Che and More

Recently (actually a couple of months ago when I first drafted this post) I finished reading the book 'The Motorcycle Diaries' by Ernesto Che Guevara. At the outset, I must thank the Voices Team for having gifted me this wonderful book. Further, I am mighty grateful to my dear friend Suneel for having inspired me to go on and shed my inertia and finally start reading this book. The inertia of having started reading the book was as strong and one has to say, it is just simply too difficult to stop reading this book once you start it and even more so to stop thinking about it. It builds on you gradually, encroaching onto your senses, barging into your mind and soul, if I may say so; helping you to rejoice in the fluid narration of the author as also forcing you to think and ponder. This book, which blots the author's and his friend, Alberto Granado's trip across Latin America, is a pure delight as a reading experience across the pages, through the entire course of the journey.

Che easily succeeds to paint a world around you. This world is so real in description that you can't help thinking yourself to be a part of the journey. The words create images which you keep seeing through Che's eyes and narration. This, in spite of the fact that the civilization and the land that Che talks about are a complete stranger to your memory. The essence of the book is the human flavour that trickles through Che's description and which is essentially the common string between the hearts across oceans and ages. Some of Che's thoughts, as aptly noted by Suneel, strike you so hard, honest and real that you take a pause to ponder over them, even reading them again and again. I shall stop here about Che and his Motorcycle diaries and let the reader himself regale in the spirit of the book, if he may.

But I shall continue to muse on the various aspects of traveling that this book has so effectively accentuated as also convinced me more of my opinions about it. Traveling is all about learning and undoubtedly so. It is true, in fact, that your whole life is a learning process. But I see traveling as a glaring manifestation of this philosophy; a philosophy which is an eventuality anyway. It is a phase where the otherwise gradual learning path of life takes a sharp detour to the faster lanes of unforeseen, unexpected and novel experiences and realizations. Away from the dreary routine, it makes you shed your shell of comfort and familiarity. Your mind and senses become exceedingly receptive to the sudden inrush. Your instinct comes forth to help you adjust to various situations and challenges. In the process you learn a lot of things, some pleasant, some not so. I have always felt that the learning curve is steeper than the normal course and your interest seldom wanes, making things better and productive.

As I think more about this, it strikes me that traveling must be endemic to the human race, or is it? Within the realms of my limited knowledge about the rest of our mobile compatriots on this planet, I believe, none of them would bother traveling to distant habitats, even if similar and conducive, unless it comes as a rearguard action against a serious threat to their survival in the present environment. Migration of birds or seasonal movements of herds of animals would then qualify under this kind of survival measures. So, do the animals ever travel just because they would like to, as we do? I don't think so but I may be wrong. For an elephant in the forests of southern Western ghats, which doesn't understand our nomenclature of places, the forests of Bandipur, Mudumalai, Nagarhole and the likes would all be the same and may together be the entire world for it. Call it their frame of reference if you want to. Such an elephant might, one fine day, get bored of roaming around in the same subset of this entire stretch and therefore decide to travel around to explore more, say traveling from Mudumalai to Nagarhole just for the heck of it. So I seem to conclude that passing a statement as the first sentence of this paragraph could have the other animals scowling at me. It won't be fair for them and therefore I shall try to rephrase it. Let's just say, traveling is inherent to humans.

Or I might be wrong on the other point when I claim that humans travel just because they like to. They do so because they feel like they need to, I feel. Perhaps this behavioural pattern rampant amongst the humans has its seeds in their rather inquisitive mind; a mind which seeks answers, explanations, discoveries, revelations, experiences and some constant fodder for thought. Exploration of places is perhaps not just a hobby but much beyond that, having more forthcoming connotations and stronger roots than one's mind might garner. The rankling feeling of lacking in the knowledge of the various ways of nature and the urge to decode the underlying principles have always stimulated man's imagination and efforts. Since the earliest times, man has endeavoured to solve the equations of the universe and unravel the basis of his existence. While the mental endeavours have led to countless abstractions, deductions and theories, no efforts have been spared to usurp every part of the globe to scrutinize and understand more and more. Technology has now made knowledge gathering and sharing a trivial matter and we have long passed the age of expeditions for exploration as of the Columbuses and Marco Polos. However a virtual tour by the way of images, illustrations, descriptions and tales hardly gives a semblance of an experience and if at all it arouses even more curiosity to actually go visit the places and live the experience. And so, man travels and keeps doing so to constantly replenish his pot of experiences.

I am no explorer or a full-time traveler, but occasional opportunities always beckon. In whatever little I have traveled, I have always felt some contentment that is difficult to describe. As Che and Alberto have shown, traveling has a lot to offer to the traveler. It makes one realize the humbling vastness surrounding us in terms of space, time, people, creatures, cultures, problems, methods and the nature that nurtures all. To the beholder, it gives numerous gifts; gifts of ethereal moments, melting emotions, euphoric leaps of heart, sedate sanctity, peaceful passages, enlightening corridors of time and gratifying experiences which settle into our memory ever so pleasantly. On the other hand, traveling tests in various ways. One learns to adjust and accommodate as well as to struggle and fight against difficulties. It smothers our immature exuberance as also builds our will power. It teaches patience and strength through testing situations. It shows us and helps us appreciate the varied and myriad forms that life can take for different individuals. And it breeds a sense of tolerance towards the irregularities and inconsistencies that percolate through the various strata of life; be it an individual, or a society, or a civilization or an ecosystem. You rejoice and enjoy, but also think as you observe. In essence, you communicate and converse with your inner self, your soul and hence try to recognize yourself. The way you observe, feel and experience a place, its people and the other things helps you to know yourself as much as all these things. My friends, Onkar and Vishal, say this quote from the Talmud, 'We do not see the things as they are, we see the things as we are' and it is so correct!

Thus, embracing a place with its environment and to feel its textures, smell its soul and taste its essence is left to the ways of the traveler with no specified rules or ends. Besides, the lessons and the experiences are never forcibly peppered onto you. They just happen, like a flowing stream would gather silt. And you hardly realize the process due to its subtle ways and its fineness. What juts out pleasantly for us is the fine rejuvenation that results and leaves us with mellow memories that stay. For all the things that traveling gives us, it reserves the best for the last, I feel. It makes us realize what a heaven our own little home is for us and how much we love our own people and they love us!

- Vindy :)

A Joy Forever

My eyes pray and pry at that swerve on the way
Where, when and why did its wings take away,
From the forlorn catenary,
Shorn off its lovely cherry
My lovely kingfisher that made my lovely day!

Or the damsel in those auburn, swinging in the breeze
Spilling forms of beauty, with the twitch of every crease
In that smitten gallery,
In my 7:53
Was her maddening spell of beauty, that would never ever cease

That monsoon of our life, when we all set out together
Midst the wafting scent of spices, blending in the weather
And lo! The clouds did a shutter,
And flung us in a flutter
That wraps me still in smiles, as the clouds stay to gather

Before the shrine of stone, when I bathed under the skies
And my joy sang in tears, from the corners of my eyes
By two little stones of hail,
My heart was in a sail,
Shower from HIS eden, all HIS bundles of surprise!

Such moments filled with honey, of an old sweet flavour
That lingers on the mind and leaves you never ever
From the bounty of the nature,
A person or a creature,
All HIS things of beauty! All a joy forever!

