All Write…

Dressing!

It conveys a lot – about your tastes, individuality and at times your thought process and mood.
An old school of thought also says, “Apart from etiquettes, the difference between a man and a gentleman is his tailor and barber”.

Be it Gulzaar Sahab – always clad in Pearl White Kurta-Payjama, Mr Bachchan / (Late) Mr Rajiv Gandhi – often in Power Suits / Jodhpuri Suits (aka Bandh Galas) or Mr Jackie Shroff (in his thirties and forties) – Flamboyance at its peak; they all epitomized what they chose to wear. So, the question is not whether one’s dressing is Simple or Power or Flamboyant but whether it really goes with your overall personality or not. And, this is something where I really pity today’s youth that has become so awestruck with “this is in” mentality. I really don’t see an iota of wisdom in donning anything that you can’t carry but you still put on it just because you happen to like it or because you want to display your individuality in a sense of “I am what I am”.

Tees with some humorous message printed upon them have been around since time immemorial. And, if what is on it gels well with your personality or traits that you often display, makes it much more fun.
During college days I bought myself one which took the liberty of twisting Intel Inc’s logo. The tee had the Intel logo on it but instead of their slogan “Intel Inside” it said, “Mental Inside”.
Suits me till date…no two opinions about it!

Sometimes the message is not about you but something that you want to convey to others. I remember Ms Sania Mirza wearing one which said, “Look at my face also”. Such a tight slap for lechers. Bravo girl!
Well, today I happened to travel to Connaught Place via Delhi Metro. Whenever I travel alone I prefer to give myself joy of reading. I was engrossed in a book when I heard someone say, “Bhaisaab…thoda khiskenge?” (Would you please make some room for me to accommodate?) I looked up, fulfilled his request and continued with what I was doing. One glance was enough to take my notes. This guy was little bulky in size, his belly bursting out of his tee. His size or his belly is not the subject of the satire. Not everyone has an appealing appearance or a body that is in shape and, I sincerely believe one should not feel embarrassed about it. Ask me, I take so much pride in the fact that I can see through a key-hole with both eyes! What actually caught my attention was the message on his tee – “This side up “.

One-pack ponch accompanied by an offending message on tee! What was that? A lady-killer dressing?

-/Abhimanyu

Once bitten twice shy.

Most of you folks might be familiar with this quote, but the relevance you might not be able to figure out. This essentially means that once you do a mistake you double check the next time and you try to make sure you don’t repeat it.

Last time when we had left for the trip we started very early in the morning due to which we reached our destination late and then it was a catch 22 situation everything was delayed a bit, so we didn’t want this to happen again and started late at night only, the graveyard hours.

Two white Toyota Innova car (13 people from 5 different companies) pressed their accelerators hard and vroooooom…… our cars were soon cruising at a high speed at least per Indian standards 100-120 kmph within matter of minutes and in no time the cars were a smooth conversation with the air.

After traveling for couple of hours, we reached Haridwar, one of the most holy places in India. Thankfully, the Kumbh mela (fair) one of the most famous events of India was on the verge of completion so the traffic was bearable and we finally reached Kaudiyal, our place of the camping around 10 am (24′th April). I must say that the glimpse of that one view of the entire place with the camps, river with few rafts here and there gave our eyes so much happiness which can certainly be equivalent to the glimpse of all the seven wonders combined.

Crossing the river to reach camps

The camp view from ferry

We reached down, the best part was that the camp site was not accessible by road & we had to sail in a ferry raft to reach there. We were then allocated our tents (which were named on rivers).

We went in our respective camps, where our delicious breakfast was waiting. Those aloo ke parathe, achar, dahi, bread, butter marmalade etc. just to give a flavor of the tip of the iceberg (breakfast).

Some of us played volleyball, some of them went on for stroll, someone like me who is so fond of sea, lake, etc left no stones unturned to utilize the time maximum. I sat on the banks of the Ganges and it was so peaceful that I can hear the sound of the movement of water (kal kal ki dhwani). A nice place to just admire the nature and relax.

