Valentine's day test

Mario, a role model of infinite energy and patience.
Nero aka Niranjan, a role model of human iceberg.

These both fellas clog Idea operator's network services
about 10 p.m. on 13th Feb (Friday the 13th is always ominous)
and decide to ruin my plans of spending Valentine day at home,
dozing all the time except only when I need to have food.
Dozing all the time would be ideal but I have to abide by the
lessons learnt in my primary schools, viz, food is a basic
necesity for survival. And I want to survive.

So these fellas decide to go trekking to Fort Purandar (पुरंदर)
and order me to obey issued commands. I need to report at
6:15 a.m. on bus stand the next day. I manage to make
it at 6:45 a.m. in a kind of stupor. They decide that
this stupor is not good for World Peace (no reason
can be as good as World Peace!) and bung me into the famous
Lal Dabba (red S.T. bus) to wake me up. I firmly believe
that medical researchers should try Lal Dabba as a
potential candidate for pulling people out of coma.

After an hour or so we are walking the road which leads
to the base of Purandar. We see a car coming along. Mario
decides to demonstrate magnetism of his personality. He just
thinks we should ask these locals for information. He doesn't
wave his hands at all but the car stops near him as if it was
stopped by an invisible barrier. Hail Mario ! The car takes
us directly to the point where we start climbing up.

Nero has a point to prove. He doesn't crib, he acts. I
compensate for the void of cribbing he creates. Nero starts
picking up wafers' empty plastic pouches thrown by mortals
on the way and puts them in a bag he is carrying.
I start cribbing about irresponsible behavior that results
in these plastic carpets. But Nero lives up to his reputation
of being a role model of human iceberg and manages to hide
the irritation caused by my high voltage cribbing.

Mario decides that the plain route is no good for intellectual
consumption. Lets take short cuts across the serpentine good
old plain route that leads to the fort. I manage escaping first
short cut alive. Then he decides that not only we ought to take
short cuts but also where there aren't any, make new ones. At
present, he decides to make a new short cut as he can't see
any. I start trudging and ouch !! A species of thorny bushes
proves its existence to the world by means of a red dot on my
finger. Based on this fundamental proof, other species prove
some more corollaries and lemmas on my forehands and feet.
But I manage to stay alive the way I managed it in my
IISc graduate courses and go undeterred against this barrage
of proofs, corollaries and lemmas.

We arrive at a tank and now these fellas decide to test my
patience. With full knowledge, they turn right instead of left,
the route which goes only round and round and round the fort.
I fail the test after trying hard for 30 minutes and we turn
back, these fellas telepathing a wicked laughter to each other
at my glaring failure. Then we take the good old left turn
and after going some distance futher, these fellas decide
to test my energy. Now they turn left instead of right. This
path, with just enough width for a shoe, with valley on the left
and a steep rocky cliff on the right, again starts going round
and round and round the fort. Finally again after 30min or so,
I fail this energy test. We again turn back. Now their wicked
laughter on my failures becomes public and even more vicious.

Finally we take the correct route. How similar it is to
research ! Only after you are done with your patience and energy,
you find the correct route. We reach the well hidden gate after
some time and subsequently start walking towards the temple
far off which is at the highest point of the fort. Surprisingly,
we reach it quite earlier than our expectations.

What a peace ! What a endearing calm ! We lie down in shadow
of the temple with a pleasant cool breeze around. No words
for those 15mins of dozing under the infinite clear blue skies
with an occasional chirping floating around. You can actually
feel the freshness lingering in the air. It kind of reinvigorates
you. Finally we contribute something to World Peace with our
peaceful naps and then start climbing down. After managing
it with fewer shortcuts and some more bruises on feet and
forehands, we reach the base of Purandar. There we have
"Zhunka-Bhakar" (typical rural lunch menu in Maharashtra)
and start off towards Pune. Fortunately after two failures,
Mario and Nero let me free from the torture. We reach Pune
by 7 p.m. with myself accounting for two failures and a feeling
of blissful peace.

What a Valentine's day to have !! In love with nature !!

Onkar


Notes:
1) The fort Purandar (पुरंदर) was one of the key forts of Shivaji
the great. It commands guard over a huge area. A number of memorable
battles were fought at this fort.
2) For information regarding the fort, trekshitiz website is
the best source
3) These are the treskshitiz photos photos of the fort
4) For some more photos, especially of the area it covers, visit
my orkut Purandar album
5) There is a wikipedia Purandarlink too, though the trekshitiz
is better. But you can find a lot of cross-references on wikipedia.

Gulmohar Marg

I owe my two years to you.

I can't forget Friday, July 14 2006. I entered the IISc gates with
nervously excited feet. Put my luggage in hostel room allotted to
me and started navigating with help from the maps I had printed.

Destination Dept. of ECE. I go to corner near the aeroplane, refer
map and turn to left. I see a never ending road. The map says
I have to walk until the end of the road to see the place where I
am to spend my most memorable two years of life. I start walking
the road. Somewhere on the way I see a board telling me
it is Gulmohar Marg (Mayflower Road).

I owe my two years to you, Gulmohar Marg, for you really are never ending.
I still walk on Gulmohar Marg, everyday.

You are the distance between the outside world and the dept of ECE.
You are the distance between the outside world and the real me.

You saw me frustrated with equations I fought hard to understand.
You saw me depressed with my disappointing first semester results
and relieved with second semester results. In moments when I had
nowhere to go, you showed me the way to Tata statue and you silently
stood waiting at the corner, watching me sitting near the Tata statue
or the entrance of institute building. After consoling myself I went
back to my room while you perhaps smiled with the age-old wisdom.

You took me to library. Somehow I always chose to sit at such places
from where I could always see you. I could see morning sunlight
seeping through woods, a blue mormon gliding, dry leaves falling
with evening breeze. In due season, you invited me out to walk on
the red carpet you laid for us.

You called me and showed the mehfil of red, yellow, orange and violets.
You called me and showed the celebration of fireflies,
sorry, the stars had come down to earth. At midnight, the moonlight
shone on you as if it would shine on the face of a rishi busy in sadhana
with its eyes closed.

Time and again, you told me that the road is never ending. You just
have to keep walking. You just have to keep looking around and
appreciate beauty of life. Sometimes the road traveled turns out
to be more beautiful than the destination reached.