In God's Own Country - Munnar/Thekkady

Of the original five planned for the tour, two dropped out due to unavoidable reasons. That was in keeping with our planning - we either cancel the entire outing, or there are drops out. But this was one trip that materialized with the three of us - ex-roommates and close buddies from TCS, who conveniently are still bachelors. To make this memorable, Sudhi did his best on the very first leg of the trip - landed up at the Bangalore railway station at his convenience, which was around 60 minutes after our train had left. Never to lose heart at such setbacks, we harassed a close friend of ours at work and had her book our tickets on a KPN full sleeper to Cochin. (She was such a benevolent soul; she declined our sincere effort to pay her back for the tickets).

25th Aug - Saji meanwhile had lined up a prospective alliance to check out in the first morning of our four day trip. Being the kind soul that he is, he made a dish in the name of upma that had nothing (absolutely nothing, no exaggeration here)  in it other than sooji and incidentally chose to have his breakfast with the girl he was about to 'check out'. As expected we were well behind our schedule and to make up for his 'upma' and our agonizing wait on empty stomachs, Saji took us to a buffet place that would serve as a palliative. Key takeaway at this point was Sudhi's initiation into what would become an obsession with him for the rest of the trip - "Fish Curry and Fish Fry". Post lunch, the little Santro did its best to pull up three heavily built guys, their luggage and the beating it got at the hands of Saji. Nobody ever dare ask him the question - 'if it were your car, would you drive like this?’ We got our answer during this road trip. As the rains started beating down on the winding roads, we were taken in by the beauty of the greenery all around drenched in mist and rain. Over the next few days we realized that, it was probably a great idea to visit Munnar and Thekkady during the rains, and wondered if it really made sense to call it as an off-season. After a drive of about 160Kms, at 8 PM we checked into Muir Cottage built in 1914, which was a well maintained relic owned by the Kannan Devan group. After ordering a meal befitting kings, we chose to retire for the day, not before reminiscing our days in the US and other profound matters of life :-). Loss of the day - Sudhi lost his adidas cap, after coming so close to losing his glasses too at a wayside waterfall.  Some people never change ;-)

26th Aug - We woke up to some freshly brewed chai and gave in to Sudhi's new found indulgence - Photography. The hot puttu and peas curry was just as liberating as the verdant lush tea plantations and various other floras that glistened in the early morning rains. The mere thought of the breathtaking scenery that remained to be explored, made us haul ourselves from our beds and set on doing the mandatory touch points at madupatty dam, echo point, top position et al. The highlight of the day though happened to be our lunch at a shack that served 'Naadan' (country) meal of rice, fish curry, sambar, rasam, more-kuzhambu, poriyals, pickle, papad and fried fish. We topped off the meal with the umpteenth cup of chai. The climb up and down to 'Top Position' was the most arduous one and gave us a stark reminder of our fitness levels. Just to make it little more adventurous, Sudhi chose to leave Saji's Lee Cooper sandals at a strategic location by the roadside while losing himself into his Canon D40. We had no choice but hope that on the way back, we would be able to spot the place where Sudhi parked his loaned sandals. Life is harsh sometimes and people are cruel - the person who lifted the suede sandals, knowing our plight in locating the exact place of our misfortune, left behind a vital clue - his beaten down chappals. We were crazy and picked up that pair and stared at the feet (Not in a way that we were used to) of bystanders and plantation workers hoping that we would catch the culprit red-handed, but had no luck whatsoever.  However, we were just plain lucky  to see at hardly a distance of 30 meters, a calf and two female elephants feasting on a thick patch of green grass.  Back at the cottage, we feasted on the parottas, chappatis, fish, chicken curry et al that we parceled from the best non-veg serving outlet in Munnar town. Loss of the day - Saji's Lee Cooper Sandals.

