Once Chuang Tzu dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Chuang Tzu. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Chuang Tzu. But he didn't know if he was Chuang Tzu who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Tzu. Between Chuang Tzu and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things.
Am thinking...
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Chap 23 from HHGTTG
I am reading the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and this is the most outrageously comic chapter so far, that leaves me laughing like crazy...take a bow Douglas Adams....
The background is that the earth has already been destroyed to make way for a galactic highway...and also there is a hint before this that says humans were only the third most intelligent species on Planet Earth...
Chapter 23
"It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reason.
The background is that the earth has already been destroyed to make way for a galactic highway...and also there is a hint before this that says humans were only the third most intelligent species on Planet Earth...
Chapter 23
"It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - while all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reason.
Curiously enough, the dolphins had long known of the impending destruction of the planet Earth and had made many attempts to alert mankind to the danger; but most of their communications were misinterpreted as assuming attempts to punch footballs or whistle for tidbits, so they eventually gave up and left the Earth by their own means shortly before the Vogons arrived.
The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backward somersault through a hoop while whistling the "Star-Spanngled Banner", but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish.
In fact there was only one species on the planet more intelligent than dolphins, and they spent a lot of their time in behavioral research laboratories running round inside wheels and conducting frighteningly elegant and subtle experiments on man. The fact that once again man completely misinterpreted this relationship was entirely according to these creatures' plans.
from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams
Monday, June 05, 2006
Must watch - Temples of the South
This is a wonderful video in google which documents some of the greatest achievements of South Indian architecture and especially those of Rajaraja Chozha. The video is 52 mins long and is a treasure and more than that it is certainly one documentary that makes one feel a sense of pride about one's own country in these times of the entire country shooting itself in the foot with a demeaning view of its own history.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3647180062330419712&q=india
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3647180062330419712&q=india
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Slap in the face of Manmohan Singh
I just read this piece that gives the resignation letter of Pratap Bhanu Mehta from the Knowledge Commission - a lucid expression of the views of a person who has a better sense of social justice than these politicians ruling the country and having no idea of how to approach such an issue sensibly. At last, Manmohan Singh is no statesman too, just a cowardly petty politician who cannot come out in the open and have a debate on this issue...
Pratap Bhanu Mehta's resignation letter
Pratap Bhanu Mehta's resignation letter
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Reservations in India - The road not taken
This is the talk of the country and I must say a subject that causes much anguish to me, looking at the direction India is moving on this front. I have my reservations against these 'reservations' which, at the ground level, are nothing but 'vested-interest-servations' if you will please pardon the usage. Also, I do not consider reservations as equivalent to 'inclusion' or 'affirmative action'. They are bigger and more meaningful terms and obviously do not imply reservation/quota system which I think is just a farce and which is certainly fraught with risks.
There is no effort on the part of the 'leaders of the nation' to sit and decide what they actually want to achieve, and whether this is the best way to be going about it. It is assumed that this is the only way, while it is clearly not so, but certainly this is a clear way to divide people and contribute in no small measure to brain drain.
Lots of Indians since Independence have been groomed on freebies in different ways and means and they just want the party to last forever, and the dancing to reach frenzied pace. The only problem with introducing freebies is that no one wants to work to achieve them any more. These freebies have been given without any indication of under what conditions they are being given, making those benefitting from it believe it is their birthright to have, as time passes by.
As I see it, the right way ahead (and the one that should have been taken in the first place) is to declare that everything will be done to level the playing field, but not bias the outcome by having red carpets for some people and damning others to cut-throat competition (with the risk of losing out to a lower performer who has a carpeted welcome) because of the consequent lack of space to get in, and follow that with action.
A look at who have profited by the 'arrangement' so far would reveal that even if we accept for argument's sake that reservation is the right way, the really needy people have not been able to avail of the benefit after nearly 60 years of having the system, and it is a shame on the country that people still perform inhuman jobs and reservation has done nothing for them. We have a case of certain proxy-needy-people-elements in the society tapping all the benefits and sapping the nation of progress - damn the question of whether they deserved the goodies in the first place. This I write not in a vacuum, but after seeing children of officers in government/private sector, who clearly dont deserve to avail of any such privilege compared to other deserving people (even in so called forward castes), merrily reaping the benefits.
