BTFYA 9 - Less than ideal :).

The final post of the series :). I have to say I enjoyed doing this, though I am sad that it is ending at 9 posts (I don't like odd numbers - one of my quirks :-D). I wish I could have stretched it to one more, but don't want to write anything just for the sake of writing it :). But whatever I have written I am plenty happy with and thats whats important..

Five years ago, as a new bride, I wanted everything to be ideal. But more than everything else, I wanted myself to be ideal - the ideal wife, the ideal daughter-in-law and when the time would come, the ideal mother. I cannot speak for everyone, but I think most girls feel like this. We are always conditioned like that by our parents who are in turn pressured by the society as such. Anyways as I was saying, I wanted to follow all the rules in the non-existent book, so to say. I didn't want to be the rotten apple of the bunch :-D.

But things have a way of going in the opposite direction of how you want them to and isn't that the truth! Not that I'm the rotten apple :-D. I have always been basically a goody-two-shoes in a devil's clothing ;-). So sticking to my own "rules" wasn't the hardship I imagined it to be. But slowly I realized that the definition of "ideal" is different to different people. Though you may think that you have been ideal in doing certain things, there will always be people to contradict you and make you think otherwise. I can't really blame them, because their definition of "ideal" was most certainly something else. The more I struggled to be ideal, the more I realized that I was losing myself. Idealism is an illusion, created by a few unknown people, which only serves in making you miserable.

Moreover, it didn't matter whether I was ideal or not. It never does. People around me were never ideal (yup, according to me :-D) and the situations almost always weren't. For a relationship to work, the effort has to be from both sides, be it in any relationship. If the one side is exerting all the effort, never appreciated for the work put in, while the other side is still venting out frustrations without putting in any effort, then the relationship is doomed no matter what. My dad always says that "You try as hard as you can and don't expect the other person to do the same". For example his saying about a simple phone call is "You make a call to the elders out of respect (even if they don't call you) and you make a call to the younger ones because they don't know better" :-D. Very ideal, I know :-D. I have always tried and followed that (and its not only in the matter of phone calls), but still it gets to me sometimes that most people around me don't try as hard as I do. So how is it ideal in anyway?

For a relationship to work, both sides have to make adjustments. There has to be give and take. But as I said earlier, I felt that while making those changes, I was losing a part and later most of myself. If you are compromising everything, even your true self to make a situation ideal, then who is it ideal for? It certainly wasn't for me. I found myself over-thinking, over-emotional and upset with everything, with even myself. And I realized that sacrificing myself for the greater good is certainly not the thing for me :-D. I have made certain adjustments and they are a part of me now, but all in all, I am what I am. If you can't accept me the way I am, then there is nothing I can do about it (I cannot harm my true self for the so-called well-wishers' sake). One of the women quite close to me once said that she has adjusted and compromised everything all her life, first with her hubby and in-laws, then with her children, just to keep things moving smoothly. But I refuse to live like that. Its not that only I should have a say, but that I too should have a say in the decisions made (I hope you get what I mean). I refuse to blend into the background..

I am not having this epiphany after 5 years. This has been a day-to-day learning. But as I look back at my 5-year younger self, I find myself laughing at her, at the ideas and the ideals she had. If she had known what I know now, she could have avoided a lot of pain, suffering and anger :-D. And that my friends, is called life experience :).

Just a note to people who found this post too vague - I know its difficult to understand unless you are in my shoes. But I know many women are - compromising their true self for the betterment of the family and I hope they can relate to this..

And this post is the end to the Back-to-five-years ago series. I hope you enjoyed the series as much as I enjoyed being nostalgic :).

BTFYA 8 - South Africa and Mauritius

Last but one post of the Back-to-five-years-ago series. This actually happened 5 years and 3 months ago in Feb 2005, but well, I couldn't really put up this in Feb, as things were beyond my control then. Well, better late than never :).

One of things you do after you get engaged and are about to get married is decide where to go on your honeymoon :-D. Well, my first choice was and is Switzerland (still haven't gotten that wish :-p), but any place in Europe is no fun at all in the month of Feb ;-). I hadn't been outside India except for a Nepal (Kathmandu and Pokhran) trip with my parents, so I said anything was fine. When Sri suggested South Africa, I have to admit I thought it strange. I mean I had never had SA in my have-to-see-in-my-lifetime-tick-mark list :-D. But well, as I found out more about it, the more I was excited :). So we thought we'll head to South Africa and then to Mauritius for a couple of days.

Not only that, when I met Sri I told him that I want to bungee jump once in my life. Well, his wedding gift to me was a bungee jumping chance in SA :-D. We decided that we'll go and then take it from there. We never told either set of parents that we were even considering anything like that :-D. The secrecy was fun and if we didn't jump, then they would never even know about it ;-).

We got married on Feb 4th, spent the next couple of days in Hyderabad (where we had another reception ceremony) and were back to Bangalore on 12th. We had the flight to Johannesburg the very next day on 13th.

I always say that you don't know a person until you have lived with him/her. So basically we learnt each others' quirks only on this trip and it was enlightening to say the least :-D. On the flight (I think it was 5 hours long), I woke up to see that Sri wasn't in his seat. After waiting for more than half an hour, I started getting worried thinking he maybe having some stomach problems. Then I get up and look back and guess what I found. My hubby found some empty seats and was sleeping quite comfortably :-D, hehehee :)). Yeah I did try to strangle his neck once he got up, just because he got me so worried ;-).

We landed in Johannesburg on the 14th of Feb and flew to Capetown from there. We took a walk around the hotel and we visited the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront at the Table Bay. The table bay faces the huge Table mountain and its simply a beautiful place. The waterfront was like any pier you see in US, but since I was seeing a pier for the first time, everything was fun. I think we had lunch at a Thai place, another first :). All in all we roamed around the place for quite a while. Another surprising thing then was that the sun didn't set till about 7:30 Pm which was a big deal for me than. I remember being so thrilled that the sun is high up in the sky at about 6 PM :-D.




The next day we went on a tour of Capetown and surroundings. Our first stop was the table mountain. The mountain is named so, because it has a level plateau (of about 3 km side to side) and has cliffs named Devil's peak and Lion's head. You can see 3 main things from the top - almost the entire Cape town (with the table bay), Robben island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for almost 27 years and Signal hill which acted like a lighthouse for many years there. The signal hill is famous for the noon gun (which is fired at precisely 12 in the noon).

