This is neither a forest region of mere subjective beauty nor one, which claims its greatness, based on just an overwhelming opinion of a large majority! The trek between Kodaikanal to Munnar is a treasure that few are aware about. A region so wild and exotic with such geographic extremes ensures its accessibility to the adventurous only. Of course a whole lot of patience to acquire the necessary permits from the forest authorities has to be coupled with the adventurous temperament.
The initial frenzied preparation to obtain trekking permits saw us call up the forest warden at Coimbatore who redirected us the DFO’s office at Kodaikanal from where we were directed to contact the PCCF at Chennai. A helpful clerk at the PCCF’s office asked us to fax a request for the trek and a week later, a friend of mine was able to pick the coveted permission letter just in time for us to use the long weekend for the trek. But permission from the DFO at Kodaikanal was required nonetheless since the ground realities are better known to the DFO. The fact that govt. offices are closed on ‘Gandhi jayanthi’ saw us loiter the whole day on the streets of Kodai. The same evening we bumped into Selvaraj, who offered to provide accomodation for a steal combined with guide services for the trek. The Concorde guesthouse suggested by him was a cozy place nestled among the hilly homes and we were offered a single room with 3 beds and an attached bathroom. The previous occupants had somehow managed to defile the room to such an extent that it was hard to believe that we were paying to stay there! But the curator and his team did a good job of restoring sanity to some extent before handing over the room to us.
Early next morning, we promptly queued up in front of the DFO’s office and were granted the permission without much ado. The DFO himself seemed keen to encourage trekking activities in this area, which was indeed comforting. The first journey was by a Maruthi van to a place called Mannavanur about 30 km away from Kodai on the road to Kavunji from where we had to walk to Berijam. A couple of tents, 5 sleeping bags, food supplies for 3 days, a sickle, warm clothing for all 5 of us and sundry items like toiletries etc distributed among 5 heavy backpacks formed our luggage. We started the trek towards Berijam a couple of hours after noon. The abandoned road that linked Berijam and Kavunji was easy walking and the distance of 9 kms was covered in less than 2 hours. The first view of the lake was quite breathtaking and we took a few pictures. The easily accessible parts of the shores were littered with plastic bottles and food particles though the lake itself was sparkling with clear water. I can imagine the filth, the tourists would be leaving behind if no restrictions were placed on the entry to Berijam! After spending sometime at the lake, we trudged on the winding road towards Munnar. By now it had started raining which made the track slippery and the leeches could be seen waiting for the right opportunity to latch on to our legs. It was a bit disappointing that even after 3 hours in the forests, our only encounter with wildlife was an 18 inch long purple coloured earthworm (or maybe it was a millipede). But the scenery and the pleasant weather were good enough to have us all in good spirits. Another couple of hours later, the mist became heavy and visibility was reduced to about 15 feet. The incessant drizzle too increased to a heavy downpour and we weren’t sure if the mist would ever clear while the daylight lasted. Our guide Selvaraj said that the next nearest shelter was at least 20 kms away or we had the option of trekking back to Berijam which was ruled out since none of us were keen to backtrack! Selvaraj suggested that there was a small waterfall close-by and we could camp for the night there. We agreed that this was a good plan since camping near water helps for the morning ablutions. The campsite we chose was pretty even which enabled us to pitch tents easily. Each tent could accommodate 4 people and thus 5 of us comfortably slept in the 2 tents. Thankfully we weren’t troubled by sleep walking bison or bears or we didn’t notice them! We woke up to one of the best sunrises I’ve seen for a long time! Our guide warned us about the long trek ahead which prompted us to rush our ablutions and pack up for the arduous journey ahead. Any debris like the half-burnt twigs or plastic covers used to pack food was carefully cleaned and packed into our backpacks again. The detour to the campsite from the main track meant that we had to trek back an extra hour before resuming our journey to Munnar. We still had to trek around 70 kms to reach Munnar according to Selvaraj and he suggested that it might get too monotonous and tiring if we continue on the same path. He was aware of another route through a place called Kilaver to finally reach Koilur, a small town in Kerala located about 20 km from Munnar. He also advocated that we could reach Munnar by nightfall on the new route! Since he knew the topography better, we decided to try out this other route and strode on behind him. The next couple of hours were unexciting since we backtracked the same route we had done the previous day. By noon, the backpacks had started to hurt and we chose to rest for sometime and also have lunch. The packed chhapathis with tamarind and chilli paste for lunch was appreciated by all of us though the guide chose to smoke beedis for lunch rather than eat! To start the trek, we had to reach a small village called Poondhi, which was about 5 km, by road. We took a local bus (tickets cost just 3/-) to this place and started walking from there after a sumptuous meal of idlis and vadas. The road from Poondhi to Kilaver was extremely slushy after the recent rains, which caused a few tumbles! We finally entered the forests again after a couple of hours and were on our way to Koilur. We had 3 more hours of daylight left before which we hoped to reach our destination. At Kilaver, a friend of Selvaraj by name Mani, employed as a forest watcher, agreed to accompany us lest we lose our way in the thick jungles. The trek from Kilaver to Koilur was quite tough and the consistent rains further added to our woes. The continuous incline for long stretches and the lack of clean streams with drinking water along the way really sapped us. We finally found a stream along the way, which was supposedly frequented by wild animals according to Mani, and quenched our thirsts. We also filled our water bottles from the stream. We took a small break to refuel ourselves with some food and started the trek again. At one point, Mani pointed out that we were crossing into Kerala and it felt good to crossover state boundaries with just one step! It does sound crazy when I tell my family members that I walked from Tamilnadu to Kerala! The path started sloping downwards from this point onwards. Around 5 in the evening, we could faintly hear the bhajans emanating from a local temple and were relieved to note that our destination was quite close! Another hour of trekking downwards and the full village came into our view. By 7 p.m. we were down in Koilur sipping hot tea at a local restaurant. Neither Selvaraj nor Mani knew about any trekking path from Koilur to Munnar and they suggested that we travel this distance by either bus or jeep. The last bus and jeep had departed before we arrived and the only means of transportation was a carrot-laden truck into which we piled on. The journey to Bangalore was without incident.
The entire trek was absolutely fabulous though we were sort of dejected at not having encountered any wildlife. The sheer absence of human habitation makes the trek a wonderful experience.
We would wish to thank the PCCF and the DFO for trusting us to trek the forests without spoiling the Eco-system. We would be definitely interested to trek again (while it isn’t raining maybe) sometime in the future for which we hope we would be granted permission again.
Warm regards,
Sundeep M S 8th October 2003,
Bangalore
Anand H N
Suresh Ramaswamy
Ajay Nitin
Raghunath G
Monday, February 2, 2009
Diversions – A bit funny; Lakshadweep
If you need to visualize my thoughts right now, think of it as a cross between a distant howl, a photon, and a dribble of dark floating whatevers. Tristate existence is quite mundane before you embark on a voyage to the unknown and my feelings were pretty much comparable to a bride who has given her approval to an arranged marriage without ever having seen a glimpse of her male partner!
Pramod’s linguistic skills and local looks (triangular lungi probably included) had been used already to arrange bookings for 10 people to board the MV Tipu Sultan sometime in October with me being the protagonist in collating the 70 grand required for the full meals, beedi benkipatna and sight seeing trip! The folks concerned in that 10 were influenced by my sweet talk that cabins were all booked and the only way to travel was by tourist class/chair class though I’ve to confess that I didn’t really check out the availability lest it became a ‘suitcase’ trip. The dates planned initially, which coincided with my annual shutdown, too had to be altered owing to the holiday rush and the new dates were communicated to Pramod on his mobile without consulting the rest…or did I tell them? ;-) Thankfully Baaps did the honour of booking return train tickets from Cochin through his friendly travel agent. This saved me the trouble of counting flies at cantonment while waiting for my turn in the winding queues during office hours which would probably have invited a rebuke from my manager for lack of commitment!
The onward journey to Cochin was booked on the 19th evening by the popular Shama transport’s Volvo bus scheduled to start from Kalasipalyam. Innumerous reminders failed to get the entire junta into the bus by the scheduled time and part of the crowd, including me, had to race against time to board the bus at it’s next loading point somewhere near Koramangala. If there exists an auto driver who, given a chance can easily give Karthikeyan a run for his money at the F3 level, it was our man who drove us to our destination well within time! He deserved that huge tip we conferred on him. Comfortably seated with thigh rests and all, we settled for the night hoping to have a good night’s sleep. But the humane bus folks with intentions to prepare us for the rocking sea voyage had us awake for most of the night with sporadic snoring and raucous laughter.
Morning ablutions and breakfast were skipped to enable us to reach in time for the scheduled departure at 10 a.m. sharp from Wellingdon Island, which was located at an hour’s drive from mainland Cochin. Excluding a meal on any given day is quite an ordeal with Guru around and it required quite some flattery and deception from the rest of us to dissuade him from the millions of mallu stalls selling myriad delicacies. He did manage a cuppa tea though. To the Island, we chose to take the bus rather than cramp into a couple of hunchback autos that weren’t cheap anyway. The bus-fare was a tenth of what the taxis and autos claimed!
There was hardly a soul on the island at 10 a.m. and I had to scrutinize my ticket to check If I had the dates correct! A small office which had something to do with Lakshadweep (A bill board advertised this) located further away from the bus-stop was my only hope and I barged in along with Vinay while the rest went foraging for food. The sleepy inmate informed me that the ship leaves only around sunset and embarkation starts not earlier than noon! He directed me to the Lakshadweep tourism office though, which were equipped with basic toilets and clean washrooms surprisingly. Vinay and me made full use of those ‘basic’ facilities and were on our way to join the rest of the gang who had by then landed at the Taj Malabar for grub. Situated on the Willingdon Island, which has a magnificent view of the Cochin harbour and beautiful backwaters, the Taj Malabar is a fine blend of old- world charm and contemporary amenities. The good part was that the hotel staff was at their courteous best despite our back-packer looks. The breakfast spread was sumptuous and being a buffet, it was unlimited which suited our taste. I wudn’t bet on them continuing the breakfast buffet after that day though! Vinay and me then escorted the crowd to the tourism office where we were supposed to register. By now there was a small mob jostling for space at the entrance. After the cursory check by the security at the reception, we were herded to the top floor, which housed the tourism office. The friendly guy there did recognize me as being from Bangalore and all and had a package waiting for me. I (as were the rest) was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that the package contained T-shirts, caps and towels for all of us! Now, if you have lost your towel, don’t panic! Reach out for the new, expanded and revised ‘Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy’ or take a trip to Lakshadweep! And just when we were languishing with the new gratis apparel assuming of course that we were the only fortunate folks, this whole new bunch of typical suit-casers (just like backpackers, you know!) with ‘Rajdhani’ T-shirts stretched across their liberal paunches strolled out of hired Ambys. They surely had this air of entertaining a delusionary feeling of superiority around them and it was hard to miss out the fact that this sojourn had been subsidized by some despondent Quasi-govt. institution desperate to account for enthusing the youth of India! Though we realized that they spoke the same dialect as ours, we chose to procrastinate the inevitable camaraderie.
The lone vessel was anchored just behind the office with curious topless, lungi-clad onlookers ogling at its size and the slowly trickling crowd of tourists including ours faithfully. Eager as we were to download our heavy backpacks, we were wary of a long embarkation process since Lakshadweep islands are out of bounds without proper permits even for desis. On the contrary, there was nobody to even check if I had paid up for the trip and we hopped on almost unnoticed! Once inside, I discovered that the tourist class space was already brimming with a school of young biologists from Mumbai who were there to combine their academics with loads of fun. The Rajdhanis were holed up in twin-sharing cabins located a deck below our habitat. Lunch was served on board and the first meal was sort of sneak preview for the days to come. It was simply awesome and only improved further during the following days.
And Late one December afternoon, the M.V. Tipu Sultan swayingly put out to sea from the Cochin Harbour. The Taj Malabar gradually receded before our eyes even as the small fishing boats raced back with their day's catch, the gulls soaring and darting noisily above them, laying claim to their share of the fishermen's labour. An occasional dolphin hopped out of the sea, shimmering in the sun, which was greeted by raucous juvenile screams even from the most purist adult on deck. The land soon became a distant horizon that would finally disappear behind the curving earth. Then there was only the ship; it’s winding path and the sea. Not quite! The attempt of the blue-back waters of the Arabian Sea to hide it's denizens was ever so often frustrated as the rebellious flying fish or the dolphins broke out on their short, swift flights. True, they were swallowed again by the sea but they had made their point: We were not the only ones on those waters!
The cruiser had 4 decks if I remember right with the bottom most part housing the noisy engine room and it’s inmates. The passenger seats and the associated kitchen with stores etc were directly above it. With the antique Dutch engine straining to move the huge mass across the vast Arabian Sea you can imagine the high temperature and noise around those floors. The passenger seats were the cheapest way to travel and it was meant for the islanders to traverse between islands. The seats were just barren with too much space to sit and too little space to sleep! The tourists who opted for cabins along with the ship’s crew were housed in more comfortable though cramped locations on the upper floors. The Rajdhani crowd were housed in these. The trippers who opted for lounging chairs like the mumbai crowd and us were housed on the floor just below the top deck towards the front part of the ship (whatever it’s called in naval terms). The swaying is most felt towards the upper front of the ship and we realised that spending a night on the lounging chairs would be quite an ordeal. Our crowd had to settle for the unoccupied couches left behind by the mumbai marine biologists who were a trifle earlier than us. But it hardly mattered since the comfort level wasn’t going to rise if we were offered a choice on couches, I guess! A small storage space towards the rear helped us to dump our backpacks. A change room equipped with mirrors and hangers on one side and a pair of small cramped toilets on the opposite side towards the exit completed the locale of our territory. An hour later, we were all on the top deck vying to have the best post at the railings. The salty evening wind smearing our facades combined with light swaying was quite a feeling. The Rajdhani crowd publicised their presence with their incessant prattle and we were sort of drawn towards them. I broke the ice to start a conversation and immediately repented. The crowd consisted of typical chauvinistic males who prided themselves in being adventurous in embarking on this voyage while their wives and children led a blasé existence at home. Of course the claimed adventurism never related to their physical stature though. The crowd was star studded too with a popular Kannada TV serial artist who mostly kept to himself. We never could get him to sign on our caps, which still remains a huge disappointment. The first person we spoke was an insurance agent by profession and as usual he was quite adept in explaining why everything in the world needs to be insured. A lecturer, some post graduate students and some state government employees formed the rest of their crowd. Guru’s intuition about the long voyage being monotonous and unexciting after the first few moments led him to carry packs of playing cards and we decided that it was time we used them! A couple of games were all we could manage since the sea winds scattered the cards too often. Dinner was promptly served at 8 p.m; typical of the naval crew to stick to timeliness. The unlimited spread was sumptuous with separate sections for veggies and meat eaters and we hogged like there was no tomorrow. A stroll on the top deck after dinner completed the day and we prepared to rock and roll for the night. The deck was pretty comfortable with the warm salty winds, covered rooftop to keep off the rains and minimal sway compared to the cold stuffy aircon airstream coupled with the swinging chairs in the tourist lounge. A whole lot of others including the Rajdhani crowd felt so too and the deck was pretty crowded with folks jostling for sleeping space. But we with our sleeping bags could just sleep anywhere and weren’t hindered by the mundane problems of the rest! Ajitha and Guru though preferred the tourist lounges for the night for reasons unknown while the rest of us cosily settled for the night on the deck. The moon visible through a hole in the roof only to me acted as a lullaby and I dozed off almost immediately only to be rudely awakened by the persistent chatter of the early birds and the monotonous drone of the Dutch engine to a smaller extent. The excitement of sighting land had contributed to the chatter. Close to 18 hours of sailing and land was finally in sight! Not to miss out on the excitement, we rushed about to finish our ablutions and queued up for breakfast, which again was beyond expectations. The islands are all quite tiny the entire piece of land was visible though we weren’t too far from it. Since the huge ship can’t anchor on the shallow shores, thus enabling us to directly disembark, it docked a couple of miles away where smaller boats were already waiting to ferry us across to the islands. Reaching the exit located near the passenger seats at the bottom deck was quite an ordeal since we weren’t familiar with the ship’s geography. The transit between the ship and the smaller boats was another nightmare as it involved synchronising the sway of the ship and the boat and jump off when they met. Able-bodied islanders were of course helping on either side of the exit, which thankfully prevented any casualties. We were transported in batches and about an hour later, all of us had regrouped on the shores of Kalpeni. There weren’t any half-naked girls serving Malibu waiting to garland us as I was led to believe earlier and it was a quiet welcome from the local officials.
