When half the trip team comprised of INTROVERTS - TTTT 16

One such epic trip it was. I do not want to disclose where I went to during this trip, nor I want to disclose who all were there.

So all in all there were like 10 people and out of which I figured out 5 people were introverted.

Apparently during the trip, I could not figure out who's who. But now after so much time is through, I did realize half the team was actually introverted.

Now ain't that a beautiful coincidence.

Do we end up finding so many such people in one go, I don't atleast not on many occasions. And one such occasion was this!

Cheers

When the city of Kolkota charmed us, in a unique way - TTTT 15

Its been almost a year and half since I went to Kolkota. I was travelling to North East, Sikkim to be precise and there you go, I had to go through Kolkota/NJP and then cross over to Sikkim.

So both while going to and coming back from Sikkim we were like in transit through Kolkota leaving us with less time each time.

Kolkota has its own share of beautiful things to offer, like the street food, the metro, historical buildings and much more. So while coming back to Bangalore from Sikkim, we again made our way to Kolkota and this time, our team member chose to alight at Dakshineshwar railway station.

 I really do not know why we chose to visit the Dakshineshwar temple and visit Belur Math, considering we had only till afternoon, after which we had to board our flight to Bangalore!

It was indeed fun, the temple visit, the jetty ride, seeing the place once occupied by Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the big statue of Swami Vivekanand. It took us right down the memory lane reminding us of what has been Kolkota's contribution to the Indian Freedom struggle.

So many awesome people came from the same land where we stood, it felt good, it felt sentimental, and we had nothing but loads of respect. So many greats not only with respect to freedom, with respect to intellects like Sri Rabindranath Tagore and self awakened men like Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Swami Vivekanand, Sri Ishwar Chandra Vidya Sagar, had once moved on the same piece of land where we actually stood.

It felt so good. The dust which blew over us, once did too on these great men. The jetty ride across Hoogly river, the Belur Mutt, though it was closed, was so much awesome.

Then finally the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose airport, the same airport, where once, the Great Netaji had moved along, stepped onto, just reminded us of Bengal and its contributions to the great Indian freedom struggle. Much can never be said, but one has to experience the air which moves around this great land, the dust which just blows over in order to get a taste of how it feels like to be a part of this great city and state.

So it was not the street food which charmed us, but the history which indeed did. And I do have loads of respect for this great state and city, its people, without which our freedom movement wouldn't be the same and literary contribution too, wouldn't be the same!

Cheers.

When a stranger called us his children in Uttarakhand - TTTT 14

This tale is almost an year old, when in 2015, we had a trek in Uttarakhand. We had completed our Auden's Col trek and had traveled to a hill station called Kaddukal. This place is famous for Sarkunda Devi temple which is at a height of 9500m. Going to the temple is a good 25 minutes uphill walk.

Apart from the temple there were few houses which we mostly into the hill. There was a guest house where we had taken accomdation. Along with it, we had a solo hotel where we had our breakfast/lunch/dinner evening tea whatever.

This place seemed to be crowded during the day and over the evening it was tad empty. None whatsoever. Though the temple seemed to be open 24 hours on the occasion of a festival.

So we got introduced to this owner of this hotel. Since we were staying in this hill station for 3 days, we pretty much got pretty comfortable with the owner of this hotel.

And on the second day, we had come out to have dinner and the owner of this hotel a man in his 60's I guess, was there having his evening drink with his friend. So when we wished the owner of hotel, his friend curiously asked him who are these people.

To which the owner replied - "Yeh log hamare bete jaise hi hein.. Bangalore se aayein hein.. ".

It was indeed a surprising sweet gesture. By the way the above statement translated to - "These people are like my sons, they have come all the way from Bangalore.."

India is a very nice place, you end up getting connected, all out of nowhere!

Cheers,

When we ended the beach trek with a swim in the waters - TTTT 13

The best part of a beach trek is that, we get to take a dip in water whenever we would like to. But most of the time, people are busy walking so taking a dip in water all alone is not entertained.

But we generally do not miss out on a dip in water once the trek is through. This time too, we abandoned the trek around 5pm along Haldipur beach. So we boarded the vehicle and then moved ahead to some unknown beach before Apsarakonda and then took a dip in water.

