(Mis)adventures at Thenmala

Here's a misadventure of a trip that came to pass in the middle of my short break in God's Own Country. [Coudl'nt resist putting up a photo walkthrough with my own pics either :P]


So 5 of us cousins set out to Thenmala, an eco - adventure tourist destination somewhere in Kollam. We were inspired by the beautiful pics on the website and an article in the Yaathra magazine that fired us up with enthusiasm about adventure laden treks and activities. Little did we know that Kerala tourism is sometimes a bigger letdown than even the worst Mallu movies.


The information counter was pretty informative, allright, except he failed to mention that the only 'adventure' in this place would be trying to find anything adventurous at all. So, grabbing a few tickets and thanking God we were not 'international tourists', we set out for the 'adventure' zone.





The 'walkway' was a beautiful sight, in fact it was a pic similar to the one on the right that started off the Thenmala plan.


When we reached the 'rock-climbing', unfortunately, we received our first shock.A small 10 metre rock stood in front of us, with a signboard saying

"Feeling adventurous? Try this.. You are safe in professional hands.. " .

Yaa right ! It was safe allright. 10 metres. If its safe, then wheres the adventure, dude ?

Anyways, enthusiasm unbeaten, we proceeded through the 'natural trail' (a small kachcha road through the woods) to a small lake, which was supposed to be the centre of the remaining 'adventure'. The lake was beautiful allright.


But the rest of the let-downs came quickly in succession. The 'ropeway' was nothing but a small piece of rope around 20 metres long for people to hang on and cross. The 'spider net' was a rope net that we used to play on as kids, or find in theme parks. 'Flying fox' and 'freedom fall' were worse than they sounded even, you dont even want to guess what they really were.

After the adventure zone letdown, though, the 'leisure zone' turned out to be better. It was a beautiful area. The view of the dam and the river was breathtaking.There was a trail through the small forest area, with all sorts of 'modern sculpture' in between. The 'modern art' was so abstract (read as 'corny'), they had to give us a pamphlet explaining what each one meant. Some were as foolish as a man holding a ball, and a long crappy explanation to follow it. The type of bullshit we write in our History exams. Probably some engineer after 4 years of bullshitting in his exams, decided to find a job in tour-packaging instead of coding in C++. The pic on the right though, was one of my favorite ones. Its called Meditation - it signifies that man should 'keep aside' his 5 senses to attain salvation (and u can see how the 5 'senses' are 'kept aside' in the sculpture, literally)

More sculpture photos follow.
















That last one means "Why try to attain pleasures you cannot reach (the moon on top) while you have simple pleasures of life within your own hands (the moons reflection in the girls hand)".

The rest of the story was scenery. The walk along the dam and river, the garden and the 'boardwalk' (we prefer to call it bored-walk) are better seen through the pics than words.












Finally, wondering whether to kill the Yaathra magazine writer, bomb the Thenmala ecotourism society, or sue Kerala tourism authority for what they'd done, we were on our way home faster than we hoped to be. And that signpost. Theres one that will still leave me in splits of laughter and anger together.

Happy blogday to me!

Looong time no blog.. so this one is out of pure desperation to blog.. in the last 2 weeks I've been over thousands of kilometres, home, college, relatives, friends, and back to Nanyang tech. In 2 weeks I've been through so many different worlds that sometimes this world seems completely out of place to be. And now, finally, somehow it seems dramatic that the first time I get to blog in this year should be on my birthday too !

Had a nice celebration, thanks to a great bunch of loving friends here. My mind really went back to my 21st bday 2 years ago. 2 years ago, I started this blog. That was Calicut. And now here I am.

Celebrations... make u feel happy for living. I wonder how would it be if everyday was a birthday for me. If everyday I could wake up feeling happy for having lived and still going on.

After all the usual birthday dose of kicks, cakes and calls, I came back to my room and comp, to good old G-chat, and I saw this on my friends status message :

"You are dying slowly... If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain. If you do not go after a dream. If you do not allow yourself, atleast once in your lifetime, to run away from sensible advise..."

