Retrospection and Introspection

Looking back at 2011 its a classical year of mixed feelings.2011 was (cannot use a past tense yet but still) a wonderful year without any doubt. The best part of the year being spending almost 3 full weeks with my sister (something which I had longed for 8 never ending years) athimber and little manas. I would love to remember 2011 for the amazing treks. 4 wonderful treks with really awesome people. Most times we did not reach the end point. The treks made me realize the importance of the enjoying the journey rather than the end point. The next best part of 2011 would be my year in the factory. For long I had imagined myself to be the exact same as the character Anbarasu portrayed by Madhavan in Anbe Sivam. I overcame my taboos and learnt to look at people beyond their fake accents and smart dressing. This one year I spent with the welders of Caterpillar India's fabrication line. I made a bunch of amazing friends among them, though Im not sure if I will be ale to stay in touch with those folks.

While talking about the best parts of 2011 I cannot afford to miss the Summer of 2011 (had I had some talent I should have written a song) . Left to fend for myself this summer, I had a whale of a time with Charu, Anand, Mukund and Srikant aka Thenavan. Those crazy eat outs, night outs, beach outings and alll sorts of crazy fun made the summer among the most memorable and crazy ones till date.

As previously stated 2011 was not without its share of woes. The biggest being the fact that Adith, Anand and Charu left for US, within a months span of each other. A fellowship which lasted close to 20 years was broken. First time ever I actually felt sick about being in Chennai.

Apart from this random vexatious incidents like seeing extremely undeserving people taking very responsible positions at work and having to suffer the agony of travelling a 100 kms everyday defined the low points of 2011.

On the whole 2011 was an amazing year where i made and lost friends.

looking forward to a more crazy and fulled 2012.

The trek that almost dint happen

The Green route trek from Donigal to Sribagilu had been my dream for the past 2 years. After many false starts Smrithi, Madhulika, Anirud, Aswin and Nithin volunteered for this fool hardy venture.

For this trek we did one of the most detailed research taht could possibly be done. Conventionally people start from Banglore (on buses which go via Kukke ) and get down at a tea stall near Donigal Railway station and start trekking from there till Yedakumeri railway station. They halt at yedakueri for the night and trek till Sribagilur railways station the next day and take an exit which comes 4 kms after Sribagilur and reach the highway. From there they manage to get buses Kukke. Otherwise people manage to get the train which passes through YEdakumeri at 430 in the morning and reach Kukke. The third possibility is taking a forest route out of Yedakumeri and crossing the Kempehole river. The trek is walked in this route spans a distance of 20-45 km (depending on how you exit). There was a possibility of getting kicked out of the trek by Ralway employees as well.

This was the image that we had gathered by reading all the blogs and by talking to people.

Our trek adventure is an anti thesis to all these examples and experiences. The trip started for Anirud , Aswin , Nithin and myself from Chennai. We drove Anirud's car from Chennai top Banglore. A very event ful drive where we were chased by the rains where ever we went.

Amid liberal breaks for photographs we reached Banglore after a gruelling 8 hour drive ( 4 of which was within both the cities) only to find it raining cats and dogs in Banglore (it is not supposed to rain in Banglore in November) We were informed that it had been raining very badly in Sakleshpur area for the past 3 days. On hearing this news I totally freaked out and felt that it was a very bad idea to actually trek during/ immediately after rain (Falling half a dozen times in the slush in the Himalayan trek was still fresh in my mind). I was booed and threatened by everyone around me and was dragged to the Majestic bus terminus.

There Smrithi and Madhu joined us. It was one of Smrithi's brilliant ideas to trek from Kukke rather than from Donigal . The idea was quite simple. We start from Kukke and walk till how much ever we can depending on the terrain and turn back to Kukke. The advantages of this idea was that your exit from the trek is simplified. You dont ahve to wait at desolate highways for buses (which would be the case if u exited from Sribagilur or Yedakumeri) or wait till the morning for the passenger train. We simply walk till we are tired and then turn back. Everyone liked the idea so we grabbed it. We got into the bus and started our adventure towards Kukke.

