Kya Nazakat hain

I heard the song Kya Nazakat hai by Shibani Kashyap this morning on the radio. I dont know what it is, but I liked the song. I tried to find a video of the song on the net. Could not find it anywhere... Putting a link to listen to the song. If any of you know where I can find a video of the song, do let me know.

.. uh.. ... um... uh.. Can I have a .........

(I was blog hopping when I ended up on a blog where people talked about their funny incidents with condoms. And I recollected a real embarrassing incident that happened to me. )

The practice in our hostel for birthdays was that we used to get condoms for the birthday boy, fill it up with water, (That stuff can take in plenty of water.) and then hurl it on the birthday boy. (Yeow ???? I know. That being the point.)

The incident I am about to narrate happened when I was in 3rd Semester Engineering. My (buddy and) room mate and I had gone downtown. The next day was another friend's birthday and so we decided to buy some condoms for the birthday ritual. We went around town searching for the least crowded chemists shop. We finally found one that did not have too many people in it. I was too shy and knew I would feel too embarrassed to make the purchase myself. I tried to get my roomie to go and buy it. He too did not want to make that looooong trip from the road to the chemists desk. We kept arguing on who should go .

After a lot of coaxing, my roomie finally built up the courage agreed to go buy the condom. I stayed back a few yards away, on the footpath, while my roomie went to the shop to buy the condoms.

Roomie : "uh..um.. Condoms please.. ".
Shopkeeper: "Which one ?"
My smartass roomie: (then turns around and asks me loudly) "Which one do you want ?? KS ? Ribbed ??".

My gawd !!! I wished I was dead !!!

Kalaripayattu ??

A boring Sunday evening turned into a real exciting evening. I just could not stop laughing watching our Kalari master Sreesanth demonstrating his war dance skills....

I-Pod !!!

A few days back, I was chatting with Pooja on Yahoo messenger, when all of a sudden she asked "Hey !!! Do you have an I-Pod?". I replied, "Now what ? You want to borrow that too ? C'mon you still haven't returned so many of those things that you have already borrowed." "What I have not returned ?", she was irritated. "Well, you still have to return my `Kenny G` CD, my USB memory stick, my Jeffrey Archer Novel.... do you want me to continue ??". "Oh! you are so possessive !!!" And as usual, it went into yet another unending argument.

The very next day I got a forward with a beautiful eye-pod. So I sent it to her.


I dont think she appreciated my sense of humour however, coz she socked me in my arm when I met her that evening.

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Was sitting at home, listening to the radio when they played "Leaving On A Jet Plane" by John Denver, one of the greatest songwriter, actor, performer, environmentalist and champion of several causes. I have always had a liking for his songs and I could not resist putting up the lyrics of the song.

All my bags are packed
Im ready to go
Im standin here outside your door
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye
But the dawn is breakin
Its early morn
The taxis waitin
Hes blowin his horn
Already Im so lonesome
I could die

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that youll wait for me
Hold me like youll never let me go
cause Im leavin on a jet plane
Dont know when Ill be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

Theres so many times Ive let you down
So many times Ive played around
I tell you now, they dont mean a thing
Evry place I go, Ill think of you
Evry song I sing, Ill sing for you
When I come back, Ill bring your wedding ring

So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that youll wait for me
Hold me like youll never let me go
cause Im leavin on a jet plane
Dont know when Ill be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

Now the time has come to leave you
One more time
Let me kiss you
Then close your eyes
Ill be on my way
Dream about the days to come
When I wont have to leave alone
About the times, I wont have to say

Oh, kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that youll wait for me
Hold me like youll never let me go
cause Im leavin on a jet plane
Dont know when Ill be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

But, Im leavin on a jet plane
Dont know when Ill be back again
Oh babe, I hate to go

Selection Conundrum

I was out for lunch with a few of my colleagues when our conversation veered to the upcoming first Test match of the South African tour. After the usual rants of the performance of the cricket team, the topic turned to the selection for the first Test. Ok.. now lets see... who we "have to" play, whom needs to play and whom we dont need to fit into the team.

