Dal Lake, An amazing city on water

After a very short flight from Jammu, witnessing some of the most amazing views of my life on board an aircraft, we finally arrived at Srinagar at around 4:00 PM. A 20 minutes drive took us to the Dal lake, and the first thing that will strike you is its enormity. It's not one of the largest lakes in India, but its the biggest in the middle of a city. The lake is adorned by the traditional Shikaras, a cultural symbol of Kashmir. 

It is also surrounded by an enormous number of gardens. Some of the most famous ones are of course the Shalimar and the Nishat gardens built during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir, and also the gorgeous Centaur Hotel, where 'Wazir-e-Azam' Dr. Manmohan Singh was to stay on his trip to J&K 2 days later. This just makes the lake look so beautiful that it's rightfully nicknamed the jewel in the crown of Kashmir. 

We were to stay the night on a houseboat named the Peer Palace. Houseboats in the Dal lake were introduced in the early nineteenth century by the Britishers, and their grandeur is still completely intact. They are so luxurious and grand that they could be easily compared with a 5-star or a 7-star hotel. But I wouldn't do so. It's just a completely different experience! Following are some of the images that I took in the house boat that we were staying in, the Peer Palace and let them stand their own testimony.

After a 15 minute Shikara ride on the cold and calm waters, we reached the houseboat. We were hungry, and the manager had a bad news for us. The houseboat's cook had gone out. He added that we could order from a hotel that would give home delivery. It was a little surprising as to why would a hotel come and give home delivery to a houseboat in the middle of nowhere? The manager then cleared it to us that it's a floating hotel, a hotel right in the middle of the lake that takes orders from the houseboats and delivers food to them. He also said that there is a market, a school, a police station, a post office and lots of other amenities within the lake. That's when it hit us that its not just a lake. its a complete city in itself. He then promised to take us around and show it to us. After having some delicious pakodas and the Kashmiri tea, we headed to experience the Dal lake. 
First we visited the usual tourist spots, the gardens, the water sports area and the Char Chinar, a small island in the middle of the lake which just has four Chinar trees (remember the leaf on the flag of Canada?). Then we headed for the Kabutar Khana, a small palace  on water which was built by the king of Kashmir to watch birds!  Imagine owning a piece of water, on which you have a palace built, which is then surrounded by lilies and lotuses... reminds me of the lyrics of the song from Mission Kashmir, Socho ke jhilon ka sheher ho, leheron pe apna ek ghar ho, hum jo dekhen, sapne pyare, sach ho saare, bas aur kyaaaaa..., which again was shot on one of houseboats here on the Dal lake. Now of course, the palace has been converted into a CRPF camp, surrounded by speed boats and high end rifles (a sight that is very common in J&K, but more on that in my next post). 
Then we were headed for the inner parts of the lake, the parts that are not affected by the tourists, a very calm and peaceful place, we set sail into the setting sun...
You must be wondering as to how could people built homes in the middle of a lake? Well nature has its own miracles. They are built on pieces of floating lands, yes, pieces of land that are absolutely floating on the top of water, and if the owner wants to move somewhere else in the water, all he/she needs to do is wade the piece of land through the water. The land is kept in place by the water plants that have been grown. These lands are also used for growing vegetables, which are then sold in the local markets in the lake!  Here's a pic of some of the houses and the vegetation around them, and their mode of transportation...

Soon we were at their school...

Then we were headed for the market. Passing through complete wilderness, the quietness was just refreshing. It was like a completely different world out there, there were the birds, the plants and the trees, the still water and me with my family in a Shikara, wading through roads made of water...

We then reached the market. If you have visited any major melas in any major cities, you would have definitely come across Kashmir handlooms and emporiums. All their outlets are here. From clothes to vegetables to snacks, everything is available here. People residing in the lake actually prefer marketing here than going out anywhere else.

In the winter of course, the markets stay closed, in fact the whole of Kashmir valley remains almost closed due to the heavy snow fall. By the end of December till late january, the Dal lake remains completely frozen, so much so that you could actually walk on it. In fact it turns into a playground for children during the winters, and people play football, cricket and hockey here as I was told (of course the ones who can bear the severe cold :P).
After an amazing night of sleep in the calm wilderness, the next day we were headed for the rest of our trip of J&K. More on that will be on my next post, but right now all I can say is reiterate what Mughal Emperor Jahangir had to say about Kashmir...

Agar firdaus bar rue zamin ast,

hamin asto hamin asto hamin ast!

(If there be paradise on earth, 

it is here, it is here, it is here!)

A lily from the Dal lake...

And the rest of the images from the Dal lake...

And all those amazing times we have had...

