The Family Bonding!

It may be some nine years since I would have spent more than almost two whole months with my parents. Busy growing up, getting 'life lessons' (and degrees on the way) I had almost forgotten how awesome it is to be with parents. Everything got revived when a home away from home was painted by Mom and Dad right here in Boston, MA.

Mom arrived first followed by Dad a few weeks later. I was too excited to host both of them and wanted to give all my time to live those moments that I am missing all these years. I wanted them to experience various flavors of my lifestyle here in US, and having a car helped.

Every weekend was already tightly scheduled in visiting various places. We started off with attending Boston food festival the very next day my Mom arrived. The following weekend I drove her to Philly to visit one of our family friends she hadn't seen in years. That trip was followed by visits to local scenic places around Boston.. like Rockport, Walden pond, Mystic lake and Castle Island. Ben-n-Jerry's icecream factory and Smuggler's Notch state park in Vermont was a must see if you are so close to it. Driving all the way up there and stopping hundred times to click pictures of fall colors was an unforgettable experience. The Head Of the Charles regatta was right in that period and seeing so many physically fit sportsman was not only exciting but also motivating :P.

Sunrise @ Cadillac

Dad arrive just at the right time when New Hampshire and coastal Maine was peaking in fall colors and I had the Columbus day off. A trip to Acadia and White mountains was a no-brainer! We took a coastal route to Acadia National Park. The scenic beauty of the fall colors was just mesmerizing. Dad and Mom wanted to stop near every single tree and capture it in camera. After a few thousand stops, they decided to capture all the Reds, Oranges, Yellows, Greens, Maroons in their memory instead! Getting up early and seeing the sunrise on the Cadillac mountain (the very first place which gets sunlight in the US) was the high point in the trip. 

That followed by driving up Mt Washington (which includes coming down from half way to fill gas and again going up.. damn incorrect fuel level indicator!!). Mt. Washington, a hell of a mountain. Here the weather changes from full visibility to zero visibility any second. Wind speed has set a world record here. Well.. there is still a souvenir shop on the top though!! (American tourism!). We stayed in the middle of nowhere, we had seafood in small shacks along the coast, had burgers in a sports bar and pancakes at an local American breakfast place. Experiencing such varied cuisines and way of living was something new to my parents which they wouldn't have experienced in tourist locations and hotels or business trips.

Even though the Diwali smell was not in the Boston air, we had the same festive atmosphere at home. I did not miss physically being present in India during Diwali. Home cooked sweets (faral, chiwda, laddu etc), home made diyas, lanterns and decorations, Laxmipoojan (with $$ this time), inviting friends over for Diwali dinner.. I enjoyed my Diwali to the fullest.

Diwali Dinner

The selfless love that parents shower upon you is priceless. Now I am again spoilt in 'asking' for the morning coffee, coming home for lunch everyday to eat readymade food and home cooked rotis (and then resisting the temptation to take a nap!!), having my clothes washed and ironed twice a week, going on long drives every evening with someone with you in the car to talk with, sharing India stories (means Pune stories!), teasing mom when she starts watching Zee TV Marathi on laptop and dad when he keeps repeatedly listening to Barkha Dutt or Arnab Goswami in full volume on his tab... it's going to be a few tough days until I get back on track after they leave.

It was a quality time well spent. I am sure they enjoyed all the moments we shared together after so long. I did. Next time they visit me, who knows, I might have a significant other sharing these moments with me, doubling the joys of life.

Ek Selfie to banta hai!!

The People of America!

It was a great experience to travel more than 8000 miles in 15 days covering the entire east coast and southern America. Starting from Chicago the adventure included NYC, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia, Rhodes Island, Niagara, 1000 Island (1840 to be precise!), Virginia, Tennessee and then Florida! During these days I got a chance to interact with all kinds of people, from different backgrounds, different ethnicities and different cultures.

Although America looks the same everywhere with freeways going either N-S or E-W, fast food restaurants wherever you see, smiling people greeting “hello, how are you doing!” just to acknowledge your presence, STOP signs everywhere, Jogging people at odd times of the day or dancing on the rhythm of the music plugged into their ears…. There are different shades to them if one looks closer!

Unlike people in and around 42^nd Street 7^th Avenue NYC (Times Square) who are “upscale” neatly dressed with suit and tie and polished shoes, rushing to their office places in the morning time or sitting on some 83^rd floor in a glass cabin with a mac in front of them and a personal secretary (lady) on their right… the countryside men and completely laid back… Chillaxed!! :P Its simple.. nothing as Grandeur or glittering as you will see on the east coast or silicon valley.

