?.....

How long has it been that you actually cried out LOUD.
Loud enough to pour out all that made your heart sink and feelings drown?
How long has it been that you actually laughed out LOUD.
Loud enough to pain your stomach and your breath loose its count?
How long?
All you do is shed a few drops and wipe it quickly to hide.
All you do is pose a “say cheese” smiles and again seamlessly hide.

Ohh common don’t sob or giggle, emote it out.
Cry like a baby, laugh like a baby.

We have lost the art of crying. We want to but cannot.
Not that there is no pain. There is ! , a lot of pain, no wonder we want it all out.
We have lost the art of laughing .We want to but cannot.
Not that there is no bliss. There is !, a lot of bliss, no wonder we want to express

Search within you. Its not, all that mess.

Ohh common don’t sob or giggle, emote it out
Cry like a baby, laugh like a baby,

…………………………………..

…………………………….

PS1: Wow can this be a song? hmmmm it will be difficult to tune this. Each sentence is really long.
PS2: Rhythm comes easily while composing a song with shorter sentences and connecting words.
PS3: Let it be a poem. Leave it in its raw state.
PS4: This was my quickest creation: D
PS5: Yes there will be a post on my Dance classes .There is a LOT to write.
PS6: Good news- They have positioned me in the first row, Bad news- in the corner , beside a kid bohoooo.
PS6: Whatever is the case I am forgetting my steps.
PS7 : I have no clue or reason to justify the title.

Hermitage Trip- The Bear hill trek

We took rest for an hour and got ready for the “stamina test” which is mandatory for all the guests who are interested in trekking. David the examiner, the guide and the owner of the place is supposedly living in this place for past 28 years. Abhi-k the muscle man of our group took panga with David on the very first day. He started making big claims “we can easily do a 25 km trek, we have run the marathons, we are gym ppl….etc….”, The next two days involved heavy leg pulling of Abhi-k by David (wonder what grudge the whole host family developed against him).

Of all this I was trying hard to find a way to get introduced to the dogs. And the wish was full filled, with just initial sniffing and staring they came near me without barking. The ice was broken and we became friends. Of Badmash (the kid), Bahadur(the brother) and skully (the mother) , Badmash (one with red collar belt in the pics) was the most friendly one.

Before starting for the bear hill trek (read stamina test) one contender i.e. Ajit (Casualty no. 1) surrendered.He had stomach upset and was lying on the bed. Decision was made to go without him also he was really not well and needed rest. We started at around 5 pm with David leading us through the trails. The initial half climb was quite easy because of the enthu and quest to reach the top. After every fifteen minutes David use to stop to give us some flora-fauna gyaan. On the way we saw various kinds of insects, parasitic trees, and non-parasite yet clinging together trees, Bear homes, Termite hills, birds and shit of some animals. Stop giggling; in jungles animal shit (& water sources) are real important signs of predicting their presence nearby. But as we were talking aloud and making lot of noise, we dint encounter a single Bear, Jaguar or Leopard.

I was really exhausted after 40 minutes .The uphill trek was quite tough for me. Moreover the jungle became thicker with more thorny bushes and trails/path was also gone. Suddenly we were amidst a huge colony of insects wandering in all directions. From one of the David’s gyaan session- These insects population is on rise as they feed on bamboo flowers. All bamboo flowers heavily only once in their life time and dries off to die. This phenomenon (gregarious bamboo) happens every 45 years, where the entire bamboo plantation dries off to rejuvenate again in 10 years.
Phew after passing the last stage in an hour we were on top of the bear hill, Hurray! .It was an awesome sight .The beautiful sunset and tanned +exhausted yet cheerful trekkers were captured in cams in various moods. After taking some rest we headed back as it was getting dark.
Just before reaching Mini (Casualty no 2) twisted her ankle very badly while descending down. Luckily we were very near to the guest house and a jeep was brought for her.

PS2 story:

Under the starry sky .Amidst the faded moon light .Around the born fire sight,
She gave a sweet chocolaty smile.
He couldn’t say much, was mesmerized.
Just admired and was listening to her ….
Hoping –“oh god please hold the time”.
Suddenly the spell was broken! Friends appeared strangers, as they arrived.
But there was another heart - broken, of jealousy it cried.

She-Katz, He-Ajit, Another heart-Sid.

That roughly sums up the scene when Abhi-W, Amanchi, Sid arrived at the guest house to pick up the rescue jeep for mini and saw Ajit and katz chatting around the born fire. She immediately left when the kabab mein haddies came.
Some of us missed the scene and arrived later with injured Mini. On return we realized none of us carried proper medicines (as everybody assumed that somebody will carry, but nobody did). After Mini’s ankle examination which was swollen badly , it was declared as sprain .Actually we all feared hair line crack but were trying to cheer her up as nothing much could have been done late night in middle of jungle with no network connectivity. Volini was massaged and Aspirin was taken as a workaround.

Later that night on enquiry, Ajit started revealing things. How they lighted 10 + Laltans together (He was not in a state to get up from bed in morningJ).How he was specially taken care of the whole day. Which he claims to be hospitality.