We climbed on to a rope-way and got to the top. The weather was another plus point of SA. It was very pleasant even at the top and we spent a long time walking around and seeing the views all around.




After that we got down and went to the Cape point. We took the Flying Dutchman Funicular (an uphill railway) to an old lighthouse and then had to climb steep steps to get to a place where the Cape point could be seen. They even had markings in various directions showing how far it was to various places in the world from there (I remember New Delhi being one of the places, but I certainly don't remember the distance :-D).




From there we got down and moved a short distance to get to Cape of Good Hope. Unlike what many people think, the cape is not the Southern tip of Africa (we thought wrong too!), but it is the extreme southwestern tip of Africa. The cape point as well as the Cape of Good hope are both in the the extreme southwestern peninsula of Africa, while Cape Agulhas is the actual southernmost tip.




I felt pretty proud to have visited one of the most talked about places in history :). We went on to visit a penguins colony in Boulders beach and then had lunch there near the beach. Spent some time near the beach and just like that our tour of cape town was over :).

On 16th Feb, we rented and car and started driving (well, actually Sri rented and drove the car :-D). Our plan was to drive to Port Elizabeth and visit a couple of places on the way.




I had never been on a self-driving trip before and didn't really get the charm of it until we did this. The comfort of stopping anywhere you want and visit any place for how much ever time you want to is something else and somehow the trip has been the basis for all the driving trips we have gone on here in the US (hope to continue the same once we are back in India). We stopped for lunch at a place called Mossel Bay (Point B on the map) and spent some time at the beach there. Then drove to Oudtshoorn (Point C) where we'd stop for the night.

The hotel at Oudtshoorn was named La Plume and right opposite to it across the road was an ostrich farm. The big tall birds were majestic and they were oh so curious about the two of us (we were the only people lurking around). We knew that their kicks are pretty powerful and wondered whether the fences could actually stop them ;-). Still I wanted to pet them :-D. Well, I did get my wish the next day :-D.

Next day, 17th Feb early morning we headed to the Cango Caves. The caves were beautiful and we had loads of fun since we took the adventure tour of the cave.




The adventure tour was another extreme thing I have done in my life. It had climbing precarious steps, moving sideways in narrow spaces, crawling and sliding through natural rock openings. It was absolutely thrilling :-D. You can see the entire tour here on this page :-D.

We next went to Cango Ostrich farm, where I got to feed an ostrich :). The ostrich eggs are so strong that they can bear lots of weight on them (we both took turns to stand on a set of eggs!). Well, we could have also ridden an ostrich, but both of us said no to that (I wonder why now :-D).




We had a good time and then visited the Cango wildlife ranch which was right across the road from the farm. It was a pretty normal zoo except that we could pay and touch leopard cubs/tiger cubs if we wanted to. I really wanted to, but it was pretty expensive, so couldn't :-\. From there on we drove to our hotel in a place called Wilderness. The route from Oudtshoorn to Wilderness was on mountainous region, so it made for awesome views on the way.




We reached Wilderness in the evening and went to Knysna (point D) to take a sunset cruise at the bay there :). Knysna is pronounced "Nice na" which was apt for the place :-D.




We came back and stayed at Wilderness. Our hotel was right next to a beach and I remember going there in the dark, sitting on a couple of steps in light rain with Sri and feeling really blessed to be there :).




The next day was the D-day. We went to the Bloukrans bridge where a company called Face Adrenalin operates the world's third highest bungy jump (it was the world's highest when we went there - 216m). We didn't even know whether we'd do it until we went there. I remember seeing the bridge and muttering on the way to myself that I must be crazy :-D. We actually wanted to jump in tandem (harnessed together :-D), but sadly they had only solo jumps. We paid up and then there was no going back :-D.

I was the second person to jump off the bridge that particular morning, the first being a member of the operating team (Sri conveniently dumping the honour on me by saying "Ladies first" :-p). We were bound with harnesses while the team members told us how exactly the jump would happen. People have the tendency to hold their breaths and they told us that we have to try and breathe :-D. I remember being crazy scared all the time, I guess the expression on my face says it all :-D.

I still get goosebumps watching the video :-D. It has been the most amazing experience of my life so far. There is about 7 seconds of pure terror and when the rope (which is elastic) pulls you back, thats when you know you are alive and the adrenaline rush after that is huggggggge ;-). They pulled me up and I was jumping up and down :-D. Next was Sri's turn :).




I still tease him saying that he didn't actually jump, but the guys there pushed him :-D. Here's us all ecstatic :).




We didn't really know what to do with the adrenaline, so we immediately went to the Tsitsikamma National Park where we hiked it off :). We took the waterfall trail which is almost 3 km one way (so hiked for 5-6 km in total) and we had to literally climb rocks to reach the water fall. And it was beautiful. The water fall faces the ocean and it makes for a wonderful view. Here's me sitting in front of the ocean..




Sri was sitting facing me with the waterfall behind him, so you can imagine the scenery :).




Well, we went back to Wilderness for the night and next morning drove to Port Elizabeth. From there, we flew to Johannesburg and stayed the night there at a Casino (don't remember the name sadly :-D). Still don't know how or why it happened, but we were upgraded to one of the highest suites there :-D. And the suite was like a huge mansion. Man, some things you never forget :-D.

Next morning, 20th Feb,our 6-day SA trip came to an end as we flew to Mauritius. Somehow Mauritius felt like a letdown after SA, mainly because of the weather. It was very humid and sultry weather. Sounds nice ;-) :-D, but believe me, it was uncomfortable after being in such pleasant weather all over SA. We had a package tour for Mauritius which included stay in a hotel called Les Cocotiers which had a beach and a 3-day tour. The beaches there surprised me with the serene water and almost no waves. Its almost like the island is actually in a lake :).

The first day tour consisted of going to the Grand Baie (Grand Bay) which was a pier and had the typical attractions of a pier.




The tour had about 6 couples all Indian and all on their honeymoon :-D. Yeah it was a love fest alright :-D. From there we went to the Pamplemousses Garden, which is seen in most Indian movie songs :-D. We even saw trees planted by various Indian prime ministers and presidents there :-D.