The bus drive to Kukke was not very bad except for very bad jolts towards the end which will sort of rattle you. Mumbaikar (Nithin) had a contact in Kukke and he manged to get hold of a nice lodging. We refreshed ourselves and finally started for the trek. We grabbed a jeep from Kukke town to the station (a 13 km distance jeep driver dropped us for Rs 200) We started trekking around 845 AM. We maintained a good pace and manged to reach close to Sribagilu in 4 hours time (13-14 km distance) . This was amidst really funny experiences while crossing bridges and tunnels, not to mention Madhu getting caught in a tunnel while a train was passing by (must have been a terrifying experience). It started raining when we were close to Sribagilu and the time was around 1230. We thought we must be turning back to Kukke.

It was on our way back taht we met a a very nice railway linesman. He orally guided us through a couple of exit routes. We tried one of those only to find it infested with leeches. We all ahd to run for dear lives (with poochi (Aswin) crying that the leeches were taking even the little blood he had and Gerrard (Anirud) mumbling that his was a very rare blood group) We all amanged to get the leeches out of us (after generous "helpings" of salt (thankfully pepper was not there) .

It was then decided that we will walk all he way to Kukke on the track rather than venture into leech infested areas. We were walking down the track when a lone engine was chugging by. We waved at the engine (amidst my mumbling that it will never stop) and the engine did stop!!!!

we all jumped on to the engine which was driven by a couple of really nice gentlemen who were inquiring about our trek (must have thought that we were all a bunch of jack assess).They dropped us near Kukke station (they would have got into trouble if they were spotted giving us a lift) we happily thanked them and caught a jeep back to the hotel.

We refreshed ourselves in time to catch the bus out of Kukke which started at 430PM. After settling (uncomfortably) in the bus we realized that we were n for a 8 hour roller coaster ride. The driver happened to be a mad man who had the scantiest regard for road safety. He overtook LPG carrying lorries and inched so close to the gorge that we weer scared out of our wits. After very long breaks we finally reached Blore.

Arrangements had been made to stay the night at my cousin Surya's house in Koramangala. I had promised my aunt that I would come by 1230. When we did finally reach there it was around 130 Am. We managed to save a lot of time in locating that house because Smrithi and Madhu lived right opposite to their house.

After a long chat with my cousin I finally crased at around 330AM and got up at like clockwork at 630 Am. We all got ready by 930 in the morning and after having breakfast we moved to Mumbaikar's cousin's place to pick the car. We decided to search for Poochi's mysterious girl in the streets of Jaynagar (thats a very long story which deserves a separate post) After not finding the mystery girl, we were guided by Nithin's cousin to the Jaynagar market to buy honey for Gerrard's mom.

We finally started out of Blore at around 1230 and after witnessing a very unfortunate accident we finally made it to the buzz of Singara Chennai. Once again it was a wonderful trek with an awesome gang of people.

Saavan Durga

My trip to Saavan durga is an example of how bad starts could end up amazingly well. It all started at a very short notice (unlike our other treks where we plan for months before it finally happens) I still cannot figure out how the idea of trek originated , but we(Smrithi and Charu with Andy and yours truly shaking our heads like bulls) had zeroed in on Saavan Durga. This time our around Adith was not able to make it as he was starting for US (the Use no Sombu land). As is the tradition the plan was simple, we go, we trek and we return. (we dint bother to ask how we go wat we eat and such mundane stuff)

Andy had some prior business so he kicked off to Banglore ahead of Charu and me. Smrithi , who was in Banglore , planned to join the 3 of us there. We decided to go trekking on a Saturday which meant that people from Madras had to be in Banglore in the wee hours of Saturday. So Charu and I decided to catch a bus on Friday night. I returned from work (ya people it was yet another very long day at work im a hard working citizen you know) and came home and immidiately started for Koyambedu. Our first mistake was to underetimate the number of people who would be mobbing Banglore during the weekends. We being noobs were lost in the crowd. We finally allowed ourselves to be mugged by a conductor so that we could get a couple of extremely uncomfortable seats. Charu (who was a Kumbhakarna in his previous birth slept like a log) while I was not able to bat an eyelid.(this is what will befall all those who dont book themselves a ticket, when travelling to Banglore in the weekend) We finally reached the Sleepy city of Banglore. We alighted opposite to the Total mall (and Andy heard it as Dodol mall :D ) Smrithi and Andy picked us up from there (in the car which Smrithi had managed to hire somehow)

