Marriage by choice

Marriage by choice

 

After 3 recent engagements went bust amidst kinsfolks, all three being called off by the girls – I have begun to ponder if the concept of arranged marriages preceded by an elaborate engagement is endangered. This thought takes me to instant flash back.

 

I can’t but help to remind myself and those around me, about my maternal grandfather. The grand old man went on to live for nearly 90 years and was a gifted man. He had the knack of matching his oratory skills and content based on his audience. I had the good fortune to spend 50 months of my college days with him, he was a fearless man with a sense of achievement. His list of achievements always began with his wedding. He was married to my grandmother at his age of 17, while the granny was 10. Child marriages are taboo today but a norm in early 1900s. It was a classical arranged marriage in which the old man apparently saw his lady love only after a couple of years and that too on their wedding night. No courtship what so ever, but Grand pa loved grand ma till the last day of their lives.

 

Moving a little ahead, I recall hearing from aunts, uncles and my parents about their journey and how it began. It was a perfect 1960’s arranged marriage, parents met first, agree upon the dates and other modalities. The children then began writing to each other, somewhere down the line love blossomed and marriages solemnized. Indian postal system working at its peak. My grandparents never discouraged my parents from writing to each other before wedding; maybe they were happy to allow this. My parents love each other to this day.

 

Cut to my own experience, I refuse to call my wedding an arranged wedding. This is how it unfolded – parents met and could not agree upon several things. However during that meeting I was present and insisted on speaking alone to the girl, hardly any resistance –in the next few minutes - I was talking to my could be wife, I did try to wit her or maybe flirt a little too. I liked her and she liked me, we continued to talk to each other and gradually our parents buried the differences. Engagement was fixed, rings were exchanged and lots of phone calls and letters  later, we got married. This is probably 4 leap years ago.

 

So I would guess you have noticed generational progress that my DNA and hormones have made. It would be safe to say that in the past 15 years or so, the middle class has become more open to love marriages, marriages cutting across states, languages and culture. One would still raise an eyebrow if the religion barrier or the caste barrier is broken but it is no longer unacceptable. Parents are willing to mute themselves if they find their offspring is in pursuit of a mate. Middle class has become more open and that is probably why they are becoming less bothered about their immediate society. They are willing to listen to their girls and also listen to their flip flops. They are open to elaborate engagements and they are also open to allowing their girls to call it off.

 

So is this good or bad? I would argue this is good. Who gains from this and who loses? The people who lose or who will eventually lose are those who are not gifted with courtship skills. Courtship skills are necessarily a function of Looks, skills (read education or other skills) and money. The proportion can vary but all three are mandatory. The best in the market will find their corresponding best and rest will have to settle down for the rest and that too their parents will have to help in courtship, Aka arranged marriages.

 

Let me repeat myself with a different set of words, I strongly believe that in today’s modern world (cutting across urban and rural), it is best left to the boy and girl to find a match for themselves. If this responsibility still lies on the shoulders of the parents then there is a cause of concern. The society is rapidly changing and we better change with it.

One week in Singapore with Family

Dream come true, few days off, no laptop, no mobile phone, no work tension, no investment worries. Time well spend with family in Singapore.

Day 1:

We landed in a rainy Singapore on a Saturday morning, a friendly taxi took to us to our Hotel in Lavender, the staff were very courteous and without much fuss gave us an early check in. We hit the bed almost immediately after stepping into our room, the hotel was quite good and the rooms were nice and clean but a wee bit smaller for a family of four. There was no space for an extra bed but we found ways to manage.

We woke up past noon and the excitement in all of us did not allow us to laze around much, we were quick to hit the road and were on our way to the Singapore flyer in a taxi. The flyer is the largest Ferris wheel in the world – beats the London eye by nearly 100ft. Wow. We boarded the flyer for the slow half an hour- single rotation. My younger one was a tad disappointed that this wheel did not furiously rotate like the one she recently tried in Ooty. The view was awesome and we all did enjoy the first outing of our trip. The girls also tried their hands (actually legs) in the fish SPA, allowing infinite fishes to nimble their dead skins. They all enjoyed it at that moment, not sure of its other benefits.