And that was that for the day. The next day we went to several places. We saw Dutch ruins, a model ship making factory and a Lord Shiva temple. We also visited the Chamarel Waterfall..




And then went to a dormant volcano crater known as Trou aux Cerfs. Well it didn't look anything like a volcano :-D.




Supposedly this volcano could become active at any time within the next thousand years :-O.




Our next stop was the 7-coloured earth. This was fascinating - at first look it looked like a mud dump, but its actually volcanic sand reflecting off different shades of colours..




We do look tired, don't we? :). That was it for the day.

The next day was the pièce de résistance :-D. We were taken to this beautiful island called Île aux Cerfs (french meaning "deer") by boat. The island had beautiful blue clear water and white sands. We really enjoyed the water and the environment. Though it was crowded and there were no deer to be found, it was still pristine and lovely :). No photos though :(.

Well, the next 2 days we could do what we wanted, but we basically lounged at the hotel and relaxed. I wanted to go para-sailing and do another activity called undersea walking, but well, I twisted my ankle a bit when playing on the beach (it wasn't as bad as it sounds), so Sri absolutely refused the para-sailing idea :-D. Meanwhile we didn't have water shoes and the water in the deer island as well as our hotel had these sharp thorns (don't know what they were) and somehow Sri had these multiple thorns embedded into his foot. So he became a total baby about it and hence we couldn't go undersea walking either :-p. I spent one whole evening tending to the thorns in his foot :-p. Romantic, isn't it? :-D.

I have to admit, we did enjoy a couple of beautiful sunsets at the hotel beach :).




And then we returned to reality, hehehe :)). Back to Bangalore and to our lives together. But soon, we had to move to US and the initial years were something of a long honeymoon ;-).

I still remember how weird I used to feel when calling Sri my husband at that time - the word tasted so new and different :-D. And the phase certainly wasn't all fun - I had never been away from my parents so long, away from my country so long. There was also lot of initial adjustments to each other going on, so there were some weird phases around :-D. It was certainly a period of transition :). Also we did tell our parents about the bungy once we came back and got nicely scolded, hehehe :). I love telling people "We bungee-jumped on our honeymoon" purely for the shock value and the expressions on their faces, hehehe :))).

Writing this post has been more fun than I thought it would be. I had to research quite a bit because we don't have the itineraries anymore and we don't have photos of every place we went to. So I kept asking Sri, did we stay here or there. Did we go here first or there? :-D. Since Mauritius has a French influence, I didn't know the names of most places we went to :-D. With internet, its not impossible to find out stuff these days, thank God :). I loved reliving the memories and got all nostalgic. Has it really been 5 years already? And we have a toddler too! Time sure feels like a whirlwind sometimes :-\.

Well, I really wanted to write this post as this was a major part of our relationship. Once more post in the BTFYA series and I'm done. It should be up soon :).

BTFYA 7 - And the happily ever after goes on :).

Well, 5 years ago, Sri and I took the big, plunge, tied the knot ;-). After that day, this is the first anniversary we are spending with parents and siblings. So that was special for today. Sadly, Snugli has been ill for a couple of days (has a bout of stomach infection), so the celebrations were subdued to say the least :-(. Even the dinner we had planned for the entire family had to be replaced by a pizza takeout :-\. Oh well, hopefully tomorrow.

I'm still in India, so don't really have the time for a long post. I also don't have too many photos of my wedding scanned, so don't ask me why I am writing the post :-p. I am going to just put up the ones I have put up already.

On Varapooje, my most prominent memory is of sitting like a doll and being presented with lots of items (dolls, jewelery and decorated stuff) from my in-laws :-D.



That night I slept at my house since it was so near to the marriage hall. I am teased to this day that I must be the only bride who didn't spend a night in the hall :-D. On second thoughts, I should change the "slept" to "not slept", 'cause the whole night I cried and cried and hardly slept for 2 hours. My mom, chikkamma and I slept in the same room and somehow one of us would start crying and so would the others :-\.

My wedding day started with the water sump (underground tank) being fully empty :-D. I remember waking upto the commotion :-D. The highlight of the day according to me was not really the mangalyadhaarane but the dhaare. Somehow the moment when the poojaris cut the bride from her gothra and join her to the groom's felt more of a real marriage moment to me than the tying of the three knots. It was surreal and I had tears in my eyes. It was not really that the emotional attachment was being cut, but the ritual somehow hit home the fact that I was being "given away" :(.




But the best moment was the Arundhathi nakshatra viewing. I'm pretty sure I mentioned this in my blog somewhere, but here goes. Sri and I were talking outside the hall on the varapooje night when we were discovered (hehehehe) by the teasing cousins/parents troupe :-D. So when the star viewing ritual happened, mom teased us saying that Sri has shown me the star the previous night :-D. Well, the photographer captured the moment :-D.




The reception was full of smiling, smiling and more smiling. Our faces were numb with smiles, yet we smiled. At friends, acquaintances and even strangers, we smiled smiled and smiled :-D.




5 years later, we are still the same people with the same faces, albeit a few inches thicker round our waists, still continuing to discover, continuing to learn, to accept, to adjust, to just be, to live and to love :).

BTFYA 6 - To be or not to be in love :-D.

5 years ago, the song "Mujhe Pyar tumse nahin hein" from the movie Gharonda by Runa Laila was constantly on my mind for a long long time (love it btw).

Tumhe Ho Na Ho Muj...

Enough said :-D.

BTFYA 5 - Self-doubt is the best doubt ;-).

5 years ago, around this time, I was in full panic mode. I think it was the worse I've ever felt in my life. I didn't know what to think, what to feel. I'm pretty sure, my parents, especially mom can give you a better account of how weirdly I was behaving. I was questioning myself, my judgment and there's nothing worse than that - to not be sure whether what your heart is telling you is right, to think of the what-ifs and lose the confidence you had when you actually made the decision. Maybe some of it was due to PMS, but that excuse is rather convenient according to me and so I would like to place the blame sorely on a girl who was trying to make sure that her decision was for the best, in this case myself.

