Diwali Deewangee

It was a weekend we had been waiting for sometime. A four day holiday...away from work and away from doing the usual stuff. Well, it certainly was unusual in a lot many ways.

8th November: PP arrived in the morning from Hyd. Pre-diwali day. Lots of crackers to be bought and we had no clue where to get them from! Surprisingly, Bangalore had a few or no cracker shops at all in every corner of the road like we have it back home. The evening started with bowling at Megabowl on airport road. And before I forget to mention, we had a very competitive match indeed. The winner (Shk) scored much more than twice the score of the person ending up last and yours truly fought till the last ball was bowled, to end at 3rd spot. (the fact that there were just four of us is incidental ;-) ). Well, it was a futile search for crackers that day, but the drive on the Whitefield Road was good.Coffee at CCD followed by dinner at Golconda Chimney was a nice way to end the evening. By the way, for those who haven't been to Golconda Chimney...you must try it out. The food is quite good.

9th November: Diwali day and NO CRACKERS yet! Made some calls and were told that Hosur road is the place to go. So off we went on our bikes again. We found a wholesaler for 'Standard Fireworks' pretty close by on Hosur Rd. and the variety of fireworks available was just what we wanted. It had been 4 years since I had stopped bursting crackers and this year was going to be a 'back to the past' kind of a celebration :-). We got the stuff which lasted well over 3 hours. Diwali evening was quite exciting. Last years celebrations were at Ooty and hence it was my first Diwali at Bangalore. I lighted Diya's and two Phuljhari's at my flat before joining the others at Sbz's place. The first half of the evening did consist of some weird and crackling designs formed of those patakha's. A sample of the artistic skills of the crazy gang can be seen below.

Interval was full of laddoos, mewa and wine. Interesting combo...All this with the movie 'Jaaneman' playing in the background! I know...that is an 'Eeks' moment! ;-) Well, the rest of the crackers were burst in the next 30 minutes in a really marathon session where the rockets were flying every which way you can imagine...the Chakri's chose to run under the bikes and the bombs/sparklers threatening to start a forest fire! The Ladi being the grand finale was not a dissapointment at all. And we really hope (actually quite sure) that the galli ke doggies wouldn't bother to threaten the people of this particular galli at least for the next few months.

Dinner was at a nearby restaurant where we saw some people leaving the place with a box of sweets in their hands. We were quite amused and a bit happy to know that the reataurant was pampering the guests thus, until someone overheard that they were personal guests of the owner! Well, never mind. Too much sweet isn't good for the weight conscious anyway.