We walked to the Merlion from here and enjoyed the view and gathering there. After it became dark and our stomachs were crying for food, we decided to visit Clarke Quay for dinner. The place was beautiful but the vegetarian girls could not withstand the smell (read Aroma) of the Chinese food, we quickly retreated to Little India for some Indian food. Wondering why is vegetarianism so very Indianish only. Sigh. Back to the hotel in a MRT.

Day 2:

This was a full day and a Sunday. So after the breakfast at the hotel, we rode a taxi to the Zoo. The zoo did not look very crowded. The zoo has some very interesting and rare animals and one thing I must admit is that this was not a smelly affair unlike most of the other zoos I have visited before. The white tiger pair stands clearly etched in my memory, so is the first ever view of Kangroos. We also made it the animal shows and of course the shows very interesting even though there was some drama build in to create the excitement.

The night safari is simply out of the world experience, just make sure to walk around as much as possible, the tram may not be that exciting. There is Nocturnal animal show as well, which is again not miss-able. We took a bus and MRT combo to get back to Hotel, we walked into a local food court, there was no Veg food but one enterprising shop keeper offered to make veg fried rice, but the girls were in no mood to sit there watching the many kinds of Non veg being cooked and meat hanging around. We rushed to a 7/11 store nearby to pick up some bread and other bakery items for dinner.

Day 3:

The enthusiasm woke us up early and post breakfast we were at the Harbour front getting ready for Sentosa. A little touristy fleecing – we ended  up buying an expensive ticket that had few rides and a guide service in it, we would have settled for a little cheaper ‘all rides inclusive day pass’ instead – if we had known where to buy it. L. Anyways taking things in our stride, we enjoyed what we were entitled to like the ‘Cine Magic – log ride’, butterfly park, maritime museum, the underwater world, the Dolphin show etc., we bought tickets for the other rides that we wanted to do like the 3D game show, 4D show, Merlion visit. Watching the dolphins was dream come true for the girls (esp the oldest one). The cable car visit to the island was breathtaking and we enjoyed our privacy up there.  Riding a MRT back to Little India – Indian dinner. We walked back to our hotel in spite of the girls protesting.

Day 4:

This day was dedicated to the Bird park. We took a MRT to Boon Lay and a bus from there to reach the bird park, I had expected to complete the park by early noon, but the shows and the time spend in the Aviaries ensured that this was a almost full day affair, we finished sooner than our normal times and repeated the same evening ritual of Little India – Indian dinner and Walk back.

Day 5:

By now, one may expect to get tired and take things slowly. Luckily we do not qualify for that. We were more energetic than day 1 and this was another action packed day. We took a MRT to Harbour front and walked up the Broad walk to reach Universal Studios. This was a ‘one ticket all rides’ entrance. We enjoyed all the 19 rides on offer except two - sing along the shrek and rock climbing. I would rate transformers as the best 4D show I have ever seen. It was out of the world, so were the dueling roller coasters. The all dark ‘Return of the Mummy’ ride was scary. My younger one missed a few rides, for she is a little short in her current height for some rides. Elder one was daddy’s girl, boldly enjoyed all the rides.

Day 6 & 7:

I was at office attending meetings and some very exciting trainings. The girls were busy shopping, they went around China town, Orchard road, the mandatory Mustafa and Little India shopping. End of day 7, we returned back to reality, it was the best 7 days of our lives and something that we will not forget soon (till our next holiday).

Jaipur - Agra - Delhi

The chief architect of this trip was Shobana, she had applied for leave when we had planned for an aboard trip but when the phoren thing did not happen, she was in no mood to relent, we had to go somewhere interesting in India for a week. Just 2 days to go, the 2AC tickets were still waitlisted in the ‘Mysore-Jaipur train’ and there is where Tatkal came handy, we managed to get confirmed 3AC tickets to Jaipur in under 2 days notice. Feverish packing including a big bag full of snacks.