I don't know if every girl goes through this phase, atleast I haven't heard any of my married friends talk about it - the phase of doubting the decision of marrying a guy once its been said out loud. Usually a girl knows that the guy is the one and thats it. No second thoughts, no self-doubts, only them and their happily ever after. Well, I was different to say the least. The second thoughts started only hours after I said "Yes" (I said it straight to Sri) and as time passed it grew steadily into total panic. I literally remember how I went from "Oh my God! I finally said Yes and he is the one" to "Oh my God! What have I done!". The next few days kinda were a haze of tears, blind hysteria and pure madness..

Oh yes, Sri was perfect, if only whatever he told me about himself was the truth. But what if it wasn't? I had heard too many horror stories about women who went into marriages where everything sounded hunky and dory and later it turned out that it was a far cry from that. Women who were told that they'd have freedom in the marriage only to find out that they wouldn't be allowed to set foot outside of the house. Women who were promised by men that they'd be together all their lives only to find out that they'd not even live with them after a month. Women who were given the green light to a career after marriage only to find out that it was all about the money. Women who were promised heaven and stars only to be brought down to earth with a crash into the worse kind of hell. I didn't want to be one of those women..

It was not only that I didn't know whether to trust him, but also the plain fact that I didn't know whether to trust my judgment. How do I know whether what my heart was telling me was right? I knew in my heart that he was a nice and truthful guy, but my brain kept questioning it. It was the age-old conflict between the heart and the mind and there seemed to be no way to resolve it. I was paralyzed with the fear that I was making a wrong move, but how to even determine that it was wrong?

My parents, though a bit dismayed by the way I was behaving, were somehow supportive of me. Mom even said that she'd call Sri's parents and tell them "No" if that was what I wanted. But strangely, I didn't want that either. As I said earlier, I couldn't be sure that my decision was totally wrong either. Finally what dad did was to find out more about him through whatever ways he could. Most of what we found out seemed to confirm what Sri had told us. But obviously professional stuff could be confirmed, but there was no way I could know about the personal until I took the plunge.

And one day suddenly, I woke up to a bright morning with a clear head and told mom that yes, I was ready and I wouldn't really worry about it anymore. Yes, he was the one and no matter what happened later, I didn't want to lose the present with all my "worries". Come what may, I would face it. And somehow that was it, I really felt a huge burden lifted off my heart. It didn't really mean that my worries and doubts were over. They lasted well into the marriage, but I didn't let them overwhelm me like that again. After a few days full of terror, I felt free. It was my choice and I would live with it. And that was okay..

Much later (actually much much later :-D), I did tell Sri about the whole madness and we have laughed about it together :). As you know, Sri didn't turn out to be a scallawag ;-) and is mostly honest :-p, hehehee :)). And I'm certainly glad that I am not one of those women in the horror stories. It all worked out wonderful for me, but I still believe that the phase I had 5 years ago, was some sort of defense mechanism that kicked in. It was a healthy dose of reality that kept me grounded even when I was being swept off my feet ;-). I guess my mind wasn't really willing to let my heart go that easily and belong to another :-D. Even today, I say that marriage is a huge gamble and you never know what the true nature of a person is until you have lived with her/him. Its just that my gamble paid off :).

BTFYA 4 - The happily ever after :).

Fate certainly had other plans :). At this particular time 5 years ago (it was about 5-6 PM in the evening when Sri and his parents came home to "see" me), I had no clue that my life was about to change in a very drastic manner. I was tired of seeing the same old guys who were hardly compatible and thought that this would be another re-telecast. There must have been a little hope somewhere, but I don't really remember that now. So I was looking forward more to the trip to my chikkappa's house (for the Deepawali Balipadyami celebrations) than to the guy-seeing ceremony. So to say that Sri was a pleasant surprise just doesn't seem enough - he was so much more than that :-D.

We talked lots and lots about ourselves (imagine we had to decide to commit to a person in a matter of about 2 hours alone in a room just an eavesdrop away from our parents :-D) and one of the things that impressed me was that he was encouraging about my so-called trekking adventures, sharing that he had done hang-gliding in Himachal Pradesh (albeit with an instructor). That part was certainly good - taking limited risks ;-). I am still a bit jealous that I haven't done it yet ;-). It was the most positive guy-seeing experience I ever had, but somehow I blocked off the decision making process. Maybe because it was so positive, something in me just didn't want to believe he was a great guy and wanted to confirm it by seeing him again. Some switch in my brain flipped to "meet-again" and refused to continue the signal to any sort of decision :-D.

I did learn a lot of things that day but I learnt more from then on as time went by and even now, each day is a revelation :). So here are my enlightenments -

• Next time we met, the first things I learnt were that Sri's height is greater than me in my platform shoes and that his dimples curled just the way I loved, hehehee :)).


• More importantly, I felt like a cave woman next to a very sophisticated modern man. We went to a pizza place for dinner and Sri actually used a fork and a knife to eat the damn thing, while I chewed away at the pizza holding it in my bare hands :-p. After that there was many a time where I have had the thought "Why does this guy even want to marry an uncouth like me?" ;-) :-D. But well, I have to admit he never really used a fork and knife to eat pizza after that, but he sure is always much cleaner than me even if he does eat with his hands ;-). Till today I tease him that he was showing off and he is nonchalant about it as if it came very naturally to him :-p.


• Some of the first things I asked of Sri seem a bit silly to me now :-D. I told him flatly that I didn't know how to cook, but that I'd learn (and I did learn :-D) - he said he cooks, so that was alright :-D. That I didn't really like to wear a saree (even now I am not very comfy) and would like my clothes to be my choice, he just said okay. That I'd call him by name (instead of the various Kannada hubby-addressing-mechanisms like "Ree", "Ivre" and "Enoondre" :-D) and "Neenu" instead of "Neevu" (in my defense, we have only 3 years of age difference between us and it felt like a generation gap to call him "neevu" :-D). He said he didn't have any problems with that. Many a time while saying such things I have felt that maybe he must have thought me foolish, but he took me seriously. He never laughed it all off as a girl's fanciful stuff or treat it with disdain. And in 5 years he has never brought it up and fussed about anything (despite the fact that I refer to him as "Avanu" or "Ivanu" i.e in a singular context in front of my in-laws too!). It kinda showed me that he listened to what I had to say and respected my choices :).


