Trip to Indonesia – Feb 14-15, 2009

Indonesia was a country I wanted to visit purely because of its close proximity to Singapore. Considering I had 5 weekends free in Singapore during my International stint there, it only made sense to make a visit, especially when it was a country that encouraged visa on arrival. Apart from that, I’m not at all sure what Indonesia has to offer, especially given my geographical challenges!

So Joban, my trainee friend with me in Singapore, and I did some research and figured there were 2 islands of Indonesia really close to Singapore – Batam and Bintan, both a 1 hour ferry ride away. On further research, we figured Batam was not really a place you would want to go if you wanted a ‘clean’ trip. So we chose Bintan and reached a place called Tanjun Pinang, the capital of Bitnan, from our apartment in UE Square in this way:

UE Square ->(Bus)-> Bugis ->(MRT)-> Tana Merah ->(Bus)-> Singapore Ferry Terminal ->(Ferry)-> Tanjung Pinang

Now the ferry terminal in Singapore took our breath away. I know we should stop getting surprised with seeing stuff in Singapore so neat and always well organized, especially after spending 2 weeks here and going out and checking out different parts of Singapore on every single day of my stay here, but still the ferry terminal was something to see! It was nothing short of a decent airport terminal of India. Things were supremely well organized, and the two of us had an image of a small little ferry junction a la India! It was because of that notion that we reached the terminal just 10 minutes before our ferry departure and realized that we were too late to make it. The boarding for a ferry closes 45 minutes before departure!! So we missed our 8:50 a.m ferry and had to take the next one at 11:10. Not having any other option, we got our documents in order and made it through the check-in counter and waited for our ride. When it was finally time to leave, we hurried through the long air bridge to make sure we got seats on the open upper deck of the ferry, because we had read that the view on the ferry ride from Singapore to Bintan was a treat in itself and we should definitely not be sitting in the comfort of the a/c inside the boat. When we made it to the upper deck, we realized that people sitting there only did so to be able to smoke, not to check out any picturesque surroundings along the way! The air was pretty suffocating for both of us, until we started moving, thereafter the sea winds not only blew the smoke cloud away, but also had this pleasant breeze to it that made us feel really sleepy. More so because we had gone clubbing the previous night to Zouk, one of the more happening clubs of Singapore, where I ended up mixing many different drinks and only managed 2 hours of sleep after getting back – all together adding to a completely non conducive environment to staying awake on the boat ride! So I grabbed 40 winks before reaching Tanjung Pinang.

The moment we got out of the ferry after it anchored and got our first glimpse of Indonesia, we just couldn’t help but think of our own country. I don’t think I need to explain further, but I can just say that this was the kind of ferry terminal that we always had in mind! Well, we get off and go to the visa on arrival counter and the place was nothing more than a kiosk of an Indian train station selling platform tickets! It was almost ludicrous the way we got our visas. We were wondering if they even checked our passports properly or looked at our faces while handing them back. It was that easy – give passport, stick visa, get passport back!

Anyway, we just took our passports and started moving, and there were a bunch of touts waiting right outside the counter itself! We hadn’t even walked out of the terminal and these guys began their usual rounds of soliciting business from us – ‘taxi sir’, ‘hotel sir’, ‘girl sir’, yada yada yada. Having already read about this bound to happen, and moreover being from a country that specialized in creating touts, we only knew better than to just quietly make our way out and politely ignore everyone around. But there was this one guy who just didn’t let go of us. We had to go and book our return ferry for the next day and were hunting for the place, and this guy kept following us and talking to us. He proved a little useful because he took us to the ferry booking counter and also translated to the people there in Bahasa that we wanted to travel by the 2:00 p.m ferry the next day, but he was being a real pain. Joban anyway tried bargaining with him and bringing down the cab fare from 150,000 Rupiah which was actually the rate quoted on wikitravels, but it had clearly said that this was over-quoted and we should try and bring it down. So while Joban kept talking to him, I went and exchanged currency and got 788000000 Rupiah in exchange for 100 Singapore Dollars. Yup, the number of zeroes in the Rupiah currency is really perplexing, but it is because they don’t have a smaller unit like cents in the case of Dollars and paise in the case of Rupees. They only have a single currency Rupiah, and it work something like 1000 Rupiah is 5 Indian Rupees! The smallest currency in the Rupiah denomination is 100 Rupiah and that is equal to 20 paise.

Anyway, so I got the money exchanged, but Joban was still negotiating with the tout and I was getting flustered because we had done with our work in Tanjung Pinang and I just wanted to reach our destination on Bintan island, a place called Trikora beach, as soon as possible. But Joban continued his tactics, and ditched the guy saying he was too expensive and started walking ahead, knowing only too well that he will come back with a lower figure once Joban started talking to another cab driver. And the guy actually did, he came back with 120,000 Rupiah. But the thing was, this new guy that we spoke to was a real dullard. He quoted 100,000 Rupiah to Joban and Joban replied with 80,000 Rupiah and the guy agreed! So we just decided to go with that guy, but the first guy began getting really furious by this time. So much that he was harassing the new cabbie big time and then started asking money from us for all his “services” – which included bugging us since the moment we landed and then using his broken English to translate a few things for us. He was demanding 10,000 Rupiah. Now I wasn’t very sure what the worth of 10,000 Rupiah was, but considering we had a 40km ride now negotiated for 80,000 Rupiah, there was no way we were gonna pay this guy 10,000 Rupiah for spending 20 minutes unwarrantedly with us. But just to get rid of him, I gave him 5,000 Rupiah and this guy looks at the note, grabs it from me, tears it and throws it back. I reacted saying ‘what the hell?’and he says ‘fuck you’. I told him ‘fuck you too’. He then started saying something’s in Bahasa to both us and the cabbie, but we decided to ignore him and just get on with our way because we had barely spent half an hour in Indonesia and really didn’t want to get into some fight with the locals already! So we left the scene and the last thing our irate tout tells us is ‘you’re going to Trikora beach right? I’ll see you there’. He didn’t stop with that. Even after we began moving, he kept following us and continuing to threaten our driver. This was beginning to be a real mess! But thankfully, once we hit the highway, our man left us alone. I kept trying to figure out the worth of 5,000 Rupiah. I knew it was 25 Indian Rupees, and that is a good sum to pay someone for simply leaving us alone. It was definitely not so small an amount to throw attitude that way. The worth of 5,000 Rupiah totally confirmed itself when we stopped to refuel at a petrol junction. 1 litre of fuel was only 4,500 Rupiah. So basically I had given that sod enough money to get him 1 full litre of fuel and he still had the cheek to tear the note. After that, I wasn’t bothered at all. Joban was totally enjoying it saying ‘let him come, we’ll see’. Anyway, we had a nice long journey to Trikora beach and intended to find ourselves a room in a place called Shady Shack or Susi’s, which were 2 popular resorts on this beach.

We kept traveling and traveling and came across a bunch of places like Bintan Resorts and Bitan Agro Beach, which all looked really neat, but no sign of our Shady Shack anywhere. We asked a lot of locals, but none of these guys, including our new cabbie could manage even a single word of English. I remember trying to ask our cabbie’s name and he just couldn’t understand what the word ‘name’ meant. I had to point to myself and say ‘Sandeep’ and then point to him for him to figure it out and he blurted ‘Salim’. It was that crazy here! So we kept searching and finally at one particular place while we were enquiring, I remembered reading on the net that the place was run by a nice Mr. Lobo. So I just asked these guys if they knew Lobo and suddenly they all lit up and went in chorus, “oh, Loboooooo”. It was so cute, I also went, “ya, Lobooooo” along with them. So, apparently Lobo here was more famous than the place he runs and we found our way there. And true to its name, Shady Shack was really Shady, because you can barely spot the resort from the main road!

So we entered the resort and landed at Susi’s first. We spoke to the owner there, Sularto, who told us that Lobo and he are friends and share the same portion of the beach and we can even stay here itself. We had actually read about Susi’s too on the net and knew it wasn’t very different from Shady Shack. So we decided to check out the place and a non a/c room, right on the banks of the beach was available for S$20. We brought it down to S$17 and took the place. We also asked Sularto to prepare some lunch and ordered one chicken meal and one fish meal. He said it would take an hour, so we decided to go for a walk along the beach. It was a really awesome beach; the sand was white and water was different shades of green and blue. I wouldn’t know turquoise from mauve, but I’m guessing it was all of that. We took a nice long walk, taking photos along the way, and noticed that there were a decent bunch of foreigners here. A few of them we even observed were on our very same boat in the morning! That was really nice to see and we hoped to get talking with them sometime during the day. But after lunch, we realized we were so tired that we just wanted to sleep, so that’s what we did. I also had some of the local beer called Bintang and ended up eating a lot because of that. So that only made me feel more sleepy. For a change, I actually ate more than Joban. He has this enormous appetite and is one of those guys who had absolutely no aversions to any kind of food, quite like me. But he was getting all sorts of paranoid with Sularto’s food, saying the oil is not good, the chicken is cold and the tofu was too spicy. I was enjoying the food all the same. It was 4:00 p.m and I hadn’t had a morsel the entire day! So I gobbled down quite a bit and slept peacefully to the soft noise of the beach right next to us.