By countryside I mean the people I observed in Virginia, Tennessee provinces. These are the people who tame horses, pigs and cattle, wear hats and 6 pocket jeans, have acres and acres of farm lands and probably a gun. I will call them close to cowboys! These people seem to be more attached to the family. Wherever I went I observed entire family.. a married couple, the in laws and the children.. together (living happily).

Great people with great hospitality! I happened to visit one of their shows (The Dixie Stampede Dining Show) where they portrayed their “cattle skills”, narrated the development

of the race around Tennessee State and enacted the war that took place between the North and South Tennessee. The show was jaw dropping and to add to the flavor the dinner was mind-blowing. We were served one FULL roasted hen!! Along with vegetable soup, boiled corn, slice of pork, a potato and then desert… with NO silverware!! Great experience to eat a full roasted chicken with hands! J The show concluded with countryside music and people dancing happily.

Chinatown is one more shade. Not only people, but everything is in Chinese.. shop names, billboards, prices everything. Its a totally different world when one enters the Chinatown. The buildings have stairs on the outside..The lodges are disgusting with common toilets, there is garbage on the streets.. and also the following sign can be seen in Chinatown NYC.

Florida was all together a different story. Orlando is full of children, tourists.. Thanks Walt! I hardly saw any “Americans” as I descended to south. The Orlando-Miami journey gave a flavor of our good old ST bus (rest is now self explanatory! which includes the driver, passengers, bus, lay over restaurants etc…!). Miami is full of people either from Cuba or Mexico.. I don’t know how to differentiate.. but my point is.. Here I met natives who can’t speak English. Inner parts of Miami had more old people busy in their diurnal activities.. Similar kind of people like you can see when you travel from Panjim to Vasco in the morning. Miami reminded me of Goa except the tourists.. tourists are more “bold” here!! :P

That was my journey.. Next is the west coast… which is one more different flavor of the America… the “Desi America”!!

Amreeki Rail

Departure was scheduled at 7:30am from Lafayette and it was supposed to arrive at Chicago at 10am. My intuition was right! Lafayette-Chicago ho ya Gorakhpur-Dadar... trains have to be late! Good that I booked a connecting bus at 2 and not 10:30 believing on the western efficiency!

We reached the station at 7 and saw no one! Not even an attendant. The entire station looked deserted. Then we realized where the waiting area was and to our surprise it was completely filled with people and supposedly we were the last to enter! The TC greeted us warmly and then told us that due to flood warnings (where we failed to see even a drop of rain anywhere!) the train had to reduce its speed by 10mph. With the American GPS technology, we instantly realized that the train was half an hour late. Finally it came at around 8:15 and I boarded!

Unlike what I had imagined (as shown in classics of 60s!) this train turned out to be a chair car. But it was spacious and comfortable. It started from Lafayette; I waved to Neeraj and fell asleep instantly. I woke up in around an hour and found the train was not moving. I heard an announcement that there is some switch failure and two people are working on it. Listening to this I dozed off. Another hour and I opened my eyes to realize that it’s still at halt. What was new to me that the train had a running commentary, where all they told us was that they didn't know anything, but these two people repairing a failed switch. What was this **** switch!!!! Nobody knew. Everyone was clueless. One more announcement told that there was a goods train over that switch, which is now moved and those two guys can now reach the switch! This made me realize that this so called switch.. is something which is outside, probably on the tracks... and not in our train!!! :P. A couple of more announcements acknowledged their efforts of fixing that switch on a Sunday morning!

What was different was this American manner of alleviating the restlessness by telling "Don't worry... everything gonna be fine... we are together gonna fix this honey!!" (Only the kissing part that usually follows was not seen)

Aisa hote hote finally it got fixed and the train moved. It was some 15 miles from Chicago and we heard one more announcement! "A second switch has failed! But don't worry, this time the people working on it exactly know what the failure is and they will fix it in couple of minutes!" WTH!!! That means previously they were clueless!!! But they did fix it in couple of minutes and we reached Chicago at 1:30.

In the meantime my mom was restless back in India and couldn’t sleep until that switch got fixed and I reached Chicago!

Coorg

Night Trek and Cave Exploration @ Antargange

A fortnight from now our PS is going to end. Our enjoyment observed no bounds. Along with trips to places like Hogenakkal and Mysore we were used to movies, parties, treats and get-togethers atleast once every week where veg people turned nonveg (courtesy to our great connosouir of food-- Mayank) and people like me experienced the taste of sea monsters like octopus, squids and crabs for the first time in life.

