Anita's Anthem
(Best read along with the previous post 'Tam travails')
From Anna Nagar to Mahabalipuram,
From Pondy Bazaar to Vrudhhachalam,
Rajnikanthaku Vanakkam !
May his blessings be on this po(y)em.
"I'm the Sambar Mafia Queen,
I have the Guilty Guindy Gene."
No one in TN is spared this effect,
It matters not what religion, caste or sect;
Short or tall, fat or lean,
All possessed by the ‘Guilty Guindy Gene’.
Training begins right from infancy,
The best vie for admission in PSBB;
Allowed few things that are more fun
than warm coffee and soggy uttappam.
Studious, sincere, all-knowing and righteous,
Often seen as a wee bit pompous,
Accustomed to loads of hard work,
While the rest aimlessly idle and shirk.
The burden of guilt weighs me down,
Lines my brow with a worried frown,
Causes my instincts to revolt and shout -
Any enjoyment trampled in the rout.
Nothing less pious than a visit to the temple.
Nothing motivated by a goal less noble
than doubling the GDP growth rate,
Or finding oneself a well-educated mate.
"I'm the Sambar Mafia Queen,
I have the Guilty Guindy Gene."
By,
Zenobia D. Driver
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Monday, December 19, 2005
Tam Travails
Tam Travails
by, Anita B.
I blame my upbringing in the city of Chennai for my woes today. I am studying (or at least furiously flipping page after page in weighty tomes) for the level 3 CFA exam. It is a three-year course where an exam happens every year. To fully understand what this implies you must see ‘36 Chambers of Shaolin’ - in one grueling test they decide whether to let you go to the next level or not. CFA is highly recommended for every budding investment banker/trader/financial analyst working in the U.S; I am a corporate banker in India. Yet for the last three years I have been indulging myself in an expensive course with no payback visible on the horizon. The only conclusion I have reached is that I am a muggu, a nerd, a geek, a no-life sub-human, a well-brought-up-Tam.
I think the effects of this phenomenon were strengthened when I chose to do commerce instead of science - I had signed up for the course chosen only by losers in Tamil Nadu. Now the rest of my life would be an endless endeavour to set this right. Which meant that when I was filling my admission forms for B Com, I had already gone through the brochures of ICWA, ACS, CA etc so that I could fruitfully spend extra time ‘adding value’ to myself. In my first year, I had finished a certified course from NIIT - to this day, I wonder when I will get to use my strong foundation in DOS. In the beginning of my second year, I had passed my C.A. Foundation course. The whole of second year and most of third year was spent in clearing exams for the C.A. Intermediate course. This could have gone on for an indefinite period of time, had I not started an MBA. There were temptations even then - do I write my C.A. Intermediate and then maybe finish the final after B-School…?. Luckily since enough people had told me that an MBA would be tough enough by itself, I desisted.
After two relatively ‘extra course free’ years, I thought I had finally exorcised the ghost of Madras Muggers (‘mug’ as in study, not ‘mug’ as in steal). In fact, becoming a corporate slave seemed to have been a reasonably good indicator that I had been saved from me and there would be no more attempts at trying to string more degrees to my name.
I was mistaken. One year went by in peace and harmony and at the end of it I had signed up for the ‘U.S Recognised’ CFA course. I once again attacked my books with a vengeance. And realized that I had signed up for another three years of feeling guilty about spending free time on movies or books or dining out (not that it stopped me from doing all the above). And of feeling really noble if I resisted and instead stared at my books while all my worthy compatriots were enjoying themselves.
Again I plunged into the torment of realizing in the nth hour that you still have 50% of the stuff to cram. The resolve to drop out of the course at the end of 1st year no matter whether I passed or failed. The usual pre-exam melodrama.