So I've decided. Time to fix some priorities. Take decisions about things I really wanted to do. Photography, music, travelling, exploring.. the list may be impossible and endless. But theyre MY dreams.

So time for me to go after my dreams. And let the 'sensible' advise go to the trash can...

Year-end scribbles

As I start my last post for the year, inching closer to my (short) return home for a convocation that looks as uncertain as it was 2 months ago, several contrasting thoughts come to mind..

1. The @$#% going on in NITC over the convo goes beyond blog posts now! Wild rumours about the 'expected' dates and even 'official' information of it being held in the 'second week of Jan' dont look so official now. So as the number of days for the stipulated date nears single digits, all I can say is : "Screw the Convo !".. After all, I wanted to meet friends, and do that I will. However and whenever it be.

One of my friends chose to describe the situation as : "Maybe the college authorities want to give us a surprise". Talk about seeing a positive side to everything. And anyway they already have surprised us by doing whatever they have done so far. Which is, nothing. I think an anonymous prank mail blasting our authorities should be in order any moment now ;)

2. Thoughts of spending the New Year moment flying are looking attractive day by day. No, I dont mean 'high' and 'flying' on something else :), I meant flying, as in, on Tiger Airways flight TR638 on New years eve. Wonder if we'll 'have a blast' in the plane.. I should hope not.

3. Despite point no. 1, the thought of wanting to give a boost to our Alumni association is now something for us to think of in a strong way. Proper alumni support is something my college always lacked. Another 'success story' on the part of the authorities, I can say, but instead of pointing fingers at them, I think its time we took matters and responsibilities into our own hands.

Take any other college in India, IITs, IIMs, anything else, and you see alumni support visible in their events, their decisions, even on their college campus. Alumni support makes a statement. That we passouts are proud of our college, and want to contribute to that which made us what we are. At NITC , but, we remember and feel the need for seniors and alumni only when searching for contacts. Say, like when for marketing for Ragam or Tathva.

Its time to change our 'live, enjoy, passout and forget' attitude towards college now. Through 4 years we took pride in our college and tried our best to contribute to it in some way. And at the end we cannot forget it as another chapter of our life. The potential of alumni is something that can change a lot of things that are lacking in a college.

Short chat with some of my friends and I were realised that we were concurring on the possibilities already. Alumni are everywhere - in jobs all over India (or the world).. in higher technical education doing their masters or PhDs somewhere.. in IIM's battling it out to get an MBA.. they are the best contacts we can get any day. They can help you get contacts to obtain an internship or training in some company of your choice. Tell you about the possibilities. Get you sponsorship for some events if possible (thats one thing that goes into everyones head every year around Ragam time :) ). The ones doing higher studies can tell you how to go about it. Recommend on where to go. What formalities they went through, What openings and opporunities are there. The highly placed ones can occasionally give talks when visiting the alma mater. And yes, if we're rich and happy enough, we alumni might even think of contributing something in terms of money :).

I cant think of ideas right now, but atleast a list of contacts of your seniors would be a good place to start for an alumni movement. A decent website wouldnt matter too. Everyone would know where to look to get in touch. Instead of having to go through orkut each time to find someone. Later on, planning annual get-togethers wouldnt be a bad idea.

All this, ofcourse, requires a bit of cooperation from the currently running batch, the passed out ones, and the authorities too. Not at all easy. But this will be what we will be hoping to pull off anyway, hopefully at the convocation itself where we can get hold of everyone. I hope the '08 batch pulls this one off too, like many other things we have pulled off :).

So, hoping for a year of wonders.. signing out.. and a Happy New Year to all of you out there !..

Star light, star bright..

An experience you would've had at some point in your life : Its night, late night... You're walking alone, tensed, worried about next weeks assignment, or perhaps next month's report. Having no clue on what to do, you look up at the sky. Its night, theres not much sound or light within much distance, and you look up and see something like the one on the left.

And then you just realize : Man, the Universe is much bigger than I thought. So.. why worry ?