• One of the things we are totally opposite in is that Sri is hardly excited about anything - whilst I keep jumping up and down at every little thing. I guess most men are like that :-D. They are supposed to be the steady rocks when their wives are the rivers :-D. But I get frustrated even now about it, because sometimes its impossible to guess his reaction to some of the things I blurt out. I think the only time I've actually seen animated expressions on his face is when he is doing/talking about something related to technology :-p. I still haven't completely learnt to read into his expressions, so he is as enigmatic as he was 5 years ago :).


• I really appreciate that Sri never imposes his opinions and philosophies on anyone. For that matter I don't even know whether he has any philosophy at all, except to take life as it comes. My sweetheart's a smooth sailor ;-). He never acts like a know-it-all, never dictates things to me and is always willing to learn from me. I love that about him because I don't like being bossed around, thats usually my prerogative ;-) :-D.


• I have to mention something about Sri's forgetfulness. I'm not talking about him forgetting important dates/events (well, how can he do that? :-D), but more of a day-to-day stuff. For example, he may forget what I cooked the previous day :-D. I keep pulling his leg saying that if I'm not around for a few days, he'll not remember who I am :-p. Sometimes its a boon (he doesn't really remember any mistakes that I may have made ;-) :-D), but usually its a bane. I usually ask him to remind me something and usually end up regretting it. He's getting better, but I still haven't learnt from these types of mistakes ;-), hehehe :)).


• Once Snugli came into our lives, I started seeing Sri in a totally new light. I have always admired his patience but the word takes on a completely different meaning when it comes to Snugli. He never ever flares up on her, never gets frustrated no matter how frustrating she is or in turn I am and is always like a calm lull while I'm the raging hurricane. No wonder she never takes his scoldings seriously ;-) :-D. I love to watch them play silly games and I'm proud to see him take care of her without complaints. He even misses her fluttering around us when she is sleeping (while I heave a sigh of relief ;-) :-D)! As I see her grow up, I learn new inspiring things about him. He leads by example, making me a better mother and a better person :).

I feel very strange when I write these types of posts. Whereas you get to know me through my blog, you get to know Sri through only my version of him and the way I feel about him. Its as if you are not getting to know the person but someone's idea of a person. Weird :-\.

Anyways, as you can see, I found my tall, dimpled, sophisticated, ever-listening, respectful, enigmatic, non-preachy, forgetful, patient and wonderful-father-material man, 5 years ago on this very day and learnt the difference between infatuation and love :). I have many blessings in my life that I count daily and am very much grateful for and Sri is the greatest blessing of them all :). This is how Saturday the 13th actually turned out to be the luckiest day of my life :-D (coincidentally today's Friday the 13th :-D).

Happy 5th day-we-met anniversary my love :)

BTFYA 3 - Yedukumeri trek :)

Back to 5 years ago :). First of all, this whole post is simply based on the memories I have of the trek, unlike the post for Bisle trek since I didn't really note down anything. I think we went to Yedukumeri in August 2004, but certainly don't remember whether it was before my birthday or after (I guess it was after since I am pretty certain I'd have remembered having banged up knees on my birthday :-D). A little bit of history before we start off. I have always loved the train route between Bangalore and Mangalore. The sad part was that the trains were overnight trips, but I would be awake just to see the tunnels and beautiful bridges on route (it's be a treat whenever there was moonlight, the part between Sakleshpur and Yedekumeri). But sadly, the trains were stopped giving the elusive excuse of metre to broad gauge conversion and the system has only recently gotten back on its feet again.

Well, on the Bisle trek, I did have many chances to interact with fellow trekkies, but there were 28 people, so couldn't obviously talk to everyone. But I did find out about 2 wonderful treks - one to Yedukumeri and another to Kemmannugundi. Once I got back, I think it was one of the things I ALWAYS talked about. I must have troubled many a friend with that tale :-D (in my defense, I was just trying to get them to trek with me :-D). My mom really loved the Bisle saga and told me that if ever I'd go on the trek to Yedukumeri which would be basically walking on the railway track, she wanted to join me, since it'd not really have any climbs and be a flat ground trek. So I kept calling Kamesh to find out when they were planning one.

Finally I got to know there were 3 more takers (all my aged girls) for that particular trek to Yedukumeri, and so we'd be 5 trekkies + Kamesh and his assistants (Raj and Naagu). So we set off one Friday evening from Bangalore Majestic bus stand and caught a bus to somewhere near Sakleshpur (a little further away from Sakleshpur but sadly, I don't even have a clue about the name of the place). I only remember that we landed there at around 4 AM in the morning, setup a tent and slept right there at the bus stop until about 8AM in the morning :-D.

Later got up, walked till we found the railway track and cooked a breakfast of Maggi :-D. We finished brushing our teeth, washing our face, having the breakfast and exploring the bridge until then (if you notice carefully in the following photo, you'll find me and mom somewhere towards the left on the top of the bridge :-D).




Then we started walking. The trek would be totally for about 35km (17.5 km to Yedekumeri and another 17.5 km back)!! And the specialty of this trek was that there was no base camp. We had to carry every damn thing we had and that was a challenge..




That was us at the first tunnel. Walking in a tunnel is somehow very enigmatic, though practically there is nothing mysterious about it ;-). For me, the whole concept is a thrill - we'd make these sand tunnels using our feet when we were young and its amazing that the real ones are actually dug in mountains and make a pathway where there was none earlier :). The first tunnel even had a side opening through which we walked out and saw this beautiful waterfall somewhere in the valley below..




The photo is courtesy of the digital camera of a trekkie from a totally different group :-D. The route has about 19 tunnels and more than 25 bridges, so each one of them, big or small were absolutely enjoyable..




Except one thing about the bridges - they were my downfall, my pain in the neck (actually knees :-p), my nemesis, so to say :-D. It had rained the previous night and that Saturday was still partially cloudy and rainy, so it made the bridge logs pretty slippery. Somehow everyone seemed okay on them except myself :-p. I think I must have slipped and banged my knees on the logs about 5 times that day, so much that I was very scared the next day to even step foot on a bridge, but well, that part of the story has some more time to come ;-). Some of the bridges had an iron strip in the middle, so it was easier to walk on them, but most of them didn't, so the only way to cross the bridge was to cross the gap between each and every log (so we had to be very careful). Which means its very difficult to know whether the next log is slippery, we can only set a firm foot and hope that we would not slip. Well, as for me, I never got the "firm" footing right that day :-D.

