Thai-Laos-Cambodia trip

All major decisions start with a random conversation. It was in one such conversation that Avinash suddenly popped on a question asking me if I am game for Angkor Wat. I was in a state of depression after going through my MBA application process and decided that I needed a break very badly. So I decided to grab the oppurtunity.

After hectic planning for about 2 months and the destination varying from Hampi., Petra , Jerusalem, Mandalay , Hanoi based on visa requirements we decided to go to Thailand , Laos and Cambodia. 

About a month before we started Naveen confirmed his availability for the trip. This made sure that the trip will never be short of fun. Despite all the plannings we were sure about only visiting the Kong Lor caves and Angkor Wat. we still were not sure about what we going to do in the middle. 

We started on the 15th of December from Chennai. We got a taste of how the trip was going to be. At the airport we were held up by the Thai immigration demanding that we show either $400 or 10,000 Bhat in hard cash for the visa. Avinas and I talked our way out while Naveen was held up. Naveen made it a point to mention that we 2 got through and got his visa. His idea was that either all 3 get kicked out or all 3 get in to Thailand :P.

We picked our luggage from the carousel only to discover that Avinash's backpack has been damaged. The solution given by the Air Asia back pack handler was inadequate we still took what replacement he gave and moved on. We caught a rickety train to the Hua Lampong ( i heard it as qua lampong the first time and Naveen never managed to get this right until the end of the trip) from the airport. After seeing that train i decided that Indian trains deserve a special reward for speed. The train took little over an hour to travel about 30 kms. Sometimes i felt the hosues were too close to the train tracks. 

On reaching Hua Lampongh a helpful Thai Railway employee helped us to book tickets to Nong Khai (route 69 train) We dumped our bags in the cloak room and decided to go to the Grand Palace , Wat Phoo and Wat Arun. With the help of the tourist information center we managed to get a bus (no 53) to the Grand Palace. At the Palace we discovered that we were not allowed to wear full length trousers to get in. Thankflly Avinash and I had our pants with us. We found a nice quite spot and changed. We had a very hot humid day. The guide at the palace (I think his name was Ken).

Bangkok made us feel that Chennai is like Kodaikanal. In a winter day it was horridly humid and hot. On our way back from the grand palace we boarded the bus no 53 which was going away from the Grand palace (much like how we would do in Chennai) All 3 of us were really tired and we slept off. After an hour or so we discovered that we were heading straight back to the Grand Palace. With just 2 hours left to board our train we found the right bus to tae us to the railway station ( all thanks to Avinash's insistence on using public transport through the trip) We reached the station with a lot of time left for a spartan dinner of donuts and cakes. 

Our expereince with the Bangkok suburban trains made us to expect the worst when it  comes to Thai trains but thankfully the train from Bangkok to Nong Khai was in fact very very good. We had a good night's sleep. The next morning i woke up Avinash and Naveen much before the train reached Nong Khai much to their irritation (a prelude to what I would be doing all through the trip ie. wake them up at unearthly hours) 

To our surprise the temperature at Nong Khai was around 7-10 degrees. None of us had any warm clothing with us. We had a uneventful immigration and visa stamping. We reached Vientiane from the border post and using the map which we took from the border post we managed to find our way to the hotel. (Hotel Sinnakhone) The hotel was really good and quite cheap too.

We spent the day on a loaned cycle roaming around Vientiane, a small , clean and beautiful city. We got up the next day to get our bus to Ban Nahin from where we intended to go to Kong Lor. We missed the direct bus to Nahin. The clerk at the bus station helped us by booking a bus on another route. She was kind enough to write in Loatian the route we need to take (so that we can show it to the locals and get their help).

The first bus took about 6 hours to travel a distance which cannot be more than 200 km. We missed the last bus from our transit point to Ban Nahin. We were stranded in the middle of nowhere (the place had 4 thatched houses and one guest on a highway) and it was quite dark. 

Then came to our rescue the Songtheaw , the Laotian equivalent of Meen Body vandi which had provision to seat about 8 people. We haggled over the price and managed to convince him to take the 3 of us for a distance of 40 kms for 100,000 Kip (about $12.5) 

We reached Ban Nahin which was freezing cold. We located the Inthapanya guest house. We dumped our bags and went for dinner. We met a Malaysian Tamilian who was working as a site supervisor for a hydel power project near Ban Nahin. He helped to translate to the cook that we were vegetarian and helped us get food without meat. 

The next morning I woke early (as usual) and went for a walk in the freezing cold. I got panicked by the fact that there was no motorbike rental oulet in Ban Nahin. I thought that our plans to bike to Kong Lor was screwed. I went and transmitted my panic to Naveen. We both once again took a walk around to find a bike outlet!!!

