Beautiful, innit?
The trek to kodachadri was a little tiring, sweaty and AMAZING!
We walked around ten kilometres to the the mountain, going through waterfalls and steep climbs. It was Hrishi's idea to get away from the road and follow the stream up the route to reach the waterfall, and it almost backfired when the stream seemed to split into two(or join, depending on where you're looking from). We ended up struggling up and down a hill, loose soil and all. Scratched, bruised and bitten by leeches, we finally arrived at the waterfall and washed ourselves clean. Then on, it was a trek along steep hills and long tracts of grassland. we finally arrived at a place that looked like a route leading us to the place.

Yes, thats my room. Its not very rare that the sun is at that angle and shining so bright, and it invariably puts me in a melancholic mood. Not that I dont like gloomy weather. I love it. Especially when I play football. A slight drizzle, and a breeze caressing your sweat-ridden jersey. The other room you can see there is Mr. Ajit Sandilya's; he's an institution unto himself. i felt like a barbarian when i stepped into his room the other day. Hmmm... I wonder how long these little pleasures of a carefree life will last. sniff sniff.

my native place contd..

Yeah… so where was I? Oh yeah. I’m very fortunate to have spent a lot of time there.

First, the household itself. I learnt something that most urban kids never do. Tolerance for other people and giving people their own space, yet remain as close as possible with people. A joint family can teach a lot of things to a person. But it can also be a royal pain in the butt if you have to live in a joint family all your life. So the two months a year schedule gave me a good taste of what it was and gave ample time for bonding with my family and yet was just right to prevent the bitterness from creeping in.

Then there’s the companionship. I had friends and virtually an infinite playground which, I can bet, no city kid will ever get. You could just lie in the fields looking at the cattle graze or climb a tree to pluck fruits. You could play cricket (yeah, the ground was uneven, but who cared?) or just climb hills for the heck of it. In short, the only thing that stopped you was your imagination. There’s not a thing we did not do. Following rills and rivulets down the mountain; go walking long distances watch village plays and yakshagana; drive the cattle to the nearest watering hole; getting bitten by I don’t know how many leeches (lucky I didn’t get bitten by a snake)…

And more importantly, the weather and the leisure. Millions of tourists pay thousands of dollars to go to places where they can just let their hair down and forget the world for a while. We just had to pay 200 bucks.

People used to look at me and say “enta pyate hudga aakkendu ee namni mann kalite” ( “What is this… being a city kid you go play in the muck like this!”) well… I’m glad I did. Every atom of the dirt I played with is precious to me.

My favourite haunt was (and still is) the lake on the other side of the main road within the forest. It is apparently one of the many sources of a bigger river called Aghanashini which goes on to create many waterfalls that are the trademark of Uttara Kannada. The place has these flat pebbles (yeah, better than the ones they show in the MotoPebl ad) than make excellent skipping stones. I was quite an expert at making stones skip. Haven’t yet lost touch, but well… I haven’t practicedJ) you can sit for hours there and not feel the passage of time.

If you find it weird that I am what I am inspite of all this, well… you don’t know me well enough yet, fella.

My native place

Let me tell you about this place called Chikkadi I call home... rather, my ancestral home. It sits prettily in the middle of the Western Ghats, somewhere halfway between Kumta and Sirsi off the highway. You take a left, (or a right, depending on which way you're travelling. Irrelevant, because there's hardly any possibility of getting it wrong in the middle of a forest road with a big sign screaming right at you.) and then walk or drive half a km into the forest. The road is muddy, as is expected, and calm. If you're the average urban resident used to the noise of the street, the first thing that you'd notice is the lack of any running motors or honking horns here. The silence is overwhelming, and if it were not for the chirping birds, one would go mad.
Then as you walk the road, you come to the plantation. Betelnut... Adike as they call it in Kannada. A keen observer would also find vanilla and pepper creepers hugging the pillar-like tree trunks.
The road is peppered with valuable trees like rosewood and teak, and honne and matti and nandi.
I asked my dad once if its safe to let them grow that way, without any security. He said it was not obvious, and few people (not even me, till he told me how to recognise it) could tell what tree was what. Another interesting reason he gave was that trees which were not straight had little value, because they were not good furniture material, or ‘Nata’. He said that’s why the trees from deep within the forest were more valuable because they were forced to go straight there due to competition.