Through those insanity

Through those craziness

Through those weirdness

And all those amazing times we have had

Through those movies, sometimes without a ticket, sometimes back to back

Through those theme parks

Through those restaurants

And all those amazing times we have had

Through those philosophical night outs

Through those movie night outs

And those top secret two wheeler night outs

And all those amazing times we have had

Through those failed love affairs

Through Analog Circuits and its Heirs

Through the last part of the seventh sem

And all those "not" so amazing times we have had

Through your random name calling

Through all your beautiful surprises

Through all your awful surprises

And all those amazing times we have had

Through those amazing trips

Through those random shopping sprees

Through those wolfing spirits

And all those amazing times we have had

Through those stupidest of the movies that no one likes

Through those teasing instincts that everyone cherish

Through those walks back from the main gate

And all those amazing times we have had

To all those amazing times we will have...
Dedicated to my ever stupidly crazy friends :-)

Craziest things to do in a Cyclone...

Cyclone is coming! Just imagine all the crazy things you could do in a cyclone! Here are some!

Do a Oppan Gangnam Style:

You could do that part of Oppan Gangnam style where a huge fan blows wind at him and he eats foam! All you need is a blue jacket, someone to spray a foam can at you and a hope that you don’t get blown away.

Bungee Jumping:

Find a high bridge or tie a long pole across the hostel from the even wing to the odd wing and jump off from it. The wind will make you feel like you are flyyyyyiinggg...

Get Some Wings:

Well your KFC chicken wings won’t work here. You will need something bigger. May be try catching a vulture, steal its wings and jump off the roof of BT department. If you can fly, you will do a great service to science. If you can’t, well you tried and science will remember you forever :P

Do a Felix Baumgartner:

Take a hot air balloon (a tutorial on maneuvering a hot air balloon in a storm can be found in any biography of Richard Brenson), go on top of the cloud (9^th one preferably) and jump off. You might not breach Mach 1, but you will definitely breach a few layers of soil after falling on earth.

Paragliding:

Make a huge kite, grab it and go to St. Thomas Mount, and jump off towards the airport with it. Hope that you don’t collide with a flight. You can then enter the airport, hijack a kingfisher flight (they are anyways out of use) and fly away…

Get some Trampolines:

A whole lot of ideas above involved jumping off… So let’s jump up now. Get some trampolines. Use your basic kinematics to find out how far a distance you should place them so that you jump from one to reach the next one. You could do this wearing a space suit, record a video and send it to NASA saying it was taken in Neptune :P

Do a Titanic:

Build a titanic, well a 1000 times scaled down version of it, and stand in front of it with your arms widely spread. James Cameron would be very proud of you.

Surfing:

If you ever wanted to sail alongside sharks, this could be your chance. Since the sharks would be busy running away for their lives, you could surf alongside them.

Driving:

You could ride a cycle till the main gate, from where you could break into a car and drive it through the ECR road to Pondicherry. (If you can of course :P)

Sleep on the roof:

If you want to “feel” the cyclone up close and personal(in which case, a certain prof in Dept. of Electrical Engineering would be very happy with you), you could go to the roof and sleep there. Then you could measure the luminous intensity of lightening and the breakdown voltages of air, and think of harvesting power from lightening.

Tie yourself to a wind mill:

If you ever wanted to experience a centrifuge but do not have access to NASA or a Lockheed Martin facility, you could tie yourself to a wind mill. You will experience the centrifuge with zero carbon footprint and hence doing a bit for yourself and for the earth :P

Most of it came up during a fruitful mess discussion with Vaibhav. There were a lot of shady stuff as well, of course I am not going to tell them here :P

The Plan of Action:

As Ironman would have said, the plan of action, is action! Take a hot air balloon and go to the 9^th cloud and jump off. After falling through the 9 clouds, engage wings. If you are able to fly great! If not, engage parachute and fall exactly next to a cycle in IIT Madras. Break open the cycle and ride it till main gate. From there drive a car to St. Thomas Mount, where your para-glide would be waiting for you. Jump off the cliff, dodge as many flights as you can, and enter the airport. Break open a plane (kingfisher preferably) and fly away. After a proper take off, shift to auto pilot with a course towards the center of cyclone (somewhere between Cuddalore and Nellore) and do a bungee jumping from the plane (you can have the James Bond (Skyfall) or Jason Bourne theme playing in the background). Keep yourself taut to the plane until you arrive on top of Nellore. On top of Nellore, cut the ropes and jump into the sea. Your surf board would be waiting there for you. Surf alongside sharks till you reach your Titanic. Now sail the Titanic to Chennai, and arrive at Besant Nagar beach. From there, you could tie a sail to a mast on a surf board and sail on land towards insti. After reaching insti, you could ask your friends to spray foam at you and you could do the Oppan Ganganam style.  Then you could go and sleep on the roof of your hostel and think about what you have done!

OR

You could just stay indoors, put peace, and do yourselves a favor by not putting yourselves in danger and probably read one of my experiences in a real cyclone here and stay safe :) 

Some fond childhood memories of Dussehra...

Dussehra, also known as Durga Puja, is one of the biggest festivals in Odisha. For me though, it was more like that time of the year with 10 days of school holidays, awesome food, huge pandals with amazing blinking lights and patterns made out of them. Societies in Odisha have a great knack of pulling of such beautiful pandals that you would be really amazed just by seeing their size and their beauty. They would be themed, sometimes the Titanic, sometimes the Taj, sometimes the pandals would be covered with obsolete 5 and 10 paise coins, the whole pandal, the size of a 7-8 storey building of it. The major ones will have amazing work of gold and silver, and one in Cuttack where the Goddess would be made completely of silver every year. Its really so inspiring to see the creativity and dedication of the workers in making these pandals just for the sake of a few days. Then they would be decorated with lights about 500m radius around it. So essentially, 70% of the roads in Bhubaneswar would be decorated in lights.

The first few days of the holiday would be spent with my parents visiting these amazing pandals in Bhubaneswar. About the 6th or 7th day of Dussehra, we would go to my grandparents place. Both my grandparents live in a quaint little place called Jagatsinghpur, about 60km from Bhubaneswar. At my paternal grand parents place, me with my cousins, and my father, would go for fishing! We would play cricket for like 6 hours out of 10 hours of daylight, and the rest would be spent eating and pulling each others leg. At my maternal grandparents place as well, it would be my uncles and aunts instead of my cousins. There, there is this culture that everyone gives everyone delicacies specially made for Dussehra, things like Kakara Pitha, Nimki, varieties of sweets especially Laddu and Rasgulla etc. (Heaven!! :D) And since both my grandparents come from a background of Zamindaars, they have a huge list of people to give. (even better :D). And hence cooks, just to make all these, would come. A makeshift kitchen would be set up in the backyard, where the cooks, typically 2, would continuously keep making stuff for us for about 2 and half days and they would be continuously consumed or given away. There were just too many people who would visit my grandparents. I, on the other hand would stay put at the makeshift kitchen. I just loved watching them being made, in those huge kadhais and of course popping in one or two at times :D. Whether it was the aroma, or the color or them taking shape, I don't know. But I just loved watching them being made. I was like the food inspector, every lot of whatever was made, had to pass through me first :D.  When laddus were made, I would don the hat of the chef trying to give the laddus their shape. I had this signature style of shaping the laddus (any shape but spherical :P) that every one who saw it, knew I was the one who made it :D

On the 8th day of the Dussehra, or the Durga-Ashtami, a huge puja is held. Everyone would have to wear new, its just so childish now, but the feeling then was amazing. Then the 10th day would be the day when the "victory of good over evil" or the Vijaydasami happened. This is the day when an huge effigy of Raavan would be burnt. Unlike I guess the rest of India, Jagatsinghpur has this amazing tradition of all gods coming together and watching over when lord Ram killed Ravana. Wherever Dussehra is celebrated, pandals have either Goddess Durga or Lord Ram or sometimes Ravana. But in Jagatsinghpur, you will find pandals of lord Krishna, Ganesh and Shiv as well. And on the Vijaydasami day, during the evening, at a huge ground in front of the office of the district collector, there will be the effigy of Ravana ready, lord Ram would be straight in front of him, all the other gods and goddesses would encircle them standing on huge trucks. It's just so magical, as if it were happening in heaven. And the effigy would be burnt up with rockets, and I would count the number of them. It would go on for about ten minutes (I would have given up counting by 5 :P), and then there would be this feeling that something good happened over something evil. Some evil died. And that is the ultimate spirit of Dussehra isn't it?! 

More amazing pictures of Dussehra at Bhubaneswar can be seen here (Courtesy: "Stunning Bhubaneswar" fb page):

2012 and 2010 

Weekends Out

I always put in a lot of thought on the way I start my blog posts but for this, I have already thought for three days and I have truly no better (or worse.. readers discretion required :P) way of starting it. Everything about these trips were so awesome that I really can't pick one particular moment to start off from.


It was all out of the blue one day when we decided we would go somewhere awesome for the whole weekend. The first obvious choice was Ooty. But then also came up the suggestion of Yercaud and Hogenakkal. Ultimately, it was decided that we would go for Yercaud and Hogenakkal...

Yercaud and Hogenakkal

We started off on 22nd June at 11:00pm (even though it incredibly became 1:30am of 23rd and Manoj had to play hide and seek at Bangalore Central, but just for the records, Dino, we were not late :P). We had hired a bus with a robot as a driver (trust me a robot would have done a better job in terms of knowing places in Bangalore). Well nevertheless, we finally boarded the bus and started off. As if on a mission to not sleep, we started off playing multi-lingual antaksheri. 

In antaksheri, there are three types of people. One who does not sing at all. Second, the normal people who sing when they get a nice song and playback for others for the rest of the time. And then there is Pranitha, the living database of songs. Have her against you, and you are deemed to be doomed. Well the doom went on for two to three hours more, when every song in Telugu seemed to be ending with either, ल, म, or र. Finding myself completely out of songs, I slept off. Sometimes while sleeping, you dream about waking up amidst something awesome, may be a heap of chocolate (gold if I were uncle Scrooge), or inside Disney land may be. But I woke up to this...