I passed the first year and in a happy daze had already paid the USD 500 fee for the second year before I could recollect all the trauma of studying the previous year. In fact, by the time I remembered, it was already finals time for the second year. The second year exams too got over in due course of time. Collapsed into a chair outside the exam hall with a worthy co-masochist friend. And listened to some serious soul searching. ‘What is it with us that makes us write more and more exams and collect more degrees even though we are not really getting anything out of it’. Not surprising coming from a guy who was working in Infosys in software and had bid goodbye to finance after just a year. I, of course felt smug in comparison since I was in banking which qualified as ‘finance’. And then he continued ‘I think it must be the tam in us’. How right was he! After all this guy was an engineer, and really by Indian standards he had nothing more to prove. And in all honesty, after an IIM MBA, I could at least state I had reached a bit of an academic pinnacle in India. Yet we were both spending hours making notes on heteroskedascity and delta hedging. Voila! It was not the commerce degree that was propelling me to fall deeper into the pit.
It figures. Any good Tamilian is told that the only way to come up in life is to study hard. A constant background noise throughout childhood on the importance of education had left a deep unerasable scar in our heads. Now there was nothing to do but to study more. Possibly throughout our lives (shudder). My friend took a last drag and said ‘so let me know by when we have to pay the fees for our third level’ and I nodded in understanding.
It is now almost time for level 3. A sense of déjà vu fills me again as I open the portfolio management book. My friend called to say he is definitely going to flunk this year and he can’t understand why he threw away good money on a stupid course etc etc. I listen and agree wholeheartedly and add some good criticism of my own. He is also planning to write his GMAT in October. God save us.
by, Anita B.
I blame my upbringing in the city of Chennai for my woes today. I am studying (or at least furiously flipping page after page in weighty tomes) for the level 3 CFA exam. It is a three-year course where an exam happens every year. To fully understand what this implies you must see ‘36 Chambers of Shaolin’ - in one grueling test they decide whether to let you go to the next level or not. CFA is highly recommended for every budding investment banker/trader/financial analyst working in the U.S; I am a corporate banker in India. Yet for the last three years I have been indulging myself in an expensive course with no payback visible on the horizon. The only conclusion I have reached is that I am a muggu, a nerd, a geek, a no-life sub-human, a well-brought-up-Tam.
I think the effects of this phenomenon were strengthened when I chose to do commerce instead of science - I had signed up for the course chosen only by losers in Tamil Nadu. Now the rest of my life would be an endless endeavour to set this right. Which meant that when I was filling my admission forms for B Com, I had already gone through the brochures of ICWA, ACS, CA etc so that I could fruitfully spend extra time ‘adding value’ to myself. In my first year, I had finished a certified course from NIIT - to this day, I wonder when I will get to use my strong foundation in DOS. In the beginning of my second year, I had passed my C.A. Foundation course. The whole of second year and most of third year was spent in clearing exams for the C.A. Intermediate course. This could have gone on for an indefinite period of time, had I not started an MBA. There were temptations even then - do I write my C.A. Intermediate and then maybe finish the final after B-School…?. Luckily since enough people had told me that an MBA would be tough enough by itself, I desisted.
After two relatively ‘extra course free’ years, I thought I had finally exorcised the ghost of Madras Muggers (‘mug’ as in study, not ‘mug’ as in steal). In fact, becoming a corporate slave seemed to have been a reasonably good indicator that I had been saved from me and there would be no more attempts at trying to string more degrees to my name.
I was mistaken. One year went by in peace and harmony and at the end of it I had signed up for the ‘U.S Recognised’ CFA course. I once again attacked my books with a vengeance. And realized that I had signed up for another three years of feeling guilty about spending free time on movies or books or dining out (not that it stopped me from doing all the above). And of feeling really noble if I resisted and instead stared at my books while all my worthy compatriots were enjoying themselves.
Again I plunged into the torment of realizing in the nth hour that you still have 50% of the stuff to cram. The resolve to drop out of the course at the end of 1st year no matter whether I passed or failed. The usual pre-exam melodrama.
I passed the first year and in a happy daze had already paid the USD 500 fee for the second year before I could recollect all the trauma of studying the previous year. In fact, by the time I remembered, it was already finals time for the second year. The second year exams too got over in due course of time. Collapsed into a chair outside the exam hall with a worthy co-masochist friend. And listened to some serious soul searching. ‘What is it with us that makes us write more and more exams and collect more degrees even though we are not really getting anything out of it’. Not surprising coming from a guy who was working in Infosys in software and had bid goodbye to finance after just a year. I, of course felt smug in comparison since I was in banking which qualified as ‘finance’. And then he continued ‘I think it must be the tam in us’. How right was he! After all this guy was an engineer, and really by Indian standards he had nothing more to prove. And in all honesty, after an IIM MBA, I could at least state I had reached a bit of an academic pinnacle in India. Yet we were both spending hours making notes on heteroskedascity and delta hedging. Voila! It was not the commerce degree that was propelling me to fall deeper into the pit.