A contraption which looked more like a sand buggy and less of a tractor though the driver preferred to call it a tractor was used to ferry us to the unknown rendezvous on the island. Kalpeni has three inhabited satellite islands surrounded by a wondrous lagoon. Visitors are hosted at the Koomel Bay, which overlooks two of these islands. The third is at the northern end. The bay is sort of cut off from the local habitat to prevent invasion of their privacy and a typical holidaymaker haunt has been developed here. Tender coconut water was the welcome drink, which was relished after the parching journey. A string of fresh water bathrooms, a toilet, a kitchen and a local administrator’s office has been built here in a semi-circle overlooking the lagoon. We chose to wade around in the shallow waters to get a feel of things to come. Swimming and snorkelling were the activities scheduled for the day at Kalpeni. The young biologists from Mumbai were already neck-deep in water fooling around with each other. A small island visible about half a mile away supposedly had a better place for snorkelling and we were transported in batches by motor boats. Wading through the lagoon waters one found the seabed littered with sea cucumbers of various shapes and colours, but mainly black. I was fascinated when one of them moved when I inadvertently stepped on it. I never realised that the ugly black things on the seabed were living marine animals!! The life jackets and snorkels arrived a few moments later we embarked on our snorkelling experience. The seabed certainly isn’t a bed of roses to walk on and I was more than relieved to own my pair of teva sandals! I was even more amazed when their velcro snappers stuck on in the salty sea water!! It was to be my first snorkelling experience and I wasn’t too impressed by the thought of sticking a tube out to breathe while you scoured the seabed from the surface! Jaisimha, Vinay and me clustered to forage the seabed together and I had my first mouthful of salty water as soon as we started. Chiman with his buoyant physique cudn’t have had this experience even if he tried to drown himself!
The view was simply breath taking below. The seabed that looked plain from the surface was incredibly boisterous when scrutinised closely and I realised that the snorkel was in fact quite a handy tool underwater! Colonies of colourful fishes and corals added verve to the whole set-up and perhaps the population density on the seabed was far greater than in any of the major metros. I was startled beyond my wits when I glimpsed a huge bubbly mass floating behind me only to realise it was Chiman who resembled a colossal fish thru the snorkel! The young marine biologists were mostly freelancing the depths of the lagoon though the studious among them were intently listening to their professor who was demonstrating how a particular family of shrimps interacted with another family of fishes. It was interesting to note that the professor was handling a fairly large audience without disturbing the object of study. A couple of hours later, the whole group was herded back to shore by the same motor boats to savour lunch at the seashore. Fresh water baths with transluscent curtains separating each tap were provided at the shore for which the crowd had faithfully queued up. The alleged ‘fresh’ water reeked of rotten eggs and felt oily to the touch. Nevertheless, it provided welcome relief from the painful fine sand grains embedded in those nether crevices within me. Lunch was served under the frugal shade of the coconut trees and soon after the local youth provided an adept rendition of a popular island dance. The beach was filled with exotic creatures like the brittle star, star fish etc which were blended so brilliantly with the environment that it needed the trained eye of the biologists to locate them under the slanting rays of the afternoon sun! A huge conch shell with it’s fleshy inmate intact was obscenely lying face-up which reminded me of the main character in Tom Robbin’s Skinny legs and all. Later, Cantry, baps, chethi and me took a walk along the coastline to visualise the actual living conditions of the local population. It wasn’t hard to figure out that the populace thrived on coconut trees and the marine life primarily. A defunct ‘museum’ as the locals described but more of a garment factory was showcased to us tourists later and the souvenir crazy amongst the crowd did buy some T-shirts and local handicrafts made of coconut coir. The sand buggies had already begun hauling the tourists back to the shores where our ship awaited. Baps, equipped with his immense prattling skills, influenced the chief cook to part with free tender coconuts to all of us just before we departed. The local mob was expectantly waiting for their only means of island hopping already at the shores. We merged with them and were grouped into smaller boats, which would ferry us across to the ship’s hull. For the second time the same day, our dexterity was put to test while embarking the ship; our behaviour was close to being ostentatious in front of other suitcasers while performing this act!!
Back on the ship, we looked forward to dinner since the day’s activities had us sapped. The cool evening breeze on the deck invited us to kill the 2 hours before dinner. Guru rolled out his pack of cards and we sat down to try our hands at rummy again. The small stall on the deck sold delicious roasted peanuts, potato crispies etc and BaapaNNi surprisingly bought us all a couple of packs! Eclipses, dolphin sightings, flying fishes etc are considered common events when compared to BaapaNNi spending goes an old sanjaynagar proverb. The scattering cards owing to the steady breeze got us irritated to the point that we stopped the game midway and opted to join the winding queue for dinner. The choice of meal( veg/non-veg) had to be determined by the length of the queue in each department. The simple yet sumptuous meal on the tilted tables owing to the waves was satiating albeit second helpings for watermelons were refused. We scrambled back to the deck since space up there was at a premium; sleeping with the cool night breeze blowing was akin to sleeping in a centrally air-conditioned room and was definitely preferred to spending the night while being cramped on the reclining chairs in the tourist lounge. Cantry, suresh, chetana, vandana and me were the privileged lot with sleeping bags while Vinay had bedspreads and pillows. BaapaNNi managed to cajole Cantry into sharing his bag while Guru and Ajitha chose to sleep yet again in the tourist lounge along with most of the marine biologists. Suresh’s novels were quite a hit with the girls that night! The deck lights, which acted as beacon lights, weren’t supposed to be switched off and this was the only irritant to my undisturbed slumber. Boisterous baapaNNi’s raucous laughter coupled with the usual chatter of the early worm-eaters awakened me and the rest just after sunrise, the next morning. The myriad morning hues of the sky was simply breath taking especially when that happened to be the first sight when I woke up! The small bathrooms got filthier by the day and each time the ship tilted in the direction where the outlet was located, frothy phlegm like stuff sprouted out filling the whole floor. A couple of wash basins were clogged too with similar stuff and I wonder if I came out cleaner than what I was when I entered! The toilets with western commodes were pretty much the same with the seat filthier than the floor! Describing how I used the loo without getting myself drenched in shit is beyond the scope of this travelogue. I resolved to be the first to use the loo the next morning.
Farthest from Kavaratti island, 200 km away to the south and also nearest to the Maldives, Minicoy was the next destination in our itinerary. The usual small boats driven by half naked local fishermen were waiting at the gaping hole where we were supposed to disembark from his majesty, the Tipu sultan. Unlike at Kavaratti, the ship anchored miles off the island owing to the extensive lagoon. The crystal clear seabed was a sight to watch from the smaller boats with all sorts of fishes darting hither and thither for reasons unknown. As Calvin says “there’s a profound reason for every action; it’s just hard to figure out what”! Minicoy was bizarrely silent with hardly any signs of habitation except for the few officials to welcome us. Tender coconut water was again the welcome drink served next to the seaside shaded by coconut trees. The POA for the day was prominently displayed on a black board, which included canoeing, rafting, folk dances etc. Decrepit tempo travellers arrived an hour later which were to transport us to an unknown destination where the beaches were supposedly cleaner though I could find no fault with the beach we were currently in. A lighthouse built by the British in 1885 is the only listed attraction according to lonely planet and sadly this was under renovation and thus forbidden for visitors. We bundled in the last of the tempo travellers with BaapaNNi and me sharing the front seat along with the driver. The first sharp turn made me realise that the door cudn’t be locked and it required all my strength to keep off from plummeting onto the tarmac. Was I glad to get off a few minutes later! The destination was a sort of resort with canoes, pedal boats, life jackets etc all lined up. We managed to snatch a two-seater rowboat and consensed to time-share it among ourselves. Cantry and BaapaNNi ventured out the first time while the rest of us (speaking for myself) commented on the tummy expanses of the other tourists. The untouched shores were filled with all sorts of arthropods and molluscans who all seemed to be in an extreme hurry for reasons unknown again! Clad in tight shorts, a life jacket and nothing else, I felt like a dimwit waiting for spontaneous combustion under the scorching sun. We took a walk along the shoreline out of boredom and were pleasantly surprised to find even more life among the rocks close to the water. The strange creatures with whiskers twice as long as their torsos who chose to carry their homes on their backs (lest it gets illegally occupied?!) provided me with enough solace that I had a fight on hand for the brightest dimwit on the island! Chetana and me got to use the kayak and we ventured out farther into the lagoon. The marine biologists equipped with personal snorkels had probably discovered a particular kind of fish, which had them all excited and we rowed in that direction to be part of the celebrations. A few round trips later, the kayak was beached out of boredom and I preferred to further explore the beach by walk. Cowry shells are a fascination and I never believed they could just be picked on a beach. My first sight of a brightly coloured shell had me jumping with glee and I strode on to find some more in the hope that I could collect a foursome! Chetana joined me in the search and within the next hour we had gathered nine shells which included one huge white cowry (which is now proudly displayed in my living room). With our bounty of exotic shells, Chetana and me strolled back to the comfort of the huts. The bathrooms were all crammed with guys even twin-sharing a few of them. It was touching to see one of the professors stand guard while his wife bathed in the guys section owing to lack of space in the women’s bathrooms! An hour later, I finally found a room for myself and the cold water was surely refreshing after the suicidal walk in the hot sun. While making small talk with the professors later, we learnt that they could speak the same lingo as ours since we belonged to the same state though they had migrated to Mumbai in search of greener pastures decades ago. It was hard to miss the camaraderie between the professors and their students despite the subtle respect the professors commanded, which was indeed soothing. The tempos came hurtling back while we were engrossed in a game of volleyball and the drive back went without incident. Lunch was next on the agenda, which was more than welcome after all the day’s action. The spread again was simple yet tasty. Minicoy is small enough to jog the entire circumference though words cannot do justice to the incredible size of the lagoon, one of the largest in Lakshadweep! It has a culture very different from any other island - dress, language, food, all differ. A cluster of 11 villages, called Athiris form Minicoy and each village is presided over by a Moopan (or something sounding similar). A walk through the winding lanes of the villages gives an indication of the culture here. Sometime during the year, the villages compete against each other or against neighbouring islands in boat races and we were shown some really colourful race boats called "JaladhoNi" which formed the backdrop for a group photograph. A whole basket of live tuna fish was being pruned by discarding the entrails to fit into cans at a local home and Chetana saw an opportunity here to add one to her portfolio by posing with a live tuna in one hand and the other hand in the akimbo position! The whole place stank of putrid flesh, which forced us to move on to the next attraction that this island had to offer only to realise there were no more! Minicoy is also renowned for its dance tradition: the lava dance is performed on either festive occasions or when tourists are around. Locals dressed in headgear made of leaves and equipped with drums danced to the beat of their own instruments which was appreciated by us over a cup of coffee and good day biscuits. A refreshing hour later, it was time to step out of Minicoy and resume our sojourn on to the administrative capital of the islands, Kavaratti. The small, motorised boats with the expert helmsmen were neatly lined up to transport us back to Her majesty, the Tipu sultan that could now be seen on the horizon. The journey back to the ship was quite eventful. The conversationalist in me prompted to start-up a dialogue with the helmsman who surprisingly had voyaged around the world as a certified seaman. I later learnt that Minicoy supplied a whole lot of seamen to the world! Portugal, Cape of Good Hope, the middle east and other exotic places were part of his itinerary and he was now enjoying a long vacation with his family at Minicoy. We discussed about the shipping firms’ mode of working; the free permits for seamen which entitles them to set foot on every place they dock; the harassment meted out by customs officials when the seamen come back home to join their family and a lot more during the journey. He even obliged to take his boat to a vantagepoint so that I could get a fantastic photograph of the huge ship, Tipu Sultan. This happens to be the one of the better snaps from that trip! The waves had increased in intensity and it was quite an ordeal to get the small boats in line with the opening on the ship’s hold. Owing to this, the ship and our small boats had to literally move in search of calmer waters. A school of dolphins probably heading back home with the sun set in the backdrop formed an incredible sight and had us all merrily clapping. The winds subsided which aided the transfer of all of us into the ship’s hold almost an hour later. The waves hadn’t subsided as yet and the hop onto the ship had to be precisely timed while riding on a crest. I was the last to get off ‘cos my oarsman and me still had plenty to prattle. We finally bade good byes promising to meet up somewhere sometime! Thankfully the bathrooms were empty and indeed a lot cleaner than my previous visit! It was grub time by the time I scrubbed myself and dinner was accomplished without much ado albeit the fight for watermelons had to happen. Cards were passe tonight since my newly acquired cowry shells held centre-stage. Chauka-bhara is a traditional game of dice played by either 2 or 4 players on a small chequered board with arms extending into all 4 directions. Distinguishable articles are to be chosen as pawns by each player and my friend from the Rajdhani crowd provided these in the form of dry fruits! Truly royal, eh?! The deal was that the winner gets to eat the handful of pawns after the game. We improvised a bit to accommodate 6 players since not many were willing to be sidelined. The game board was drawn on the deck floor with a piece of chalk borrowed from an enthusiastic child and we were ready to begin. BaapaNNi was the first to roll the dice if I remember right. Half an hour into the game and we had attracted quite a few spectators how had probably come to investigate the high decibel levels emanating from our corner! Part of the Rajdhani crowd gathered around too and the surrounding was almost festive with sides being chosen amongst the spectators. Guru handled the dice like a pro and took the initial lead though the rest of us quickly snatched it away. This game requires the dice to total up huge numbers to progress towards the pedestal and dextrous rolling of the dice is quite handy. Luck wasn’t on my side and I totalled only couplets, which had my pawns limping along while the rest ran past. There was healthy competition amongst us that had us involved in the game for more than a couple of hours that night. The pawns were worn out and quite dirty by the time we finished and none volunteered to eat them after the game. Aware that the activities for the next day started early, we chose to hit the sack just before midnight. The usual haggle for sleeping bags, novels, pillows, bed-sheets etc continued for some more time though. It was cold that night even wrapped inside my mummy contoured sleeping bag capable of handling temperatures up to 4ºC. The sunrise was a pleasant sight the next morning. The Kavaratti shoreline was visible at the horizon and people could be seen scurrying across to pack up for the day. Small boats as usual were waiting to ferry us across to the shore. The last hope of half-clad women lined up to welcome us with shots of Malibu dwindled as we accustomed ourselves to the tender coconuts served by the local youth who were, I should confess half-clad! The rendezvous was on the beach, which had some cute cottages further down. A strange sight was the obtusely curved coconut tree that could be walked up rather than climbed! Breakfast was served while we ogled at the beauty of the islands yet again though the beach scene is never complete without sunbathing women. The day’s activities were pasted on a couple of boards around which included canoeing, boat rides, Scuba diving for a fee and a lot more. The tourism department guys had put up a small souvenir stall selling calendars, posters etc and the crowd around that was comparable to what Veena stores attracts on a Saturday morning! The islands have no shops selling souvenirs and this resulted in the huge rush. We managed to buy ourselves a copy of the calendars each though I’m yet to collect mine from BaapaNNi. The beach houses, the palm trees coupled with our colourful clothes provided an ambience to do something feral for the next couple of hours before we embarked for the scheduled activities. Sitting idle for so long would be as exciting as watching wet clothes dry! A bright spark announced that the sands make a perfect playground for Kabaddi, which was well received by all of us. Now, I do believe that the humble and wholly Indian game of kabaddi should be declared the national game, because it is the closest metaphor for the way we behave. Consider: you do a lot of meaningless running-around, you hold your breath and hope nothing bad happens, you mutter senseless gibberish constantly which all amounts to masterly inactivity. But the game per se was good fun despite BaapaNNNi’s mastery over it. The couple of games that we indulged in had all my orifices filled with fine sand which wasn’t by any means comfortable! A few hundred feet further down the beach, the Scuba dives were to be performed.