We started our road trip , in the dark and desolate land of Banglore. We we plagued illegible road signs and confusing roads. We finally managed to make it to the Old Mysore road. From there we enquired our way to the trek spot. The trouble was Smrithi (who was our Kannada expert) dint know if people were actually abusing us with bad words or giving us directions (though she did try to convince us by telling couple od kannada words). Somehow we did reach the trek spot.

As usual we started the trek with high spirits and energy. The weather was extremely pleasant. We initially walked following the Electric cables (this time it was neither the stream nor the white rabbit). 10 mins into the trek we discovered a bunch of signs directing us through an easy path to the top. Some good samaritan had painted it for others to follow. We happily followed it and kept trekking. Apart from Andy's nuiscane to take his pictures in every possible position and angle the trek was simply marvellous. The view was nothing short of mesmerising. The only unfortunate incident would have been Charu's trouble with his asthma, which he eventually managed to overcome.

We struggled hard and manged to make it to the "mandpam" at the top and we took a few minutes break there. After that we managed to reach the pinnacle(marked by a Nandi) amid great difficulties (required us to do some miniaturised rock climbing) , If we had thought that the view from the mandapam was amazing then the view from the Nandi was breath taking. It took us a good amount of self determination to pull ourselves out of that place. It was nothing short of legendary. I can still remember that view even though im writing this post after almost 3 months.

We uneventfully managed to reach the base of the monolith after spending about half an hour at the top. If you had thought our adventure ends here thats a mistake. Just like Shahrukh said "Picture Bhakhi hai mera dost" our adventure starts from here. We (due to a twist of fate) decided to trust in the driving skills of one Ms. Smrithi. That would have been the last mistake of our lives had it not been to twist of bad luck (or probably good luck to us) After witnessing 10 mins of road rage (I can remember a streak of fear even in Andy's face imagine that!!!) due to a leg cramp Smrithi was not able to continue driving. Charu took over from here and it aws an un event ful trip till we reached the outskirts of the damned city of Bengaluru. I thought Chennai traffic was bad , after seeing BEngaluru I tahnked myself for being in Chennai. Blore is chaos. It took us some 3 hrs to traverse some 5 kms!!

We were starving and all of us were eagerly looking out for a decent eatery. Finally we spotted another Total mall and we jumped into it (Charu was so eager to eat that he came without slippers as well (hunger is a bad thing u know) ) We finally had some pizzas and we moved on to first drop Smrithi in her place and then the plan was to take the car to Andy's place and then after refreshin ourselves Charu and I planned to start for Chennai taht night itself. The traffic in that crazy city was so bad that after dropping Smrithi we were already really late and we decided to drop the car first and then catch an auto to Andy's place. Unfortunately for us it was raining (not very heavy) and the orads were flooded. The auto drivers of that city dint bother to even stop when we waved!! after getting immensly pissed off and havnig cursed Blore t o our hearts content we did finally get an Auto (they use meters there!! that was the only good thing i noticed abt Blore) we finally go to somewehre near HAL. By then Charu and I decided to catch a bus to the Bus terminus and find our way to Chennai. So Andy parted us there and we finally found a bus (the buss tehre dont have proper boards conductors shout like in some moffusil bus stands) we got a bus. With great difficulty (we were totally tired hungry and our legs were tearing apart) we found ourselves in a proper bus with a decent seat. Finally on SUnday Morning we managed to reach the beautiful city of Chennai.

I would like to include a comical incident which Andy was telling us. Andy had gone to pick up the car on Friday night, from the travel operator's place. Andy had caught an Auto and the Landmark given to him was that the place was 2 buildings from a prominent looking rock on some road. Andy and the auto wallah had reached that road and Andy was struggling relly hard to translate rock for the auto driver. After having failed to do so in Kannada and HIndi he was vexed and muttering to himself when the driver asked "neenga tamilaa??" (Andy facepalm!!!)