Finally after an hour or two, we were ready for what we came for “THE RAFTING”: oh hell yeah!!!! That’s what we are talking about. Some initial set up pics below:

Let me tell you something about our group; most of us were first timers and hell yeah everybody was godamnn afraid primarily because of everybody is afraid to die and secondly in some of the youtube videos you might the raft turns upside down and the people panicking in water. Scary na for the first timers…a slice from the future..our boat went upside down as well . But my skepticism of altruism is why do we guys just assume that we are going to die or accident will happen…don’t we know that assumptions are mother of all f*** ups. If not, yes guys that the reality, let’s face it.

Finally, we were out for for rafting, saw some great rapids ranging from grade 1, 2, 3 to 4. The best part was that the piece-de-resistance was left for the next day and we were happy that ways as we were pretty satisfied with the rapids that we already went through. After doing the rapids, one of the longest for 27 km, we were tired and exhausted. The irony in rafting is that there are some beautiful shots which you want to click but you can’t as people generally don’t tend to bring camera and the primary reason being the fear of getting that damaged due to water, but we got some jugar after all it is not every day that people do this. Results below, I am sure you would love it. When we were on the verge of completing our rafting, we had one more item on our to-do list….you guessed it right!! Cliff jumping.

I still remember my first experience when I almost did cheers with Yamraaj but thankfully came back. So this time I was in no mood to do it, but when I saw so many people just going on the cliff and jumping. I remembered one quote which might not be fully relevant, but partly yes and it says ‘A mob has many heads but no brains’. Everybody was seeing the whole group jumping and they also did similar to following the mob. Frankly a good way is not to think otherwise you will anyways not be able to do it. Though we had to convince few of our team members including myself to jump and let me tell you folks that I am sure others enjoyed every bit of it. Then we reached our destination where our own raazma chawal was waiting for us and after spending all our carbohydrates, proteins and vitamins we seriously needed some combination of C and H (for those who didn’t get what C & H is; it is simply Carbon and Hydrogen; sugar, glucose have chemical formula with a combination of C & H).

After lunch we came back to the camp tired and drained out. Each of us did their somewhat soul searching for some time and got ready for the rocking night. Around 20 of us sitting around the bonfire having, beer, bacardi, vodka, coke etc. Along with some cool shayaris from deepak, kaushik and some blunt introduction from our very own Dinu and our desi senior constable Mittal. After couple of shots and some funny and happy moments our dinner was ready; rice, pulses, vegetables, chicken couple of other stuff. Guess what we did next? Sleep…you are wrong buddy…it was night trekking… Can you beat it? Thankfully all of us went for the night trekking over the smallest lane that exists with load of possibility of slipping down. And why thankfully as all of us came back safe even after having few shots of vodka, rum etc. Though it had some challenges, few of us were really frightened to walk down that path and needed help, but that’s why we go in teams/groups, no need to tell who all required (we take full care of confidentiality )

When we returned each of us just crashed on the bed and everybody was so f****** tired. Though some of us preferred to sleep outside as the cool breeze and the glimpse of the moon was amazing, personally, I slept inside my camp only.

The chirping of birds, the cool breeze moving over the face and the sunlight compelled us to wake up early but was worth it. Some of the activities that you can go for is a small walk, play volleyball, sit and relax on the banks of the Ganges.

Our next activity, Rappling.. yeah !!!.It was fun going down and coming up from the mountain just hanging by the rope. Frankly, coming down was a lot easier and pulling up, if you want a true answer, pardon my language, phat li thi. But the good thing is that most of us were able to do it without much difficulty.

Finally, the day had arrived for the piece-de-resistance. After a stomach filling breakfast of the tasty puree aloo, egg, toast and tea we were ready to face ‘THE WALL’….wondering what the hell this is. It is the mother of all rapids and there is 90 percent chance that the raft will tumble down and you all be in water waiting for help, panicking or the best enjoying the body surfing. If you want see the BIG DADDY rapid either go to youtube or wait for our video to come up and you can see for yourself. Before going into the Wall, we were given the briefing, how,what,which,where,when and all those exclamation marks words. Finally, we sang our song of victory i.e. Chilmil chilmil dhoom dhadaka hooh haah hooh haah, thrice:D and voila we were ready for the deadly waters.