The only way ahead is to ensure that everybody competes on a level field, and towards that if you need to give free education, reasonable monetary support through loans and what else have you, do that and let the competition be fair. Even if it is causes a big drain on the national resources it is a just cause and I dont mind paying my taxes for that. I feel that if a person who really wants to study is given these things, he* would naturally come up. If he is blaming other things even after getting these, he is misguided, is just missing the point, or is basically finding reasons to chicken out. The others who think this is a fun ride that they can enjoy will not come up anyway, but nothing much can be done about it except by themselves.
On the status-quo of reservations already being the ground reality, this is a deplorable situation, since there is ABSOLUTELY no mention/implementation of well defined exit criteria beyond which people can/should compete in the open, And mind you, there are a lot of them who have used this system but are simply too lazy/afraid to come out of and compete. It looks like they want to have a ball all through, hard work be damned. The only exit criterion as of now, is if a person with some sense of justice comes forward himself and competes openly, which is a rare exception (with probability figures comparable to that of a blue moon) There is no reason people should continue to be pampered like this, apart from vote bank politics.
Let us just hope that someday it dawns on the policy makers that they have been taking the nation on the forbidden path that leads nowhere, and the road not taken was the right one to start with, way back in the independence era...
Postscript:
I just remembered the major reason people hold forward is the lack of quality in the government schools and the consequent inability to compete. Now, it is obvious that we have been trying to suppress the symptom rather than the problem here through reservation - a REALLY REALLY bad idea - ask the people who write software about this - the problem to address and solve is the quality of education in rural areas. Giving everyone from rural areas a 'zero correction' as it were is just trying to suppress the symptom and not address the issue at hand. Moreover, this is not a caste issue really, whereas mostly, reservation is caste based. They are just trying to equate these two, and trying to find support for even caste-based reservation, with such fallible lines of reasoning like
"we need rural reservation because quality of education is poor there"
=>
"we need reservations" (which I have above refuted)
=>
"reservations are good"
=>
"we need caste-based reservations, which must also therefore be good"
* Just a digression - esp to feminists out there: Let me just ask that 'he' be taken to mean 'he/she'. This is just to avoid cluttering. My view of this is that when I write I say 'he' and when a woman writes let her say 'she'. I think that is simple and elegant.
There is no effort on the part of the 'leaders of the nation' to sit and decide what they actually want to achieve, and whether this is the best way to be going about it. It is assumed that this is the only way, while it is clearly not so, but certainly this is a clear way to divide people and contribute in no small measure to brain drain.
Lots of Indians since Independence have been groomed on freebies in different ways and means and they just want the party to last forever, and the dancing to reach frenzied pace. The only problem with introducing freebies is that no one wants to work to achieve them any more. These freebies have been given without any indication of under what conditions they are being given, making those benefitting from it believe it is their birthright to have, as time passes by.
As I see it, the right way ahead (and the one that should have been taken in the first place) is to declare that everything will be done to level the playing field, but not bias the outcome by having red carpets for some people and damning others to cut-throat competition (with the risk of losing out to a lower performer who has a carpeted welcome) because of the consequent lack of space to get in, and follow that with action.
A look at who have profited by the 'arrangement' so far would reveal that even if we accept for argument's sake that reservation is the right way, the really needy people have not been able to avail of the benefit after nearly 60 years of having the system, and it is a shame on the country that people still perform inhuman jobs and reservation has done nothing for them. We have a case of certain proxy-needy-people-elements in the society tapping all the benefits and sapping the nation of progress - damn the question of whether they deserved the goodies in the first place. This I write not in a vacuum, but after seeing children of officers in government/private sector, who clearly dont deserve to avail of any such privilege compared to other deserving people (even in so called forward castes), merrily reaping the benefits.
The only way ahead is to ensure that everybody competes on a level field, and towards that if you need to give free education, reasonable monetary support through loans and what else have you, do that and let the competition be fair. Even if it is causes a big drain on the national resources it is a just cause and I dont mind paying my taxes for that. I feel that if a person who really wants to study is given these things, he* would naturally come up. If he is blaming other things even after getting these, he is misguided, is just missing the point, or is basically finding reasons to chicken out. The others who think this is a fun ride that they can enjoy will not come up anyway, but nothing much can be done about it except by themselves.