Well, maybe not the exact one, but all of us have felt this wave of relief on looking at the sky at some point. Star-gazing.. or just sky-watching.. as Carl Sagan put it.. is a truly humbling experience. Not just fun as a hobby, to spot a Saturn here or an Orion constellation there, or to make up shapes in the stars imagining them to be something out of our imagination.

Its a very relieving one too. How many nights I have looked at that clear black expanse, peppered with infinitely many tiny pinpoints of stars, and felt.. The Universe is so daarn big man ! There are billions of galaxies out there, uncountably many worlds unexplored, forms and phenomenons yet undiscovered ! And we are just a small part of it ! So why worry about some small mistake we did yesterday.. or some deadline thats about to come tomorrow. Its just a small nothingness in the scheme of things of the universe we see out there. Why worry ?

I still recall frequent star-gazing sessions I had with a cousin. The topic would start from astronomy, go over a wide range of topics, and generally always fade into some vague topic about fate or the future or of that sort. We attach so much importance to what happens around us, worry in the smallest of things instead of delighting in them. While all I am, is a single organism among zillions, on a small pale blue dot called Earth.

Next time something insignificant seems to nag you, remember these words from a famous address by Carl Sagan, from 'The pale blue dot' that inspires this feeling. The address is in reference to the photo on the right, a pic of Earth taken by Voyager 1 from a large distance. See where we stand. Earth. A pale blue dot near the centre. (The 'pale blue dot' also carries an environmental message that I simply loved)

" Consider again that dot (Earth). That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, ... every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, .... every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. "

Canvas in the heavens

Walked out of my lab one day and saw this ...

To all losers (esp the ones without girlfriends) -

http://www.stwing.upenn.edu/~jenf/writing/rant04.html

Think there must be many of you out there who can relate to this one :)

'Gone'-vocation?

Since the great passing out of the NITC 2004-2008 batch in the mid of May 2008, there has been just one thing that 400 odd NITCians all over the world have been looking forward to. And its called a bloody Convocation !

Okay I admit, I'm frustrated, and college sick. No, not sick of college, as in, you know, home-sick doesnt mean sick of home, so, you understand what I mean. I cant wait to meet friends. Old teachers. The old places and hangouts. The classrooms even, yes, I loved them. And the officially recognised last date for doing this is the NITC 2004-2008 batch convocation date. Unfortunately, such a date doesnt exist. Not yet

Every NITcian at any place, wherever he meets up, I think this question is bound to arise. A typical NITcians conversation.h header file :

NITCian 1 : Hi.. how are you.. long time no see..

NITcian 2 : Hey.. how are you..
Heard anything about the convocation?

NITCian 1 : Nope.. last I heard, it was supposed to be held in December 2nd week.. but there was a chance it could happen in 3rd week also
NITcian 2 : Haha thats old info.. latest I heard, it been shifted to last week.. and if there is no time it might be in Jan too..

And so on...

So far, The convocations 'tentative' date has been shifted and delayed soo long now that its giving new definitions to the word 'tentative'. The 'latest' info keeps on changing every few hours. Me and co-NITcian Naren are in the process of finding new sources of information about the ever-so-secretive convocation date, as if it was High Sensitivity Military intelligence. Nope, not even CIA would have a chance at this one for sure.

Last I heard (and you should be laughing at that phrase by now), it has been fixed for Jan 10th. Plus or minus a few months I'm sure.

It seems that even after one year of missing NITC life and yearning to see it, the NITC beauracracy is bent on not allowing us to go for a moment without bitching about our system. It sucks ! having to wait so long to know.. Its just a degree certificate distribution after all, and most of the fun is in the meeting up.. So why make such a fuss about the event ?

Nevertheless we poor souls will, until then, keep betting on the date, calling up everyone from the Director to the Profs down to the students to catch on any rumours about the reportedly 'prestigious' event called a convocation.. Until then..

P.S : 'Latest' Highly confidential reports state that the 'latest' "tentative" date of the convocation is an evenly spread probability among all the saturdays in January, which includes 3rd, 10th, 17th and 24th. Wonder why they wont include Feb too