Here's another tunnel which has wild banana (kaaDu baaLe) growing on top, almost like nature's very own thOraNa :-D..




I loved it all (despite the torn knees :-D). Thankfully there were no leeches around on the railway track, though we did find some around on the wet mud beside the tracks. Each time I walked through a tunnel I'd be reminded of the saying I have on the bottom part of my blog - "Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel was just a freight train coming your way!!" (Metallica in their song "No Leaf Clover"). Loved it, loved it, loved it :-D.

On the next bridge, Kamesh picked a spot for us to rappel (!!!) and decided to setup the equipment (yes, they carried the required ropes) then and there. I didn't even know what rappelling was until that particular moment :-p. The concept was pretty simple - they'd tie a set of ropes onto the logs of a railway bridge right next to a pillar and with the help of the pillar and ropes, we had to slowly rappel down. Practically, it was a different story. Yes there'd be a harness, but I was very much afraid to put my full weight on the ropes (I half thought the ropes would break :-p). This photo is just before I did it:




Again, the photo is courtesy of the digital camera of the same from a totally different group and we actually met that group at this point and they also enjoyed rappelling with us (one after one ofcourse :-p) and I remember asking the guy about the camera and finding out that the Olympus digital camera costed Rs. 20000 (that fact left my mouth hanging open :-D). We took several snaps of the deed in our analog camera but well, none of them are that good :-p. Anyways I was petrified at the moment you have let go of your foot from the ledges (the fact that I'm grinning in the photo has nothing to do with it - its actually a I-must-be-crazy-to-be-doing-this grin :-D), but rappelling turned out to be fun :). The ropes were a bit irritating, but cruising down the bridge with no care and then swinging on the ropes like a monkey (:-D) was really a highlight :). We (me and another girl) later had to cross a mini jungle and then climb a hill to get back to the bridge.

Mom was at first very hesitant to even try it. In face she flatly refused to. But Kamesh can be pretty persuasive :-D. So she decided to give it a try and actually did it. Sadly, I only have a blurred snap of her rappelling and thats one of my major regrets. But I can still see her rappelling down if I close my eyes, so the memory is locked in my head forever. I was (and am) oh-so-proud of her :)). She did have some difficulty in climbing back, but she did that too :)). It was one of those my-mom-is-so-cool moments for me :-D. Soon everyone was done and we wrapped everything up.

It actually started raining while we were crossing the next tunnel, so we stopped to have lunch (I think Kamesh and his assistants cooked up a quick meal of Avalakki oggaraNe :-D).




There was another ominous bridge right next to the tunnel and I took the opportunity to take a snap :-D (I think one of the girls actually lost her torch here - I don't know whether it was retrieved, I remember Raj doing some circus antics to get to it). Also I think I even graced this bridge with another of my falls :-p. (BTW see what I mean about the iron strip in some sections? You can see it in this bridge).




We reached the Yedukumeri station by evening. I don't even know whether there was a nearby path to any village or the highway (didn't bother finding out as we were heading out the way we came), but it did feel like there was no civilization around - the station obviously wasn't being used.




For the umpteenth time, the photo is from the same guy from the other group. We freshened up in a nearby stream first - that was fun :). We planned to put up tents on the platform and later cook there, but the rain had other plans. It came down heavily which caused the tent to literally fly and get completely drenched. Well, we had to settle for one of the sheds like the one above where we setup everything, including the place for cooking. As nightfall came in, the rain stopped, but everything was still too wet to set it up outside, so we even cooked inside.

We made pooris together, Kamesh made the bhaaji and we all enjoyed them a lot. I remember singing loads of songs and some of of my favourites - "Kahin door jab din dal jaaye" and "Gul raha he saara manzar" (by Shankar Mahadevan - it really jelled well with the fading sunlight) outside on the platform and feeling blessed for being there. This phrase from "Kahin door" fit my personal situation so well -

"Kabhi Yun Hi Jab Hui Ojhal Saansein
Bhar Aai Baithe Baithe Jab Yun Hi Aankhen
Tabhi Machal Ke Pyar Se Chal Ke
Chhuye Koi Mujhe Par Nazar Na Aaye, Nazar Na Aaye"

The frustration and hope combination was never ever defined so beautifully :). That night we slept with uncomfortable blankets on hard floor, with never tiring conversations, tired and aching bones (I think I even ran a fever for which I took tablets), a running rodent inside our room :-D (all of us ladies were in one room and some of them, not me or mom, actually screamed at the intruder :-D) and Kamesh voice scolding us from another room to get to sleep :-D.

The morning arrived with a beautiful view :).




We finished our morning rituals and I think had some bread for breakfast and set out.




Here is the entire team of 8 people just before we said goodbye to Yedukumeri..




Just after a few minutes of walking, we took a right turn to find this amazing waterfall :).




That was one of the times I felt the need for proper roads to such a place. Only people who knew the place knew that there was a waterfall there. In US, there are smaller waterfalls and they all have trek/hike paths and you can find most on the internet with maps included :-p. Anyways Kamesh setup river-crossing here and this time I was able to complete the entire route and back :).




Even mom went about 3/4th the way :-D. Did I mention how proud I am of her? :-D.




After everyone had their turn, we packed up and started back. At the first bridge, I was scared out of my wits that I'd fall again, but it was sunny and the logs were mostly dry, so we were able to spot the slippery parts and tread around carefully. I didn't fall at all that day and yeah, that was an achievement :-D.




The following is the longest tunnel enroute - 572m.




Everything was perfect until that point, but at about the next tunnel, there was a break in the path that we were treading on and mom, not noticing that, fell and twisted her ankle. Kamesh immediately wrapped her leg in a tight bound bandage and from then on Naagu carried her backpack. I knew she was in lots of pain, and I felt so bad, so terrible and so guilty of not watching out for her. Our pace obviously slowed down after that and we were able to get to the highway only after nightfall.