For starters, lets say, we decide to go in with 5 batsman, 1 wicketkeeper and 5 specialist bowlers. Starting with the batsmen, and there starting with the captain, Rahul Dravid. Now, there is one man without whom the Indian test team is just incomplete. There is no doubt at all, injury or not, he just will walk into the team. He cannot leave his boys out for the South African bowlers to feast on. So, he is in. Then we have his deputy, VVS Laxman. He was brought into the team all the way from India to bolster the One day team's performance. He definitely did that. He added one more to the team - ofcourse I meant, one more duck to the scorecard. Then there is the all time great Sachin Tendulkar. Now, there is no way, anybody would ever drop him from a team. Thats like blasphemy. Whether he is in form or not, he will get into the team. And then, there is the comeback man, our one and only "aap mujhe boole to nahin" dada, Saurav Ganguly. Now after his scintillating performance in the 1st innings of the practice match, and that too under pressure, there is no way he cannot be included in the team. Right ?? So, he is in too. Then, there is the ex vice captain, who has not yet been dropped from the Test team for whatever reasons. Its very unlikely that he will sit and warm the benches. So, he's also likely to play.

And so, we have five batsman in the team already. But wait, we still have only one opening batsman. No, no ... I did not mean, to open the duck farm. I meant to open the innings for India. Ok, now lets look at whom else do we have. Wasim Jaffer. Hmm... Did he come to play cricket or to start the duck farm. He definitely has collected the most number of ducks in this tour. So, unlikely that we can go ahead with him. We obviously cant send Rahul or Sachin or Laxman to open. And definitely not Saurav coz neither can he fend off balls from the fiery South African pacers nor does he have the technique to handle the rising ball. And moreover he scored his 83 odd runs playing down the order, not as an opener. Moreover drafting him in as an opener, would seem like a very unfair hit on his comeback trial. If he does not succeed, the whole of Calcutta will blame Rahul (and Ratan tata and George Bush) of course. So, its probably safer he does not open. Ok.... lets worry about the fifth slot a little later.

Going on... we have the wicket keeper slot. Now unlike the one day team which usually has a slot for "bits and pieces" players, the test team consists of specialist batsmen, bowlers and wicketkeeper. So, its unlikely that the test team will have two wicketkeepers. So, unlike the one-day team either Dhoni or Kaarthik has to be selected. Hmm... now that is probably the easy ones. Thats right.... we need to keep the sponsors happy.. choose the man who can get more advertisements going. That's right, just choose the guy with the long hair.

Hmm... now comes the specialist bowlers. We need to stick with three pacers and two spinners ??? hmm.. bouncy pitch with lots of cracks, maybe we need the guiles of the experienced Kumble. Okay... so kumble in. Can we afford another spinner ? Tough question. Lets pick the other pacers and then decide. So we start with Zaheer Khan, yes that dude has been bowling well, on his comeback trial. We definitely will need him. But we need two more. Is Munaf fit ? If he is, he should be making it to the team. There are two slots... and there are Sreesanth, VRV singh and Irfan Pathan. Considering the fact that Irfan was the prolific scorer of the practice match, he should be in the team. Additionally he can be asked to double up as the opener too. Hmm... never mind the fact that he played lower down the order in the practice match. but then we cannot sacrifice the others who have given us so many ducks on this tour. But hello... we were picking bowlers, why are we talking about batsmen. well, thats because this is the Indian cricket team... yahan pe sab kuch chalta hain. Okay then its settled he gets into the team.

Now that leaves only one question to be answered - the fifth bowler. Whom do we go with ? Sreesanth, VRV or Bhajji ?? Now, Bhajji can bat too. "hello !!! We were talking about bowlers !!" Okay okay... we will stick to their bowling. We know that Bhajji does not like the Kookaburra ball. But hey ... wait a minute. Does it really matter who the 11th man is ? Its a team game. We are likely to win only if all the 11 play good, not just the 11th man.