We drove to Kong Lor , the caves was a truly amazing expereince. It was eerie and dark but the whole experience was absolutely fabulous. The light at the end of the cave was a sight to behold.

It was near the end of the cave that Avinash and I were so engrossed with taking pictures that we were unable to help the boatman and Naveen from controlling the boat (despite their cals for help :P ) in the process of trying to pull the boat Naveen cut his fingers and lost his foaters :D 

Our way back to ban Nahin was uneventful except for Avinash's puncture which scared us all. We reached Nahin and rushed to catch our bus for the onward journey. This was the part of the trip we had no plans for. We made a ad-hoc decision to go to Pakse. 

We once got down at the middle of nowhere T-junction from where we boarded the songtheaw to Nahin. We caught a bus to Nahin. We were asked to change to another bus somewhere in the middle of the trip. it was in this bus that Navin's love story started. he met Kathy ,a Laotian girl. This was just like in Anniyan except for that Naveen did everything that Vivek wanted Vikram to do in that movie. 4 hours of continous kadalai (not to mention the fact that even this Laotian girl found me to be scary, i guess all this happens in a rowdy's life) 

We got down at Pakse at around 2 in the morning. We roamed about in the street for a room. In the process we woke up a few hotel clerks. Finally we got a room at Hotel Pakse. One incident which is worth remembering is my "conversation" with the owner of Nazim's. Nazims is a Indian food chain in Laos. The owner happened to be a Tamil gentleman.My explanation to him on why we did not complete dinner that night vexed him and drove Navin and Avinash to splits. We spent time around Pakse and we decided to move to Siem Reap on the next day. 

Our bus started at 7 when we boarded the bus. We had a uneventful border crossing and finally we reached Siem Reap at 5 the next morning. Siem Reap was a nice place which was built for tourists. The Siem Reap hostel where we stayed was an amazing place which arranged tuks tuks and tours for us at reasonable prices. On the first day we hired bicycles to the War Museum. A place managed by mine victims. We talked to one person who was telling us about how Khmer Rogue killed his whole family. 

The sun set view on the plains of Angkor was a real dampener. It was a pretty ordinary site which most of us have seen everywhere. The enthusiasm shown by the other tourist (mostly a massive Chinese Contingent) confused us.

The next morning we woke up at 5 to catch the sun rise over Angkor Wat. Sadly it was a cloudy morning. We spent the whole day jumping between temples. It was truly a sight to behold, the scale of the temples and the intricacies of the scupltures made the trip worth while. After being overwhelmed by visiting temples for about 7 hours we decided to call it a day. 

The next day we spent the time at the floating village which was close to Siem Reap.   The evenings we spent around the night market of Siem Reap (avoiding people who were incessantly offering us "boom boom" messages). We were scheduled to leave Siem on Christmas day. The previous night being Christmas eve the whole town was on a party mode. Avinash and Naveen spent time hopping between bars (and running from matter girls and bombing photos and .............)

On Christmas day we boarded the flight from Sieam Reap to Bangkok and from Bangkok to Chennai (only entertainment being a couple of pretty Ukrainian girls )

On the whole it was an amazing trip. Avinash's ability to not wake up int he mornings , Naveen's (and sometime Avinash's and my) snoring , Naveen's paranoia to visit rest rooms when ever he sees one and my epic and near incessant blabbering added to the comic elements of the trip apart from the wonderful people we met (the Laotian guy whom we met on the Songtheaw to Ban nahin who had an insanely good ability to learn english, an Australaian who spent 3 years roaming around India, a Dutch gentleman who working illegally in Malaysia and a Frenchman who kept bumping on us where ever we went were some of the interesting ppl we met) , the amazing places we saw andthe crazy adventures made the trip a truly once in a lifetime event.

Some good in screwed up times.

We live in depressing times. How many of you felt that India was the worst country to live in the past 6 months??How many of you felt that the government in India is the most useless and government servants the worst that one could imagine?  I am here to make you feel better for being Indian and change your perspective on how the government servants work. To help me do that Iam going to cite the event of Kumbh Mela. I want to give a disclaimer, I am not here to campaign for Congress or the Samajwadi party.

The Kumbh Mela is the Hindu event to commomerate the alignment of Jupiter aligning of Jupiter and the Sun. It is believed that dipping in the Ganga will relieve of all ur mortal sins. The Mahakumbh mela is held once in 144 years. This year the MahaKumbh was held in Allahabad. 80 Million people participated in it. I read an article which was ranking the gatherings in the world according to the number of people attending it. The MahaKumbh came first with 80 million people. The next biggest event was attended by 16 million people in Iraq. Interestingly the 3^rd biggest event happened to be the funeral of Anna attended by 15 million people.