This trek I will remember for many reasons. This was among the last treks with a group of amazingly awesome gang. This trek marked the culmination (and the end i should say) of one of the best ever summers! I woudl always look back at it with nostalgia. Thats one reason I took it upon myself to write this post even though its 3 months since I actully went for the trek. I dont want to forget one single moment of it......

All That glitters is not gold. The only thing that gold does is glitter.

After the recent surge in gold prices I began wondering what made gold the last bastion of hope for all investors. Not even crude oil earned this respect. First ill start off by analyzing about gold. What is gold? Its an element with an atomic number of 79. It shows metal like properties. Its highly malleable and ductile. Its lustrous and its chemically nonreactive with most common chemicals and its quite rare (probably these might be its greatest and only virtues). It has no other worthy properties to extol about.

So what made this such a sought after commodity? Probably to answer that question we might have to go back in time. Since time immemorial man has been fascinated by gold (dont ask me why its been only gold and not anything else) Basically this fascination led man to start decorating himself with gold. Gold started to become a commodity of desire for mankind. The kings and queens of long gone dynasties began fancying gold and diamonds. Since they were like the rockstars of that era there was no questioning about the beauty or the awesomeness of gold. This fascination simply started to grow over time. Its rarity and chemical inertness ensured that it continued to be out of reach (hence the aspiration) of the common man.

This made gold (and silver) the choice of kings for minting coins ( with all the royal paraphernalia stamped on it) . We might recall how valiant attempts, by ingenous idiots like Muhammad Bin Thuglaq , to mint coins with copper caused serious counterfeiting problems. This made the sovereign(the monarch to be precise) to loose control of the economy , which means they loose a lot of tax and they have no money for their opulence and to fund their armies. Thus as previously stated its rarity proved to gold's greatest asset.

The practice of gold coins were prevalent in many civilization based on the amount of trading they did and the availability of gold. For instance if gold was a very very rare resource (even by normal standards) then the people saw it fit to use paper currency which was backed by gold. If the particular area relied a lot on foreign trade then gold continued to be a standard medium of barter (which is quite evident from the amount of gold which was found in the Padmanadhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala being one of the most ancient trading posts of the world which traded with almost every civilization in the world)

Finally due to a huge restriction in the number of gold coins that could possibly be minted with gold and the huge trouble of transporting gold for minting caused governments to move to the gold standard. Where in the government holds gold backing and prints currency equivalent to the value of the gold it holds. This system allowed people to redeem their cash to gold when ever they choose. The value of the currency in gold was fixed by the government. This caused huge problems of smuggling (legally smuggling , you could take with you a thousand pounds from London to Hongkong or Singapore which was a part of the British Empire and exchange the cash for gold, this was as good as smuggling) . Due to the this countries kept switching on and off the gold standards during war and peace times.

Then finally after to WW2 the Brettons Wood system was introduced by US among the Allied nations in order to build the accelerate the growth of the ailing economies. This is essentially like all the economies of the world will not back their currency with gold but with US dollars while US while follow the gold standard. (once again gold)

This put such a huge pressure on the US economy to maintain gold reserves. Nixon during his presidency kicked out the Bretton Woods system and made the dollar a FIAT CURRENCY. A fiat curency is a type fo currency which ahs no backing in gold or anything but just the promise of the federal government to honor the currency. (thats why there was a huge huge furor when S and P downgraded US treasury bonds (which is as bad as downgrading the dollar) ,its just a question of trust)

Well you might wonder to what purpose this boring lecture on economics serves. The bottom line im trying to drive is that Mr.Gold manages to survive and sustain as mankind's most favorite muse for the entire period of human evolution. Well I can understand it if the folks back in the bronze age admired gold the fact that people continue to admire it is simply amazing (given that currency is completely decoupled from gold). This admiration is probably forcing investors to still see gold as a very safe investment. (as gold has no other intrinsic value)

Think of it, money which could be used by investors to fund R and D and to fund new industries , because of the uncertainties in the economy is being transferred into GOLD!! What is adding value to gold?? not its use in the industry, not its ability to generate electricity, not its ability to feed the millions of starving people and definitely not its ability to be beaten into wafer thin chips. The thing which is adding value to gold is the fact that human beings covet it.