Woke up by around 8:00 p.m and it was pitch dark outside. The place was barely lit, and it was a new moon night. We took a walk to Lobo’s Shady Shack which was right next to Susi’s and dinner was being served to all the residents there. We also joined in, met Lobo and had a serving of fried shrimps, fish gravy, bean salad, rice and more tofu. But this time around, the food was much better than lunch. Joban also thankfully seemed to think so, and we managed to do more justice to finishing our food this time around. He took 2 breaks also in the middle to ensure he gunned the whole thing down!

After dinner, there was a bonfire being arranged on the beach and we went there and started talking to the people there. There was Eva from Norway, Yurki from Korea, Jennifer and her French speaking Dad from France, a couple from Germany, and so many others. It was really good fun chatting with all of them, sitting around the bonfire under an immensely star-lit sky. After hanging around for quite some time, we got back to our room and called it a day. Salim was to come next day at 9:00 a.m and take us back to Tanjung Pinang where we intended to do some shopping and check out the city life of Indonesia.

So that’s what we did, after taking another morning walk, this time in the opposite direction from Lobo’s, and shooting more pictures and realizing how amazingly beautiful this place is, that I almost simply cannot put it in words fittingly descriptive enough. We had Sularto’s breakfast – noodles and egg and once again, the dish was super oily, but I had it all the same. But this time, my stomach was to give way by evening..

Anyway, we drove back to Tanjung Pinang and I had some more of Salim’s cigarettes, which he had actually introduced me to the previous day itself and it was this version of Gudang Garam, and a version that I preferred a lot more to the Garams we get in India. So we drove, I spoke some more with Salim in sign language and soon, he dropped us off at the ferry terminal of Tanjung Pinang. We were hoping to run into that tout from the previous day and ask him why he didn’t turn up at Trikora! Anyway, we used our last few hours at Indonesia shopping in a big mall called Ramayana, which was actually a mall for the local people of Indonesia, so apparently you get much better rates and don’t get fleeced like the other places designed for tourists! I picked quite a few things from there. Then we went souvenir shopping, picked a couple of things from a neat looking souvenir shop, and finally headed to our ferry at 2:00 p.m. This time along, we sat in the a/c compartment itself, though I barely managed to get any sleep, and after we reached Singapre by 4:00, Joban wanted to do a bit of shopping and it was at this time that my stomach totally went kaput. So I decided to quit and get back. Joban also wrapped up early and we were on our way back to our rooms.

The entire time I kept thinking about the different scenes from Indonesia. The locals staring at us making us wonder if this was the way foreigners felt when they came to India! The crystal clear water on the beach that made you clearly see your toe in spite of being knee deep in it. The Bintang beer, the shack we stayed in, the broken English people spoke, the foreigners we made friends with, Salim scratching his head every time he couldn’t understand what I tried telling him.. the place was brilliant. A must visit if one were to ever stay in Singapore. Only beware, visiting the place will not be devoid of an adventure!

Some things to remember before making this journey:

1) Take the earliest ferry out of Singapore – works out S$10 cheaper than the other ferry’s during the day

2) Eat only at Lobo’s Shady Shack. Stay at Sularto’s Susi if you want a/c, else you can stay as well as eat at Shady Shack only

3) Ask Lobo or Sularto (get numbers from the net) to send a cab to pick you from the ferry terminal if you wish to avoid touts

4) Lobo and Sularto accept Singapore Dollars, so no need to convert to Rupiah (and lose out on conversion costs) unless you wish to shop locally. Actually, some shops near the ferry themselves accept Sing Dollars. So no problems at all.

5) Visit only Trikora beach on Bintan – the rest might literally be ‘Shady’!!

6) Don't even dream of using your Singapore number in Bintan. The local service provider Telekomsel charge $4.50 for a single incoming or outgoing call and $1.50 for an SMS. There is always full range, even when you're on the ferry, but its best to just leave your phone switched off.

7) Smokers: Don't take cigarettes from Singapore. Its cheaper in Indonesia. Next, don't bring back cigarettes from Indonesia, way too expensive to bring it back in to Singapore. I was asked to pay $5 as tax on pack of 10 cigarretes, which had only cost me about $1.50 when I bought them!

8) The entire journey should not cost more than S$100, which is less than a day spent at Sentosa!

That’s it. Cheerio!

Singapore: The start

Ahh! This is life!! I’m biting in to my first ever Ben & Jerry’s as I’m typing this out.. and the best part is that I simply took it out of the freezer kept in the office floor of the Singapore office that I am in right now. After all, Ben & Jerry’s is a product of Unilever itself, and this Singapore office is just totally rocking!
Apart from the Ben & Jerry’s, today was a day of many other firsts. The biggest of them being my first ever time out of India. I was too caught up in the process of reaching my hotel and everything in the morning, that I just never let the feeling sink in. Then, when I was just walking up to office with Joban from the hotel and I passed by a Starbucks café, I suddenly felt like screaming “I’m in Singapore!!”
Such a great feeling to be here. Came in a Jet Airways flight that had some of the most awesome in-flight entertainment. The thing kept me awake almost the entire flight. I left Bombay at 11p.m after waiting at the airport since nearly 8, and in spite of my body craving sleep so bad because I hadn’t slept the previous day out of sheer excitement of this journey, I just couldn’t give in and ended up watching nearly 2 whole movies. One an English movie that Sin was ranting about called Vicky Christina Barcelona and another a Tamil Movie called Dhoom Dham. Ya, as predicted, I couldn’t really sit past the second one and ended up dozing off and catching a few precious hours of sleep. Soon we landed, and I left behind an immigration form that the hostesses gave me back in the plane itself. So I couldn’t really get out soon, and had to fill up another form at the airport lobby. After I finally got out, I went to a DFS along with Vibhor who traveled with me, and bought a JD, some beers and a local whisky whose name I forget. We then got out, and entered a Kia car! I couldn’t believe I was in a Kia, an automatically driven vehicle that I have never even seen before! Of course, it wasn’t any great car, but it was different. But then, so were almost every car on the road. I was almost sticking my head out like a little puppy looking at all the different cars. Could never believe there were so many different types of BMW’s, Mercs, Volvo\s and Hyundai’s. man, there were a lot of Hyundai's!
We reached UE square. The place where our hotel and office is, checked in to my hotel, which I barely got to really check out coz I had to rush to office as Joban was waiting for me and I wanted to go along with him in spite of the lack of sleep as I wanted to figure out the way to office with him. Didn’t mind it much, coz I’m gonna be here for another 6 weeks and have plenty of time to sink in my new home. From what I remember though, it had an access card to enter, a fully automatic washing machine in the kitchen, a bath tub in the rest room and a huge flat screen TV with DVD player and the works in the living room.
Cant wait to go and check it out again now. And that is exactly what I’m gonna do. My Ben & Jerry’s is almost over and its time I gave my body some deserving rest! A rest that I only need so that I can be up and kicking to go out at night. Singapore, here I come!!

Kashmir trip

February 25, 2008

I’ve been in Delhi for the last few days. Came here on February 22 itself for Dhruv’s wedding. It was a real blast. My first North Indian wedding in North India! I can almost never get enough of this culture. You can hate it and get sick of it at times, but you can just never get enough of it. There is just something or the other happening with these Northies all the time!! Anyway, the wedding was a lot of fun, Dhruv and his bride looked real smashing and very much in love. I wished them well and chilled out in Delhi until today, when I met Harsh and Bala. Finally it looked like the real trip was about to begin.

Harsh picked me up from Dev’s place, who incidentally turned out to be one heck of a guy, and probably my new best friend from NM. Pretty funny how you finally break the with someone you’ve seeing around campus for nearly 2 years! But he was really awesome company in those 2 days I spent at his place during the wedding. Dam, I’m digressing again.. Anyway, Harsh picked me up and we went to the airport to pick Bala. Then the three of us headed to Pratik’s new place in Delhi as he’d called us over for lunch. So we went there, ate loads of an unfamiliar cuisine, met Pratik’s mom, and got to know Pratik is called ‘Pintoo’ at home. LOL. Then we went to the bus stand to pick up the tickets and realized it was 5:00 p.m by the time we collected the tickets from there, and we were supposed to report back at 6:00 for the boarding pass as the bus was leaving at 7:00. This was pretty much impossible to do, as we had to take the Metro back to CP, then go to Harsh’s place, where he has to pack, then come back to the Bus Stand. It didn’t look like we can even make it by 7:00!! Seemed like a very bad idea to take the Metro to the Bus Stand, when we could have just gone by Harsh’s car. We took the Metro, for a ‘Metro Experience’ from CP to the Bus Stand, and that’s what delayed us in the first place!

