preparing to 'trak'...

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It’s been such a busy time i’ve restricted my blogs to the tiny status updates in facebook then Ctrl-V’ed to Orkut... today’s the trek... the 5-day long trek, journey to and fro excluded... around Amarkantak... the place of origin of Narmada... didn’t find any good material about it on the net and hence i still have not much idea of what we’re getting into... bags are packed... mostly... half the space is occupied by the sleeping bag...

My friends C & N,  have managed to stick together and left in the morning to Pench... some national park or something of the sort... the aim of the trek is to stay uncomfortable for a week... it doesn’t really matter how or where... they left at the ungodly hour of 8am and C called me up soon after to storm about how dark and evil and obnoxious a person i was for not seeing her off... it’s just a week... and it’s a just a few hundred kms... and we still have our phones... i tried to put in... obviously over-ruled... last night we had sat up in the lounge while the musicians of our batch strummed their guitars and whistled through their flutes... until the MP(madhyam pandav) came barging in with his cell and his music and his knife stories and how he’s gonna hunt tigers and dinosaurs in the Bandhavgarh jungles while he also simultaneously grapples with the anacondas with anklets with his 3-inch knife that is one of its kind and is also imported (made in china)...!!

 N’s the sensible one... of the three of us at least... though yesterday she went to the parlour for henna’ing her hair and somehow came back with the brightest blue nail-polish... which she brings to the attention of everybody by drumming her fingers, running her fingers through her hair, waving her hands about more than usual... ;-)

So now i’m stuck with a band of 20... few of whom i know...  but most are still the smile-in-the-corridor-as-you-pass kinds whose name i’m not yet sure of... there’s jadoo, the youngest kid in the block and from an IT company... who is blamed by the batch for everything from the fibre cable disconnection, slow internet and bad lectures(where he asks too many questions) to the bad weather, the frustrated PT guy and mess food...   

32!!!!

 

there’s sandy, the captain, who has ordered everybody to do the special salute every time we run across each other, anywhere... has an incorrigible, congenital problem with telling the truth... it has to be that! Or who’d ever say i looked 32!!... and has absolutely no sense for shopping and got horribly sleazed all over the markets all over Bhopal yesterday... more of my mates when i know them better...

Let me now go and buy myself a pack of glucon-d (orange flavour)... i really can’t understand why people roll their eyes and go ‘spoilt brat’ on me when i mention it that i don’t really care for the white glucose powder... it looks and tastes like something someone sick with no sense of taste, and hopefully unconscious would have...for a last drink!!

Anyway, until later!!

Ciao!!

first sunday

the first sunday of our stay here... absolutely nothing to do!!... i wonder if sundays really have 24 hours like other days, coz this one went zoooooooooooop, while the other days just stretch on so long that you wonder if morning didn't happen yesterday....

tried fixing up the TV to play from the USB... didn't happen... we're trying to find a way to play movies on the LCD Samsung 5 series... though it has a USB2 sticker on it, it wouldn't recognize anything except photos...
a few friends and I explored the Vitthan Market aka Bitton aka Vitthal... an hour later, a few bucks lighter, and a plate of golgappas each, we reached the Academy... the Autos here are a 'fixed price' deal... they charge you 30 bucks from anywhere to any-other-where... i now don't think the golgappas were such a good idea... ;-)

we finally have access to the sports complex and try our hands at TT... though i'm the "better" bad player in the beginning, CC catches on quickly...
"good genes", she explains... and we fight a bitter battle to see who's family line's stronger...
next, we hit the gym... though the idea of running nowhere(the treadmill) holds no fascination for me, my friend's more interested... she's even more thrilled to find the twister... you know, the thing where you stand on a plate and go turn-turn to twist your stomach and belch out the insides in quick, little installments... maybe that wasn't the description, but that's what happened anyway...

getting late for PT!!
off now!!

FC at Bhopal : Bhopal Darshan

the schedule said "Bhopal Darshan"... we had no clue it was gonna hit us so hard... the day started with two buses full of OTs venturing into VanVihar... a 4.5km stretch through a National Park... it is a green, peaceful, beautiful stretch in the middle of Bhopal City with 'wild' animals... we even sighted a few through the wired compounds... a white tiger steadily looking the other way and maddening not one photographer... a lioness loitering far away in the bamboos... a black bear playing with its foot long tongue... long coiled things that looked like snakes... a few tortoises bobbing just a second for breath before silently sliding back in into the murky green water adorned with a few plastic bottles...

the crowd of OTs behaved as any crowd of expectant, 'highly educated' tourists who'd had a full afternoon session on "Ecotourism" not 24 hours ago would... they screamed, bellowed, whistled, cat-called and laughed to, at, with themselves creating a situation apparently familiar to the inhabitants of the National Park... who were totally at ease and not in the least bit bothered as they went about their ways...