After having said all this, what I still dont understand is WHY IN GOD'S NAME DO PEOPLE STILL GET ATTRACTED TO GOLD? ! Can someone please tell me why?

Nagalapuram

Nagalapuram, a forest range doted with ponds, waterfalls and streams , was the target destination for the Fellowship of Foolhardy Trekkers (core constituents being Adith, Anand, Charunethran and yours faithfully) for about 2 months. We were collecting information on that trek for the entire period of these 2 months meeting nothing but dead ends. This place had very very little information on it. When enquired the CTC folks warned us against going on this trek by ourselves as it was quite risky. Born brave fools, we decided not to be deterred by these petty issues and decided to go ahead on this trek with the amount of info we had. The primary reason for this post is to ensure that people , who plan their treks to Nagalapuram, are better informed.

Route to Nagalpuram

Follow this map till Nagalapuram village .

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?doflg=ptk&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=204146848897547296467.00049cf6c79579594a6dc&ll=13.215882%2C80.031281&spn=0.359631%2C0.676346&z=11

Once you reach Nagalapuram ask for a village called TP Kotah. You have to take a narrow tar road to TP Kotah. Its about 10 kms from Nagalapuram. Once you get to Kotah ask people for the way to the "picnic spot" thats wat they call the trek route. The "picnic spot" has a temple too. So you can ask for the route to the temple near the dam if u feel bad abt using the words picnic spot. you will be pointed towards a very very littered mud road. We were highly sceptical about that road but there was no choice but to take that road. That road will stretch for about 2-3 kms through very rough patches of mud roads(thanks to Adith's diligence the car survived) and you have to keep driving till you see a temple. The car can be parked near the temple and from this point you have to start trekking.

The first thing you will see is a decently sized reservoir. you have to take the path which leads into the mountains here. Once you start trekking you wont see any streams/water bodies for almost half an hour. You need to keep taking the path which leads you downhill (and i think towards north im not very sure though). There wont be huge confusions till you reach one particular point where the path will fork out. At this point we thankfully found a arrow marking the direction we had to take. So look out for such arrows when you are confused. You will bump into a stream after about30-45 mins (depending on your pace) Once you reach this point you might think its very easy and that you will just need to follow the stream. This is where you will get realllly lost (we got lost so i assume you will make the same mistakes) . The path in this trail (unlike that in Tada) is not very well trodden upon. So most times there wont be a clear cut path. So you have a high chance of getting lost or mislead. So you will have to remember the points where you took wrong turns and retrace to that point and try the other road.

Our Story

We started at around 530 AM and made it to the parking space near the temple at about 930 am (all thanks to a damn traffic jam at Koyembedu which took us 30 mins to cross). We got hopelessly lost about 2 times on our way to the fabled Nagalapuram Pool 1. All thanks to our crazy perseverance to get to the pool against all odds we managed to somehow reach pool 1. This took us almost 1.5 hours. Exhausted and a little freaked out by the pathless jungle we decided to be contended with the 1st pool. We spent about an hour there. Finally we decided to trace our way back to the car. Ironically we managed to take a wrong turn even on our return journey. We somehow reached our car (which was in perfectly safe state) and found our way back to Singara Chennai.

This trek was a very very exciting(and a little scary) experience for us noob trekkers. We realised why CTC junta adviced us against going alone. To completely enjoy nature's beauty you need to go with CTC. To have an awesome and adventurous experience you must plan and go by yourselves.

Follow the pack

On the 3rd of April 2011 the Indian Team won the ICC cricket world cup. The entire country burst into celebration. People are yelling "We rule the world" (I guess that sad chap did not read the Wikileaks. We are being ruled by the Americans in a completely indirect way) That is when I began thinking why this victory means so much to the people while the laurels won by Indian athletes in other avenues are mostly over looked.

