New-found interest in blogging :)

I am still amazed at the time I spend on blogspot these days. I had my tests since 12th but still, I was visiting people's blogs(most of them random ones) religiously. Obviously, it took a toll(and a HEAVY one, I'm sure) on the tests, but now I CARE TWO HOOTS about marks. It all started about a fortnight ago, when I was scrapped randomly by a Anadi to attend a pre-event to the Manipal Blogger's Meet. It all started from there and then I went through to his blog itself, thinking, "Let me check if he himself is interested or not."(hehe.. sorry for that thought, man!).

It was then that this addiction started, as I found links to a lot of blogs on his page and, I must confess, most of them were really good. Today, I finally got rid of my exams(not that I was killing myself studying all this while but still...) and the first thing I did was to Blogroll the people I always wanted to, add a few gadgets to my blog and thought that this GRAND ocaasion(coz I've spent more than an hour on my own blog for the first time) DEMANDED a post so, here I am!

Thanks to my readers who've recently started visiting and the one and only who has stuck on all this while, even if I wasn't posting( Thanks a lot, Carra for the patience). Would try to keep it updated from time to time now.

ATTENTION Please comment whenever you read any of my posts so that I know that people are still visiting it.

P.S. This post was completely a random one so I apologise for the lack of sensible content!!

Kudlu Trip

As always, its been quite a while since I posted here. But, unlike all other occasions, I've had plenty to write about all this while.Will try to include the interesting bits here and keep the not-so-interesting byes out!


March 21:Trip to Kudlu Falls
It was a typical lazy MIT Sunday, i.e. you don't have anything to do apart from the tiny bit of lab work, no assignments, sessionals far faaaar away, and I was glued to online yahoo chess when Sagar barged into the room and ordered," Jayant, get ready, we're leaving for Kudlu Falls in half an hour."

My initial reaction was," Forget it! Someone or the other will say NO and the whole excitement will die sooner than it had been generated." I didn't utter any of these words to him, as something in his enthusiasm told me that this plan was going to be successful and, as he revealed microseconds later, "All are ready, we've to leave asap".

Soon enough, the five good men( Myself, Omveer, Sagar, APS and Anubhav) were on our way to Hebri and about two hours (and 8 bananas :) ) later, I found myself facing a taxi driver and Omveer negotiating with him. He was trying to explain to him how it will serve the 5 of us well if he brought his initial demand of Rs 600 down to 500. Finally he obliged and we set off for a (supposedly) 45- min drive to Kudlu. This was the time when the Devil in Omveer's mind spoke out:

"How about a night stay there? We can arrange for tents and all. It'll be exciting, wudn't it?"
"Wow!!!" Chuckled APS with unprecedented joy, which was quite a contrast to Anubhav (and to an extent, mine) reaction.
However, none of us objected and we drove to the Ranger's office, where they book tents in advance.

"NO GIRLS IN TENTS, OK?? Manipal has a bad reputation here." was the Rangers initial monologue upon knowing our college's name.
We all laughed his warning off and told each other, "How we wish we could join that club!" However, we had been passed eligible to stay there but then came the problem.He had only one tent left, and it could house two, at the max 3 ppl.

Even before we could start thinking of a solution, the exicted Jaat spoke out," Koi ni yaar, shift wise reh lenge. Sone thode hi na aaye hain". He had reached an agreement with the ranger, wherein he'd charge us the normal Rs 400 for the tent and half that amt for each extra person, making it Rs 1000. A bit more drama followed but finally it was a deal. We were supposed to stay there at night, once we came back from Kudlu.