Scuba diving was something we had never tried and were all too eager to delve further. The costs were 400/- for a 15-minute dive, which was a steal compared to the scuba diving packages offered elsewhere. Normally folks who venture into scuba diving for the first time have to be content diving in a swimming pool and here we were ready to forage the depths of the Arabian Sea though it was our first dive! We were given an hour of classroom training by our instructor which was absolutely necessary since diving is considered a dangerous sport and things can go horribly wrong under water. The instructor could host a maximum of 20 scuba divers while the rest had to be on a waiting list. Fortunately we were among the first to get enrolled since most of them were apprehensive about spending 15 minutes under 10 foot of water! Equipment acquaintance and conversation through hand signalling under water were the main topics discussed at the training. Suresh was already an accomplished diver and he chose to take a professional dive unlike us. I imagined that tight full-body suits would be provided and later realised that those suits are meant only for the colder climates. A 20-pound air-filled cylinder strapped on your back with tubes sticking out everywhere and Austin powers type glasses to top the attire probably made us look odd! An old discarded cargo container on the beach provided shade while we waited for our turn to dive. The snorkelling experience had taught us all to breathe through the mouth and we were quite comfortable with the scuba apparatus. The dive lasted for 15 minutes technically though it felt much shorter. The scene underwater was fabulous with multi-coloured fishes, corals etc and a sunken ship at the bottom gave me a feeling of greater depths than the actual 10 to 15 feet. Within the next couple of hours, we had all taken our plunges and were busy exchanging notes on the scenery below water. While the chosen few dived, the rest of the crowd enjoyed themselves with the numerous kayaks, paddle boats, rowboats etc. The sea was good enough to just swim which the marine biologists were indulging in! The forenoon heat had forced the elderly folks into the shaded beach huts while we frolicked showing scant respect to the sun. Baapanni and me had a fast ride on the twin kayak and the clear colourful ocean floor was a fabulous sight. Suresh had to be driven in a motor boat for about a kilometre for his professional dive, and we intended to paddle to the location on our kayak. His dive would be for about half an hour reaching depths of 30 Mts.! But the gentlest of waves can tilt the kayak and the rough seas drove us back to shore. The glass-bottomed boat was the next attraction and a special trip was arranged just for us since the rest had finished their trip by then. The boat looked pretty ordinary and we expected the routine murky view with a guide prattling about what lies beneath. But once the doors covering the glass bottom were opened, we were dumbfounded by the sheer clarity of the ocean floor. The guide/oarsman who hardly spoke any language we knew still managed to convey that the ocean floor is about 20 to 25 metres in depth. If I believed that I had seen it all by snorkelling or scuba diving, I was wrong since this was much much better. A shoal of bright yellow coloured fish with black stripes went below us first to be replaced by another shoal of purple tinted fish! The next few minutes were just like watching a kaleidoscope! The oarsman had brought along breadcrumbs to feed and the fish promptly jumped out of water to grab the pieces in mid-air! A huge brown lump of what looked like a mound of dirt from top slowly started moving and we realised that it was a sea turtle. Moments later, we spotted his companion too moving about with the same lazy pace oblivious of us tourists above them. The boat ride lasted for about an hour though the stipulated time was much lesser. Thankfully the bathrooms were empty by the time we reached the shore since the marine biologists and the rest of the tourists had already left. The bathrooms were small but clean though water flowed in trickles owing to the truckloads of sand deposited by the earlier users! Tempos were waiting to transport us back mercifully thus avoiding us scalding ourselves under the harsh sun. For greater contemplation of sea life, there is a small aquarium in Kavaratti, which was our next destination. The young marine biologists were fervent enough to share their knowledge about the strange creatures exhibited. A couple of ugly rocks were displayed in a particular enclosure, which somehow excited the biologists! Only when the ‘rocks’ started moving, did I realise that they were living creatures! Turtles, snake fishes, shrimps, lobsters etc were other exhibits in addition to a whole gallery of fossils, corals, skeletons etc in an adjoining room. A small pond between these rooms was filled with different kinds of eels and turtles. It was a pleasure to feel the eels when they swam close to our hands. Another enclosure housed a family of sharks who seemed to be aimlessly moving around. Photography and videography were strictly prohibited within the aquarium and Guru with his expensive handycam was frustrated which got noticed by the curator himself! He made arrangements to feed the sharks after granting permission for Guru to film them. The sharks in motion attacking the falling pieces of meat is a movie clip worth watching. The aquarium was the last attraction at Kavaratti. The tempo driver did take us for a small jaunt around the island later before we were transported back to the waiting boats. A bottle of Pepsi to quench my thirst from a local vendor was my last tryst with shopping at the capital of the Lakshadweep islands. For the last time, we got on board the Tipu sultan and I could sense a mixed feeling of melancholy combined with euphoria among the crowd. 5 fun filled days had gone by and it was now time to travel back.
The Lakshadweep islands represent nature at its pristine best. The chief animals, the corals, belong to a period soon after the beginning of life in the seas. Many of the islands are not even inhabited by man and they remain practically untouched by his industrial advancement. Those who dwell there still retain their tribal customs and cultures. But the mainland always beckons to them. The younger folk get scholarships to the universities of Cochin, Calicut and elsewhere and it is very likely that they will leave behind their heaven and seek opportunities in the wider world. To us mainlanders, the islands are an enchanting, once in a lifetime, experience. For the naturalist three days are but a fleeting moment. But perhaps the younger islanders think, in the words of Sir Richard Burton, "Little islands are all large prisons: One cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow."
Pramod’s linguistic skills and local looks (triangular lungi probably included) had been used already to arrange bookings for 10 people to board the MV Tipu Sultan sometime in October with me being the protagonist in collating the 70 grand required for the full meals, beedi benkipatna and sight seeing trip! The folks concerned in that 10 were influenced by my sweet talk that cabins were all booked and the only way to travel was by tourist class/chair class though I’ve to confess that I didn’t really check out the availability lest it became a ‘suitcase’ trip. The dates planned initially, which coincided with my annual shutdown, too had to be altered owing to the holiday rush and the new dates were communicated to Pramod on his mobile without consulting the rest…or did I tell them? ;-) Thankfully Baaps did the honour of booking return train tickets from Cochin through his friendly travel agent. This saved me the trouble of counting flies at cantonment while waiting for my turn in the winding queues during office hours which would probably have invited a rebuke from my manager for lack of commitment!
The onward journey to Cochin was booked on the 19th evening by the popular Shama transport’s Volvo bus scheduled to start from Kalasipalyam. Innumerous reminders failed to get the entire junta into the bus by the scheduled time and part of the crowd, including me, had to race against time to board the bus at it’s next loading point somewhere near Koramangala. If there exists an auto driver who, given a chance can easily give Karthikeyan a run for his money at the F3 level, it was our man who drove us to our destination well within time! He deserved that huge tip we conferred on him. Comfortably seated with thigh rests and all, we settled for the night hoping to have a good night’s sleep. But the humane bus folks with intentions to prepare us for the rocking sea voyage had us awake for most of the night with sporadic snoring and raucous laughter.
Morning ablutions and breakfast were skipped to enable us to reach in time for the scheduled departure at 10 a.m. sharp from Wellingdon Island, which was located at an hour’s drive from mainland Cochin. Excluding a meal on any given day is quite an ordeal with Guru around and it required quite some flattery and deception from the rest of us to dissuade him from the millions of mallu stalls selling myriad delicacies. He did manage a cuppa tea though. To the Island, we chose to take the bus rather than cramp into a couple of hunchback autos that weren’t cheap anyway. The bus-fare was a tenth of what the taxis and autos claimed!
There was hardly a soul on the island at 10 a.m. and I had to scrutinize my ticket to check If I had the dates correct! A small office which had something to do with Lakshadweep (A bill board advertised this) located further away from the bus-stop was my only hope and I barged in along with Vinay while the rest went foraging for food. The sleepy inmate informed me that the ship leaves only around sunset and embarkation starts not earlier than noon! He directed me to the Lakshadweep tourism office though, which were equipped with basic toilets and clean washrooms surprisingly. Vinay and me made full use of those ‘basic’ facilities and were on our way to join the rest of the gang who had by then landed at the Taj Malabar for grub. Situated on the Willingdon Island, which has a magnificent view of the Cochin harbour and beautiful backwaters, the Taj Malabar is a fine blend of old- world charm and contemporary amenities. The good part was that the hotel staff was at their courteous best despite our back-packer looks. The breakfast spread was sumptuous and being a buffet, it was unlimited which suited our taste. I wudn’t bet on them continuing the breakfast buffet after that day though! Vinay and me then escorted the crowd to the tourism office where we were supposed to register. By now there was a small mob jostling for space at the entrance. After the cursory check by the security at the reception, we were herded to the top floor, which housed the tourism office. The friendly guy there did recognize me as being from Bangalore and all and had a package waiting for me. I (as were the rest) was pleasantly surprised when I discovered that the package contained T-shirts, caps and towels for all of us! Now, if you have lost your towel, don’t panic! Reach out for the new, expanded and revised ‘Hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy’ or take a trip to Lakshadweep! And just when we were languishing with the new gratis apparel assuming of course that we were the only fortunate folks, this whole new bunch of typical suit-casers (just like backpackers, you know!) with ‘Rajdhani’ T-shirts stretched across their liberal paunches strolled out of hired Ambys. They surely had this air of entertaining a delusionary feeling of superiority around them and it was hard to miss out the fact that this sojourn had been subsidized by some despondent Quasi-govt. institution desperate to account for enthusing the youth of India! Though we realized that they spoke the same dialect as ours, we chose to procrastinate the inevitable camaraderie.
The lone vessel was anchored just behind the office with curious topless, lungi-clad onlookers ogling at its size and the slowly trickling crowd of tourists including ours faithfully. Eager as we were to download our heavy backpacks, we were wary of a long embarkation process since Lakshadweep islands are out of bounds without proper permits even for desis. On the contrary, there was nobody to even check if I had paid up for the trip and we hopped on almost unnoticed! Once inside, I discovered that the tourist class space was already brimming with a school of young biologists from Mumbai who were there to combine their academics with loads of fun. The Rajdhanis were holed up in twin-sharing cabins located a deck below our habitat. Lunch was served on board and the first meal was sort of sneak preview for the days to come. It was simply awesome and only improved further during the following days.
And Late one December afternoon, the M.V. Tipu Sultan swayingly put out to sea from the Cochin Harbour. The Taj Malabar gradually receded before our eyes even as the small fishing boats raced back with their day's catch, the gulls soaring and darting noisily above them, laying claim to their share of the fishermen's labour. An occasional dolphin hopped out of the sea, shimmering in the sun, which was greeted by raucous juvenile screams even from the most purist adult on deck. The land soon became a distant horizon that would finally disappear behind the curving earth. Then there was only the ship; it’s winding path and the sea. Not quite! The attempt of the blue-back waters of the Arabian Sea to hide it's denizens was ever so often frustrated as the rebellious flying fish or the dolphins broke out on their short, swift flights. True, they were swallowed again by the sea but they had made their point: We were not the only ones on those waters!
The cruiser had 4 decks if I remember right with the bottom most part housing the noisy engine room and it’s inmates. The passenger seats and the associated kitchen with stores etc were directly above it. With the antique Dutch engine straining to move the huge mass across the vast Arabian Sea you can imagine the high temperature and noise around those floors. The passenger seats were the cheapest way to travel and it was meant for the islanders to traverse between islands. The seats were just barren with too much space to sit and too little space to sleep! The tourists who opted for cabins along with the ship’s crew were housed in more comfortable though cramped locations on the upper floors. The Rajdhani crowd were housed in these. The trippers who opted for lounging chairs like the mumbai crowd and us were housed on the floor just below the top deck towards the front part of the ship (whatever it’s called in naval terms). The swaying is most felt towards the upper front of the ship and we realised that spending a night on the lounging chairs would be quite an ordeal. Our crowd had to settle for the unoccupied couches left behind by the mumbai marine biologists who were a trifle earlier than us. But it hardly mattered since the comfort level wasn’t going to rise if we were offered a choice on couches, I guess! A small storage space towards the rear helped us to dump our backpacks. A change room equipped with mirrors and hangers on one side and a pair of small cramped toilets on the opposite side towards the exit completed the locale of our territory. An hour later, we were all on the top deck vying to have the best post at the railings. The salty evening wind smearing our facades combined with light swaying was quite a feeling. The Rajdhani crowd publicised their presence with their incessant prattle and we were sort of drawn towards them. I broke the ice to start a conversation and immediately repented. The crowd consisted of typical chauvinistic males who prided themselves in being adventurous in embarking on this voyage while their wives and children led a blasé existence at home. Of course the claimed adventurism never related to their physical stature though. The crowd was star studded too with a popular Kannada TV serial artist who mostly kept to himself. We never could get him to sign on our caps, which still remains a huge disappointment. The first person we spoke was an insurance agent by profession and as usual he was quite adept in explaining why everything in the world needs to be insured. A lecturer, some post graduate students and some state government employees formed the rest of their crowd. Guru’s intuition about the long voyage being monotonous and unexciting after the first few moments led him to carry packs of playing cards and we decided that it was time we used them! A couple of games were all we could manage since the sea winds scattered the cards too often. Dinner was promptly served at 8 p.m; typical of the naval crew to stick to timeliness. The unlimited spread was sumptuous with separate sections for veggies and meat eaters and we hogged like there was no tomorrow. A stroll on the top deck after dinner completed the day and we prepared to rock and roll for the night. The deck was pretty comfortable with the warm salty winds, covered rooftop to keep off the rains and minimal sway compared to the cold stuffy aircon airstream coupled with the swinging chairs in the tourist lounge. A whole lot of others including the Rajdhani crowd felt so too and the deck was pretty crowded with folks jostling for sleeping space. But we with our sleeping bags could just sleep anywhere and weren’t hindered by the mundane problems of the rest! Ajitha and Guru though preferred the tourist lounges for the night for reasons unknown while the rest of us cosily settled for the night on the deck. The moon visible through a hole in the roof only to me acted as a lullaby and I dozed off almost immediately only to be rudely awakened by the persistent chatter of the early birds and the monotonous drone of the Dutch engine to a smaller extent. The excitement of sighting land had contributed to the chatter. Close to 18 hours of sailing and land was finally in sight! Not to miss out on the excitement, we rushed about to finish our ablutions and queued up for breakfast, which again was beyond expectations. The islands are all quite tiny the entire piece of land was visible though we weren’t too far from it. Since the huge ship can’t anchor on the shallow shores, thus enabling us to directly disembark, it docked a couple of miles away where smaller boats were already waiting to ferry us across to the islands. Reaching the exit located near the passenger seats at the bottom deck was quite an ordeal since we weren’t familiar with the ship’s geography. The transit between the ship and the smaller boats was another nightmare as it involved synchronising the sway of the ship and the boat and jump off when they met. Able-bodied islanders were of course helping on either side of the exit, which thankfully prevented any casualties. We were transported in batches and about an hour later, all of us had regrouped on the shores of Kalpeni. There weren’t any half-naked girls serving Malibu waiting to garland us as I was led to believe earlier and it was a quiet welcome from the local officials.
A contraption which looked more like a sand buggy and less of a tractor though the driver preferred to call it a tractor was used to ferry us to the unknown rendezvous on the island. Kalpeni has three inhabited satellite islands surrounded by a wondrous lagoon. Visitors are hosted at the Koomel Bay, which overlooks two of these islands. The third is at the northern end. The bay is sort of cut off from the local habitat to prevent invasion of their privacy and a typical holidaymaker haunt has been developed here. Tender coconut water was the welcome drink, which was relished after the parching journey. A string of fresh water bathrooms, a toilet, a kitchen and a local administrator’s office has been built here in a semi-circle overlooking the lagoon. We chose to wade around in the shallow waters to get a feel of things to come. Swimming and snorkelling were the activities scheduled for the day at Kalpeni. The young biologists from Mumbai were already neck-deep in water fooling around with each other. A small island visible about half a mile away supposedly had a better place for snorkelling and we were transported in batches by motor boats. Wading through the lagoon waters one found the seabed littered with sea cucumbers of various shapes and colours, but mainly black. I was fascinated when one of them moved when I inadvertently stepped on it. I never realised that the ugly black things on the seabed were living marine animals!! The life jackets and snorkels arrived a few moments later we embarked on our snorkelling experience. The seabed certainly isn’t a bed of roses to walk on and I was more than relieved to own my pair of teva sandals! I was even more amazed when their velcro snappers stuck on in the salty sea water!! It was to be my first snorkelling experience and I wasn’t too impressed by the thought of sticking a tube out to breathe while you scoured the seabed from the surface! Jaisimha, Vinay and me clustered to forage the seabed together and I had my first mouthful of salty water as soon as we started. Chiman with his buoyant physique cudn’t have had this experience even if he tried to drown himself!
The view was simply breath taking below. The seabed that looked plain from the surface was incredibly boisterous when scrutinised closely and I realised that the snorkel was in fact quite a handy tool underwater! Colonies of colourful fishes and corals added verve to the whole set-up and perhaps the population density on the seabed was far greater than in any of the major metros. I was startled beyond my wits when I glimpsed a huge bubbly mass floating behind me only to realise it was Chiman who resembled a colossal fish thru the snorkel! The young marine biologists were mostly freelancing the depths of the lagoon though the studious among them were intently listening to their professor who was demonstrating how a particular family of shrimps interacted with another family of fishes. It was interesting to note that the professor was handling a fairly large audience without disturbing the object of study. A couple of hours later, the whole group was herded back to shore by the same motor boats to savour lunch at the seashore. Fresh water baths with transluscent curtains separating each tap were provided at the shore for which the crowd had faithfully queued up. The alleged ‘fresh’ water reeked of rotten eggs and felt oily to the touch. Nevertheless, it provided welcome relief from the painful fine sand grains embedded in those nether crevices within me. Lunch was served under the frugal shade of the coconut trees and soon after the local youth provided an adept rendition of a popular island dance. The beach was filled with exotic creatures like the brittle star, star fish etc which were blended so brilliantly with the environment that it needed the trained eye of the biologists to locate them under the slanting rays of the afternoon sun! A huge conch shell with it’s fleshy inmate intact was obscenely lying face-up which reminded me of the main character in Tom Robbin’s Skinny legs and all. Later, Cantry, baps, chethi and me took a walk along the coastline to visualise the actual living conditions of the local population. It wasn’t hard to figure out that the populace thrived on coconut trees and the marine life primarily. A defunct ‘museum’ as the locals described but more of a garment factory was showcased to us tourists later and the souvenir crazy amongst the crowd did buy some T-shirts and local handicrafts made of coconut coir. The sand buggies had already begun hauling the tourists back to the shores where our ship awaited. Baps, equipped with his immense prattling skills, influenced the chief cook to part with free tender coconuts to all of us just before we departed. The local mob was expectantly waiting for their only means of island hopping already at the shores. We merged with them and were grouped into smaller boats, which would ferry us across to the ship’s hull. For the second time the same day, our dexterity was put to test while embarking the ship; our behaviour was close to being ostentatious in front of other suitcasers while performing this act!!
Back on the ship, we looked forward to dinner since the day’s activities had us sapped. The cool evening breeze on the deck invited us to kill the 2 hours before dinner. Guru rolled out his pack of cards and we sat down to try our hands at rummy again. The small stall on the deck sold delicious roasted peanuts, potato crispies etc and BaapaNNi surprisingly bought us all a couple of packs! Eclipses, dolphin sightings, flying fishes etc are considered common events when compared to BaapaNNi spending goes an old sanjaynagar proverb. The scattering cards owing to the steady breeze got us irritated to the point that we stopped the game midway and opted to join the winding queue for dinner. The choice of meal( veg/non-veg) had to be determined by the length of the queue in each department. The simple yet sumptuous meal on the tilted tables owing to the waves was satiating albeit second helpings for watermelons were refused. We scrambled back to the deck since space up there was at a premium; sleeping with the cool night breeze blowing was akin to sleeping in a centrally air-conditioned room and was definitely preferred to spending the night while being cramped on the reclining chairs in the tourist lounge. Cantry, suresh, chetana, vandana and me were the privileged lot with sleeping bags while Vinay had bedspreads and pillows. BaapaNNi managed to cajole Cantry into sharing his bag while Guru and Ajitha chose to sleep yet again in the tourist lounge along with most of the marine biologists. Suresh’s novels were quite a hit with the girls that night! The deck lights, which acted as beacon lights, weren’t supposed to be switched off and this was the only irritant to my undisturbed slumber. Boisterous baapaNNi’s raucous laughter coupled with the usual chatter of the early worm-eaters awakened me and the rest just after sunrise, the next morning. The myriad morning hues of the sky was simply breath taking especially when that happened to be the first sight when I woke up! The small bathrooms got filthier by the day and each time the ship tilted in the direction where the outlet was located, frothy phlegm like stuff sprouted out filling the whole floor. A couple of wash basins were clogged too with similar stuff and I wonder if I came out cleaner than what I was when I entered! The toilets with western commodes were pretty much the same with the seat filthier than the floor! Describing how I used the loo without getting myself drenched in shit is beyond the scope of this travelogue. I resolved to be the first to use the loo the next morning.
Farthest from Kavaratti island, 200 km away to the south and also nearest to the Maldives, Minicoy was the next destination in our itinerary. The usual small boats driven by half naked local fishermen were waiting at the gaping hole where we were supposed to disembark from his majesty, the Tipu sultan. Unlike at Kavaratti, the ship anchored miles off the island owing to the extensive lagoon. The crystal clear seabed was a sight to watch from the smaller boats with all sorts of fishes darting hither and thither for reasons unknown. As Calvin says “there’s a profound reason for every action; it’s just hard to figure out what”! Minicoy was bizarrely silent with hardly any signs of habitation except for the few officials to welcome us. Tender coconut water was again the welcome drink served next to the seaside shaded by coconut trees. The POA for the day was prominently displayed on a black board, which included canoeing, rafting, folk dances etc. Decrepit tempo travellers arrived an hour later which were to transport us to an unknown destination where the beaches were supposedly cleaner though I could find no fault with the beach we were currently in. A lighthouse built by the British in 1885 is the only listed attraction according to lonely planet and sadly this was under renovation and thus forbidden for visitors. We bundled in the last of the tempo travellers with BaapaNNi and me sharing the front seat along with the driver. The first sharp turn made me realise that the door cudn’t be locked and it required all my strength to keep off from plummeting onto the tarmac. Was I glad to get off a few minutes later! The destination was a sort of resort with canoes, pedal boats, life jackets etc all lined up. We managed to snatch a two-seater rowboat and consensed to time-share it among ourselves. Cantry and BaapaNNi ventured out the first time while the rest of us (speaking for myself) commented on the tummy expanses of the other tourists. The untouched shores were filled with all sorts of arthropods and molluscans who all seemed to be in an extreme hurry for reasons unknown again! Clad in tight shorts, a life jacket and nothing else, I felt like a dimwit waiting for spontaneous combustion under the scorching sun. We took a walk along the shoreline out of boredom and were pleasantly surprised to find even more life among the rocks close to the water. The strange creatures with whiskers twice as long as their torsos who chose to carry their homes on their backs (lest it gets illegally occupied?!) provided me with enough solace that I had a fight on hand for the brightest dimwit on the island! Chetana and me got to use the kayak and we ventured out farther into the lagoon. The marine biologists equipped with personal snorkels had probably discovered a particular kind of fish, which had them all excited and we rowed in that direction to be part of the celebrations. A few round trips later, the kayak was beached out of boredom and I preferred to further explore the beach by walk. Cowry shells are a fascination and I never believed they could just be picked on a beach. My first sight of a brightly coloured shell had me jumping with glee and I strode on to find some more in the hope that I could collect a foursome! Chetana joined me in the search and within the next hour we had gathered nine shells which included one huge white cowry (which is now proudly displayed in my living room). With our bounty of exotic shells, Chetana and me strolled back to the comfort of the huts. The bathrooms were all crammed with guys even twin-sharing a few of them. It was touching to see one of the professors stand guard while his wife bathed in the guys section owing to lack of space in the women’s bathrooms! An hour later, I finally found a room for myself and the cold water was surely refreshing after the suicidal walk in the hot sun. While making small talk with the professors later, we learnt that they could speak the same lingo as ours since we belonged to the same state though they had migrated to Mumbai in search of greener pastures decades ago. It was hard to miss the camaraderie between the professors and their students despite the subtle respect the professors commanded, which was indeed soothing. The tempos came hurtling back while we were engrossed in a game of volleyball and the drive back went without incident. Lunch was next on the agenda, which was more than welcome after all the day’s action. The spread again was simple yet tasty. Minicoy is small enough to jog the entire circumference though words cannot do justice to the incredible size of the lagoon, one of the largest in Lakshadweep! It has a culture very different from any other island - dress, language, food, all differ. A cluster of 11 villages, called Athiris form Minicoy and each village is presided over by a Moopan (or something sounding similar). A walk through the winding lanes of the villages gives an indication of the culture here. Sometime during the year, the villages compete against each other or against neighbouring islands in boat races and we were shown some really colourful race boats called "JaladhoNi" which formed the backdrop for a group photograph. A whole basket of live tuna fish was being pruned by discarding the entrails to fit into cans at a local home and Chetana saw an opportunity here to add one to her portfolio by posing with a live tuna in one hand and the other hand in the akimbo position! The whole place stank of putrid flesh, which forced us to move on to the next attraction that this island had to offer only to realise there were no more! Minicoy is also renowned for its dance tradition: the lava dance is performed on either festive occasions or when tourists are around. Locals dressed in headgear made of leaves and equipped with drums danced to the beat of their own instruments which was appreciated by us over a cup of coffee and good day biscuits. A refreshing hour later, it was time to step out of Minicoy and resume our sojourn on to the administrative capital of the islands, Kavaratti. The small, motorised boats with the expert helmsmen were neatly lined up to transport us back to Her majesty, the Tipu sultan that could now be seen on the horizon. The journey back to the ship was quite eventful. The conversationalist in me prompted to start-up a dialogue with the helmsman who surprisingly had voyaged around the world as a certified seaman. I later learnt that Minicoy supplied a whole lot of seamen to the world! Portugal, Cape of Good Hope, the middle east and other exotic places were part of his itinerary and he was now enjoying a long vacation with his family at Minicoy. We discussed about the shipping firms’ mode of working; the free permits for seamen which entitles them to set foot on every place they dock; the harassment meted out by customs officials when the seamen come back home to join their family and a lot more during the journey. He even obliged to take his boat to a vantagepoint so that I could get a fantastic photograph of the huge ship, Tipu Sultan. This happens to be the one of the better snaps from that trip! The waves had increased in intensity and it was quite an ordeal to get the small boats in line with the opening on the ship’s hold. Owing to this, the ship and our small boats had to literally move in search of calmer waters. A school of dolphins probably heading back home with the sun set in the backdrop formed an incredible sight and had us all merrily clapping. The winds subsided which aided the transfer of all of us into the ship’s hold almost an hour later. The waves hadn’t subsided as yet and the hop onto the ship had to be precisely timed while riding on a crest. I was the last to get off ‘cos my oarsman and me still had plenty to prattle. We finally bade good byes promising to meet up somewhere sometime! Thankfully the bathrooms were empty and indeed a lot cleaner than my previous visit! It was grub time by the time I scrubbed myself and dinner was accomplished without much ado albeit the fight for watermelons had to happen. Cards were passe tonight since my newly acquired cowry shells held centre-stage. Chauka-bhara is a traditional game of dice played by either 2 or 4 players on a small chequered board with arms extending into all 4 directions. Distinguishable articles are to be chosen as pawns by each player and my friend from the Rajdhani crowd provided these in the form of dry fruits! Truly royal, eh?! The deal was that the winner gets to eat the handful of pawns after the game. We improvised a bit to accommodate 6 players since not many were willing to be sidelined. The game board was drawn on the deck floor with a piece of chalk borrowed from an enthusiastic child and we were ready to begin. BaapaNNi was the first to roll the dice if I remember right. Half an hour into the game and we had attracted quite a few spectators how had probably come to investigate the high decibel levels emanating from our corner! Part of the Rajdhani crowd gathered around too and the surrounding was almost festive with sides being chosen amongst the spectators. Guru handled the dice like a pro and took the initial lead though the rest of us quickly snatched it away. This game requires the dice to total up huge numbers to progress towards the pedestal and dextrous rolling of the dice is quite handy. Luck wasn’t on my side and I totalled only couplets, which had my pawns limping along while the rest ran past. There was healthy competition amongst us that had us involved in the game for more than a couple of hours that night. The pawns were worn out and quite dirty by the time we finished and none volunteered to eat them after the game. Aware that the activities for the next day started early, we chose to hit the sack just before midnight. The usual haggle for sleeping bags, novels, pillows, bed-sheets etc continued for some more time though. It was cold that night even wrapped inside my mummy contoured sleeping bag capable of handling temperatures up to 4ºC. The sunrise was a pleasant sight the next morning. The Kavaratti shoreline was visible at the horizon and people could be seen scurrying across to pack up for the day. Small boats as usual were waiting to ferry us across to the shore. The last hope of half-clad women lined up to welcome us with shots of Malibu dwindled as we accustomed ourselves to the tender coconuts served by the local youth who were, I should confess half-clad! The rendezvous was on the beach, which had some cute cottages further down. A strange sight was the obtusely curved coconut tree that could be walked up rather than climbed! Breakfast was served while we ogled at the beauty of the islands yet again though the beach scene is never complete without sunbathing women. The day’s activities were pasted on a couple of boards around which included canoeing, boat rides, Scuba diving for a fee and a lot more. The tourism department guys had put up a small souvenir stall selling calendars, posters etc and the crowd around that was comparable to what Veena stores attracts on a Saturday morning! The islands have no shops selling souvenirs and this resulted in the huge rush. We managed to buy ourselves a copy of the calendars each though I’m yet to collect mine from BaapaNNi. The beach houses, the palm trees coupled with our colourful clothes provided an ambience to do something feral for the next couple of hours before we embarked for the scheduled activities. Sitting idle for so long would be as exciting as watching wet clothes dry! A bright spark announced that the sands make a perfect playground for Kabaddi, which was well received by all of us. Now, I do believe that the humble and wholly Indian game of kabaddi should be declared the national game, because it is the closest metaphor for the way we behave. Consider: you do a lot of meaningless running-around, you hold your breath and hope nothing bad happens, you mutter senseless gibberish constantly which all amounts to masterly inactivity. But the game per se was good fun despite BaapaNNNi’s mastery over it. The couple of games that we indulged in had all my orifices filled with fine sand which wasn’t by any means comfortable! A few hundred feet further down the beach, the Scuba dives were to be performed.
Scuba diving was something we had never tried and were all too eager to delve further. The costs were 400/- for a 15-minute dive, which was a steal compared to the scuba diving packages offered elsewhere. Normally folks who venture into scuba diving for the first time have to be content diving in a swimming pool and here we were ready to forage the depths of the Arabian Sea though it was our first dive! We were given an hour of classroom training by our instructor which was absolutely necessary since diving is considered a dangerous sport and things can go horribly wrong under water. The instructor could host a maximum of 20 scuba divers while the rest had to be on a waiting list. Fortunately we were among the first to get enrolled since most of them were apprehensive about spending 15 minutes under 10 foot of water! Equipment acquaintance and conversation through hand signalling under water were the main topics discussed at the training. Suresh was already an accomplished diver and he chose to take a professional dive unlike us. I imagined that tight full-body suits would be provided and later realised that those suits are meant only for the colder climates. A 20-pound air-filled cylinder strapped on your back with tubes sticking out everywhere and Austin powers type glasses to top the attire probably made us look odd! An old discarded cargo container on the beach provided shade while we waited for our turn to dive. The snorkelling experience had taught us all to breathe through the mouth and we were quite comfortable with the scuba apparatus. The dive lasted for 15 minutes technically though it felt much shorter. The scene underwater was fabulous with multi-coloured fishes, corals etc and a sunken ship at the bottom gave me a feeling of greater depths than the actual 10 to 15 feet. Within the next couple of hours, we had all taken our plunges and were busy exchanging notes on the scenery below water. While the chosen few dived, the rest of the crowd enjoyed themselves with the numerous kayaks, paddle boats, rowboats etc. The sea was good enough to just swim which the marine biologists were indulging in! The forenoon heat had forced the elderly folks into the shaded beach huts while we frolicked showing scant respect to the sun. Baapanni and me had a fast ride on the twin kayak and the clear colourful ocean floor was a fabulous sight. Suresh had to be driven in a motor boat for about a kilometre for his professional dive, and we intended to paddle to the location on our kayak. His dive would be for about half an hour reaching depths of 30 Mts.! But the gentlest of waves can tilt the kayak and the rough seas drove us back to shore. The glass-bottomed boat was the next attraction and a special trip was arranged just for us since the rest had finished their trip by then. The boat looked pretty ordinary and we expected the routine murky view with a guide prattling about what lies beneath. But once the doors covering the glass bottom were opened, we were dumbfounded by the sheer clarity of the ocean floor. The guide/oarsman who hardly spoke any language we knew still managed to convey that the ocean floor is about 20 to 25 metres in depth. If I believed that I had seen it all by snorkelling or scuba diving, I was wrong since this was much much better. A shoal of bright yellow coloured fish with black stripes went below us first to be replaced by another shoal of purple tinted fish! The next few minutes were just like watching a kaleidoscope! The oarsman had brought along breadcrumbs to feed and the fish promptly jumped out of water to grab the pieces in mid-air! A huge brown lump of what looked like a mound of dirt from top slowly started moving and we realised that it was a sea turtle. Moments later, we spotted his companion too moving about with the same lazy pace oblivious of us tourists above them. The boat ride lasted for about an hour though the stipulated time was much lesser. Thankfully the bathrooms were empty by the time we reached the shore since the marine biologists and the rest of the tourists had already left. The bathrooms were small but clean though water flowed in trickles owing to the truckloads of sand deposited by the earlier users! Tempos were waiting to transport us back mercifully thus avoiding us scalding ourselves under the harsh sun. For greater contemplation of sea life, there is a small aquarium in Kavaratti, which was our next destination. The young marine biologists were fervent enough to share their knowledge about the strange creatures exhibited. A couple of ugly rocks were displayed in a particular enclosure, which somehow excited the biologists! Only when the ‘rocks’ started moving, did I realise that they were living creatures! Turtles, snake fishes, shrimps, lobsters etc were other exhibits in addition to a whole gallery of fossils, corals, skeletons etc in an adjoining room. A small pond between these rooms was filled with different kinds of eels and turtles. It was a pleasure to feel the eels when they swam close to our hands. Another enclosure housed a family of sharks who seemed to be aimlessly moving around. Photography and videography were strictly prohibited within the aquarium and Guru with his expensive handycam was frustrated which got noticed by the curator himself! He made arrangements to feed the sharks after granting permission for Guru to film them. The sharks in motion attacking the falling pieces of meat is a movie clip worth watching. The aquarium was the last attraction at Kavaratti. The tempo driver did take us for a small jaunt around the island later before we were transported back to the waiting boats. A bottle of Pepsi to quench my thirst from a local vendor was my last tryst with shopping at the capital of the Lakshadweep islands. For the last time, we got on board the Tipu sultan and I could sense a mixed feeling of melancholy combined with euphoria among the crowd. 5 fun filled days had gone by and it was now time to travel back.
The Lakshadweep islands represent nature at its pristine best. The chief animals, the corals, belong to a period soon after the beginning of life in the seas. Many of the islands are not even inhabited by man and they remain practically untouched by his industrial advancement. Those who dwell there still retain their tribal customs and cultures. But the mainland always beckons to them. The younger folk get scholarships to the universities of Cochin, Calicut and elsewhere and it is very likely that they will leave behind their heaven and seek opportunities in the wider world. To us mainlanders, the islands are an enchanting, once in a lifetime, experience. For the naturalist three days are but a fleeting moment. But perhaps the younger islanders think, in the words of Sir Richard Burton, "Little islands are all large prisons: One cannot look at the sea without wishing for the wings of a swallow."
Rajastan Circa Dec 2001
December 21st 2001 to January 01st 2002.
The crowd: Vandana (Vandy), Chetana (Chethi), Raghavendra (BaapaNNi), Sreenath, Raghavendra(bond), Padma(Lady bond), Srikanth(Cantry), Aruna, Roopa, Shubhangi and me.
I woke up blinking with a slight ecstasy in my head and opened my eyes upon a world boiling in chaos where everything was in proper order. Yes, ofcourse...The crowd, the tickets and my cartful of fat-free fodder for the liver…everything was in order! I realized it was time to leave home and travel up north to Rajasthan, the desert state of India, which isn't one bit deserted! With villagers comprising more than half it's population, Rajasthan is said to live in it's villages. The village represents the most basic form of civilization with a way of life that has remained unchanged for centuries (except for that stray case of Internet access these days!).
For most of us, it was the first time in more than 2 decades (or lifetime) that we were travelling for more than a day in Indian railways and the mood was apprehensive. Half the crowd was alien to me and the last hour before the train departs saw me frantically rushing around to round them up. Inadvertently the organiser’s role was thrust upon me since the tickets were with me. So, it was my job to group up the gang which comprised of a group of 3 girls I had never met, a couple I knew and a couple more other than baapaNNi, chetana and me. The girls were hard to trace since it’s no fun to shout out names at any group of 3 girls at a railway station!! They finally boarded at the next station, cantonment, with their parents to see them off.
Agra was the first place in the scheme of things, which was 40 hours away "as the diesel burns" from Bangalore. The usual chaos of swapping berths, fighting for luggage space, making friends with the rest of the compartment etc occupied the initial few hours of the journey before we settled down to gossip for all we were worth for the rest of the journey. A few more philipians were travelling home for the holidays and so, apart from the 11 of us, I knew a few more folks on train. There was Vandy's long lost saree-seller friend from school too who was hell-bent on trying to portrait himself as an inventor of saree designs. Wonder what the World would be without him?! And then there was Rajneesh gupta who for some reason found himself short of a full 200/- though he had legal tickets to sit in an AC compartment worth hundreds! And then there was Radha Iyer who with her infinite wisdom about trains made us feel at home (And yes, she was the culprit who whacked the 'Doctors' novel by Eric seagal...it's a different matter that we forgot it behind! ;-) And there was also the ubiquitous hawker selling everything from combs to chaat (now, vandy's friend wasn't part of this tribe!). This atmosphere made it possible to spend those 40 hours without much ado and we landed in Agra on the 23rd morning. I should mention the creepy feeling of encountering eunuchs on the train who blurt out filthy language if you snub their requests for money. There’s a reason why we have a single mouth but a pair of ears and it’s best to hold your tongue unless you want be further abused and perhaps even be shown a glimpse of their private parts! “Kyun re Shah rukh?…paise nahin dhoge?” - A few seconds pause – “thumhee se poochaa rehh!” and I knew it was intended for me. Sweating in my pants, I dared to look up and meekly nodded my head to gesture no. Mercifully she moved on after blurting out some obscenities in the local language. Neither sex is spared by their antics really and commuters literally made way for them in those narrow pathways separating the side and normal berths in apprehension!
A fleet of taxi drivers and hotel agents greeted us at the station with each one hollering their prices and reducing them by the minute when his voice gets drowned by another's lower priced offer! It worked to our advantage and we finally could hire 2 cars for just 40/- to take us around Agra's hotels. We settled on the 3rd one(Nitin Home) we saw for the price of 400/- for lodging all of us. This included a small bribe to the manager who kinda looked cute with his round face and rounded contours! We then hired the same 2 guys who got us the hotel to take us around Agra for a negotiated price of 1310/-. Fatehpur sikri was the first destination located about 30 kms from Agra. Tamed black bears which dotted the roadsides to entertain tourists was quite a strange sight!! I felt rather sad to see these magnificient creatures being made to stand on their toes at each passing vehicle in anticipation of a few coins! Chetana and I had a bet about the number of bears on either side of the road while driving back and I should say she snatched defeat from the jaws of victory finally!! Fatehpur sikri was founded in1569 by the Mughal emperor Akbar to honor the Muslim saint Shaikh Salim Chishti, who had foretold the birth of Akbar's son and heir, Jahangir. I learnt all this and much more from a local boy who cajoled us into hiring him as a guide for 20/-! The city was Akbar's capital until 1584. By 1605, it was largely deserted because of the inadequate water supply. A masterpiece of Muslim architecture, the city is unique in India as a nearly intact Mughal city. The Buland Darwaza, flanked by colossal statues of elephants, was the principal entrance. Carvings and murals cover many of the buildings. Among the most notable are the Jami Masjid (the Great Mosque); the ornate marble mausoleum of Salim Chishti; the palaces of Jodh Bai and Birbal; and the Panch Mahal, the royal audience hall. A bearded local man stood majestically in front of the Buland darwaza which formed the backdrop for a good photo. But after I clicked, the man approached me and asked me to mail the photo back to him when it's ready. I obliged and asked him for his address and all he said was Shafiq, Buland darwaza, Agra post. With a population of a billion people, I wonder if even santa claus can trace our shafiq if I ever mail him the photo (which I'll)! It was almost evening before we were done with fatehpur sikri and left immediately for the taj mahal...which is considered among the wonders of the modern world and the finest example of the late style of Indian Islamic architecture. The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan ordered it built after the death (1629) of his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The building, which was completed between 1632 and 1638, was designed by the local Muslim architect Ustad Ahmad Lahori; set in its carefully laid out grounds, it is supposedly a reflection of the gardens of Paradise to which the faithful ascend! The entire complex, with gardens, gateway structures, and mosque, was completed in 1643...and seen by us in 2001(under torchlight...like Taj mahal ghehhh torchhu!). I wonder if the emperor spent so much on his wife while she was alive and kicking! Some anxious moments, which saw sreenath and me frantically locating Bond and Lady bond who had strayed off in the myriad paths inside the taj complex in search of Nirvana, later, we got on to a RTDC bus to Jaipur...the pink city. A shrewd man made friends with us at the sparse hotel at the idgah bus_station at Agra and almost made a deal for hotels in Jaipur, 230 kms away! He gave us a contact by name Salim who would faithfully be waiting for us at Jaipur.
02:30 hrs on the 24th morning and the hotel_mongers (including Salim in his Sumo) were faithfully present to greet us at the bus_station! A few hotels and bickering later we lodged on to Hotel Shaleen at quite a deal (700/- for 3 rooms incl of 50/- for breaking the pot at the entrance...courtesy Bond!). The handsome hulk Salim used his best convincing skills and etiquette (though I’m not sure if addressing Chetana as ‘didi’ worked to his favour!) to lodge us in a hotel that offered him the most commission but botched up when encountered by us bunch of smart folks. We even made sure that he got a raw deal in booking for a city tour the next day! Travelling by the rickety bus overnight had us quite sapped and we slept till daybreak before venturing to walk the streets of Jaipur in search of the RTDC office. A little bit of directions from the helpful hotel owner helped us locate the office effortlessly and we booked a sightseeing tour of Jaipur with RTDC which would last for 5 hours and cost 150/- pax. A monte-carlo sweatered, Rayban clad English speaking Nokia wielding guide came free with the package! The first stop was at Jantar mantar - An astronomical observatory with fourteen major geometric devices for measuring time, predicting eclipses, tracking stars in their orbits, ascertaining the declinations of planets, determining the celestial altitudes and related ephemeredes and what not! Each is a fixed and 'focused' tool. The Samrat Jantar, the largest instrument, is 90 feet high; its shadow carefully plotted to tell the time of day. Its face is angled at 27 degrees, the latitude of Jaipur. This was built by Maharaja Sawai Jai singh II between 1726 and 1734. Nobody would want to exchange their wristwatches with this instrument though! The next stop was the hawa mahal built by Maharaja Sawai pratap singh in 1799. This strange honeycombed building was originally built to facilitate the women of the royal household to watch the everyday life and processions of the city. The constant chattering by the guide told us this and much more about the place though some pronunciations required transcriptions at the highest level to fathom the true meaning (like eunuch sounded like unique and concubines sounded like counter-wives!). We then drove to Amber fort on the outskirts of the city with a stopover at the Jal mahal. Totally devoid of either a mahal or Jal, we almost puked at the putrid sewage around the jal mahal and hardly stayed for a few minutes there. Amber fort was quite impressive with crowds thronging to have a glimpse of Kareena and Akshay kumar rather than the fort's splendour! Yes, the filmi folks were there to shoot some sequences for a new movie. Rajasthan is literally film crazy which was visible everywhere...like every local knew where exactly dimple danced in rudaali or sunny deol spat in Border or sean connery walked in Octopussy! Owing to this, the fort's rooms like the magnificient sheesh mahal etc were quite empty and we had all the space and time to click portfolios of ourselves! Amber is a fascinating blend of Hindu and Muslim architecture and was built in the 16th century by some hep Raja Man Singh. We tried our bit in climbing walls to have a glimpse of the film people but were unlucky. Our guide’s day was made though since he managed to climb a bit higher than the rest of us and catch a glimpse of a lady who he believed to be Kareena! We then had a late lunch in a restaurant that held puppet shows in their courtyard. The less said, the better about the lunch though…it was plainly sick!
The guide dropped us off at Johari bazaar since we still had some hours to kill before catching the night train to Jodhpur. Johari bazaar has rows of shops dealing in tie-and-dye fabrics, saris and the ubiquitous jaipuri razaai. All of us splurged on razaais, clothes, jewellery, food etc till we cudn’t carry no more. A few smart folks including me even mailed the shopped goods back home by insured post! Since the shops closed at 8 in the evening we still had some hours to spare before the train. So, we decided to walk back to the hotel. It was quite a distance and we had to have a few pit stops to fill ourselves with junk food sold by the hawkers. McDonald’s on the way attracted Baapanni’s attention since it’s a rarity in India(absolutely missing in Bangalore!). But we found the rest of the gang (which had bichad gaye somewhere in the bazaar) in there and we could go back together to the hotel. We picked up our baggage that had grown considerably after the johari bazaar binge and walked to the station looking like a pack of asses with our entire luggage. Blasé as we were about the night train(scheduled at 11:30 hrs), we entered the station only to be greeted by announcements that our train to Jodhpur had been cancelled to aid the movement of troops from Delhi to the border. Of course the inconvenience caused was regretted! We now had to weigh our options since the night was getting colder and we cudn’t surely waste a day on the pink city platforms. We checked out the buses, sumos, cars and every type of viable transport (except camels) before realising that the sanest thing to do was wait for the next train(at 02:30 hrs) to jodhpur. Reserving sleeping berths was impossible since the railway folks at Jaipur had no knowledge about the availability on that train. We had to rely on our astuteness in beating the rest of the half-asleep folks on the platform in finding the empty berths. The train was on time and we jumped on niftily to latch on to the berths. Almost all of us managed to find a place for ourselves and the unlucky few were helped by the TTE for a small fee. Strangely, we travelled the distance on sleeping berths by paying less than what we originally paid for the same distance! Ofcourse, part of this was bribe and none of us complained for once since we needed a place to sleep badly! 5 hours of bliss and we were woken up by the chatter of the numerous hawkers selling morning tea, newspapers and other edibles…we were a few miles away from the Blue city – Jodhpur. Every city in Rajasthan has a unique colour and most of the houses are painted with that theme colour which makes a splendid sight from somewhere up above. Finding hotels wasn’t a problem again since the faithful commission agents were eagerly waiting to impress us with their accented English descriptions about the city’s hotels. What few words these people speak are spoken with impeccable American accent that is funny to listen! We finally settled on the Gulab guesthouse, which was more a house than a hotel for a reasonable price of 700/- for 2 huge rooms and 4 bathrooms. This place was suggested by our clad_in_leather_jacket, hands_in_pocket, gale_mei_locket auto driver who claimed to be related to the chacha (guesthouse owner)! Jodhpur isn’t the most touristic spot and makes mostly a stopover for folks travelling between Jaipur and Jaisalmer. This accounts to the absence of cheap clean hotels and helpful tourist information desks around the city. The RTDC hotel itself was a scare without even maps or brochures about the city and exorbitantly priced rooms! But our chacha at the guesthouse suggested a few tips about places to eat and modes of transport to reach the city attractions. Armed with that knowledge, we set out after a few hours of freshening up. Breakfast at hotel Priya(suggested by chacha as preeeyha) wasn’t bad at all and we hired autos to climb up to Mehrangadh fort. The funny bumper sticker on these autos attracted us to them though we had planned to climb the fort by foot earlier. Another random observation is that auto drivers around the sub continent have a strong fascination and pride when it comes to decorating their dashboard and rear-view mirror. Most choose a 12-inch (or so) picture of their favourite Hindu god in pastel colours, in a gold frame, with a garland of flowers hanging from the corners. Sometimes, the picture has blinking red and green lights circling it. A stereo set to keep the commuters awake, and secret compartments to store everything from sweaters to match sticks make up the dashboard paraphernalia. I can tell you that these vehicles are self-sustaining!
Built by Rao Jodha, the ruler in 1459, this fort is built on a steep hill and literally looks like an offshoot of the hill itself. It has four gates approached by a winding road used by the autos. Inside are some magnificent palaces with carved panels, latticed windows and evocative names as Moti Mahal, Phool Mahal, Sheesh Mahal, Sileh Khana, Daulat Khana etc. These palaces have a fabulous collection of palanquins, elephant howdhas, miniature paintings of various schools, musical instruments, costumes and furniture. The sunset looked truly magnificent from the fort and I always wonder how an event that occurs everyday, everywhere on earth can still look so splendid and attract so many people! We trudged the whole day at the fort since we were a bit tired and even walked back to the hotel since the autos were missing at the summit. A bit of shopping in the bazaars of Jodhpur took us a couple of hours and then we entered the government handloom shop on the main street near priya hotel. Articles were reasonably priced here and everybody frittered away to glory…with me too undressing a mannequin out of his red kurta! A few couple of thousand bucks lighter, we had dinner at the same priya hotel and rushed to the hotel to pack up and then to the station fervently praying that the train to Jaisalmer hasn’t been called off. Thankfully it wasn’t and believe it or not, it was the only train running that night and all other trains were cancelled!! Surprisingly tourists were sparse on this train and bandanna clad jawans thronged every bogie which gave us a sense of immense security. We had reserved berths on the train and blissfully slept the journey to Jaisalmer – The golden city.
The lonely planet has a lot to say about Jaisalmer and it was something we were all looking forward to. The scene was no different here with the station littered with human advertisers of hotels, restaurants, camels and what not! The cold winds of a December dawn hardly deterred them in jostling for our attention. We were a big bunch of 11 with rucksacks, suitcases, mineral water bottles etc, which typically epitome tourists and that made us the prime attraction. The militia made up the rest of the crowd alighting from our train. Aliens as we were at Jaisalmer, we selected the most shy of the lot that happened to be the guy who held the Hotel samrat banner. The banners had most details about the hotels with a small line in fineprint “recommended by Lonely planet and other guide books”! We later realized that not every claim was true though the samrat one was genuine. Set in a dusty bylane off the main road, dorm beds were as cheap as 15/- a night at this place though the rooms weren’t self-sufficient(No toilets). After spending the previous couple of nights on the platform or in a rickety bus, we decided that we deserved more luxury and chose to check out a few more hotels. Chetana was as usual adamant on trying out hotels other than what the samrat guide(Sharaf) had to offer. Her trust with the government led us to the RTDC hotel Moomal, which was surprisingly full, and the indifferent reception anyway was no better than what we had already experienced in Rajasthan’s other cities. He did suggest another hotel, which was shoddier than Samrat when half clean! We later learnt that even the govt reception clerk at the RTDC hotel had tie ups with other hotels in the city. A few more hotels later, sharaf realised that we were looking for a hotel at the higher end and led us to The Rang Mahal located at about 3 kms from the city centre. Now, this was a 5 star hotel with amenities like bathtubs with hot water in every room, a swimming pool at the courtyard and carpeted rooms etc. After much haggling we settled for a price of 650/- per head per night and were quite elated by the deal. It was fun to watch the manager’s face though when I requested a separate room for Bond and his wife after claiming that we were students while soliciting the discount! The hotel’s exterior looked like a fort and the interiors had the rustic rajasthani touch and it was something we could talk about till the next vacation! The rooms given were inferior to what was advertised while making the deal but we weren’t complaining since we had them at a discount. A slight altercation with the hotel management for allotting bond’s room later than promised didn’t dampen our spirits too much either. Sharaf made a deal with us to hire camels for the safari planned for the next couple of days for a fair price of 700/- per person inclusive of food, water, warm clothing and guides other than the camels. Sreenath was the first to jump into the pool and feel his private parts go numb with cold while in contrast I was the first probably to enjoy the warmth of the bath tub in the luxury of my room. We had never been so fresh since the time we boarded the karnataka express at Bangalore and took quite some time to be geared up to roam yet another city’s streets. A few hours later, we set out to visit the jaisalmer fort and other attractions. Since walking to the city centre was ruled out, we waited for the ubiquitous auto to come and pick us up. Jaisalmer has a unique contraption when it comes to public transport. These all-terrain vehicles are called minidors and can ferry tens of people though they appear a bit hideous with their noise and looks. Since the only minidors we came across was bursting at it’s seams with people we hired a couple of normal autos and packed ourselves into them. The fort was a short ride from the hotel and faithfully entered Hotel Monica(again listed in the Lonely planet) once we reached the fort’s entrance! All historical significance and the fort’s beauty was lost upon us since we were famished after the previous night’s journey. It was just about lunchtime and you could call it brunch since we had missed the expensive rang mahal breakfast. The crowd gorged on the delicious food while I faithfully stuck to my fat-free fodder. Surprisingly the server took pity on me and my food habits and promised to cook up something new for dinner with no fat! I did promise to come back for dinner in return. The narrow crowded streets with colourful shops lined on either side gives a snug feeling. You have to be cautious in avoiding the multitude of vehicles, animals and animal drawn carts cruising on these streets though! Leather goods are the most sought after souvenirs in Jaisalmer and almost every second shop has hordes of articles ranging from fashion accessories to footwear hanging on their doorsteps. We decked ourselves with cowboy hats while a few girls bought themselves colourful scarves to avoid the desert sun. Finally we trudged along the path to the imposing 12th century fort built by Rawal Jaisal which is one of the main attractions. Less imposing than the forts in Jodhpur or jaipur, it didn’t lack in splendour or intricacy associated with the rajputs though. A museum within the fort contains a stairway that leads to the top. This offers a splendid view of the sand stone coloured city and the desert beyond. The small doorways added a few inches onto vandy’s head since she bumped into them atleast (official figures quote it as 4 times though she herself disagrees!) a couple of times! The myriad small paths in the fort had a variety of shops selling the local handicrafts. We spent an hour in window shopping though nobody dared to increase their rucksacks’ load. From a distance we already looked like a pack of asses making their way to the dhobi ghat! The beautiful havelis, which were built by wealthy merchants of Jaisalmer, are yet another interesting aspect of the desert city. Patwon ki haveli, the most elaborate and magnificent of them was where we headed next which was a short walk from the fort. The puzzling paths which led us nowhere were so narrow that baapaNNi in his prime would have found it tough to negotiate! Directions from the passers-by always pointed in different directions and we later realised that the directions weren’t absolute and actually showed us the relative route leading to the haveli. A pool of slush and a million turns later, we reached the haveli which was quite a sight if you strain your head upwards. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had supposedly cleared a few houses in front to lessen the tilt of tourist’s heads, said our run-time hired guide! Tickets were 2/- per head and the guide entered free. One of the havelis was inhabited and the empty remaining ones were sort of museums where tourists could scream, screech, giggle and click snaps. We weren’t lagging and behaved like typical tourists too! The monolithic sandstone carvings for windows and archways were quite impressive even when the haveli was without inhabitants. One can only imagine the grandeur when it was filled with people and furniture
A few moments of rest and we were on our way to the rain water gadsisar lake which was about a half-hour walk as the paths led from the haveli. Clear lakes in the desert and the setting sun in the background gives a soothing effect on the mind, eh? A few of us ventured out to hire pedal boats for an hour at the lake while the rest chose to simply gape at nature and the antics of some of the tourists around us! A couple of hours later, we were all set to rush back and enjoy the comforts of our royal hotel; but decided otherwise and preferred to stroll the streets in search of good bargains. Manek chowk was the main bazaar area located around the fort and we started in that direction. Monica restaurant was located in that vicinity too and I needn’t had to worry about my cuisine for the night. Probably due to the lonely planet mention, we noticed that the place was quite crowded with tourists and the manager too was clean shaven unlike in the morning. The kichadi was waiting as promised and I tasted something different than the usual dry rotis and dhal for the first time in a fortnight! The group had disintegrated owing to varying interests within the city and just the 3 of us (sreenath, chetana and me) had dinner at Monica’s. The girls had gone in search of more fashion accessories while baapaNNi had gone back to the hotel to cater to his ailing tummy. Bond needed some hours of sleep and he too was at the hotel. From the rooftop restaurant, we saw some familiar faces trying out the government approved Bhang(a form of marijuana) in a small shop a few meters away. A closer dekko made us recognize those faces as that of vandy’s and kantry’s! We joined them after dinner and drank bhang flavoured lassis(sweetened curdled milk) though I refrained myself…not because of the psychedelic bhang but because of the fat in the lassi which would spoil my liver! It was certainly strange to notice these government approved marijuana outlets in Rajasthan when most states in India follow total prohibition and even smoking tobacco has been banned in public places all over the country!! It wasn’t time yet to hit the sack and we were more than willing to look out for more bargains in the bazaar for the camel safari tomorrow. And we still had another chore to do before retiring for the night. We had to book seats by the direct night bus to Udaipur for the 28th. There wasn’t much choice since a solitary agency plied direct buses between Jaisalmer and Udaipur. A bit of haggling with the operator about the costs later, we settled on a fair price and paid up a token advance to be assured of seats in the capsuled body luxury bus. While inquiring about the buses between these two places, we met up with a lot of touts independently advertising for the same bus albeit with a few minutes difference in departure timings! This was a ploy to just give a hint of choice to the customers so that the tout with the most suitable timings gets to make the deal and thus earn a few rupees commission on each seat. Capsuled body was the single term used to describe the luxurious bus and we were anxious to know to what medication we would be subjected to on the drive! And finally we could rush back to the hotel to enjoy the remaining part of the evening at the hotel’s courtyard. A band of dancers were hired to entertain the hotel occupants at the poolside. The night was chilly but a huge campfire provided ample warmth for the huddled pack of spectators. It was amazing to watch the troupe belt out really tuneful numbers with just the basic equipment like a pair of carved wooden pieces, pots, sticks and their mouth! A small boy braved the cold and danced for a couple of songs while a couple of belles stole centre stage with their dance with metal pots balanced on their heads. The pots were even lit with fire for a specific song titled “Moomal”. A section of the crowd joined the dancing girls and got themselves photographed while we relaxed after yet another arduous day in the desert state. The dancing troupe in their traditional dresses under the moonlight with the magnificient hotel rooms in the background made a wonderful photo. We hit the sack after the show and I had to share my bed with two girls that night! I wonder if Vandy and Kantry had psychedelic dreams after the bhang sojourn in the evening. But sleep probably overpowered them and we didn’t hear stories about sleep walking people the next morning! Steps taken forward but sleep walking back again; dragged by the force of some inner tide said Pink floyd a decade ago. The last thing I remember anyway was switching off the light only to be rudely awakened by that intruding streak of bright light of the rising sun. The rising sun looked radiant from our door and I cudn’t resist capturing it on my roll. The inmates of my room filched those extra minutes of sleep while I scrubbed myself to glory since the only bathroom with an attached toilet had to be shared amongst all 3 of us one at a time. Needless to say I rested while the girls were unto scrubbing. Sharaf was to pick us at 08:30 hrs that morning and it was in our advantage to have as much time as possible on the safari. He was faithfully waiting and at just about the prescribed time, we were all up and ready at the reception with our packed luggage. For the second consecutive time on our trip, hot water wasn’t a scarcity, which was evident by our fresh faces at the reception. The cold apathetic look by the manager while clearing the bills probably because of the small fight regarding bond’s room allotment was equally countered back by me. We then hoarded onto the twin jeeps waiting to drive us to Hotel Samrat where provisions for the safari were to be picked up. Hotel Samrat would serve as a cloakroom for us until we returned back from the safari. A quick breakfast of sandwiches, omelets for some and hot beverages later, we were all set to embark on the much famed desert safari. A couple of rooms were vacated to dump our luggage and the same jeeps would take us to the first destination from where we would ride camels till our final destination in the sand dunes. The safari was to start at hotel Samrat by jeep; ride on to bada bagh; then to Lodurva; then to a small village where the camels would be waiting; ride onto Sam by camels (42 kms from jaisalmer);spend the night at Sam; ride back to the same village where we picked our camels; ride back to jaisalmer by Jeep.
There was always the rat rush for the front seat of the jeep since the scenery never changes unless you are the lead dog. But the seating was amicably settled and with the bare minimum luggage (not that the camels would have minded), we drove to the first destination, bada bagh with sharaf’s brother as the stand-in guide. This is a fertile oasis on the bank of an artificial lake. Much of the city's fruits and vegetables are grown here, said the guide. Surrounded by dense trees are the royal cenotaphs with beautifully carved ceilings and equestrian statues of the former rulers. I can imagine the rajputs dying to die since this burial ground seemed more impressive than their congested living quarters in the city. A vision of the present day burial grounds earlier in the day suggested that we have deteriorated in death atleast if not in living conditions in comparison. A few snaps later, we drove onto the next destination Lodurva, a small village housing a magnificient jain temple. Jaisalmer is just about 50 kms from the international border and the army presence was awesome on the outskirts. Since we were driving towards the border and away from the last inhabited city, the militia had base camps at regular intervals. It was truly a sight to see the huge tail of trucks with bombers and artillery moving on the highways. “Use condoms – Prevent AIDS” was hugely scrawled on the entrance to the Jain temple for reasons beyond me, which instigated a series of giggles from the girls in our jeep. We were the only visitors to the temple at that time of the day. Leather articles like bags, belts and caps had to be left behind at the entrance along with footwear before we could enter the temple. The carvings on the archway at the entrance were intricate and truly impressive. Probably it was made out of a single stone since I couldn’t notice any seams on the pillar. We didn’t disturb the few faithful devotees offering prayers inside the sanctum sanctorum and silently prostrated before walking out. The next destination was another small village(I don’t remember the name) where the camels would be waiting. The barren villages in the desert offer no means of occupation and inhabitants have to simple live on food saved from the rainy day or parasiting on the lucky relative who thrives on tourism in the city. Our jeep driver was one such lucky guy who had to sustain his family back home by the money earned from catering to us tourists’. The rendezvous with the camels was about 20 kms more and seeing the straight roads, Chetana dared to try her hand at driving the Jeep much to the dread of the remaining occupants. She almost missed a stationary cart at a junction and I dunno if she aimed for it since her hat covered up the disappointment, if any on her face, on missing it! Thankfully no more stationary carts were present to aim for and we reached the animals safely. My first emotion: It was quite a sight to see the horde of tall camels loaded with colourful dirty cotton blankets peeing from such a height in the open! There were 4 guides who would accompany us with 15 camels; each one on his own steed! I should say camels are excellent creatures, so very odd, make funny noises and even funnier faces! I remember watching them with awe in the zoo in my hometown decades ago wondering what it should feel to see one in the desert. I now could spend 2 full days with one of them! Riding them was quite an experience! I started off feeling macho that it'll all be alright…a couple of hours later the pain started and stayed till we dismounted. Riding camels are not for guys! The bunch of camels was predominantly adult male with a couple of kids under apprenticeship. I got to ride one of the kids named Sonia who was full of sparkle but always chose to follow the dumb adults since he didn’t know the way! Thankfully Chetana’s Raju was quick and those who chose to follow him, including me, had a lead of over a mile by the first hour itself. The first stop was under the first tree we found. This was more to catch up with the rest of the crowd than to relax. One of our guides, Gagol showed me ‘bore’ fruit trees (yagachi haNNu which we distribute during the harvest festival, Sankranthi) which he was munching faster than the camels while I filled my pockets with the fruits which I saved for the journey. Chetana and sreenath tried their hand at imitating the camels’ expressions and I think the camels were amused! I can swear I could hear them giggling and exchanging gossip and would probably split their seams if I show them the photos I took! The girls and baapaNNi caught up and we started off on the trail. It was another hour of rocking before we stopped for lunch under more trees, which was close to a village. The availability was water was the main reason quoted by our guides for stopping at that particular place though they never used water to clean up their cooking vessels! Pour some sand; swirl it around; pour it down and wipe the utensil with a cloth! Thick rotis, some mixed vegetable curry garnished with a sprinkle of sand was for lunch. There were soft drink sellers who had trekked miles to earn those few rupees even there(No, not malyalees!) and all of us bought from them more out of pity than thirst. A heavy lunch coupled with a light nap later, we were all set to scrap our inner thighs further. The camels too were fed with bags full of desert weed. A closer look revealed that it was the same weed served to us at Monica’s in Jaisalmer as special desert vegetable curry which we ate with relish the previous day! Since the camels hadn’t stocked water in their humps, we had to walk them to the nearby watering hole and then mount them. I was reminded of the giraffes in my hometown zoo when I saw the camels stoop down to access the water with their front feet spread apart. A few colourful village folks together with the camels, our guides and us made a nice photograph. That would be our last stopover and we headed towards our final destination, the sam dunes located about 4 more hours away.
We were told by sharaf that tourists were minimal this year and we might find few people at the dunes. But we could see lines of camels loaded with tourists merging from all directions slowly towards sam. Suntanned foreigners to saree clad aunties; euphoric juveniles to apprehensive adults…the camels had them all on top of them. It was another couple of hours before sunset and the crowds didn’t want to miss out on that! Even after munching loads of fodder earlier in the day, the camels deftly used to pick up mouthfuls of weed growing on the roadsides even while trotting. A lot of talent and practice coupled with throaty “hhhhrrrrhhh”s and a wave of either the reins or a stick can make the stubborn camels trot though. It was fun to watch bond use all this talent only to make padma’s camel run!! Rajasthan’s landscape is dotted with desert shrubs all over and to find the shapeless sand dunes associated with deserts, one has to travel either to sam or some place further. We reached the dunes an hour before sunset and just had time to search out a clean camping sight away from the crowds. I should mention that vandy’s camel was quite scary and he often spat out his tongue – which swelled up to the size of a child's arm and wiggled about, mottled and purple, from the side of his mouth. And then he swallowed it back down with all that gurgling noise. After dumping our belongings, we went in search of a good place to watch the sunset amidst the dunes. I tried my hand at sliding down one of the dunes and ended up with sand in all my orifices much to everybody’s amusement! Sreenath engaged the girls for a race up the dune and won it hands down. Whatever happened to female empowerment?! A few steps further, I found a handful of coins – probably dropped by another slider – which I promptly collected and gifted them to our boy-guide. A few local musicians offered to sing and dance for us for a fee and though we weren’t interested, we acceded to their pestering. Our guide to the dunes was a small boy(salim) who was an apprentice with the guides and he was needed so that we find our way back to the camp after the sun sets. There weren’t streetlights in that place, you know! And salim was adamant in not letting us go beyond the next dune…always. His pleadings of little English together with his knowledge of few Hindi phrases like “that place…veerryyy dangerous. You not go there. You stay here. Sun go down. Get verrrryy dark. Can’t go vaapas” were funny though they never hindered our walk further into the dunes in search of the best squatting place. Each step and salim used to start off with his “you sit here. Sunset veerrrry beautiful. You not go far. You sit here” which we faithfully ignored. We finally gave in to his pleadings and settled down since the sunset had begun. It was again a magnificient sight to watch the huge blazing orange ball go down between lumps of sand. It lasted for just about a couple of minutes before it turned dark…and cold. But pleasantly, it was a full moon night and the overshadowed moon was now visible as a complete circle! This gave us enough reason to hang around in the dunes for some more time though the cold was getting into our skins. BaapaNNI had us all laughing with his usual anecdotes...particularly those involving aruna! The campfire at the distance and Salim’s constant nagging catalyzed our butt shifting back to the base camp. Razais were spread out around the fire and the guides were already waiting for us with hot coffee! I managed to get a good spot to warm up and cuddle around the fire. Within minutes, the whole troop was comfortable except for the guides perhaps who cudn’t care less for comfort! The moonlight night, the blazing fire and sand all around prompted us to start singing as usual. It started with tuneful songs and once the tempo picked up, I could hear the guides thinking aloud hoping that we would stop. It had been a tiring day for them and they needed to arrange for our sleeping places before they could rest. Anthyaakshari as usual was the most popular game since you can keep belting out songs incessantly without reason! Dinner of rotis, half boiled rice and that sprinkle of sand was served amid the chaos. The rotis were a bit thinner than what was served in the morning probably due to baapaNNi’s whining. Though the food wasn’t up to edible standards, I should mention that the guides’ hospitality was immense. Their sole aim was to please us irrespective of adversities. Bottled water was one commodity, which we had remembered to carry in plenty and that helped us to gulp down the food and wash ourselves later. The singing continued unabated till almost midnight before gagol gathered enough courage to ask us to sleep. Anyways, there wasn’t a winner in sight considering aruna’s and sreenath’s repertoire and we decided to call it a day. A small pit was dug out just for us to sleep and was carpeted by razaais. I literally hit the sack(My sleeping bag) while the others huddled themselves as close as possible to avoid the cold winds. Razaais were available in plenty and each one was covered with a minimum of 2….max reaching 4 probably! The guides were never satisfied with our comfort though and kept on pleading every 5 minutes to add another to the pile of blankets! From a distance we probably looked like colourful mounds of dirty linen heaped for drying! The moonlit night coupled with the clear sky was an amazing sight and I counted more than a dozen shooting stars though I was in no mood to make wishes. Probably I didn’t crave for anything more than what I already had! Our giggles and murmuring were the only sounds in the silent night other than the whoosh of the cool winds. Within minutes we were all asleep owing to the day’s tiring activities.
The early morning rays and some odd guttural sounds of sreenath cleansing his throat woke me up though I would have preferred another hour of bliss. Since the desert is devoid of trees or tall shrubs, one needs deftness in completing the morning ablutions. Off I went in search of some privacy, armed with a roll of paper I had whacked from Rang mahal in Jaisalmer and a bottle of mineral water. A few hundred paces further, I thought I could mark my territory when I saw sreenath in the distance. A euphemistic hello later, I walked on to explore greener pastures. Finally I found one where no person had dared and could squat in peace though the innumerous flies were a menace. By the next half-hour, all of us had marked our own territories and we had to pack up fast so that we could be in time in jaisalmer to catch the bus to Udaipur. I was actually looking forward to ride the camels today since the groin pains had subsided though the girls thought of it as an ordeal. Breakfast was boiled eggs, toasted bread and jam, some oranges and apples served with hot coffee. I was impressed by Chetana’s care for the environment when she collected all the plastic bottles and sundry wastes strewn by us since the previous day, crushed them and collected them in one of the cartons used to pack the bottles. The guides helped us in burning the litter and our camping ground looked as good as new after this! Gagol was short of a camel and since my camel sonia was too small to carry 2 adults, it was decided that Vandy rides Sonia while Gagol and me share the scary tongue-swallower. But riding Mr.Scary was more comfortable than Sonia simply because I was sitting at a greater height and the rocking was much less. It was arranged that the jeeps, which would drop us back to jaisalmer, would be waiting 3 hours away as the camel trots and therefore we had to make good time with the camels and keep up the rendezvous with the jeeps lest we miss the trip to Udaipur. With Gagol sharing my camel, it wasn’t tough to be in lead and thus maintain a fast tempo for the others to follow. Padma’s young camel was tied to us and she was forced to rock painfully whenever we decided to run. Being at the lead, I missed out on some interesting events like Aruna falling face first onto the sand while the camel got up. It was hilarious to just listen to BaapaNNi’s version of the incident and I could imagine the humour if I had seen it happen! The return path took us through more villages or rather clusters of huts and flattened land which would serve as farming pastures once the rains came. Gagol explained what sort of vegetables would be grown during what seasons and the way the desert people lived. Limited by his little knowledge of English and Hindi, he could still infuse a clear picture of living in the desert. For him, there were only 3 kinds of people; Indians, foreigners and rajasthanis. I found it hard to convince him that though we came from a place situated more than a thousand miles away from his place, we still belonged to the same country! But somehow he was convinced that we weren’t foreigners, but Indians. He sang the mamool song quite tunefully whenever I asked him to sing some rajasthani song. The marwadi lyrics were hard to follow and I could never karaoke with him despite my best efforts. Some bollywood tunes too were familiar to him though his lyrics were way off the mark. These popular songs sung in the throaty rajasthani folklore style were funny to the ear though! We had a small bio-break an hour into the ride, which had us peeing in the open since the place where we stopped had absolutely no cover literally! According to our guides, the rendezvous was another couple of hours away on camel. We resumed the safari determined to make it faster than the guides’ prediction so that we could rest our sore limbs before hopping onto the comforts of the capsuled body bus! Gagol showed an old building and explained that it was a hotel! I found it hard to fathom why anybody would want to build a hotel here since there was absolutely no habitation or water sources around it! All that was visible were a pair of tyre tracks leading from nowhere to the building. The landscape consisted of mainly craggy fixed dunes now and I had the first sighting of wild life in the desert! A chinkara bounded within 50 feet from our camels! Since Gagol and I, together with Padma were in the lead, we had a closer look at the antelope, which bounded off at high speed across the terrain. We were all excited by this sighting and the next half-hour saw us discussing about wildlife sightings prior to this trip. Gagol was surprised that Vandy and me weren’t related though we were travelling together! Such things were unthinkable in rajasthan! He explained that he was married at the age of fifteen to a girl from the neighbouring village who was just two years old! He was now 18 while the girl would be five. Ofcourse, he had never seen his wife after the marriage! They would be united once the girl turns 15 and he also informed that such practices are common among the Muslim population in Rajasthan’s villages while the Hindus were a bit better and married only at the age of 15 for girls and 18 for boys. The fact that atleast bond and Padma in our group were married was probably consoling for him though he showed none of it!
