Once in a while when summer is in full bloom, a lot of new things appear around you. On a Sunday warm afternoon, I walk out into my balcony with a cup of tea in one hand and a current affairs magazine in the other.

I don’t really read current affairs in these magazines even though I start with the idea initially. But within about 5 minutes I find myself on the Bollywood gossip pages and before I know it I am done with the magazine. Now, its not that the Bollywood gossip really interests me. It doesn’t. But I can’t really do all that heavy reading about current affairs and Bollywood gossip makes for easy reading, especially the pictures.

So, while I am finishing my last minute scan of the magazine, I hear voices of kids on the street fighting over something. I flip the last page of the magazine, glance at Katrina drinking a mango drink, pick up my cup of tea and lean on the railings of the balcony to see what the fuss is all about. I see 4 little kids, all neatly dressed in bright summery colours holding badminton racquets. The racquets are as big, if not bigger, as the kids themselves resulting in they becoming unweildy in those tiny hands. The fuss is over who should play next and whether the current player was ‘out’ or not. There is such a thing as an ‘out’ in street badminton which refers to a player making way for another due to not having struck the shuttle. The kids speak fluent English at an age when perhaps I wasn’t speaking even my native language coherently. I suppose this is what the information age is all about.

The kids then decide to stop playing badminton and instead announce loudly that they shall play “Colour Colour”. This announcement is followed by wide flourishes in the air with the racquets and the two girls in the group do a little bit of a hop and a skip in glee. I didn’t know what “Colour Colour” was all about, so I stayed on at the balcony overlooking this plan.

One of the boys, dressed in dark maroon shorts, a chequered tiny half-sleeve shirt and a colourful Mickey Mouse adorned watch (at least it looked like Mickey Mouse to me), moved away from the group, looked around, closed his eyes and said “Ok, ready.”

One of the girls screams out “Green”. And the boy shakes his head and says “No”

“Blue”
“No”

Red”
“No”

“Pink”
“No”

“Orange”
“No”

A little hop and a skip by one of the girls and then the guessing resumes.

“White”
“Yeah”, the kid smiles and feels sheepishly disappointed.

So that was what “Colour Colour” was all about. The other party had to guess what colour this boy had in his mind. While to you and me it might seem that it is so easy to fake by just changing the colour in your mind all the time, it wasn’t quite the case for these kids. They were honest in admitting what colour they had in their minds. Nice and simple. Perhaps just how life should be.

A couple of rounds into this game and now it is the little hopping girl’s turn. She thinks for a few seconds and says the customary “Ok. Ready”. The other 3 guess perhaps at least 20 colours between them but to no avail. This one is a tough one to crack and now even I start thinking of all the colours that I know of.

The 3 are now tired of guessing and they just don’t know any more colours. So they ask the girl to reveal what is the colour in her mind.
To this, she says, “Transparent” and starts doing her hopping and skipping bit in a victorious manner. The kids were not quite sure what to make of it and the little boy attempted to start an argument but stopped soon after the others readily agreed to this “colour”.

Transparent! I couldn’t help but smile. Technically this might not be right but I don’t really care. I was amazed at the amount of intelligence that these kids had at such a young age. After a few rounds of this game, they just sit down on the side of the street and start chatting in general.

The hopping and skipping girl overhears someone call her a copy cat. And she raises her badminton racquet in a gesture asking the others to keep quiet.
And then she says, “Do you know why there is a word called copy cat?”
The others just shrug, with the little boy dismissing the question by looking away from the group.

The little girl goes on to explain – “See, a cat does meow”
“Now, any other cat also always does meow and nothing else. So, all cats say meow. Therefore every cat is copying each other. That is why the word copy cat.”

The rest of the kids, except the little boy, acknowledge this sudden enlightenment with a joint “Yeah, you are right”.
The boy stands up, holding the badminton racquet in one hand, and says “What ok? A dog does bow-bow and every other dog also does bow-bow. Why is it not copy dog then?”