Our taxi driver rushed us to the falls and it was 3pm when we got off the taxi(as it couldn't go any further) and set off on a 4km ordeal, with the kind taxi driver somehow agreeing to accompany us. at 3.30 he left us, saying," yeh raastha sidha chale jao.1 Km aur hai." Our requests of him accompanying us all the way through turned futile and we marched on.
at 4pm, we were supposed to be bathing in the falls but here we were, wriggling our way through the jungle, judging the right way, then realising 10 mins later that we were on the wrong way(as we had encountered a dead end), turning back, taking another way and the same story repeated. The supposedly "BEST TREKKER" amongst us, SAGAR, was the most bruised, slipping a few times and losing balance( and with it his cap :P). Add to all this the fact that all of us had changed to shorts due to the rain and we found leeches stuck to our legs every few minutes.(I still can't believe I had touched them with my fingers and pulled them out!!)
At 4.15pm, it was decided that the light was getting worse and going back would be the best decision, as there was always a danger of us losing way again on the return journey, so returning before dusk was always the better option. That was the time when we found few more Manipal-ites going towards the falls and a localite returning from the other side(which meant we were on the right way!).
That gave instant courage and energy to everyone to give it one final dash!We started on the way and reached the falls in 15 mins and had the best of sights awaiting us. All of us agreed that it was worth all the pain(I'm still not convinced on the leeches bit).
Bathing at the foot of a water fall in deafening noise of water hitting the rocks is one of the most amazing experiences you'll ever go through. It all ended well and by the time we came back to the taxi, we were all too tired to dare n stay in the jungle for the night. We decided to put end our trip just the way it had begun: in an unplanned manner!
Boarded the bus back to Manipal where we had Holi awaiting us the next morning..

Days at Dreamland over, time to get back now..

The past month has to be classified as one of the most satisfying and, to an extent, productive vacations I've ever had in my two and a half yrs of engineering life.Looking back,there were several happy things about it that give you a sense of satisfaction... so,if you're still guessing about what its going to be about,let me draw the curtain.... it's about how I spent my month long vacation with my family,here in Delhi.

I came here on 15th dec, welcome by the unpleasant winter of Delhi which I've become so unused-to in the recent years.One big disadvantage of moving to Manipal is that you're so close to the sea all yr round and get so much used to the pleasant weather that even a 10 degree C temp of Delhi seems to be unbearable.However, it got overshadowed as only those people can understand the joy of meeting their family after 5 months who have actually been in that situation... the joy that surpasses all climatic disasters(yes,i called it precisely that,totally unaware that in the days to follow,the double digit tempeature would exist only in the imaginary world!)

Phase one:
It was the happiest and laziest of the times,as I hardly did anything other than being cuddled up in my bed till mid-day,getting up to realise that dad and bhaiya had already left for their respective offices at a time that seemed "night" to me(but later realised that it was around 9am).Sadly,mom had had enough of it and a day or two later,all that motherly love that u crave for in your hostel had started transforming into motherly "care",which resulted in me getting scolded when I "demanded" breakfast at 11am.The answer was simple,"Son,you woke up too late for breakfast and too early for lunch".
I was waiting all these days for two things..one,the beginning of the Cricket Series between India and Australia and two,the only unpleasant part of the holidays, my results...specifically-to find out how much below six my gpa had fallen...more specifially-to find out whether I had flunked in my PSA paper or not(which was a real possibility,given that I had even brought over my books,test papers and all for this subjet)

December 26:The Judgement Day
I went to face the mess and looooong queues of Janakpuri early in the morning with my dad to get a Learners' Driving License done.Was in constant touch with my mates who'd stayed back at college to prepare for their GATE exam,which is due in february!!(as if the screwing fifth sem papers weren't depressing enough)Thankfully, I got a call that contained the great news that I'd cleared the doubtful paper with one grade better than the minimum required,and my gpa had fallen to an all time low,i.e. 5.88(this somehow got overshadowed in the joy of clearing the paper,which was an achievement in itself,given that I had twice scored two on 20 in the internals!)That brought upon a sudden termination to the nightmares of achieving the unwanted feat of flunking for the first time in my life(now come on,don't count my failure in hindi writing as a failure,which was in my 4th standard).

Phase 3:Rising From The Ashes
Now was the time for some serious work.I started learning MATLAB,a very useful tool for engineering students,together with my Inudstrial training,and least expectedly,found a girl there who was JUST ONE YR senior to me.However,I found Erich Segal's novels more interesting than her and that's what I used to do most of the time I spent in Goldwyn India Ltd, Noida,as a trainee.Most of this phase was spent watching Cricket,Surfing the net,meeting a few friends and here I am...after a holiday,more educated on MATLAB,fresh to take on the new semester and wise enough to bury the disappointments of the last yr and looking into the future,i.e. VISION 2008!

Got a train to catch tomorrow and haven't even started on the packing so have to leave before mom dumps my laptop out of the house..