Evening tides were pretty high and it was fun. Less crowd and entire stretch of beach all for ourselves. What more we can expect?

A pleasant end to the day and the trek. We then proceeded towards a hotel in Kumta for dinner and then by 10 pm we were ready to depart towards Bangalore. Another attempt in travelling to coastal Karnataka had been a success!

Cheers,

a pic from the beach!

When we cooked an awesome dinner on a trek.- TTTT 12

Beach trek is one of my favorite treks, the reason being, its relaxing. There is no need to hurry it up. There is no train to catch, no time restrictions to complete, come out, which usually happens when inside a forest. Plus anytime we get bored, we just end up saying quit since the road runs parallel to the beach!

So this time, on our trek from Gokarna to Honnavara, we decided to stop at Holanagadde Sri Ramanjaneya temple. The best part of this stop over is that, the temple is capable of accomodating many people. There is place to cook and a place to get refreshed. So before starting the trek, we had requested our van to come over to the temple premises.

With many people on board this trek, you can imagine a good fair amount of ration was in store.

We had many such vegetables alongside fair share of rice too. Evening menu was Bisi Bele Bath and sweet payasam. We had expert cooks on this trip and believe me, this dinner turned out exquisite. With all the dry fruits and clarified butter (ghee) it was second to none. Ate till stomach was full and then slept in the temple premises.

But the way preparation went it was just pretty awesome and we sat in a line and took turns to finish cleaning. And your's truly that is me was responsible for washing and cleaning the cauldron and few other utensils. By the time, I finished cleaning many other people had settled themselves up for a good long night's sleep.

And by the way, I have not mentioned how many people were there as a part of this trek group. Well the number of people we cooked food was 30. Yes, 28 team members of the trek and 2 including driver and cleaner. You can now imagine how many vegetables dry fruits and ghee has been consumed!

Cheers, one more such tale! and who would have imagined we would end up cooking and eating such an awesome dinner, something to cherish for a lifetime!

Cheers,

When I lost my way in a trek.- TTTT 11

One of my all time favorite treks is none other than the beach trek. No matter how many times, I do a beach trek, I shamelessly end up registering for another. This time was no common.

We were on the Honnavara to Gokarna stretch. I covered this stretch. But around this time, it was Gokarna to Honnavara, yup exactly reverse the stretch covered previously.

We were supposed to camp at Holanagadde beach, rather, camp at Sri Ramanjaneya Temple Hollanagadde. So on this first day, we had to cover from Gokarna Om beach to Holanagadde.

And in between we do encounter a stretch which needs to be crossed on a ferry since there is an absence of land to walk on!

And its over here your's truly lost his way. The tadadi port ferry line starts at the entrance of the village and it is a deviation from the main road.

Since I was coming alone jay walking, I did not find the deviation and instead ended up right in the village following the main road.

As I leapt ahead I could not find others and kind of freaked out. Few people who had seen me go this way, had followed me. And now, I was amidst the village.

Along the main road in the village, I could locate an area where the fishing boats were parked or a harbor kind of thing. These were actually commercial fishing boats. They brought fish from the sea to be transported by trucks. So I ended up amidst a bunch of fishermen, who were taking a break after hard work.

I enquired where was the ferry to Aghanashini available at and they pointed to me a location almost 400 m from where I was standing. They in turn asked me my where abouts, where I was from and what was I doing in the fishing yard.  I told them and proceeded to locate my trek mates.

There you go, when I reached the boatmen was shouting because the boat was getting delayed by us and believe me this was the last boat for the hour, next boat would be only after 1 hour or else we had to charter a boat for ourselves which would rather be expensive.

So I got in and there you go, full team was on the boat and we crossed river Aghanashani!
One more interesting encounter.

Cheers,

When we started cooking dinner at night 11 30 (PM) - TTTT 10

There are days when we travel to far places to trek. So travel time itself is huge! It was one such occasion. Reaching Honnavara from Bangalore was the plan.