-Vindy :)

John Keats was spot on when he said, 'A thing of beauty is a joy forever'. Recently, on my daily route to my office, I saw a beautiful kingfisher perched nicely on a transmission line at one of the turns. The sight was so unexpected and such lovely that it astonished me and ever so pleasantly. The kingfisher is now so firmly etched in my mind that I look out for it at the same turn everytime I pass from there; and the smile on my face is unmistakable.

This took me back to all such things of beauty which have struck me out of the blue and stayed with me, for me to experience them again and again, whenever I think of them. This poem is a culmination and a collection of a few of such experiences and a celebration of the fact that the small things of beauty that the Providence has bestowed upon us are indeed a joy forever.

The first stanza talks about the kingfisher. The second is about a beautiful girl I had once seen in my daily local train, during my engineering days. 7:53, as some of you must have guessed, is the timing of the local train at my station, which also doubles, as an unwritten rule/convention, as an alias for it. This sighting is much celebrated in our circles, much due to the nature of description I had provided to my friends. That face is still vivid in my mind and yes, she was beautiful!

In the third stanza I recollect, with great fondness, the surreal experience in Madikere in that June of 2007. Me and my friends had gone to this place, in the western ghats and were enjoying a zingy, rainy evening in the 'Raja's Seat'. Looking down the valley, we saw only the moving white mass of clouds. And all of a sudden, the clouds cleared for a brief few seconds, as if opening a shutter, showing a clear, breathtaking sight of the valley below. We were exhilarated and had jumped and shouted like small kids, out of glee.

The fourth stanza speaks about IISc and the main building there, which I call the shrine of stone. On one of the evenings on the campus, when it was raining mad, I decided to go to the main building and enjoy a drench myself. It rained as if it was raining for me and I felt the whole existence around me was singing and jiving with me. Then, out of nowhere (actually down the sky, I know), came two little hailstones, one after the other and fell on the stone portico under Tata's statue. I instantly picked each and popped them cold and happy. The rains, hailstones, thee feelings running inside and everything around was amazing. It is one of my best experiences, when I had cried out of sheer jubilation and the overwhelming enormity of the place, time and the environment around me.

I realise that whenever I visit any temple, say like Tirupati which I visited recently, the brief sight of the Lord's form gives a similar immense sense of joy and satisfaction. In fact, this might be the feeling that has taught me the essence of joy. In a world of rationals, the small things that don't find their reasons and results give us some pleasure to treasure for long and forever.

Heeeehaaaaaaa

Heeeeehaaaaaaaa...I am back! Back to blogging! And back with a renewed soul in me for having hauled myselves over the few months of redemption, reconciliation, of some serious work to do justice to my degree...and yes I feel like screaming my throats out...heeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Okay, it is not as if I have worked and only worked over the last 3-4 months. I have just restrained myself from posting stuffs on my blog to avoid the formatting hassles and the post-blogpost (haaa...nice term! :-) ) curiosity to know the reactions.

Anyway, so of the numerous crazy things I have done over the past few months, one was to compose a bandish (if I may call it so :P) myself!! (God Damn-it!) And since I realize, after some research, that audio files can be added to a post, I wish to post about it. So here goes the tale....

One fine day, I heard that our mess was going to be kept closed for a day. That was the next day. So come the next morning, I did not feel like getting out of my bed since there was no incentive to do so. I ignored all the alarms and kept myselves buried under wraps for as long as I could. When, finally, my eyes could no more ignore the glaring sunlight outside and my eyelids started begging to be released open, I crawled lazily out of my bed. I switched on my laptop and let it play the soothing notes of tanpura. With the notes melting nicely into the sunlit room, I naturally felt like whetting my singing skills by having a session of hindustani classical jamming. I don't remember which raaga I picked on and for how long, but, the point of importance is that the musical mood carried over from that short session to my bathroom. So there I was, having a lazy, hour long bath and exploring all the singing possibilities within my capability. The restroom exhaust fan was providing a constant drone to give me the reference scale and a good support for my vocals. I started drifting into some known raga and started weaving words around it to depict the ongoing mood. The bandish that resulted is scripted below, followed by the audio file. To call it a bandish is purely a personal convenience [:P] although it may technically be nowhere near a bandish. Whether the bandish is in Raaga Vachaspati, or Raaga Jaijaiwanti, or any other or none in particular is left to the decision of the experts on this topic. For others like me, I hope this composition brings many a laughs and fun to you.

The Bandish:

aaj mess band
kuch nahi milega khane ko

fal aaj khaaun madhuban ke
piya sang mein rijhaaun mein gaaun
fulban mein chaaun raspaan mei mein madhuup
mess ke bina mein dar dar jaaun

The audio file:



http://www.mediafire.com/?n2bw1m0mxbn

Mirage

Cauldrons of calm belly the notion
A fiasco may seep sans raging commotion

The feather clouds deceive, the sun's here to stay
The sweltering heat derides the poor peasant's pray

The speck lifts in vain, in the forlorn air of lane
Settle it shall back, to heave and lift again

The curtains ruffle for nay reason, flutter won't they long
Ushers the wind evanescent, the fading bird's song

The chimes tinkle steady, and the metal gleams in guile
The wood sways delusive, and the sultry roads beguile

The lithesome egrets descend, and I smile a silent sigh
The water's still elusive, and the hose still runs dry

The bicycle sprints elated, denying the grinding creaks
But the easy slope would be uphill, know the backward peeks

This day is a rank misnomer, and my freedom a faint refuge
As my mind still gropes unwary, in a dreadful dark deluge

-Vindy

This might be of some help:
Cauldron : 1. A large vessel, such as a kettle or vat, used for boiling.
2. A state or situation of great distress or unrest felt to resemble a boiling kettle or vat
Here used as 'a container' in general...Cauldron of calm implies a time span which contains and brews calmness and provides a lot of hope, which however turns out to be false. Hence, a mirage :P
Belly : (Here used as a verb) to bulge or bring forward, i.e. accentuates the notion
Fiasco : catastrophe, disaster
sans : without
sweltering : uncomfortably hot
deride : ridicule
peasant : a farmer
forlorn : pitifully sad and lonely, signifies a deserted lane here
Evanescent : short-lived, temporary
delusive : giving a false impression, deceptive
sultry : hot and humid
beguile : trick, fool
lithesome : supple, graceful
egrets : heron like birds
misnomer : inaccurate or misleading as a name
deluge : flood, a great quantity of something (here darkness)

The Cricket match

I have always been a dreamer and my most cherished dreams for a major part of my childhood and then into the teens revolved around cricket. This must be true in the case of millions of youngsters like me in this country, over the past two decades. I always dreamt of doing it for India. I would come to bat with more than half the side back into the pavilion and a couple of hundreds of runs required to win. With grit and tenacity, I would then start bailing my nation out of the troubled waters. I used to plan each and every session of the innings in my fantasy. Such fantasies amused me and entertained me to no end. Hours would be spent on formulating various possibilities and run patterns. I would pick up my partners and decide the partnerships I would have with them. The opposition used to be Pakistan in the initial years and then Australia replaced them when India-Australia rivalry surpassed the other. I would imagine Glen Mcgrath and Shane Warne at their deadly best, firing all deliveries in their repository trying to dislodge me. I would actually visualize myself playing them, enacting each and every shot. Then, I followed them up with a mimicry of commentary of the famous commentators like Henry Bofield, Ravi Shastri, Tony Grieg, Michael Holdings etc. Every match would reach a stage where a highly improbable equation would beckon during the closing stages and I would be faced with scoring around 36 runs in the final over. Then, every ball would be imagined, properly analyzed, a shot selected, enacted and the whole sequence executed with all the drama attached to it. An imaginary crowd would create the background din and whatever place I were standing in, would become my stadium. I must have taken India to victory a hundred times in this fashion and I cherished every time I did so. That fantasy brought so much joy and euphoria that I used to relive it again and again whenever I found myself alone and thinking cricket. I never considered my dreams to be impossible and I still fantasize about such feats once in a while. But now I know the bare reality and the fact that such a thing can only feed my imagination and never materialize. However, when I got a chance to play for my department in the ongoing cricket tournament, my enthusiasm touched the sky again. If not for India, I can do it at least for my department some day, I felt. Thus started a daily session of early morning practice on the ground.