And to say the least, it was breathtakingly amazing. We had started ascending to Yercaud. The views around were awesome. I had heard of the beauty of the Eastern Ghats before, but this was the first hand experience and it was beautiful. 

We reached Yercaud at around 8:30 in the morning. We had already booked the hotel, so went there straight and after getting freshened up, and after some amazing Dosas and Idlys and Vadas and cups of Coffee at Sarvana Bhavan nearby, we hit the road. First we went to  the Karadiyur View point. The roads to the place were a bit steep and our robot couldn't drive. After pushing the bus so many times, we finally decided to walk the whole of last 2km and asked the bus to go and stay put at the place. After walking for about an hour, we finally reached the place and it was totally awesome.

Then after lunch, we went to the boat house at Yercaud. Ironically, hardly anyone of us knew swimming. Thankfully we had life jackets. Here we had a ball which was supposed to be thrown at each other in order to wet each other. Basically we were in 4 different pedal boats and each boat was a team trying to wet others with the ball.

After the boating, we went to Pagoda point. Here is where the funda of front, side and top views came up. Side view was the amazing view of the hills, front view was the temple and Nitish who saw the top view, and here's Nitish... Tadaaaaaa

Disclaimer

All character(s) appearing in the Image below are undeniably non fictitious. Resemblance to any person dead alive or in a state of pure awkwardness right now is totally intentional :P

<lower part has been censored after negotiations>

<PS: Can be made available on further negotiations :P>

After Pagoda point, we came back to our hotel. After a game of Poker, we had our dinner. Later in the night, it was wolf time! We started playing at about10:30pm. With 15 people playing, each game was bound to take a lot of time. But it was fun! The biggest highlight of the game was when Dinesh was wolf and came out as a Cop, Priyasha being the real cop. It has been since then that Priyasha and Dinesh are Jaani Dushman, that whenever we played wolf since then, each would point at the other, even when bloddy both are wolves. Valluru as usual "I am the wolf, kill me". Vaibhav was the god and quite literally so. Sidharth was pulling stunners after stunners with his acting. It went on till about 5am in the morning when we decided to get freshened up and start off for Hogenakkal straight away. Everyone went to their rooms and as soon as in the rooms, everyone felt asleep except only for Chitra, who actually got ready immediately and was waiting for all the other people to get ready without actually knowing everyone's already deep asleep... 

Well, finally at around 7:30am, we had our breakfast and started off for Hogenakkal. This time in the bus playing Literature and Contact. Finally we reached Hogenakkal at around noon. Unlike Yercaud, Hogenakkal was very dirty, with the smell of fried fish all around and people sans the sense of educated social etiquettes. To put it in IIT-M lingo, the place sucked, so much so that we were actually planning to leave then and there and head back to Bangalore. But just for the sake of having gone thus far, we continued towards the waterfall. Hogenakkal is apparently called the Niagra of India, but unfortunately because of the summer, the main water fall was just about 6 feets wide and was disappointing but then we went for boating and that was truly heavenly and gave some of the best memories of the trip. 

The 'tokri' boat..

The mime Rajnikant..

The cave..

After this we were on our way back to Bangalore. It was during this when I said out of the blue that lets go for Ooty next weekend. When you have crazy people like Dinesh, Sunaina (order is debatable and more importantly negotiable with me :P) followed by Pranitha followed by me of course, this out of the blue statement was like a spark to some of the most volatile gases, It had to catch fire... We stopped once for a lunchinner and got back to Bangalore exactly 48 hours after we had started this amazing trip.  

And then on Tuesday itself we decide, we are going to Ooty the following weekend...

Oooootyyyyyy...

The planning happened to be quite similar. We had hired a traveller, this time with child driving (technically cause he cried when we didn't feed him on time). We started off at around midnight of 29th June, again playing multi-lingual antaksheri in the bus. At around 4 o'clock in the morning we reached Mysore, and incidentally, the child parked the bus very close to Mysore palace in order to take a nap. So we all nocturnal creatures, except for Manoj and his partner(s) :P went walking to the front of the palace. It was lit beautifully and was in its full grandeur. 

Then at around 6 O'clock, we reached the gates of Bandipur national park. The gates were closed so had to wait for half an hour or so, and then entered Bandipur national park and passed through some really interesting animals...

A bison..

Deer..

Elephant..

And of course...

We reached Ooty at around 10:30am, got freshened up in the hotel and immediately went for the highest peak in the Nilgiris, the Doddabetta Peak. After this, we headed for the rose garden, and seeing roses in summer was like being in a dream. It was a beautifully maintained park and very scenic. 

 And after a lot of craziness and pictures like jumping jacks,

We headed for the tea museum. After getting enlightened about the process of making tea (yeah as if anyone remembers anything :P) we bought chocolates and teas, of course the randomness, the craziness continued. 