Heaven on Earth.

I was woken up by a cackle of voices talking about a beautiful starry sky. I was not sure where I was. I looked around and realized I was in a cosy sleeping bag inside what seemed like a tent. As I listened to the voices outside my tent trying to guess where I was, the topic outside changed to how the rain had seeped into their tents and drove away all their much wanted sleep. I slowly recalled the events of the previous day. It had been a long tiring day. We had started our trek from the foot of the hills from a sleepy little village, Beedalli. The group of fourteen consisting of friends and friends of friends, some of whom I had met for the very first time, were attempting to climb the Kumaraparvatha, the second highest mountain peak in Karnataka. After walking along mud roads carrying our heavy backpacks and tents for almost an hour or so, we had reached the forest office. The trek had just begun, but I and a few other lazy bones were already feeling the effects of shameless lazing around, doing no hard work, post college life.



After collecting the required permissions, and a fair warning of the impending rain and misty conditions, we started the steeper part of the trek through the green forests of the Western Ghats. As we crossed streams and stretches of damp tracks that rose steeply, we began to question, "What crazy joy do we plan to get, after all this hard work. We could have easily lazed at home and watched some English movie on HBO or Star Movies?". But we did not want to wait to find out the answer, as we were busy trying to flee from the constant attack of the blood sucking leeches. As we marched on bravely, we managed to keep a good pace. (well, thats looking at the positive side. We were actually running away from the army of tiny bloody suckers.)

Some of the highlights of the ascent to the top was the amazing sights of natural beauty that we saw as we trekked across. Other highlights of our trek were the huge slippery rocks that we had to climb. We had a few acrophobiacs, like me, who could not imagine having to make the climb to the top without the safety of a nylon rope to cling to. This in spite of some of the few nimble footed trekkers in our group literally doing a ballet on those slippery surfaces trying to encourage us to climb to the top. Thanks to their effort and the safety of the rope we managed to climb that rock. But there were other huge rocky surfaces where the safety rope was not useful. All we could do was pull up our socks, gulp some glucose and start climbing the huge rock. Mid way up one huge rock surface, the clouds started moving in and it began to drizzle. If life was tough, it just got tougher. The rock surface was now getting as slippery as ice. And if you did not know ice-skating, this was not a time to learn because if you slipped from here, most likely you would never get a chance to learn. But thankfully we managed to climb up the rock surface -all fourteen of us, with the exact number of bones that we started the trek.

We continued our trek, in the drizzle, now exhausted, cold, hungry and tired. The only thing on our minds was to rest somewhere. But where ? All we could find in our path lined with thick bushes infested with leeches and God alone knew what else, were cold wet and slippery rocks. Oh ! God !!! What did I get myself into ? There could have been much better ways to spend a Saturday evening - like sitting and sipping coffee with friends or family in a coffee shop. But here I was, in the midst of nowhere, cold, hungry and tired, trying to rest my aching limbs and fighting off the urge to give it all up. We had no clue of how far we were from the top of the mountain. The mists were beginning to set in. Many of us were tired - more mentally than physically. The weight of our backpacks, the heavy tents, the lack of fitness, and the years of lazing and drinking coffee was beginning to show. It was pure adrenaline and the fear of the bloody leeches which had brought us so far. But then there is a limit to which these can work. There was no more adrenaline in our body and we now no longer cared for the leeches. We were exhausted and did not care if the leeches got their share of blood.