Late start from Bangalore and there you go, reaching Honnavara was a big ask. It was nothing short of 500 kilometers. And then, we went through Sirsi and there you go, one more pitstop a temple visit and all that.

So it was 12 in the afternoon when we finally made it to our trek start point. We started in the summer heat with temperature around 38 degrees and high humidity.

After two hours we reached our camping place, base camp. We had our lunch, the problem is the water falls was a good 6-7 kilometers away and it was all rocky path.

So we started around 3pm towards the water fall and boy we made it around 6pm, when it was about to turn dark. Soon we took turns to visit the waterfalls bathed in waterfalls and in another 45 mins we were about to start.

It was turning dark and it was full moon day, We were up against a dark dark night amidst forest all for ourselves. Navigating with torch lights, sure it was fun. But we reached back to our base camp at around 11 PM. Once we made sure our tarpaulins were all laid out we soon embarked on the journey of cooking.

And there you go, cooking at 11:30 PM in the night. Above that, your's truly that is me was trying desperately breaking a big tree trunk with a blunt machete.

It was fun, doing all those crazy antics in the middle of the night. Once dinner was ready at 12 AM, we ate, it was rice with puliyogre mix.

So there goes the after effects of starting a trek late and ending it even late!

Cheers,

Motivation for writing about cab/shuttle drivers and about tales from travel

I have been writing about cab drivers and tales from travel, wonder what motivated me to write about it. I am not sure, I have really opened up about that, if not, I guess time is ripe to let it out before I forget and it takes months together.

Reasons include -

• Increasing number of posts.
• Getting the number up with burst of short posts which take lesser effort than long story telling, well, that is my motto.
• Interesting encounters
• There are tonnes of interesting encounters which I had in the last couple of years owing to travel, writing would end up in a book for that matter.
• Getting to know myself
• Writing opens up more info about oneself than anything else. 
• Experienced hands.
• Meeting different people, not only gets their culture going, but also lets out their experience speak. People who are driving vehicles for large part of a decade, the problems they have encountered, what makes them click, its all part of learning curve.
• To write about uncommon things
• Who could have imagined, writing about travel/tale experiences would lead to recollecting and reminiscing so many funny and awesome incidents.
• Its not everyday that I tend to notice intricacies involved in other activities, like travelling.
• Sometimes, we are so much head over heels about our jobs or profession that, we fail to notice, other people too, what value add they bring to our ecosystem. Like the guide for our treks, porters, helpers, these people come in handy when it requires the most.
• I think, meeting them, interacting with them, opens up a whole new box of knowledge which ceases to exist within books.
• Experience is a great teacher and believe me, their experience just shows.
• Reading books and gaining a degree is one side, braving a real storm is another!
• Met drivers who were themselves ace mechanics.
• Met drivers who drove from Bangalore to Bihar/Assam/Kolkota on trucks/car/pickup.
• To add later

As of now can recollect these points, but sure shall add more,

Cheers,

Shuttle driver #15 - A driver who previously drove a truck, 10 wheeler

As I try to do multiple tasks at the minute, I recollect having a wonderful shuttle driver recently. Once in a while we do have shuttle drivers who have driven exceptional vehicles. From an ambulance to a, soda bottle carrying 6 wheeler, and now a proper 10 wheeled truck.

So, this driver, was a temporary one, probably for an evening's drop. He was around 5 ft and looking very slim. He started out with the vehicle in a very rough way. I mean it crossed potholes rather hurriedly. I was quick to assume that the driver had poor visibility and thought he was in a haste.

Then, since the vehicle as pretty new, we asked the driver about its ownership details. He told us it was his own self vehicle, and a week old, thats it. So we asked him what was he driving before and what made him buy a new vehicle.

Considering, he was so slightly built, I some how got a feeling, he was probably driving a 6 wheeler, but the real surprise came when he said, he owned a 10 wheeler Leyland truck on partnership with one more person and had run into loss. His family feared accidents would happen while driving a truck and hence scaled him down to a Tata Indica.

Its not very often we get a driver who responds to our question and has previously driven a truck. So the conversation began with a small hint that the driver was eating betel nut and gutka / zarda whatever. It somehow turns out people from North Karnataka eat pan masala gutkha while drivers from South Karnataka smoke cigarettes. The pattern is consisent.