27th Aug - Our original plan was to leave for Thekkady at 5:30 AM and given our standards, the eventual start at 6:15 AM was not that bad. Easily the best stretch of scenery was the initial 40 Kms or so from Munnar towards Thekkady. Never have I seen in my life, such a riot of greenery nestled in stunning valleys, masked in misty dew and the constant heavy downpour. 'Breathtaking' probably would not suffice to express the visuals tapestry that we saw and it was one of the few rare moments, when I became philosophical and despondent about our city lives. The water from the waterfalls tasted so much better than the mineral water that we are used to consuming. There were occasions when we just closed our eyes and exerted ourselves to breathe in as much of the fresh air that we could. A sense of calm descended upon us during such moments. The breakfast we had at one of the smaller towns was pure mallu food - puttu made in coconut shells, chemmandi (coconut chutney), egg curry, appam, parotta, dosa and chai. On reaching Periyar reserve, we checked out the KTDC hotel within the park and the Ranger Wood hotel just outside the park.  The former was not well maintained, had small rooms and a curfew past 6 PM. The choice was easy and we checked into a Rs.1750 room in Ranger wood, whose balcony had a beatific view of the reserve. We went on the 2 hour boat ride on Periyar Lake and could spot limited fauna - wild boar, deer, wild gaur, few faraway elephants and lots of herons. Later in the evening, we went on the mandatory Kalaripayattu and Kathakali performances for about Rs.350 per head, but were taken in more by the fresh 'parippu vada' and super chai outside the performance theatres. There is something about this deadly combo, and more so about the ‘chaya’ (tea) in Kerala :-)

28th Aug - We had to leave in time to catch our return train to Bangalore from Kochi and with that single-mindedness, we headed to the buffet breakfast on offer at the hotel we stayed in:-) Saji worked himself into a frenzy and emptied half a bowl of butter and jam, couple of litres of coffee and tea, and 8 slices of toasted bread.  The drive from Thekkady to Kochi was a race against time and we did stop for a naadan lunch, but were heartbroken when we saw the last of the fried fish being served at the table adjacent to us. By now Sudhi had developed something equivalent of a tennis elbow that tennis players develop - he had a 'photographer wrist' that he developed by spending majority of his time handling the heavy DSLR.  We were on the lookout for river or temple pond to take a dip, but  that we could never manage. Reality dawned upon us as we approached the Cochin station - it became unbearably sultry and warm, more traffic and chaos. We made in time this time around to catch the return train. It was the toughest part of the tour - the realization that the trip was over and we would miss the awesome time we had for the last 4 days.  Oh by the way….Loss of the day - Rajesh's fast-track case

One of the lady tourists enquired if were single and if we were experiencing the 'Zindegi Na Milegi Dobara' feeling.

Hyderabad - A new beginning

The initial enthusiasm was just about to give way to abject frustration. Thankfully, things didn’t turn out to be too bad. The initial days in the land of the nizams and sumptuous biriyanis, was not too very pleasant (Blame it on the balmy Bengaluru weather). On the flip side, I was lucky to have missed a major part of the notorious summer heat in this part of the country; not that the alternative option of Chennai humidity was too appealing.

I had set myself a very optimistic target of not just finding a nice place to stay, but also to pick up a nice cool Royal Enfield bullet and a decent second hand compact four wheeler - all within 3 weeks. After some dubious apartment sightseeing - courtesy some overenthusiastic brokers, I settled for a decent apartment pretty near to my work place. But the search for the bike and car is still very much on, with people living up the motto - 'Sellers sell dear, buyers buy cheap'. The stalemate is still on.

But all this didn’t deflate my zealousness in buying a food guide for Hyderabad, and I have been on a gourmet testing trip on the weekends. My very first lunch meal was the typical Andhra fare, with fury unleashed on all items in the lunch thali excepting the curd and the sweet.  The notable restaurants so far have been - Rayalsima Ruchiluru, Ohris, Kankis, Paradise, Angeethi, Utupura, Calcutta cabiin, 'Rattle and Hum', Riverside on Hussain Sagar, and Bhojanam (super décor for super mediocre food).