The other 3 kids submerged his question by shouting at him and saying he doesn’t know anything. The boy just turned around and started walking up the street, dragging the racquet along with him. The little girl did a hop and a skip and the other 2 kids started doing the same.

I was done with my tea and turned around, picked up the magazine from the balcony floor and went right back inside. The things I had just overheard were far more interesting than reading the current affairs magazine, which I promptly flung on to the corner table. And then suddenly,without any warning, a feeling of being quite old in this world came over me. This world which was teeming with bright ideas and brighter questions. There was a time in my youth and early professional life when a few veterans had to make way for youthful employees like me. And it dawned on me on that Sunday afternoon that not too far from now, there would be a time when I shall have to move over and make way for something more fresh and more inquizitive. Heck, I am still on the better side of 30, managing to cling on, but I do know deep inside that the inevitable will catch up soon. The kids outside return, start playing something and then get into an argument. That brings the smile back on my face for no apparent reason. Perhaps the inevitable is not to be feared or protested against. Perhaps.

Last Friday was the last Friday for me at my (now ex) work place. I had spent 1 year and 7 months there and met some fantastic people. On Friday evening there was a farewell party held for me, which made me feel very very privileged and honored. I didn’t know many of them followed my blog and so I was pleasantly surprised when one of them, after about 20 drinks down, came up to me and said, “You must publish your book”.

Elated upon hearing this, thinking that someone considered my book worth reading, I asked back with a hurry, “Did you read it? Did you like it?”

“No”, he replied, paused and swayed a little before his eyes met mine and his hands got a better grip on the glass of whiskey. “I have not read it”, he continued, “but, you must get it published. I am telling you”.

I smiled, shook his hand, and said, “Thanks a lot dude. I will” and grinned immensely. People were having fun and I was glad about that. Everyone had a great time and for a change, there was no work being discussed.

What I take back from that job, apart from the immense exposure to the internet space, are the relationships that got built with everyone whom I worked with. I feel quite unfortunate to be leaving the bunch of wonderful people but I suppose certain calls need to be taken in life.

So, right now I am in that once-in-a-bluemoon period of having a break between two jobs. You may expect more blogging happening during this week!

More later, ladies and gentelmen

On Sunday, I was invited by a volunteer to visit the premises of a school which is crumbling in terms of infrastructure. The school is Deena Seva Sangha, located close to the old Kino theater.

We first entered a small room termed as ‘hostel’. It was a dark room, perhaps 20 feet by 7 feet wide. Aluminium chests were stacked wall high in one corner. Various pants and shirts hung on top of one makeshift wooden wall which served as a provider of privacy.

Going ahead, we were taken to the main hall that served as the dining and sleeping area for the 65 students who study and live here. Then we were shown the store room, where the food rations are kept. The school sends its students to the city market once a week to get vegetables, which are given free to them by some generous and charitable vendors.
Moving on to the school building, which lay adjacent to this ‘hostel’, we were shown a pipe jutting out of the wall, gaping with its outlet wide open. In the past, the volunteers have put a tap on it to facilitate drinking of water, but every time they have done that, someone has stolen the tap overnight. A measly 10 rupees for us, but perhaps a meal for someone else. I then entered the building, which is two storeyed. Walking through the corridors, I see the empty classrooms with wooden benches strewn around. I reach the last classroom and look at the blackboard. Someone has scribbled the famous four letter ‘f’ word on the board, in cursive handwriting.

I move back towards the entrance and by now one of the volunteers has managed to get the door to the library opened. I enter the library and find that it is being used more as a junk yard, with all sorts of things lying around. There are broken tubelights jutting out of brown dusty cardboard boxes, a broken abacus lying in the middle of the room. In one corner, is a small two door cupboard that has the much sought-after books (much sought after by the visitors, since this was a libary after all). The books are few and most are torn. I then get out of the building and look at a smaller building in front of me. This one has the words ‘War on Want, UK’ engraved on top of it. “Why would someone provide war when you want it”, I wondered to myself. It took me a few more moments before realizing that the word “want” was used as a noun, not as a verb. Which meant that the word “want” here referred to the property of being in need of something. A little google-ing later gave me the website of this organization – War on Want.
We then get out of the building and there is a tea session held by the volunteers. Their aim? To showcase the state of the school and garner some funds.