Anyway, we rushed it, and after all the yelling from Harsh’s mom for coming late and missing out on all the delicacies she had prepared, and after all the curses on the road because of Harsh’s driving, we finally made it to the Bus Stand at 7:10 p.m when the Bus was already outside the dock and on the road and waiting just for us to get moving.

Well, we made it, and played cards till we fell asleep and were on our way to JAMMU.

February 26, 2008

When I opened my eyes and looked out of the window, I saw a signboard saying ‘Aircel in Jammu and Kashmir’. ‘Jammu and Kashmir’!!!! I was suddenly wide awake… I’m actually here.. I’m actually at the famous J&K!!

We soon reached the city of Jammu and it was biting cold when we got off the bus. I’ve never been a fan of the cold weather and I really couldn’t take it. Was somehow managing to stay alive only because of a jacket that Harsh decided to take, and I was so thankful that he took it, coz for some strange reason, I didn’t expect J&K to be that very cold and didn’t get any jackets with me! Of course, the other reason was that I was carrying with only one hand bag and couldn’t pack any jackets. I usually try to travel with just a hand bag coz I hate waiting for the check in bags to come through after arrival at the airport. Anyway, we went to a hotel that the rickshaw driver who lit Bala’s smoke took us and we settled in to have a bath and fix up a means of transport to get to Kashmir. After a cold water bath in cold cold Jammu, we were on our way to Srinagar (the real Kashmir) in a Tata Indica driven by Rajiv Bhaiyya, who we were gonna get to know pretty well pretty soon.

This journey from Jammu to Srinagar was simply brilliant. Harsh had told us a lot about it, but it is really one amazing road trip to go on. The roads for most of the journey are pretty smooth, and in places where it isn’t, its because of a landslide that occurred just some hours back!

The best part of the journey is the way the mountains begin peeping at you from a distance, just teasingly showing you a glimpse of their snow covered peaks, and as you go along, the amount of white begins to overcome the brown of the mountains, and before you know it, you are actually on that mountain, driving in between all the snow! Its truly amazing. There is also a 3km long tunnel that goes through a mountain called ‘Jawahar Pass’ that comes along the way. This is the really exiting part, because you enter the mountain with bits and pieces of snow around you, and you come out completely engulfed in the white water crystals.

I was simply enjoying the ride. When we stopped for lunch at this hotel on Patnitop, I felt snow for the first time in my life! Felt it with my bare hands!! It was something I’ve been wanting to do forever, and couldn’t manage it even after a long and exhausting trip to Rohtang Pass from Kulu-Manali, which I did only in the hopes of seeing snow around 5 years back! Anyway, I even got this virgin experience of mine with snow on tape and gonna treasure it forever!

We reached Srinagar at 8:00 and went to a place called Hotel Taimoor, which Rajiv was familiar with and we simply loved the place. We were anyway way too tired to check out any other places and simply went straight into the room that was offered to us. After that we came out for dinner and these guys wanted to try out the mutton that was being sold on the street right outside our hotel. It was road side fried stuff, and obviously looked delicious, but they weren’t too sure about the taste. But after they had it, they just couldn’t stop raving about it! It was hot mutton kababs with cold roti and spicy chutneys. It was so darn tasty that these guys ended up making me feel so bad that I was on lent and couldn’t have non-veg! And boy, was I being subjected to some ’temptation’ with those mutton pieces!! This was turing out to be my toughest lent ever!

Anyway, I did have Rajiv for vegetarian company and we went to a veg place for dinner after Harsh and Bala had their mutton feast, and this was brilliant too! We ordered Kadi Pakoda, Baingan ka Bartha and Rajma, along with plain rice and lots of roti. Every single dish on the table was so tasty.. including the green chutney that was kept there! I was gorging on the food. It was our first good meal of the day as we only had omlettes for breakfast and some really sad kashmiri pulao for lunch!

After the really cool meal, we hit the sack, and hit it real hard coz it was freakishly cold in our hotel room. I had three layers of bedsheets on me, and still shivered myself to sleep..

February 27, 2008

Srinagar really doesn’t have much snow. Its just freakishly cold! But we wanted to play in the snow, so today we travelled to a place called Gulmarg, which is 2 hours from Srinagar and hosts the winter games of India. So the snow there is really good! We left only at 11:00 coz we took our own sweet time to have our baths in the blistering cold, and left with just time from 2:00 p.m to 7:00 p.m at Gulmarg.

However, this turned out to be one of our most eventful days of the trip. We began the day by doing some sledging on the snow. Not the kinds the Aussies are famous for, but the kinds Calvin and Hobbes tend to do at times.

We sledged till a point where ‘Gandolas’ or chair cars took us to a higher altitude. Here, we tried on some skis. Then got back in the Gandola and sledged back to base. Here we tried making a snowman, but didn’t

have the time, as we had to get back in a tempo we had hired along with some people who were in the room opposite to the one where we had stayed. We decided to share the tempo to save costs, but had to compromise on time, coz they really wanted to get back. Anyway, the tempo just went down the hill and dropped us off at the point where Rajiv was waiting for us. Rajiv was in no real hurry and there was still lots of snow around. So we continued the snowman creation, and this time it was complete. Turned out to be a really good snowman too!

We had actually changed our attires today. Thanks to a man on a cart selling jackets. I picked up this awesome cream coloured jacket that had a totally radical design to it. The guys kept calling it a Gucci duplicate! Harsh also picked up a neat looking jacket. Then on Gulmarg, Bala tore his pants while sitting on the sledge. So he borrowed the Feren (the long robes that Kashimir wear) from the sledge assistant and eventually, he became ‘The Kashmiri’ and me the ‘Milan Model’.. it was really funny! We got back by 9:00 and it was too late to go to a House Boat that we really wanted to spend one night at. But we had one more night in Kashmir, so decided to do it tomorrow.

February 28, 2008

Today we decided to spend the day shopping and sight seeing around Srinagar itself. There was a guy waiting for us to drive him to his shop, courtesy the caretaker of the place we were staying who informed this chap that we intended to spend big bucks! So we go to his shop, and we shop! I normally never shop. Get most of my clothes as gifts or pass-ons. But this time I shopped. I shopped for 5k worth of stuff! And funnily, none was spent on me. I bought things for family, friends, everyone else but myself. But anyway, I had no idea when I’d be returning to Kashmir, and the stuff I was picking out was really good; carpets, pashmina shawls.. so just had to splurge. Bala and Harsh did a decent bit of shopping as well. After this we went looking for a house boat to spend the night. And this was the best part of the trip. The house boats on the Dal lake of Srinagar are the best places in the world to stay in. they are these beautifully designed little boats that are accessible from the land from a tiny 4 man boat called a Shikara. And these house boats come with everything! They have electrically heated beds, a bath tub, teak walls that ensure the heat is kept in, and most of all, a dining table suitable for a king! Everything designed really nicely and all the wood-work crafted to perfection.

We simply fell in love with the first house boat we saw. This was the one recommended by the innkeeper of the place we stayed and promised us a good deal on the house boat. He charged us just 900 bucks for a day. We were flabbergasted. Barely 300 bucks per person for paradise!! We took up the place immediately, settled in, and then went out for lunch; once again in the Shikara. The whole experience was just amazing.

After lunch we went sight seeing. Just about managed to see the Hazrathbal Mosque there. We missed out on the Shankracharya mandir as it was too late and didn’t really feel like seeing any of the other places coz they were just gardens and stuff. One thing that we managed to do was stop at a small tea stall on Dal lake and watch the sun set beyond the mountains. Was such a beautiful sight..

Well, we got back from our sight seeing and went straight to our pretty little house boat. We asked the caretaker to put out chairs and a table on the terrace along with something called a Khati, which is a mini furnace that you can keep on the table and enjoy the warmth from it. We just sat there and these guys drank (dam my lent again!) then we went downstairs and had the food prepared in typical kashmiri style at the house boat and after lots of jokes and laughs, called it a night.

February 29, 2008

We had to leave our pretty house boat early today as we had a long drive to a place called Pahelgam. After which we had to drive to Katra and reach there by dusk, so that we can climb the mountain to the Vaishnodevi temple at night. So we left around 8:00 a.m, after a nice breakfast at the house boat and reached Pahelgam by noon. This place was also snow clad, just like Gulmarg, but it was far more pretty. The snow looked really clean and there were little boulders and shrubs sticking out of the snow at different places, and the entire city was surrounded by snow clad mountains! It was a really beautiful place. Again there were bunch of tourist guides wanting to show us around. But all we really wanted to do this time was simply play in the snow for a while and get back on our journey. Thankfully I also had gloves this time and we having awesome snow ball fights! Played around for about an hour and then resumed our journey.