Over here too, it matched, the driver was from Raichur and had been in Bangalore for over 15 years. For the good part of 6 years, he had owned and driven a truck and prior to that, he had joined as helper for a MAN Truck. I wonder, MAN Truck existed in India 6 years back? Need to check on that.

So we asked where all he had been his truck and about his bad experiences while visiting other places. He had been to Bihar, Assam from Karnataka and had carried loads of potatoes, onions, groundnuts and few other things for that matter.

Regarding bad experiences, he told he was robbed of his stepney in Mumbai once and nothing else. He also insisted he carried less money and had only a ATM card with money, so he felt very secure.

We also spoke about Tata trucks versus Leyland trucks. I was under the impression Leyland was in huge demand and performed better. But he corrected me saying, Tata trucks were better off pulling heavy loads when compared to Leyland. I'm sure its individual perception, but still, TATA has a loyal customer in him, even though he owned a Leyland truck.

There goes one more driver intro, almost 5 months have passed since I have written about the driver series, the reason being we had consistent Toyota Innova cab till March.

Cheers,

PS - Now back to some reading!

A driver who gave sweets/chocolates for his birthday - TTTT 9

I would like to key in this post, before I forget this incident. It happened so, on one of our trek/travel, we found a very jovial driver. He was very much casual, and friendly.

So once the trek was over, we were about to return to Bangalore and the driver proudly announced, it was his birthday. He was organizing a liquor party and cake cutting with friends once he reached Bangalore. But before that the most unexpected thing happened.

Well, he purchased sweets and chocolates and distributed them amongst us travellers, me my friends. I mean, what more can you expect, even after many years of travelling, this was the first one of a kind incident.

Cheers,

Last 2 weeks at office

Last two weeks at office have been pretty rough. It all started with me losing 20% of my bonus. It came as a rude shock as quite a bit of money was in jeopardy.

I really did not know what to do, the amount was yet to be given to me on paper. I had seen on the basis of amount given as a part of salary.

Nothing was going well this season. Temperatures around was horrible, travel this month was almost impossible. Working out during summer and following a diet has been thrown off gear. Loads of reasons to crib about. And on top of this, I get nothing in the form of bonus.

I could be quiet and quite satisfied with the outcome, had I not performed. In fact the non performing team members had gotten more bonus amount than me. I literally lost my sleep. I felt like beating the living hell out of everyone out there.

Well, I can say non performing, the reason being, I was continuously working on production issues, end user support, talking to onsite people, local QA, onsite QA, doing screen sharing with onsite QA for issue replication, giving builds/fixes for production issues, doing hell a lot of work and there you go, whilst the others, yup, I bet, did lesser than this, though they were working on development issues. I do development work but highly occupied into production sustaining work since last 3 months plus atleast.

Yep, development work gets far more time and no one to return back to until QA passes it. Production work has the management standing on you, asking updates from you and the questions of timeline. Its like asking for trouble.

And then the inevitable happened. Lack of exercise due to summer was taking a toll on me. And then the stress levels were increasing too. On top of that, was continuously being pin pointed to in the meetings for being quiet and not participating.

So finally, I had to really stretch some muscle and tell people who's who in the team.

When I was finally called for discussion regarding performance bonus, with our Sr Director, I told, let me bring my laptop. Though my director insisted on not having my laptop for meeting, I still carried it over there.

And boy, did I make a big dent over there. I made clear what work I had done, and I even pointed to what work others had done and I unleashed hell a lot of uncomfortable questions which our's truly director gave answers, which according to my standards, were nothing short of unsatisfactory.

I even showed exact statistics of how people were misusing official time, going for food courts, how when I was on leave, people were so apathetic that, they could not do even a screen share with onsite team. Just shows, whose got real guts after all to deal with US/Europe teams. (Well, one is me of course, now I can say that proudly!)

Finally the tide turned to my side, and the meeting ended abruptly, when two people interrupted us, since our director had other meetings too.

Before leaving, he told, meeting is not fully done and held back the bonus letter, not before folding the paper exactly in half.