If you would like to visit the school or donate, contact these folks: Yuva Bengaluru

We were in Chennai over the weekend, and yesterday, reached the Chennai Central station to take a train back to Bangalore.

The Delhi blasts had occurred a day before, on Saturday evening to be precise. The Hindu had dedicated one half of the front page for this news, and they were quite sober in their reporting, as though there were more important things to be spoken about and this had unnecessarily come up. Times of India’s headline alone occupied as much space as the entire Hindu article. Neither of the newspapers had spoken about what should be done going forward. It was all about showcasing horror or displaying indifference. ToI Chennai, for instance, screamed “Helpless?” (in a font-size 80+ I would say). Is this what we want to portray to the perpetrators of the crime? Helpless? Perhaps we are, but still would you want to give that moment of satisfaction to the criminals?

So anyway, we walk towards the entrance of Chennai Central (the main railway station). There are numerous entry points, and one of them has a metal detector installed. No one really forcing people to walk through the metal detectors. We see the metal detector and decide to walk through that one rather than the other open entries. We walk, no one notices, go ahead and then turn back to observe that there is a baggage screening machine as well. I was happy to see this level of security, but was immediately dismayed to note that no one bothered to ask us or the passengers alongside us to actually go and get our baggages screened.

We decide to do what seemed right and go back near the entrance and haul up our bag on to the rollers of the x-ray machine. The bag goes in, comes out with the others and there is a constable pasting stickers on some of the bags. He forgets ours, I pick up my bag, go a little ahead and then come back to get the “baggage screened” sticker. The constable, without raising an eye, puts the sticker on my bag too, not concerning to know whether the bag was actually screened or not.

We walk away into the sea of crowd which, in a railway station, always seems to be in some hurry. And that was the security system installed in one of India’s biggest metros, as a reaction to the Delhi blasts. You no longer want to ask this question – How safe are we?

On Saturday, Mrs. DhiOnlyOne and I set out to a place called Kadavanthi which is located within the Chikmaglur district. The place is around 300 kms from Bangalore, going via Hassan, Belur and Chikmaglur.

The road is surprisingly very good for long stretches and the weather played the perfect host all the way long. Stopping for some excellent idlis midway, we reached Kadavanthi at around 2:00 pm.

The place where we stayed is located atop a hill and set amidst a huge coffee plantation. Needless to say, coffee bean smells abound here. The cottages were located on a slightly flattened out land which overlooks the expanse of mountains, valleys and low-drifting clouds.
This is a picture of our cottages which have benches on the opposite side, facing the valley.

One of the apprehensions I always have about such forest-y areas is the kind of creepy crawlers that I might have to encounter. Of course, Mrs. DhiOnlyOne too has such apprehensions but at least she has a daring and strong husband to rely on. Me? What can I rely on? Except try and pray fervently for nothing to crawl on my bed in the night or to fall on my back while I am not noticing. That fear of course does not deter me from photographing some never-before-seen bugs and insects.

The evening brought with it a bonfire, barbecue and some beer on the hills. (That last phrase does not refer to the quantity of beer, but more on the location of its consumption). After some decent homely food (which was so homely that it also had brinjal on the menu – and I dislike brinjal, if you didn’t get it), it was time to allow the crickets outside to take over your peace of mind.

Thankfully, we didn’t encounter any insects until the morning dawned which made us realize that we are amidst nature, and goddammit, we should have a stronger sense of acceptance – insects, spiders and what not. So, early morning armed with my camera I managed to ignore some of the butterflies twittering around and took in this view of the mountains. After this, it was a short trek to the top of a mountain (through some really dense forest area) and clicking of some more photographs to make the huffing and puffing seem worthwhile. We also had a dog following us and we were told her name was Ruby. I managed to crack a joke that if this dog fell on the railing, it would be “Ruby on Rails“. No one quite got it and that is one of the dangers of being geeky to the point of being funny. Mrs. DhiOnlyOne was still recovering from the shock that the husband she relied on was himself running away from all the scary sketches made by the forest trees. Probably humour wasn’t on her mind, not quite yet. Anyway, I managed to get back from the trek in one piece and was the first to the breakfast table.

Post breakfast, we had to bid adieu to this lovely place (yep, I slowly started falling in love with the concept called nature and forests) and we set off to see the historical temples of Belur and Halebid. Civilization is always nice. This is the entry to the temple at Belur, along with the majestic flag set up by the people who built this place (who else eh?).

The Halebid temple, located just 15 Kms from Belur, has a lot of carvings eroded or destroyed.

The huge statue of Nandi has been spoilt by many visitors who have scratched and left marks on this work of art. In fact, take a look at this picture where some one appears to have practiced his/her geometry on the nearest canvas available.

Most of the sculptures on the walls of these temples are, simply put, beautiful.

Nature showed us her best while we stayed at the coffee estate. Belur and Halebid’s temples seemed like our entry to the superior creative judge, if present, and showed that creation is not just Nature’s forte. We are now back in good old Bangalore, a lot more refreshed than what we had hoped for! Enjoy, ladies and gentlemen.

The weekend gone by saw us on another trip, albeit a shorter one. This time we headed towards the coffee plantations of Coorg. The place is beautiful, as we had anticipated of course. But what struck me is the amount of greenery that this area showcases. I have been to trips and forest treks earlier (no, I am not the trekking kinds, but have landed up in such places by chance) and nothing has come close to the amount of dense vegetation that Coorg has.

Upon reaching our accommodation, we took a walk around the place. There are numerous flowers around which I had never seen before.

The large number of green plants and trees come with their own share of insects, bugs and other small crawlers.

Towards evening the clouds decided to get into a sombre mood and congregated over us. It rained heavily and there was little left for us to do than be cooped up in our rooms and watch the rain drops fall defiantly on the tree leaves and grass blades, bending them in the process before collapsing into puddles of water. The thunder roared in acknowledgment of this task well done.

The rain cleared just as quickly as it had begun, and the darkness was slowly swept away by the never-tiring and all pervasive rays of the sun.

We spent another day in this place before heading back to the highways infested by cars, trucks and other automobiles. However, in a strange way, I am always glad to be back in the city and its accompanying pollutions. Nature and all that is great yeah, but only for a few days for me. I need my daily dose of cacophony, chaos and life.
Have a great day, ladies and gentlemen. The week has begun.

The weekend was at various places starting from Kundadri, Agumbe and Tirthahalli. We were there to attend the Tunga Mahotsava where Avi’s better half, Niv, performed.

Again, this is a photo post.
One of the roads on our way to the trekking places:

A spider in the forest (couldn’t be more descriptive):

The Tunga Mahotsav was on the banks of the river. The following is a shot of the decorations on the opposite bank:

A shot of the temple at the top of a hill close to Niv’s home:

Inside the temple:

An antique mirror in Niv’s home. The home is beautiful and filled with traditional objects and furniture:

Another shot of the home:

That’s about it for now, ladies and gentlemen.

Weekend update:

Day trip to Talakad. Beautiful pristine lake (or was it a river, not sure!).


Played cricket after a long time, with the girls playing brilliantly (Mary, who was quite angry about me referring to her Trichologist incident here, held on to a brilliant flick from Bandar and got him walking back to the pavilion in no time).
The point I was trying to make is that the girls played brilliantly. I do not make this point to prove that I am not a chauvinist, before Mrs. 38 kgs starts accusing.