We reached Katra by 8. The delay was a traffic jam caused by an accident and a fire. Apparently a truck went over a scooter and then the truck burst into flames. It was a pretty bad scene. We were just hoping the poor scooter drivers survived.

Once we reached Katra, we checked in and got ready for the 26 km trek up and down the mighty Vaishnodevi mountain. But by the time we finished dinner and decided to go on the climb, the ticket counter that was to sell the tickets for the climbers was closed. They close at 11 p.m and we went there only at mid night. So we couldn’t make the trek at night itself, which augured very well for me, because I just didn’t feel like walking all night up a mountain after such a tiring day. Would have much rather preferred resting a bit and then taking up the challenge.

So we got back to our room, slept till 5 a.m and then got ready for the climb. We planned to begin the climb by 6 itself, but it was nearly 7 by the time we did! And this was the start of the finish of our exiting trip to Kashmir. The climb up was pretty painful, with Bala taking a break every 5 minutes. But we somehow managed to reach the Vaishnodevi mandir by noon. All along we kept seeing helicopters flying from the base to the top of the mountain taking passengers that paid Rs. 2500, which we kept thinking was probably a better option than do the trek. But then Harsh would never buy it. He wouldn’t even take a slightly shorter route that would save 2kms. He wanted to stick to the original and longer path and do it barefoot too. The guy really has some strong religious fundamentals.

Finally, after making it to the mandir, we washed up and went inside the cave to see the goddess. I could barely get a glimpse of it as we were asked to keep moving because of the crowd. Harsh was telling us that the crowd this time was hardly anything compared to the numbers there are during the peak season. Yet even this time there was so much pushing and shoving!

But we did manage to visit the mandir and now we had to climb 2 more kilometers up the mountain to another temple called the Bhairo mandir as they say the pilgrimage to Vaishnodevi is not complete until you visit even this second temple. Now the trouble was that we had a bus to catch in the evening at 6, and were way too tired to take another arduous climb up the mountain. Not only would we be famished doing it, it would also take way too much time. So we considered our options; we had just about enough money between the three of us to take a pony ride till the top. After that we would be left with just 50 bucks for our climb down and we need to have lunch too. It was pretty tight, especially since we kept buying juice\water and things like that during our climb up and that’s a lot of expenses.

Anyway, we really couldn’t do the climb, so decided on the pony’s. this was one funny trip! Sitting on the pony’s are initially a bit scary because the creatures go galloping up a path that is really narrow and winding. But then you kinda get used to it, because you begin to trust the animal. It after all does have instincts, and better yet, a pair of eyes. So you wouldn’t fall off the mountain unless you actually slip off the pony! So I was getting the hang of it and Harsh was anyway taking to the pony like a cowboy in texas, but Bala looked like he was about to face circumcision or something! He was just way too scared on the pony. I cant even explain the sight Harsh and I were trying hard not to laugh at. He was clinging on to the pony and constantly shouting at the pony caretaker to make the pony go slower. His pony was as it just cantering, and he wanted it slower than that too! Because of him, Harsh and I just couldn’t go any faster, and worse, we just kept snickering looking at the guy. When we finally got off, Bala stomped off super pissed with the pony, the caretaker and both of us. Of course, he eventually realized he was at least alive and began talking once his heart started beating normally! But this had to be the most fun part of the day.

Well, we reached Bhairo mandir, and after a quick prayer, got back on our trek. This time the entire walk was downward, so it was going to be much simpler. There were also stairs at certain places which helped cut the long drawn path as it got us down the acclivity a lot faster. But Harsh couldn’t take the stairs, not only because he was intent on actually doing 26 kms, but also because he was bare foot and it would hurt more down the stairs. Bala and I did the stairs at some places, but I mostly stuck with Harsh. I was a little worried for the guy in case he needed help. He was pretty much whimpering because of the gashes on his foot by now. Anyway, we all got to the base by 5p.m in one piece and got back to our room, took a bath and made it just in time for a special Kahmiri form of chaat and the bus ride back to Delhi.

The super awesome trip to Kashmir just ended with a painful, yet satisfying spiritual journey to Vaishnodevi. And this was by far one of my best trips, because not only did I get to see snow for the first time in my life; something I’ve just always wanted to do, but also did a bunch of fascinating stuff like staying at a house boat, doing a 26km trek on a mountain, holding an actual AK47! It was one unbelievable experience. Gotta thank Harsh for taking us around and Bala for all the laughs along the way.

Till the next trip..

Trip to Hyderabad

October 8, 2007
Muni and I were to leave by train from Bombay to Hyderabad today. The train was at 9:50p.m We had decided to leave our place at 7:30 and thought that should be good enough time to reach the station. It was 8:15, and Muni had not yet come home, and I was busy chasing a pigeon out of the house!
Anyway, we ran out of the house at 8:40, left the pigeon to stay on, as I just could not get him out in spite of everything I tried. We took that much time to leave, coz Mr. Muni had not packed. And the boy packs everything he possibly can; towel, bed sheet, clothes, extra clothes, reserve clothes!!
We left the house running and ran all the way to the auto stand. Took an auto to Andheri station. Looked at the queue there for tickets, smiled at each other and just continued running. We both knew that if we get caught for travelling without tickets today, we’ll just tip the cop and move on, coz there was not a second to waste.
Reached the platform, and just as we got there, a fast train to Dadar arrived. We jumped in. managed to find seats as we were going against the Junta coming from town. Waited anxiously till we reached Dadar. Neither of us said a word. On reaching Dadar, we ran to the platform of the Central Line. Waited for the train to come and jumped into the one going to CST. The time was 9:30. We heard that the train would take 20 minutes to reach CST. We were cutting it close. Real close!
We waited. But this time we spoke. We knew there is no point in continuing to be tense. We did what we could and now it’s all in the hands of the Indian Railways!
We reached CST at 9:50 sharp. We jumped off the train even before it came to a complete halt and just ran to the section of external trains. We managed to spot our train number, and I continued running to find out which compartment we were in. Muni just stopped and said not to worry coz we’ve managed to catch the train, and he goes to buy magazines and water. I just couldn’t believe the guy. After all that running around, I just wanted to get into the train and sit peacefully, and this guy goes for entertainment. But before I could say anything, the train began to move, and I just hopped into the compartment closest to me. Muni joined me shortly after making his purchases, and we waded our way through the demography to reach our seats. Politely asked the gentlemen who had occupied it to please get their asses off, and we both sat down there. I made a few phone calls that I left to call only once I’m in the train, and then went to my berth on top with a magazine in my hand. Read about half a para of a half page article, and I was fast asleep. Only time I woke up was when Muni asked me for my DL as the TT had come there. Apart from that, I slept in the best possible manner a person can sleep without a pillow and quilt in a rollicking train..

October 9, 2007
We were supposed to reach Hyderabad at 12 noon. At about 11:45, I was telling Muni that we should begin getting ready, and he tells me that we just reached Gulbarga. Now my geography is quite bad and I didn’t know how far Gulbarga was from Hyderabad.. So I continued to pack up and Muni says that we were supposed to reach Gulbarga at 9a.m itself, and the train is running nearly 3 hours late. It was then that we learnt, after talking to some fellow passengers, that the train had stalled for close to 3 hours in the night because of some engine failure and it had to be corrected. Muni and I were completely oblivious to that whole incident. Anyway, we had to wait 3 hours longer to get to Hyderabad now. Bala kept calling and asking where we were. He had reached by 12 itself. Actually an hour later than he was expected to, but all the same, way earlier than us. He was catching up with Gopal with some Teachers and was waiting for us to give him company. Finally, Muni and I made it to Gop’s house by 4. We knew we barely had much time to go anywhere out now. But we decided to go some place close by any case, and just had some whisky to relax after the journey. But Teachers is no ordinary whisky (I’m yet to drink a kind of whisky that is ‘ordinary’) and soon, all of us were pretty tipsy, and Bala, true to his style, was too lazy to go out anywhere. He went and changed and got all ready to pop it. So we just ordered some food home and continued with our boozing.
It was pretty funny; the only thing that changed was the location. Bombay to Hyderabad. That apart, the 3 of us were doing the exact same thing. Drinking whisky, having a conversation tipping on the edge of an argument, and socializing with a bunch of friends!
Anyway, it was our first day in Hyderabad, and we may not have gone out anywhere, but at least we caught up with Gopal and life in Hyderabad.