To put things into perspective Germany has a population of 81 milloion people, France has 65 million people and UK has 63 million people. In short the Govt of UP and India has together handled a crowd larger than the whole population of some of the developed countries.

How does the government handle all this crowd? They have built a mega city of of 7 lakh tents with 31 police station and over 40 police check posts, 36 fire stations and a mega super speciality hospital. This is a city which is bigger than London, Paris and New York put together. This is a proper city with sanitation facitilies , full electricity (yes people they have power there), divided into avenues and well designed pathways. 

Iam not telling this to you to extol on the achievements of the UPA or the UP govt. I feel sad when educated people like you and me sit in the cafeteria and pronounce judgements that Indian government is worthless and India itself has no future. What was achieved in Allahabad in Jan 2013 is nothing short of a miracle. Harvard University is sending a team to study this "phenomenon". On the other hand the whole media is obssessed with the most depressing news, as they say no news like bad news.

Another statistic which I would like to cite is India has an average of 1628 govt servants per 1 million people. While US has over 7200 govt servants per million people,In all developed countries it is around 6000 to 8000 govt servants per million people. In comparison the US govt does not handle the world's densest railway network, one of the most functional universal public distribution system and many other services which are provided by the Indian govt. Still they have 4.5 times more public servants than India.

Contrary to popular belief the Indian bureaucracy is not a  bloated elephant, no my friends it’s a mouse, and it is doing its best to move mountains. 

Driving in India

There are miles to go before I sleep and there are miles to go before I sleep, these are one of the most memorable lines of Robert Frost. As with anything with modern art there are so many interpretations to everything (even the creator of the art becomes startled at times) there are many interpretations to Frost's memorable lines as well. Well if Robert Frost had been in India ,Chennai or Tnagar I can give it to you in writing that he wrote those words in sheer dread of having to travel miles in the treacherous roads. I have no doubts there.

So what / who makes our roads so treacherous? Well I have madea  small list of the demons who haunt my driving experience

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First and foremost happens to be the pedestrian.The average Indian pedestrian happens to be like the King of the Jungle. He is above all rules. He does not have to wait for a signal to cross the road, he does not have to use the pedestrian cross over bridges, he does not know the foot path. Btw the zebra crossing is not something in the zoo. The thing which makes our pedestrians above the law is the fact that if a police sargaent catches a pedestrian jumping asignal he cant exactly grab his license or RC book. This lack of vulnerability makes our common man an invincible super man whose only fear in life happens to be the Metro water lorry.

The next suspect happens to be the two wheeler drivers. I love Mani Rathnam movies, but you know he has created a nuisance with his opening sequence of his film Alaipayuthey. People think its cool to drive with music blaring from head phones. They are oblivious to the honking , shouting and cursing of their fellow pedestrians and are among the biggest headaches to the normal commuters. The other league of folks would be the ones who drive vehicles which have a displacement more than 150CC. these people think they are the direct cousins of Valentino Rossi and zip across the traffic giving many an innocent  driver a heart attack in the process.

The Comercial vehicle drivers which include call taxi wallahs , share autos and Tata ace wallahs. These men have the uncanny ability to make you feel claustrophobic, even if you are not travelling in their vehicle. See they try to squeeze through such ridiculously small spaces that people around get suffocated and give them the path to overtake.  The other really really irritating and BP raising habit of these men is their tendency to honk incessantly even when they know that there is not an inch of space to move forward.

The last but the least of the villains happen to be the Lorry drivers and bus drivers.First and foremost these people don’t have brakes. Trust me. And they never take their foot of the accelerator pedals. They are like the mad elephants. Their right of way is guaranteed. On top of it 90 pc of lorries and buses would  never passed a proper fitness inspection.

You might wonder if there is anything in the road which does not haunt me. There are 2 tyes of people who dont scare me at all. First being the folks who are new to driving (yours faithfully being one among them) . The moral degeneracy of the system is yet to catch with these people. Hence they are the absolutely law abiding citizens of the road. The other bunch of people who dont scare me happens to be the people with the ridiculously expensive limousines (Jaguars, Rolls & Bentley league).These people are mostly scared to death that someone will put a scratch on their cars. hence they are double extra careful when they drive. 

So these my friends are the villains which haunt my driving. I read a very interesting article last week in the Hindu which said that driving in india is not a test of ones driving skills, it’s a test of one’s foresight, intuition, astrology and fate. I dont think anyone can sum up driving in India in a better manner.