It figures. Any good Tamilian is told that the only way to come up in life is to study hard. A constant background noise throughout childhood on the importance of education had left a deep unerasable scar in our heads. Now there was nothing to do but to study more. Possibly throughout our lives (shudder). My friend took a last drag and said ‘so let me know by when we have to pay the fees for our third level’ and I nodded in understanding.
It is now almost time for level 3. A sense of déjà vu fills me again as I open the portfolio management book. My friend called to say he is definitely going to flunk this year and he can’t understand why he threw away good money on a stupid course etc etc. I listen and agree wholeheartedly and add some good criticism of my own. He is also planning to write his GMAT in October. God save us.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Unnatural Selection
Unnatural Selection
by, Vaibhav Rajan
Sometime between 1935 and 1995, a man lost a significant amount of blood-flow to his head – blood that was directed south. It is worth considering the beauty of a system that is designed to produce the human brain, and a mechanism to override it, or even that it needed to be overridden. The smarter you are, the harder your brain fights, the longer you resist the urge. This gives us three conclusions: firstly, it is no wonder you find yourself surrounded by idiots. Secondly, it’s no wonder those idiots get laid a lot more often than you. And finally, you should always remember that you were conceived despite better judgement.
In the 1960s something called the Gaia Hypothesis was suggested by someone known as James Lovelock. The natural order of things seems to prevail on account of exactly that - a natural order. His idea was based on feedbacks, but on a more localized level, it's the all-permeating desire to live.
Why the heck do living things insist on wanting to live? A force surges through the biosphere, through the ages, through the cells and membranes and tissues and fights to be. Simply that - to live. Why there is life, or species, or organisms, is not the point of this. The fact that there is life, and there are species, is. The average organism doesn't provide a heck of a lot of productive results for an ecosystem. A species, on the other hand, covers a lot of land, breathes a lot of air, eats a lot of food and is generally responsible for eating of, as well as being eaten by, several other species. A species dies if the organisms don't procreate. Hence, the urge to fuck. Even if it means having your head ripped off and eaten (as is done by certain species of spiders and my ex-girlfriend).
Unfortunately for humans, we sorta kinda maybe enjoy the species-propagation-mechanism (SPM). With all the head-ripping, she was still dynamite in bed, you know. We have evolved, for some reasons, to enjoy the M enough to want to do it without wanting to actually follow-up with the SP part. Nature comes up with these brilliant ways for every species to make idiots out of themselves trying to make babies, and here we are, complex as hell and relying on that idiot-making-mechanism perfected over 3 billion years so we can have sex and not make babies.
I digress. Essentially, natural selection then plays the key role in defining relationships, one-night-stands and head-ripping-extravaganzas (unless you're in Germany, in which case you can order one online). And natural selection, in my humble opinon, sucks balls.
You see, it is blind. It isn't about beneficial adaptations, and it isn't about making things smarter or smaller or stronger or anything of that sort. It isn't even an active force. It's a passive mechanism - it happens, it doesn't do. Here is how it happens: Horny chick across the street smiles at you. You lose blood flow to the head and blink like an idiot. Truck hits you in the face. Another idiot who has genetic horny-chick-alert-system disorder (otherwise known as effective blindness) just crosses the street. Horny chick goes for him. A new generation of HCASD kids arrive. We are left asking: why the fuck didn’t the chick just cross the road herself?
Natural selection didn't select HCASD. Th just happened. If all mating was based on making it across a truck-infested street, then natural selection would lead to faster men or blinder men or men who don't die by trucks or just any sort of man who has something in his nature that allows him to get to the babe on the other side before another guy. We'd also have a lot of really frustrated truck drivers.