We did all those backwards, forwards, jump, body surfing to make ourselves ready etc. Just before the rapid, we assembled at one place and those who didn’t want to go for the wall stood there only, one advantage here, they can record the action . We were the first boat going into the wall and man! Let me tell you, I have seen some crazy s*** like this in discovery or national geographic only and now I was feeling it for real.

We went into the Big Daddy and up and down and side and all that salsa we did with the raft….and suddenly three colleague get thrown away by waves, two of which fall in water and few of us were trying to save the raft from tumbling.

Finally, we came out without tumbling…quite a feat for the team which involved few first timers. Once all the teams crossed this, few tumbled, few just tumbled partially and few came out in flying colors.

Since it was running late, we couldn’t do the kayaking, but wait kayak, we will be there again for you.

After two days of adrenaline gushing adventure freakout, it was time for all of us to go back home and sweet memories. It took us more than normal time while returning as we had some technical glitches in our car in between, but by the grace of god, we reached safe and sound. By the way as I write this blog I have been simultaneously navigating the cab as well (multitasker as our cab driver was not driving fast, but rather he was flying slow, you know what I mean). Well, I am about to reach the drop point and also about to finish the blog. I guess we are right on time to publish this blog without any further delay.

Overall, a very fun and adventurous trip. Looking forward to more such trips.

This is Prabhat signing off from Indira Puram, Noida 0310 hours, 26th April 2010.

Happy rafting

Chao
We keep arranging several such Exploration trips, join us on Facebook: vXplor-Adventure Freaks

CAVING!!!!!! ……..does this ring a bell…… for most of you it might not, as people have been used to hear Trekking, Rafting, Climbing etc. as adventure trip. Well folks let me tell you how it all began.
Let me rewind it to a week back. I got an offer to go with a colleague and couple of his friends. I hadn’t done a road trip for quite some time now and was behaving like a cat on a hot tin roof, but thought of giving it a shot.

We started our road trip and took the shortcut from Noida to Dehradun (Kawar Patri Route) which reduced our traveling time by at least one hour plus the traffic was also less and let me tell you this road has been discovered lately, but let me also warn you that don’t travel through this late at night as you might get robbed and that is the last thing which you would like to happen.
We reached a place called Cheetal Grand which is an important landmark to have your food if you travel to Uttaranchal/Uttarakhand area from Delhi. I guess we reached the place pretty early around 6:20 am and this place opens at 7 am. Damn, well we had a substitute for that place but that was not even close to what Cheetal was.

We continued our journey and reached Dehradun around 9:00 am and subsequently reached our first main stop for lunch Himalayan Hill Resort (of vXplor). This resort was clean and was at a very good location. We freshened up a bit and then had our lunch (Chapati, Rice, Pulses, Salad, Curd, Potatoes, Pickles and green chillies that’s it not much). We got stuffed and started to feel lazy without the night’s sleep and traveling continuously for around 7 hours, but had to go and see the Tiger falls for which we had to travel 30 km uphill and then trek for half an hour to reach that place. Had heard about it, so thought of giving the chance and by the way I hardly miss any opportunity to get a picture clicked for my orkut and facebook profile  so no way I could have missed this.

We started our journey to the Tiger falls (@ Chakrata) and let me tell you the name of this fall is Tiger falls because of the sound it makes like the Tiger when the water falls from a height. One of the problems in exploring the new and unexplored places is that you hardly find people on the road and that was one difficulty that we were facing while locating this place. We had a foggiest idea that it is in which area so we did some circling and finally got the place.