On the status-quo of reservations already being the ground reality, this is a deplorable situation, since there is ABSOLUTELY no mention/implementation of well defined exit criteria beyond which people can/should compete in the open, And mind you, there are a lot of them who have used this system but are simply too lazy/afraid to come out of and compete. It looks like they want to have a ball all through, hard work be damned. The only exit criterion as of now, is if a person with some sense of justice comes forward himself and competes openly, which is a rare exception (with probability figures comparable to that of a blue moon) There is no reason people should continue to be pampered like this, apart from vote bank politics.
Let us just hope that someday it dawns on the policy makers that they have been taking the nation on the forbidden path that leads nowhere, and the road not taken was the right one to start with, way back in the independence era...
Postscript:
I just remembered the major reason people hold forward is the lack of quality in the government schools and the consequent inability to compete. Now, it is obvious that we have been trying to suppress the symptom rather than the problem here through reservation - a REALLY REALLY bad idea - ask the people who write software about this - the problem to address and solve is the quality of education in rural areas. Giving everyone from rural areas a 'zero correction' as it were is just trying to suppress the symptom and not address the issue at hand. Moreover, this is not a caste issue really, whereas mostly, reservation is caste based. They are just trying to equate these two, and trying to find support for even caste-based reservation, with such fallible lines of reasoning like
"we need rural reservation because quality of education is poor there"
=>
"we need reservations" (which I have above refuted)
=>
"reservations are good"
=>
"we need caste-based reservations, which must also therefore be good"
* Just a digression - esp to feminists out there: Let me just ask that 'he' be taken to mean 'he/she'. This is just to avoid cluttering. My view of this is that when I write I say 'he' and when a woman writes let her say 'she'. I think that is simple and elegant.
Monday, May 01, 2006
Picture of myself when I am REALLY thirsty...
This is just for those who wonder who it actually is who writes with such great cheer :-)
And for the ones who watched closely, let me say "No prizes on offer for guessing the brand!"
Upcoming visit to Trissur Pooram
Am excited to be travelling to the place where the gods buy coconuts - Kerala ;-) next weekend for the mega festival there called the Pooram - look forward to hearing the sophisticated rhythms of the chenda mELam and their ilk - I have been witness (by eye and ear) to the great drums during the Sabarimala season in my own Coimbatore. Standing right next to the drummers themselves, it is quite a task not to get drowned in the rhythms, and the legs do start dancing as if they have a separate neural system. And there is the right amount of repetition to the drumming to enable any layman to catch the location of the beats and the beautiful pauses between them and sync with it. This is certainly a very traditional art form that India can be proud of...
And there will be elephants all over the place - would love to be among the audience of the 'All-Kerala Tusker Congregation' or shall we say 'Akhila-Kerala Gaja SammELanam'. I will need to take an infrasonic sensor and my handy copy of "Elephant lingo for Dummies" to check on the proceedings...
I will be publishing my pet-project book after the trip called Lingua pachydermiana. This will impart invaluable knowledge on the following topics and more:
a. How to say "Hi", "Please" and "Sorry" using a trumpet
b. If you are lost in a forest, How to ask an elephant the way to the nearest city by emitting the right infrasonic frequencies
c. How to use a tuning fork to drive an elephant mad
Check out my other bestselling books on related topics:
"On Tusks, Trumpets and Thick Skin"
"All you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask about the ivory business" (hehehe)
Will be posting a travelogue + some snaps hopefully once back...
Till then, its Adios from me...
And there will be elephants all over the place - would love to be among the audience of the 'All-Kerala Tusker Congregation' or shall we say 'Akhila-Kerala Gaja SammELanam'. I will need to take an infrasonic sensor and my handy copy of "Elephant lingo for Dummies" to check on the proceedings...
I will be publishing my pet-project book after the trip called Lingua pachydermiana. This will impart invaluable knowledge on the following topics and more:
a. How to say "Hi", "Please" and "Sorry" using a trumpet
b. If you are lost in a forest, How to ask an elephant the way to the nearest city by emitting the right infrasonic frequencies
c. How to use a tuning fork to drive an elephant mad
Check out my other bestselling books on related topics:
"On Tusks, Trumpets and Thick Skin"
"All you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask about the ivory business" (hehehe)
Will be posting a travelogue + some snaps hopefully once back...
Till then, its Adios from me...