So there you go, its almost a week to that incident, and I anxiously wait for my new bonus letter which should have turned up with a 100% number. (though I was targeting 120%).

And my biggest achievement was not losing temper. If I generally lose temper, I do not care who is around. So this time, I kept quite and directed all my difficult to answer questions to our director.

Next installment of our meeting, well, few more statistics and few more uncomfortable questions, and I guess, more embarrassment not for me though!.

Cheers,

Guess who am I?

Disclaimer -

This is a humorous post. Contents have got no connection whatsoever, with any person
This post comes out of nowhere. Its all about clues and hunting down the person in picture. Can you guess who it is. I have loads of clues in the form of traits of this person.

Who the person am I talking about.

1. My age is around 45 years.

2. I have been married for quite some time now, and I in-fact have two kids, the older of whom is about 14 years old.

3. I have a master's degree from an American University and a Bachelor's degree from an Indian University.

4. During the peak of my career, I worked in America.

5. Nobody in India, knows about what work I did in America.

6. I boast of loads of stuffs that I did in America, most of which is known only by people who are no longer in contact with me.

7. In other words what work I did in America, is known only to me, not even my employer. I might have done bathroom cleaning, but I end up pretending that, I have ended up discovering something unique.

8. I showcase myself as someone who is highly professional, conducts himself with integrity. In reality, I do nothing for which I am paid for.

9. By the way, I am paid huge in India too. May be 30 Lakhs upwards.

10. My daily routine starts with coming to office at 9 am and leaving at 6pm.

11. Though the office business hours is 12 Noon to 9 PM, I still follow my own time, you see, I need work life balance.

12. Do hell with those onsite calls with Stakeholders, I can manage it from home.

13. I can manage the calls from home, and not ordinary employees, because I am kind of superior animal, remember my pay packet and what I boast of my work in America mostly a decade back.

14. By the way, nobody listens to me in office, nor nobody tells me anything in office.

15. I have to poke at every other person to understand what is going on in the office/project/meetings whatever. Irony is still I am being paid 30plus Lakhs.

16. So much money for what, well you can congratulate me for fooling the management and coaxing them into retaining me and firing 30 odd people at leaf level node, who do the hard hard work, during the recession time of course.

17. I go for lunch on time. I take my tea on time. I also take strolls across the office floor during business hours to keep my metabolism up.

18. The last part of the previous point is rather untrue. I take a stroll around the floor just to evesdrop into others conversation, just to figure out who is talking what and with whom.

19. Since no one gives me any status nor much work is assigned to me, I generally have minimal responsibilities. So during business hours, I still find time to check social networking sites on my mobile. I chat with my family members too.

20. Forgot to mention I own 3 cars. one driven by me, one by my wife who also works and one spare.

21. I have loans to pay. Loan for the 3BHK condo plus, for kids schooling, future etc etc. That's what makes me come to office.

22. I have no interest in taking any responsibility in work whatsoever. The people who are ready to get fired are there. In case of any urgent meetings, I end up extending my stay may be weekly once.

23. People have got no clues on what I am doing in the company, but one thing is for sure, my job is secure. I can retire over here, that too with zero or minimal responsibilities, very few deliverables, etc etc.

24, I try to talk meaningful in each conversations but barely scratch the roof, forget hitting the foundations.

25. I can retire and go home, and try to do something more meaningful with life, or rather, can provide a more valuable person a chance at my position. But I am tightly bound to this home loan responsibilities. Mind you, I have a crore rupees plus of savings and considering my wife also works, I am in luck. But still I won't let go of this easy money!

Can you guess who am I?

I am like a Manager in a software company. I am going through a mid life crisis rather. Unable to take active part in work at the same time, cannot quit my post due to home loans and other insecurities. I do not know where I will end up. But for the last 20 odd years sustaining in the IT industry.

Hope no one comes to know about me or rather my background, previous companies etc etc. Because once a risk taker always a risk taker.

I'm a no risk taker all my life. No wonder, I have not done much in America. I just pretend and boast about my Master's degree from an American University and I have paid to get a neat resume written. No one can figure about my previous work experience.