So that's the story. Your mom was horny. Your dad was blind. And if it hadn't been for the truck driver, you might never have been born.
by, Vaibhav Rajan
Sometime between 1935 and 1995, a man lost a significant amount of blood-flow to his head – blood that was directed south. It is worth considering the beauty of a system that is designed to produce the human brain, and a mechanism to override it, or even that it needed to be overridden. The smarter you are, the harder your brain fights, the longer you resist the urge. This gives us three conclusions: firstly, it is no wonder you find yourself surrounded by idiots. Secondly, it’s no wonder those idiots get laid a lot more often than you. And finally, you should always remember that you were conceived despite better judgement.
In the 1960s something called the Gaia Hypothesis was suggested by someone known as James Lovelock. The natural order of things seems to prevail on account of exactly that - a natural order. His idea was based on feedbacks, but on a more localized level, it's the all-permeating desire to live.
Why the heck do living things insist on wanting to live? A force surges through the biosphere, through the ages, through the cells and membranes and tissues and fights to be. Simply that - to live. Why there is life, or species, or organisms, is not the point of this. The fact that there is life, and there are species, is. The average organism doesn't provide a heck of a lot of productive results for an ecosystem. A species, on the other hand, covers a lot of land, breathes a lot of air, eats a lot of food and is generally responsible for eating of, as well as being eaten by, several other species. A species dies if the organisms don't procreate. Hence, the urge to fuck. Even if it means having your head ripped off and eaten (as is done by certain species of spiders and my ex-girlfriend).
Unfortunately for humans, we sorta kinda maybe enjoy the species-propagation-mechanism (SPM). With all the head-ripping, she was still dynamite in bed, you know. We have evolved, for some reasons, to enjoy the M enough to want to do it without wanting to actually follow-up with the SP part. Nature comes up with these brilliant ways for every species to make idiots out of themselves trying to make babies, and here we are, complex as hell and relying on that idiot-making-mechanism perfected over 3 billion years so we can have sex and not make babies.
I digress. Essentially, natural selection then plays the key role in defining relationships, one-night-stands and head-ripping-extravaganzas (unless you're in Germany, in which case you can order one online). And natural selection, in my humble opinon, sucks balls.
You see, it is blind. It isn't about beneficial adaptations, and it isn't about making things smarter or smaller or stronger or anything of that sort. It isn't even an active force. It's a passive mechanism - it happens, it doesn't do. Here is how it happens: Horny chick across the street smiles at you. You lose blood flow to the head and blink like an idiot. Truck hits you in the face. Another idiot who has genetic horny-chick-alert-system disorder (otherwise known as effective blindness) just crosses the street. Horny chick goes for him. A new generation of HCASD kids arrive. We are left asking: why the fuck didn’t the chick just cross the road herself?
Natural selection didn't select HCASD. Th just happened. If all mating was based on making it across a truck-infested street, then natural selection would lead to faster men or blinder men or men who don't die by trucks or just any sort of man who has something in his nature that allows him to get to the babe on the other side before another guy. We'd also have a lot of really frustrated truck drivers.
So that's the story. Your mom was horny. Your dad was blind. And if it hadn't been for the truck driver, you might never have been born.
Sunday, December 04, 2005
Rustic Retreat
Rustic Retreat
by Anita. B
Homestay as a concept is fairly alien to India; at any rate, it was to me. When Sonal, Uma and myself were doing our research on a holiday plan, it was Sonal who first mentioned homestays. Not having heard the word before, I assumed that she had decided to call it off and wanted to stay at home. That’s when she explained that it meant staying with a family in their house and paying for it. A thorough net search had yielded a place next to Coorg. We all agreed that this seemed an interesting, non-touristy and inexpensive alternative.
That’s how we found ourselves outside the Mysore railway station waiting for our taxi to pick us up. Sunticoppa, our destination, was about a 100 kms from here. The road, however, was like a cross-country trainer’s dream and the journey would take 3 hours. Darkness falls rather soon in these parts and the road creeps through the forest – a beautiful sight in the daytime but spooky by night. Especially if you have been stupid enough to discuss your cash position in front of the driver just before starting off. Luckily we reached Sunticoppa at eight in the night with no incidents. The estate we were staying in was about half an hour away, to be reached through an even more poorly lit, deserted, winding road surrounded on both sides by trees and bushes. In short, the exact setting where one can expect the spirits of the dead to come rushing. We turned into the dark, silent estate and true to expectation, there stood a cottage with no one around but a small boy staring calmly into the headlights.