Rajat Gupta

I dint come across Rajat Gupta until the first time I was researching on Indian School of Business. I thought he was just another Indian born CEO of an American company, I understood his true greatness only after I joined an MNC and started to realize how difficult it will be for a minority to go to the top.

    Rajat Gupta's story is like  a script to a Tamil cinema. Poor hero who is orphaned , works hard and manages to come on top of it and wins against all odds. In the current era of the Pandits and Nooyis and half a dozen other indians heading global MNCs its very difficult to assess the true difficulty in , what i beleive to be rajat Gupta's near herculean feat. It is just like in a family , its always the first child who makes all the mistakes and his/her siblings learn from those mistakes and manage to do better. In that sense I think Rajat Gupta is like the elder brother of all those NRIs who made it big.

      For someone who was orphaned at 16 , managed to crack JEE (i guess there were no Kotas and Rammiahs back then to spoil his chances) and with absolutely no money to have got into Harvard itself is a reflection of his brilliance and grit. Then to have managed to have got into Mckinsey with zilch work experience is indeed super human. he went to become the CEO of Mckinsey , the first non US born person to have occupied that position. To get a true idea of his achievement just imagine how you will feel if a hardcore Indian company like Ashok Leyland or Reliance has a non Indian as a CEO. Frankly i will feel vexed. Its pretty much how most patriotic Americans would have felt back then when Rajat Gupta achieved that position.

     What I admire the most in him is his total insulation of his goals from what other people think. If he had thought about the people around him he would have been bogged down by fear of racial prejudice and he would have never aspired to reach the top post. In my position when I think where I will be 10 years down the line in my company I cant think beyond a particular level as I am being bogged down by realistic considerations of how much a Indian can progress in an International company.

   I think we Indians have to thank Rajat Gupta, who laid the path for us dream ambitiously and to ruthlessly work towards that dream. He also made us believe that the "glass ceiling" of our careers is in our mind and we need to break just that. What ever might be his current short comings or wrong decision calls off late he has taught us all to dream and work.

IT reflects badly on us.

2012 could not have had a worse start for Tamil Nadu. Mired by controversy, the common man is made to believe that 2012 is indeed apocalyptic. We are in the middle of a power crisis that is becoming close to an existential threat and there seems to be no credible policy decisions to improve the situation and the common man has accepted the situation with the same equanimity that he accepts everything that has to do with the government (only that we have a lot of jobs and even the reputation of the state at stake). So what has led us to this dire straits?

To start with we have policy makers who believe that an investment once made in technology is like building the Brihadeshwara temple, it can sustain itself for a 1000 years (what they forgot is that the temple was very richly endowed for its upkeep) We had very little effort , in terms of money and human effort, to modernize the electrical apparatus of the state. We have a whooping 20 % transmission loss (I read somewhere that it was 30 , im giving a very conservative estimate) . As of 2011 we have an installed power capacity of 16000MW. Which means we loose 3200 MW even before the power reaches the end consumer. So why do we have such a ridiculous transmission loss? I have not made a detailed study on this issue, but I can bet my life on the fact that we stilll use antiquated technology or equipment. The lack of investment has not only bogged down our transmission lines but also our power plants. We are way behind in terms of power generation technology. The power sector until recently has been under the complete control of the public sector. There was very little R&D in this area (for that matter any area at all, in our case the build or buy equation always seems to favor the buy option, anyways we have well wishers like IMF and World bank to fund our buys) Bottom line we follow the policy of build and forget (like the fire and forget) This has landed in this spot of bother.

Next in our root causes would be inability of our engineers to come up with out of the box solutions. The state is so accustomed to solving its electricity woes by simply buying electricity from the central grid that they cannot think of anything from that. The second tool in their kitty would be to unleash the terror of load shedding indiscriminately without any major second thoughts. I guess thats the only thing that comes to their mind when they think of Demand side management ( please read http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2961150.ece to get an idea of some good demand side management ideas) I had studied bit of energy conservation and management in my UG. I was told by my prof (who happens to be a part time energy consultant) that US had around 2000 (not sure of the number) demand side energy managers, in India there were hardly a handful. We often blame the lack of investment on new power plants as the reason for our problems, but the actual issue would be the lack of initiative and creative thinking on the part of our electricity engineers and managers.

The last but not the least point is we as a public dont realize that there aint no such thing as free lunch. We have been corrupted by our political system. We just want power at low cost. We dont really bother about the quality of our power. We dnt mind the voltage fluctuations which has daunted us for years. Had we protested for those fluctuations probably the system would not have suffered as much. But we only want free power, not quality power. No wonder we have landed ourselves in such a quandary.