October 10, 2007
Anjali had called me the previous day and even mailed me saying we have something to do for SCM project. So I woke up early and just when I was about to sit for the project, Bala, as full of surprises he is always, tells me that he already finished making the slides that Anjali had asked us to. I was so pleased to know that I don’t have any work to do on it now, and given the sudden amount of free time at my disposal, decided to go on a jog and check out Hyderabad. Something I wanted to do yesterday itself but couldn’t because of lazy roommates!
Well, took a nice long jog. Saw NIFT and some office campuses around Gopals house. Had a good time and got back home and got ready. Soon, Bala also got ready and the two of us decided to go and have breakfast. We took a short walk and didn’t find any decent restaurant. The only one that we found seemed like a 5-star, and they had buffet breakfast for Rs 99. It was certainly above what we would have liked to spend for ‘breakfast’, but on checking out what was available, we decided to fill our stomachs there itself, especially considering how hungry we were. So between the two of us, we had an omlette, dosa, vada, semia, pancakes, salami, sausages, mango milkshake, doughnuts.. The list was endless!
We got back home, completely satiated and waited for Gopal and Muni to get ready. Once they were through, the 4 of us went on 2 Bullets to check out Hyderabad. This was the start of what was going to be an awesome bike journey for the four of us..

First we went to Salar Jung Museum. We got there by 12, and decided not to spend too much time there. But by the time we completed about half the museum, it was close to 3. Way beyond schedule and not even through with the museum! But we decided to get out of there, lest we miss lunch and got to a hotel which the Museum guard recommended. Just about managed to catch lunch there and it was awesome! The waiter had actually told us that lunch was over when we got there, but somehow squeezed us in. We were really grateful to him, for not only giving us food, but also serving some typical Hyderabadi food, which was one of our main purposes of visit here. After stuffing ourselves, we went to Charminar.
This was a place I’d been to long time ago. I barely remembered the place, but it was really nice seeing it. Spent some time there. Walked up the small staircase to the top and caught the brilliant view. It was especially spectacular because of all the Muslim people there in lieu of Ramzan.

We got chatting with the guard on top of Charminar who realized we were Bangaloreans and began talking to us in Kannada. He told us a lot about the history and the culture there, then even told us the shortest way to get to Golconda, which was our next stop.
There was a ‘Sound and Light’ show at Golconda, scheduled to begin at 7p.m. We got there in time, but had no clue what was in store for us. When the show actually began, we were completely taken aback. It was one of the most brilliant concepts I’ve seen. The show itself may not have been great in content, but the concept behind it was something none of us had ever seen before.

After the show at Golconda, we took some photos around and then decided to ride back home. Now this was the highlight of the entire bike trip!
We had covered everything we had seen for the day and were pretty tired. All we wanted to do was get home. But Gop decides to take a route he had no clue about, following the directions given by some guy in Telugu, a language none of us understand very well. We started riding, and in some time, landed up in a paddy field – in the middle of absolutely nowhere!

I was riding the bike at this point of time, and the roads were so bad, that Muni wasn’t giving me the Helmet to wear. He was so scared of the roads that he had it on most of the time. Of course, when the insects started getting into my eyes and mouth, I had not alternative but to pry the Helmet away from the Monster.
After lots of twists and turns, numerous dead ends, rollicking terrains, and asking directions from so many people and communicating with them mostly in sign language, we finally managed to reach a ‘main road’. Now all we had to do was figure if we had to go left or right to reach our place and keep driving.
I was totally famished by this time. Hands all ached maneuvering that big bike. We finally hit a pub that was close to Gop’s place, had some beer there and then went to a nice hotel for dinner. I was dozing off at the hotel in between my food – was that tired!
We soon got back home, and I crashed out.

October 11, 2007
Gopal had to go to office today and asked us to meet him there at 12 noon so that he could show us around. We were so tired from the previous day and feeling so lazy, that by the time we reached Microsoft office, it was nearly 1.
Anyway, Gop showed us the place and we were totally floored.

Bal kept saying it resembles a lot of Infy in Bangalore, but I’ve never seen Infy and never seen a campus like this before. Synthetic Basket ball courts, tennis courts, an amphi theatre, Barista and Frankie outlets… and this is just the outside. inside, it’s another story. Microsoft has a tie up with Coca-Cola, so all there vending machines are from Coke. That not only means having soft drinks like Coke and Fanta, but also getting to have Georgia coffee! This is nothing. The highlight is a small place right next to the vending machines – the Xbox 360 Console!! We just sat in front of it with out coffee\coke and Bala tried fidgeting with the system. Of course, we couldn’t get the hang of playing most of the games, so we decided to chuck that. some of the other interesting things inside the MS office were pool tables, a huge huge canteen, large screens for watching matches and stuff – the whole place was just brilliant!

After this, we went to ISB. Muni knew someone working there, and he arranged for an ISB tour for us. We were lucky that the students had a term break, so the whole place was completely free for our ‘tour’. This really friendly lady showed us the entire place and at the end of it, I came to 2 conclusions – one was, I should not have left an IT job after seeing MS, and second was, I should have considered ISB while thinking of doing my MBA!
Anyway, not having the time to feel guilty for too long, we rushed back to Gop’s place, took our stuff, went to the train station and travelled to the main train station of Hyderabad from where we were to catch our train to Bangalore. Just before this, we went to a place near the Husain Sagar Lake called Eat Street and grabbed some food. Really nice place this was. Something like Bandstand of Bombay – place for all the couples of Hyderabad. I think Bangalore is the only place that doesn’t have something like this!

Anyway, it was where we were headed, and no matter how badly the place sucks, it is where home is, so can’t really complain..

Trip to Chennai 3

This is my third visit to Chennai. First time around I was a little kid. Only thing I remember from that trip was the nights being so scorching hot that I tried implementing an Elsi ma’am piece of advice about hot climes which involved throwing water on the floor and sleeping on it. I don’t remember it helping much because Chennai can really burn during summers. The second visit here was to LIBA, the place I came to this time also, only the reasons were entirely different. The previous time, I came here for an admission into LIBA, now I was participating in their fest.

Chennai Express: Satyam, Shambhu, Souvik, Ashish, Prakash, Aparna and myself made the trip from Mumbai to Chennai on the Chennai Express from the night of Thursday the 8th to the evening of Friday the 9th. 6 of us barring Satyam made up the official team from NMIMS to LIBA. I pushed these guys into making it in good time to the railway station and we had more than half an hour to chill once inside the train before it chugged away from the station. I didn’t mind it much with my record of missing flights and would much rather be ahead of time than on it. Aparna of course cribbed about the excess half an hour she had to spend in the ‘filthy’ train. This was only the beginning of the pessimistic hurricane that went by various names like ‘Apu’, ‘Venu’ and ‘Gopu’ during the course of the trip.
The train journey was a lot of fun. When we started off, I narrated my NFM (near flight misses) experiences. I have had 2 flight misses and several close shaves with flights till date and it made for some very funny stories in the train. Most of the jokes for the rest of the trip were basically centered around Shambhu who possesses a lot of Hari-like qualities whereby he pretty much puts himself on a pedestal asking people to mock him! I think it’s a quality of all these guys who have been into a lot of sports since a young age and have imbibed this extreme competitive nature wherein they just won’t give up, no matter how disadvantaged they would be. Satyam clearly had the verbal edge over Shambhu and used to take his case so badly, but Shambhu would never call it quits and try to repartee with Satyam and repeatedly entered a badinage where he always got screwed by Satyam.
It was so funny to hear their banters. Satyam would keep calling Shambhu names like ‘chaman’, ‘shikari’, ‘laal’ and what not. I would crack up every time he starts off on Shambhu. Even Souvik would occasionally join in calling Shambhu an ‘irrelevant piece of shit’ or something like that. I remember one occasion when Shambhu managed to get one back. Satyam had asked Shambhu to look out the window saying ‘woh dekh, Sone ki chidiya’ and Shambhu retaliated by pointing at Satyam saying ‘who dekh, chutiya’.
Satyam of course had many other jokes to share along the way. One was a classic Hindi\Northi culture kind of a joke. ‘ek baar train mein ek aadmi TT ki kapde pahen ke ticket puchne laga. Aur jab ek family ke paas ticket nahi thi, woh unka fine leke, train se kuud gaya’. The way he said it itself was so funny that most us broke into a guffaw. Then he goes on to say ‘ek aur baat pata hai? Woh family meri hi thi’. More laughs. Even Ashish chipped in saying ‘ek aur baat pata hai? Woh TT hamara Shambhu hi tha’ lol…
There were very few dull moments in the train, we were either having a good laugh about something (which was Shambhu in most cases) or playing some games or simply catching 40 winks. I remember the games we played. Aparna took 40 minutes to introduce us to two games, ‘Battlefield’ and ‘Mafia’. Both games that Shambhu and I never heard before because Shambhu never understood the point of “indoor” games. According to him, by definition itself, games are outdoors. And I’ve been more fond of simpler indoor games like ‘7up’ and ‘scissor-paper-stone’. But anyway, we were among MBA’s now and a strategy game like ‘Battlefield’ sounded interesting especially with the constraint of having just four players willing to play. Shambhu, Prakash, Aparna and I played two back to back games. And Shambhu took such a long time to figure the game out, but finally got it in the nick to time to beat me to first place in the second game. Aparna who taught us the game sweetly came last in both rounds. Prakash with a lot of ‘Battlefield’ experience and strategic thinking carefully decimated people in the game. He and I drew the first game and Shambhu made such a fuss about the way we played that he introduced a million rules before the next game, every one of which he broke, before the won the second game. That guy is a riot! But ‘Battlefield’ was a good fun time pass game. Definitely gonna play more of it in the future.

