnadu, and the scores of people from different parts of the country who visit and settle down there.

In Shimoga, though, the situation was different. Auto-fellas, policemen, and the local-bystander - the 3 guides without whom no travel would be possible- seemed to know neither tamil, nor hindi. They knew only kannada, and as none of us were (and still are, for that matter) competent in the language, we couldn't get much help from the local people.

Anyway, after a lot of gothilla-s,beku-s and houdhu-s (I tried to learn many more words in my brief albeit unsuccessful attempt at learning the language) we found an auto driver who knew english, and a proud man at that. Although his ultimate intention was to rip us, 'the tourists', out of our money - but us being us , that was not going to happen , which ofcourse he wouldn't know until much later when it was time for the showdown regarding his fare - he did find us an atm, and we also found a private bus that would take us to Kollur, which was our next destination. From Shimoga to Kollur, it was around 115km. As it was ghat-road, it would take us a little less than five hours. So we should reach Kollur around 10-30am. 

On the way, I noticed that a large number of school children were getting on the bus. Some of the villages from which these children were getting on seemed to have nothing but one or 2 buildings as any sign of civilization. Now remember, this was not even 6am in the morning -that was why I was amused by the large number of school children in the bus. 

Later, it turned out that these children were studying in a school in a small town called Hosanagare, where they would eventually get off. This town was like 50 - 60 km from some of the villages from which some of the children had got on.

Just think of it, small children starting at 5 am in the morning, and having to travel 50 fishing kilometers in the shivering cold for their education. How many of us has had to do that? - and at one village where the bus stopped, 2 small kids were coming from a side lane, running as fast as their small legs could carry them, but not fast enough to reach the bus before it started off. I wonder how many beatings they got from their teacher for being late that day.

 

MANDARA GuestHouse

Temple circle, Shimoga road, Kollur.

That is where we took a room. According to Santhosh, the proprietor of this modest establishment, the room rent varies according to tourist traffic. 2 days before, the same room which we were renting would have cost only 100. But due to weekend tourist traffic, it was four times as much. Anyway money was the least amongst our concerns.

We had a heavy brunch, and set off to the first and main destination in the trip - Kodachadri hill.

We took a bus from kollur to a place around 12 km away, called Kalaghatta. All these places are right in the heart of Mookambika / Sharavathi wildlife sanctuary. Actually Kalaghatta ,as we saw it, was not much of a place. It had a shed before which buses would stop, that's all. Then there was a mud road on the otherside, leading into the jungle.

This was the place where the trekking trip would begin.

a Travelogue

Sateesh and the knae
It was around 4 in the evening. The six of us were standing in the bus stand at Honovar (pronounced one-hour) ,a small town some 30km from the Konkan coast, waiting for a bus to Sagara that might or might not arrive,with each one of us making his own calculations regarding the best way to reach Shimoga on time so that we don't miss the train back to Bangalore - when two guys approached us.
One of them vaguely resembled one of my friend's landlord, whose name was Sateesh. Hence this guy's name was also Sateesh. The other guy looked like a 'knae' - as they say in Parassala dialect - so he was a knae.
Anyway, Sateesh and the knae offered us an interesting proposition. It seemed Sateesh was in a hurry to reach Shimoga and couldn't afford to wait for the bus. His brother, the knae, was thinking of taking him in his taxi, an omni van. In order to reduce his expenses,he was willing to take us along, if we paid two hundred moneys per head.
Now 200 bucks is not that unreasonable, considering the fact that the bus ticket from Honovar to Shimoga would cost one around 140 rupees. But even then, time was still on our side. If the 4-15 bus to Sagara did arrive as it is supposed to arrive,or, even if it was an hour late, we still might make it to shimoga before 10.Hence we started bargaining with him, just like we do in commercial street, just for the entertainment. But he wouldn't come down from 200 to 110. So we left it at that, and as the knae started talking to more people regarding his offer, we thought we had seen the last of him.

But at 4-45, the bus had still not arrived. So things were getting a bit tight, timewise.Shimoga was 220km away,Bangalore another 61/2 hours from there and some in the group were getting tensed, thinking about the prospect of missing the train. The KSRTC information desk was more of an ignorance desk. There was even some talk of the Sagara bus having broken down, and that there would be no service on the day.
So it was our turn to talk to Sateesh and the knae, not for the entertainment, but seriously this time. After 5 minutes of negotiation, it was settled that the knae would drop us till Sagara, and we would pay 100Rs per head for the same. From Sagara, we were told, buses to Shimoga were very frequent.

Now that it was settled, we set out with the knae and Sateesh, in their blue omni. The journey back to Shimoga had started.