On the whole the entire trouble badly reflects not just on the simple issue of strategic policy failure but on our mind set. We dont want to face problems until they threaten to wipe us out, we dont want to think of new solutions , we believe that good time lasts forever and last but not the least we HATE technology.

Sea side suicide

Finally managed to accomplish yet another of my suicidal (ok thats exaggerated) to-do activity, to dive into the Bay of Bengal (with a life jacket). Some genius in CTC had this amazing idea to organise mid sea dives in the Kovalam beach. My colleague Murali and I jumped on to the e-mail and enlisted for this rock crazy expedition. After an uneventful ride from my home till CEG , from where Murali hitched me a ride till Thiruvanmiyur in his dynamically unbalanced Pulsar ( Bajaj engineers need to do something about the vibration I cans still feel the tremor, pity Murali for driving it to work daily) There we met up with the other CTC folks who had enlisted for the dive. There Prabhakar offered us a lift til Kovalam . we dumped Murali's bike at the Thiruvanmiyur MRTS vehicle park and went on in Prabhakar's car.

Ill never forget the drive to Kovalam for 2 reasons. First is 2 rock crazy girls , who were a part of CTC, were riding in their Activa to Kovalam. I guess they should be thankful to have reached Kovalam in one piece. They should have collided with our car at least twice (I dunno how many such near misses they had on their way). The other was a couple of drunken dudes stopping by to make money when the group Had gathered for a head count near Kovalam. Those two fellows were talking in some highly accented english and behaved like a bunch of thugs. We folks had such a laugh after they left. Poor chaps had made fools of themselves.

We finally reached Kovalam and after parking our cars in a graveyard the group ventured towards the sea. We were provided life jackets and we boarded the fishing dinghies and made towards the sea. We expected the fishermen to take us at least a km into the sea and were quite disappointed when he stopped about 500 m from the shore. Nevertheless it dint dampen our spirits. We dived into the sea.

The time in the sea made the effort truly worth it. I felt like being in an abyss of water. The water was just throwing us around and people were drifting apart. It was initially very scary. Once i realised that the fishermen were around having an eye about for us it put all my doubts and fears to rest. I simply lay around the water enjoying the view of the horizon and the sky. It was an amazing experience. With people cracking random jokes and pulling everyone's legs (literally) it was on the whole fun.

After about 45 min the water got really bouncy. The fishermen told us that the tide was on the rise and that we must get out. We all boarded (with a good amount of difficulty) and the fishermen allowed us to jump back into the water about a few metres of the shore. We all drifted happily to the beach.

I saw a really funny thing here. I drifted to the beach and removed the life jacket. I was just watching the sea when a lady came drifting to the beach. She was unable to get up and she just kept going back and forth with the waves. It was a bit humorous for me to watch , i guess the lady would have been petrified. I pulled her out of the water the next time she drifted towards the shore. Only to be asked if I was a northie (my tamil core writhed with a sense of righteous self indignation :P ) and the next question was if I was a tambrahm (as if it was written on my face!!) Had my Don Quixote moment :P

After a nice little photo session we were on our way back home. On the way back when Prabhakar was feeling a bit sleepy it was suggested that he should smoke. Then a question raised as to who else smokes and even before I could make my reply the rest of the group declared "nee lam dhum adika maata un munjileye ezhidiruku" with such a startling unity!! man I need to go for a plastic surgery to make it less obvious to people.

On the whole an awesome trip with loads of fun.

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.

Why does Lennon still inspire a huge fan following??

After a long time i was a part of a meaningful discussion with some of my friends. The discussion was about why Paul McCartney does not enjoy the level of adulation that John Lennon does. WE all reached a conclusion that Lennon became famous because of anti-Vietnam campaign and his altercation with Nixon. It seemed to me a very fair conclusion to reach. Basically the only difference between Lennon and McCartney was that Lennon voiced his opinion about what he thought was bad while McCartney simply lived his life. So making this conclusion might seem a very good one based on these two.

Paul Newman, a very successful actor till the late 70's , was another major Anti-Vietnam activist. He also had earned the ire of Nixon and he was also listed in the infamous enemy list that Nixon had compiled. He does not seem to enjoy the celestial status that Lennon seems to enjoy. Most people wont have heard about Newman in the first place. Now comparing Newman and Lennon I simply cant make sense as to why one of them is being venerated by a generation of people , who were born after he died, while the other we have no idea about. I thought that Lennon's fame is still undiminished because he died at the peak of his career while Newman died at a very old age. This simply reminds me of the Dark Knight dialog "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" a small modification to it "You either die while famous and be remembered or live long enough to fade into oblivion" .

What makes great men great...

