Travel

Anirudh revs up the Dicor’s engine one last time to get the huge stone that’s stuck beneath the chassis. The tire only slips further into the loose gravel and refuses to budge from the stone incine that we’ d created. 13:30hrs. Scorching 45 degrees outside.No sleep, no breakfast; Five hours of non-stop walk in the highly de-forested wildlife sanctuary, a dried up river bed on the right and two highly dehydrated people from the team yet to make their way to the car. Anirudh swings the car’s door open, hurls himself to the drivers seat, switches on the AC and escapes into oblivion. I follow suit. ...

14th Mar ´09 18:15hrs. We´re half way up the first stage and my cell beeps with a message - ´Debi has a fatal fall. Critical. Call ASAP´. Limited network on the hillock just does not allow the call to fall through. Debashish and a couple of his friends had been to Kerala and were scaling down the Chembra peak that Saturday.evening.We´d just started hiking up Kalsubai. I had met Debi,Roy, Manas and Rahul during one of my regular visits to Hyderabad when I was posted in Pune. They were then backpacking and exploring little known places in the country during their break. A down to earth group and you could easily fall in sync. with them in minutes. Last week Debi called me asking for places to visit in Kerala and I suggested Chembra peak. Little did I know how drastic a turn this would be for them. ...

07th Feb.- Saturday 23:25hrs. It’s damn chilly out here and every breath you take in brings out just another sore cough. We careen round the corner and happen to sight a couple of lorry drivers gambling on the roadside by the moonlight. Mallik and I park the bikes and venture ahead to enquire how far we were from Thangaon. 18Kms is what we get in response. Almost instantaneously I spurt out - Give it a damn! I lose my patience and decide to quit. Quit a race that I’ve been mentally preparing for close to three months now. I believe in my instincts and truly live by it!Another look at Mallik and Trupti only reconfirms the decision - I was not alone. ...

Thursday at about 10:30hrs, I get a call from Varun informing apologetically that he would have to break from the team. He was warming up for the terse activity that was to happen in the next few days by playing football and happened to sprain his ankle pretty bad. Bed rest for a couple of days was mandated by the doc. and there went our plans to be a part of Enduro3 ‘08 into thin air. ...

I happened to check the AP tourism site yesterday. Believe me. I literally dropped my jaws seeing the first intro page. I guess finally the government has realised the tremendous potential tourism has and decided to tap on it. AP tourism and development corp. is now having the facility of customised tours. Can you beat that? The site lists most of the places in AP and has been developed with the traveller in mind.You can plan your travel and the places that you want to visit and just drop them a request. They’d soon get back to you on that. Such a drastic change is highly commendable! We’re a bit late on this front but thankfully, there’s at least noticeable progress. ...

03-Jan-08 04:30hrs - After a quick jog, as I stand at the APSRTC bus stand in Tarnaka, I’m reminded of the two years I effectively wasted preparing for the IITs. This was the place where my brother and I used to board the bus to reach Vidyanagar for the morning classes. Every day spent trying to learn concepts with no real implication on my life. Losing sleep over Irodov, Resnick and Halliday, Sarin and Sarin just to win that extra mark in an examination given by the so called ‘Cream academia’ of India. I was running a race, a marathon in fact and suddenly somewhere at the fag end, I realise I was blindfolded and was only following the bandwagon. A honk of the 3k gets me back to my senses and I hop into the bus. Waking up early and getting things on the string is no more an issue. That’s the only thing I guess I’ve learned from two years of IIT preparation. And I’ve no regrets! ...

Mudit spreads out a sheet of paper on the table right in front of CCD. FIve more heads hustle over the fine print and in a few moments HydVentura’s next flagpost is decided. A trip was long pending and we could just not let the four day Christmas weekend to go by just like that! Animesh floats a mail across to the internal group the very next day followed by a formal communication mail from Shiva. In a few days for the first time ever we’re flooded with nominations for the trip. 45 and odd people respond in positive. We’re compelled to raise the bar and send out another mailer stating that only people who’ve transferred the requisite amount before friday EOD would be considered. Nominations are finally frozen by next monday EOD.Amidst tight schedules arrangements are parallely taken care of and by 21st december we’re almost good to head for the trek. Accommodation, Travel and other miscellaneous arrangements almost seem to fall in place. ...

When was the last time you ever got off your seat and hit to the roads? Lost track of all the subtle necessities and requirements of life and spent time just to live the moment; Gave that extra push not just to compete but to work in camaraderie to accomplish a certain goal? Spent moments just to cherish what you have left of what you yourself have spoilt? Breathed not to keep yourself living but to realise that you were just not living? ...

Around 3:00am in the morning, a cup of hot masala tea by the roadside gives me just the required warmth to keep aloof the frigid weather. As I stare out onto the winding roads ideally focussing nowhere, just another smile spans across with the very thought that I’m not heading back to Hyderabad without accomplishing Ratangad. Oct 2nd 2008 12:30AM. Prashant and Parin get the Sumo to a grinding halt right in front of Cotton kings. Sourabh,Ashu and I hop into it while Vishal joins us a bit ahead. We pick up Rahul enroute Hinjewadi. Gourav joins us at Infy Phase II and finally we head for Sangammner after picking Trupti from Dange Chowk. It’s close to 01:30AM. It gets cold as we hit the highway and the speed of the vehicle helps not a bit. While Rahul, Vishal and Trupti try some stunts in the rear end, Gourav,Sourab, Ashu and I try catching some sleep in the mid seat. At about 03:00am somewhere about 50kms ahead of Sangammner, we happen to sight an old man sitting by the roadside selling tea on his push cart. As the aroma gets my nostrils quivering, my mind wanders somewhere else wondering at the hardships this old man had to undergo to make ends meet. For what other reason would anyone be selling tea at this untimely an hour? ...

Damn! It’s a saturday morning and here I am sitting on a cushioned seat of a bus to a place called Ananda Valley for a team outing - A team consisting of only a handful people whom i’ve interacted with, the rest being from different clusters. The stink sinks deeper when I recollect I’ve had to cancel the Ratangad trek for this outing. But then there’s no one else to blame but me for having got myself involved that deep in the organising phase of the outing. The saddest part was that the team outing was being conducted just because it had to be done and not for the spirit of it. I guess 28th is the last date for the submission of bills and the higher management decided to have this party organised on the 27th. Lest, the fund that is allocated every quarter especially for team building activities would have gone unused. ...