We parked our car took our belongings and started to trek. When you don’t do some exercise it is really hard to trek and you start to sweat, you have breathing problems, and get exhausted pretty soon and almost all of us were falling in the same category

Finally we reached the Tiger falls and fell in love with the mesmerizing beauty. Though we couldn’t hear the tiger roaring, but that was due to the fact that we went in the early months. In a month or two there would be more water, but nevertheless I was delighted to see the falls. We played the “throwing the water at each other” game and clicked few snaps had some chocolates and snacks there. The water was cold and I started to feel my feet getting colder and colder.


Tiger Fall Pics

It was getting late and the sun was setting. We thought of leaving that place though we didn’t want to and spend more time as we had to reach another 60 km uphill where we were about to had to do the camping. We were lucky enough to get somebody else do our tents.

We reached the place and it was almost dark. The place was f****** cold, but we guys were prepared with our jacket. That was the first thing we did otherwise we would have been sick. We had three tents for five of us.

The tents were clean, nicely put in close to each other at a place amidst green deodar trees. It was amazing and when the moonlit stuck on our tents, the beauty of the place got manifolds. You can just sit, relax, gaze the stars and admire the nature. Guys keep in mind that when you camp in this place at least you need to know the basics that leopard movement is common and same goes for monkey attacking your breakfast to take your toast or paratha or fox knocking at your tent. Well that might make it interesting. Also, I was told that I might end up my morning doing my basics (don’t need to mention the details) in an open area but thankfully the forestry department is helping the wanderers to not manure the forest but rather let it unused at a consolidated place and voila we had restrooms. It was not that I wasn’t ready for it, but who does not want luxuries and I think a rest room near your camp surely is a luxury. At night you might be a bit hesitant in going there though as it was a bit far and dark as well, but who cares when it is urgent.

We got our bonfire set, barbeque in place vegetarian and non vegetarian (ahhh forgot to tell two of us were veg) some music and couple of dance performances by us not to mention some salsa steps and some romantic numbers with rum, whiskey and beers flowing in. The mood was set; we were enjoying the time and had forgotten all the travail that we did to reach this place. Finally, after having chicken, paneer snacks, tea and hard drinks we were ready for the dinner. Yessss we had the dinner as well i.e. Chapati, Rice, Razma, matar paneer, salad and curd. Finally around 11 pm we finished our dinner and started our night trekking; ahhhh one more thing TORCH is one of the main things for camping and specially for caving. We followed each other for the night trek.
Ab initio some people were hesitant in doing this as we had already heard of these animal stories, but as the majority wins in the parliament we thought of following the same path and voila we were in the mood of night trekking, but I guess the people who didn’t want to go cursed it and as an upshot one of our colleagues slipped her leg and had a sprain in her leg. The result: Night Trek cancelled . We returned to our camps and went to our respective tents and slept.

I had an excellent sleep and when I woke up I was fresh as the green leaf in the spring ready to rock and roll. Imagine the moment you wake up and take out your face from the tent and your friend is there with tea…..mmmm que rico; God bless him. We were ready for some photo sessions (few snaps below). Finally, we got ready for our breakfast; had few parathas, chutney and curd and got ready for our final excursion.

We left the camp around 10:00 am and we had to go around 30 km to reach the place where we had to meet one person who is the one who has explored this cave and knows the ways inside out. By the way folks, the place were we are currently going is STRICTLY FOR INDIANS AND FOREIGNERS ARE PROHIBITED. We met our contact and he guided us to the place where we had to go. We finally reached the place and kept waiting for him and also in the meantime we were looking around in case we can find the cave. Frankly, nobody of us or you would have imagined the cave. We left our car on the road and were getting ready for the Caving. Basic requirements: Helmets, Full sleeves t-shirts or shirts, Jeans and shoes. Each of them has its own importance inside and I will explain it individually.