then there was a tour through the Manav Museum... a collection of huts, pots n pans, clothing, etc of tribals... i also found a few things i grew up with and felt quite archaic and important...
"we have all these at home" i commented to my new found friend from Delhi's elite institution, pointing to the hearth, the pots, the chukki, etc...

there was a quick stop at the Boat Club where based on their nerves people chose paddle boats, pedal boats and water scooters... i went nowhere near the water... instead catching the few precious minutes of rest by plonking down on the steps and studying the ducks that incessantly quacked, waded into the water, preened, quacked, headed towards the water again... and so on...

but the hardest was saved for the last... we were to watch a movie with the Big Bosses of the institution and it was decided we'd watch "We are Family" - a bad remake of the English 'Stepmom'... i could go on and on about it but i've vowed to cap my complaints henceforth to a 100/day like the SMS packs, you know...

it's just past midnight... i decide against any exercise in the morning... after all even the Gods rest on Sundays... at least some of them take off, anyway...

that's all for this week...!!

Day 4?? Hindi Test

there's an egg on my bed... a full, egg-shaped, chicken-egg in the middle of the bed... now, of all the places i'm used to seeing eggs, this is not a good one...
"who left it there??" i ask...
there's no one to answer as i am accidentally, incidentally and temporarily enjoying single-occupancy... though that doesn't include any peace and quiet any more...

apart from the egg, i've managed to acquaint myself with a lot of people here... i quite like the idea of just talking to people... though i'm overdoing it to an unhandleable degree... i meet people on the stairs, in the corridor, in the mess, on the badminton court who smile widely and i am not really sure of their name still... or even if i've talked to them yet... this in itself would've been innocuous enough but in the elections yesterday, they've marked my name as a member of the Mess Committee... while i slept off the remnants of the "Political Science Concepts: Part I"... not that i have to do much but if you know me, you'll know my fatal allergy to any kind of "Responsibility" however distant or indirect...

anyway, life's tough and has to go on... the classes are the toughest... we had one lecture today by an ex-IAS officer... totally fully of integrity and honesty... but man the topic he was talking on... i can't remember it right now but it sure was boring... i only woke up when he talked of his experiences in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy...

today's high point was the Hindi Test... i'm not really sure why learning that is so important... if you know and want to quote the relevant Articles of Constitution, please refrain... anyway it had some translation things, spelling corrections and stuff... corrections??? like i know the original to recognize the slight mistakes... translation were real tough... University, Clerk, Manager, Director... to the last one, i wrote "Prashant Mehta"... i hope it works...

coming back to the story of the egg, i go closer, pick it up... it's hard boiled... hmm... who would lay a hard boiled egg in the middle of a locked room... and then it all comes back to me... i was late for the class at breakfast... and the egg was too hot... so i got it to my room and before i could consume it, CC was hammering at my door...

mystery solved... dinner time!!
ciao!!

Day 3 : FC at Bhopal : The classes finally begin...

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it's 3:20am when i'm starting the blog... and i've skipped a day...

"he days haven't turned hectic yet", our BOSS warns us... our PT has been postponed until monday... went to the badminton court today... didn't even remember the rules... rather, never knew them... but with the help of my unusually sporty geriatric partner, managed to play till i was pink!! and sweated for the first time in years... felt awesome!!

bigger deal was the election to the Mess Committee... to be held tomorrow... got quite dirty... gender, race, cast, color, all thoroughly abused... on all sides... a last minute candidature, twisted sides... so like the K-serials i've begun to miss... :(

we had our classes today... the first ones... first one was by an IPS officer... involved ice-breaking... you know, like the first days at IBM/Infy when you get to do the most meaningless things like building freely standing, tall structures out of paper, balloons and straws... one guy stood with a balloon in hand and their team got cadbury chocolates...!! and i bagged an eclairs for answering the 3-lights, 3-switches problem...!!

the next class was 'Etiquette'... i got to know that i sit wrong, stand wrong, wear the wrong stuff, talk wrongly, eat wrongly... you get the idea... i'm not really sure i'm breathing right, right now...

there was a totally inspiring class by an IAS officer who's MD of MP Tourism... remember that Incredible India ad which goes "Hindustan ka Dil Dekho"... he made it happen... looks like a guy who's forgotten it's bureaucracy he's a part of... looks, acts and behaves as if in some Corporate... hiring O&M for marketing for that expensive ad!! what blasphemy!!! :-P

the last lecture was so boring, i had to be coaxed out of coma at the end of it...

tomorrow's Janmashtami... a welcome break!! explains my late night sojourn into the cybercafe...

ciao people!!!