Edison said genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. As a kid I used to read this just for the sake of reading it and not really understanding the truly profound truth behind those words. Now when Iam standing at the threshold of my adult life I am able to get a small idea of why this statement is so important for all of us. The perspiration that Edison was referring to need not be the actual physical labor but also the mental grit that it takes to achieve something.As I see it there are 2 types of people in life, those who know what is right and those who "PRACTICE " what they believe to be right. Almost 99 percent of the people in this planet will come under the first category. They are the lot who know that they should not be watching the movie before an exam and still watch it, they are the ones who know they should not be distracted but still get distracted , they are the ones who know they should not be eating those extra calories but still eat it . In short these are the people who have the "inspiration" but are not willing to do the perspiration. The inspiration I am talking about is knowledge of what is right and what is wrong and the perspiration is the mental determination to set yourself in the path of your dreams. All men (at least most) dream of making it big. They want to leave their imprints in the world but how many actually manage to achieve that ?? Does it mean that those who did not achieve are not skillful enough to do it? I definitely dont think so. I think they dont achieve because they lack the will to do what is necessary to achieve. They are not prepared to leave their leave their little titillation in order to achieve what they believe in. While on the other hand the ones who actually achieve it are the ones who do what needs to be done to achieve it. They are the guys who evaluate their exact position and do what is necessary to set themselves in the right track. Easy as it might sound its one of the toughest mental challenges faced by humans. If it had been easy then we would have had more remarkable men in this world. In order to explain my point I wont talk about the clichéd examples of Edison, Gandhi or Gates. I would rather talk about someone whom i know quite well, some one who falls in to the 99 percent category ie. ME (Arun Venugopal ) . I am a prototype of the 99% lot. I live with a lot of ambitions and ideas (ie. the inspirations) but I am totally lacking in the perspiration part. I come to the conclusions after retrospecting on all those great things in life i could have done. I knew that I need to work hard on physics and chemistry to crack JEE but still did not work on those. All those competitions and projects which I knew I should put more effort for but did not bother to (putting all the blame on my team and guide). Finally I knew that the only thing I need to watch out for cracking CAT would be my calculation mistakes and once again i never took an effort to correct them. Finally this paragraph is the epitome of my lack of perspiration, I know that the last few sentences are a quagmire of tenses which I am supposed to be mastering but I am not. You might wonder why I am holding this session of self slandering. The reason I write this is to give myself a kick ass effect so that every time I read this Ill know why I am what I am and not what I wanted to be. The final conclusion that I wish to draw is that we dont get anything by understanding what is right (or what has to be done) for by realizing that we have merely traveled 1% of the distance that we need to travel. To travel the 99% we need to actually take control of ourselves and break the inertia. For the easiest path that shows up before us is not always the best path. For we are not electrons or fluids to choose the path of least resistance. Its the rejection of this easiest path that makes great men great.

Degree is beauty to the eyes of the degree holder...

With everyone in the country busy running behind engineering or management degrees I often wonder whats the purpose behind doing all these. I feel that education is a tool and as with any other tool its effectiveness is decided by the person using it. Not many people really seem to realise this. People think that a degree is an end product. If someone passes out of an engineering college , people think they can perform miracles , which is never the case. Our Universities have become centers for churning out mediocre and uninspired engineers who end up almost contributing nothing to engineering or the society. Iam not blaming the system. The system has designed with the viewpoint of giving equal opportunities to all the people , which as citizens of a democratic nation we must ensure. The universities are a meant to be wonderful places where ideas from young people along with expertise from older people make use of the latest technologies and funding available in their facilities to contribute to the betterment of mankind or the better working of the industries. The Universities have the expertise, money and the technology(to some extent) what is missing here is the enthusiasm from the side of the people who are involved in the learning process. In our country engineering and management degrees have become a prestige symbol. In this mad rat race to obtain a degree people often forget that these must be done with the aim of achieving something (apart from earning lots of money obviously). It has turned out that most people try to solve an equation without actually defining the equation. Naturally most people are lost and they don't have any idea about what they are doing. The society must encourage people to do some introspection in order to find his/her true interests. Ultimately without passion there is no point in doing anything.Lets just forget the idea of contributing to the society and mankind. I wondered how these people will feel like about going to a job, which they are not interested in, for the rest of their lives. Will all the money in the world be able to compensate their frustration? I wonder why people don't sit down to think about this. Probably people do think about it and are scared to go against established norms. Ultimately when i keep wondering about this over and over again the only conclusion i get to is that such degrees are beauty to the eyes and purse of the degree holder and not to his heart.