It was difficult initially, with every muscle, ligament and sinew in my body complaining against the unprecedented out lash of straining exercise. It was doubly difficult to carry the additional weight I have gained over the past few months and I struggled to move. I improved slightly over the next few days and started feeling confident about running around and moving without apprehensions. Catching was the main worry due to my wobbling glasses which made it difficult for me to steady my gaze on the approaching ball. Anyway, I was geared up for some serious cricket now. After sitting out for the first two matches, one a knockout which we won and then a league match that we lost, I finally got a chance to represent my department in our second league match. It felt great. It was a do or die match for us and we didn't do too well and lost it. I chipped in with a few runs and did a little fielding. It was a disappointing first outing for me and the whole team felt down for having missed a chance of making it to semifinals. We still had our final league match where we had nothing to lose. I was in the playing eleven and the words of our captain at the start jolted me and perhaps all of us. He said, "This just might be the last competitive game of cricket for some of you. So just go out there and enjoy yourself." Yes, he was so right, this could be my last competitive match in IISc. I felt really overwhelmed by this realization and promised myself, to do my best.

We were batting first. The afternoon sun was high in the clear sky and it was pretty hot. But the heat hardly mattered. We were all in a very jubilant mood. In fact, fun was the only thing on our mind. So we decided to do all sorts of juggling with the batting line up. Our regular openers were given a rest and two others asked to open. The moment Shashi was asked to go and open by our captain, Lalit, he sent his hands high up and exulted gleefully. He picked up his bat, wielding, like a warrior would wield his sword, and set out towards the pitch even before the opposition fielders and the umpires had stepped onto the field. War cry was given and a sort of taandav nrutya done on the pitch by him. With the long locks (jataa) that he has, it looked even more impressive. We were all cheering amidst rollicking laughter. Naveen joined him as the other opener and the match finally started. All of us in the pavilion were in a vociferous mood. Every ball would be followed by uproarious comments and a plethora of distracting suggestions to the opposition bowlers and fielders, but all in the right spirit. We lost a couple of wickets before our captain steadied the ship as usual. Everybody else contributed in good measure and kept the scoreboard ticking along the innings. I went in to bat 5 down and was soon joined by Prasanna. We had the final 15 deliveries or so to bat. My first three deliveries were nice and full and I just drove them along the ground for three quick singles. The opposition captain, who was also the bowler then, patted me when I managed to do the same to him three times on a trot in spite of his minor field adjustments and length adjustments. The singles relaxed the nerves, so did the way Prasanna nudged around for a few more singles. Over the last few deliveries we ran like people possessed, converting ones into twos and twos into threes, sometimes helped by fielding lapses and overthrows. I was panting and gasping for breath, but had little time between deliveries to get some air back into my suffocating lungs. We called for an emergency drinks break in the final over, which anyway didn't help much, since I could not drink much. I was just simply gasping and going crazy. I missed two crucial deliveries, but connected the final one properly, which yielded two runs and took the score beyond 100. Our final total in 15 overs was 101/6. Good enough, we thought. I had made 15 desperate runs and managed to stay not out. I was mighty pleased with my effort and looked forward to fielding with the same vigour now. We knew we could make a match of it and were very determined to do so.

The second innings started. We knew only one way; the way of aggression, intensity, grudge, commitment and nerve-racking energy. The bowlers bent their back undaunted by the sapping heat and we fielders flung ourselves at whatever that came our way. We were enjoying every moment of it. The opposition lost a few wickets, four precisely, to some good bowling and nice catching. Then a partnership started building up. After the first five overs, I cast a glance at the scoreboard and realized that they required another 80 runs off the final 10 overs. Tough task, but definitely doable. Dust was rising up continuously from the agitated ground and settling on us. I was sweating under the sun and dusty all over. An accumulating screen of dust on my wet glasses made me clean it regularly. The lips were going dry and tasted salty on being licked. My throat was parched and running dry likewise. We were constantly encouraging each other and mindful of any complacency creeping in. But the opposition wasn't giving up easily and were gradually reaching a position of strength. Our captain provided the breakthrough with his final over. He called himself on to ball and sent down a cracker of a ball after being cut for a boundary. The furniture was disrupted and we all erupted. We had one serious problem to contend with now. Our over rate was lagging behind and we had to complete the last four overs in just 10 minutes, failing which 8 runs would be docked off our total. It was getting tense and very frantic. Requiring 30 of the final three overs, their opener, Naveen, who was still subsisting, slogged a boundary and pulled a six. He was undoing all our hard work and fighting hard. But we weren't ready to cave in. Arjun came on to ball the penultimate over with they still requiring 17 for a win. Bowling with a short run up, to save time, he was bowling an excellent, tidy over giving away 5 off the first 5 deliveries. His last delivery was crucial to keep the pressure up on them. He bowled, slightly outside the off stump, enticing the batsman to drive and deceiving him to induce an edge. Rigil, our wicketkeeper, stooped low to pick up a neat catch near his feet and we had got rid of a major obstacle. Naveen was gone. Prasanna was summoned to ball the final over. With 12 required of 6 balls, it could go any way. The first ball was fiercely pulled and Karthik misjudged the bounce, conceding a boundary.
8 required of 5 balls!
The batsman swung his bat at the next ball and missed it. 8 required of 4 balls!
The next ball was clubbed away to long on and the batsman scampered through for a double. 6 required of 3 balls!
The next delivery was bowled. Batsman danced down the wicket and lifted the ball high up in air. I was standing at a shortish mid-on position and made a dash for the catch towards the square leg umpire. It was the moment of trial for me. I had to judge it and catch it. My spectacles were wobbling, vision shaking with it and the ball rising endlessly. Then it started making a dash towards the ground and I was still running to get under it. I saw it coming down in a wavy trajectory and tried to adjust accordingly. But it was coming down fast and I was just barely under it. In a last ditch attempt, I swerved under the ball and tried to hold it as it hit me. The ball bounced on my unsteady palm and ricocheted in Tanmoy's direction behind the keeper. I had dropped it! I had dropped the most crucial catch. I felt disappointed and crushed. Worse even, the batsmen had managed to run two and the equation now changed to '4 required of 2 balls!'
I tried to regroup and was full of anger when I returned back to my position. It had been a good day in field for me. I had made a couple of good saves and no serious blunders. Then, I messed awfully in the dying stages. I felt bad, but even more determined to catch anything that came even slightly close to me now. The next ball again fetched them two and the match came down to the final ball.
1 ball to go 2 runs required!
My heart was pounding. I widened my eyes trying to not make even the slightest mistake now. Everyone was on their feet, everyone was backing each other. The opposition players were ready to flood the field with their fluttering flag at the stroke of victory and we were not ready to budge and give it away. We felt we would do it, we just so desperately wanted to win. Prasanna came running to bowl the last ball. The batsman tightened his grip on the bat and started coming down the wicket. Prasanna let go the delivery and we all strained hard to let go ourselves at the ball wherever it be hit. The batsman lifted his bat and swung wildly at the ball. The ball yorked him, he missed it, Rigil pouched it right above the stumps and in one fleeting movement brought the bails down in a flash. The batsman was stumped and stumped. We jumped in the air, exulting and our hearts surged even higher. Everybody ran amok, wildly charging the pitch where the bowler was already over the wicketkeeper, then hugged and congratulated each other. We were feeling ecstatic and as the feeling sunk in after a few minutes, contentment was writ on all our faces.

