A getaway to the hills

Friday, tea-time:

Me: Man, I'm sick and tired of everything. I want to run away.
Vas: As if I don't want to...
Me: Man! Lets go hit the road! Target: Nandi Hills. What say?
Vas: Anytime!

And we were on the road by 10am on Saturday morning, on my black beauty, heading for Nandi Hills, about 60km from Bangalore city. Soon we crossed Jakkur, and had tea and biscuits from a road-side shop and hit the six-lane NH-7. Its a real good quality road but for the small stretches in between where the construction was still on.
We reached the foothills in an hour. The climb there on was just too good. I absolutely LOVE to ride through winding roads and this was the place to do it. The bike was responding to every wish of mine, and what a bliss it was, to run it through the smooth, though narrow,
road.
It was too windy on top. I was even afraid that I might get flown away by the wind. Vas's case was slightly better; he had more fat on his body than mine :) There was this fat couple out there who had a nice time watching us struggling to walk in the wind.
The place was not crowded. And the weather was perfect, too. Spent around four hours on top of the hill, going around every nook and cranny of the hill, and clicking away a lot of pics.
The best of the day was yet to come. We rode down to the plains all rejuvenated, and happy to be away from the chaotic city life at least for a few hours. On the way back we stopped near a rocky hill that we'd marked as 'to-be-climbed' earlier. Parked the bike on the roadside, and scaled the hill in 20 minutes- It wasn't as simple as it looked: the grass that grew on the rocks were pretty sharp and the rocks were too smooth.
A smooth ride back to the city with a couple of kgs of fresh grapes in the backpack,breakfast-cum-lunch-snacks from a fastfood corner in Brigade road, dropped Vas back and I was home by 7pm.

What a way to spend a weekend!
Click here to see Nandi Hills pics

Of prancing horses and my black beauty.

The red prancing horses are back on the podium. But I didn't want them to be there this way. Not because Fisci and Alonso crashed out, not because Montoya was too stupid to notice that red light blinking, not because Button was too late at braking. Not because the others made mistakes. Well, looks like now thats the only way Ferraris are getting to be on the podium these days. By cashing in on others mistakes. Thats not bad, I must say. They didnt make mistakes and they scored. But, thats not great either. Schumi had all of 13 laps to fill a gap of 2.5s between him and Kimi. And he failed. Whats wrong? The tyres? Is it just the tyres? Seeing the way he and Button started off the race at a snail's pace despite having carried a lighter fuel load for a 3-stop strategy, I don't think tyres are the only problem. Lets wait and watch, the game is not over yet! I still think there is room for them to come back to the top...

I got my black beauty serviced yesterday. She's got new spark plugs, a new battery and a fresh cot of paint for the belly, err... fuel tank. Got rid of the scratch and the dent on the underside of the tank, too. She is gleaming now!

Earth bleeds.

May 5th, World environment day. There was a photo and an article in The Hindu yesterday. The photo was an arial view of a part of the amazon rainforest cleared by the timber smugglers and illegal settlers and the article was about the extent of damage caused by them to whatever left of the forests in the river delta. The statistics were terrifying: It is reported that the size of the rainforest has come down by 16,000 sq.kms in the last one year. The same is happening all over the world: In Africa, In India, in Indo-china, everywhere. Mother earth is getting raped and strangled to death as each day passes by.

In this context, an article came in the weekend suppliment of Mathrubhumi yesterday attains great importance. It was about the struggle of a group of people led by the eminent Malayalam poetess and human rights and evironment activist Sugathakumari to afforest a hill in the Attappadi region of the Western Ghats, bordering the Silent Valley National Park. They adopted a hill which was earlier made barren by the timber mafia, planted thousands of seeds and saplings, watered them using bare hands in summer, and cared for them like their own childern. Slowly the plans grew, and became trees, and then came back all those animals and birds that left their home back, when they had nothing to hold on to. Now the hill is back to its old glory; happy and full of life. This does give a ray of hope, that as long as there are people like them, the mother earth will not have to die a horrible death. She will live on. Just.


There was an event organized by the Bangalore chapter of Greenpeace, which took place on the side of the MG road in the busiest hours of yesterday evening, and sure, it caught quiet a good attention from everyone. They made a platform on one of the big trees standing beside the raised walkway on the MG Road, and did a full scale music performance, with a lot of "Save trees" banners flying around. I sincerely hope it has caught the attention of the Bangalore Mayor and BDA babus also. May be this will flash in their mind while deciding to chop down trees to make way for fly-overs. May be I'm being too optimistic. I should curtail my habit of expecting too much from people - may be I shouldn't expect anything at all. It always hurts.

Poems and me.

I got a very unusual forward yesterday. Usually forwards go directly to my trashcan, but this one rattled me. It was the lyrics of a poem written by the eminent Malayalam poet Madhusoodanan Nair, and was also featured in the movie "Daivathinte Vikruthikal". I read the lyrics, took a while in getting it into the head, read it again, again, and again. And I felt it, deep inside.
I used to hate poetries when I was a kid. I could never get the right tune and rythm. That attitude went on till I heard Madhusoodanan Nair reciting "Naranathu Bhranthan". I'd never before heard such a powerful voice singing. The voice, the tune and of course the poem itself swept me off my feet. And then I started listening to poetry (I admit, I still can't read it). Then came Chullikkadu, ONV and Vayalar. Boy, if you want to know how a *perfect* male voice should sound like, listen to Balachandran Chullikkadu reciting his poems... You'll never forget that voice in your whole lifetime.
Listening to Nair's "Agasthyahridayam" now...

Drenched...

The sky looked quite heavy yesterday evening, ladden with huge black clouds all ready to burst anytime. The moment I got out of the office, I knew it was going to rain, and I was going to get wet. Who cares a damn anyway?
The rain did come. But traffic jam came before that. A small block which was caused by the water logging somewhere on the way developed into a huge traffic jam, and I was caught right in the middle of it. And then the rain came. With all its might, it lashed against evey square mm of my body like pebbles and the cold pierced through my drenched shirt like needles. And unfortunately I wasn't wearing a jacket :(
I rode my bike in that rain- don't know whether I can call it riding: I could never take her beyond the second gear- for the next 2kms. Usually I love to ride in the rain, provided there is no heavy traffic. But this time it was a real pain...