Then we went to the Ooty lake. Unfortunately, this time, we forgot to get a ball (no puns intended), so instead we spent time talking and admiring the nature and of course the craziness, throwing water and crashing into each other. And then there was the bubble blowing session, and Sunaina made her statement for the day if you guys remember. We took some infinite pictures.. poor Abhinav.

We went back to the hotel at about 5pm, where I crashed straight away. When I woke up, I was informed about Manoj's enlightenment about the statement " **** like a horse ". Later in the night after an amazing dinner while it was raining outside and coffee at CCD with a lot of fart, we started off with wolf again. And well, on the first game itself we had two cops again and they were none other than Dinesh and Priyasha yet again, and two games later both of them accused each other despite both being wolves. Even though most of the games were marred due to various reasons it was still a great session, with the highlights being Dinesh always wanted to be a wolf so much so that he would exchange his villager cards. I finally got to become a wolf, Pranitha finally got to become a villager. Only one out of the 6 games we tried to play actually ended up properly but still it was fun!

Next day morning we went to Coonoor first. We were supposed to go to places called Dolphins nose and Lambs rock. We did go to two lambs on a rock...                 But no one really knows if that was supposed to be the lambs rock, though the lambs were convincingly possessive about the rock. The place though was really good. We were literally on cloud 9 (we didn't actually count the clouds :P). Then there was the beautiful tea garden and the greenery all around due to the garden. We were already late so decided to skip Dolphins nose and headed for Sarkar palace where we had to do the most important bit of shopping.. chocolates. :-)   After which we headed for the Pykara falls.



After an amazing veg buffet, we went to the Ooty wax world which you could say was the Madam Tussaud of Ooty. It was small alright but the craftsmanship was amazing, showcasing some of the prominent figures of our freedom struggle, current leaders and some with a great social message. it had a small market of scented candles and we bought some.

At Pykara falls, Abhinav scripted a movie in which there was a entry, and then there was a dance scene, a chasing sequence, there would have been an Item number but we were missing Nitish, which all went helter skelter. Trust me Abhinav, had I been able to walk then, you would have already got an Oscar :P Although the movie didn't really happen, we did get to see a lot of action, and romance in the woods :P

Then the bloody child made us walk for one and half km to reach Pykara lake. Here we again went for boating, this time though we went in motor powered boats, truly admiring the nature. And of course the craziness..

The Titanic pose.. (I wonder if you both enacted the scenes after this one too :P)

The Captain Jack Sparrow pose..

Then we got down at Gudalur to get refilled, where we did not find a single restaurant which could serve anything other than Idly and Dosa. So we had to live on Banana chips and Soan Papdi thanks to Abhinav, Manoj and Valluru. After refreshments, we started playing contact. This by far was the best game of contact that we played. Later we stopped in a Dhaba at Mysore for dinner at around 10:30pm and then continued on our way back to Bangalore. As if even god didn't want this beautiful trip to end, the bus broke down twice on the way. We finally reached Bangalore at around 4O'clock in the morning of  2nd July.

These trips were like some of the best days of my life. Honestly its not the destination that matters, its the company that really matters. One more person that I really need to thank here is my manager/mentor. Himank Shankar, who let me take leave on Saturdays. No matter how maggu and workaholic IIT kgp people are, they are very good at their hearts and that's an honest generalization guys :-)  

The Super Cyclone!

Two cousin brothers, one jobless evening, both their fathers out of station, unusually, no restrictions from their mothers, and the perfect setting happened to be during Dushera, some adventure was definitely on cards. They had to have some fun!    

So they decided to go for the newly released and hugely acclaimed Oriya movie named Bidhata (meaning, God), starring Uttam Mohanty and Mihir Das. 

October 27, 1999, 

17:00;

The cousins went ahead with their plan for the movie, with their mothers and their uncle. But their grandfather wasn't really happy with it. According to him, what we understood, something bad was going to happen and he wanted us all to stay at home.But in an Indian middle class family, its the "Bahus" who rule the family. Their mothers persuaded him saying they would be back early. 

21:00;

The movie got over, and it was truly a great movie, fitting to all its hype and the statures of the stars in it. Everyone came out. It was drizzling mildly outside. Until then everything was fine, when suddenly one of them happened to see the sky. It was completely red. It was as if someone had painted the sky with red paint, and then suddenly current went off. It was unusual, cause Orissa then happened to be very self sufficient as far as power was concerned and cutting off power in the capital, that to during Dushera, a festival totally lifeless in the part without their beautifully lighted pendals, was very unusual. And then we started hearing some announcements from a Police Jeep in a distance. It became louder and started to come from all around the place. The voice was kind of eerie, but my uncle, being a proud new recruit to the Indian Air Force, happened to hear it properly, and asked us to get in the car as soon as possible and drove. We were supposed to have dinner out, instead parcelled it to home, and on the way bought some candles and biscuits. We did not quite get the reason behind the rush, but we did hear the word "Batya" (Oriya for Cyclone) many times, but didn't really know what it meant. With the mystery of the word "Batya" in our heads, we reached home, quickly had dinner and were put to bed.