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Bangalore roads
It is only appropriate that I write about the abysmal state of affairs with roads in Bangalore, having stayed here for about 5 years and seen the decadence. With the rains lashing down in the recent past, even the 5 % of roads that were motorable have nearly become bee-hives, only without any beauty associated. This doesnt help the state of affairs with the traffic either.
Last Friday, when I was held up for about 45 minutes in a 1.5 km stretch on Airport Road, I approached the police constable manning the Shanti Sagar signal in Domlur, and got a clear answer on de-congesting the roads. He says he doesnt have an idea what he is doing, nor is his superior officer any better. He asked me to come up with some idea. The superior officer was much worse in terms of courteousness. The default tense for any citizen on the road is in singular, and they dont have pangs about using it. They after all are helpless creatures who dont know anything but wave their hands, standing at signals. The waves dont look regulatory, but like helpless flings, with a prayer in the heart to be saved from this chaos.
I was left wondering if there is anybody in their hierarchy who has an iota of sense in his head to plan the traffic flow properly. I want to say here that though I might come up with a useful suggestion or two on this, I find that the very department whose sole job it is to regulate traffic is clueless and that is a sorry state of affairs. I read that the nexus between the contractors and the bureaucracy is quite huge, and unless stern measures are taken to end it, citizens of this place will never have their basic necessities fulfilled. I am convinced now that Bangalore was never meant to be India's show-piece to the world, and it will never be, if things as basic as these are not taken care of. It is a city that already belongs to the past, and will probably need to be mummified and stashed in the junkyards, and new cities built from the scratch, if this state of affairs continues. I am packing my bags soon.
A Pained and helpless Indian citizen
Subbu
Last Friday, when I was held up for about 45 minutes in a 1.5 km stretch on Airport Road, I approached the police constable manning the Shanti Sagar signal in Domlur, and got a clear answer on de-congesting the roads. He says he doesnt have an idea what he is doing, nor is his superior officer any better. He asked me to come up with some idea. The superior officer was much worse in terms of courteousness. The default tense for any citizen on the road is in singular, and they dont have pangs about using it. They after all are helpless creatures who dont know anything but wave their hands, standing at signals. The waves dont look regulatory, but like helpless flings, with a prayer in the heart to be saved from this chaos.
I was left wondering if there is anybody in their hierarchy who has an iota of sense in his head to plan the traffic flow properly. I want to say here that though I might come up with a useful suggestion or two on this, I find that the very department whose sole job it is to regulate traffic is clueless and that is a sorry state of affairs. I read that the nexus between the contractors and the bureaucracy is quite huge, and unless stern measures are taken to end it, citizens of this place will never have their basic necessities fulfilled. I am convinced now that Bangalore was never meant to be India's show-piece to the world, and it will never be, if things as basic as these are not taken care of. It is a city that already belongs to the past, and will probably need to be mummified and stashed in the junkyards, and new cities built from the scratch, if this state of affairs continues. I am packing my bags soon.
A Pained and helpless Indian citizen
Subbu
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Oh India...
I am just trying to think where Indians need a mindset change, and have to do a lot better to raise their standard of living...
From what I see today
I can clearly tell that since these are mindset issues, once these things stop, the nation will be a lot better. People here either are indulging in this nonsense or have been forced into living in denial and compromise. Which is why I fully support a movie like Anniyan (Tamil), which hits at these issues. I sincerely hope people get the message right, and stop talking about technical glitches or other silly things about the movie, which don't matter compared to the issue that it addresses.
Anyways, I will stop for now, let's see what the future holds...
From what I see today
- Respect for the other man - I don't quite know why we Indians by default loathe each other as long as the other person is not known to us - like on the roads. Civility to fellow beings will certainly be a good start.
- Just wondering if all this has to do with the overflowing population and consequent disregard for the other person - the other person is an abundant commodity - is this turning out to be a demand and supply thingie?
- Compromising on all available rules and finding ways around them - everybody, from the people to the police themselves, is looking at things from a selfish perspective.
- The blissful ignorance of the other parts of the world is not a good thing. I don't see Bangalore, one of the best cities of India becoming something like London in another 20 years, while everybody else in the world zooms ahead in development.
- As a columnist at rediff said, people here, after independence, were told that they were the kings in the country, and everybody now has a perverted sense of ownership of all public property. There is no hesitation in thinking of all public property as one's own and destroying/rubbishing them. Right from burning buses, tearing the leather in the bus seats, to spitting all along the roads, not realising that there are people who pay taxes to maintain all these.