As it turned out, fairly sane (and alive) people stayed there. That was our destination and our host, Giri, was waiting for us. Giri’s little son (the small boy) and Giri’s dad were introduced to us. Giri’s psychologist wife, Suja, was expected back from Mysore after conducting a soft skills seminar. Infact, the whole place felt like we had come to a well-to-do cousin’s house with none of the obligation to make polite small talk about the family.
The house was old fashioned with railings running on the ceiling, wooden doors and windows. The family had added some welcome amenities like big modern bathrooms. It was a fairly self-sufficient place, the family grew it’s own supply of fruits, vegetables and rice. They used bio-gas instead of LPG and solar lamps in addition to the State Electricity Board’s supply. Their cows gave them milk, and of course all around them was their coffee estate. Possibly this is when I realised a home stay is the closest you can get to experience a community firsthand if you have only three days to spare. Giri and Suja made an effort to feed us the local cuisine and chatted about their wedding rituals, family history and the local circles.
We had reached without any game plan on hand. I wanted to do a trek, Uma wanted to shop and Sonal was torn between the two of us. Finally we made the arrangements for a trek when Uma was busy lazing around and could not protest. Uma took it rather well when we told her about the trek, especially when we omitted the fact it would be 12 kms totally.
It was a perfect place and day to trek. Nishanidotta, the mountain we were gunning for was not too tall or challenging. It was 4600 ft. There was a two-km trek to a village house from the road. And a further eight kms up and down from the village house/‘base camp’. And then back to the road. The countryside was perfect. The first two kilometers were a mixture of loud buzzing trees and green paddy fields. The rest of the trek went through a muddy track with a bit of forest and a lot of breathtaking views tossed in.
Our hired guide, Puneet, had taken the son of our village house along for company and as a substitute for a GPRS. We were a bit skeptical about the rather young age of this supplementary guide – around seven. In the event, he proved to know his way better than Puneet and kept running ahead. We were panting to catch up with him and were rather sour about it till Puneet mentioned that we stood a better of chance of escaping leeches if we moved too fast for them to climb on. After that even Uma bucked up considerably.
After two hours of climbing, we finally started approaching the top. This was the only steep part, but there is something to be said about running to the summit of a hill with gentle raindrops hitting your face and the wind rushing past your ears. We took triumphant snaps complete with a flagpole left behind by previous enthusiasts. After that it was a quick descent back to the village house for lunch.
The pre-lunch ritual consisted of checking for leech bites – something all of us were nervous about since leeches have a tendency to cling on, suck your blood and look gross. Uma gently undid her shoes and discovered one well-fed specimen entangled in her socks. Sonal checked and got a zero. I began to slowly roll up the leg of my track pants and saw a black mark above my ankle. Losing no time, I went into hysterics. This prompted everyone in the house to come and watch bemused. I was hoping they would have sympathised if not called the paramedics. But apparently it is a daily phenomenon in their lives and I was left to my own devices to cope. Luckily a leech bite is not lethal or even harmful. Local remedies like squeezing lemon on the leech till it falls off followed by Soframycin on the wound helps.
After the trek, we were too tired to take in any of Coorg’s tourist delights. Which it seemed to have quite a few of going by the brochure Puneet waved in front of our faces for the tenth time that day. We humoured him and decided to stop at Rajah’s Seat - one of those panoramic views of the hillside you get at all hill stations - in front of which families with huffing grandparents and fidgeting children cluster to pose for a snap. We skipped Dubare, an elephant camp around 40 kms away, a 200-year-old Shiva temple, a dam and other such treats. Puneet, being a loyal local, was quite upset that we could resist traveling 40 kms up and down Coorg to visit all these places. Possibly being a local was why he did not understand that Coorg’s beauty lay in the sparsely populated countryside, mountains, backwaters and such other places we could visit only from the estate we were staying in.
