To Coorg and back (A Travelogue)

They say that when Akbar was born the constellation was such that occurred only once in thousand years. But they were wrong. Once again such a constellation was formed when all the 8 available members of the 'fsasken' group were available for a trip to somewhere. Gprads was in Shanghai and hence he was the only one not available. Instead we had Pani with us who later joined the fsasken group.
For people who do not know the fsasken group, here's the list of people who were ready for the trip:
Deepadh
Dineshna
KPA
Manju
Nishi
Pani
Rashmi
Vadi and
myself
When it came to deciding the destination, KPA suggested Kasargod (his native) since he didn't get bus tickets for the same. Vadi said that Chikmagalur was a good place, worth watching, which was approved by most of us. Just as we thought that destination was finalised, Deepadh suggested that we should be going to Sagar. But that's not her problem. She has been working with TII for a over a year now and if things go as per plan she feels that some thing's wrong. We however convinced her that 2 days ahead of the trip if we know that we are going to Sagar, it would be a planned activity and that she would find it very disturbing.
These were not the only problems that we faced ahead of the trip. TII wanted Rashmi and Deepadh to work over the weekend. Vadi had his 'uppit' programand Nishi's father was planning to be in Bangalore the same time. 'Uppit' program is where Vadi goes to see a girl and is invariably fed with uppit (khara bath or upma). It's very easy, if you don't like the girl you concentrate on the uppit and if you don't like the uppit you concentrate on the girl. But at some point of time in life you need to make a choice about what's more important, the uppit or the girl. But the 'Matrix' says, 'the choice has already been made, you are here only to understand it'. Pani mad a similar decision, wouldn't like to comment on whether he liked Rashmi or the uppit.
Surprisingly, our problems didn't last long. Nishi's father postponed his visit, Rashmi and Deepadh were not required to work on the weekends and Vadi decided that he would have his uppit somewhere on the way. We had plans of going by Manju's Innova. But we realised that Chikmagalur would be too far for Manju to drive and that it would be difficult to fit in 9 people in the Innova. So one day prior to the trip we decided to go to Coorg and by tempo traveller. Pani made the tempo traveller booking. He also booked a coffee estate near Madikeri (in Coorg, Karnataka). We were all set to start early morning on the 1st of April.
I reached my pick up point at sharp 5am only to know that the tempo walla had though that people were playing April Fool on him and had hence not turned up. Actually, his vehicle had a problem and he was not going to make it. So the only choice left was to go by Innova. That meant accommodating 9 people in Innova. We asked to Deepadh to stay back. She didn't mind since she relished such unplanned activities. Truly speaking, she had some personal work and wasn't available for the trip. Wonder if the personal work was about helping the tempo walla start his vehicle.
We started our journey in the Innova at around 6:30 am picking up people from their respective pick up points. It was like a garbage van collecting garbage from the city in the wee hours of the morning. Again wouldn't elaborate whether I am commenting about the Innova or the people inside.
We planned to go to Madikeri via the Mysore road. Very soon we touched the Mysore road a project that is going on since the last 2 years and is yet incomplete. Government should be assigned the task of creating pot holes, they would fail at it and we would have better roads.
Manju was at the driver's seat (and driving too), Pani sat next to him. Me Dineshna and Vadi were in the centre seat and KPA, Nishi and Rashmi in the last seat. Pani was pestering Manju by telling him what all things his Innova lacked as compared to a F1 car. May be Manju would have wanted to tell him that a F1 car is only a single seater. But Manju's Innova was in fact inferior, it's tyres didn't have tube! (PJ!) However, one shouldn't complain about his car or wife, other's always looks more attractive. But there was a major difference between Manju's car and a normal wife; Manju's car didn't have an audio system.
Rashmi (aka Rowdy Rangamma) had got cards along and soon people started playing cards. I didn't participate since playing indoor games is against my dharma (nature). Rashmi had got a huge stock of chips along. People were munching the chips and playing cards. The Rowdy was spoiling innocent boys like KPA, Vadi and Dineshna, who until then thought that cards were only for building card houses. She had persuaded them by demonstrating how difficult it is to build card houses in a moving car on Indian roads. The Rowdy had made Manju's car her den and such unscrupulous activities continued till we reached Madikeri.
We reached Madikeri in the afternoon around 1-2pm. We headed for the coffee estate that Pani had booked. It was not too far from Madikeri. I didn't know what exactly to expect when people said coffee estate. But what we saw was really wonderful. It was a small bungalow embedded on one of the hill slopes. The hill slope was densely covered with trees, primarily coffee plants. The house was like a kid taking his first lessons in painting, trying to paint a page green but inadvertently leaves out a white spot somewhere.
We were received by the estate owner. We had informed him beforehand to prepare lunch for us. By the time the lunch got ready we indulged in sports. I somehow find any sport a spiritual activity. It takes you away from this illusory world and the world it takes to is heaven. I forget around me and even my self. We had got a lot of things to play with, Frisbee, Volley ball, Basket ball etc.