After a game of cricket, the focus of attention was on whether the Foosball table was manufactured correctly or not. There was some dispute about whose mid-field should have been where. However, having gotten over the initial confusion, people dived right-in into the game. Future Spouse and I played against Chilli and Pamsy in a fiercely fought (by us) and easily won (by them) game of table tennis. The rotation of team members ensured that everyone was part of a winning game.

Then came the highlight of the trip – canoing. I was over enthused upon seeing the pedal boat which, I thought, would be an easy thing to use (I would put the blame on all the 70s and 80s bollywood heroes and heroines who would sing songs while gingerly peddling the boat, appearing to enjoy every moment). Chilli and Avi in the back seat and Dhi better half and Dhi in the front. Started off pretty well, but soon realized that the good start was due to the push that the assistant gave the boat. After a 15 minutes of intense workout of our legs and calf muscles, we decided that now was the time for us to use the rowing boats. So, off we went on to our rowing boats, with yellow oars in our hands. Chilli and I sought a two seater and set rowing into the middle of the water, soon realising that the current was quite strong.
A group of 6 people though, decided to take the 9 seater rowing boat and set off straight into the heart of the strong current. Now, these 6 people had 2 guys and 4 girls. One of the girls decided to suddenly don a leadership role and set about giving instructions to everyone.
The result: a mess and the boat steadily drifting away with the current. After an hour or two of painful and hard rowing, these guys finally got back to land and were the reason for our half-hour delay in lunch.

Lunch was then followed by an intense session of Taboo. I have said enough of this game here and it continues to be a rocking board game.
After Taboo, it was time to just relax and do nothing for a few minutes before deciding to go fishing. A sudden realization of the fact that fishing could be quite painful to the fish (who else!) made us abandon the plan.

Tea arrived while people conjured up some weird game that served to act as a filler for a while.
After tea, it was time for us to leave this beautiful place.

Another photograph that deserved mention here (solely because I think so):

A small shop selling curios near Kamath Lokaruchi, where we stopped for breakfast.

That, ladies and gentlemen, was the end of a wonderful trip and a great weekend.

The weekend was perfect, and for some reason a lot more relaxing than most weekends in the recent past.

Cutting the clutter, the one thing that deserves special mention here is the board game – Taboo. A highly addictive game, Taboo is the perfect companion when you are in a group of 4 or more people.

The game involves one player picking up a card. The card has a single main word and a few taboo words. The idea is that the player has to convey to his/her team members the single main word and in the process of doing so should not use any of the taboo words. Needless to say, the taboo words are so close to the main word that it becomes very difficult to not use them. All this has to done within a time limit, at the end of which an enthusiastic player will sound the buzzer

The first session of this game was on Saturday and the time just flew by. Since we were a group of 5 guys (no ladies), the descriptions used were of course a lot more bold and sassy.

On Sunday, however, we had a sober session with 8 of us playing the game over a span of two and a half hours. Mary raised the bar with her usage of words like Trichologist and Trudging. We floundered for simple words like Mummy and John Travolta.
Ameya was sorely missed for the usage of technical words and all words related to physics, chemistry etc.

Hopefully the next session of Taboo should be around the corner soon.
And yes, in case you know of any other interesting board games, do let us know.

Picture Courtesy: www.boardgamegeek.com

Weekend was a quiet affair, spread across both Bangalore and a quaint little hillock-station called Yelagiri.

Sunday was spent at Yelagiri, which is located around 170 Kms from Bangalore en route to Chennai.

The drive is extremely good owing to great roads and almost zero or nil traffic for most part of the journey. Not into the mood of writing down a detailed review of the place, hence shall leave you with factual details about the place, how to get there and what to do there:
Click here to read Wikitravel’s information section on Yelagiri.

All in all, weekend was good. Fun came and peace came too.
Monday is now a lot easier to handle.