Giri and Suja proved to be brilliant hosts and had hot food, hot tea and hot water ready for us to use upon our return. We also happily borrowed from their wonderful collection of trashy and intelligent novels. The only blot on the spot was Giri’s tendency to chat incessantly. Mostly interesting, at times it could have a dramatic climax, leaving the listeners a bit nonplussed. During dinner one day, he ended a happy trekking story with someone falling off the hillside. I quickly left before he could tell the story of someone who died of a leech bite.
On our final day, we found ourselves back on the road to Mysore – this time in the daylight where we could admire Coorg’s lush forests. On the way we stopped at the Tibetan settlement in Kushal Nagar. The place is colourful, to say the least. The main temple has lovely golden statues of Buddha, Buddha Amistava and Guru Padmanabha. There are murals all over the place with gory pictures of people suffering in hell. We assumed it was the senior monks’ way of enforcing discipline among the juniors. One quick peek by a believer into the picture of a monk being roasted in a frying pan would keep all minor transgressions under control.
From there we proceeded to Mysore and to see the famed Mysore Palace. The ruling dynasty seemed to have had considerable wealth. Perhaps too much wealth, because every previous owner of the throne had added the style of his era to the décor, giving it a look of complete overkill. Delicate marble arches would be superimposed on wooden frames and surrounded by garish green paint. There are some lovely pieces though if you watch out for them – a lovely threshold, an intricately carved door, random glimpses into good taste.
With that, we boarded the train back home and bade good-bye to the lush forests, fresh air and endless greenery. The leech mark on my leg still glowed red, but what is a trip if you don’t have a souvenir to show the people back home?
by Anita. B
Homestay as a concept is fairly alien to India; at any rate, it was to me. When Sonal, Uma and myself were doing our research on a holiday plan, it was Sonal who first mentioned homestays. Not having heard the word before, I assumed that she had decided to call it off and wanted to stay at home. That’s when she explained that it meant staying with a family in their house and paying for it. A thorough net search had yielded a place next to Coorg. We all agreed that this seemed an interesting, non-touristy and inexpensive alternative.
That’s how we found ourselves outside the Mysore railway station waiting for our taxi to pick us up. Sunticoppa, our destination, was about a 100 kms from here. The road, however, was like a cross-country trainer’s dream and the journey would take 3 hours. Darkness falls rather soon in these parts and the road creeps through the forest – a beautiful sight in the daytime but spooky by night. Especially if you have been stupid enough to discuss your cash position in front of the driver just before starting off. Luckily we reached Sunticoppa at eight in the night with no incidents. The estate we were staying in was about half an hour away, to be reached through an even more poorly lit, deserted, winding road surrounded on both sides by trees and bushes. In short, the exact setting where one can expect the spirits of the dead to come rushing. We turned into the dark, silent estate and true to expectation, there stood a cottage with no one around but a small boy staring calmly into the headlights.
As it turned out, fairly sane (and alive) people stayed there. That was our destination and our host, Giri, was waiting for us. Giri’s little son (the small boy) and Giri’s dad were introduced to us. Giri’s psychologist wife, Suja, was expected back from Mysore after conducting a soft skills seminar. Infact, the whole place felt like we had come to a well-to-do cousin’s house with none of the obligation to make polite small talk about the family.
The house was old fashioned with railings running on the ceiling, wooden doors and windows. The family had added some welcome amenities like big modern bathrooms. It was a fairly self-sufficient place, the family grew it’s own supply of fruits, vegetables and rice. They used bio-gas instead of LPG and solar lamps in addition to the State Electricity Board’s supply. Their cows gave them milk, and of course all around them was their coffee estate. Possibly this is when I realised a home stay is the closest you can get to experience a community firsthand if you have only three days to spare. Giri and Suja made an effort to feed us the local cuisine and chatted about their wedding rituals, family history and the local circles.
We had reached without any game plan on hand. I wanted to do a trek, Uma wanted to shop and Sonal was torn between the two of us. Finally we made the arrangements for a trek when Uma was busy lazing around and could not protest. Uma took it rather well when we told her about the trek, especially when we omitted the fact it would be 12 kms totally.