This is undoubtedly my best sporting experience in this institute. The next time I see a close game won by our team, I would know how it feels. The victory margin of 1 run was as close as we could get to giving away our victory and still managing to pull it back. I would always carry in my memory, those 15 runs, that diving stop, those wickets, that missed catch, that last ball and most importantly the wonderful spirit we carried all throughout the game, and look back with joy and satisfaction. Dreams are one thing, now I can say, I have lived the thriller!

-Vindy

:)

Onesky versus Twosky!

"20-5! "
The scoreline ringed in Twosky's ears. He had to make a comeback. He was determined. He looked at his whitened right hand and the whiter fingers, steady over the light buff striker. He raised his eyes to scan the wooden surface and the whites on it. "4 left", he said to himself. He fixed his gaze on a white midway across the board in the other half, concentrated for a few silent seconds and let go the striker over the powdered board. The striker went slightly astray and though the white piece slided on the wooden border, it could not make it perfectly to the pocket. "Chukk!", went Twosky and Onesky heaved a sigh of relief. It was his chance now. He had 7 blacks on the board. Although a 15 point lead was quite a luxury, he knew he could not relax. Twosky was as good as he was. Only a few shots missed by a whisker or a few just barely pocketed, separated the two. On another day, Onesky could have been leading 20-5. Besides, he was facing an uphill task in this board. He took a deep breath and eyed all his pieces. He realised that a few straight shots would take him on par with Twosky, if executed properly. He started without thinking much on the lines of 'what could happen if I hit that' stuff. One went in. So did the second. The third followed suit. Onesky felt relaxed. "Well done!", he said to himself. The next one was a fine cut-connection shot. He took a few seconds to relax his wrists and fingers and then placed the striker. The thumb banked it from one side, the other fingers bent slowly holding the striker ever so lightly, then again stretched out in slow motion, the index finger touched the thumb and the behind of the striker and a slight push sent it floating across the board to hit the piece exactly where it was intended to. One black connected another, which promptly dropped into the pocket without much ado. "Impeccable!", a smile let loose on Onesky's face. But he had not finished. He gulped the next two, the second one being the coveted Queen. "There's the cover. I must not miss this", he took a deep breath in again. The next shot was again played perfectly and the blacks' count had reduced from 7 to 1 in one turn. Onesky felt sorry for Twosky. He let go what he felt would be the final nail and almost had it. But..."Ohhh!", it was not over. Now Twosky was staring a defeat in the game. He had to pocket atleast three of the remaining four pieces to keep his hopes alive. He was looking grim, but focussed. Over the next three fleeting shots he brought the board down to one final shot and....missed it! Onesky easily pocketed his last piece and the scoreline changed.

It was 24-5 now.

It had been a well contested and a well matched game so far. Onesky and Twosky were matching each other for every good shot as well as the silly misses. The key was that both read each other's mind perfectly. Whenever Onesky conceived a shot, Twosky knew he had. The same was true when Twosky planned a shot. Onesky would know it. It was as if both had a grip of the entire board and tracking each other without a glitch. The straight shots were coming easily, so were most of the connections. Only the cuts were going awry at times and this was true for both. Every board had gone till the last piece barring one where Twosky had flunked badly and had four of his pieces languishing on the board when Onesky had pocketed the last. The Queen, however, had eluded Onesky and he had to make do with four points. The game had started at even stevens and had stayed so till 4-4. Even the next two boards had gone to the wire with only the last piece left unpocketed and the scoreline had dragged along from 4-4 to 4-5 and then to 8-5. It had been black's game till then with all the four boards going to black. Onesky broke the string and never looked back from there. 8 became 12, then 16, then 20 and now 24. Twosky wasn't getting frustrated, however. He just sought some more focus and luck. Onesky was to break next. It was the 9th board in the game so far.

Onesky decided to go for a reverse break. He let go a cracking break, but missed the target. The break wasn't impressive and the pieces hardly moved. Twosky wrested the initiative from there on and made life difficult for Onesky, till another spree of brilliance from Onesky brought the borad down to the last few pieces. Twosky could not lose now, if he wished to stretch the game further. A few double dues did not help either of the two and the board reduced to the last three blacks and whites, the Queen still alive and unconquered. Onesky got a straightforward shot in and then went for the Queen. He missed. Twosky capitalized. Twosky first won over the Queen with a deft shot for her cover and then went a step nearer to victory. Last black and two whites! Onesky weighed his options. "Should I block or go for the kill?" He opted the later, but failed. Twosky, this time, did not make a mistake and neatly glided his last black into the pocket. Finally! He had budged from 5 and moved on to 10. 24-10! Could this be the beginning of a comeback? Nobody wanted to comment. Both were determined to supersede the other, despite knowing that the other was equally skilled and definite in his mind. Despite this rivalry, none minded the victory of the other. Both knew and understood each other so well that there was never a thought of aversion in their mind. They respected, praised and rebuked each other in equal measure and without any inhibition. The chairs were creaking under the nervous feet movements and the soft white boric powder was all over the place. The bulb had been warming the board since about an hour and a half, bringing smoothness to it. The black wooden borders had all gone white at the bottom with powder heaped into the joints. Pieces were simply flying across, dropping straight down the pockets or grazing the borders till the pockets, taking a chunk of powder down with them. It was the tenth board and the game was still not over. "Everything's 'carromed' !", both felt.

"24-10 and Twosky to break!"

Twosky sent down a crashing front break and saw one white go in. He missed the next. Many blacks had squeezed out through the central maze, to the outside of the circle. Onesky saw his chance and pocketed quite a few. In the next few shots, Twosky faltered whereas Onesky did not wince a bit, following up one good shot with another. Before Twosky could realise, 8 blacks with the Queen had gone down the pockets across the board. The whites' count on board, six! Twosky knew that his game was up. There was no escape from defeat now. Onesky did not want to miss it now and concentrated on his last piece. It was a simple straight shot, but still had to be hit with pecision. So he did and the last black drifted into the far pocket.

Twosky had battled hard and Onesky had played with grace and tenacity.