October 28, 1999,

06:00;

I woke up, and suddenly got an essence of some kind of buzz going around, in the house. I went out to the dining area, and everyone was already there and were gazing out as if they never saw that huge window in the dining room before. Paying a little more attention, I saw air was flowing outside, and then a little more attention, I saw wind was blowing at a speed more than 200 kmph!! Current was gone, cable of the TV was gone, It was raining heavily and wind flowing at more than 200kmph. It was a cyclone, the 1999 Orissa Super Cyclone. 

We did not know what exactly it was then. Was it happening all over India, or just over Bhubaneswar, we were totally clueless, when suddenly my badepapa called from Kolkata (luckily the landlines were still functional). He was the first contact,who explained exactly what it was, and gave strict instructions, not to go out of the house, and we thought that was obvious and we would obviously not leave the house and go out, but until evening.

13:00;

We had a light lunch. The sound of the air had grew and was peaking at 260kmph. It was growing kinda scary, when the last resort for any sort of help was about to go off in front of our eyes. A mango tree was almost uprooted and was about to fall on the land-line telephone pole. Cellular network then was very costly and only my badepapa had one. We immediately called him saying that was probably the last call to him. And the tree knocked off the pole, leaving us all to ourselves.

16:00;

The rains continued, the wind continued, the only thing that stopped was words coming out of every ones mouth. And then we realised, water had started entering the house through the drawing room. All tries to stop it, went in vain, and within half an hour, every part of the floor was wet. The water started growing. We were terrified. And on top of it, we were just one part of the family. There was my father, who was at Paradeep, which happened to be a port city. There were my maternal grandparents and uncles, also in a place close to a coast. We had no clue whatsoever about them after our own landline was down. The tension was killing us all, especially for my father. 

19:00;

Water was now almost reaching bed height. We were all on one bed and the mattresses started to get wet. It was time to do something. We no longer could wait in the house. We had to move to a higher place. Going totally out would have been very risky, so we decided to move up to the staircase room which lead to the roof. The staircase room had the entrance from outside the house. So basically we had to risk the cyclone to get their, and we had no other alternative. We took along with us, every single thing that was edible, few bedsheets and a few candles and matches. We kids were lifted by elders on their arms, risking the cyclone, we finally reached the room, climbed half way up, and all of us sat there. 

21:00;

We had all reached the staircase room. I was so scared that not a single piece of word was coming out of my mouth. I generally don't talk much but still. Unfortunately, we had forgotten that the room had a roof of asbestos. And worse, there were five coconut trees around and if they managed to fall, would definitely fall on the house. The asbestos, due to the wind kept making noises as if someone was breaking glass on it. Probably to give us   little hope or may be just to break the silence, my grandfather started telling about his own experiences about a similar cyclone in 1982. And it was least of all, a bit comforting to hear someone talk after so long. We spent the whole night there. Probably at about 3:00 in the morning I dozed off. 

October 29, 1999,

07:00;

Was the time about which I woke up. The cyclone had subsided. We had survived. The asbestos was safe, one of the coconut trees did manage to fall, but we were safe. But then came in the tension about others, more specifically my father. We tried contacting everyone possible authority, still there was no clue. We finally got in contact with my maternal grandparents, who lived close to Paradeep, and got to know that my uncle with his friends, had already left for Paradeep to search for him. 

Next few days:

The tension continued for two more days, when finally on the third day, he reached home. His part of the story was even more adventurous (may be another post!) but we were so very happy to see him. He and his colleague had literally pushed a car along with them for about 20km in order to drive the next 90 odd km, pushing aside corpses, and corpses of not just human beings..... I am sure I would have died, had I been in such a situation, but I know, my father is great!

On the fourth day, my badepapa arrived, and we knew we were all safe. But the cyclone left its marks so deep that its still remembered as one of the worst natural calamities in Indian History. It killed more than 15,000 people, making lakhs of people homeless. I myself have been through two more floods, a mild earthquake and two scary flights, but nothing comes as close to this.

India, post 26/11

26th November 2008, one of the bloodiest days in the recent past of India, is something that no true Indian can ever forget. It was the day, when 10 terrorists executed their months of meticulous planning to spread terror in the economic capital of India, Mumbai, ruthlessly murdering nearly 200 innocent people. The attacks were clearly an attempt to push India and Pakistan into yet another deadly battle, and they almost succeeded, but hats off to the Indian government's diplomacy, and help from the international community, that the war that was looming was averted. Yes, a lot of people are sceptical about the the UPA government including me, but in their tenure, the International diplomacy and the nuclear deal were the two major things where this government managed to stand out. 