We got ready and started to come from the top of the road through a bit tough path. One of our colleagues surrendered and she said a big bold NO. Well we managed somehow to persuade her and come down that path and some people said that this is the only bottleneck (the biggest lie). We came down and then the second bottleneck starts; we had to climb to the cave and the path was so goddamn difficult. I am sure most of us cannot go if we are not using any hi-tech gadgets, but that’s the real challenge isn’t it. Had life been so simple, would we have enjoyed so much by the success that we gain? Out of five we were left with four of us and three guides. We managed the second bottleneck and got to the entrance of the cave. Now let me define the CAVE here. This place is a small entrance where you can stand, but the moment you start going inside there are places where you need to crawl, slide, and walk and also let me tell you those who are not in the army, it certainly will give some feeling of a military training. Coming back to the entrance of the cave; we were seven of us and what we were seeing is a thin space between two rock walls where we had to slide in between. The stone was slippery and it had a space in between which means if you slip, something is going to get broken or at least an injury was unavoidable. This thin space was just for the initial 10 feet.
The first person to enter was the guide. He travels successfully through it and reaches the other side where you can stand easily. The second person was my friend. She was a bit cluster phobic, but kudos to her she had the guts to go that extra mile. Though in spite of all her efforts things didn’t turn out well and she couldn’t enter. The third person was me. Frankly, I had never imagined it will be so tough and the primary reason is that when it comes to CAVE we think it is a grand entrance where most of the time we walk and sometimes only we have to bend and slide and you enter one side and mostly come out from the other side and the trip is complete, but in this case NO. The reason you can travels as much as you can inside and nobody knows till what extent you can go. Also there are many crossroads where if you don’t know the way out you will never be able to come out. The place is dark and you cannot imagine your life without a light so torch is a must and back up would be an intelligent thing. The cave is full of water and stones of different kinds. One very good thing about this cave is there are no living creatures inside apart from few bats. The place is clean, water is flowing continuously and there are places where is seems like a small waterfall. The water is clean and safe (we drank and I am still alive to write this blog so definitely SAFE ). Coming back to entering the cave; I managed to enter somehow. The thing which you would surely require while entering is the willingness otherwise no matter how strong you are you cannot enter. The fourth person is my friend who somehow manages to enter (Kudos to him). The fifth person is again my friend who always had the intention to come inside and he was strong as well (we used to joke that because of his belly he might get stuck in the entrance and not slip in between the crack as I might; I am a thin person that’s why ). Unfortunately it was neither the belly nor the strength which prohibited him to enter but rather was the fact that he started to sweat and felt as there was less of oxygen and he was getting choked. Then there was a guide who was able to enter and another who wasn’t able. In all, we were four people who managed to pass the second bottleneck and explore the beauty of it.

Let me tell you friends this cave was something that I hadn’t seen something like it before and would surely recommend to my friends to go and visit this place. The place is clean and surely if you love to explore new places and like adventure you should visit this place. The importance of each item was important; Helmet because there were many places where there were stones and pointed stones and rocks which were just hanging around and because of your limited visibility by your torch you couldn’t see them. I had almost 100 hits at least when my helmet saved me. Full sleeves shirts or t-shirts as many a times you need to crawl and pull your body with your arms doing the heavy lifting and crawling on the earth. The jeans as you need to move your back and slide many times and in case it is a soft trouser it might get torn and I don’t want to tell you the implications . Same goes for the shoes there are pointed rocks and stones and you might get on top of one and hurt yourself. In spite of all the bottlenecks we managed to travel around quite a distance inside get mesmerized by the beauty of nature, drink the fresh water, get the military training, and check our limits. I have got few snaps, but let me tell you this that the photos can look just simple cave photographs, but the real beauty is when you will see it similar to the quote “The proof of the pudding is in eating”. When we came out we felt like winners. We had a small bottle shower nearby with its flowing water and became fresh and got ready to come back.

It was such a great feeling and with nice memories we started our journey back home and reached couple of hours late due to few traffic jams.
I hope I might have given you a bit of idea. In case anybody of you is interested in exploring this place feel free to write to me or call this number 9717766038 , also can visit the link vXplor – Adventure Tourism.
Cheers
Prabhat
We keep arranging several such Exploration trips, join us on Facebook: vXplor-Adventure Freaks

This is dedicated to my dream girl, if any!

My wife always complaints I never ask for her advice before buying anything. How can I trust a woman’s taste who took me?

-/Abhimanyu

They always insult me when they say I am mean. Somebody please tell them I am meaner!