Cheers,

When we unknowingly landed in an international competition venue - TTTT 8

Yes please, we landed at the venue for an international competition. Infact two days after we reached there was the international competition.

World paragliding championship was happening at Bir, Himachal Pradesh. We had completed our 12 day Himalayan trek and ended up at Bir.

Bir was the place where para-gliders used to take off. They would in-turn land at Billing which was a place at a little lower altitude.

We could see loads of foreigners alongside Indians as well. Few of our team members did paragliding too. So we had to get down to Billing as well.

That is how we got to witness preparations for an awesome world wide event happening in India, after we got to trek the Himalayas.

Its sad I do not have pictures of this interesting bit of travel,

Cheers,

Catching up lost sleep... Not so alcoholic after all.

Today I slept for more than 6 hours during the day time itself. 2.5 hours in the morning to late afternoon then it was 3+ hours during the evening, 3 45 pm to 7 20 pm.

I had travelled out of town and trekked hard for the 2 out of the last 3 weekends and other than that I was working out in the gym rest of the days.

My parents were shocked when they saw me sleep so much. I had not slept like this in the last 5 plus months odd. I used to sleep during weekends but it used to be 1 hour max 2 hours. I was wondering, what may be the reason for this.

I have been bit irregular at the gym this week, not working out regularly and absentee for the last 3 days and on weekend reason being out of town.

I did not have the usual after effects of workout, plus I had food, plus I had the satisfaction that I had got to travel out overcoming my mood swings. All this made me sleep like crazy. But the real thing was I had not worked out, working out induces pain, which rather disrupts deep sleep.

Your legs, shoulders, thighs are aching constantly, you feel purturbed by their movement, then how do we get deep sleep. Well that is what I think. It may be one of the reason, I have not slept properly in the last few months. Properly meaning this depth.

So, what is the solution for getting deep sleep even after work out. How do people who do manual labor get to sleep deep?

The answer is universal. Yes, that is what I told my parents all about, who again and again insist I am in bad company!

Its LIQUOR / ALCOHOL. Yes, please, though this may be my conclusion, I feel its pretty true. Why do people doing manual labor drink alcohol, why do drivers, especially truck drivers drink. Its this pain which makes sleep a far factor which makes them drink.

I am writing based on my personal experience, without hard work and without alcohol.

There have been days after my Himalayan treks where I had sleepless nights owing to the changes in altitude, plus location etc etc. Those days I was craving for sleep after a hard hard trek, but it never came. I used to wake up at 3 am in the morning, without sleep till 6-7 am and then sleep.

On such days I wish, I had a 90ml handy. But none whatsoever. I suffered without sleep.

My parents insist that, I have fallen into bad company talking about drinking, but the truth is, its more out of necessity than out of the need for sheer indulgence. Same with people who do hard hard work and who need a good sleep to get back to work and concentrate.

Cheers, and loads of respect to those people who put in hard hard work. Enjoy your drink guys!

When 500 kilometers took 12+ hours by road - TTTT 7

This one is like a continuation from the previous TTTT post. We had completed our beach trek, night dinner and were about to start to Bangalore by road from Gokarna. The bus chosen was a 22 seater. It was a nice group.

We reached Bangalore around 10 30 AM the next day, though we had started at 9 15 PM the previous night. There were few reasons:

- The route we had chosen, we had decided to come to Haveri and then hit NH4 and then to Bangalore, instead of the usual, Jog Falls, Shimoga road. Reason being 4 lane versus 2 lane.

- The vehicle which we had chosen had a front wheel wobble after or at 80 kmph. So the moment we touched 80, it used to wobble so bad that we had to cut down speed.

- We were driving at night, plus the driver had not slept properly for the last 2 days, reason being humidity along the coastal areas.

- The driver stopped at Chitradurga for some 1.5 hours. He just dozed off after stopping. So he was actually running short of sleep.

- Once we reached Tumkur, we stopped for a hotel at Kyatasandra. So this took around 45 minutes more! People were so fond of breakfast, considering, we would anyways be reaching Bangalore late, we could rather make the most of it, by eating yummy breakfast. Well that's what people thought!