Chennai Central: Our eventful train journey came to an end by 7:30 p.m. on Friday the 9th and we got off at Chennai Central where we now had to face the notorious Chennai Rickshaw-wala’s in getting us to LIBA. We decided to split ourselves in 3 autos, one taking Aparna to her relatives house where she planned on spending the night and two taking the rest of us to LIBA. Aparna was quite clear until that point of time that her relatives place was quite close to the station, so she would carry on by herself. I asked her to call me though once she reaches the place. However, just before we found the auto’s, I suggested that some of us should go with Aparna and ensure she reaches her place and then come to LIBA. At that Aparna, like a typical girl, says ‘oh, so you couldn’t think of this earlier?’ man, she is too cute. These feminist women are really funny. They will say and do things to show they can manage things and do whatever a guy can, but deep down they would actually like a guy to look out for them. I can already feel all the feminists out there hotting up as I say this. But I really think its true on some levels. Known a lot of feminists to behave that way. The only difference between a feminist and a non-feminist is that a non-feminist explicitly shows the need for male dominance, but both of them always implicitly feel the need for it, on at least certain essential levels. And for a fact, the non-feminist generation died with our parents. I seriously doubt if any of the girls my age would fit into that category. Almost every girl is a feminist these days. However, in my definition they are ‘wannabe-feminists’. The trick is to let them believe they are true feminists, because if I ever try to argue my case, I’ll get mauled by terms like ‘MCP’ and ‘Jerk’ !!
Anyway, Ashish and I went along with Aparna to drop her home and on the way we stopped at a sweets shop as Aparna wanted to pick something for her relatives. We went into this one place where Aparna gave the shop owners a ‘Baskin-Robbins’ sort of a treatment by asking to taste every sweet available before making her purchase. This was kinda a sequel to our ‘sweety’ experience at Mahabaleshwar, where we went about trying all the jams and juices on display. I was only thankful that Krishna Sweets did not have as much variety as Mapro fruits!
The rest of the auto journey, we sat and debated about MBA at NMIMS, a topic that comes up every time students from NMIMS visit other b-schools and the comparison begins. Aparna was doing the rounds of bitching about college and Ashish and I were on the other side trying to reason with our current situation. I did share some of my feelings, more of which can be read on my other blog: sandeeplife.blogspot.com
By the time we reached Aparna’s relatives place, she was feeling pretty depressed about things. I felt quite bad for her and later even sent a consoling message, but I wonder if it helped.
Anyway, Ashish and I got back to LIBA where the rest of the gang were already settled in. we had our rooms in the third floor of the guys hostel. And there were some neat arrangements made in this hostel. The ground floor was for all the girls from out-station colleges and rooms on the remaining floors were given for the guys. It was a pretty ‘forward’ living situation, and one that is actually quite necessary in a b-school environment. But the arrangement was only for the purpose of the fest, on regular days the girls stay at a hostel outside the campus. Pretty weird, the guys are given a hostel accommodation within the college premises, but the girls are asked to stay outside!
Well, we settled in, freshened up, had dinner at the college canteen, which was very typical southi food that a northi person would normally not appreciate very much. So as expected, all these guys cribbed about the food. Then after dinner, we went for a walk outside campus, in search for a phone booth to make some calls. I called bala for a couple of things and at the end of our conversation he says “dude, things are under control here, you just have fun” I hung up really wishing I could believe that!

LIBA Chrysalis, Day 1: We slept pretty late the previous night, but I managed to wake up and get ready in time for the inaugural ceremony at 9 a.m. Prakash and I walked from the hostel to the fest area and the rest followed later. We registered for some of the events and I was in a dilemma whether to take part in the HR event called Odyssey with Shambhu and Souvik or the Trading event called Preatorian Guard with Prakash and Ashish. Both events required a team of 3 and I was the ‘joker’ who had to choose one of these 2 teams to give it a full strength. I couldn’t make a quick decision and Aparna helped me decide by choosing one of two fingers, best of three. I was to pick the Trading game with that. But on further deliberation, I realized that this game required to be played on both days and I would be busy on Day 2 with the ‘Battle of Thermopylae’ event for which I got qualified and even came here in the first place. Moreover, trading is not exactly my cup of tea, and a second round of Ad deduction in the HR event seemed something that I could manage. So I decided to go with Odyssey and participate with Shambhu and Souvik. Felt pretty bad about ditching Ashish and Prakash, but later on I felt it was probably a good decision as Ashish and Prakash felt Preatorian Guard was not a very well conducted event. Besides, Shambhu, Souvik and I managed to come 2nd in Odyssey. So guess I did take a good decision on going with Odyssey. Only thing I felt bad about was missing out on coming first in Odyssey. There were 3 rounds and our team was leading in first 2. The first round was a crossword, which was pretty much a quiz that Souvik and Shambhu aced. The second round was an ad deduction and our team got the easiest ad of the lot, a Joga Bonito ad and we managed to give a very good HR interpretation to it. The last round was an HR case study. Now this is where the HR strong team of NITIE got the upper hand and we gave a couple of incorrect answers to the judges questions. So in spite of delivering a good analysis on the case and coming first in the previous 2 rounds, we lost out to NITIE and had to settle with 2nd place.
Immediately after this event, I rushed in for the next one, a financial strategy event that Aparna and I were to participate in with Prakash and Ashish. Aparna was busy with Trojan horse, a product launch event that she was participating in with Satyam. But at least I managed to make it in time to help Ashish and Prakash out. But by the time I got there, I felt there was not much help I could really give. Every team was asked to complete 2 tasks, a sudoku and a quiz. I wasn’t familiar with Sudoku, so I sat with Ashish on the quiz. We came up with a few answers, but it just wasn’t good enough.
After this event, I caught up with Satyam and Aparna in Trojan Horse just as they were wrapping up their presentation. Theirs was the last and I sat with them waiting for the results. They were pretty sure that they would come at least 2nd as they felt they had done a pretty good job. The coolest part was, the event organizer comes and tells us that they won the first prize. The two of them were just super elated. Then we all went downstairs, regrouped with the rest of the team and had lunch discussing the days events. A second prize, a first prize, a non qualification, and it was just half of the first days events.
After lunch, we went for the in house quiz event called Hot Gates. Satyam and I made one team and Souvik and Shambhu made the other from NMIMS. We didn’t make it past the elims, but as expected Souvik and Shambhu got through. Then, all of us sat and cheered our team along and even won a lot of chocolates with all the question that got passed on to the audience as, surprisingly, I knew quite a lot of answers. Anyway, at the end of it, once again without any surprise, our team came first and Souvik and Shambhu made a cool 10k together.
With that, Day 1 came to an end and we all decided to go and explore Chennai a bit. However, we were given a task for the next day for the ‘Battle of thermoplyae’ event which was a battle of b-schools event and we were to make a presentation on the analysis of a sick company, Dunlop. We knew that its going to take quite a bit of effort, but decided to go out anyway for just a short while and then get back and work during the night. So Shambhu, Satyam, Aparna and I made our way to Marina beach. Now the entrance to this place has become so much more commercialized and so much more polluted than the last time I was here. We somehow made our way to the beach and Aparna wet her feet for a bit. Shambhu and I attempted to throw Satyam into the water, but we just couldn’t get hold of him right. Then Shambhu and I were playing ‘chicken’ to see how long can we stay at the shoreline of the beach, without the water touching our shoes. After fooling around, while walking back, we saw something pretty unique. There were life size cut outs of celebrities kept and tourists like us could stand beside them and take photos. Aparna and Satyam stood alongside Rajni Kanth and took a photo. I forced Shambhu to pose alongside Trisha for a snap, but he was just too hesitant. So Satyam and I posed with Trisha. This was a slightly provocative picture and almost everyone was staring at us while we held Trisha in our arms. It was really embarrassing, but a pretty good experience. Who knows when I’ll come to Chennai again to take pictures like this!
We then went for dinner at this mall in Chennai called Citi Central. It was a very flashy mall. Not too impressive on the design, but China would have definitely ‘found the youth’ that he so missed the last time he came with me to Chennai.
We stopped at the first restaurant in the mall we saw and parked our tired and hungry asses there and ordered immediately. It didn’t even bother us that it was a vegetarian restaurant that we came to, because we just wanted to get some food inside us. Aparna used the right words “lets treat ourselves after everything that’s happened today”
After dinner, we loafed around some more in the mall, had some ice cream, pani puri and coffee (what a mix!!) and finally, by about 9, decided to get back to LIBA. On the walk back from the main gate to the hostel, Satyam kept doing things to scare Aparna and poor thing was getting so freaked out too. There was one particular time when we took an incorrect route on purpose and all of us knew we were going the wrong way expect Aparna and when we reached a place where it was so pitch dark that we couldn’t see anything, Aparna totally freaked out and drove her nails through my fingers until we walked out of there and got back on track to the hostel. On reaching the hostel, we realize that the internet is not working and we just can’t get any work done on the Dunlop case without the internet. I even went with one of the organizers to the fest area to see if the net was working there, but the connection was down everywhere in the campus. So we decided to go out and look for one, but what started off as a hunt for an internet café became a visit to an ice cream café. We didn’t mind it much, as in spite of the dinner we had, we still seemed to have the stomach for some ice cream. So 2 ice creams and a French fries later, we were on our way back to the campus. This time around, the three of us really scared the wits out of Aparna. We once again took an incorrect route and started walking towards the fest area instead of the hostel. This time, Shambhu and I kept absolutely quiet and that managed to create an extremely eerie atmosphere and at a particular point Aparna suddenly jerked, turning around, as if she expected a monster standing right behind her. Man, that was some reaction! Shambhu and I hadn’t even done anything yet. We were planning to walk quietly for a bit and on reaching a dark area, turn around and start walking back. But seeing Aparna’s reaction even before we did anything, we decided to just drop all plans and get back to the hostel. After the semi scary experience, we decided to hit the bed and wake up early for the presentation preparation.