The train left on time but thanks to the Telangana issues it got diverted via Goa, Mumbai, Gujarat before reaching Jaipur - a good 14 hours late, that meant a full day of sightseeing lost in the train. Actually no regrets – it was a nice time to unwind in the comfort of the AC train while kids had a roaring time with the newly acquired friends of their age in the train. We reached our Hotel – Choki Dani for the night, we managed to enjoy the very famous village fair at the hotel and some sumptuous Rajasthani food. The fair had all the works thrown in including Camel rides, Elephant rides, manual rides in merry go rounds and giant wheels, there was mehandi, puppet show, kulfi wala, folk dancers etc etc. The Choki Dhani resort is a 5 star resort, though away from the city it is worth it for its rustic setting, it was indeed a very nice place to relax and we spend the first half of the next day till check out.

We reached the Albert hall museum by noon, the museum is housed in a very beautiful building build for the purpose, we choose to get ourselves the audio guide and it was interesting and worth it. History interests me and I indeed found the place very informative. There was a lot of Mughal influence but still the Jaipur Rajputana probably had its own unique identity and pride. There was also some  British influence. For the historical minds, such as mine, I could imagine the royalty, the Rajput pride. Coming from a clan that is the immediate cousin to the Rajput clan, I could feel the connect with City and its culture – both current and historically. We then drove to Hawa Mahal, we entered the pink city and wow the buildings were all in pink – my kids freak out on anything that is pink. Hawa mahal again reminds one of the Rajputana grandeur, it was a palace for the royal women to watch the royal processions and also enjoy watching the common man life- without being spotted by other men. The parda system must have been practiced very rigidly. A very Mughalai thing. The Guide did his best to explain the functionalities of various parts of the palace. From Hawa Mahal, our clever driver wanted to take us around in the city itself but we did insist on going to the far off places such as the Amer Fort and Jaigarh fort. The Jaigarh fort has nothing great but a very huge place and well preserved, we had a look at the great cannon and the museum within the fort. There are some interesting stories about the treasure being hidden in the tanks etc etc.  Some put offs like – they charge Rs.50 for camera – wonder why? Taj Mahal does not charge for camera and has a cheaper entrance fee. Anyway from here we went to Amer fort, this is a very beautiful fort. Here too – you could easily spot striking influence of the Mughals . Our guide seemed to be a Jodha Akbar movie fan, he kept showing us the various places in the fort where the movie was shot, the sword fighting scene, the barath, the kitchen scene, etc etc. Here is where I also dared to put a cobra around my neck….interesting experience, yes – a live cobra. Post the Amer fort, we stopped by at the Jal Mahal Palace, few photographs and we were now heading towards the hotel – Jai Mahal Palace – A Taj property. Wow this was so cool, a 250 years old palace used by the prime minister of the royal family. Surrounded by beautiful gardens, the palace was truly a exhilarating experience. A bit expensive but then the maiden trip to Jaipur can be a good excuse to stay in one of the palaces.

The 5 star experience was awesome, the service, the evening magic shows and dance shows were all  much superior than what we had seen the previous night. The huge spread at the breakfast table and the prompt service was indeed a royal feeling, kids had a roaring time, they enjoyed every bit of all this. There were cookies with their names written on it and the girls were so excited that they refused to eat them. We checked out earlier than the 1200 noon deadline and went about sightseeing and shopping. We visited the City Palace and Jantar Mantar, followed by some very local food at local joint – Dal Bhati at the Santhosh Dabba and then the girls went around blowing some money around in the Bapu Bazzar. From here we straight head to the station to board the Aii Af intercity express to Agra, the A/C Chair car journey was very peaceful.

At Agra – it was the typical tourist center fleecing, taxis demanding exorbitant fares, there was some sort of a cartel, I managed to break the cartel and an Auto fellow was willing to ferry us at nominal rates, the kids wanted to try McD for dinner and we did a drive in to McD in an Auto. I wasn’t expecting to be let in Trident hotel  in an Auto but Agra 5 Stars seem to be an exception, they let the auto in. Funny experiences! The Trident staff were very polite and also gave us the wonderful recommendation of visiting the Taj at dawn. We had earlier planned a late morning outing to Taj.