I remember us waiting for a bus for a long time and then flagging down a lorry. I remember climbing onto the back of that lorry and us girls having a lot of fun jeering at people and behaving like taporis :-D. And I remember that we finally calmed down when the lorry driver requested us to ;-). We got dropped off at Hassan, had our dinner at a hotel and then caught a late night bus to Bangalore. We said our goodbyes early in the morning and scattered back to our own lives with the enriched memories.

Epilogue:

1) Mom was okay after a while, but the whole thing bothers me to this day. One new thing I learnt about myself this trek was role reversal. I was used to mom (in general, my parents) worrying about me all the time. But for the first time, it was the other way around. I worried whenever she walked on the bridges (even though I was the one falling), when she rappelled and river crossed. Later when she hurt her leg, I felt like a mother hen clucking around her chick :-D. It felt like a taste of what parents go through everyday when they wait for their children to come home and worry about their well-being constantly. Well, a very good beginning to whats going on now ;-). And mom was wonderful, she wanted to join me on a Kemmannugundi trek if I went on one and she even tried to convince dad to :-D.

2) I'm so glad we made it to the trek when we did. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to before the train service restarted, but we made it. They have the trains back on now and I believe they have day-trains these days, so it would be fun to ride on one and see a glimpse of the route again :). But thats in turn bad news for the trekkies, its certainly hard to walk on the bridges or tunnels confidently when you know a train can come in anytime (even if you know the train timings - Indian standard time delays :-D).

3) The trek was a test to my and all of our endurance. We had to carry stuff and walk, walk and walk. I found out that we can push our bodies to do things and it was an achievement of some sort. I found out that the more we go on, the more we wanted to go on, the more our determination and strength grew. I remember feeling victorious and invincible when it was over and couldn't wait to get back. But as you see, fate had other plans.. (To be continued)..

BTFYA 2 - Bisle trek :)

Its strange how the brain stores information that it needs and simply discards that it doesn't. Well, thats certainly not helpful when you are writing about a trek you went on more than 5 years ago :-D. In fact I didn't even remember the month I went to Bisle, leave alone the actual dates. I knew it was in the summer from March to June, but didn't know exactly when. How did I find out? You won't believe it, but I had penned one particular day's experiences in a .doc file thinking that I'll send it to my friends once I'm done. I never managed to complete the document, but still had it archived somewhere :-D. Guess my budding blogging instincts were already alive and breathing :-D. So, thanks to ME :-D, I can tell you the exact dates I went on the trek and how I found the trek group I went with :-D.

Just a note to remember before I start off, I still didn't know what a digital camera was then, so all the photos are courtesy of the Analog Cannon camera that has served my dad well for more than 20 years :). I had scanned pics of the same but of lower resolution (5 years ago 800x600 was the monitor's resolution! :-p), so had to get them scanned again to even write this post (thanks to dad). I had some other photos thanks to fellow trekkies, but sadly they are too low a resolution to be even featured :(. The point I'm getting to is that the photos may not be as good or as clear as the newer digital ones :-D. You have been warned. Also want to say that since there were a lot of people in the trek group, I won't be mentioning names (not really worried about copyright as such as it is my story, but somehow am hesitant to).

Maybe I always wanted to trek in some corner of my mind, but never actually had the urge to go at it alone (I remember I went on a trek to Saavandurga hill with my Yoga group when I was younger than 12 years and I took Darsh with me. But that was just a day trip with no overnight stay). What made me go for it this time, I'll never know (hey, if I haven't figured it out till now, then never :-p). Yes the frustrations I mentioned in the first post of the "Back to five years ago series" were a major part of it. But for a person who never travelled without her parents, it was a big step.

I found out about the trek to the Bisle forest through our newspaper. Bisle forest is part of the Western Ghats and has several peaks and tributaries of the Kaaveri river. The trek was being organized by a group called Nature Admire - so I called them repeatedly up to get all the details of the trek (wanted to make sure that there were a couple of girls/ladies going on the trek). The Nature Admire people came to know that another group called Mars Adventures was going to the same place and hence they decided to send whoever was registered with them with the Mars adventures group. And boy, am I glad they did, in hindsight. I also found out that there were totally 28 of us going. That helped me a lot in getting over my initial nervousness (not to mention my mom's ;-) :-D).

I met the group at night 8PM on 21st May 2004, carrying a backpack with me full of stuff that we were advised to bring - Ablution kit (Soap, towel, toothbrush and paste), a couple of clothes , a Rain coat, pairs of socks, canteen (plate, tumbler, water bottle 2 liters, a blanket, a torch, and a pen. I also carried my mobile (eventhough it was useless in the forest) and my dad's camera. We were also instructed to put everything in separate covers and put them all in a bigger cover (to protect them in case the backpack got wet). I met some of the members - a group of 4 s/w engineers (they are everywhere!), a couple, 2 children and a couple of familes! I also met the head of Mars adventures Kamesh and his 4 assistants (Vinay (fondly called Vinoba), Purushottham, Naagu and Hema). We climbed onto 2 vans and were off :).

It was early morning 5:30 AM on 22nd May 2004, when we reached Kukke Subrahmanya. It was drizzling slightly, so for a first time trek, this was turning out to be a rain trek ;-). We had only half an hour to complete our daily morning routines - so quickly completed those, had a cup of tea and were off to the place the vans would drop us. They dropped us on a road from which we had to trek downhill to the basecamp with our backpacks + oddities like utensils and sleeping bags. On the way, we found a hanging bridge we had to cross to get to the basecamp and it was literally hanging!!! There were a couple of logs which were floating away to glory, few which were blissfully submerged in water and others which were missing altogether. Moreover the logs were slippery due to the ongoing rain. We had to hold on to the railing of the bridge and sometimes even climb on to them to get across. Phew!!! The adventure had begun :).







We reached the base camp soon enough. The base camp had several huts and a platform which was an advantage - we need not carry all the things we brought with us. We dumped our back sacks inside the hut, Kamesh got the hut secured (since it was raining, there were lots of leeches around and we certainly didn't want them hiding in the backpacks :-D), had a quick breakfast of ganji and bread and listened to trek instructions from Kamesh (for Eg, if you encounter an elephant, you should run uphill and not downhill!! Also if you get lost in the forest, the best thing to do is find water and follow it upriver/downriver because you are bound to find some life near water). Our plan that day was to trek and climb a hill. The trek would be 8km uphill and then later 8km back downhill :-O.