LIBA Chrysalis, Day 2: We were supposed to wake up early and prepare the presentation, but we just couldn’t get up before 7. I got ready and rushed to church as it was a Sunday, and reached the venue just in time for our ‘Battle of Thrmopylae’ event. Aparna joined me shortly. She had woken up quite early and gone to her relatives place. She came now to college with one of her cousins, Vidya. I was really glad to see her wear the NMIMS shirt as I didn’t want to be the only one wearing it and I knew the rest of the guys hadn’t even brought their shirts along. We got down to the event instantly and realized that this was quite a complicated event. There were 3 different rounds and the team had to be split in between all these rounds that were to take place simultaneously. There was an HR case study that we thought Souvik can do. Then there was a detailed case on globalization that we felt Shambhu could handle. The last task was a spoof ad to be made in print, TV and radio form that Aparna and I thought of handling. We got to work immediately as we barely had an hour to finish all of this. Vidya sat with Aparna helping her out. Both of them kept dishing out ideas that I kept adding into photoshop and powerpoint. We finished just in time and during our presentation, we realized the biggest fiasco committed. Aparna and I had completely misinterpreted the meaning of a spoof and we made a funny ad on Air Deccan. But a spoof actually meant Airtel lifting off ideas from Hutch and mocking them to propogate their ad. This was actually an ad made by one of the teams and every team did something on these lines except us. We didn’t think this event to be on the serious lines at all, and make a complete mockery of Air Deccan, and ourselves in the process. Shambhu and Souvik did reasonably well in their individual rounds, but Aparna and I knew we screwed it up in our task.
After this, we had to immediately get to work on the Dunlop presentation. I hadn’t eaten anything the whole day, and it was past noon. But I knew there was no time to take a break and that this just had to be done soon. But this task was the biggest drama of the day. Among the 4 participating teams, 2 of them were localites and managed to go back and prepare their presentations. Our team, along with IMT did not have access to the net the previous day and all we could do was use the one hour given to us at this stage to hurriedly prepare the presentation. Aparna was utterly unimpressed with the task in hand and she played the part of a super bitch from a better b-school to the hilt. She went to the organizer, not once, not twice, but three times to make sure she loaded on him completely. She kept going back. Everytime she felt she missed out on an insult. Poor Abhishek Batra, the organizer of this event, tried doing everything he possibly could. Anybody in his shoes would have done the exact tsame thing. The net going off was not his fault. And the only thing he could do now was inform the judges that we be given consideration as we didn’t have enough time to prepare the analysis. But Aparna would just not understand this. Sometime si wonder what would have happned if this girl actually made it into an IIM, with the amount of head weight she already posseses. But she’s really cute. Simply because of the enthusiasm with which she puts in effort. Like a total ring master, she will sit on peoples heads to makde sure they do their work and when it comes to delivery, she will think of everything, including stepping on the other persons toe to let them know who should take the question asked.
By the end of our presentation, one of the judges said he liked the way we presented the case and wished us luck before leaving. It was then that I realized that the presentation we made actually went off decently, given the fact that we had just about an hour, during most of which, Aparna either did her rounds loading off on poor Abhishek or sitting and cribbing about the task instead of working on it. There was one point of time, when I also totally lost it with her attitude and lost my temper on her. Shambhu had to butt in and calm the situation. I dunno how we managed to complete the presentation in time, but somehow the manner in which we presented; noting the main issues and presenting an analysis of it seemed to be a much better way to go about it that the million figures the other teams simply threw in their presentations and pretty much gave no direction to their analysis. That was where I feel we got the edge. The funniest part was, our team conveniently took the topics they were comfortable with, like Bappa taking the introduction, Aparna taking the labour issues and Shambhu taking the branding issues. I was left to speak on the finanicial issues and this was a part none of them wanted to do. I still somehow presented it decently, and this is one thing that I usually can never do properly; speak on a subject that I feel someone in the audience might know better than me and more importantly, know that I am saying incorrect stuff. It is exactly this that makes me deliver bad speeches, but somehow I managed to deliver this confidentally. Looks like I’m turning into a better MBA as the days go by.
Anyway, while we were just chilling at the auditorium later, Abhishek comes up to us and says we’ve come 2nd. I was super thrilled. I really really hoped that we win this event as I put in a lot of effort into it ab initio. The only place where we did screw up was the ad event that Aparna and I took part in. Thankfully Aparna did not flagellate me for it because I think she realized she was as much a part of the mistake as I was. If it was any other way, in true Aparna style, she would have made sure she loaded off on me.
This was our last event. After this we caught up with Praskash and Ashish and they said they were tied in the first place in their event and lost out because of certain issues. But they still came second and now, everyone from NMIMS had won something or the other at LIBA. It was a great feeling. There was a last event of quiz that was conducted. This was the highlight event as LIBA always conducts a good quiz called Exquizite every year. We stayed back for it and thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle by ‘pickbrain’ balasubramanium and the super smart teams on stage. Aparna had left by then as she had a flight to catch. Prakash and Ashish also left to loaf around Chennai as they missed out on that the previous day. The rest of us went out after the quiz to catch a much needed drink, but Chennai, as silly as it sounds, doesn’t serve booze on Sundays!!! So we just had to settle with some dinner, which I rushed through as I also had a flight to catch to Bangalore. It was ma and pa’s anniversary and I had bought them a shell from the Marina beach of Chennai and wrote ‘happy anniversary ma and pa’ on it. I wanted to reach home before mid night to catch them in time and wish them. But as Deccan would always have it, the flight infallibly delayed itself by nearly 3 hours and ensured I reach home only at 2a.m. When I knocked on the door, papa almost sounded worried hearing that it was me. It was only after I wished him that he realized I came down for his anniversary. Then I woke mom up and wished her to. Then I let everybody get back to sleep and sat writing this. With that, my Chennai visit and my first ever fest was done with much aplomb. Definitely looking forward to participate in more now.

Trip to Mahabaleshwar 2

Strawberry Fields is an event held annually in Bangalore for rock enthusiasts that I haven’t missed for the last many years. Simply love going there for the music, the people and the atmosphere. And given the number of strawberries I ate during this trip, and the fact that I will never forget this trip for the music, the people and the atmosphere, I'm almost tempted to label this trip “Strawberry Fields”. Moreover, the entire trip was just like the strawberry itself; bright, cute and very very sweet.

24, January: Rohan asked me off-handedly if I’d be interested in joining him and rest of the Shah’s inter alia for a trip. I replied instantly with the affirmative without even asking where we were headed. And although I decided not to travel too much this year after all the loafing I did last year, I decided to chug along, as the Shah’s always make wonderful company and I hadn’t been on a single trip since I’ve come to Bombay with college friends. Please note ‘college friends’, because I’ve been on more than enough trips otherwise.