 

The suggestion was indeed very valuable, at 6 am the Taj is hardly crowed and it is so pleasurable. Agra daytime can be harsh in terms of heat. We did the standard photos and going around the Taj. At around 830 we went back to our hotel via the Railway station after booking our evening train to Delhi. The breakfast was sumptuous at Trident and we realized we were on the European plan (no Break fast) only after the bill arrived. A small oversight but good food, hmmm…..no value of money. We availed a late checkout to enjoy the pool for a while before we could go to the Agra fort. I like this fort and history kind of re-lives here on how an emperor like Shah Jahan who build the magnificent Mausoleum was imprisoned and died while in Fort Prison. Beautiful Fort – wonder how these building have been standing so tall and handsome for some many decades. While at the throne room, enjoyed imagining how the Mughal durbar would have been conducted. Must have been a very elaborate and grand affair. We did not employ a guide here and that gave us ample time to chill around the place. We did some Petha & Souvenirs shopping before reaching the station via the hotel to pick up our luggage. The auto driver by now had turned very greedy and demanded some obscene fare. You can trust me to manage such morons. The train journey to Delhi in A/C chair car – Taj Express was again peaceful.

Delhi station was huge, busy and one could easily get lost of lose something, an auto took us to our hotel. For Delhi – I choose a budget hotel, there were many options and it was pretty easy for me, I had to choose the one that offers the extra bed at free of cost. Hence landed in Karol Bagh. The hotel was neat, clean, many forgeries, a well marketed hotel on the net – I guess, and it was in walk-able distance from Jandhewalan metro station. The service was prompt and very customizable. We got food of our choice – lots of curds and little of everything else.

We decided to use the metro extensively for our local transport, the Rs.100 tourist card was very useful with its unlimited usage for one day. We used the map to plan our day, Sonia very quickly understood the map and became our leader for the rest of the metro trip. We visited the Qutub Minar to begin our day, the kids were very impressed. It is indeed a beauty to watch something that has been standing tall for more than 800 years, that is like even before the British or even before the Mughals. It was built by Qutb-ud-din Aibak who defeated the popular king Privthiraj Chavan – if you recall the story of Samyukta – Swayamwar, Md Ghori, Blinding of king and he killing Ghori  by sound.

We continued our Delhi sight-seeing using metro, we visited the India gate and also shot some photos with the Parliament and Rastrapathi Bhavan in the back ground. After some India gate back drop photos of the kids- we went to Lotus temple, Akarsdham temple before shopping and dinner at Connaught Place (CP). The Second day in Delhi also was very planned, we visited the famous Delhi-6, Chandni Chowk, Red Fort, Jama masjid, Lunch in the Paratha wale gali, some very interesting parathas in the very crowded and densely populated gallis. This place too must have been inhabited for centuries and I was wondering if it would have always been crowed and thickly poplulated like now, maybe in relative terms yes. Some shopping in wholesale markets, some more food – panni puri, jalebis….you see we do not visit Chandni chowk every other day, so we had to do everything possible. We then went to the famous Sarojini Nagar market before heading back to the hotel to pack, check out, reach the station on time. Our tickets were waitlisted  and thanks to Naresh, I managed to book tatkal and cancel those waitlisted ones.

The return journey in the Rajdhani and experience was wonderful, it is a super fast train with very few stops and no hawkers. The whole train is A/C and food is served along with snacks and tea. This could qualify as the best way to go to Delhi for any non –business purposes.

A very refreshing trip and all of us are reinvigorated, so time to get back to work and start to plan the next trip.

Uttara Kannda Dist........

A trip to Karwar (Uttara Kannda district) would not have happened but for Manju – my cousin who is in the Police dept there. He persuaded me to visit the place, my parents visited him recently and their experience too counted.

Karwar and Bangalore are directly connected only by Road, the Rail and Air links are circuitous. We reached karwar in the morning by bus and were picked up from the station and dropped to the Police guest house for freshening up. The Breakfast at home was very simple and delicious. We started the day by visiting the War ship museum, as the place was without electricity on that day, we could not watch the intro video, we still managed to go around the ship and guess what we had an exclusive experience, there were no other tourists. We then went the aquarium, sad place in a dilapidated building. Waste of time. We then went to the science museum, interesting place – esp if you are with school going kids – again we were the only ones in here and had good fun.