We reached an opening that was neither broad enough not level enough to put up all our tents. But many of us were too tired and unwilling to go any further. We wanted to pitch our tents right there and get some well deserved rest. But the more stronger among us, willed us to push on, to push our limits and attempt to reach the top. This definitely was test for the mind. Did we have it in us to push ourselves ? Or would we fall victims to exhaustion. This would differtiate the men from the boys. After a minor discussion, just as the mists began to get thicker and thicker we decided to move on. We would need to stick closer together so that we were not lost. And then, all of a sudden we heard loud hoops of joy from some of our ilk who had gone ahead as a search party. It only signalled one thing - we were almost on top, probably just a few hundred meters away. With renewed energy we trekked on and reached the top. Completely exhausted we fell in a heap. It took a while for it to sink in that we had finally made it - that we had reached the top. And once realisation dawned that we had done what we hitherto beleived was impossible, we shouted with joy, exchanged hugs and congratulated each other for the remarkable effort and camaraderie we had shown.

After sipping the sights from the top of the mountain, we had immediately set about pitching our tents, setting up a fire, heating our dinner (our only decent meal of the whole day). By the time night fell (which was pretty fast on the misty mountain top) we had a decent fire going. The fire and the warm food finally brought in some life into our jaded bodies. We lit up a campfire and warmed ourselves a bit more. However we were too tired to enjoy it for long. Soon most of us retired ourselves to the warm confines of our tents.


As I stirred in my sleeping bag, I remembered how the rains had come crashing down in the night, on our tents. Thankfully our tent was tied up quite well and the water had not rushed into our tents. I stepped out of the tent to be greeted by a strong cold morning wind. It seemed like it was going to be a cloudy morning and we would denied the sight of the beautiful sunrise. And just as we were speaking the mists cleared up.
Only then we realised how beautiful our surroundings were. We were at almost 7000ft above sea level, high above the clouds. The thick white milky clouds was spread over miles and miles of clear sky. And as we watched in bated breaths, another of nature's beautiful wonders unfolded right in front of our eyes. The sight of the crimson red sun rising above the clouds and lighting the sky was an amazing sight, probably by far the most beautiful sight of my entire life. I find myself handicapped to describe the beauty of the morning. Never in my life had I experienced something so special. And as the sun rose slowly above the clouds and chasing away the mists we cried out in awe and joy.



I now understood why everyone kept saying that "the heavens above are a beautiful place". This probably was the heaven on earth.


Soon, it was time to leave.We packed our tents, had a small breakfast, cleaned up the place, made sure we did not leave any non-bio degradable objects behind and started our trek back. We had a long day ahead of us. We planned to trek down the other side of the mountain this time. The descent from the mountain top was initally quite dangerous. We had to cross some very slippery and very steep rock surfaces. But once we managed the cross these and the thick forests the terrain changed to a series of grass covered hills.

If the previous day was cloudy and rainy at times, today the sun was beating down on us in all its glory, sapping out every drop of water we had in our lifeless bodies. After trekking for a few hours in the burning sun, we reached the "Bhattara manne" tired and exhausted far beyond the previous day.

The Bhatta provided us a simple meal of rice, sambhar, buttermilk and pickle. But that to us was like amrutham. After eating three full helpings, I had to stop myself before the bhatta threw me out of his house. But the simple meal was extremely energizing. It helped us pull along for a very long distance. After a few more hours of trekking down sometimes treacherous, sometimes winding, paths amidst thick forests we finally managed to reach the bottom of the mountain just as it was getting dark. We checked into a hotel nearby, took a much deserved bath and went to the Kukke Subramania temple and thanked Him for keeping us all safe. One more amazing trek had come to a safe end. But the memories of the trek would stay with us for a very long time.

PS: In my attempt to keep this post as short as possible, I missed out a lot of details. However one of co-trekkers has a much more descriptive post of the same trek.
Kumaraparvatha and the 14 trekkers : Prologue
Kumaraparvatha and the 14 trekkers : Preparations
Kumaraparvatha and the 14 trekkers - Day 1
Kumaraparvatha and the 14 trekkers - Day 2
Kumaraparvatha and the 14 trekkers - Epilogue
Kumaraparvatha and the 14 trekkers - Me's Thoughts!

Most pictures in this post are courtesy my co-trekkers Radhakrishna and Eshwar. Thanks Guys. Those were wonderful pictures.