- You cannot tell a person on the road not to do such things. There is far too much "Why do you care - is it your father's property?" attitude floating around. I really don't know when this will come to a stop.
I can clearly tell that since these are mindset issues, once these things stop, the nation will be a lot better. People here either are indulging in this nonsense or have been forced into living in denial and compromise. Which is why I fully support a movie like Anniyan (Tamil), which hits at these issues. I sincerely hope people get the message right, and stop talking about technical glitches or other silly things about the movie, which don't matter compared to the issue that it addresses.
Anyways, I will stop for now, let's see what the future holds...
About me...
Welcome, and thanks for visiting my corner of blogosphere. Hope you enjoy it...
So my intent is to talk about myself, which I may not be able to summarize concisely - I have been changing all through these 25 years. Anyway, will try...
BRIEF VERSION:
Yeah, I am Subramanian Janardanan, call me Subbu if you like, 25, male, single and available ;-), (most probably only till next year - RUSH if interested!)
Born in Kanyakumari, the place where the Bay of Bengal meets the Arabian Sea, I grew up mainly in Coimbatore - mid-sized city, quieter than Bangalore by miles - Bangalore used to be very similar to it sometime back. Bangalore is where I reside now.
I am one among billion+ Indians, one among millions of software engineers in the world, have Tamil for my mother-tongue, though I generally love some other languages also. Love and curiosity for languages is one of my earliest interests, right from the day I started with "SuklAmbaradharam Vishnum", in Sanskrit, a language that I didn't understand, and only now am coming to terms with. Never knew what SuklAmbaradharam meant back then...Probably the interest goes back further, to my initiation into studies, when, as a child of two or three, I was made to write Tamil alphabets on the surface of rice in a big vessel, an age-old custom.
I am a man who always cherishes things that are old, like tradition and culture. I don't often see myself appreciating contemporary things, don't know why...I love music, my foremost passion, though I have not proceeded to become well-trained in any genre - its been a to-do thing for a long time. I also like reading, but normally dont read fiction - have only read Harry Potter Book 1, and not gone ahead - "what a shame!!!!", everybody seems to be saying...
I love computers, and technology, but I always take technology cautiously. I got my first cellphone when I was 23 - after almost every teenager in India had one, and I was forced by my family to buy one. I am a C++ programmer at heart, and know some other languages too.
My plan for this blog of mine is to write up regarding anything I feel I should share with other netizens. Topics may include but not necessarily be limited to India, culture, politics, arts, my view of the world, my favourite gripes...
So my intent is to talk about myself, which I may not be able to summarize concisely - I have been changing all through these 25 years. Anyway, will try...
BRIEF VERSION:
Yeah, I am Subramanian Janardanan, call me Subbu if you like, 25, male, single and available ;-), (most probably only till next year - RUSH if interested!)
- Capricorn
- South Indian - Tamil, aspirant Sanskrit scholar
- Cat on the wall: Brahmin-50%, agnostic-50% - yet to decide which side of the wall to jump finally
- Favourite things in the universe
- The Universe
- Life
- India
- Music
- Philosophy
- Humour
- Languages - Human and Computer
- Culture
- Computers and the Human Brain
- Space
- Physics - the philosophical side
Born in Kanyakumari, the place where the Bay of Bengal meets the Arabian Sea, I grew up mainly in Coimbatore - mid-sized city, quieter than Bangalore by miles - Bangalore used to be very similar to it sometime back. Bangalore is where I reside now.
I am one among billion+ Indians, one among millions of software engineers in the world, have Tamil for my mother-tongue, though I generally love some other languages also. Love and curiosity for languages is one of my earliest interests, right from the day I started with "SuklAmbaradharam Vishnum", in Sanskrit, a language that I didn't understand, and only now am coming to terms with. Never knew what SuklAmbaradharam meant back then...Probably the interest goes back further, to my initiation into studies, when, as a child of two or three, I was made to write Tamil alphabets on the surface of rice in a big vessel, an age-old custom.
