kayaking

Kayaking was there in my to-do list for very long. Last year, with Bangalore Adventure Club, I went to Savandurga. And, there I seized this opportunity. It was wonderful experience. I was accompanied with twelve other enthusiastic youngsters including my pal Sukrut. We were ready to experience adrenaline rush through high rope climbing, paint-ball, cave exploration and other activities which was supposed to fall out soon. Now it was turn for kayaking.

We reached lake around 1 pm. It was sunny day. There were only two kayaks available. I was last to go. After observing others for a while, I left place to wander around. When I came back, It was my turn. Honestly, I did not realize how hard it could be until I did kayaking. Foremost, It was appearing piece of cake. I thought, all that we had to do was position our self in cockpit and sail carefully with rowing oar. I did not had extra pair of clothes so I was little worried in case I got wet in water. I gave all my personal belonging to colleagues, and went close to kayak. I still had no fear. Person that was assisting told me not to get scare. That was first time getting scare crossed my mind. I decided to be more careful and took courage and positioned myself very comfortably on boat. Kayak was still firmly held to lakeside.

Kayak was untied. I took a deep breath. To my surprise, Kayak was hell lot sensitive to any of my movement. I was aghast and little scared. I was holding boat paddle with my both hands, and my any slightest movement was making kayak trembling. Thank God, I was already positioned myself very comfortably before them to free boat, so I did not had to re-adjust. Any movement to re-adjusting would have only help kayak to through me in lake. And, I did not want that. So, I kept myself quite for a moment. I realized that I am going to die some day because of my lack of ability to gauge the risk. And I had every reason of getting afraid. This was my very first kayaking and I did not even know swimming that time. Lake was deep and full of formidable creatures of which we had just witnessed water snake. I stayed quite for moment and then got chilled as time passed. I enjoyed every bit of it.

Since then I have done kayaking couple of times and it never stops exciting.

Internet, mail exchange, and two confused souls

An incident that title of this write-up suggests appears fictional. But, I assure that it is as real as my own existence. A very reality that changed lot of things for real, that re-engineered the way I perceive things, and that threw a stone in my vacuous life and sought for all kind of mixed emotions that made me feel alive and humane. Changes were internal, slightly noticeable to outside world; but, for me, colossal changes were more than I would have ever imagined. In hindsight, I can trace its footprint in most of crucial decision that I took afterward. One thing that I am sure about is that it changed me for betterment.

Like most of good things that happens to us accidentally without understanding the gravity of occurrents, it started with a gtalk friend request. A friend request from an unfamiliar email id. I clicked on accept button and my world was no longer same as I knew without even knowing this myself.

I will update details soon :)

Alibag Beach

All I saw was a ten legged sea-crab strolling on seabed, after craving to see crocodiles and snakes for hours. Very disappointing, ehh?? I chased it few steps before it get out of sight. I looked around; very weak currents were coming from two sides and were making square shaped packets on water surface; and I found myself encircled in on one of such packet. I was amused by the thought of everybody was allotted a private squared zone by sea itself. It was a sunny day. I looked at horizon. Horizon was looking like mat filed with golden water beads. I wondered If I just reached at right place at right time. I was about 700 meters far from shore in sea and was heading towards Alibag Kolaba-Fort, constructed by Shivaji, and located around one and half kilo meters inside sea. Visitors are only allowed here during low tide.

I noticed something strange while chasing sea-crab. My foot steps were not even leaving slightest trail behind me. It was incredible. I grabbed black sand from sea floor out of curiosity. No wonder why sea floor was so hard and smooth. It was very fine grains of sand that was making floor very hard(considering very high packing fraction because of small size)and smooth at same time. I loved the feeling of walking on it. My Brother-in-law was coming behind holding hands of my sister. My sister was scared to even walk on seabed alone. Abhishek, Do not go there; Abhishek, Do not do that - I often listened from back. I thought she wont even miss a single chance of showing her elderliness to me. But, guess what, who was listening to her, at least not me :-). I was engaged in capturing beautiful squared patterns made on seabed because of cross-sectional weak currents over time.

Finally, we reached the fort after an hour rambling on seabed. The fort was 300 years old. A token entry fee for the visitors was charged. There were many temples and fortifications along cannons facing the sea. We captured as much as we could. After spending an hour we left and came back to beach. And then left for our next destination.

Trick that worked

There are few memories that we always cherish, irrespective of how long it has been since it occurred. It never gives away to bring a smile on our face. We relive those moments over and over. The thing that is titillating me now is a very devious trick that we use to employ to survive study session.

I still remember me - dowsing on a seat, a book opened in front. A routine scenario after 7pm. It used to be real pain to sit down and study after tiring day in school, and then breathtaking activities on play ground. Two hours of self study was mandatory and was brutally enforced on our routine. So I, along with my two sisters, did not had much choice. Somehow we had to cope with situation. But we had devised a tactics. Trick was kept totally confidential. Plan was: two of us will sleep at our seat and one will do patrolling, so if someone comes one will wake-up other two. Surprisingly it worked perfectly. We had great time faking study. Its success was all attributed to our mutual trust and team effort.

Definitely, this might have caused some damage to our academics. But that was not that importance in desperate desire to sleep. In hindsight, I can only see the trust and affection that was build among us; those never-ending homeworks that we skipped bring no lamentation at moment. These small incidents that pops-out on my mind always bring laughter. I totally miss those countless occurrents; especially, endless gossips with my sisters and unmatched prattle with elder bro.

Gundagardi

Badashah Lodge, owned by and named after its owner, Badashah -- a "bahubali" Ex-MLA of Bihar Legislative council, is known for its discipline within the hostel and involvement in gang-wars outside hostel, is the residence of more than 200 students including plus two as well as university students. I spent my two year of plus-two there, as It was at walking distance from my college - St. Xavier's college, Ranchi. I am just sharing an incident here, which is still alive in my memories, even after more than six years. Here we go.