Onesky won and Twosky lost. One smiled, so did the other...and as he walked out of the carrom room, Vinsky smiled! :)

-Vindy

(Lately I have been playing carrom alone and the account above is that of a game of carrom that I played between Onesky and Twosky. Obviously, I i.e Vinsky was both of them changing chairs for every turn. It is really a very interesting exercise to think about your game and then your opponent's, the next instant and still try to be competitive and serious about the whole thing. You, challenging yourself and enacting rivals! In the end, really, there's only one winner) :)

The Weekend Dash to Madikere

"Sir nimmage route gottaa? (Sir, do you know the route?)", asked the driver and the heavy sack I was loading into the dikkii of the car almost slipped off my hands. "What the hell! He doesn't know the route!", protested my mind to myself. "Illa! (No!)", I replied almost innocently and with a tinge of apprehension. It was already past 11pm and we were supposed to have left by now. But, instead, we were gaping at each other with no idea of how we would make it to Madikere before dawn. Raghavanna asked out of sheer amazement, "Haven't you been to Madikere before?" The driver shrugged helplessly, "Illa Sir! (No Sir!)" We weren't expecting this. After all, we had booked a personal car for our trip and therefore expected the travel agency to send a knowledgable driver to drive us. "Pichle baar Tircoiluur jaate samay bhi aise hi kiya tha in logon ne, Raghavanna..", I continued in a vein of protest. "Ab dekhte hain kaise jaaneka." Images of the Karnataka map started flashing in my mind. Madikere was somewhere to the west or southwest of Bengaluru, I felt. I knew one thing for sure. To reach Madikere we had to reach Mysore first and I knew the route to Mysore! Yes! So it was very easy! Or did I? Did I really know the route to Mysore perfectly? I wasn't sure. 'We should start on the Tumkur road and then take some diversion somewhere. That's how we have been going to Mysore all this time', I tried to tell myself. Besides, the driver must be knowing that route easily, I felt. However, he had already taken the first turn wrong. I wondered what was going on. Perhaps the driver knew a better and an easier route to Mysore, I tried to reason out unconvincingly. Before I could come to terms with whatever that was going on, the driver said, "Sir, nanage Mysore varegu haadi helbidi. Allindaa Madikere hogbahudu (Sir, just tell me the way till Mysore. We can go to Madikere from there)." Haa! So he didn't even know the route to Mysore! Raghavanna and Vahini looked at me, perhaps expecting me to answer in affirmative. "Nanage perfectly gottilla, aadre naavu Tumkur road myaale hogbekagittu (I am not sure, but we should have gone ahead on the Tumkur road)", I said in a rather concerned tone. The driver had headed for the Mekhri Circle instead. "Illa Sir, illinda ne hogbeku..aadre perfectly yelle aadu gotilla..neevu Mysore route asht helbitre naane mund hogtene (No Sir. I am sure we should be going this way. However, I don't know the perfect route. If you just tell me the route to Mysore, I shall do the rest)", the driver stressed. I was getting confused and frustrated both. Raghavanna and Vahini saw the confusion and asked the car to be halted immediately. The next moment we were doing something I hadn't thought about even the wildest of my dreams. We were at the Mekhri Circle signal, temporarily parked at the side, with the dikkii open and digging into a crude map of Bengaluru behind one of my diaries that we had luckily carried along. Well, that's what I thought initially, that we were lucky to have carried along the map. However, as luck would have it, it hardly turned out to be useful and only added to the confusion. A few trespassers were asked and I called one of my friends to know the route. He was just quipping a turn when I saw our driver missing it. I interjected almost impulsively and the driver brought the car to a jolted halt. "Hindind turn! (The turn that we just passed!)", I said, almost running out of my breath. The driver nodded, reversed the car and we were finally running on the Tumkur road. There were a couple of more confusions before we were sure to be on our way to Mysore. We felt relieved.

But the relief was short lived. Before we could gather any sort of momentum, we were struck in a traffic jam. I could not believe it. It was already past midnight and I did not expect a traffic jam on such a fluid highway at this hour. Suddenly, all the blankets, sweaters, jackets and shawls that we had covered ourselves with to keep away the dreaded cold, started irritating us. The dense vehicular population made the cold night turn a sultry, smoky affair on the highway. All our excitement about going on a dash-trip seemed to have whimpered away with all the happenings of the night so far. But, as it turned out, this was just the beginning! It took beyond half an hour for the traffic to clear and we again heaved a sigh of relief.

As we hit the wide, clear highway and picked up speed, cutting through the chilling night wind, a relaxed feeling drew upon us and we started chit-chatting. Rakshita had long gone to sleep while Sakshi was half-asleep. I and Raghavanna did most of the talking while Vahini joined in every now and then. That weekend was a time to destress myself after the design review of my project got over. Raghavanna, Vahini and Sakshi-Rakshita had come over to IISc and I was feeling very jubilant about spending the weekend with them. We were contemplating a one-day trip to Mysore and then to spend the rest of the time in and around the campus. They had arrived even when I was frenetically preparing for my review and I just did the formalities; like receiving them, showing them my room, handing over its keys and leading them to the mess for lunch; before rushing off to my department. When I returned back, Raghavanna asked,"Agla do din kya kaam hai tujhe?" I asked,"Kyun? Kya hua?" He asked,"Madikeri aayega kya?" And so, there we were, heading to one of my favourite places. The environment was relaxed, company was lovely and destination beautiful. We had hired this Indica for our trip.

We were moving steadily on the breezing highway when we heard, "Aaj raat Mysore mein hi rukte hain kya?" This was Raghavanna's voice. I and Vahini waited for him to elaborate. He justified by raising concerns about our driver's health. He wasn't looking very fine. He was running a cold and cough and seemed very tired. The driver said he had directly come, from his day-long work in a call centre, to drive us. We weren't really impressed and were facing a prospect of modifying the initial plan. Sleep was, anyway, hard to get by and even the constant drone of the highway drive wasn't helping. Nobody wasn't talking much now. Raghavanna played a couple of nice songs on his mobile just to shake off the status quo and to help the driver stay awake. A few towns passed by and we were nearing Mysore. And then again, fate struck! Our headlights blew off!

'What the hell!', I screamed to myself. It was around 2am, I guess, and we were another three quarters of an hour away from Mysore. The driver tried to fix the problem without any success. In fact, he could not make out what the problem was for sure. Our car was left with only parking headlights which blink without much focus and, hence, hardly serve as any navigation aid. We started anyway and had to go very slowly. The best way to drive in those circumstances was to latch onto one of the passing vehicles and then keep following it closely. Some risk apart, this was turning out to be very interesting. All three of us were up and awake with wide open eyes trying to see every bit of the road ahead and also the vehicles nearing us. Desperate instructions to the driver followed our observations and we were even chuckling at the whole affair. Then, finally, we found our car! I mean the one we felt was best suited to keep following. This car, actually a Sumo, ahead of us, did not have a working back headlight. So we argued that if we stayed behind this car then our back headlights would solve their problem and their front headlights ours. So we did! We kept following that car and luckily, that car didn't try to overrun us. After around half an hour of this chase game, the car ahead stopped at the roadside. So did we, just behind them. Our driver went over and spoke to the driver of that Sumo regarding our problem, whereas, I got down to talk with the travellers in it. To my astonishment, they were my seniors from my institute, IISc, who were going to Madikere to enjoy the weekend just like us; talk about coincidences. Both the drivers then got down to spotting and fixing the problem which they did after much effort. The other driver gave us a spare headlight and replaced the faulty one with it. He further directed us on a shorter road adrift of the highway, leading us to Madikere. We were sincerely grateful for his timely help. The rest of the night, till dawn, was spent in watching our driver drive with only one headlight on and managing some sleep in between those watchful sessions. It was fun! At around 4:30-5 we stopped for a rather early morning cup of tea. It was cold, I mean the weather outside and not the tea. As we neared the dawn and Madikere, the narrow serpentine road started throwing new challenges for the driver. Going up (or down) these roads spiralling around the hills is a wonderful adventure in itself. Moreover, the maddening scent of the spices renting the air, which is so typical of Kodagu, makes it a lovely experience. This scent drives you crazy, as we had experienced the last time around and again this time. The driver was driving us crazy too. He surely wasn't one of the 'monk drivers', who respect the various myriads of the hilly terrain roads and take a cautious stance. Instead, he was cutting through the turns and racing across the narrow turf of grey, as if somebody had thrown down the gauntlet to him. One could not help marvelling at his control though. He was quite an expert at it. For this reason, atleast, we felt, we had the right driver with us.