Manju joined us at the Science museum and from here we drove up the Sadashivgad – a old fort with loads of history around it. The uphill drive was on kaccha road and the view from there was breathtaking, you could see the Kali River, the Karwar beach, the Devbagh beach, the western ghats. Am sure the Sun set view from here will be superb. We descended back to Karwar for Lunch and enjoyed some very local food. Early evening we went to the Devbagh beach on motor boats crossing underneath the huge bridge – the golden gate of Karwar. :-)

Devbagh is part of the jungle lodge properties, hammocks thrown in every possible tree pairs, some rope walking, mini play garden, the dining gol-ghars, cottages amongst trees and all this just on a private beach. The beach was hardly crowded and the view of the 3 mountains in the sea was awesome, they said you would walk up to the first one during low tides. The first one looked like a tortoise from the beach and was aptly called Kurumgad Island, the next one apparently resembled a sitting elephant and the third one had a light house. The view was out of the world and so was the experience of a clean neat private beach in India. Hawaii would easily qualify for second place without its Corals.

The second day was action packed too – we were lucky to get one of our friends lend his car to us, we drove 12 kms into Goa to top up the tank and visited the southernmost beach of Goa. This beach is not motor able, we had to trek for a quarter km before we hit the waters. This beach was a bit rough and had some rocks sitting pretty on the shore. We did get venture out to knee deep levels and it was good fun. We had a nice view of the Kurumgad Island from northern side from here. We spend more time on the beach than we had planned and returned back to Karnataka, to continue our journey into the western Ghats. Our next stop was Dandeli – a Bamboo town 120 kms away on the ghats. The road trip was to cut through dense forests and there were quite a few waterfalls on the way, frequently we would also get the view of the plains below and every time we drove up, the view got more scenic. We also saw the Kadra dam from a distance before halting at Ulavi temple. We missed the free lunch by ten minutes and ended up eating a lots of biscuits with some chai from the tea stall nearby. The place had many pilgrims from surrounding areas and it was nice to see some civilization after a 3 hour drive - a very lonely drive thru the jungles. We could not spot many animals spare some peacocks.

After the temple we headed straight to Supa dam, where our night stay was arranged by the top cop cousin. The IB was on top of hill and made for a nice view and cool weather – almost like Ooty. Roshini, Sridevi and Uncle were with us since morning and am sure were not bored yet with us. We kept them good company with some old Hindi songs.

Day three was another interesting day. We drove thro the forest again in the eastern direction to reach Sykes Point. The highest point in the district and a very beautiful hydro electricity project without disturbing nature. This was high light of the trip, a very beautiful place, we could see the River Kali flowing curvaceous between the mountains below us. A very beautiful sight – the Kodak moment of the trip. The beauty about this is that it is completely natural, there is no commercialization around this place, the nearest place for a cup of tea is 6 kms away. Tucked far from the hustle and bustle, this must be heaven on earth. I sure felt might lucky to be here.

Half hearted departure from Sykes point, we moved towards Yellapur town. Lunch in the small town and we resumed our journey to Magod falls. This is another wonderful place, with a beautiful view of the double water fall in which the second fall makes a inverted Y, another awesome place the UK dist. We were running short of time and wanted to reach Uncahlli falls which was almost 80kms from Magod falls. The roads were good, less traffic and with the need it gave an opportunity for Michael Schumacher to take over the wheel. I drove like a man possessed and did the first 40kms in under 40 minutes. We reached Sirsi and when enquired for directions the locals told us that it might not be a wise thing to try Unchalli as the roads were not great and there was small trek to reach the view point. It was almost 6pm and getting darker. We then decided to reserve Unchalli for our next trip and decided to venture into Sirsi town, We did visit the Maarikamba Temple in the heart of the town before retiring to our hotel.

Our hosts had a great time today with my one-liners and well timed jokes, we kept them entertained and learned a great deal about each other. Am sure Uncle will not easily forget the “Sirsi getting dark soon complaint joke” or the baby cheta tea shop humor and many more such instances.