It was Independence day, after hoisting the flag in hostel, we planned to go for cinema. Of course we were planning for afternoon show, as we are not allowed to leave hostel after 7 pm. It was Friday, and movie had just released. I was little more excited to go to very first day of show. More than ninety lodge-mates, including seniors and few juniors, agreed to go together. It was not easy to get so many tickets on very first day. Show was supposed to start at 2 pm. Some of us decided to go little early around 1.00 pm to book tickets; rest of people could come later as cinema hall was at walking distance from our Lodge. I decided to go with seniors at 1.00 pm. I got scared after watching a long queue in front of ticket counter. It was virtually impossible for us to get tickets. But something happened, very cruel and sare-aam gundagardi, which made it possible.

My classmates, holding lather belts in their hand, followed three seniors with hockey sticks, entered the cinema hall from the front gate; They started dispersing people and finally they reached to the ticket counter. Most of people got terrified and flew away from queue, but some groups opposed and they end-up bleeding. They got tickets. Some thing happened after that which was unexpected. Some localites brought their gang for taking revenge. They were more than 50. We dispersed very quickly and tried to vanish in crowd. Now It was our turn to bleed.

Fortunately I got successful in disappearing in crowd, but, some seniors got caught, and I end-up being a silent observer of their misfortune. Once news reached our hostel, after few minutes, hundreds of lodge-mates reached theater for rescue. After seeing such crowd with hockey sticks, localites backed off and most of them flew away. Afternoon show was canceled by administrators and that left us frustrated and we end-up damaging every thing we came across in cinema hall including chairs, windows, posters etc. Polish was called and we holed up in our hostel.

Police reached our hostel, but, they were not allowed to enter inside hostel as Lodge owner was a Ex-MLA. They can not enter without taking his permission. They returned back. After 1-2 days of inspection, owner expelled few guys from hostel, and police cash was suppressed. Most of other culprits including me enjoyed the safe haven inside hostel. After that incident, I kept myself aloof from such activities. 

Ma Black-berry

It's lustrous skinny dark built drove me crazy. And I decided to bring it home. Now, It has been more than five months since we are together. It erased the memories of my old fleshy disgusting Nokia handset. I can touch it, hold it, talk to it, and play with it. It's more like a spouse, and even more. We spent hours together, and now It is an integral part of my life. I believe that we compliment each other; I could not have a more reliable, classy, handy, and user-friendly handset; And it could not have such a gentle proud owner like me. One thing I admire most about it is, it's soft squared touch-pad which makes it unique among all smart-phones. Beside this, I like it's curvy well-spread full qwerty keyboard, five dedicated media buttons to control media-player, special button for capturing image, and side bulging button for voice commands. It has almost all features what I wanted. Advanced features like -- gprs, gps, wifi, bluetooth, video recorder, enhanced media player, voice command input and many more; You just name it, and It has it. It's, even, very easy to install a black-berry as well as third party application through black-berry desktop manager. I want to thank it for being such an adorable friend.

Me And Terrorists

In the shivery cold of December, I was sitting on the bench, waiting for the 'Shakti-punj' express on 'Baraka-kana' Junction, with my colleague. It was a foggy moonlit night. Dense hazy layers of mist had made it virtually impossible to see beyond the few steps, as if nature was committed to facilitate the full privacy to the bunch of beggars sleeping on the floor of the platform. It was midnight time, and I was not hesitated to put-on three layers of sweeter and jackets on me. I was waiting, thinking, and wondering, "How do these beggars manage to survive such freezing winter?". I saw only few small pieces of grimy cloths with them. They must have adopted to such extreme conditions, that must be in their genes. I was not able to relate myself to them, so I had not much sympathy for them either. "If I were in there conditions, I must have accepted being a Maoist, rather than being humiliating and abused every moment", I thought. Then I looked around.

A deem yellowish light was coming from a invisible distant source, and that was only source of light other than moon. I decided to walk around for a while as I was feeling little drowsy too. I left my luggage -- a backpack and hand bag, full of books -- behind near to bench, now I was walking towards the light-source. As my visibility was restrained by hazy fogs, even after walking a while, I did not have feeling of walking as all places were appearing same, until I was very close to place where beggars were sleeping. There were two middle age women, one teen aged girl with her two infant kids, and one boy. I stopped there, and sat at bench for a while; I was facing towards the railway track. All of a sudden, I heard a giggling sound, and then heard some whisper too. I heard it again. I left that place and moved towards the railway track, a person was there across the railway track, I could feel his presence by sound of his foot-steps. He was roaming, and was talking to some one; as no body was around, It looked, initially, very funny.

Every thing was looking very dramatic. I did not give much attention, until I saw one other person restless after arrival of a local passenger-train. He jumped into the train, and was going from one boggy to other; he was pointing his laser beam to the person cross the track from various positions, and finally he came down from train and went across the railway track. After seeing the laser dance for a moment, my colleague came near to me. "Their activities are not normal, and they must be up to something", he whispered. A beggar jumped in front of us all of a sudden, "What did you see? What do you know about things going-on here", she asked. I was stunned. We were being monitored as micro-phones were planted at most of the places, and those whisper sounds were nothing, but, that was because of their constant conversation through walkie-talkie. And we were ignorant to all, so every thing was looking funny. "I don't know any thing", I replied. After questioning to us, she went across the railway track. Fortunately our train arrived after few minutes, and we left the platform in single piece. I was little horrified, but, I did not find myself different from them when I remembered my thought of being Maoist instead of spending whole life on platform.