This weekend we wanted to do something different, unusual, something adventurous. And it was me who proposed an idea of a night trek and cave exploration to Antargange. Adventures started from the planning stage only. First it was a big NO (as most of them hadn't experienced it before), but the enthu of gals and my description of a night trek made the guys to reconsider their opinion. Suyash called six of his friends and Latchumi called 4 of hers.. and now we had a big group of 15 people with two big disjoint sets where most of them din't know people from the other set. Me Kvk and Mayank were the common people, from which Kvk happened to "conveniently" slip and hurt his leg..saale ne lite le liya, leaving two of us. After a verry

loong discussion of whether we should actually go or not, some had a lot of enthu as 'now' it was a prestige issue for them (they had told their friends) :) ..we finally decided to go for it. Booking a cab had also adventures involved in it.. which are to be censored due to personal requests by some :). Finally we settled on booking an 18 seater van. We hired a guide named Raghu from the Bangalore Mountaineering Club and embarked our journey at 10 pm.

Everyone got acquainted with each other, thanks to DumbC. We realised that it was an awesome group with varied characteristics, all just getting mixed up with each other so easily. DJ suggested Tejaswini's dialogues to be broadcasted on All India Radio for public entertainment. (Now you would get a hang of the characters in our group). We reached the base camp at around 11:30 where we had a formal intro with each other and with Raghu. We climbed stairs till we reached a Mandir, where there is a source of pure water, whose origin is still unknown, thats why the place is named Antargange (unknown source of water)

We started the trek. Aman, as usual, was the most adventurous guy in the group, and urged people to switch off their torches. Moon was not seen and I scared off Vaishnavi saying that it was 'amavas ki raat!!'. She din't realise that there are these things called clouds that can hide the moon. But no worries.. Suyash was their to help her at every step ;) (i don kno who will help ME after Vaishnavi reads this!!). Despite of Mayank's cursing ("Bhad me jao salo, muze vapis sahi salamat jaana hai, mai torch laga raha hu!!) we succeeded in keeping most of the torches off and slowly everyone got acquainted to the natural light. There were millions of stars above

where Mayank kept on searchin Orion, which I think is the only constellation he knows :). After a trail in woods for an hour we reached the top, where we saw Hyder Ali's dargah.

The adventure was yet to begin. Now we had these two verry huge, collosal rocks in front of us. The road was blocked. We thought we lost the way, untill when Raghu made us realise that we were at the mouth of nature made caves at Anterganga..n this was the only way in. We stared at each other.. Impossible, we just can't go through this. The was a 20cm gap between those two rocks from which we had to squeeze in sideways. Raghu took the lead and he was followed by each of us, one by one, slowly. Fortunately, no other creature like lizard, cockroach or snake came in between.. warna to maza aa jata.. hilne ki bhi jagah nahi thi!!.

It was just the starting. We went deeper and deeper, into the crevices. One by one we were sliding, crawling and squeezing through. N this was not once or twice, but at nearly at all the places we had to adopt the same strategy. Raghu was guiding each of us, telling us where to keep our feet, how to grip the rock firmly and pass through the openin

g. While I was being hit by people (ye koi time hai saale.. chup kar!!) as I was singing.. "right leg aage aage, left leg peeche peeche' from Rab ne.. There were instances where we had to take hold of a hanging root of a creeper and cross a rock. We usually passed our bags first and then tried to pass ourselves. We then waited in the place created by rocks, for other to come, and if the place was exposed to sky, Mayank looked for his Orion. 

It was 3:45 am. We finally came out of the caves. We all sat on the top of a big rock. Break time, all were hungry. We prepared a special recipie of Alu Bhujiya sandwitch which was a big hit. Played some songs on the cell phone, relaxed for sometime with Mayank still searching for his Orion. We started again at 4:30. Ladkion ki awaje ayi.. "fir se wahi rasta nahi hai na!!!!! :D.. Jayashree seemed to be just exhausted, but regained her enthu with the philosophical but energetic words from Shantanu.:) Only I experienced this as others were busy jumping from one rock to other, to skip a deep, dangerous ravine in between. Without the Rock Climber Raghu, the trek was just impossible.

The sky was beginning to light up. We left the caves and started descending the mountain. This was simple. At the break of dawn, we reached our base camp, the Mandir. I was the first one to

reach followed by Arpit and Shantanu. Hang on, it was still not complete. We were relaxing on the stairs for the others to come. But before that we were attacked by "the others".. Monkeys!!!.. Stealthily they approached us from all the sides and from the trees. For me this was the most scary moment in the whole trek. Meri to phat gayi thi. One of them, a big one, was just behind Arpit's bag. Before they actually took away our bags and scratched our faces, we had to

make a move. We stood up and just started running.... After this "Majja Run \m /" when we realised that none of them were follow ing us, we searched a place to sit, and waited for people to come. Everyone arrived withing few minutes.. we had a group snap and started our journey home!! This is the best trek I have ever experienced!!

A Nature Trail...