I am a man who always cherishes things that are old, like tradition and culture. I don't often see myself appreciating contemporary things, don't know why...I love music, my foremost passion, though I have not proceeded to become well-trained in any genre - its been a to-do thing for a long time. I also like reading, but normally dont read fiction - have only read Harry Potter Book 1, and not gone ahead - "what a shame!!!!", everybody seems to be saying...
I love computers, and technology, but I always take technology cautiously. I got my first cellphone when I was 23 - after almost every teenager in India had one, and I was forced by my family to buy one. I am a C++ programmer at heart, and know some other languages too.
My plan for this blog of mine is to write up regarding anything I feel I should share with other netizens. Topics may include but not necessarily be limited to India, culture, politics, arts, my view of the world, my favourite gripes...
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Trekked to Sakleshpura...
Trek to Sakleshpura - Saturday, 22 Jan 2005
(Hangover - All through Sunday, 23 Jan 2005,
After-effects - All through Monday and Tuesday 24-25 Jan 2005)
After-effects - All through Monday and Tuesday 24-25 Jan 2005)
Had the privilege (= lots of free time!) to trek to Sakleshpura and Kukke which is somewhere near Mangalore (or that's what I was told) with my friends and friends' friends (10 in all). Went by a cool Karnataka State Transport bus (yup! one of them red-painted dustbins they call buses). After 4 hours of near-death experience and lot of rocking about like witch-doctors, we landed at Gundiya checkpost. Towards the end of the journey, we saw some 4 accidents, what with buses and lorries kissing each other in the dark. We were saved from death during the travel only by the cheerful spirit we had and all the Koundamani jokes and Vadivelu jokes we recalled. At Gundiya, all was dark, and happened to notice stars all over the sky after years in the city.
Trucks trudging along the uphill road, and three sleepy checkpost-guys was all the company we had. It was forest area and we were told that elephants frequent the place. I was praying that no black elephant comes clothed in the pitch darkness that was all around (A white elephant would be fine though). We got back an hour of lost sleep till dawn.
I was awakened (as usual, last to rise) when There Was Light (I didnt hear anybody saying "Let there be light" since I was sleeping. I was praying "Let there be no light for one more hour"). But some hot tea from a dingy "restaurant" got a zero-watt bulb burning in my brain (or is it "the zero-watt bulb that IS my brain"?) I was about to drink it and get into my sleeping bag, but peer pressure and some self-respect stopped me from giving the check-post guys a day of company. Alrighty then.... Time to start the daylong trek...
Got my share of food and fruits (and LOTS of common stuff) into my backpack. Like a grand marriage procession, we started walking. Yup, we had the perennial photographer Saravanakumar (Gujju) with us for the procession, covering every step (okay, ALMOST every step) with his cool digicam (felt like celebrities being hounded by the paparazzi ;-) We come to The Bridge Across The River XXX, a decent-sized river. We probably had to say 'cheeeez' 5 times there.
This place looks a lot like Kerala to me, with the big gardens/"thoppu"s around small oatu-veedus (whats english for that?) and the general greenery quotient (YES! I coined a new term!!!). We have walked about half a km and I already feel I am carrying a bit too much weight.
I stumble along (now that's my refrain for this piece of poetry), it is quite uphill. We see a man in his house which is about half a kilometre from his compound gate, and check if we are on the right track. (He can actually play a cricket tournament inside his compound. If I own so much space in Bangalore, I can resign my job here and now) He shocks me by letting us know that our first destination (it is the railway station) is a stone's throw away (=12 kms UPHILL most of the way) I am wondering if I could do the trek in a jeep....
So we all walk, some of us are almost running all the way to reach the place. I am steadily walking near the tail end, all the while exhausting my supply of bananas and fruit juice to give me energy. It is becoming sweaty and I have to remove my jerkin (why did I bring that???) and soon enough my shirt too. Anyway there are no people around, leave alone girls. All I hear is the constant howling of the wind and the occasional chirp of an enthusiastic cuckoo, not to mention the distant roar of the river we crossed. After an infinite number of stops on the way, I join the others on the railway route. It is an abandoned track and I dont think any non-crazy person would dare come here alone. These are tracks spanning hills with tunnels and bridges.