10th November: The D-Day! We were watching 'Saawariya' today. Had already got some diametrically opposite reviews from various sources and hence were quite apprehensive. Well, what it turned out to be is something I will not discuss on this post. Evening we had to do some shopping for a trekking expedition at Kalawarhallibetta (Skandhagiri Hills). We left from Bangalore at around 11PM. The group included Sbz, PP, Nash, Smr and of course Hum :-). Kalawarhallibetta is a difficult place to find (esp in the night) if one doesn't know the route. We had a yummy dinner at a Dhaba near Yelahanka. The dhaba was ideal for one of those ghost movie settings. Reached Chikballarpur at around 1.30AM and then the driver of our cab got thoroughly confused as to which direction to go in! Just wonderful isn't it? We asked for some directions and found the turning that had a KM-stone with 'Nandigram 6 km' written on it. We turned left from the Chikballarpur main road and carried on. Going further we lost our way again and at 2AM there was no one to ask directions to as well. There was some divine intervention near a place which read Sri SathyaSai Ashram. We found a friendly woman awake who directed us onto the right path. Well, if you thought that we were to find the place now for sure, well you're almost right but not quite. We were indeed blessed with this amazing pathfinder (a.k.a our driver) who could get confused at the slightest excuse. Probably the excuse this time was the scary shadowy figure we saw on the road. Totally covered in blue with a blue and white headscarf and standing hunched on the side of the road holding a stick! The figure wasn't moving at all and as we went past it, for a moment it did scare us when the headlights of the vehicle flashed on the figure, until we realized what it actually was. Well, coming back to our quest for Skandagiri Hills, it turned out that we had to take a turn at the Visveswariah Arch and enter the village (this was the birth place of Sir M.Visveswariah). Some 2 kms further on this road the Skandhagiri Hills trek start point was there. Some negotiation with the guide took place and we were off to start the expedition uphill. Our backpacks loaded with water, chocolates & biscuits and with flashlights in our hands we were all set to conquer Mt. Skandagiri! :D. We had barely walked 30 minutes that the task began to look quite daunting but nevertheless doable. For Nash, who hadn't done a lot of trekking earlier, the uphill trek was a difficult one and we had to stop every 10-15 minutes to let him catch his breath and also goad him on to continue walking, trying various incentives included playing songs on the cellphone to taking pictures on the rocks in the no-moon night. To top this, the guide was a pestering kind who it seems, had some sort of a inter-galaxy shuttle to catch on reaching the top of the hill. The continuous 'come FAST saar' was quite irritating as well. So much so, that PP contemplated throwing him off the cliff if he said FAST once again, and as if on cue the next word from the guide was, 'FAST saar!' ;-) Lucky that the guy was some distance ahead of us. We reached the top of the hill after around 2.5 hours of climbing and one would have thought that the difficult part was over. We were walking on flat ground and were nearing the top of the cliff where all other trekkers could be seen, when suddenly there was a noise behind me and Nash just disappeared! Just like that...Poof...into thin air! Just that it wasn't the air but the ground that gave way underneath his feet. He had fallen through the grass on the left side of the path and into a bush some 6 feet from the top of the hill. When we tried locating him, all we could see was his right hand. Thankfully, his fall was broken by the dense bush and he was somehow holding onto something. His left foot was stuck in the branches and right foot was loose with no foothold underneath. We were terrified but thankfully, the guide knew the hills. He got a few other localites and they got into the trees below and tried pulling Nash up. I could hear PP mumbling something and realized that probably they were silent prayers. Am sure that's what everyone else was doing at that moment. We didn't know how deep the pit was and how bad the fall had been/could have been if Nash had continued falling.

We hear of accidents and near death experiences from other people and always think that it can't happen to one of us. We are always very careful. But what happened there, just made me realize, that one can't be too careful always and unthinkable things can happen to anyone. But, destiny does play a role. There's a reason and time for everything that happens around and to us. We do not know what would happen in the next moment. All it takes is a split second to change your life. A blink of an eye and everything can be what you have always dreamt of or what you never wanted to happen! Just goes on to say that don't take life for granted. Sure, we should live by the moment and be happy with what comes our way, but whatever comes your way mayn't necessarily be what you deserve. Probably it happened to you because there are better plans written ahead in the future chapters of your life and these are the ways to be prepared for what lies ahead.

Coming back to the cliff, the guide got us some help and we could reach Nash at last. With some effort he was pulled up and was back on solid ground. What was amazing was that, all his tiredness had disappeared and his sense of humor was back in a jiffy. Now the only thing that he was complaining about was that we failed to take pictures when he was busy playing Tarzan hanging on the edge of the cliff!

11th November: The sunrise was in another 20 minutes and it sure was beautiful! A sunrise on top of a hill from where we could see the clouds floating below was simply breathtaking.



We started our climb downhill around 6.30AM and reached the foothills in about 2 hours. We reached back in Bangalore in around an hour and totally crashed out. Terribly tired but the experience was amazing. I think we should plan our next trek soon. Sbz-Take the hint ;-)

Dead tired from the trek and slept most of the afternoon. Evening did pass by quite fast and the small vacation was nearing an end. But this was a long weekend that would last in my mind for a very long time to come for a lot of reasons.