Here we were, needing to reach office and there you go, reaching Bangalore was like an epic on this vehicle. I was like sitting close to the driver in the cabin, reason being, it was extremely hot and no one was ready to open windows in the vehicle.

The whole night, I was like gawking at the oncoming traffic on NH4, but one thing is for sure, it was not scary as we presume. Night driving on NH4 is surely possible.

Well, there goes one more tale! Couldnt reach office that day instead to chose to Work From Home!

Cheers,

When we ate free food after the trek - TTTT 6

This happened during November 2013, yep, almost 2 years back. We had completed our Beach trek, from Honnavara to Gokarna. We had one round of play in the backwaters of OM Beach.

The time was around 6 PM. It was time to get a fresh water bath and then head back to Bangalore. Instead the group chose something else. A visit to Gokarna Lord Shiva temple. The time flew and it was around 8PM. We thought, let us complete the dinner (prasadam) which was being served very close to the temple.

We completed the dinner and started towards Bangalore around 9 15 pm. Reached Bangalore around 10 30 am the next day.

Well, that's loads of time. The reason being, well, it can fit into another tale (blogpost) after all!

Cheers,

When we crossed state borders to pee - TTTT 5

During our weekend trips, we do many a time cross state borders, meaning we enter other states.  Entering other state by road requires vehicle permit for taxi segment vehicles. There have been couple of occasions, where we had chance to cross over to other state via the forest by walk of course!

The forest has no boundaries, but if we are caught in other state forest, we could get fined unless we have proper permission. Yes, unfortunately the forests too are demarkated, saying which part of the forest falls under which state.

During this trek, we started our road journey from Karnataka, crossed over into TamilNadu, then started the trek. During the trek we crossed over to the Kerala side, and then we completed the trek. We had to take a jeep ride from Kerala to TamilNadu border.

The jeep crossed the Kerala side and entered into the Tamilnadu side, and then stopped. It was over here at a distance of 0.5 kilometers, that our vehicle was parked. So before we could locate where our vehicle was, we thought of relieving ourselves.

Considering there were many people and checkposts in the Tamilnadu side, we thought it would not be a correct idea to do so. Ahead there were many street lights because of which we turned down.

So now only option left was to go back to Kerala side of the road which was a bit dark,

That is how we crossed the state borders just to pee!

Strange things do happen while travelling, its just about making them happen and recollecting them!

Cheers,

Shuttle driver #14 - Driver who drove the same car for 11 years and still counting!

Finally the jinx was broken. We had a good Toyota Innova cab doing duty for the last 5 months and now all of a sudden due to cost cutting, we have moved back to Non AC cabs, like Indica Sumo.

The Kengeri route shuttle ever so remains so skeptical, that, we wonder each day, whether it will be a 4 seater or an 8 seater.

Each day a new cab, yesterday was no difference. We had a cab and finally talking to the driver, we came to know, he was driving for the past 25 years!

Starting from truck/bus/Tempo traveller, now to a 4 seater cab. The thing he said was he was the single owner/driver for the vehicle, which he had since 2005.

Yes 11 years, driving a single vehicle. I asked him, did you not get bored driving the same vehicle, wanting to move to a higher capacity vehicle.

He replied saying, he also owned a Tempo traveller, which he would drive once he got bored, next weekend he had a tour Kerala side!

So asked him about vehicle engine repairs in the last 11 years, for which he said, engine was re-bored, with piston changes, engine head, camshaft changes after 5 Lakh kilometers. The car had done, more than 8 lakh kilometers in the last 11 years.

The driver told, whatever he had earned today,was because of this vehicle. His savings in the last few years were all attributed to this vehicle. The way he said was very emotional indeed!

By the way, I forgot to mention which vehicle was he driving. Do I need to? It was a Tata Indica of course!

Cheers,

Top respect #Mahindra

There have been multiple occasions when I have taken jeep rides on non existent roads. Meaning on pathways littered with stones rocks, or paths where your normal cars/two wheeler refuse to ride.

On each such occasion, I have traveled in a Mahindra jeep. I have always been a huge fan of Mahindra vehicles, its sad that I could not afford one, 6 years back!