It was still dark when we reached Madikere. I was supposed to guide through all the places in Madikere since I had been here once. But that was around 18 months ago and it took time for me to recollect all the turns and landmarks. I almost missed the turns on quite a few occasions forcing our driver to take a U-turn every time that happened. We had to make arrangements for our stay and were sceptical about getting a room due to the weekend rush. We approached a tours and travels agent, whom I instantly recognised from our previous trip. He was the one who had given us all the information about the places in and around Madikere and promised to make good travel arrangements for us at a fair deal. We had other ideas, however, and had ditched him for our own private Tavera. His information and the travel brochure had proved helpful, nevertheless. I saw, his brochure hadn't changed a bit. Even the spelling mistakes had survived the 18 months and they would, perhaps, continue to do so. The agent's office was so heavily and colourfully decorated with hundreds of things that it was crossing the levels of exaggeration. As Raghavanna pointed out later, the agent seemed to be practicing some sort of cult science, what with all those animal busts decorating the walls, weird wooden and metal artefacts placed throughout the room and incense sticks burning their scent all over the place. Anyway, the agent could not help us much. All the hotels in Madikere and even nearby places were full. After much roaming around we managed to convince the receptionist at one of the hotels to give us a room for 2-3 hours to freshen up.

At around 9, after having our breakfast, we were ready for our day long trip around Madikere. We first visited Bhagamandala, then Talacauvery from there. Bhagamandala is the place of confluence of three rivers namely Cauvery, Kanika and the mythical underground Sujyoti. It also has a nice, old, Kerala style Bhagandeshwara temple supposedly built by the Cholas before the 11th century. Talacauvery is the place of origin of the Cauvery river. The river originates from a sacred Kund, a square tank. The kund is said to experience a sudden rise or surge of water on an auspicious day, once a year. There are shrines of deities and an adjoining hill, Brahmagiri. One can climb up the steps to the top of this hill and enjoy a lovely view of the surrounding mountains and valleys. Then we visited the Raja's Seat which is nestled right in the mid of the Madikere town. It's a beautiful garden providing a breathtaking view across the valley. Our next stop was at the splendid Abbey falls. We then visited Cauvery Nisargadhaama. It is a beautiful tiny island surrounded by river Cauvery and connected to mainland by a hanging bridge. This spot provides elephant safaris, tree-top shelters, pedal boat trips and has rabbits, deer parks. Sakshi and Rakshita thoroughly enjoyed themselves here. Our final stop for the day was at the magnificent Golden Temple, a Buddhist monastery, with its three huge gold plated idols and other priceless pieces of art.

Madikere, this time around, looked completely different from our last visit. Then, we had visited in June, just as the monsoon had started. It was a picture of millions of fresh, wet greens then, whereas now, in the winter, it wore hues of yellow, orange and red apart from the fading green. The terrain had turned from dark brown of wet mud to its faded dry version. The mist was missing in its intensity and heaviness, but was still as fresh and alluring. From the vivid and enchanting seductress of the monsoon, Madikere seemed to have assumed a serene, saintly form in the winter. The weather had a relaxed feel to it, the sun shone steady and warm providing respite from the cold, skies were clearer and richer in shades of blue and the air was sedate and pleasant. A few branches, bereft of their leaves, now peeped through the reddening mesh of dry leaves. Even a slight breeze dislodged these leaves, bringing them down in a floating motion and adding to the accumulating carpet of foliage. Looking across the valley presented a calm view of the landscape draped by trees wearing yellowish, orangish, reddish, brownish leaves or baring their branches. The mountain ranges in layers were distinctly visible in receding shades of bluish grey, markedly so at Talacauvery. Golden meadows, windmills, shapely farmlands, randomly deformed fencelines and the fluid stroke of the landscape accentuated the beauty of the scenery and made for a wonderful composition. With no clouds blotting it, the sky was at its glorious best and provided for a perfect backdrop. I direly missed a camera to capture those immensely beautiful scenes. But our eyes were quenched beyond any expectations really. The Abbey falls carried a steady stream unlike the wild cascade of the monsoon. The crystalline water shone bright, especially the liquid splinters bouncing off the rocks and drinking sunlight in plenty. The daunting look under the grey skies of monsoon had been replaced by a friendlier, brighter one under the pleasant sunny sky. Nisargadhaama was enjoyable and The Golden Temple as amazing and awe-inspiring as the last time. The whole atmosphere appeared simpler, peaceful and extremely soothing. I could not help falling in love with Madikere again.

While returning from Madikere we also visited the zoological park in Mysore and the bird sanctuary at Ranganathittu. The kids were especially pleased and excited to see various animals and colourful birds.

Apart from the nature, we really enjoyed each other's company. Relaxed discussions, content smiles and hearty laughter were the day's order. I messed with the directions on quite a few occasions, realizing late the correct turn and hence forcing our driver to take a U-turn every now and then. The driver was also the culprit at times. The U-turns became so frequent that we decided to call our trip 'the U-turn trip'. We returned on the 25th evening, back to the cosy confines of my institute. After a long time I felt that the weekend was well spent and aptly enjoyed. Madikere enchanted us all and left us content and happy. I, for once, fulfilled my dream of visiting this Eden during my stay in IISc and am looking forward to many more visits to this beautiful haven.

-Vindy

A Dawn at the Beach

The coastline is calm and the morning so silky
The waves are just reaching, in lines so milky
The blue is just spreading, dragging white with it
The haze stays thick and the lights are still lit

I muster my senses and breathe the sea fresh
As I walk through the close knit of coconut trees
The dawn comes and melts and peeks through the mesh
And the ochre dust of sand greets me with the breeze

The murmur of the breakers hushes in the quietness
The salty smell of mist joins in the harness
Blue, green and white mix and paint the sea
The mild touch of cold comes and clings to me

The wet bed of sand due to the receding tide
Gets dented only slightly and absorbs every stride
I tread along arrested, by a ceaseless sense of freedom
With my pal on my side, to savour this kingdom

The hillock on a side, with a mansion atop
Stares the Arabian, that threatens to chop
And far into the waters, the fort indomitable
Rises with glory, singing its own fable

A flock of few feathers now frequents the shore
Pecking with their beaks, picking prey from the floor
Unmoved and unruffled, perched on their feet
Like perfoming a penance, without a single tweet

Debris from the sea, see shallow waters at last
After ages spent in turbulence, of waters so vast
Chiselled and shaped or just simply made wet
Gaze as much as you like, pick as much as you get

Eyes drink in pleasure with bountiful of treasure
Eloping with delight, flung with no measure
No phrases are spoken, when I smile and look behind
Glances are enough, to speak through the mind

The rays are now plenty and plenty in hues
Enlightening all beings, as we continue to muse
The sea and we and the, now, twittering birds
We all sum it up in the following words
'The warm rays of aurum spread on the sand
Ushering through the coconuts, to kiss this land
The eager sea's beside, with its reverberating dim,
As our eyes traverse overjoyed, with sights of HIM!'