Our bus from Karwar was instructed to pick us from Sirsi, which it did and we did reach back to earth (read Bangalore) from paradise. UK dist is indeed very beautiful and we did not even explore 10% of it. There are loads left – the Gokarn beach, Unchalli falls, Jog falls, the resorts for water sports. We will get back soon. Really soon. Stay Tuned.

Vaastu - what is and not

It is so difficult to believe that Vaastu can impact lives of people. Is over-relying on Vaastu stupid and blind?

It is possible that this ancient knowledge is a good guideline on how dwelling places and other structures need to be build. Vaastu cannot have an impact on luck or lives. It has been extended into the minds of millions like many other superstitions have been. I do not want to equate Vasstu to superstition, it has definitely some meaning and relevance even today but I beg to differ on the luck part of it.

An vaastu knowledgeable person helped his son in law find a "Vaastu Perfect" home with male progeny. It was believed that the son in law will father a male heir in that house, after few years the son-in-law produced a female offspring. (I am not against the female child - I myself have fathered two very beautiful girls)

Is Vaastu a scam? Is it simple collections of dos and don'ts , which has been extended to luck creation or management by experts to make a living. Very much like the religious leader have done.

Let me know your thoughts.

Interesting......

Amarnath & Srirnagar

Amarnath trip:
July 9th 9.30pm: We boarded the Nagercoil-Mumbai express kickstarting our long journey - heading to Dhound junction near Pune, My cousins and their families joined us in Gulburga next morning. Home made lunch in the train was awesome. At Dhound we changed over to Pune-Jammu express. It was a very crowded train with a lots of army personnel travelling un-reserved in reserved compartments, then there were Pilgrims to Vaishovdevi and Amarnath. It was chaotic, we were a big group and largely remained un-effected. The train journey touched 10 states before reaching Jammu on 12th afternoon- a good 6 hours late.

At Jammu we had our guide pick us up and drive us to Srinagar - a 300km bus journey expected to be done in nearly 10 hours. We reached Patnitop (a beautiful hill station) at dusk. Here is where, we got our first taste of J&K - the cops had cordoned off all non-kashmiris from going further, we had to wait till dawn -my god! We were forced to checkin to a hotel - forfeting our hotel booking at Srinagar (what a waste). Early morning - we started to srinagar, we crossed the 2.5km Jawahar tunnel to enter Kashmir. The view was breathtaking. Kashmir was indeed very beautiful - maybe a 100x Ooty. The scenic valley was green - paddy and other crops being grown, lots of Arabic road signs - it looked very different than what you get to see usually in rest of India.

We reached Srinagar and managed to waste a lot of time :-) in getting our Amarnath yatri passes done. We left for Sonmarg in the evening and unfortunately we were yet again stopped by security and had to spend the night in tents. Food was no problem thanks to the Bandhars(langar), otherwise it was no where close to the basic ammenties we upper middle class are used to. Tents were clean but toilets and bathrooms were medevial or maybe pre-historic! Hahahahaha...

14th early morning - we managed to use the aadi-manav facilities and reached Baltal by 8ish, after elobrate security checks and prepartions to start the trek, we hit the dirt by 9.30am. To begin with 13 of us were to trek and 10 of them were to fly by choppers. Even before we could begin the 13 became 8, when 5 of them decided to ride on horse backs instead of testing their stamina. 8 of us - 5 elders and 3 juniors - my mother being the oldest at 63 and youngest being my daughter at 4 - started the trek.

We hired a pittu (porter) to carry Janu (my younger one). Sonu (my elder one) 9 years old - desired to not only trek but wanted to finish first. Yash - my cousin's son - about 12 years old - wished to trek at 2kmph - what a spirit! Aarti - my first cousin - was very committed and was very well prepared. Suraj - her husband and my cousin - was confident of trekking. My mother being a yoga freak was fit for her age to undertake the mission. Shobana & I were very well prepared for the trek and were eagerly looking forward to it.