The mini traveler was parked at Domlur stand with me and Mayank waiting for others to arrive. They were happily having coffee at Shiv Sagar when our call made them realize that we were getting late. It was 6:30 in the morning, and Bitsians @ Merc had planned a trip to Hogenakkal Falls. Within 5 min, Alekh made an appearance from the backside of the traveler. A dog also followed him :). We reached a consensus of picking up ‘the others’ at Shivsagar rather than waiting at Domlur. Within no time we reached the hotel, and there they were- Vivek, Chaitanya, Latchumi and Vaishnavi, eagerly waiting for us to come. The next halt was at Oasis Mall where Suyash, Gursheen and Aman joined us making the Team BITS complete—embarking our journey to Hoganakkal with full enthusiasm.

Hoganakkal, located in Tamilnadu 180 Km from Bangalore, is a serene place with Cauveri finding its way from within the gorges and canyons. Being in TamilNadu, the gals were in full enthu and were constantly reminding us of that ‘Arch’ which marked the end of Karnataka and beginning of ‘Their Territory’. The van stopped at the border to pay the inter-state tax and the gals stepped out with a feeling—“A small step by man, one giant leap by mankind”. We all followed—this was our first step on TN soil.

The travel agency had coated a tax of 1500. We soon realized that the tax was 1000 and hence called the driver’s boss….
Aman—Hello, bhaiiya.. aapne 1500 bola tha, yahan to tax 1000 hai. Hum 1000 de rahe hai
Boss – Aap aisa nahi kar sakte, aapne pahile hi bola tha jitna coat kiya hai utna thik hai
Aman—Arre lekin kal hi hamare dost jaa ke aye, unhone 1000 diye.. aap 1500 kaise maang sakte ho??
Boss—Aap “North wale” hamesha aise hi karte ho.. hume bhi business karna hai.. (LOL)
Aman—Bhad me jao.. tax 1000 hai, hum 1500 nahi bharenge...... n he hung the call.

We paid Rs 1000 and the traveler’s ignition key was turned. The route to Hogenakkal Falls is scenic, with lush mulberry fields and giant terracotta guardian deities, as you approach it, the roar of the Cauvery and the abundance of vegetation in the area is sure to catch your attention. Along with this non-stop DumbC going on with ‘not so dumb’ ppl and Suyash’s periodical ‘Emotional Atyachaar’ made the four hour journey very pleasant and enjoyable. After paying couple of more toll taxes (ye tamil log bahut kamate hai) we reached our destination- Hoganakkal.

The main attraction were the Coracles- the bowl shaped boats which took people on a ride in the Cauvery. We had to bargain a lot for the boat ride, with people who din’t understand any Hindi, and here the gals played a very important role of interpreting… we now realized that we had entered “Their Teritory”. The deal was not bad with us getting into two Coracles, 5 ppl in each, paying them 230 per person for the whole day.

The Coracle took us from one rock to other, the boatman steering it so skillfully that we all enjoyed the water showers coming down from the rocks. Me and Gursheen, the only two people having cameras were in different boats, my boat being ahead of them. The result—Under a shower, they took our pics, but on their turn—we said “Bhad me jao :D :D” Soon this mechanical topper (Gursheen) seemed to have realized it and he stopped clicking out photos. Thus we had to snap some of theirs until he resumed. :)

After some time of sailing we sighted an island. The island was surrounded with mountains. We decided to have lunch in the mountain canopies and climbed to reach a suitable place where we would get shade. We realized that we had left Latchumi, Aman and Suyash behind and asked Vivek to look for there whereabouts. Vivek ek tapu pe jaa ke khada hua—n he located them—playing in water. Restless Vivek kept on shouting “Abe aa bhi jao.. ” but it was of no use. :( They took their time but finally arrived in the thick shade which Mayank and Chaitanya had explored—ideal place to have lunch. But in no time we realized that we had forgotten half of our lunch and plates in the boat.. and our ‘jungle lunch’ plan remained a dream. Instead we had a trail in the forest and then returned back to the boat.

The Coracle steered its way through the river and took us to a beautiful waterfall where all of we enjoyed playing in water. Vivek enjoyed the LIVE sight of Mayank’s specs getting carried away by the turbulent streamlines.

Exhausted after playing in water, we started our return journey. We got seated in our van. Half of them fell asleep within seconds. Mayank’s light background singing and Suyash’s periodical (now toned down) ‘Emotional Atyachaar’ made the return journey also pleasant.

P.S. Some Interesting Post-hang-overs of the trip:
Mayank: Lost in No Man’s Land till he wore his extra pair of specs.
Vivek: Got up at 5 and came to office by 6:30 am …. (Uske alava wo code kisiko run karna nahi ata.. isliye ana pada :) )
Suyash: Dashed upon a tree while walking to office.. (Who paani me thoda uncomfortable ho jaata hu!!!)