-Vindy


(This poem has been written describing the dawn of 1 January 2009 that we, I and my friend Gaurav, spent on the beach of Murud in Konkan)

Me, my tree, our coconut and we

The coconut falls
from the tree without a notice...

Quiet and peaceful, it was everywhere
With not an inkling of wind or storm
The coolness of the shadow rented the air
Under the coconut, on that noon so warm

I rested with no worries, plaguing my mind
With my head resting easy, on my palms behind
Dreams all nice and sundry, each of happy kind
My heart melting in gratitude for the tree so kind

And that's when this occured,
The coconut fell
from the tree without a notice...

I was caught unawares, unable to duck
Bewildered and stunned, cursing my luck
It hit me with a thud, then dented the mud
And left me in a daze, looking like a dud

The content smile, now replaced by a grimace
Plays on my mind and stays on my face
It never happened before, never felt so sore
Never was so heavy, never hurt more

And then, how and why,
the coconut fell
from the tree without a notice?

I grew with this very coconut tree
Or should say, it's the tree, that grew with me
I was not me, he was not he,
In fact all along, all was about 'we'

I have rested by it's side on all the days
Through the rains in the Junes or the sun in the Mays
However sparse the shadow, however wet the bed
And even hit by coconuts, naughty in their ways

Why now, then, do I realise,
The coconut falls
from the tree without a notice?

But, then it used to be different
The coconuts used to be small
And every one that was sent
Would be used as a ball
Not bothered as it went
As long as I recall
Infact, with one spent
Waited for another to fall

Even then, I realise,
The coconuts fell
from the tree without a notice...

The tree's taller and it's coconuts bigger
Which one would fall, is not easy to figure
I keep looking above, waiting for one to come
Keeping my hands ready, to try to catch some

I can rest no more, on the pillow of my palms
And see no more, across the coconuts and palms
And then, the coconut comes down without a notice
When I happen to waver and I happen to miss

You see,
The coconut falls
from the tree without a notice...

Peace is now estranged, and sleep's not like of old
Old times seem untrue, those times that were of gold
I shudder without reason, huddle out of fear
And cuddle up to myself with no one else near

No breeze rustles me nor the comb of leaves
The shadow doesn't soothe, as my stricken heart heaves
Everything's still and still the stillness doesn't stay
It's the fear, I say, that's taken the calm away

You never know, I tell you,
The coconut falls
from the tree without a notice...

But it's my coconut tree, mine so much
You see, I just can't stop loving it
I still caress it and fondle with my touch
I say, "I won't cry, even if you hit!"

I know, it knows my pining for it
And hence fills the coconuts with nectar for me
"You must try, and have the coconut, split,
And then you would see my love for thee!"

"As for the coconut", it continues,
"It shall continue to fall
from me without a notice!"

Yes, it does, it really does,
The coconut falls
from the tree without a notice...

-Vindy

Romancing KSRTC

I am completely in love with KSRTC! For someone who has travelled all his college life in the Mumbai local trains, this is quite an achievement, because it’s almost impossible to replicate the same feeling and excitement. The reason is that, KSRTC has never failed to provide me with my share of fun whenever I have availed its services and made my journey eventful and memorable every single time.

Although I have travelled quite a lot in KSRTC buses since my childhood (I have my native place in North Karnataka), the romance with KSRTC actually started in June, 2007. We had just completed our graduation and had embarked on a trip of Karnataka without much prior planning. We only had the places, which we wished to visit, chalked down and assumed the state transport to be good enough to ensure a hassle-free trip. To say that the trip was completely hassle-free would be a rather generous verdict, but it surely was fun-filled and KSRTC had a part to play in it. From having to spend a chilling, dark night on a deserted, unlit bus stand to blotting the beautiful Karnataka coast, on the subsequent day, under rampaging, pouring skies and beside the swelling Arabian Sea, it was truly a memorable experience. It would not have happened but for that bus stand and that bus.

In fact, the state transport has helped me to dispense with advance reservations and the associated procedures, every time I decide to travel. I can just go and try my luck with getting a bus and believe me, I have found one taking me to my destination every single time! I have now stopped worrying about seeing a ‘waiting list’ tag against train reservation availability chart on the railway site. Every time I see that, I gear up for another bus journey with an expectant smile on my face. The expectation is all about another unforgettable experience and I have always found my expectation quenched and, in fact, surpassed on more than a few occasions. Let me narrate a few of those experiences to vindicate my claim.

The coastline trip, mentioned above, occurred under very interesting circumstances. We had been unable to find a staying nest in an overcrowded Dharmasthala, a pilgrim place in Dakshina Kannada district, on that auspicious Saturday night. It was cold and raining and we had some heavy baggage with us. Beyond midnight, after a blind voyage on an unmanned road we reached the desolate bus stand, which is outside the main township. Except the toilet light, all others had been given a rest and everything else appeared dark and bleak including the parked, mute buses. We spent the next few hours trying hard to get some sleep without much success. Then we were on the first bus at the break of the dawn. This bus was supposed to take us to Murudeshwar, which was quite a distance away on the Karnataka coast. That the bus had a very few passengers apart from us, provided a great relief and we spread ourselves on the vacant seats to make up for some lost sleep. There was an incessant, heavy downpour going on and a pretty threatening grey sky looming above. The bus was constantly bearing the onslaught as were the surroundings and we were all in a strange state of ‘wet trance’. Dozing heads banged on the steel handle rods and the hard glass windows on the side, whenever the bus braked and at every sharp turn. Every time we woke up, we caught the sight of the lovely, lively surroundings; the alarmingly rising waves in the churned up sea, the racing waters in the river on the other side dying to meet the sea, the wildly swinging trees (especially the tall ones like the coconut tree), the freshly bathed fields in vivid, bright hues of green and the wet, battered dark grey tar beneath us. It seemed like a completely different world and ten astonished souls traversing through it in a modest bus.

A week later, I was headed to Udupi, another sacred place on the Karnataka coast, from my native place, Kittur, in North Karnataka, in another KSRTC bus. This time, I was with my family. We were passing through the Arabail ghat, between Dharwad and Ankola. The clock must have just slightly ticked past 1 am. The bus was tediously working its way through the ghat section and everything seemed absolutely normal. Then, the left front tyre punctured! We were in the midst of a dense ghat region, with tall trees bending on us from one side and the deep dark valley on the other. It was pitch dark, with the thick cloud cover masking even the stars and the moon. Luckily, it wasn’t raining very heavily. With no proper light source available, the two drivers (most of the long distance buses have two drivers, one substituting for the other after some time) and the conductor had a torrid time replacing the punctured tyre under little illumination from cigarette lighters and mobile phones. It took them slightly more than an hour to complete the task and we were on our way again. A few kilometers into the ghat, our bus met with a group of drunken hoodlums! They first forcibly halted the bus, then tried to instigate the bus driver with their stupid acts and when the driver tried to pacify them, they started hitting the bus with their fists and sticks. The whole bus rose in unison against the miscreants and shooed them away. The journey resumed. As if this much adventure wasn’t enough, the replaced tyre met the same fate as its predecessor and punctured! There was no tyre replacement available this time and the whole bus had to be replaced i.e. we had to halt another KSRTC bus and pack ourselves into it.