Vishwanathan Anand has been one of the most consistent sportsman for India.The last time he played a major chess trophy there was not even a broadcast leave alone a celebration for his victory. People might argue that his victories dont evoke the sense of national pride as it is just one mans achievement (it can be argued that the cricket world cup is the achievement of 11 men and nothing more). Okay then lets look into another game which involves the effort of a team : Hockey. Some might point out that the hockey team hardly ever wins. Well that was how cricket was in India 10 years back. We lost a match to Zimbawe a couple of world cups back. Even when the hockey team won a major tournament (the Azlan Shah trophy) I dont remember people celebrating. In fact hardly anyone knew that the hockey team won. Those players dint get their fair share of recognition.

If it is said that we support cricketers because the BCCI is stinking rich and the tournaments carry a heavy purse with it thats the case with the Tennis tournaments as well. I dont see many people cheering the Davis cup teams. I might be wrong here but I think we as a nation celebrate cricket (and only cricket) because of a mob mentality. People just want to join the band wagon of "The Men in Blue" supporters.

These tendencies can be found in many other events. For example the elections. We dont want to vote for an independent candidate because we think most other wont vote for that person thus we should not as well. This I think is another example of our mob mentality. Another glaring example is the way we watch movies. Producers are willing to invest even upto 200 crores for movies in which Rajni acts (even though the story line sucks big time) is because they know we will watch that movie. We do watch that because "everyone" watches it.

Is it possible that we as Indians possess only a collective identity and totally lack an individual line of thought??? i dont think so. We have produced some of the most remarkable people who have helped to shape the world with their very unique ideas, but I think a good many people in this country suffer from the "follow the pack" syndrome.....

A finite world with infinite opportunities ...

I started framing fundas for quizzes 4 or 5 years back. One of my primary fears those days used to be my ability to keep churning out questions. Just as Vitalstatix feared that the sky might fall on his head the tomorrow (and convinced himself that tomorrow never comes) I feared that I might run out of fundas tomorrow. One fine morning I came across Wikipedia (mankind's greatest initiative). Once i started ploughing into that site did I realized how huge the world actually is. I still cant come to terms with the quantum of knowledge that we as human beings gained in just about 3000 years of recorded history.

This realization rather changed the way I looked at life as a whole. I realized that I will run out of fundas only when i stop searching for them. The world has simply unlimited reservoir of fundas ( at various levels ie. simple , arbit , random etc :D ) but I simply dont see those around me. I could not help but drawing parallels to music. Carnatic Music has just 7 swaras (or basic sounds) has managed to generate infinite number of ragas. The ability to manipulate such a scarce resource to a mind boggling number of combinations shows human brilliance.

I started using this philosophy for other avenues of my life too. When I first joined Caterpillar I wondered the long term sustainability of such companies. I felt that were would be a day when there will be a day when all the mud and earth would be displaced and the resources underneath would be plundered and looted. I wondered whom will earth moving machinery companies like Caterpillar serve on that day. It was then that I realized that the company will start making products to put all the mud back in its original place or they might start digging in the moon. Ultimately I understood that the opportunities that are created (or discovered) are a function of human brilliance and ability to accept new ideas alone they are totally independent of the fact that we are endowed with a finite volume of resources (large though they might be). Ultimately what decides the future of human beings ( and ours as individuals) is our ability to make best use of the available finite resources to see the world of opportunities that awaits us.

Importance of Criticism

Recently I read an article in the Hindu editorial , written by Jaswant Singh. The main idea of the article was to defend BJP's actions in the parliament, which led to the total disruption of the Lok Sabha's winter session. What caught my attention in it were his views on democracy and how dissent is such an important part of a democratic setup. The exact text of the article is pasted.