It was a perfect place and day to trek. Nishanidotta, the mountain we were gunning for was not too tall or challenging. It was 4600 ft. There was a two-km trek to a village house from the road. And a further eight kms up and down from the village house/‘base camp’. And then back to the road. The countryside was perfect. The first two kilometers were a mixture of loud buzzing trees and green paddy fields. The rest of the trek went through a muddy track with a bit of forest and a lot of breathtaking views tossed in.
Our hired guide, Puneet, had taken the son of our village house along for company and as a substitute for a GPRS. We were a bit skeptical about the rather young age of this supplementary guide – around seven. In the event, he proved to know his way better than Puneet and kept running ahead. We were panting to catch up with him and were rather sour about it till Puneet mentioned that we stood a better of chance of escaping leeches if we moved too fast for them to climb on. After that even Uma bucked up considerably.
After two hours of climbing, we finally started approaching the top. This was the only steep part, but there is something to be said about running to the summit of a hill with gentle raindrops hitting your face and the wind rushing past your ears. We took triumphant snaps complete with a flagpole left behind by previous enthusiasts. After that it was a quick descent back to the village house for lunch.
The pre-lunch ritual consisted of checking for leech bites – something all of us were nervous about since leeches have a tendency to cling on, suck your blood and look gross. Uma gently undid her shoes and discovered one well-fed specimen entangled in her socks. Sonal checked and got a zero. I began to slowly roll up the leg of my track pants and saw a black mark above my ankle. Losing no time, I went into hysterics. This prompted everyone in the house to come and watch bemused. I was hoping they would have sympathised if not called the paramedics. But apparently it is a daily phenomenon in their lives and I was left to my own devices to cope. Luckily a leech bite is not lethal or even harmful. Local remedies like squeezing lemon on the leech till it falls off followed by Soframycin on the wound helps.
After the trek, we were too tired to take in any of Coorg’s tourist delights. Which it seemed to have quite a few of going by the brochure Puneet waved in front of our faces for the tenth time that day. We humoured him and decided to stop at Rajah’s Seat - one of those panoramic views of the hillside you get at all hill stations - in front of which families with huffing grandparents and fidgeting children cluster to pose for a snap. We skipped Dubare, an elephant camp around 40 kms away, a 200-year-old Shiva temple, a dam and other such treats. Puneet, being a loyal local, was quite upset that we could resist traveling 40 kms up and down Coorg to visit all these places. Possibly being a local was why he did not understand that Coorg’s beauty lay in the sparsely populated countryside, mountains, backwaters and such other places we could visit only from the estate we were staying in.
Giri and Suja proved to be brilliant hosts and had hot food, hot tea and hot water ready for us to use upon our return. We also happily borrowed from their wonderful collection of trashy and intelligent novels. The only blot on the spot was Giri’s tendency to chat incessantly. Mostly interesting, at times it could have a dramatic climax, leaving the listeners a bit nonplussed. During dinner one day, he ended a happy trekking story with someone falling off the hillside. I quickly left before he could tell the story of someone who died of a leech bite.
On our final day, we found ourselves back on the road to Mysore – this time in the daylight where we could admire Coorg’s lush forests. On the way we stopped at the Tibetan settlement in Kushal Nagar. The place is colourful, to say the least. The main temple has lovely golden statues of Buddha, Buddha Amistava and Guru Padmanabha. There are murals all over the place with gory pictures of people suffering in hell. We assumed it was the senior monks’ way of enforcing discipline among the juniors. One quick peek by a believer into the picture of a monk being roasted in a frying pan would keep all minor transgressions under control.
From there we proceeded to Mysore and to see the famed Mysore Palace. The ruling dynasty seemed to have had considerable wealth. Perhaps too much wealth, because every previous owner of the throne had added the style of his era to the décor, giving it a look of complete overkill. Delicate marble arches would be superimposed on wooden frames and surrounded by garish green paint. There are some lovely pieces though if you watch out for them – a lovely threshold, an intricately carved door, random glimpses into good taste.
With that, we boarded the train back home and bade good-bye to the lush forests, fresh air and endless greenery. The leech mark on my leg still glowed red, but what is a trip if you don’t have a souvenir to show the people back home?
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