Amusingly Simple

It was two in the morning. From the cozy comfort of the KSRTC volvo, we got down at a dingy little tea shop in the highway town of Donigal. The plan was to start the trek from the Donigal railway station. After sipping uber-hot cups of tea, we enquired how far it was to the railway station. The chaai shop guy said it was 3 kms. We started walking in the darkness of the night, with the sole light from our torches swaying up and down the long stretch of the Bangalore-Mangalore highway. Every other second, the silence was broken by a crazily speeding vehicle that was hell bent upon driving us away from the paved road into the muddy footpath. The seven of us talked, laughed, chatted and walked.

After several minutes of walking (it should have been 60 minutes), and definitey covering a lot more than 3 kms, we reached a place that somewhat resembled a railway station. A steep climb up from the road took us to our planned starting point – the Donigal railway station. It was 4 am, and it was pitch dark. The station guards were asleep in the rooms, and we did not want to wake them up. We knew that trekking on a functional railway line was illegal, and were pretty apprehensive that they would drive us away from the station. Silently we tip toed to about a 100 yards away from the station entrance and sat down on the platform for the day light to start peeping out, so that we could start our walk on the tracks.

After about an hour, we started. Walking on a railway track is by no means child’s play. It is difficult, it is painful, and it is dangerous. One wrong step, and you would instantly fall down and bang your face into the concrete sleepers. We had to keep all our torch lights on while walking. The width of the sleepers was in such a way that the middle of our feet started paining slowly. Nevertheless, we knew we had to cover 18 kms of such track-walking, and we were prepared. We had to reach Yedakumari – our destination station by noon so that we could make it before dark to the highway. So, we continued our walk in the dark for the next 3 kms or so. That is when we reached the first bridge.

The railway track to Mangalore passes through some of the most picturesque hills of the western ghats. The train pulls up through these ghats chug-chugging along the bridges and tunnels. The whole stretch of the railway line passes through a number of such bridges and tunnels. Walking on these bridges is supposed to be the most thrilling part of this trek. You are high up in the hills, walking on the bridge, with ground at more than a 100 ft below your feet. You have nothing to hold on to, and one wrong step could leave you hurling down to the valley below. You have to be really careful and alert. And the tunnels are another story. If the train comes through when you are walking inside a tunnel, all you can do is wedge yourself in the small 4 ft space in between the speeding train and the tunnel wall, as the train brushes past your face. It is a shaky experience.

But we did not get to experience all the thrill. A metal sheet had been laid all through the length of the bridges, and it took away half the fun already. Walking on these metal sheeted bridges was a piece of cake. Contrast it with the earlier situation where you had to cross planks that were a foot and a half apart, and a couple of hundred feet high in the air. This track was previously abandoned, and train movement started here only in 2005. Around 3 to 4 trains pass through this route every day, most of them goods carriers. Since some repair work is going on in these tracks all the time, the railways decided to lay these metal sheets so that the workers can walk through the bridges easily without fear.

After walking for around 7 kms, we sat down to have breakfast. One of us had brought nice puliyogare, and the hunger made us lick it down to the last morsel. One thing I have to mention is, all along the route, a number of railway workers keep working on repairing the tracks. The kids in these groups keep asking you for biscuit packets. It would be a nice idea to keep some biscuit packets to give these kids.

Along the path, there were steep hills in some places, lining the track, and they had put metal meshes to keep the rocks from falling into the track. Rajesh displayed his monkeying skills by climbing up one of these meshes and posing for the camera.

As the day progressed, it was getting hotter and hotter, and the pain in our feet was tending to unbearable. We were looking for some kind of water source so that we could cool our heels. Soon we found one. A stream flowing through the ghats was good enough for us to jump into immediately. We played in the water for around an hour. The water was chill, and the stream was deep at places. But we had been to a lot of such streams in our treks, that we found no problem with it. The pain in our feet reduced a little, and we regained some of the energy lost due to dehydration. I should say that everyone doing this trek should carry at least 2 litres of water. That is what saved our day.

We had lunch at a small elevated place along the track. I had prepared nice tomato thokku the previous night in Bangalore, and carried it along. We had a feast on readymade chappatis and tomato thokku. A few packets of MTR ready-to-eat sambar rice packets also helped. Re-energised after the lunch, we started walking again.

As we were nearing the Yedakumari station, some of the railway offiicials who were inspecting the tracks stopped us to ask why we were walking on the tracks. They said we could be arrested for tresspassing on railway property. We had to blabber this and that, to escape from them. They warned us, and told us not to walk on the tracks. We sheepishly nodded our heads, and continued once they left. After walking 18 long kms, we finally reached the Yedakumari station, where a new shock awaited us.

By the time we reached Yedakumari, we were all panting and gasping. Our feet were completely sore and it pained like we could not keep another step ahead. We asked the guard in the station how to reach the highway from there. Shock! He asked us to walk another 4 kms, where we would get a forest path on the right. We had to walk into the forest from here, to reach the highway.

Swearing and cursing, we started walking again. This last 4 kms was the most painful of the whole trek. When we reached Yedakumari station, we had thought the trek was over, all the pain was over. But when we were told to walk another 4 kms, our spirits died away instantly. What a pain! Finally when we all made it to the start of this forest path, we could no longer stand. We all sat down to rest. There was hardly any energy left in us for the day. We were wondering aloud how we were going to make it through the forest to the highway, when our saviors appeared.

A jeep magically appeared on the forest path. It was some railway jeep, which was supplying gas cylinders for welding the joints in the tracks. We just casually asked the driver how far it was to the highway. He said 7 kms, and through the jungle, with elephants moving around. What??? We had expected the walk to be 1-2 kms, but never imagined it would be 7 kms. We were shell shocked. Then came the relief. The jeep guy offered to take us down to the highway. He said, it was dangerous to walk through the forest, and asked us if we wanted to hop into the jeep, so that he would drop us in Sakleshpur. We immediately jumped into the idea. What a relief that was!

Later we learnt that the jeep came there only once in 15 days. I don’t know if it was mere coincidence, or something else that the jeep came to the right place to pick us up at the right time of the day, as though it was waiting to carry us only. It was a long and bumpy ride to Sakleshpur. We had to cross a river in the middle, and the Mahindra jeep effortlessly accomplished the task. We also saw a lot of elephant dung along the forest path. In about an hour, we were in Sakleshpur bus stand.

That night, we stayed in a hotel in Sakleshpur, and the next morning, climbed a rustic and bumpy bus to Bangalore, with a whole lot of memories about an unforgettable and painful trek on the tracks.

You can take a look at the trail for this trek here. It has been mapped at TripNaksha

Blogging had been on a long vacation. Today morning wonly it came back I say!

Dell

My PC broke down one fine day, and I decided to make my long term dream to own my first laptop come true. But hell broke loose from the day I ordered the laptop. (Yes, I ordered it, because DELL does not sell it off the shelf. And, I wanted a Studio 14 with Core2duo and with the maximum RAM memory they can stuff in, which was not going to be available off the shelf anyway). Coming back to hell, the laptop I ordered on Jan 4 did not come to me even after Feb 4.

Life came to a standstill, similar to traffic in Bangalore, which grew to insurmountable magnitudes, all the pleasures of life seemed to hopelessly drain into Ulsoor lake and I had to spend several sleepless nights in pain and anguish in this one month, because I had no PC. Finally, Brahma, the unworshipped god, decided to heed to my prayers and voiced a curse that Dell should give me an Intel Core i3 laptop instead of the Core2Duo I had ordered, and Dell had no other option but to execute the order of the one above. Dell gave me a wonderful looking laptop, and exported me to my ’second life’. Phew!

Marriage

I was admiring the sheer beauty and awesomeness of my new laptop, when I felt a sharp excruciating pain at the back of my neck. I groaned in agony, and reached out my hand to the back of my neck to feel what caused the pain. It was a bite – an insect bite – to put it in comfortable words – a bug bite. Then it dawned upon me. I had been bitten by the marriage bug!

I did not realise that January 2010 – the month I had promised my parents I would signal green for marriage – had already come! I was caught completely off-guard when I was asked to give a photo of mine in which I looked everything but what I really am. Wait! That is not ethical – I tried to say, but was swat down heavily with the ‘Kosu-bat‘, and the photos I hated the most (From the enna-kodumai-sir-idhu list) were ripped off from my Flickr albums. The photos have been doing rounds all over Karnataka ever since, trying to attract a suitable ‘cow-girl’ for my parents (Adhaanga… maattu ponnu).

BMTC

In other news, BMTC has found a new passenger in me. Born with insanely large feet, which only accept shoes of size 12, I realised that I could not reduce my footprint. So, as a counter-measure I decided to reduce my carbon footprint by shunning my car and going to office in BMTC. Nice. The ride in the Volvo buses has been smooth for the past month and a half. Taking a bus to office has a whole set of advantages – right from taking off the tenshun of driving from your head, to letting you listen to the mellifluous voice of Goundamani in your ipod. Come on… everyone knows the unspoken truth – sight adichifying and jollu vittufying (revolutionary terms from Tamil language equivalent to the English term ‘ogling’) at the bus-traveling figars – the best way to spend the 45 minutes to office constructively. (Especially if you work in a detested-by-the-fairer-sex  industry like mine). Mission is accomplished I say.

Watched a Tamil movie called ‘Tamil movie’. (Tamil Padam in Tamil). Ayyoo… how many Tamil…!!! A bold venture into the parody movie genre in Tamil. It was refreshing. Despite having irritating actors like Venniraadai Murthy and Paravai Muniyamma, the movie was interesting enough. For a first kind of effort from a first time director, the movie was commendably good. Hope it yields more movies of the same genre in future.

Aayirathil Oruvan is a Tamil language movie written and directed by Selvaraghavan. Karthi, Reema Sen and Andrea play lead roles. Music has been scored by G.V.Prakashkumar.

A warning: This movie is not suitable for children and family audience. Also people sensitive to blood and gory should better avoid watching this movie. Actually this warning could have been included at the start of the movie so that people don’t start feeling uneasy while watching.

Aayirathil OruvanThe story is based on the struggle for power between two Tamil kingdoms – the Cholas and Pandyas. The Pandyas destroy the Chola kingdom, and the Cholas are forced to flee their capital, Thanjavur. But while escaping, they take along with them the idol of a Pandya god. The Cholas establish a secret settlement in some remote foreign island, with the hope that some day they will be resurrected back to the Chola kingdom by a messiah. The settlement is well protected by seven blockades, all of which one has to cross, to reach the place. The movie is based in the present day – a 1000 years after the Cholas are overthrown. A group of archeologists and armed men, led by Reema Sen go in search of the lost city of the Cholas, how they cross the blockades, and reach the place. Now, the twists are exposed – the Chola settlement is still alive in the foreign island, and Reema Sen is a descendant of the Pandyas, bearing a grudge to destroy the Cholas and bring the Pandyan idol back.

The movie is an adventure-treasure hunt kind of movie – at least it looks so in the beginning. The first half of the movie is all about the voyage, and the blockades the crew faces one after the other – all done in hollywood style. Karthi sizzles as a cocky coolie, Reema Sen gives a decent performance as the leader of the expedition and a Andrea does nothing more that just appearing in the scenes.The narration is catchy, and the background score is quite indulging. The crew escapes strange creatures, wades through cruel looking tribes, shoots down hundreds of red-colored men and crosses a quick-sand ridden desert to finally reach the lost city of the Cholas. The audience eagerly get ready for the team’s adventures in the new land. And then, the trouble starts…

The director seems to have become suddenly ambitious. He could have finished it off a hollywood-styled adventure movie with bigger dangers and barricades that comes the team’s way, all of which they successfully break to attain their goal. But instead, the director choosed to become adventurous. He keeps the lost Chola settlement alive in the remote land, and makes Reema Sen the descendant of the Pandyas, seeking to destroy the Cholas once and for all. From here, the movie becomes a torture porn, using the excuse of war, superstitions and agony. The director aspires hard to show how barbaric the Cholas are, and how crude things move about in this land, which makes the audience say, ‘Yuck!’. The script becomes slow, and all characters other than Reema Sen bear a zombie like dumbness about them, while Reema Sen becomes the like of a blood sucking vampire. The audience soon start looking at their watches, mocking at the silliness of the things happening on-screen, and how the movie that started off in a great way, was getting into the boring old rut.

Right from the start of the movie, where a voice narrates the backdrop of the story to the dialogues renders by both the female leads, the pronunciation of Tamil is grossly bad. The difference between ‘la’ and ‘zha’ in Tamil has been sadly ignored almost everywhere. Another thing that was odd about the dialogues was the so-called ancient Tamil used by the cave-dwelling barbarian Cholas. It could have been in normal Tamil itself – at least it would have reduced the zombie-ness of the characters. When a lot of logic has been compromised in the movie, I don’t see the reward in painstakingly bringing in an ancient diction of Tamil, which only alienates the characters from the audience.

‘Logic’ is something missing thoughout the movie. Cell phone works seamlessly in a place which has never been explored by humans. The army from India is able to get to a foreign land and kill hundreds of people there, without any issues or implications. If the army could be air-dropped in the Chola-settlement so easily, why should the crew travel over land, facing so many dangers and losing so many lives? Why do the Cholas look, act and behave like barbarian cannibals? Even though they are shown to have magical powers, how do they get cheated so easily by a girl? When all of the Chola women are raped and tortured by the army, how does Andrea escape, always standing by the side, watching all the horror?

Two good things about the movie are its stunning camera work by Ramji and wonderful music by G.V.Prakashkumar. The songs are indulging, and the background score is good too. ‘Un mela aasai thaan’ and ‘O Eesa’ are tunes that linger along. The computer graphics looks amateurish at some places, but the overall cinematography is quite good.

Reema Sen has given a splendid performance in the second half of the movie, as a vengeful and ruthless female. Karthi disappears in the second half and reappears to sum up at the end. Andrea is more conspicuous by her lack of any part to play in the second half. Parthiban is a huge let down. The most hyped character of the movie – the Chola king – behaves no more mature than the leader of a cannibal tribe. He is speechless and expressionless most of the time, except when they show his large eyes in close-up, trying to make up for the boring screenplay.

The movie is a new venture in Tamil. I have always wondered when the Tamil movies would move ahead of love, revenge and sentiments. This could be a first step, at least the first half. If the excessive gore, barbarianism and blood shed is removed, the characters are made to talk normal Tamil, and the movie is cut down by half-an-hour, the effect could have been completely different. Overall, the movie is nothing close to a must-watch!