3 years have passed, the heartless, soulless culprit is still a national guest, making we, the citizens of India, live under the fear of death at each and every step. Security checks, frisking, metal detectors and under belly mirrors are now a inseparable parts of our lives. From the swanky metro stations of Delhi, to the Malls of Chennai, every single, major establishments have turned into fortresses. From the shopping at the high Bazars of Kolkata to even a romantic walk by the seas in Mumbai, nothing in public happens without the ire of guns. Small kids were deeply touched watching the gory images of fire and smoke emanating from the heritage wing of the Taj, a symbol of an Indian win over the wraths of Britishers, and pictures from elsewhere. Infact I myself was so touched that, after having done an year and a half of preparation of JEE, I wanted to join IMA or NDA. I still remember how I spent those Wednesday to Saturday, under immense fear, glued to the TV, the city under high alert, classes were cancelled...

I am the kind of person, who values his self respect and principles utmost. For me there is nothing more important than my self respect and my privacy and I always give back the same respect to everyone. Why should I let someone frisk me?! Why should I let someone see through my mother's purse, or my father's coat?! But in this selfish world, where everyone just wants their own motives to be fulfilled, you don't know whom to believe and whom not to. Where people say something and actually mean something else, where they are something outside and something else inside, I suffer. Everytime I have to buy a gift for someone dear to me or a book for myself or enjoy a movie with my friends or board a flight to go meet my grandparents, I have to "cooperate" with the security. I surely don't enjoy it, and I am sure no one does, but that is what our lives have become after these terrorist attacks. They drive fear in us and make us submit to this inhumanity. I hope just one day, just one day in my lifetime, I get to see a fearless world, where I can be assured that I won't be harmed, neither will someone I love and care for. 

I also take this opportunity to pay tribute to Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar, Ashok Kamte, and all others who died during the attacks and their families. You are all martyrs, and its because of your greatness, that we are all alive today.

A new perspective to life!

I look back 5 months from now; I realize how much things in my life have changed. I was a Delhi wala then, now I am a Chennaite. Then, I was a complete atheist. I questioned each and everything. I wanted scientific explanations for everything. Now I know that there are certain things that just can’t be explained. They can just be felt. Then I was a 100% non-vegetarian, now I am 70% non-vegetarian, 25% pure vegetarian, and 5% fruitarian. Explaining that is too complicated. I have now given up on one and half years of hard work on a project, may be because it demanded something from me and my life wanted something else, and I chose my life. Again something too complicated to explain. Of course it was hard, but one great thing out of it is that, now I seem to have a lot of time for myself (readers discretion required on gauging the scale of "a lot"). And I have finally started watching a serial in IIT-M. Its not that I don't like serials. But I don't like serials that do not get over in just a single episode. They sort of either make you too anxious for the next episode or they become too predictive, that you don't really have to see the next episode. Plus they are an addiction. So if you haven't seen them before, don't start figuring them out now! My list of serials were always one episode affairs, and were essentially on travel, food or music. Some of my favourites were Highway on my plates, Musafir hoon yaron, Zayka India ka, Rangoli (I loved Rangoli on DD). Recently, I came across the Dewarists. I saw it and was honestly blown away. This is just the right combination of music and travel. I have seen two episodes of it and its just amazing.

Minds without fear, when it started off with the beautiful Samode Palce, I got reminded of my own memories of the pink city and its beautiful palaces. Vishal-Sekhar, by far are my favourite composers. Love each and every song of their's. Starting right from the likes of Musu Musu Hasi, Bahara, Allah ke Bande to the likes of Cash and Chammak Challo! The song that they made in the episode was superb. I would quote Drew Barrymore here, something she said about music in the movie, Music and Lyrics, and I liked it a lot, that "A melody is like seeing someone for the first time, the physical attraction, the sex! But then, as you get to know the person, that's the lyrics, their story, who they are underneath. Its the combination of the two that makes the magic!". (On a side note, if you didn't really like that, for me, Drew Barrymore's accent is enough to like anything she says.. :P) In this case there was the lyrics of the Minds Without Fear, by Rabindranath Tagore, and the melody of Vishal-Sekhar and Imogene Heap (Didn't know her, but a Grammy to her name, must be someone great!). It had to make magic!

Kya khayal hai, again a great combination of Indo-Pak. If you cut the shit out of the Indo-Pak relationship, its just the same country with two different names. We all have grown up to the same "Mughalon ki kahaniyan" the same Sufi Music, the same Ghazals, the same Ghulam Ali, Jagjit Singh, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, the same Javed Akhtar, the same Hindi Movies, and even the same street food. I know, as I am writing, I am getting reminded of Chawri Bazar, and Chandni Chowk, the Parathe wali gali... I miss Delhi... Among all the four in this episode, I only knew Shantanu Moitra, especially for Parineeta, and the song Bawara Mann. This episode and the song Kya khayal hai, also turned out to be really superb. 

Now what I would really like to see one day would be a fusion of Rajasthani folk songs, Punjabi, Hindustani Classical and any other Indian traditional/folk music, something crudely in the lines of Mile Sur. Of course it's really really difficult, but just may be, one day!