So after our Sunday's jeep ride from some forest out of nowhere near Munnar to Kerala-TamilNadu border, I just thought, about what real toughness is all about.

I guess thats what Mahindra vehicles stand for esp Mahindra Jeeps, Mahindra Bolero, Mahindra MaxR. I'm not counting in Scorpio/Xylo/XUV in this list, because, I have never seen them being driven over such pathways.

It has always been bare basic jeeps, if not Bolero/MaxR/Pickup truck.

Its one department, where Mahindra wins easily with no competition. Many reasons exist, so let me list  them

- One cannot ride Range Rover over such roads. the cost of Range Rover parts to the cost of Mahindra spare parts differ by leaps and bounds.

- Weight - Mahindra Jeeps especially, weigh very less, they carry no weight by themselves apart from their subframe and a bare minimal body and top. They literally have less weight, where as other vehicles weight tonnes.

- Technological advancement - Many other off-roaders come with so much technological advancement, electronics that, it hurts to pay for these gadgets to run them in the wild. But Mahindra runs with bare minimum technology even with the engine. So cost of buying one is extremely less especially, if you want to ride them where there are no roads.

- Repair - Repairing them is simple as each part is visible to the naked eye. Unlike other vehicles, where many parts are hidden within a fort of body work, Mahindra jeep has most parts reachable by hand, even electricals, (btw are there any electricals, yes there are).

- Engine - DI Engine (no fuss engine 2.5L / 3.2L), every hard working man's dream (including mine). Loads of torque, grunt and able to take tonnes of load. Can newer technology replace this one, I doubt! Simple parts, can be repaired by village mechanic, no add-ons in the form of Turbo, intercooler. All power / torque by natural aspiration, not by shitty forced induction!

So here is one such post dedicated to Mahindra expressing gratitude for all those jeep rides which have taken us away from civilization into wilderness and brought us back to civilization and also to loads of other people who earn their livelihood because of these hard core off road Mahindra vehicles.

And if you want one example of "Make In India", you have it in front of your eyes, since 50 plus years, even before " Make In India " concept was born.

Its sad to see each individual is hesitant to buy a Mahindra (though being Indian) because they just cant accept the fact that its built so tough, instead choose cheaper Japanese/Korean alternatives! (quoting escape reasons such as niggling vehicle issues, back-pain etc,which leaves me giggling)

My only regret is I could have taken additional loan and brought a Mahindra 6 years back, that's another story, but I would have dearly missed falling in love with a TATA.

I can tell, my regret gets nullified though. Someday I hope to own a Mahindra Bolero XL Plus, a 7+1 seater, with a good engine, preferably a CRDE preferably with a Turbocharger and intercooler. (MEagle engine I mean).

Considering, that spec is not available for production(my guess), I am not thinking about buying one though and after driving and being driven around in an Innova, I guess, I am in a dilemma.

Cheers,

When we got invited for free food - TTTT 4

This was during one of our recent treks. We were along the coastal side, very close to Honnavara at a place called Gundabagal. So there is this temple of Goddess Lakshmi Devi where we were visiting. There was a wedding happening at the temple courtyard. So preparations for a huge dinner was on the way. May be for even an evening snacks.

We had completed our trek and had cooked an afternoon lunch. Seeing this mega dinner preparation opened our eyes. I exclaimed to one of my friend, only if someone would invite us for this feast. My friend was also of the same opinion.

Two of our team members were from the coastal region only. So there was this place behind the temple where Yaksha Gana was being performed every night. They went to inquire about the same. In the process they started to speak in Tulu and were guided to the exact place where Yaksha Gana happened.

While me and my friend were happening to be seated at the entrance of the temple, this person with whom my friend's had spoken in Tulu spoke to us too. Apparently, he was the uncle of the girl who was getting married. So after a round of introductions and some more insight into the happenings of Yaksha Gana, guess what happened?

He invited us for having some snacks and then leave for Bangalore. It came out of nowhere, our wish had turned into reality. Since we were so far from Bangalore around 440 kilometers and had to reach Bangalore by 5 am, we turned down the offer, considering snacks would be served a bit late.

Cheers,