25 January: Sapan reminded me about the trip and asked me to stay over at his place in the night, as we would be leaving very early next morning. He also asked me to give my share of the money to Ankit. I had no money and told Ankit that I would pay him later. Just before I bid them adieu, I thought I should find out where we were going!

26 January: I woke up to Sapan shaking me at 4:00 a.m. He told me that the cab would arrive in half an hour. I knew I only needed 5 minutes to get ready. So I told him to call me later and went back to being feed for the umpteen mosquitoes at his place. I let the mosquitoes have their feast, as I really wanted to get some sleep after the drinking session with Bala just before I left to Sapan’s place the previous night.
At 4:30, Sapan woke me up again and I decided to get my butt up this time. Brushed, got ready and waited for the cab which conveniently arrived a whole hour late. Once it came, we threw our bags on top of the cab and got settled. We then headed to the girls hostel where the three ladies stood outside waving India flags as we arrived. That’s when I realized it was Republic Day today. Quickly changed my caller tune to signify the glorious day with a nice AR Rahman number.
There was an issue with the seating arrangement as there were 11 of us excluding the driver. But with a bit of deliberating, MBA style, we figured the best way in for everyone. I was just glad that I got the middle row seat next to the window.
We started off and people were saying Jai Krishna and Jai Hanuman. I added a Jai Hind! Wasn’t all the inappropriate, as it was Republic day after all.
We drove on till we reached a nice restaurant for breakfast. Or so I thought. But it was only a tea break here as our dear friends actually packed food for all of us. So there was no need to eat here and we ate later in the car itself. There were so many interesting things to eat. A dish called ‘thipali’, a sort of chapathi. Probably Gujju style, but tasted amazing. Then there was a smaller, different color version of the thipali that Vidhisha called poori. But I was quite sure poori’s didn’t look green in color! But even this dish tasted gorgeous. Man, I have never been on a trip where people got food along since I was 8 and my mom packed food for us. And this is why I say the Shah’s are good company. They think of everything!
We moved on and by afternoon, reached Mahabaleshwar. We then went hunting for a decent place to stay. And a certain ‘Kedar Hotel’ found approval with the girls. So we guys acquiesced by default.
After settling in and a much needed bath, we left to do what everyone does in a hill station. Visit all the ‘points’. So we went to this point and that point (I’ve stopped memorizing the names of these points, but they would mostly be some English dude of the 19th or 20th century!) and finally finished it off with the sunset point. This was a real spectacle. I have never before seen such a grandiose enthusiasm for the setting sun. There were over a thousand people shoving and pushing, trying to get a glimpse of the sun. I found the scene extremely hilarious. And giving me company were some foreigners who were actually filming the silly Indians instead of the Sun. And who would blame them? These people were indeed making a mockery of themselves. I too did a film on the crowd, and after some time decided to try and get a glimpse of the Sun myself as I wanted to see if there was anything great about it. So found myself a place and watched the Sun go down. Go down all the way till it dissappreared. And it was the same setting Sun that you would see anywhere else. Seriously wonder what the big deal about ‘Sunset point’ was all about! But there was no time to think after the Sun sunk, because the entire junta was headed back and we too had to get to our car, ASAP. It was like a typical rock concert!

Somewhere in between the ‘points’, we even visited a market. Now this was actually a temple I had visited even the last time I was here. But the fact that it is a temple is almost overshadowed by the capacious market that sprung up outside the temple. I was positive that the previous time, there was nothing but a single bhajji-wala from where I had the most number of egg bhajji’s ever as we had skipped lunch and were extremely hungry. And now, in the place of that singular bhajji-wala were vendors selling everything from shirts and figurines, to, of course, strawberries.
The group went about buying stuff and taking loads of pictures of each other. I just killed time taking some interesting snaps and chewing my gum.
Later on in the evening, we went to the Mahabaleshwar lake and once again, there was a huge crowd here. And I was getting quite annoyed with this now. I’ve come all the way from Bombay where you just cant seem to get away from sticky bodies all around you, for a nice vacation, and all you get are more sticky bodies. But this anguish was soon suppressed by the really nice time we had boating in the lake. This was the grand finale and the highlight of the day. It was just so much fun paddling the two boats we hired, crashing into each other, and once again, taking plenty of snaps.
After this, we went hunting for a good place to have dinner. While everyone was out looking for a satisfactory eatery, Aparna and I found ourselves at a taste-and-buy fruit product outlet. We went about tasting all the jams and juices available for sale and finally spent 200 bucks between us on some nice products. We had consumed so much sugar during this process, that we almost lost our appetite. We also ran into a nice restaurant serving continental food and hukka’s. should definitely try dropping in here the next time I come. But on this trip, it was good North Indian food that everyone wanted, and that’s what we got, lots of it. After a very hearty, filling dinner, we hung around the market while Rohan and Arti with Vipul and his intelligent probability calculations tried their hand at games of chance in the stalls of the Mahabaleshwar market. I remember giving this a skip the last time I was here, not because of a lack of interest in the sport of losing money real fast, but because of the bevy of beautiful girls who decided to engulf us that day. I would never foget that time in Mahabaleshwar when Jeetu and Hari went about filming all the girls with my camcorder and now, after 6 months in Bombay, I wonder if I would ever react to a situation like the way we did then.
Well, after Vipul felt he lost enough money, we had some ice cream at another restaurant, and walked back to our hotel after that. I remember changing and telling Sapan that I would join them for a game of cards. The rest was history. I woke up the next day, once again to Sapan shaking me, asking me to get ready for a morning walk.

27 January: what started off as a morning walk, turned out into a quest for finding the sunrise point called Wilsons point in the car. When we got there, I recognized that place as well. I was here the last time too. Only difference was, there were only six of us on Wilsons point waiting for the Sun to surface. There were six of us again this time, but we were accompanied by at least 200 others! And it wasn’t just the people. There were tea vendors, men with horses trying to lure customers into a ride on the studs, or at least getting their photos taken on them, and all sorts of other signs of commercialization. I was really taken aback by the amount of change that affects a tourist spot in a gap of six years. From just a few of us enjoying the Sun rise, to a whole bunch of tourists clapping when the Sun shown from behind the clouds.
More photos later, we got back to our hotel and it was time to check out. We got ready, played some cricket. Sapan made a record 25 at a pitch that didn’t allow the rest of us to score anything more than 5 runs tops. Then, Rohan and I played some catch. We kept playing till we pretty much got into the car and on our way to Panchgani.

En route to Panchgani, we stopped at a place from where we got a clear view of this village called Wai, where movies like Swades was shot. Coincidentally, an article on this village was present in the newspaper the next day and in fact, that was how I even got to know that this village was called Wai.
At this point, we played some games, and Sapan and Vidisha even won biscuits for all of us. We then played some Dumb Charades. And I was completely lost as I had no idea what the Hindi words in the movie names meant. But managed to act one out by breaking the words properly and my extremely intelligent team doing the rest of the job.
We then continued to Panchgani to a place called ‘table land’, which is basically a plateau, about 6 kms in circumference, and it truly looked like a ‘table land’. Here was the highlight of the entire trip. We went parasailing and it was awesome fun. I’ve always wanted to go parasailing and what was offered to us at 300 bucks and negotiated down to 150 was the best fun we all had during the trip. All except Sapan probably, who ended up getting dragged along just before take off which caused quite a bit of injury to his knee. And the poor guy didn’t even have his video taken of his take off, as the camera decided to run out of battery just then.
After the parasailing, we once again watched the Sun set. This time, I really enjoyed it. We sat at a place where there wasn’t any crowd and I watched the Sun go down right in between some mountains. Exactly the way we have drawn the Sun set in our sketch books as kids. The scene was simply breathtaking. I enjoyed every minute of watching the Sun disappear. There haven’t been many other memorable Sun sets as this one. I remember the Sun set in Kumta with my beloved Bosch colleagues and the Sun set on the 30th of December last year in Goa. This one definitely made it to the top. Suddenly, I wasn’t as cynical at the glorious sight of the setting Sun, as I was the previous day at Sunset point.
After this, we headed back to Bombay. We reminisced about our trip and commended everyone on their roles played. We even gave awards like Tarang bagging ‘chief coordinator”, Ankit getting “treasurer”, Vipul “navigator”, Siddharth getting “self obsessed photographer”, Aparna “worst celebrity”, Rohan “best interviewer”, Arti “best wife”, me “best spoken hindi”, Vidisha "ek solo please" and as Mayuri was not awared anything, Rohan suggested we give her Lifetime achievement award!
We drove on to Pune, where we dropped Vipul off, then had dinner and by 3a.m. found ourselves outside college in Bombay. Lots and lots of fun, and really glad I decided to go on this trip. Still owe Ankit a lot of money. But will never forget the 500 odd photos that were taken with all the digicams, the parasailing, and of course, all the strawberries.