The Trek to Sar Pass

It all started on the night of the IPL finals. My mother kicked me out of the living room as she felt that my watching the game was a unluck charm for the Chennai Super Kings. So i logged on to my Gtalk and started talking to Vivek . He brainwashed me in to going to this trip. In this entry ill try to make this a guidebook for those who wish to take this trip. This Blog entry will be broadly divided into 3 categories

1. Travelling Arrangements

2. Things Needed for the Trek.

3. About the trek

TRAVELLING ARRANGEMENTS

The first step is to enrolling for the trek. The trek is being organised by YHAI every summer. To participate in tis trek you have to become a member of YHAI. You can become a member for one year (rs 100). Using that membership you can book for the trek.

The first step in this process is booking tickets. In order to take up this trip u need to be at Kasol which is 40 km from Manali. You can catch buses to Manali from Delhi or Chandigarh. So get ur selves to either of these places. I booked the tickets for the buses using www.redbus.in and HPTDC sites. You need to be aware that the bus wallahs allow you to book seats of your choice online but they allocate seats rather randomly on the spot. So u need to talk to the bus man in order to get the seat of your choice.

Once you are on the bus to Manali you need to ensure that u get down at Bhuntar which is 40 kms ahead of Manali. The Bus driver will oblige to do that. If you proceed till Manali then you must backtrack on the same road back to Bhuntar to reach Kasol. Once you have got down at Bhuntar catch a bus to Kasol. There will be a lot of taxis to get you to Kasol but the taxis cost u a lot. Hence buses will be the cheapest alternative. The bus drive from Bhuntar to Kasol will be rough and absolutely thrilling. The YHAI base camp is 1km upstream of Kasol. In order to return you need to retrace the same path.

THINGS NEEDED FOR THE TREK

The YHAI site gives you a comprehensive list of items that you need for the trek. You will need every item in the list. the most important thing in the trek are the shoes. The Hunter shoes are absolutely wonderful. They provide ultimate grip during the trek. I saw some people do the trek with ordinary Reebok shoes. But I advice you to get Hunter Shoes. Many people will advice you to get Hunters at Kasol market(cost approx Rs 250). In Kasol you will get shoes only till size 10. So if your boot size is greater than size 10 better get ur shoes back home in Woodlands or Reebok (ask for trekking shoes. These shoes have excellent grip but are a little heavy).

Apart from this you will need either one winter jacket or sweater and thermal undergarments. A pair of gloves and a monkey cap will make life more easy in the cold climate that you will face at the higher altitudes. You dont need any blankets as they will be provided for by YHAI.

While trekking you only need a an extra pair of pants and t-shirts apart from the one you are wearing. Take as many pairs of socks as possible ( minimum 4-5). Try to take track pants instead of jeans as they are light and dont get wet that easily.

Take all your medicines from home as you wont get any medicines in Kasol. Take Glucon-D and orange candies as well. Take a tiffin box with you. Its an absolute essential. Also take a cup to drink water and tea.

Dont forget to take a pair of sandals as they will be easier to slid on and walk within camps.

THE Trip

My trip started at Chennai Central. This part of the trip was most painful and enjoyable. i was accompanied by Windy, Shashank (DCF) and Vasanth (Infy) When we were travelling across North India there was an intense heat wave. Average temperature across North India was something like 48 degs celsius. with Agra topping at 50 deg celsius. We were virtually fried in our seats in the train. Still we managed a coupla games of bluff and poker. The train was stalled at some arbit station in north India for over 3 hrs. We managed to play football in the station using plastic bottles. Through all this Infy managed to sleep blissfully much to the amazement (and to some extent envy) of everyone around. The train managed to take us Delhi 4 hours late (there was no notable reason for delay) and we made it to DCF's guest house to take a bath and some chow (our last earthly meal before the trek),here vivek joined us, and we reached the RK puram metro station to catch our Bus to Manali. Akash Gupta joined us here. All thanks to Aakash (whose mother tongue happened to be Hindi) we all managed to get some seats in the bus to Manali. The bus (i doubt if it was a Volvo) was a little rickety and shaky. It broke down in the middle of the night and it took considerable amount of time to get it in ship shape. Finally we managed to reach Bhuntar at around 11 in the morning and we took a local bus to Kasol. We checked in to the base camp. here we were joined by Abhiram and Satyajith. and we were loitering around the Kasol market. Kasol is in the only place in India (that i have seen) where there are notice boards in Hebrew Italian and French and not in English or Hindi. The place has an amazingly high density of foreign people. the people have completely lost their local flavour and have started adapting themselves to suit the taste of foreigners.

