On Friday, I wrote the test quite well (it was an easy one; how easy it was is left to you ;-) ). This meant I embarked on my Bangalore journey in a good mood. :D I departed from Chennai by an A/C sleeper bus, which proved to be a bit uncomfortable for me, considering how tall I am. :D However, every trip always has its share of bloopers and bad luck. The first thing I realized on reaching Madiwala early Saturday morning was that my mobile would not send any message or give any call; effectively, I finally discovered that my mobile plan did not support roaming. So I used a STD phone in the travel shop which was still open at 5.30 in the morning, and managed to inform my friend about my arrival. My pal Vivin arrived within 15 minutes of the call, and we went back to his house.
Being the lazy bummers we are generally, we had a long morning of sleeping and relaxing. Finally, it was time to decide where to go for the weekend. For Saturday evening, we decided to hang out in one of the malls, and help ourselves to some eye exercise (obviously!). After some deliberation, I zeroed in on Garuda mall, hoping that it would not be as modern as Forum, and would somewhat retain the feeling of the city before IT invaded its premises (like Spencer Plaza in Chennai, which is a unique combination of old shops and the latest swank malls). On reaching Garuda mall, I realized that the scenario here was no different from Forum – expensive shops, couples with a lot of money to spend, or lot of guys like me who had come for sighting. However, instead of becoming bright, my eyes were tortured by the garish costumes many of the wannabe models strutted about in; they looked like they were doing an advertisement for FTV. Sigh! And the tale was not over; one of the girls had ridiculously thin legs, and had the audacity to reveal them by wearing a skirt till above the knees, and to exacerbate the grotesque sight, she wore high heels. Eyes rolling, I remarked to Vivin “ Macha… I thought Siberian cranes came to India during the winter; this one must be an unique species of crane.” We left Garuda, having wasted enough time milling about the floors, and shelling 40 bucks apiece for the ‘Scary House’ where the only thing that scared me was when Vivin held my hand suddenly when groping in the dark. :D
In the night, I went to the Legends of Rock pub. Hold you horses! I ain’t gonna drink any Fosters or Kingfishers or Vodka or whatever; it’s just that I am a big Arsenal fanatic, and they were telecasting the match there. So we both were at the pub for 2 hours, buying enough stuff to cement our place there :D Thankfully, 300 bucks weren’t wasted, as Arsenal rallied from a man and 2 goals down to win the match :D Oh! Did I forget to mention that the mushroom manchurian there is simply delicious? *yummy*
On a sleepy Sunday, I and Vivin decided to go someplace out of Bangalore, to escape from the maddeningly slow traffic and the bumpy streets. We pored over several sites on Bangalore tourism, and narrowed down to two choices – Bannerghatta national park or Ramohalli and the Big Banyan Tree(BBT) there. Luckily, we came across a blog on Ramohalli, which pointed out that the BBT had lost most of its old glory and was weathering down. So Bannerghatta national park was the only option.
We started to Bannerghatta from Dairy circle, waiting for the route 365 volvo bus which would take us directly to the place. However, I saw a sugarcane juice stall at the bus, and was tempted to taste the sweet juice. As we were waiting for the drink, our bus came to the stop. We couldn’t board the bus, because we had given our order; with a sigh, we watched the majestic red Volvo bus roll on towards Bannerghatta road, lapping up the sweet juice. :D We waited for some time, hoping the next Volvo would arrive soon; however 25- 30 minutes had elapsed, and there was no sign of any Volvo. We couldn’t wait any longer, and boarded one of the normal private buses. However, half way through, when the bus stopped for sometime, waiting for more passengers to come inside, we happened to see the Volvo bus pass by. Had we waited for 5 more minutes, we would have been enjoying the A/C, and reached the park directly. After 40 minutes, the bus dropped us about a kilometer away from the park. We strolled across the sandy road, stopping by an arch, where we took photographs with the beautiful green scenery in the background.
Once at the park, we booked tickets for the tiger and lion safari, and waited in the queue for 15 minutes. The queue for the grand safari, which included deer and bear as well, was twice as long, and we were lucky not to opt for it. The safari tempo arrived finally, and we were lucky to get the two-seater next to the driver, which means we had a great view of the trail ahead. All the windows were reinforced with metal grids, with a small opening at the center. The van took us down a narrow road with a lot of slopes, and the children inside squealed, oohed and aahed at the splendid scenery in the backdrop. Then we came to a gate marked ‘Lion Safari’, and a narrow beaten trail led us to an enclosure, where to my disappointment, we saw lions behind the meshed wire barriers. They were no free than the lions that I saw in Mysore zoo, and I wondered why it was a safari at all. Vivin assured me that the safari wasn’t over yet, and how right he was.
After some photo shots of the lions, the driver took us to another gate marked ‘Tiger Safari’, and from there onwards it was a memorable event to remember. Being in the front seat, we had an excellent view of a tiger, as it strayed on our path and ambled slowly up the curved path. On negotiating the curved trail, we were met with an awesome sight – four tigers were gathered right in front of the van. These beautiful striped beasts were kind of frightening at close range, and I was thankful of the protective meshes in the van. Two of the tigers were fighting, and we managed to take some snaps and a video of the whole incident. After some five minutes of watching the beasts growling and doing God knows what, we moved across the path, and the tigers moved aside to make way.
We continued across the trail, and came across more tigers. Finally, we came up to a royal white Bengal tiger, which was casually lolling about, looking bored. Vivin took a couple of photographs at close range, before the white beast decided to get lost and slunk away.