We take rest there for about half an hour while we finish up some food (mainly from others' bags), Gujju Saravanakumar gives his camera good workouts while we are all lying on the ground, worked out. Thats when the fancy dress party begins, with each of us changing to fashionable clothes (alas! there was not a single girl to whom we could show off throughout the trek). We are told by "Been Here, Done It, Got the T-Shirt" Gujju that the tracks and fishplates? date back to colonial days (trivia of the day - 1887 precisely). I am also told that this is the Point Zero of our trek (I am asking myself "Then what was I doing so far???"). We start from there on our journey like a human train.
Halfway through a tunnel, we notice a trolley racing towards us threatening our limbs. The human train disassembles and runs helter-skelter to the dark walls of the bat-infested tunnel. Speaking of bats, I am reminded of all those gory ghost movies. I dont know if they really are bloodsuckers. It is slightly scary, but I have seen Discovery Channel too where a man holds one of the flying rats and studies its wings while it watches helplessly. I make up my mind and follow the group, groping around in the dark tunnel, my foot stumbling at every possible stone worth the name. Above us, the bats are also excited and communicate among themselves about us boring humans disturbing their peace. I hear lots of shreiks from them, and I know very much that they might be also shreiking ultrasonic messages to attack us.
At last, there is light at the end of the tunnel (They say God was there just 10 minutes ago and he had ordered for some light there). We now come to the first of the numerous bridges (I mean railroad bridges across huge chasms, not rivers). It is quite a thrill to walk across them, with the ever-present fear of falling into a hole through to one's death or lameness - depending on the depth). It is just alternating emptiness and flat iron bars where you must land on the latter to prevent your bones sent home on a platter. There is Yama to your left and Yama to your right. I manage to cross the first one with a lot of confidence though (depth must have been about 5-10 feet below - now you know why)
There starts an unending (at least till 4.30 pm) series of tunnels and bridges that we crossed. We stop by on the way to rest on the mound of gravel (felt like a sanyasi!) that is at the valley-side of the track and look at the Bridge O'er The River which is by now far far away. We meet a man on the way, who is adept at walking on the rails, a feat I tried and almost broke my feet at. He tells us that there is a place to eat 3 km from there. Mind you, it is 3 km of walking on gravel, or on the rails if you want to avoid being hurt by every stone (so you can get hurt REALLY well when you fall off the rail :-) ). We stop by a place and gobble some chapathis with tomato sauce, and guess what? We continue walking.
The most thrilling moments were when we crossed a bridge about half km long, with a 300-400 foot fall staring us in the face. It also had a great view of the mountains and valleys till the far and wide horizon. It was so thrilling, beautiful, bewitching, and no person can afford not to get contemplative there. It was about 2 pm, and the sun was right above us beating down a 32 deg. celsius heat on us. I was so tired of the walk till then. But we could not resist going back halfway through the bridge after we had crossed, such was the charm of the place.
After we rested by a cool stream and had our bath, we continued trekking for an hour or so more to reach Siribagilu. Then we started the downhill walk and after another hour and a half, were back on the roads. We took a jeep to our next destination, the Subrahmanya Temple at Kukke. It was a half-hour ride, with us cramped into a single jeep. Three in the front, and the driver, a puny localite halfway outside his vehicle (a la Ace Ventura). Still he drove at 50+ kmph and we reached Subrahmanya. The place is quaint, with a clearly preserved culture without too much commercialization, and takes one on a time-travel to a different age. The temple itself is reminiscent of the Guruvaayoor Temple, in architecture and the people who come there. It feels really like Kerala outside Kerala. The deity himself was scarcely discernible in the dark except as streaks of golden light.
By now, I am limping all my way because of some to-be-blisters in my feet. But the pain is forgotten once I have some good food in a small hotel adjacent to the temple. Food there is better than what I expected. Bangalore hotels are no good compared to the food there (to my Tamil tongue at least). Then we board the 9 pm bus (yup! the dustbin again) back to Bangalore. It is a 5 hour journey, mostly unnoticed because I was sleeping like a dead man.
We reach Bangalore, the land of crazy auto-wallahs at 3.30 am. Gujju and I settle for 'double the meter rate' and reach our respective places. It is finally sleep, sleep and more sleep, all through Sunday for me and till Monday 9.30 pm (I have a friendly manager at work, do YOU?)
Trekking team:
Avinash, Gujju, Dhamu, Satya Ghosh, Nagendra, Sathish, Hari, Krishna, Shreekar.
(I am missing one name, wonder which one....)
--
Tiredly yours,
Subbu
Monday, January 10, 2005
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