On the winding narrow stretch of road through the western ghats in Uttara Kannada we would (hopefully) reach to where it had begun- Shimoga bus stand.

The plan

Actually the plan was Goa.

Goa , Goa Goa.

After a sleepy valentine's weekend, the next weekend was an extended one. 3 holidays. I had to go somewhere, someplace. The plan was to go to Goa. Unfortunately there was no tickets available to or from Goa. So the plan had to be ditched, or rather, postponed.

Now one of my colleague's husband's friend , it seems, had gone to a place called Kodachadri. It is a great place to trek, I was told.

So Kodachadri was the destination.

5 of my friends from college were game for the journey. After some googling, I booked tickets to and from a place called Shimoga. Thus the start time and return time for our journey was fixed. It was something like what you do in linear programming. We had to maximize our adventure, enjoyment and entertainment subject to these two constraints. Nothing else in our journey would be fixed.

Our broad plan was something like this - Saturday early morning we would be reaching Shimoga. From there, we would take a bus to a place called Kollur. From here, Koddachadri was very near. Sunday we would visit Jog falls, and return by the 10 o'clock train from Shimoga.

Obviously we would be following this plan as rigidly as we used to follow college timings!.
Actually in my opinion, when you are travelling, especially with friends, the real fun is not after you reach the destination, but the lack of a clear destination itself,and the instantaneous decisions that take you to another new place.Hence, at each junction we reach, we would be open to yet another answer to the question, next is what?.

the Long arm

A recent flirtation with the law reminded me of this incident, which happened a few years ago.

This happened when the four of us had gone to madras to participate in Shaastra. Even after our 'capture the flag' event was over (we didn't win any prize - our autonomous robot went phut :( ) - as it was the first time we were participating in such a big event - we were very enthusiastic to try and participate, or at least get a sense of most of the competitions that were taking place.
So on the penultimate day of the event, one of my team-mate, and another friend, a student of iit itself, in whose hostel room we were staying, took a bicycle, and went to roam around.
In iits and all, the security is taken care of by a separate organization - i forget its name - but it is similar to , but not as sophisticated as the BSF or something of that sort. Anyway, it is this organization that makes all the security and traffic related rules inside the campus.
Now, they had this somewhat strange rule, that at one particular junction inside the campus, you couldn't take a simple right turn, but had to go further up , take a u-turn and come back.Even if you were on a cycle, you had to pedal the extra 200 metres. But anyway, most people seemed to follow this.
Now, how this was implemented was that, there was one security guy at the junction, who would walkie-talkie any offender's description to a main security officer who stood in the middle of that road. This security officer would stop the culprit, and charge a modest fine of five rupees.

Now, as my friends were returning via this place, my friend who was riding the cycle,and who knew the rule well enough, deliberately took the right turn, and went ahead, where he was promptly flagged down by the security officer.
Ofcourse, anyone else would pay 5 rupees and push off, but not my friend. As (even now) one of his definitions of "entertainment" is arguing with policemen, he did just that. He hid his purse, pretended he had no money, and started arguing and pleading with the officer to let them go without paying the fine.
May be he would have let them go, until my friend made a comment in malayalam about how the officer would collect all this money, and have a nice drink in the night.

Unfortunately for my friend, the officer knew malayalam very well!.

Thus the officer became very agitated, and my friend's dialogues were aggravating him even further, until at one point they even tried to exchange blows. In fact, I strongly suspect my friend got one or two hits with the lathi, but to this day he doesn't admit it.

Anyway, all this time, myself and my other teammates were in the hostel. Now, as these two guys were supposed to return in an hour, and as it was like three or four hours since they had left, we became a little concerned, infact more curious to find out where they were. So I and one of my friends decided to take a walk to find them.

We were well past them when we heard our names being called , and we turned and walked towards them.

When we reached there, the situation was was that one more security guy had joined the group, and my two friends were being abused and threatened, and their cycle confiscated.

Now my friends didn't have their ID cards with them, and so the security guys were branding them as terrorists and as one said,they 'had them in custody, and they would be presented before the head of security, after which they will be put in jail!, and would be let out only if their parents came in person'.!!

Even though this threat could not have been serious, the security officer who, in my friend's opinion, 'began it all', was in no mood to end it. Each time his anger seemed to subside just a little bit, my friend would pass a sarcastic comment, only to enrage him again.

But fortunately, the other officer was not as bad tempered as the first one, and so I and my other friend were talking to him, urging him to tell the angry officer to leave our friends. We even paid the fine of 5 rupees.

Meanwhile, as we were talking to this other officer, what was my friend doing?
He was talking to certain other people who were also caught, and trying to convince them not to pay the fine and turn against the officer. Fortunately, all these people had some sense not to heed my friend's words, and they all paid the fine and left. But this action from my friend multiplied the security officer's anger many fold. He barked even at me about how we from kerala were trying to make an union at that spot!!