-/Abhimanyu

They say I should find a nice girl for myself and settle down.

Nice?? I tell them it is not possible until I find the worst one. After all, opposites attract.

-/Abhimanyu.

Ninety nine percent couples make me believe – God does not exist!

-/Abhimanyu.

Most women consider themselves out of this world and draw immense pleasure when they see men around them getting concerned about whether they would get a good companion for life or not. I could never fathom why do men worry about it in first place. They ought not to.

As we all know almost hundred percent of women believe that ninety percent women are nice and ninety percent men just don’t deserve them. And, no two opinions about the fact that they are right here. I don’t know about other men but I do agree with them. Genuinely!

If this really is true then the probability that a man who is not upto the mark would get a superb life partner is ninety percent. Similarly, the chances that a real nice woman would get a companion who doesn’t really deserve her are ninety percent as well.

So, who should worry?

-/Abhimanyu.

Located 75 kms from Akshardham temple, Mudfort offers an excellent option to unwind oneself in the countryside. We booked rooms for the night of 29th and prepared ourselves for the travel. When we woke up on 29th, it was unusually foggy outside. The fog got thicker and dense with the passage of time. At one point of time , we thought of cancelling the booking. However, I was determined to make it and motivated others to wait patiently. Finally, the weather gods listened to us and the fog got cleared by 2′oclock when we could embark on our journey. Outside, it was bright and sunny, much to our astonishment. As we reached the country roads, we could see mustard and sugarcane all around the fields. On the way, we stopped by to eat some raw sugarcane. We reached our destination at sharp 4 in the evening. As we entered the compound of the fort we could see a magnificent fort wall defining the boundary of the palace. The entrance was marked with a huge iron gate which reminded us of royal lineage.There was a big open courtyard with a fountain in the middle.

My son, Yuvraj was so excited that he kept running around it. We checked into our rooms and dumped our luggage first. Then we went out to explore the place and the best way to do that was to take a bullock cart ride arranged by the resort. The drive was unique as we were steered through the uneven village roads by Raju, a well-bred buffalo. The ride was quite bumpy but we enjoyed every bit of it. The village was dotted with mud huts having thatched roofs. It was a typical village sight which we are deprived of seeing in the cities. The place appeared slow and calm compared to the fast pace of life in our metros. People were just about winding up their day at 6′o clock and retiring to their huts for dinner. We could smell charcoal and bio-gas fuel in the air. As we returned back to the resort, we heard the sounds of Rajasthani music echoing in the courtyard. We felt like conossuiers of art patronizing music and dance performance. It was also captured in our video camera to be shared with friends and family. Our meals at the palace were marked with farm fresh vegetables and curd produced in the fort complex itself. It was a pleasure to savour these meals which tasted like home-cooked food and combined spices and condiments in the perfect proportion. However, the menu was limited so we had to be content with what was prepared for us and did not have options to choose from. The resort staff shared with us that it was a lean period for them and a lot of bookings by foreigners had been cancelled owing to terror attacks in Mumbai (26/11). On this particular night of 29th, we were the only family staying in the resort. It was our privilege and we got VIP treatment from the staff. Next morning, we spared some time to see the family photographs which narrated the royal lineage of Kuchesar. It was interesting to see how the family tradition was preserved generation after generation. We understood that the current royal descendant was managing the establishment and running the entire show. As we returned back we carried vivid memories of our royal retreat to cherish in the future.
Ruchira

Alone, I stand
Looking ahead, and back
Trails travelled and unknown.
Behind are the woods – wistful, grateful, sorrowful
can’t just leave them behind, can I?
And yet, the sky ahead is turquoise.
A blissful wind slaps my cheeks,
the sun burns me a rich brown.
It stings… and feels alive.
What is it at the horizon?
A gathering storm, I must say,
as I get drawn towards its.
Crazy?
Ah… yes. Passion is crazy.
Being alive is being crazy.
Being happy is being crazy.
I laugh, and move ahead
as the tear drops behind…
Ameeta