We drove for some more minutes, reveling in the beauty of the surrounding hills and trees. I suggested that we visit the butterfly park as well, and we requested the driver to drop us there. When we came to butterfly park, the rain clouds had burst finally, and it started raining heavily, as we hurriedly donned our rain cheaters and huddled under Vivin’s umbrella. The fleeting rain brought about a wonderful cool air, and I enjoyed being in it for some time. At that time, we found that it had been raining ice cubes in the city. :-)
We came to the butterfly park, where a giant butterfly greeted us, as we entered through the door in its middle part :D The view inside was beautiful; the place was full of plants and flowers, and a small pond was visible in the center. If one looks up, he/she can see a huge dome, dotted with several triangular bags, which I assumed was where the butterflies took shelter. There were a lot of flowers and some unique plants, but only very few butterflies were among them. Vivin and I had a whale of a time, using my camera as much as possible. I tried to take snaps that looked like those posted by RB, Veetrag, Prasoon and other great photographers (Don’t ask me about EXIF details… I plead ignorance :D)
Being in the middle of the park, surrounded by exotic flowers and plants (which would make a photographer forget about everything else), and hearing the constant pattering of the rain against the giant dome of the butterfly park, I could not have asked for a better evening. :-) There was even a butterfly museum, where they had big screens with all information about butterflies, as well as a projector screen showing a video of the life cycle of these fairy insects. My crazy side took over me, and we took some snaps with big butterfly pictures in the background, as though we were acting in Starship Troopers. :D We took some close up shots of two butterflies, trying all possible combinations to get the perfect one. By then the rain had stopped, and we decided to leave. Again, my crazy side took over, and we took a snap of each other, posing at a distance from the entrance, so that the wings and antennae appeared to sprout from our body. :D And at that time, I thought of a name for myself – The Butterfly King :P
The rain had seemed to make the scenery more beautiful, after the clouds had cleared that is. We took some more snaps in the nearby lawns, with the sunset in the background. And finally, we returned to the hustle and bustle of the city, tired but happy. It was a fitting end to the weekend for me. And imagine, I might have not got to see all this if I had not drunk the sugarcane juice, and taken the Volvo bus! :D
Come Monday, and I was ready to go to Infy Bangalore, to meet my old pals and of course interact with the bloggers whom I were dying to meet. I got my first taste of the famous Bangalore traffic on Hosur Road, which was moving at a snail’s pace. A note about the bus – I like the spacious seats! They are just perfect for my long legs :D I reached office after 45 minutes, and observed the crowd there, silently comparing them with the employees at Shols. Bangalore is more business like than Shols, and everyone there tends to walk hurriedly to their place. :-) The only folks engaged in conversations were the young employees like me.
The campus was enormous, and there were more people than I had seen in Mysore. I got lost in the urban maze, looking about for building 40 where Amith was sitting. I managed to find the building after half an hour, and met my college senior Amith. We had some small talk and he gave me a system; ten minutes later, I met the most wanted person in Infy Bangalore – the lanky Casanova Adi! :D I liked him at first sight, and any stupid thoughts of fighting with him over Ice went into the dustbin! :P The three of us had some fun pulling Ice’s legs through communicator. I found out a ridiculous fact – Adi had to work in project, even though it was his last week here. Pruntz, are you reading this? :D
I met my classmates over lunch, and spent the rest of the afternoon with them. I indulged in some chit chat over communicator, waiting for the clock to strike four. When it did, Amith and I went to terminal, and Adi accompanied us. We reached there, and waited for the other folks to arrive. Another person whom I looked forward, Wesley, arrived on the scene with Natarajan C and Kumar Veetrag. Later, Snehith and Ankita arrived as well; the latter hadn’t met any other blogger, and Adi was confused as to who she was. I recognized all the well known bloggers except NatC! He was not what I expected to me, and as I remarked later yesterday ‘ He didn’t look like a tamilian!’ :P We waited for others to turn up, but sadly no one came.
We engaged in small talk, but Wesley did most of the talking though, cracking jokes and occasionally checking the tweets on his mobile. I was not so conversant, and listened to the other folks. NatC had to go to a meeting, and KV had left earlier as he was engaged. Wesley had expected Adi to give the treat, but I told he had to treat us for winning the MVP award; NatC, Amith and Adi were unanimous in my choice; we coerced Wes into parting with 160 bucks at Chocolate :-) NatC had to leave soon to attend a meeting, so the rest of us sat down and relished our cake and pastry. Wesley was focused on finishing off his chocolate pastry, content to leave nothing in the cup, and Amith found it amusing :P We engaged in some more casual conversation, before the Lj-cut warrior reminded me that I had to see a manager about some project, in a tone that would befit a project manager himself :D The birthday girl Soumya dropped by for a minute to say ’hi’ and promised a treat for the Bangalore bloggers the next time she comes (Sigh! Bang and MCity bloggers get too many treats! :@ :@ :@ ) Before we parted ways, I finally remembered I had tagged my camera along, and we took some snaps. (Sorry NatC and KV, I should have taken a snap first before you guys left :-( )
Manas didn't come because he didn't know the venue of the meet :-(. And Bindu later told me that work and fever prevented her from coming (Atleast Soumya came for a minute! :@)
I met the project manager there, and was told I may work on a project from Chennai; being in Bangalore would mostly not materialize. I was pleased with how the day had gone, and left Infy in a good mood. That was the end of my Bangalore journey. I am thankful to my best buddy Vivin and all the bloggers who attended the meet, for making this occasion a memorable one. :-)
P.S. My dead mobile finally became alive once I reached the TN border. :D
5 comments:
Nadathu da nadathu...
Guess who is this!!!!:-P
hey... there are too many people to guess.. x-(
Is that u mediumOne?
po da.. u disabled anonymous a??? x-(
po da... u disabled anonymous??? how dare u not guess my name x-(
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