Group( Interesting ppl coming together ,to make these moments eternal......
Prashant Maskara, Trilogy guy & flat-mate
Sudhanshu from TI
Ashish Nijhara from Infosys(claims to fame with his Infy chics)
Gaurav Punia from Magma,( He was wearing a football star LAMPARD tee, and was referred to as lamba-fart throughout the journey)
Anant from IIM-L(engineering+IIM has snowballed his desperation levels)
The Plan( The beauty of an unplanned plan,great moments of a bachelors life..... Miffed by the monotonous life of a S/W Engg, myself & Prashant were on the look for an
refreshing break away from the cyber-city. A three day weekend & stories of plentiful interesting places in & around Wayanad made Kerela the destination-to-be. Warnings of hot-weather & absence of likeminded people in Trilogy for trekking did not provide much resistance to stop our plans.
The Shaky Start( why it has to happen like this always......
It started with both of us reaching out to our contacts to form an interesting group .Onset of Friday morning, three guys were sure including two of us and some other six guys
in their state of indecision. Then Anant called me up around 11 in the morning when I was in bed still that he was in & reminded me that it was Friday & I should be booking the Cab.
A scheduled maintenance in TI helped Sudhanshu to come .Punia managed to come despite his TL asking him to work on the weekend.
Nijhara being from Infy had all the time in the world & jumped in.
Each one reached to my place from their respective offices at the scheduled time of 10:00p.m Friday except for Prashant who was battling the bugs and got free only by 11:30
The Journey(Hitting the road,music,drinks,small breaks, pissing in open-air.......
The journey is always almost the USP of any trip. Partially because it is peppered with humorous anecdotes from every ones life ,latest music at high decibel being played & if it is all guys trip then one of the lesser mortals being made the scape-goat to entertain the party
Ashish was made the DJ, the front-seat guy in the qualis who was responsible for catering to the diverse public demand, fine-tuning the decibel levels for each song & getting down to ask the directions in case required. He was given the more frequent boos for Anu Malik songs & occasional good job for songs like“Kajrare,Kajrare”
Pooniah was made the treasurer & made to reach-out to his ass everytime someone needed even a penny. He was also responsible for getting the snacks & drinks from the on-the-way restaurantsHe had a tough time buying things and bargaining while he talked in English & responses came inMalyalamHe also talked about the latest chics he befriended on ORKUT
Sudhanshu talked about his no-time-to-spend-money life in Texas Instruments.And that he called a female DODO( dumb) coz she did not understood Circuit Theory. The same girl got 20 marks more than him in a viva where he answered all the questions on a project for which he has worked off his asswhile the female was unable to differentiate a resistor & a capacitor by looking at them.
Prashant meanwhile fantasised about the body-2-body massage he was expecting in Kerela.
He captivated everyone with the beautiful themes on his Nokia which made him to spend more time on phonecalls.
Anant constantly dwelled a lot in chics at TI ,the company has been ranking high in Employee Satisfaction & females whom Sudhanshu have admitted looked awesome while playing table-tennis
The First Day
We luckily got a dirt-cheap accomodation in Kalpetta. From previous trip experiences we already knew that the rooms were mainly used to get off the travelling fatigue on the first day & then to be used as a luggage dumping grounds for the rest of the stay.
There could not have been a better way to start the trip than the visit to the Eddakal caves.
We found the gates locked because it was the election day in Wayanad.. As we were discussing
the poor fate & next plan of action we saw some localites climb the gate,go past & come back.
It was good enough to motivate Sudhanshu who lead the pack to climb the 10 ft gate & go across.
Prashant had problems to carry over his weight on the gate but manged to use his height to his advantage.
Pooniah faced the same problem& later admitted that he started sweating from places he had never before which was visible in the wet marks on his cargoes. Possibly the female hormones in his body took over & he vowed to go back & get a detailed checkup. The caves led to a beautiful view of the valley & opened up to a mountain peak which had to be climbed using some ropes alreeady hanging alongside the mountain rocks. Reaching to that point using them brought us a sense of victory an intangible feeling of pride & having conquered something. We knew that coming to Wayanad has already paid off.
Later on the day we went to the Soochipura waterfalls which disappointed us because it came at the end of a pretty long trek & the waterflow did not meet the documented expectations. Partially becausewe were there before monsoon. Anyways,part of the group found it good enough to have a bath even thougheveryone realised that they havent got their clothes.
Anant & Sudhanshu had a long discussionwheteher to go on in a jockey or their full attire , keeping in mind the sanctity of the place & having an eye on the fellow tourists from the fairer sex. Both of them took the plunge with their respective perspectives finding a commonality in hiding behind the rocks during bathing While the rest of the group made some videos which they are sure would sell like hotcakes. Also a perfect present to give on their respective marriages I t was a good time at the not-so-good falls.
Dinner at night was pathetic because everything was cooked in Coconut oil. Ashish & myself could not bear the idea of something which is applied on head going in our mouths & had to leave the dinner halfway. The other gourmets though not liking the coconut oil taste in their mouths decided to go ahead motivating themselves by appreciating its divergence from the normal cuisine.
The history though recorded that even they could not finish off their meals.
The night was marked with the cant-do-without drinks party , the continuation of anecdotes from the jouney,the stories becoming more livelier & interesting than before, and ended around 3 with a decision to wake up at 6 in the morning
The Second Day
Wake up time: 10 a.m
This day was planned for the notorious Chembra Peak Trek. Though in the end we found out thatit was much more notorious than said. It is a tough trek,extreme at some places enough to break the motivation of the trekking parties ,pretty steep and a series of unending peaks to climb.
The climbing was accompanied by some1 getting breathless, another one dizzy finding out his vertigo limits,scarcity of drink n food we brought with us, some Indian parties leaving mid-way,while some foreigners coming back saying aixcellent trek , people taking off clothes to keep off the sweat.
We scaled till two peaks which ended in a heart-shaped lake. Though right now it looked preety dirty & having only mugfuls of water.
Meanwhile Gauravs TL has called up & we had to abort our plans of night on Kozhikode beach
so that we can reach back Bangalore before Monday.
The trip back home , we stopped at Mysore for dinner where Ashish relived his halcyon training days at Infosys. The Infy Campus from a top-view spells as INFOSYS & there isanother campus which is coming out and is in the form of Narayan Murty's signature NRN.
Overall the trip was good & a pleasant break from the Bangalore heat.Though Prashant admits that he has done away with his trekking-quota for one year.Pooniah decides to take up more chancs on females he make friends with. Some of us decide to pursue the more professional rock-climbing with equipments et al.
Huh, managed to write a trip memoir. Though I have missed out the police escapade while we visited the Archaelogical site Eddakal caves which were closed, the breakfast stories, the Punia talent show and some other threads which ran during the trip. The essence of them I expect to be covered by the other fellow trekkers in their comments /respective blogs or the pics & the videos will fill in those voids
-Anuj
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