Hmmm… back to the topic, as you walk down the path, you see the first signs of civilization. The plantation gives way to fields of paddy and sugarcane, and then a small pond. There is also a spring right on the road, which is seen only in the monsoons. The water table is very high there I suppose. And if it is monsoon, you would also see a number of rivulets running down to join the pond.

Chikkadi is right I the middle of the hills. You stand in the fields and you realize that you’re surrounded by hills on all sides, and the only access to the village is the road that leads into and then away from it. The greenery and the serenity around take your breath away. And then you come to an old traditional Havyaka household, but not before you see a young Sandalwood tree, if you can recognize it.

I’m lucky to have grown up here. For at least two months every year. Away from the stressful city life. I’ll tell you why in the next post.

stare

place: Home
doing: nothing.
music: Aqualung, Jethro tull

hmmm... was wondering. ever since i came home, i've ben staring at one screen or the other. i cam home, turned on tv. got bored, took up the phone and started messaging. got bored, turned the comp on and stared at google for a while. went back and turned tv on again.
i got a headache yesterday. no wonder.
why? why this life?

Has anyone read Edgar Allan Poe?

Well, i have. Atleast tried to. I dont think even a full fledged PhD in literature can ever say he perfectly made sense of all the stories. i just loved some of his stories. I suggest you try these:
1. The Tell Tale heart: not his most famous, but certainly (i think) the best.
2. Murders in the Rue Morgue-- did someone say detective novels?
3. Ms. found in a bottle-- beyond weird
4. The Black Cat-- this one's just too... shit! just read it!
5. The fall of the House of Usher
6. The Pit and the Pendulum-- this is makes you seriously contemplate the sanity of this guy.
It seems he almost starved his wife and mother in law to death once...
He married his thirteen year old cousin!!!
People admire him. Maybe for his outrageously absurd thinking, maybe for his profound understanding of the human psyche. All I can say is, I dont think there'll be another guy like him. Maybe he was a necrophile. His stories are so... what's the word... macabre. Morbid. Some are even grotesque, like [2]. i wont spoil the story by telling you what happens.
Oh, I almost forgot... The Raven- one poem i didnt really understand. Actually i read it in a hurry, and its not something you read in a hurry. I must get back to it.

Peace in the noisiest places...

i experienced something really interesting today. i went to marine drive with my friends. it was a beautiful evening, and the sun was going down. it wasn't that hot. in fact, it was getting rather cold. it's a great feeling to sit in the sun when the weather is cold. and we walked. all the way to nariman point and back. the place is beautiful in its own way. it wouldnt be the same without the crowd and the dirt. some people would say it's better without the crowd and the dirt, but you feel like a human island among so many people. your thoughts turn inward. and the dirt lets you concentrate on the sea instead. if you're a sea gazer, you'd not notice the dirt anyway. well, the sight of the sea brought a sense of peace to the mind. my friends, being a talkative lot, were worried about my silence. i dont think i'm silent anyway. the air india building and the hilton towers were like they were not there. imposing though they are, you can get lost in the vagueness of the sea. i discovered one thing about myself... i like being vague. especially on matters which demand explanation. probably explains why i like staring into the night sky and the sea so much.

I went to another lecture yesterday... this was by Dr. Manindra Agrawal, IIT Kanpur. he's a Clay Mathematics medal winner he's very famous for cracking a fast prime no. algorithm. the talk was about Fermat's last theorem and Elliptic curves. awesome talk. the ideas were just amazing. but it was a rather high level talk. I might have understood just 20 % of the talk. i loved the idea he introduced about the addition of points on the elliptic curve. but dont ask me anything as yet... i want to read some more on this stuff. i also want to get my hands on Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh.