Mission Pondicherry …

After a long planning and little preparation, we were all set to start off another voyage and this time the destination was Pondicherry. However, unlike previous trips, there was no big group and Vikram was the only one to accompany me. Reaching late night at the bus stand, we decided to book an accommodation before dining and managed to find a room, I would say not very decent, in a nearby hotel. Exhausted, we called day off and fell asleep, undecided about the next days plan.

Day 1
Refreshed by the sound sleep, we got ready in no time to commence our Mission Pondicherry. Energized by the breakfast, we went in search of a bike rental and with in an hour, we were riding a Hero Honda Passion that had just reached the 65K mark. Auroville was chosen to be the first place and it took us 45 minutes to reach the milestone. Auroville is famous for its rich history and is home to 1800 people from 35 different countries. It was fun watching French and English riding Indian Mopeds and bicycles. As peaceful as can be, it was an amazing site engulfing a society with no dominant caste or religion. Another famous landmark at the place was Matri Mandir, a dome shaped structure providing an ideal ambience for meditation. Thereafter, we returned back to the city to fill our stomach and had a satiating lunch. As food settled down, we recovered our power and headed for the Auro beach which is one of the biggest beaches in Pondicherry with a coastline ranging from 1.5-2 km in length. We were soon to be found submerged in water playing with high tides and waves, diving, leaping, swimming, jumping and having fun in all ways we could. Tired after a while, we relaxed at the beach, dried ourselves and commenced back to the city for the more exciting part. It was evening already and the sun was to set as we bought a few cans of beer and set off for the Pondicherry beach which is now covered with hefty boulders and stones. We found a good place to settle there and ended our day sipping beer on the rocks (lying on the rocks ;)) chilling out in the warm night.

Day2
Sunday morning was an ideal time to visit the Aurobindo Ashram and an auspicious way to begin the day. After few hiccups, we found the way to the Ashram and took a stroll inside to witness the historical place where Swami Aurobindo spent the golden years of his life. The Ashram was not as big as I thought but it offered a serene and peaceful ambience that set the tone for the day. Done with self realization, we headed to our next and final destination - the backwater of Pondicherry which was another astonishing site. A short boat journey through a river took us to a small island that separated the river from the sea. The beach at the island was something I could not take my eyes off of. India surely has very few of such clear beaches to offer. Walking alongside the beach we reached the point where the river was draining into the sea through a narrow channel. It was a picturesque view, something I had never seen before. We spent sometime collecting varieties of oyster shells as our souvenirs from the place. Unfortunately, the weather was extremely hot and we had to find a place under a shed in wait of the boat to drop us back to the other side of the river. It was time to go back to the city for lunch and we could not resist taking a nap at the hotel after being imbued with a hefty North Indian Thali. After helping India to register a win against the West Indies in the 1st one day, we left our room again to fulfill the rituals. We opened the beer cans again, and cheered for the beautiful evening sitting and sipping beside the gigantic body of water celebrating the end of another breathtaking trip.

The 5K Marathon ...

Another Sunday.. eh! Getting bored now. Can you imagine waking up on a Sunday morning at 6:30? You would probably think it as insane rather than an audacious deed. Well, I was insane enough to wake up early morning today after sleeping late the previous night cutting short my dreams of last day’s paratha’s and idly/Sambar. The reason behind was a 5K marathon race (at least called so) at 8:00 AM held as part of the event of Northwestern Mutual’s 126^th Annual FR meet.

Four of us (Tammy, Suni, Veer Vikram and great me) reached there in time to be a part of this electrifying event. I was thrilled to find such enormous gathering of people dashing slowly towards the starting lane. Wisconsin Ave, which can accommodate two Indian highways side by side, had no space uncovered. It was dot 8:00 AM when the whistle blew off and the race commenced. Veer Vikram was no where to be seen after 4-5 min of the start as he accelerated beyond our vision, by then. He probably was under a misconception that he could lift the trophy. We three kept our tortoise pace as we all knew the story unlike Vikram. Soon we were running at half the speeds we started with as the Sun was not ready to keep its rays behind the Clouds. The crowd seemed exhausted in the midst of the race and so were we. Next few minutes were tough as we gasped to keep the flow of air inside our body for our organs to work normally. As time passed, Tammy also disappeared and I was left with Sunish whose head was spinning by now (as he says). After a short walk of 3-5 sec, we regained our pace and made a move. Decided to leave everyone behind (only mygroup..he he), I recollected my resilience, and ran hard to reach the finish line. My happiness had no bounds when I stepped on the finish line heading straight for the refreshments. None of us completed the race together, so I have a reason to assume that I came first :).

This was my first race of its kind and I had a great (read as tough) time running for it. I hope, everyone else enjoyed as much as I did.

Beating the heat...

What a lovely day outside … It’s raining cats and dogs. Looks like the God of Rain “Indra” is in high spirits today and one reason I think of is that he was able to convince some Apsara for Date. For whatever reason, it’s indeed a nice way to beat the heat and at the same time defeating our plans of Tennis. But I have no regrets after witnessing the miraculous showers from our balcony …wow.. an amazing sight !!!

Gang's day out !!

Like other ones earlier, this trip also started with uncertainty of which all are going, where to stay, what to see/do and I myself wasn’t sure or rather willing to go. But believe me, the fascination force of such trips is so immense that lesser mortal beings like me are pulled with as much force as a pin by a powerful magnet.

So we started on to create another history. This time the primary motives were water sports and camping, things I never tried before in the US. Wisconsin Dells, the land of great roller coasters and water parks, is just 2 hrs from Milwaukee, a trip which we covered in just 1 hr 55 min with slight over speeding as Sambie, our driver, couldn’t keep track of the speedometer without specs. After roaming in and around Dells, seeking and collating information about the place and its attractions, we decided to go for Jet Skiing. It took us an hour and assistance from an information centre to track down the way to Holiday Shores, our first destination. With time ticking 12 O clock on most of our faces looking at the fearful ride, we finally prepared our minds and bought tickets for Jet Skiing. Being more adventurous, the three of us (myself, Vikram and Shilpi) formed a group for the 3 seater Jet Ski, as we wouldn’t have attained a higher speed on the other one that carried the other four (Tammy, Pratish, Sambie and Rashmi). As we shot on our Ferrari, I found the controls difficult in the beginning but pouring in more skills, I was able to master the technique. Soon we were flying in the air at a speed of 45 with the rear of boat barely touching the water, when I lost the balance trying a turn and the titanic toppled. There we were in the midst of Lake Delton immersed in water hanging on to our boat shouting for our lives. After being ignored by our other gang members, we managed to attract the attention of a Mexican (not sure) family which helped us by pulling us in their boat and helping us turning back our ski boat. I am not sure whether it was for good, but I really enjoyed driving my Ferrari alone with better control for another 15 min on full throttle while my other team members were dropped back at the shore by our rescuers. Huh, it wasn’t as easy as driving a bike I thought earlier.

Once we were through, we went to Upper Dells for another ride on Wildthing (a 1500 BHP wild motor boat) after having a satisfying lunch, but ended up taking a Dells Ducks ride which was worth what we didn’t pay forJ. Then came the turn of Wildthing which was another great boat ride providing us enough twists and turns though not exceeding our expectations but easily meeting them. I would give it a B+ in appraisal.

Now was the turn of camping and after inspecting our camp site, we easily jotted down the list of missing inventories. So, myself and Vikram went out hunting them while the remaining group decided to stay back to assemble the tent and make other arrangements. Man!! We lost our way and it took us more than 2 hrs and lot of patience to track down the way to Walmart. Vikram really had a tough day with me and I hope he wasn’t pissed off as much as he seemed to be. All is well that ends well and we felt a strange victory after we bought the inventories. On our way back to our campsite we discussed our strengths/weaknesses and human psychology in general. I am pretty sure after our discussion; life wouldn’t be better had all the controls being given to him. After returning to the campsite, I was astounded by the ability of our gang to put together such a huge tent without flaw. However, my surprise diluted a bit when learnt that a boy next door explained them the methodology. Since, we were left with little time to indulge ourselves into the elaborate camping activities; we left them for the next night. We survived on grilled Boca burgers and guys were better off as the Beer reduced the sense of hunger in them. Few minutes of chatting and we all were lying inside the tent with eyes closed but mouths open, discussing the incidents of the day and some hilarious talks that induced some high pitch laughter before we all fell asleep. This marked the end of Day one.

Then arrived the dawn, and we all were surprised by PP's capability to seal his mouth through out the night not letting a word slip out of him. As usual, the guys left the bed early and ended up waiting for girls to start another grand voyage. Today’s destination was Noah’s Ark, the largest water park in US. We reached there well in time, bought the tickets and boarded the entrance after I left my other pair of eyes in the van.

After taking a plunge in “Big Kahuna”, We broke the ice with “Black Thunder” which wasn’t as scary as I thought. We repeated the ride to strengthen our confidences for the bigger challenges. Our next rides, “Bermuda triangle” and “Congo Bongo”, proved just to be of my kind: In other words, the least adventurous for others. With greater confidence, we moved to our next ride, “Sting Ray” that scared the hell out of me when I measured the trigonometric figures of the ride. It took us 15 minutes and an ocean full of courage to reach the top. With shivering body and shaking legs, I boarded the tube and there it went from 0-60 in no time. Pheww.. my eyes closed again reluctant to view the horrifying sight. With the ride coming to stop, my heart started to beat again. Thereafter, none of us was able to further control our hunger and with rats replacing butterflies, we were all set for a heavy lunch. Followed by nachos, cheese balls and French fries, hefty slices of Cheese Pizza made their way through our Esophagus to finally settle in our stomach. With everyone imbued, there was no other ride more relaxing than Adventure River, and so we all settled on our tubes to enjoy the adventure of comfort. Half hour later, we regained our power and made a move to the most terrifying ride “Point of no return”. The name was a perfect analogy to ride and I wonder what made us reverse our decision from a NO GO to a GO. Soon, we were at the top, height being no less than a 12 storied building with sliding tube at an angle greater than 60 degrees on the floor, that can scare the bravest. Captain Vikram led the crew and set an example for all of us to follow by slowly dragging himself to reach the point of no return. Soon it was my turn and I closed my eyes again to avoid any kind of exposure to the dreadful scenes. Three seconds of free fall and 2 skips of heartbeat took me down to the point where I could indeed return. For next few minutes, I was the bravest man in the whole universe before we neared our next ride Flash Flood. After few mind-blowing showers, we settled in the ride and this time, I was courageous enough not to close my eyes. With a substantial wait time, we took our final ride of the day “Black Anaconda”, another scary one but not for me anymore. After deciding to call off the rides, we went for another round of adventure at the Adventure River and this time it was even more fun.

After taking showers and changing clothes, and a nice photo/video session, we headed back to our Camp ground with enough time remaining to carry out activities left over from the other day. I undertook the task of lighting camp fire and dispensed more efforts than required to complete the task. Continuing the trend, Shilpi, our head chef was all set to grill corn while Tammy and Rashmi were busy chopping the onions and capsicum and marinating them. Light music and beer; what else was required to decorate the beautiful evening? My idea of “Paneer Tikka” proved to be a great hit and won appreciations from the entire group. Boca burgers filled the remaining spaces of our stomach and Pratish’s dream of eating Maggie remained a dream until he slept. We didn’t do much after that except a bit of dancing, few photo sessions and reprimanding Pratish for not having a good collection of songs. All of us slept thereafter with a better sleep than night before, as everyone was still enjoying the oscillations of the Adventure River. And here we ended our Day 2.

There is not much to write about day 3. The only good thing happened to us that day was skipping the rides of Mt Olympus.

And there we were on the road again heading back to Milwaukee…

Orkuting - the latest time pass in town !!

I don’t know about its origin or when was it launched, but it has indeed become a favorite time pass and I guess consumes at least an hour a day of all my friends having a profile there. Well, I find it a good medium to remain in touch with my friends and find others long forgotten. We all have the ability and courage to write what we know is difficult for us to articulate, reason being hesitation, fear or several others. But, have we ever seen the other side of the grass. Putting fake pictures, copying profiles, posing a theft to your identity and using one's information viciously can be devastating and boosts up what we call the Cyber Crime. Not to name or blame anyone, I know a few who were being deceived by the fascinating profiles, ending up in meeting a stranger which turned out to be a total fiasco. I am not sure, what are the chances of a perfect stranger being trustworthy.

However, not to be passive, there are several encouraging attributes of such portals. Who likes to write emails searching for Ids lost with a paper torn out to wipe the water on the table? Finding people is easy and dropping them a scrap is all you need to remain in touch. Joining communities of your interest, connecting to your school and college groups, providing help to the needy and involving yourself in several social activities are few of the vast aspects of such portals. With such mesmerizing facets, it is hard to think of the hazards and one can easily fall a victim or should I say, become a part of this social circle.

Ambition

Every now n then,I am chased by thoughts where do I stand today. Have I done even a bit to get close to what I aspired for. Then, I try to trace back and recall what my ambitions were and all I see are the thick clouds behind which they are hidden somewhere, unperceivable. Yes, this is true for 99% of us and that 1% makes all difference.

Delving deep inside my heart,
Anticipating a contended start,
Commencing a voyage, ready to depart,
in hope to hit a bulls eye on the dart..

Welcoming the thorns on my way,
Determined to progress than to stay,
Remain on track and not just stray,
Prevent my hair from becoming grey..

I can see a shimmer slicing the dark,
A ray of trust, a scintillating sparK,
Striving high to reach that benchmark,
Driving to destination with no midway park..

Blogs.. my 1st one !!

Sometimes, a thought crosses my mind that all my friends are blogging and I am not. Then I start feeling as to what is so interesting about it that people take highly precious time out of their busy lives to write. So, with an intention to find that answer, I pushed myself to step in this world of blogging. I assume, this is one efficient way to exhibit your view points and your way of leading the life. And with this thought, I am posting my first blog ever. For a person like me, it is difficult to sit, write and post something on web other than emails or replies on messenger and so I hope, this trend continues ...