"Why such profound failures? Perhaps, because our grievance redressal systems have ground to a halt; also because we have lost regard for each other, we have abandoned our sense of kinship and fraternity without which no parliamentary democracy can function. We have forgotten how to accommodate dissent, and the less we do so, the harsher it becomes. We no longer consider the alternative view-point as being even remotely relevant; instead, we now treat disagreement as a disservice, a rebellious challenge, which must either be totally rejected, or then crushed. The tone, tenor and the content of our language, of mutual address, government to opposition, or the other way round has become dryly ritualised, patronisingly rejectionist, emptied totally of the spirit of parliamentary democracy. The hierarchy of our concerns no longer harmonise; courtesy and accommodation to the opposing view point is treated as being ‘soft', a weakness. We no longer recognise the great relevance of the ‘intensity, passion, intimacy, informality and spontaneity of parliamentary debates'. Perhaps, the Hon'ble Prime Minister no longer recognises, or accepts, that it is this ‘passion' which constitutes the personality and the heartbeat of our (or any other) Parliament. This ‘passion' occasionally obscures, but often illuminates, too; it distracts, yes, but this then is both it's strength and its weakness. Parliament is an assembly of human beings; it must have human virtues, and vices and failings, it is not, must not ever be, just a container of ritualised nothingness. " -Jaswant Singh

What striked me the most is the relevance of this in our daily lives. How we need to lend a ear to what the other person has to say. The importance of true and honest criticism from friends and peers is something which is very rare to come by these days. The sad part is that often such criticism is treated just like Jaswant Singh said. Most people(which includes me) dont take it as a god given opportunity to mend our ways. In fact some people simply start hating the person who criticizes him or her. It is such an easy job to actually tell nice and flowery stuff about people , it is to criticize people that one needs some guts. Just like Jhonny Depp said in the Pirates of the Carribean "Honestly its the the guys who flatter that you must beware of"

The Trip to Tada

The trip to Tada, which we(Adith,Anand,Charu and yours faithfully) made after six months of contemplation and several false starts, was our first tryst with adventurism (however small it might be on the scale of adventurism ) . The trekking bug bite me after my trip to Sar Pass. The dudes', with whom I went to Sar Pass, never ending stories about Tada made me determined to vsit that place once atleast. It finally happened on the 1st of Jan of 2011 , a day which I will always remember.

We started from our homes at exactly 6:30 Am. After the usual set of wrong turns (which always happens with Adith) we managed to get into NH5. After that it was a straight road till Tada. Once we took a left at Tada and managed to ask our way to the falls. The road to the checkpost (to the falls) was quite good except for the final one kilometer which was more like a dirt track. We payed the toll for the cars and the cameras and proceeded to the parking space which is close to 2-3 kms from the check post. There was a security guard at the check post to take care of the cars. We took our bags (which had nothing but a spare set of clothes , chow and the cameras) and started our trek in high spirits. The initial distance (abt a coupla kms) was a flat dirt track. It was a really nice walk. Anand lost his glasses in one of the strams and managed to tear his shoes, which was repaired due to Adith ingenious idea(he wanted me to write this) Apart from this and a few other minor mishaps like Adith trying to push me while crossing one of the streams, we made it to the Sivan temple in good time (abt 45 mins). After this the trek started. There was no clear cut route after this point. We simply had to follow the stream. We were jumping from one rock to another like monkeys. The rain and the stream had made the rocks extremely slippery making it very very difficult to walk. I made the mistake of wearing the shoes which I had used for my Himalayan trek. The shoe was one of the major liability in this trek. I would say the best footwear for this trek would be your bear foot if it had not been for those numerous glass bottles generously strewn across the place. Anyways we made it after several slips into the stream (especially me. i fell into the water so many times that my clothes were wet even before we reached the falls) After a pretty tiring but short trek (more like amateur rock climbing) we manged to reach a small falls. People said that there was a bigger falls if we were ready to climb higher. Buddhist as we were, we decided to be contended with what we had. We goofed arnd in the small but extremely awesome falls for half an hour and decided to pack back home once we saw truck loads of people approaching the falls (with a lot of booze) . We carefully made our way back to the car park and returned home by 1730 hrs.

That was one real heck of a way to start the new year with friends. I felt the falls totally justified the trek.

Advisory

Never wear Hi funda sport or trekking shoes. Sandals would be more than enough.

Never go in the weekends it happens to be the boozing spot for lots of ppl.

Dont go wearing jeans ,you will get wet and end up carrying very heavy stuff back when u return. Wear simple shorts.

You wont get a morsel of food there so carry your own chow.

dont take too many cameras it will be a pain trying to protect them from the elements and the anti-socials (ya they will be there) just take one and keep it safe.