The total distance is 14km - of which the first 2km is pretty flat, the climb starts then onwards. The first 7 km of climb was very tough, the gradient was pretty steep with few hair-pin bends here and there, the width of the path is at-times 10 feet and at-times less than 3 feet. One side is the mountain and the other side is a deep gorge, a slip most certainly means death, I did spot a dead horse in the deep gorge and also heard from the CRPF men that the average death rate was 1 person per day. However the chants of "jai Bhole" and "Bum Bum Bhole" kept the spirts up. Horses, palanquin (Palki), trekers were all jostling on the passage. Trekking is the safest land transport in my opinion. We did manage to trek together for a while before we got split into two groups. Our pittu was pretty quick, Sonu wanted to keep pace with him and Shobana & I had to be with her - net result - we were ahead of the rest with the lead widening.

Some where before the half way mark - we saw Suraj Bhaya overtaking us riding a horse, he had given up and switched over. We caught up with him shortly at the half mark resting place. He was resting - or was it the horse that was resting carrying a huge Suraj Bhaya...hahahahah...Here is where Sonu decided to switch as well. We relieved the pittu and the two kids rode on one horse. Suraj bhaya and the kids rode away, while we were still recovering. Shortly after the kids left - it rained, the whole trek hardly had any tree or shade to offer cover for rain, there were few Bhandars and make shift tents thats it.

Shobana paniced and worried about the children. She insisted that I run (imagine on a steep mountain) to catch up the kids to ensure their safety in rain. I obliged (as if I had a choice or wanted not to) and ran as fast as I could but the 10-15 Min gap between us - was too much for me to cover. I ran till a point where the road splits into the Pony trail and Pedestrain trail. I gave up running and just crashed on this junction. Few minutes later - I saw Mummy riding on a horse go past me, I waved at her and handed over the children's rain jackets that I was carrying to her.

Few minutes later at 3.50pm Shobana arrived. We made a quick mental calculation


(or assumption) that if we take the pedestrain route we may be able to reach before the children do. This trail had only trekkers, a pleasant change from the mess uptill now. After about a KM, the strech was very dangerous, we had to trek on slippery rocks holding only a rope for support, hop on pebbles & rocks across water falls without tripping, climb down a few rocks to reach what looked like safe ground. The safe stretch lasted for less than half a KM after which we had to trek on ice, this was night marish. One had to be very careful on Ice as it was slippery and a sideways slip will be a long slide in the wrong direction, this was initally very scarry but we did manage to get over this. Ice trekking is defintely slower and even more slower when you are dead tired. We drew energy from the fact that the cave was intermittently visibile from long distance. We could see our destination and proabably the divine forces helped us for the last leg of the trek.

After treeking for nearly 9 hours we reached Amarnath. We reached the gate at 630pm. The security stopped us for carrying a camera - we had to deposit it in shop nearby who charged Rs.100/- for safe keeping. The temple gate to the ice lingam is a steep climb - thankfully the temple had cememt steps - this is the first time since morning that we saw some cement steps. We were dead tired and these relatively easy steps looked herculean. Finally we reached the top, we conquered the trek, we made it. The feeling was ecstatic! We not only got a good darshan of the ice lingam, we were a party to the evening aarthi, we got the darshan of the white piegeon pair and we got more than enough prasad.

We meet some of our folks and it was a big relief to see them all but this was just half of the group in one tent, the other half had apparently arrived and were in some other tent, the kids were in the other half. With no mobile network, no electricity and no means of searching them in about 400 tents - we had to wait till daybreak to reach out to our kids. A million thanks to Santhosh bhaya for venturing out in pitch darkness to confirm that kids are safe and fast asleep. The tents are all laid out on Ice with thermocol and plastics used to insulate the

chillness, there are mattresses on top of this which are moist to the extend of feeling wet. The night was bitterly cold - it would have certainly been under -3 or -4 deg c. We could hardly sleep thro the night.

Aarti Bhabi and her son Yash were the other successful pair to trek, they did take the Pony trail - in retrospect - maybe it was a tad less adventurous but much safer.