A couple of days later we were moving on from Kottigehara to Horanaadu, right through the thick of the Western ghats. The rains were wreaking havoc and the drive through this amazing Chaarmadi ghat held us all spellbound. The waterfalls, some of them newly created due to the heavy rainfall, were swelling and cascading down the slopes. Some of them were overflowing onto the road and then downwards into the valley. The valley had turned into a homogeneous mass of pure white mist. The road was so narrow that our peeping eyes directly met the seamless whiteness around us on quite a few occasions. It felt, at those times, that the bus was simply wading through the white mass without any road beneath it. That ride in that bus was far superior to any rollercoaster ride in any amusement park. Thrilling, as a word, sounds deficient to describe that experience. Then, to add to all this, a landslide occurred and a pretty huge tree came crashing down with a lot of loose wet mud. This blocked the road badly and all vehicles were stranded where they were. The tree had to be cut and the mud shoved away to make room, enough for a bus to pass. Then slowly, even as the dusk receded into night, the traffic on both sides was cleared and we felt we would reach Horanaadu finally. But that was not to be. The heavy rains had caused much damage and some bridges had gone under water. We were shifted into smaller make-shift buses which took us to Horanaadu by some alternate narrower route. As the next day newspaper said, that region had received the maximum rainfall on the previous day, with the whole transport and communication going into disarray. We wondered how we could make through such a situation! We toured around Karnataka for close to three weeks and the efficient KSRTC service made sure that we didn’t waste any time for lack of travelling options.

Since the last August, I have been staying in IISc and have travelled a number of times in buses. The KSRTC has various types of buses, named appropriately and catering to various passenger needs. The ordinary ones or even the semi-luxury ones, which go by the name Vaayavya(or Eeshanya) Karnataka Sarige normally stop at most bus stations. They have an ever changing crowd of passengers who want to travel short distances apart from the long distance travelers (like me, who start in Bengaluru and travel till Dharwad). Many of these hail from the rural areas and hence the crowd has, somewhat, an ethnic look to it. Men with stained cloth turbans, dull dhotis and kurtas are a common sight. Many of them are habituated to chewing tobacco and your nose buds may unfailingly catch its aroma renting the air. Their female counterparts have stark coloured cotton sarees, covering even the forehead at times, a prominent vermillion mark on the forehead and quite a few green bangles adorning each hand. These rural folks are slightly darker in complexion than the urban people as well as thinner and coarse in appearance. It is worthwhile observing their general behavior, tendencies and expressions to gain some insight into their habits and manners. Although this space may not be appropriate to be writing about such observations, due to the irrelevance to the topic as well as the amount of data that could be presented, this is one of the aspects that I like about travelling in an ordinary bus. Sometimes, you might end up in an ill serviced bus and at such times you would invariably find it breaking down at some point in the journey. Then some additional time is wasted in fixing the problem leaving you with some more observations and experiences. Tyre punctures, break related problems may surface every now and then. Last week, however, when I was going to Dombivli from Belgaum in one of the ordinary red buses, I encountered a novel scenario. At around 0230hrs, about 40Kms from Pune, a strange warning system started to beep in the driver’s cabin. It was sounding like some alarm beep beeping continuously without a break. Amidst all the creaking noise in the steadily vibrating bus, the beep sounded pretty different and rather indulging. I was in some sort of a shaky, half sleep and started wondering what sort of a stupid person might have set an alarm in his mobile at this hour. When the sound continued for a few minutes, it started getting irritating. The irritation soon got to the driver as well and he halted the bus at the roadside. What started then was an ingenious debugging exercise by the two drivers and the sleepy conductor!

The warning system was some sort of a box with some circuitry inside it. The driver first opened it to expose all wires and electrical components. The system continued beeping further irritating the driver. I was battling hard to pull up my heavy eyelids to soak in whatever that was happening. I argued with myself in a state of sleep, ‘Everything was perfectly alright till now. Why the hell, should that beeping start at this hour! Maybe the driver’s playing some trick. Maybe he is bored and wants to have fun with the circuit. But why now! Why can’t they let me sleep for once?’ By the time I realized that something was really wrong with the bus, the second driver had sprung up from his slumber and joined the first one in the debugging exercise. I gathered some senses and muttered to myself, “The KSRTC again! This should be fun again. This seems to be some new problem this time. Some circuit related problem, eh! Shall I go and extend my generous help! After all I deal with circuits, don’t I. Where else would I exhibit my engineering skills!” I was about to get up shrugging aside my sleep when I heard the first driver declaring, “The vacuum seems to have gone empty!” I stopped where I was and tried to assimilate what I had just heard. ‘How could vacuum be empty? Vacuum signifies emptiness, doesn’t it? How could that be then empty?’ I was perplexed and amused. ‘Maybe it is a term used by them to signify something else’, I reasoned and sat back quietly on my seat waiting for the next comments. The second driver declared himself to be well aware of the whole box and started doing all sorts of things with it. There were some switches on it corresponding to every critical security component of the bus like the headlights, brakes, tyre pressure etc. and the alarm was raised whenever any of these malfunctioned, he explained. ‘This is interesting’, I felt. The knowledgeable driver tried switching on-off a few things, then pulled out a few things and replaced them back. All this while, the beeping continued faithfully. The conductor barely woke up and muttered some words, which were understood by none, and then went back to sleep. Some of my co-passengers thought the opportunity to be perfect to empty their bladders and did so without even caring about the problem that the bus was facing. They just simply did their job and went back to sleep! By this time, the two drivers had drifted to some gossip with the problem conveniently forgotten. Both of them and even me had realized that the problem won’t be solved by anyone on the bus. The journey resumed in the same state where it had come to a halt and true to our realization, the rest of it was spent with the beeping sound in the background. When I got down, I smiled to myself and said, “KSRTC never fails to spring up surprises!”

Contrary to the above incident, when I travelled in the Airavat, I slept so well that I did not get up for six straight hours! I was going to Dharwad from Bengaluru. I slept around 2330hrs and when I woke up, I was startled to see the Hubli bus stand. I reached out for my laptop bag to confirm that it hadn’t been stolen away when I was in my deep sleep. I had actually decided that I won’t sleep very hard to keep guarding my bag and here I was, sleeping like never before in a bus.

All such experiences have made my journeys slightly hatke from the boring routine. This helps, especially when you are travelling alone. Unless you want to urgently reach your destination, some interruptions and exceptions add that extra spice to the journey. Besides, when you have a place as beautiful as Karnataka to travel across, such aberrations enrich your experience. It’s the lack of perfection which provides you with some randomness and something to look forward to. It adds some human element to an otherwise mechanical phenomenon. It provides you with an opportunity of something to narrate and write about, as this.

-Vindy

|| Shri: ||

Ganapati Bappa Morya !!!
Mangal Murti Moraya !!!
Undir mama ki; Jai !!!
:)
Om Shri Raghvendraay namaha !!!
Hare Shrinivasa !!!
Hari sarvottama, Vayu Jeevottama !!!
:)