Let me tell you for a first time trekkie, 8 km is certainly not a child's play (though the children who were along with us made it feel like one :-D). By the time we crossed 1.5 km, I was feeling really tired and wondering whether I’ll be able to make it :(. I wasn’t sure why I really decided to trek anymore. I even remember thinking “I cannot believe that I paid for this torture” :-D. It was raining on and off and since we did wear raincoats, the rain wasn't really a problem. But the leeches couldn't so easily be dismissed. They seemed hell-bent upon getting into our shoes and enjoying their meal. All of us had sticks in our hands to pick the leeches off our legs (can’t lift them off with hands, as they attach themselves to the hand and start sucking :-p). It didn’t matter that we had smothered our legs with odomos, tobacco leaves, stuffed our shoes with salt and what not!! The first time a leech climbed on me, I was like “eeks!!!” and somehow managed to get rid of it. Soon, we got the hang of it. You just had to keep moving fast to avoid them. Whenever we needed a breather, the only way to stop was to find a smooth rock with no leeches on it to stand upon. Yet, one lucky leech (unlucky for me :-D) managed to crawl its way into my shoe. I couldn’t even remove my shoe as there were its relatives waiting to attack my leg ;-). So just went on :(.

After sometime we stopped caring about the leeches. Know why? We started seeing snakes. There were orange coloured leaves everywhere and these snakes were small and orange in colour. It was our plain luck that none of us stepped on one :-D (BTW my document on this trek ends here, so the rest of this post are actual memories :-D). Kamesh and his team were wonderful, divided the entire group of people into sub-groups of 7 each and would shout to each other to find out if everything was alright (so that if one group stopped for any reason, the group ahead would be notified). At almost the peak, the climb became steeper. One of the assistants did some rock climbing to attach ropes, with which we all pulled ourselves up to a precipice (it was damn scary). But the view beyond was worth it :).




We sat there and had some biscuits and eatables just enjoying the view.




The climb down was obviously easier and faster, but scarier. Somehow when you are climbing up, you don't really notice the steepness ;-). Yup there were a couple of muddy falls, but oh well, thats expected on a muddy downward path right? :-p. Once we were back in the base camp, the first thing we did was remove our shoes and check for leeches. I did have a couple of bites and one leech stuck in my shoe, but it's stomach was already full, so it was not interested in me anymore ;-). I think one man had the largest number of bites - I think it was somewhere inbetween 18 to 25!




We all washed up in the river, helped setup the camp and soon had a campfire blazing :).




I think we did the usual Anthyakshari, sang lots of songs, had some dinner (don't remember what now - some type of rice) and headed to sleep off. I slept in a hugggggggggge tent they set up on the platform shown above. Some people slept in one of the huts and others in sleeping bags. It was not very cold and the rain had stopped, so we had an open tent and I think it fit some 10 of us. I remember being worried that the leeches will climb onto the platform and get into my hair and that I wouldn't be able to get them out (it seems funny now, but at that time, I wasn't really crazy about that thought :-p). But as I lay on the hard ground staring up at the opening of trees which revealed the brightest stars, I knew that was precisely where I wanted to be :). I think that was the moment when I knew I wanted to do it again and again (yeah pay and get tortured :-D). It was awesome and I loved the adventure of it all :).

Next morning we were up early and had the usual breakfast. This was our big tent:




Our plan for the day was to leave by noon and get back to Bangalore within the night. But before that we want to do some river-crossing with the help of ropes on a smaller branch of the river. So we had to cross the main branch by foot first..




I love nature, especially gushing rivers and waterfalls. The previous evening I spent a long time just sitting one one of the boulders and feeling blissful. To be in the middle of nature with no touch as such to any technology is indescribable. It makes you feel so much awe for it all, such a meagre mortal in front of a tremendous force :). Anyways, we headed to the smaller branch where Kamesh setup the ropes for river-crossing.




It looks easy, but its not really. You have to pull your weight on the ropes and well, since I am not easy on the weight part, the arms get tired easily. I made it about 3/4th of the way and back. But the fun was that each and every person from age 9 to around 60 actually did it :).



After that, we headed back and actually had lunch at a hotel on the way. As I said in the earlier post of the series, the trip helped me a lot in finding out a part of my true-self and recovering from a lot of frustrations I had building up in me :).

Epilogue:

1) I am a fan of Kamesh and his troupe for life, though I went on only one other trek with the guys. He was so strict about cleanliness (asked for the trash to be picked up in the trek) and so careful about our safety. The best part was that his assistants were poor kids he encouraged and trained to participate in rock-climbing competitions (so in other words - sponsored). They just had a Yahoo group from which I'd get mails updating about treks till a few months back, but recently they have a blog in which they write about all the treks! Here's the blog - Mars Adventures: Climbing in Bangalore and they have the contact details in case anyone is interested. Recently they posted about a trek to Kemmannugundi and man, I was so jealous. Before I got married, I wanted to trek with them there, but well, Sri was in a hurry :-D. Hopefully I'll get to do that once I'm back in Bangalore for good :-D.

2) I wanted to write this post to relive the trek, to kind of tell myself to get back to it :-D. Since we have Snugli, things have obviously slackened on our part. Trekking means we have to carry her, which is not a good idea, believe me :-D. We thought we'll atleast go camping this year, but now its too late. But have to go next year sometime :).

3) I also wanted to compare how it is to trek in India and how it is here in the US. There its more rustic, with the basic necessities and more of becoming one with the nature. Here you can chose to do it the rustic way (which is what the real trekkies do), but its easier to give in to the fancy parts. Camping with parking right on the campsite, having eatables just a mile drive away and ready-made firewood for a price somehow just doesn't cut it. Its like camping in your own backyard :-p. Though I like it that the forests aren't really "planned" in Karnataka, I am sad that some things are so under-developed. There are so many beautiful spots for trekking/hiking there, yet there is not much encouragement for it. The roads leading to the areas aren't really good and it feels like its in the middle of nowhere. I know I'm being contradictory, but I feel there should be a balance between convenience and the rusticity, so that more people can enjoy the getting closer to nature part :).