The bottom line is, I have been through a really really tough times in the past five months or so, the most harassing, emotional, and testing times of my life. Thank you for being there with me, you know who you are. Even when you were not, I imagined, you were. I thoroughly regret and repent those two words, and always will. After a few great weeks now, the great Diwali, I find my jovial and funny moods are back. I am happy that I am back!! :) 

The "FUN" "ELEC" Trip

I know! Non Elecites, your first reaction would be, that is nothing but an oxymoron, two contradictory words put together. Long touted to be the most muggu dept. of 2009 batch, the most "RG"ing dept. of 2009 batch and don't know what all adjectives, we proved you absolutely wrong, when we pulled off that awesome trip to Mahabalipuram on 18.09.2011. I do not know what exactly it was, the pain of listening to "com'on people! ultimately whatever you do, you are screwed" or may be the forceful feed of "feel" of things that most of us don't really want to feel, or just wanted to live life with the insane amounts of cash people have got/going to get from interns, or may be just the Zindegi Na Milegi Dobara effect, people thought, we have done enough for the past four years, we really need a break, one spark on facebook, turned into a fire within a week, then partially dozed off and then caught up again just two days before the trip.

 I am sure most of us would not have made it to class if it was on a lovely drizzling Sunday morning, but we all made it to the bus on time, fully prepared for an exciting/adventurous/fun-filled trip ahead of us.Unable to decide what to do in the bus, we shifted from listening to music (starting off with KANK, what an irony!!) to playing dumb charades with movies. The trip was about loads of fun, games, soaking in water, sun and getting dirty alright, but it was also about getting to know each other better. Everyone revealed a side of their personality, unknown to others. And in dumb charades, it was Sidhharth Reddy Maryada (a.k.a Telengana), who revealed his awesome, highly encoded and absolutely undecipherable code language, when he rolled his hands, and we were supposed to understand it as "and". I told you it was highly encoded. We probably had 13 to 14 rounds of it, when we reached Mahabalipuram (Mamallapuram), famous for its beaches and beaches alone. Did anyone say for historical monuments and world heritage sites??!!!

  Reaching there, we straight away headed to the beach, walking past the Shore Temple. Once there, we immediately started off with football. The most obvious team division was Odd vs Even roll numbers, cause that's how our dear Dept. has managed to divide and rule over us. The game was great, obviously because we won! And here it was Sohini and the even Meghana, who reveled their immense determination to win, no matter what, with their awesome defending. Shame odd batch.. :P 

  After playing for about 45 minutes, and getting the "feel" of scorching sun, we headed to get the "feel" of water. With strict instructions from my home ministry, I was not to go into the water at all. But then I thought maybe I ll just go, dip my legs for some time and come back. But then I was forgetting with whom I was. Within 10 minutes, I was completely wet. Abraham P Vinod, K. V. Siddharth, K Sreeteja and Rohan Sriram, I ll have my day.. :P. But honestly guys, I really would have missed all that fun if you had not done that. 

  We got wet, we got dirty (with sand!), we got sun burnt, we had loads of fun.

We ensured we were safe by forming small chains and going into water. And here, I must mention Abraham, who lost his glasses, almost blind (-8), (I know how it feels without glasses, with half the power of yours) still managed to enjoy the whole trip, without any issues at all. Hats off Ab.

  After all this, we were obviously hungry, and headed to a restaurant. (I advise pure vegetarians to not read this paragraph.. :P) We were in a sea shore, we had to try out sea food. So we took the menu, saw what all we could eat, and ordered one curry each of fish (not sure but tasted like pamphlet), prawn, and squid. And of course there were the good old non veggie dishes, Biriyani and Chicken with paratha, in case the experiment with sea food turns bad. 

 

^ We the Non Vegetarians!!!! Aaaaannndddd of course the Pure Vegetarians and one day vegetarians_ (Sigh!!!)

  After lunch, a round of chocolates and two to three rounds of ice-cream, we headed to the Tiger Caves. Anticipating real tigers in proper caves, I was disappointed. It turned out to be just rocks, apparently with faces of tigers, to me they looked more like monkeys. But the scenic, cleaner beach here made up for the disappointment. After this, we headed to the Kovalam beach, the so called best kept secret, turned out to be really really crowded and you-know-what Indian beaches are known for. We played dodge ball here and we lost obviously because the time keeper was an odd person.. :P, but it was fun!! 

  Obviously every good things come to an end. At dusk we started off for Chennai. Determined to make the whole trip memorable, we did not leave even a single moment without enjoying. Even when everyone was tired, we still managed to dance and sing in the bus... :)

The trip was in all an awesome experience. The biggest revealation of the trip was probably Jobin's. Anyone seeing him for the first time, would know, he is a very very serious type of person, but that perception completely changed when he showed off the really cool and funky new look, danced and sung!!
I do not know what part of me I revealed, but it was great fun!! "Elec is definitely fun!!... :D"
In the end I would just add, a rephrased version of a famous quote, "Ultimately whoever does whatever to us, the bottom line is, we will........."