We played out hearts out like kids do during their summer vacations and then ate like anything. KPA didn't let me eat much since we wanted to start for trek and we needed to finish our lunch quickly. Dineshna was behaving like a cave man. He was going around the estate and plucking fruits and relishing them. We somehow made him have lunch from plate.
Our house was half way up on one of the hills (not sure whether to call it a hill or mountain, let me call it a hill though it was a good 200-300m tall) which itself was a part of the mountain ranges that ran through the plains there. If we climbed down that hill there were fields below and then one more range that ran almost parallel to the one that we were housed on. We decided that we would conquer this very range. The estate owner was going to be our guide. Thus began our trekking adventure.
It was great fun going up that range. The path was narrow and went winding through the wilderness of the mountains. On the way we ate leaves that tasted like Tamarind and some small fruits. Wondered what it would be like if we had to survive on these very resources. We clicked a few snaps but I doubt whether those snaps or what I am writing would ever be able to capture what we felt that time. You had to be there and share the same kind of relation that we shared to understand what it was to be like to be there.
People were very enthusiastic about reaching the top and the fact that they had woke up at 4am, travelled for 7 hours didn't bog them down. Even Rowdy had proudly declared that she can walk long distances for a while.
Finally, we reached the top of the hill and as it happens in life, many a times the journey is more fun than the destination. The sky here still seemed to be at the same distance as it was when we were at the foot hills. We catched our breath for a while and then proceeded to walk along the top so that we could climb down from a different path.
As we walked, we noticed that we were still climbing up a not so steep but steady incline. We were wondering how far up we were going to reach. We decided to have some fun by running 100m sprints. We had two such races and KPA won both of them. KPA proved that if you want to stay fit there's no game like Football. FYI, KPA plays Football too well.
At one point we decided that we would cut the road and descend across the mountain slope. On this path the trees were quite sparse. It was getting to difficult climb down. The slope was quite steep at many a places and the decline was 2 ways- forward as well as sideways. Also, the ground was hard with loose mud at the top. This was making it difficult to grip the surface. Since there were not many trees around there wasn't anything that we could hold on to for support. The valley below was staring at us with it's mouth open to savor us.
Our team moved down slowly taking cautious steps. The sun was preparing to set behind the ranges. It seemed like it didn't want to see anyone of us loosing our step, it must have seen a lot of such accidents and hence was hurrying behind the mountains. We realised that if it got dark before we got down we might have to stay wherever we were. But as we progressed the way became easier and soon we managed to touch the foot hills. We refreshed ourselves in the small stream that we located at the foot hills and then proceeded for home.
We reached home by 7-8pm. There was no electricity most of the times in that place. Hence, we had just a minimal number of lights running on generator. We played 'housie' in those semi-dark conditions while we sipped on a refreshing cup of tea. Pani discovered how to create fire and soon we had a camp fire ready. In the background dinner was getting ready.
I was pretty much interested in the dinner since pork was going to be cooked. I find any non-veg dish better than most of the veg dishes. The pork was good. We had to sleep early as we had plans of getting up early the next morning. Everyone slept by 11-11:30pm.
The next morning we woke up by 6-6:30am. Manju and Rowdy Ranga captured sunrise in their cameras. Yes, it was the same sun that had tried to betray us the previous evening. It was looking fresh in the morning with a bright yellow glow on it's face. It peeped slowly from behind the mountains, it was obviously expecting a backlash from us for what it did to us. But we had forgiven it and when it came to know about this it came out unhesitatingly.
We played for sometime in the morning. It was a long time since most of us got this care free in life. Reminded me of a song sung by Jagjit Singh, 'yeh daulat bhi le lo...' We had our breakfast and got ready for yet another trek.
This was a relatively easier and shorted trek that we completed within 2 hours. We had to leave the same afternoon and hence couldn't afford to go for long trek. We came back sipped a beer and decided to explore the hill that we were staying on. This time Rowdy and Pani didn't accompany us for our final expedition. It was a very short trek since the house was almost half way up on the hill. Nevertheless it was fun.
We came back had lunch and started getting ready for our way back. We started back at around 2pm. On the way back we stopped at Cafe Coffee Day and had a great pastry. The Cafe Coffee Day reminded us that our rendezvous with nature was over and that we were back to the concrete jungle all ready to be a part of the Matrix.
On the trip we discovered that Dineshna always uses macros while speaking. His behaviour doesn't change even after having a beer. Examples of macros used: 'uska who kya hua?', 'iska yeh kahan hai?' The listener has to wisely substitute the pronouns with appropriate nouns so as to make sense of what Dineshna has to say.
Overall it was a good trip. Travelled in the best possible vehicle, with the best possible driver (if I may call Manju that), lodged in the best possible accommodation and of course had the best possible people for company.

(written- 4th Apr' 06)