Nagarhole ... the abode of snakes

Contrary to the name, the place did not have a single snake, or I would say that we did not look at the right places. Anyway, the place was out of the moon, with great weather to boot ... Nagarhole is a wildlife sanctuary, which is famous for Tigers. Though the place where we went did not have a lot of visible wildlife, maybe because it was too open an area, but it was ideal for campers like us from my company, who were basically looking for some time off from a hectic schedule in the office. The trip was completely organized by one of our colleagues, Gayathri and what a fine place she found ... Tucked away in the solitary confines of Coorg, near the sleepy town Virajpet, lies the sanctuary Nagarhole ...
An overnight journey by bus from Bangalore, where we were intent on creating some commotion even in the dying hours of the night, and had to be sternly told by the other passengers and the conductor to shut up and sleep, landed us in Virajpet at 7 in the morning. A quick wash and we were off to the next part of our journey, which took us to our base camp.
A hot breakfast awaited us and after that, we were off to conquer the first hill in sight, and what a climb it was. The first sight of the hill did not matter much, but once we started the climb, it was a real tough one. Added to the steep nature of the hill, was the nausea that generally accompanies any climb to great heights. But the sight from the top, was one for the Gods to see, a large expanse of greenery, with cool breeze blowing away. During the climb, the sun was blazing down on us, but once we reached the top, it was as if someone had turned on a AC and the clouds all around us just settled down on the mountain top. This drove the guys to start an impromptu antakshari out there and that was few moments of good fun as guys sang songs with the clouds all around us. Getting down was another scary trip as the slope was nearly vertical. After the mountain climb, the giude told us that there was a waterfall near the camp ... and browbeat us to start a walk towards the fall. Unfortunately we did not realise that the waterfall was a good 5 Kms and the walk was one real long one ... but what we saw at the end of the walk was worth it ... and the water was really ice cold ....
The night bought out the bottles of wine and vodka .. and hardcore gambling along with songs and tribal dances about a fire. People went to sleep literally fagged out after a long and gruelling day. The next day, we went to a nearby falls ... but that was not as good as the one which we saw here ... and there was just time for catching the bus back home as the next day we had to attend office again. This trip though was memorable for more reasons than one, as we got to see the beauty of nature, in all its unsullied glory. There would be more trips to come, and more fun.

After a long time ...

Well ... after a long time, it's time to start afresh on this forum ... as everyone would say, a lot of water has flown under the bridge, and it would take a lot of describing if I were to actually describe all the events till date. Some of the interesting events are, my convocation in IIT Delhi, our office trip to a remote jungle in Coorg, Nagarhole (Residence of the snakes .. in local lingo ... pity we never found a single one out there), a second trip along with the company guys to another remote area near Shimoga, Honnemarudu, our company playing a corporate tournament, and currently reaching the semis of the tournament, current issues which are hot topics of debate in the media, like the reservation ruckus that is happening, the death of Kannada matinee idol Dr. RajKumar, and the mayhem that followed after that ... let me tackle these one by one.
Convocations are generally very austere ceremonies and are supposed to be treated in that way, with the utmost respect to the educational institution that has given the individual so much. What I saw in IIT Delhi was something which was pretty opposite to the purpose of the ceremony itself. The basic courtesy of sitting through the ceremony, as the oath is only taken at the end was not adhered to by most of the people out there, the authorities also turning a blind eye to all the people leaving the hall as the investiture ceremony was going on did not help matters. Anyway, missed some of my classmates who couldn't make it there due to various reasons, especially Col. Nigam and Sooraj. The fact that we worked in the same lab for our final year projects, was a great factor in our good camaraderie, and feeling of togetherness. Well, thats it for now ... will update this more regularly now .... after Bibek has made my blog a public interface ... by publishing this blog id in our yahoo group ...