“Katz has done her schooling in a boarding at Ooty , Is currently pursuing PhD in Australia , Wants to visit Bihar, Will Visit Hyderabad, loves this place, likes this, hates that, wants to marry soon and have kids , blah blah.................... “She told him every damn thing. You call this hospitality? One thing I must say Ajit u are a chuppa rustham-Kuddos.
And Sid you are positive. Instead of “ dost dost na raha” kinds , he was trying to help her out clearing dining table , switching off Laltans (read impress).She kept on refusing for any help from his side and he still tried , flaunting his 10 k run t-shirt and Mumbai 42k run achievement in the backdrop.
Poor Sid seldom he knows some girls don’t care how many kms you run. You should be capable of running a household. But Don’t worry katz is definitely not of that category-You should just be capable of running a household in a Jungle.

PS: Enough has been written about this trip. No more posts.
PS1: Ajit plzzzzzzzzzzzz ignore the PS2 content .That’s written just for fun.
PS2: Read the poem again ……slowly
PS3: hmmmmmm1
PS4: hmmmmmm2
PS5: I am running out of ps statements: D
PS6: hey, but nobody has written about the river trek, where I was left all ALONE in the middle of the jungle by a group of “Gentleman’s “.
PS7: Yes that’s supposed to be sarcastic.
PS8: The end.
PS9: Oh btw I was tagged Future Casualty no 3, coz of my alluring twists and falls. Luckily I wasn’t hurt.
PS10: hmmmmmm3, Fine ! The End .Packa.

Hermitage Trip-The Arrival

April 5^th, 6th, 7^th, a long weekend was heading and I was in no mood to stay at home.
Phantom plans were made for Kerala >Munnar, Thekkedy , Allepey ;Banglore>Manglore ; Vizag>Araku and Sakaleshpura.Every other day my browser had around 5+ tabs opened to R&D and visualize these places. All failed to kick start due to various reasons. However, I was destined to travel and eventually Belgaum trip started taking shape.

A group of seven people > MiniY, Abhi-k,Abhi-w,Amanchi, Billu, Sid( aka TeofKap) & myself decided to venture out in the nature. We all walked down to Begumpet station on 4^th evening and boarded the Rayalaseema express sleeper coaches. All through the journey the "traditional" antakshri was played.Later Billu , his radioic Nokia & Abhi-W entertained us with Mukesh, Rafi ,& Kishore’s songs.Other half of journey was consumed by playing cards.

We reached Belgaum on 5^th morning around 12 PM.Boarded the prebooked jeep and started towards Hermitage guest house-Khanapur, located 45kms from the railway station. On the way we made our “Reached safely” home calls and enjoyed the small town peaceful looks of Belgaum.

After an hour or so we were off the main road, into the woods.
After 15 minutes, we were on the bumpy kachha rasta and in more denser area of the woods.
After another 10 minutes all of us feared - are we kidnapped? The “rasta” altogether was gone & we were sneaking deeper into the jungle.Among all of us only MiniY was the kidnapable entity. She was the one carrying all the money and having a 600 $ SLR cam. While others were the inutile ones with just 2 digi-cams and comparatively less or nil money in their pockets. To our relief we saw some kind of fencing (apparently it was electrical) and a way towards small gate.

Welcome to Hermitage guest house.

The next moment made my day and spoiled others: D. Three unchained ferocious beasts-Dobermans greeted us with their loud barks (they were shhoooo shweeet) and off course the actual hosts David, Morvarid (the wife) & Katrina (the daughter) welcomed us.

Hermitage is a well-appointed and secluded working farm set amidst the lush forests of the Western Ghats. If you are a Wildlife enthusiast or Nature Watcher, keen on Birding in India, a Nature Photographer, enjoy Trekking, or just simply love the outdoors, then the Hermitage is a perfect holiday destination .It is a small family run concern offering you an individual service.

The whole area (including few farms) is surrounded by electrical fences (900 V not sure of this figure) for protection from wild animals .The residential area has three independent units named “The Machan”- Tree house, “The Kadaba”-Village home, “The Gota”-rural cottage ( only one with attached bathroom).And a common dinning lounge.
Machan and Kadaba have open air bathrooms. Though the rooms from outside appeared like village huts, inside they were fully furnished and very well decorated with authentic showpieces. There was detailing to everything and all was so theme oriented. The open air bathing interior was nothing less that a 5 start hotel setup with all pipelines, water supply ,commode, tiles and drainage system in tact.In short the place had all the comforts of city and earthiness of a village.

We all loved the place at first sight. We explored our surroundings, did some photo shoots and finally settled down to have lunch. The food was yummy- Solomon fish, corn salad, brown rice, juice, vegetables all was cooked in different styles by Mori.
Later, on return it was all shown on the weighing machine.

PS: Three more posts to come on this trip, namely

Hermitage Trip- The Bear hill trek
Hermitage Trip- The River Trek
Hermitage Trip- The Departure

PS1: Will cover Mini’s twisted ankle and
PS2: Billu & TeofKap’s competition /struggle/ to impress Kats (the daughter) story in next post
PS3: Also Sid’s wane attempts to influence David with his 10k run T-Shirt.
PS4: Wow I just got an idea –PS3, 4 will tempt people to read the next post which will actually contain more about Badmash and other dogs: D
PS5: And PS4 will do exactly the reverse.
PS6: Whatever!!
PS7: Oh yes I have a video (with more audio effect) where the dogs attack me; Release only on demand.
PS 8: Gosh, I am a desperate campaigner.