Day 2 in base camp: this day starts quite early at around 5:30 in the morning. We have to have tea and rush towards warm up exercises. These warm up helped me stretch out my muscles. We returned to the base camp and had breakfast. After cheering up the group which started the trek we went on our acclimatisation climb. This was real fun and if you are not fit it will be very testing on your physical abilities. Once we reached the top of the climb the guide allowed us to relax and introduce ourselves to the rest of the group. I was seriously very surprised to find people from such varied walks of life and from almost every part of India coming for the trek. After the acclimatisation walk you will return to base camp just in time for lunch. After that you will have most part of the day free except for a very educating (and for most part boring) lecture given by the camp director.

Day 3: There was heavy rain last night. Hence one of the previous batches were not able to cross the Sar pass as it was covered with some 4.5 feet of snow. This cast a shadow over our enthusiasm (which was still quite high). Inspite the downcast weather conditions we were taken for a session on rapelling only to find the rocks very slippery and dangerous to rapel on. Hence we went somewhere into the forest to a typical Himachal pradesh village. All the apples in that place seemed only for export. People seemed to have adapted western food items like maggi as staple diet (have to admit it was delicious) we returned back to base camp and we prepared for the camp fire where we were supposed to do something. We decided on giving a live performance of Nakka-Mukka. We decided to explain the "profound message to mankind" delivered by that song. The performance proved to be such a hit that people were asking for an encore (seriously )

Day 4: This was an absolutely memorable day. Our actual trek to Sar Pass was to begin today. The weather was very cloudy and news that another group was unable to cross Sar pass due to bad weather reached the base camp making us all nervous. We still managed to start the trip with high energy level. We were to take a bus from the base camp to a small village from where our trek was supposed to start. Akash, Shashank myself and coupla other brave hearts decided to board on top of the bus in spite of the rainfall. The ride was made more thrilling all thanks to the almost crazy driving of the driver. We travelled on top for some 5 kms till manikaran. here we came down and occupied normal seats. The ride lasted for another half an hour. We reached our starting point and waited for the other batch of people to catch up with us. Once everyone was assembeled we started the trek. This day the trek was not very tough. The weather got very pleasant and we had a very enjoyable trek till Guna pani.

Rest of the Trek: I will not give a day to day account of the trek as it will make this account very boring. Ill just mention ponts worth noting. The next camp of Fual pani is by and large the worst camp in the entire trek. It is on a slope and you will find the tents very uncomfortable here in this camp. the next camp of Zirmi was quite comfortable. We played Wolves here at 11000 ft from sea level. The next days walk to Tila lotli was not very tough but the reduction in the oxygen level made the climb difficult.

Tila Lotli through Sar Pass to Biskeri Thatch -This was the defining part of the trek. At Tila we had to wake up at 2 in the morning and packed of at around 430 in the morning. We ascended for 1000 feet till wereached a height of 13800 ft. And then we reached The Sar pass. it was a beautiful extent of fresh snow which stretched on till we could see. We spent some time playing in the snow and we moved on. walking on ice was very difficult as it slipped very easily. We reached a certain point from which we had to slide down the snow. The slide Was THE MOST ENJOYABLE MOMENT OF THE TREK. It was a slide which lasted a solid 10-15 minutes. After the slide we had to walk for another 90 minutes before reaching Biskeri.

Biskeri to Bhandak which usually is an uneventful trek was made exciting by the rain. the rain made the path very slippery making the climb down a bit difficult and enjoyable. We had to rappel (read rope assisted rock descent) to reach for a rest point. The rest point was almost in the middle of a cloud when we reached there. It miraculously cleared up by the time we left. The rest of the road to Bhandak was extremely pleasant and enjoyable to trek upon. We reached Bhandak which was situated in a beautiful meadow. We had an amazingly good time there. We played cricket there and had a camp fire (sans a fire in accordance to the rules of YHAI) where we performed "Cows with Guns" once again to a thunderous applause. The next morning we had and uneventful ride to manikaran. There wr had a bath at a local lodge and went to the Langar at the local gurudwara. The langar was very crowded and we had a tough time getting something to eat. We reached base camp after lunch.

The next day (my Birthday) was a very very enjoyable day. We went white water rafting in the Beas river. It was not a very ferocious rafting experience nevertheless it was very exciting experience. We were allowed to dive into the river at one oint which promptly did. It was an amazing experience. The guys gave me birthday bums in the water itself. I absolutely enjoyed my birthday . Thanks a lot SP26.

We caught the bus back to Delhi. It was an uneventful ride. In Delhi we went to the Akshardham Temple. It is an awesome place but not a temple in the true sense. its more like an amusement park. Still its an architectural beauty. I started off early so that i could catch my flight back to Chennai.

During the course of this trek i would have wondered why i came on this trek at least a dozen times. Still in retrospection i think this "those were the best days of my life " . The trip was truly worth the physical hardships.....