We could now see the clump of trees at a distance where the jeeps would be waiting though Gagol warned me that it was another half-hour of rocking away. The home run was fun since Gagol made the camel run the last couple of hundred metres. Padma and the rest were as usual whining about being made to bounce involuntarily. We had made good time and reached before the jeeps. But I later realised that this was according to plan since our guides wanted to extend their hospitality by serving lunch! The camels were unburdened off their saddles, bundles of razaais etc and let to graze while we collected dry sticks to start a fire for cooking. Some bright spark among us spread some razaais under the cool tree shade so that all of us could rest while the guides cooked. Thick rotis with some spicy curry was for lunch, which I ate with relish though a few refrained from gorging owing to the long bus journey ahead. The jeeps finally arrived just when we were in the middle of an afternoon siesta and the smiling face of sharaf’s brother was peering out from one of the jeeps. Our camel safari had ended. I really missed the camels and was somewhat saddened to leave them behind. I can tell you they had character! A group snap together with all the guides, some camels and the jeep drivers later, we were on our way back to Jaisalmer. The stopovers originally planned on the way had to be skipped since we just had about another 90 minutes for the bus departure. A couple of rooms and toilets were arranged at hotel Samrat by Sharaf so that we could freshen up. It was already 2 days since I had a bath and you needed a good nose to differentiate me from a camel in the dark! But after washing my limbs with soap and water and a lavish spray of Harley Davidson perfume later, I think I smelled more human. Sharaf even arranged for the bus to pick us up just at the hotel’s corner so that we needn’t had to walk all the way to the Hanuman Chauraahe bus-station! Ablutions took about half an hour and after wishing sharaf and his gang a final set of good-byes, we walked till the corner to wait for the bus. The capsuled body luxury bus could be visible at a distance and I could tell that it was no different from any of our shuttle “kemp-dabbas” back in karnataka! As usual our reserved seats were already occupied and we could get them back only after the conductor’s intervention and a lot of haggling. Luggage space too was a problem with the folks travelling with sacks ranging from camel feed probably to candy bars. We squeezed what we could into the luggage hold while the rest of us had to keep their bags under their respective seats. The bus was filled to capacity with tourists comprising a major chunk of the crowd. The 2 Europeans I had heard speaking Hindi near Rang Mahal the previous day were part of the crowd too. Thankfully there was ample leg space for me to stretch out though the bus made a lot of noise while travelling. Chetana and me offered to share our seats with another lady who was finding it tough to balance herself while the bus jerkily moved forward. While conversing with her, I realised that she was one of the descendents from the Patwon ki haweli clan! I felt a sense of pride to share my seat with royal blood! She was quite talkative despite the fact that we hardly understood her fast paced marwadi. Her expressive actions helped me a bit in fathoming her words though. We learnt that she was travelling to the next village to buy fodder for her cattle and a lot of her relatives were travelling with her on the bus(she pointed out some folks around). We had traveled for close to an hour when there was a loud bang! One of the bus’ tyres had been ruptured and that meant another hour’s delay! Having nothing to do, we decided to explore the wild country where we were stuck. I chased a pair of wild camels and managed to click a photograph of them while the rest of the crowd ambled around without direction. Sometime later, the ruptured tyre was replaced temporarily with a spare and the journey resumed. The next stop was at the next town since the tyres had to be repaired. Our royal mate invited Chetana and me to visit a nearby temple while the tyre was repaired for which we readily agreed! I was a bit apprehensive though since I didn’t want to miss the bus and get stuck miles away from home! But since Chetana, our royal mate and her friend Kamala were already heading towards the temple, I followed suit. It was a typical rajasthani village with mud huts painted with floral designs etc and the temple was just a tomb of some ancestral saint. Kamala had bought some sugar crystals to be offered to the lord and we lit some lamps too at the temple. We ran back towards the bus after this after posing with some village kids together with our royal friends. The bus was almost ready and we resumed our journey. There was a stopover for dinner at one of the roadside joints where the food wasn’t too bad though the less said about the toilets, the better! I had the fright of my life some time later when I realised that I had left behind my pouch containing a Swiss army knife, a pair of binoculars, and a lot of cash behind at the hotel! The next few minutes saw me frantically searching ways of retrieving the pouch from the hotel’s toilet where I was sure I had left it. For some strange reason, Bond and his wife were giggling while I was almost perspiring with fear! Padma had used the toilet after me and remembered to get back the pouch! Huh…I was relieved and thanked her profusely for her presence of mind and faithfully slept the rest of the journey, which was uneventful except for a fight between one of the passengers and the crew for reasons unknown. The hoarse shouting of the conductor rudely awakened us when the bus reached Udaipur at the early hours of Saturday. The hordes of rickshaw and taxi drivers, hotel agents etc were waiting faithfully here too! With a bit of haggling, we hired 4 autos to take us around some hotels. Srini had recommended the Hariyali palace that was fully booked to our dismay! We chose to go to the jagdish temple area recommended by sharaf from Jaisalmer, which supposedly had a lot of good cheap hotels. Hotel Ratan Mahal was the first place we checked out which was just a few metres away from the temple. The magnificient view of the lake palace at a distance from the terrace and the spacious toilets at this hotel convinced us to dwell here. The friendly host and his Spanish wife helped us decide too, I guess! Rooms cost us 300 for twin sharing and that wasn’t too bad.
Equations worked out that I spend another night with the girls while bond and his wife get a room of their own. I wasn’t complaining! Udaipur is a cramped city and most of the interesting places are around walking distance from the jagdish temple. So, it wasn’t necessary to either hire guides or subscribe to conducted tours. We slept for about 2 hours before the mad rush started for hot water, toilets etc! Rooms were adjacent to each other and thus shared a geyser between them, which made it tough for having simultaneous baths! Me being the bright spark, utilized bond’s bathroom where the water was steaming while most of the jantha shivered in the lukewarm water. The sunrise from the terrace was quite a sight. A few of us had breakfast at the hotel itself, which was overly priced while the rest decided to try out a restaurant at the city centre. Sadly we chose an eatery with a TV installed which prompted BaapaNNi to blare out music or listen to happenings around the world loudly. The rest of the crowd patiently endured the noise till the dishes arrived. The camel safari and the long journey overnight had sapped us of all strength that was distinctly visible while we trudged out of the hotel a couple of hours later. I was somewhat irritated by the waiter’s indifference towards Indian customers(us) while he almost licked other foreign tourists’ behind to earn that extra tip! Ofcourse none of us tipped him. Standing right below it, we managed to embarrass ourselves next by asking directions for the jagdish mandir! Photography and guides were strictly banned within the temple premises though I could see a few guides blatantly advertising themselves while the odd couple cuddled for a snap with the splendid backdrop of the mandir. Free food was being served for the poor and handicapped within the temple for which we made a small contribution. A small boy who claimed that he was in dire need of money to pay for his college cajoled us to hire him as a guide for a sum of 20/- which we did, neglecting Chetana’s stern look that I was committing something illegal. He prattled on about it’s history for about half an hour and I learnt that it was dedicated to Lord Vishnu and built in 1651 by Maharana Jagat Singh. A few women were chanting hymns and drawing cute pictures on trays of rice probably as an offering to the Lord inside the sanctum sanctorum. The city palace, which was a few minutes walk away from the mandir, was next on the itinerary. It seems a lot of rulers contributed towards building this palace. The later additions have been integrated carefully with the original building that it becomes difficult to believe that the building was not conceived as a whole! The small booklet given by our Ratan Mahal’s host that explained Udaipur’s attractions listed a lot of ‘pols’ and it was beyond me to comprehend what it meant. I later realised that each entrance to the palace was a ‘pol’ or a gate! There was the ‘hati pol’, ‘bada pol’ etc which led to a series of courtyards, overlapping pavilions, terraces, corridors and even hanging gardens on the second floor - a harmonious profusion hard to describe! Since it was nearing closing time(1 p.m.), a few of us almost got locked inside one of the exhibition halls, which narrated the city’s history. There was a museum in the fort too, which displayed the armour of Maharana Pratap and the drums & bugles of some other mewar rulers. Vandy with her colourful sarong posed for a snap at the main entrance(hati pol) which might end up as a huuugge poster in her room someday!
A quick scan at the information booklet and a couple of consultations from some security guards outside the palace convinced us that we could skip the other attractions and instead have a nice siesta at the hotel. So, off we went in search of a good hotel for food and chose one which advertised good food and screening of the ‘Octopussy’ movie shot at Udaipur! I got to have the best oil-free dhal and rotis at this hotel and the others were content with the quality of food served. It was late afternoon before we finally hit the sack at the hotel promising ourselves that we’ll be up and ready before the sun went down. We were fortunate to wake up just before sunset and it was quite a sight to see that from our balcony – the reason why we paid for! The girls and Bond’s family chose to spend the evening shopping while we preferred to check out other attractions which we might have missed out. Mothi magri was a nice spot according to our booklet and that was where we headed hiring some opportunist auto drivers who made a few extra rupees at our expense since we were in a hurry to reach before the place shut for the day! Mothi magri is a small hill on the outskirts of the city atop which is erected an equestrian bronze statue of the Maharana Pratap, who is almost considered sacred amongst the local population. We had about an hour to grope in the unlit pathway leading to the top and climb down. Sreenath narrated Rana Pratap’s history; his battles with emperor Akbar; his favourite horse, chetak etc which had us engrossed during the climb. We were the only people at the top and Udaipur at night was quite a sight from there! A couple of snaps later, we were on our way back since it was past closing time for the park. Sreenath had more to tell us on the way back about the Maharana’s exploits and we felt historically enlightened! It was late evening and to our disbelief found no string of autos parked outside except for this cooll stud, immaculately dressed in red shirt, black leather jacket with matching black pants and black boots leaning on his sparkling auto! Having endured the opportunist drivers earlier, I was skeptical on hiring this lone ranger who might charge heavily. But I was pleasantly surprised when he offered to ferry all six of us for a reasonable amount. He even offered to spend the rest of the evening with us till we were done with all the remaining chores like booking tickets to Mt. Abu, shopping, roadside munching etc! His hilarious prattling had us all rolling in what little space we had inside the auto throughout the rest of the evening. He had a witty remark for every landmark in the city like once he pointed towards a vacant park and said that’s the place where one can stay for free for as many nights as preferred. A few moments later we realised that it was the city graveyard! We checked out the RTDC outlet on Chetana’s insistence, which supposedly sold tickets for Mt. Abu but realised that their buses take about 6 to 7 hours for the 160 km journey! We decided to book through other local dealers who plied luxury buses, tempos and what not.
Our auto driver offered to take us to some government shop next, which sold traditional Rajasthani articles at a reasonable price for which we readily agreed. He refused to accompany us into the shop in spite of my repeated pleas though! This shop had everything from rustic jewellery to razaais in all shades and colours. All of us hoarded razaais, dresses etc which were conveniently parceled back to Bangalore for a small fee while a few bought jewellery too since this was the last shopping sojourn in Rajasthan!
Vandy’s persistence in trying out the popular ‘rabdi’ sweet led us to a local roadside stall. I stood staring at the stray dogs and other things of interest as usual while the crowd gorged at the luscious rabdi. My persistence in buying Bikaneri bhujia led us next to another shop each one of us bought a packet owing to mob mentality. Our next stop was the sai baba travels which was apparently the main agency dealing with transport between Udaipur and Mt.Abu. But all buses had been fully booked sadly and the guy at the counter suggested we hire a 14 seater mini-bus and pay a little more than the usual bus ticket. After much haggling with the price, we managed to reduce it to almost the price of the usual bus ticket and closed the deal. The bus was to pick us up from the Jagdish temple square the next day morning. The auto dropped us back at the hotel and I could say we had the one of the best evenings with our witty driver! All of us posed for a photo with him and his auto and wholeheartedly tipped him 3 times than what we had bargained for earlier! After a dinner of fruits and some chocolates, we slept soundly, oblivious of either the cold or the pestering mosquitoes, owing to the tiredness. A tata sumo was waiting at our hotel’s entrance right on time the next morning and we were made to believe that this would serve as a pick-up van till the travel office where the mini-bus would be waiting. A few seconds into the journey enlightened us that we were swindled and the 11 of us had to endure 160 kms of curving ghats in the cramped Sumo. We were wild and ordered the sumo driver to take us back to the travel office and what followed was a furious fight between me and the guy with whom we had booked tickets the previous night. BaapaNNi and Chetana joined me and abuses were hurled left, right and centre by us (though I don’t think we meant them!). We managed to hire ourselves another ambassador together with the Sumo we already had, for the same price finally. Compared to the mini-bus, I suppose we made a better deal now since we could traverse the sharp curves of the Aravali ranges much faster with these small vehicles! Bond and the girls went with the Ambassador while the rest of us occupied the Sumo. We had some anxious moments on the way when BaapaNNi suddenly felt that his bag was missing from the bunch of bags tied on top of the Sumo. He later found that his bag was always safely under the seats and never tied on top! 4 hours of driving coupled with an hour’s break for brunch midway later, we were climbing the last few kms to Mt.Abu’s peak. The panoramic view had us all glued towards the windows for the rest of the journey. At the summit town, we hired a couple of cars to roam around the attractions, including the popular Dilwara temples, and finally drop us off at ABU road junction from where we were to catch the train to mumbai later in the evening. The first stop was at the temples, located about 4 km from the city centre. The Jains are known for their extreme asceticism and vow of ahimsa. They take it to such an extreme that Jain monks wear surgical like masks so as to not breathe in bugs, and have these little brushs to brush the street in front of them, to prevent squashing bugs. Little do they know, inside we're all highly potent bacteria killing machines. Boards of “no pictures”, “touching of the opposite sex, arm in arm, or arm around waist strictly forbidden” etc could be spotted around the entrance of the temples. I'm not sure how people breaking the rules would suffer! There are five separate temples in the complex, two of which are the main attractions. Inside both of these two temples, the entire insides are covered with white marble carvings in every conceivable square inch! Mouth agape, I stood for minutes staring at the intricate designs on these walls. The topless females on some of the pillars too had my fair bit of attention! Hunger forced us to seek out hawkers outside the temple selling juicy pomegranate seeds and spicy sprouts for 10/- a plate. A slightly stout person experienced dejavu and claimed to know me from some previous meeting. He spoke Kannada and in spite of our combined compilation of contacts in Bangalore, none of us could place him. He was a doctor who practiced at Hesarghatta near Bangalore and somehow found me to be familiar though he too was unable to place me. But it felt good to converse with somebody from down under in my native tongue! We then drove to a temple, which apparently has lord Shiva’s big toe (a multi-coloured stone) embedded in a small water hole, which never runs out of water! The absence of the usual linga makes it more unique. There was a long queue to view the miraculous hole and we hardly got a couple of minutes at the sanctum sanctorum owing to the surging crowds behind us. A Pundit anointed the devotees’ forehead with vermilion towards the exit after assuring himself that eachone chanted ‘Shanker’s’ name every morning. The next stop was at Adhar devi temple atop a hill. Chetana and I raced towards the top with 500/- as the wager and I beat her by a mile at least! The temple itself is carved out of a rock and we had to literally crawl to get inside. A freak sadhu with matted hair and hardly any clothes on him, who spoke good Hindi and English, explained the significance of the temple and the presiding deity to us inside. The town of Mt Abu was quite a sight from up above! A few snaps later, we ran down as fast as possible in order to be reach the ‘sunset’ point before the sun set. Now, this was a happening place with the typical carnival atmosphere of souvenir sellers, hawkers and pony rides and hundreds of people occupying every crevice on the mountains to get the best possible view of something which happens everyday! The photo albums of previous sunsets displayed by hawkers, as examples, were quite funny with glamorous couples in all poses with the sun setting in the background. Chetana and me occupied one of the better crevices and waited patiently with our cameras focused westwards. Me with my up-market Canon EOS 300 and she with her piddly little ‘all-weather’ Olympus! The remaining jantha chose to fill up a constructed viewpoint a few metres below from where we were holed. The incessant murmuring of the carnival crowd around us tapered to silence once the spectacle started and I could see quite a few mouths agape! The whole show lasted hardly a minute and while walking down, we climbed on to a small hill, which housed a Hanuman temple too, to watch the impressive full moon. Since this small plateau on top was devoid of any monuments, I found it tough to balance my ‘up-market’ camera in the timer mode to capture the spectacle. Needless to say, that particular snap isn’t worth mentioning! It was late in the evening already and we thought it wise to start our journey to Abu road to catch the train back to Mumbai. The drive took about an hour and we hardly had another half-hour for the train to depart. After paying the cab drivers, we rushed into the station only to find that our train was delayed by an hour! For this journey, our tickets weren’t yet confirmed and so, we were a bit apprehensive. Sreenath got them confirmed and we decided to have dinner at a nearby hotel suggested by our cab driver. But owing to lack of time, packed food was preferred to eating at the hotel. A stray cow entertained us on the platform when it munched on the fruits bought by Vandy. No amount of shoving, pushing and swearing from us deterred it from biting off a mouthful! I bought a packet of biscuits for a friendly stray dog that stuck on to me till the train arrived! 90 minutes after the scheduled departure timings, we trudged out from Abu road’s platform towards Mumbai, the final stopover before flying back to Bangalore. This final tryst with the Indian Railways was thankfully uneventful and I snugly slept in my sleeping bag till daybreak before being rudely awakened by the hawkers for the last time. I chose to spend a day at my uncle’s place at Mumbai while the rest opted to fly back home; Shubhangi being an exception since Mumbai was ‘home’ to her!
Postscript:
Rajasthan’s culture contains so many contradictions that it defies easy conclusions. Apparently wealthy, yet with obvious poverty, so strongly spiritual yet so deeply corrupt -- smiles in adversity! The association with the camels and their owners somewhat humbled me, inspired me and left me with a feeling of inadequacy.
Shubhangi, Roopa, Aruna, Kantry(Srikanth), BaapaNNi(Raghavendra), Bond(Raghavendra), Padma, Chetana, Vandy(Vandana), Sreenath and me made up the crowd.
Circa 21st Dec – 31st Dec 2001.
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