Banjara hills surely has on display some of the swankiest four-wheelers I have ever seen in India, not to mention few Harleys thrown in. Like people say, 'when you have em, flaunt em', these posh cars zip through the rather narrow but neatly laid out roads in and around banjara/jubilee hills. I saw more cars in MLA colony than people in the one month I spent in that part of the town.

Nothing comes cheap in the place where I stay, excepting two dhabas with limited fare and the road side tea shops. The place is full of swanky furniture showrooms, and an unbelievable number of beauty salons catering to the upscale clientele. I am seriously thinking of visiting one of the road side barbers who also ply their trade occasionally.

Pity that the city doesn’t screen many of the tamil movies in their original form and instead the big banner ones are dubbed in Telugu. The appeasement - Monsoons here are supposedly pleasant, and true to the word, it has been the case so far J

The crowing glory - The ICC World Cup

Fear seizes most of the Indian fans, when their powerhouse openers are back in the hut with very little on the board. What hurts bowling teams that bowl first are not the attritional batsmen of the likes of Gambhir or Clarke, but more of bulldozers like Hayden and Sehwag, and even more devastating are silken assassins of the kind of Jayawardene and Anwar. At the end of the first half, the momentum was very much with the Lankans with Zaheer reliving the blues from the 2003 final. You could sense the jubilation in the Lankan camp vis-a-vis the despondence that was written on the Indian fans faces.  While this Indian team ( I haven’t gone through the stats as yet) might be relatively good at chasing down totals, chasing more than just competitive total in a world cup final is a different ball-game altogether. Add to this cauldron, the desperation of the billion fans and one cold reality that this really is the last chance for Tendulkar, the gnawing fact that we are so agonizingly close to world cup glory. Phew….it takes nerves of steel and an eternal struggle to stay afloat and give it one good almighty heave. Dhoni did just that with the winning six!!

Its hard to maintain one’s equanimity during the cricket matches and I did feel the adrenaline pumping during the 2003 game against Pak and the knockout games in this WC. Probably I will never get over these feelings and to be honest, I don’t want to get over it either.  It took a while for me to settle down and adjust to the reality of India featuring in a WC final after 2003.

MS's candor has come in for lot of praise, even as his detractors hail him as one plain lucky dude. While its hard to pass judgment on the latter, one must say that his two major decisions today were backed by reasonable logic:

1.       Playing  enfant terrible Sreesanth over a more complete cricketer such as Ashwin:

It is common knowledge that the Lankans are comfortable against spin and there could be potential problems from the dew factor if we were to defend a score.

2.       Bringing himself ahead of Yuvi:  This was obviously to negate Murali's past success against Yuvi and his own ability to read Murali's doosra much better. Secondly, allowing two southpaws against offies would have enabled the Lankan spinners to settle into a nice rhythm.

From the Lankan front, there were as many as 4 changes that raised a few eyebrows. Sanga probably thought he would spring a surprise on the Indians by bringing in Randiv in place of Mendis (whose recent record against Indians hasn’t been noteworthy). Nuwan and Perera's inclusion were prompted by their collective all round ability to plug the gap left by Angelo Mathews. Kapugedera in place of Chamara Silva surely seemed to be a gamble, with not much separating the two except the former's electric fielding.

The final denouement was a fitting climax for many, especially for Sachin and not so great for another legend: Murali. The form and mental fortitude shown by the younger brigade augurs well for the ODI side at least for few years to come. What distinguishes champion sides such as WI of the 70-80s and Aussies in the 90s-00s, is their consistency across all competitions and the sense of fear they instilled in the opposition until the final ball was bowled. While India still has a long way to go before scaling such heights, we have reached some significant summits in recent years and pray that we build on these successes without starting all over again under a new coach.

Personally the last one week has been a mixed bag for me: the graduation, a job, and on the flip side - the reality that my college days are over and there won’t be any more back slapping and goofing around with my college buddies. This victory is thus sweet tonic for me and I would definitely savor it for sometime to come.

Chak de India !!