Some of our folks - 4 heavy weights - made it till the helipad near the cave but could not trek the 6km between the helipad and cave temple. It was indeed unfortunate for them. Being obsese and old - they could neither ride horses nor did the palanquins dared to carry them.

At day break - we rushed to meet our kids - the kids were safe thanks to my mother and Suraj Bhaya. We accompanied the kids for the darshan and returned down for a langar break fast. At 10am we hired three horses to carry us back to Baltal the base camp. The horse ride back was very scarry but uneventful and it took us 4 hours to get back.

From Baltal we did head to Srinagar to stay in house boats for the next two nights. The house boats, the shikaras and the Dal Lake were all very beautiful - truly paradise on earth. We did a shikara ride the next day in forenoon and afternoon we made it to the 5th Century Shankarcharaya temple - and Mughal gardens build by Shah Jehan in 1600's. Kashimir is indeed very beautiful.

July 17th Saturday - after over a week since we had left home - we were finally home bound, we flew back to Bangalore. Namma Bengluru!

Sunfeast World 10k - Bangalore 2010

Post the recent success at Sunfeast world 10k run - I am tempted to blog my experience.

Through out my school and college days, I was active in sports. I would take part in almost all running events and have won several prizes at school level competitions. I gave up running in 1993, I kind of retired from athletics.

Many many years later, in 2009 - It was the paranoia of falling victim to lifestyle related diseases like Diabetes or BP or something else that I began doing some morning walks in the nearby parks. Serious running did not occur to me until Shobana bought a one year membership at a local sports club that had a Cardio, Gym. Swimming pool, Tennis courts and other sports facilities. She prodded me take up some sports activity and I choose the Cardio gym.

I began by doing some very mild cycling & cross trainer. Tread mill started a few weeks later at speeds of 3 and would gradually scale it upto 9. When I got comfortable with these levels - I pushed myself to the next level which was starting TM at 3 with inclination of 15 and reducing inclination and increasing speed at the end of every minute. I started enjoying these kinds of experiments. My family and friends appreciated the change (fat loss) in me, this led to increase in efforts to lose further fat. Virtuous circle - I must say.

During these times I choose 4 activities - Jogging (road) / Yoga / Swimming / Gym (TM + weights). I promised myself that I would do at-least one of activities every day and all four on the weekends. I did follow this strictly and also gave up sugar and sweets for 6 months. My weight dropped by over 10kgs and I was overflowing with energy. Jan 2010 - I started training for 10k run, on an average I clocked 55+minutes on the road and less than 50 minutes on the TM. I was all set for the Sunfeast 10k run.

23 May 2010 - Sunfeast world 10k - I finished the run in 58.10 min, with a ranking of 626 out of nearly 7000 runners

Feeling very excited and sense of achievement.

Happy New Year 2009

Well, we are into the new year and thank god - 2008 - is finally over. It was a disaster. 2007 was a wonderful year and I had hoped to better 2007 in Jan 08 but alas it was not to be.

2007 was marked with many interesting achievements - Shobana's carrer kick started as developer, I had a good year in Aventail, Lots of international travel (6 trips in all), 2nd Flat, Site in Goa, New car, New LCD TV, New Job at SUN, net net it was a wonderful year.

2008 began with a mini accident followed up by another one, lots of tension and uneasiness, friction with boss, getting fed up by the job. However, I was also blessed with 2 big positives - made a bunch of cash and Hawaii trip with Shobana.

Now that 2008 is gone and is seen as a ok kind of year, I am hoping to have a great 2009. I have made my wish and now it is time to start planning around the wish. remember 7 shunya.

My first Blog

What a title to have! am amused with myself. :-)

This is my first blog ever in life - thus the title Losing Virginity. I am just pouring my mind out into this page

When I first heard of Blogs - I had mixed reactions - this thing is not for me - this is so boring - so on and so on...

Today I made up my mind to write - I have been having this urge for the past few weeks now - to pour all that I think some where into the cyber space and reveiw it later myself - and maybe laugh or draw insipiration............

Thoughts that I would like to share would be along few broad categories - Family, Friends, Relatives, Work, Funny sides, Religion & God, India & World, Others