Anyway, our pleading with the other officer soon began to pay off, and he finally talked to the angry officer. After some more pleading and apologies from myself and my other friend (not from the 2 culprits), they agreed to let us go, but only after we gave them our phone numbers (not mine - i didnt have a mobile back then) ,addresses and i even remember showing them our return ticket to trivandrum.

Finally we returned back to the hostel, laughed like hell thinking about what had happened, had some more great fun the next day, at the end of which we boarded the train back home.

Anyway, the incident which prompted me to write about this incident, happened some days ago, when my flat-mate and I were travelling on my bike via JB nagar...

The understatement

To start with a truth,I have never imagined myself starting to write a blog - in fact ,i have always wondered why people write blogs. I mean ,what purpose does it serve anyway?.
May be this thought arises in me because of a philosophy I tend to follow in my life, albeit unintentionally - never put in an effort in anything until you sincerely feel there is going to be some useful result. Meaning : i am inherently very lazy.
So, my fellow bloggers, forgive me for asking this question, but have you ever thought about the WHY in your blogging? If so, please enlighten me, and show me a purpose for my present endeavour.
btw if you have not yet thought any such embarrassing question, dont bother - what difference is it going to make to the world anyway.

So here i am, ready to encode a subset of my thought process into unicode. But before i do that, i prepare myself by reading others' blogs.This is one of the many practices i learnt from a close friend in college. This friend of mine, even for buying a pair of jeans, does a month of market research to learn about all the available brands. Good or bad, the practice has rubbed onto me also. Hence i started my research, as i said, by reading many blogs. Since reading them, i have found that the practice of blogging follows certain unwritten rules.
The first of them is that your blog needs a 'yo' name. I mean it's like many people name their blog using fantastic , but irrelevant sequence of words that seems to make great sense to them, but little to others.
So i too desperately needed such a name. The name of my blog,for those who dont know, has nothing to do with any of my personal theories i may post here(the M doesnt stand for my name ;) ).Actually M theory is a modern theory in physics that deals with literally everything about the universe . It actually unifies (atleast mathematically) the different versions of string theory that exist. Now if you dont know string theory, you have to brush up your physics. I mean modern physics is kind of what people call 'cool'. From the time i passed out of high school (2 years before i joined engineering), i have always been interested in modern physics. I still do read it, though less frequently, and less vigorously. I would may be post some interesting articles in this space in the future.
The second thing i found interesting in certain blogs was that no matter what people write about, may be something in college or in the workplace, they never take the names of friends. Enough clues will be given for relevant people to understand the person being talked about, but never is a name given. i too will follow that protocol. Hence, i wont name my close friend, whose recent entry into blogging kind of inspired me too to try it out. But as that friend knows, this is my initial enthusiasm in doing something new rather than spending the same time sleeping as i normally do.Guess its another form of entertainment to me. Hence this may well be my first and last post, depending on how long i can maintain this enthu.By the way,just to bend the rules, my friend's dad's name is Thomas! (gotcha dude!).
Continuing with the topic of enthusiasm in blogging, the third aspect i found (in some cases strange) in people's blogs , is the language its being written in. I mean some blogs are really good. Each sentence well thought out,perfect in sense and construction. It is what one may call 'cool' writing. I mean , just thinking of the effort I may need to put in to construct such beautiful pieces of literature makes me tired :D.
It may be true that it strikes me as an effort because i am not that good at writing. I do read a lot, and i think i am competent in speaking about a topic - but my writing skills are especially poor.May be you noticed that by now. Hence if you think you are going to find such fancy writing in this blog, no siree!! You will find plain english here. :P
Thus, there is almost no rule of writing i am going to follow in this blog, except perhaps that i will not use swear words. But i will use 'fish' a lot. This is not because i eat fish - infact i never have eaten one in my life (vegetarianism is one topic i feel strongly about. Hence i may, just may, write on this in the future) - but because it starts with 'f', has four letters, and still is not an abuse! Thanks to shahrukh i think for popularising its usage..
Before i conclude, i feel there must be 2 kinds of people now - assuming more than one has read this blog :P - those who liked it, and those who didnt.
If you didnt like this , you can go fishing, and i dont care about your catch. But if you liked it, thanks, i am pleased. Hence I may politely ask you also to go fishing. I mean i concede it is a sin wasting my time writing this, but what greater sin it is to waste time by reading something that somebody has written to waste his time in the first place.
Oh, may be i am wrong. In this troubled times, who knows whether it is your fault that you dont have a job to do.:P
So bubye, and happy time wasting.

Until i plan to write again.