First class offenders

Ticket checker (T.C.) is one of the few human beings in the world who easily catch the anxiety on your face when you are traveling ticketless and he is PhD in face reading without actually earning it. His prized big fish catch, the first time offenders traveling in first class compartment of Mumbai local trains.

In the past few years, I have seen many people being caught traveling ticketless in first class compartment. Below are few categories of people that I have segregated, who are first time offenders. The use of offender to a person traveling ticketless sounds a bit harsh here but the railway court pronounces you guilty as offender putting you in the same category of people who have done sexual crimes.

1. Newcomers to the city:-

They are those types of big fish who are easily identifiable due to the luggage they carry on their shoulders and back. Seeing so many trains in a matter of 15 minutes that they haven’t seen in their lifetime leaves them perplexed and the crowd drives them crazy that they jump off to a compartment that they get to enter only to find a smiling TC waiting greedily for a prized catch.

2. Newly married couples:-

I have literally seen couples in FC asking TC that is this first class after entering it and how do you come to know this is first class? The TC shows them the red stripes outside the compartment and the cushion seats and asks them to shell 600 INR. My mom and dad were caught in a similar manner way back in 1987. Every newly married couple getting caught in FC reminds me of my mom and dad.

3. The whole family:-

This family had gone to attend a wedding and now they can’t find a place to enter the local train due to huge evening hour rush or due to odd mega blocks on Sundays. The train comes and in a split of time, the head of family sees a door of a compartment relatively empty and asks the whole family to get in the compartment only to find it first class. If they get caught, then it’s a huge catch. Call it a bumper crop! Sometimes the whole family is standing at the wrong position on the platform. People can’t interpret the first class stripes painted on the platform at regular intervals.

4. The ‘Bhulakaad ’ category:-

They are regular commuters in the first class compartment but one day their daily pass expires and unfortunately, the TC lands in the compartment. They show their expired pass, only to be caught by the sharp eyes of the TC, the expired date. The disappointment on the face of the ‘bhulakaad’ category is clearly visible. They repent wasting their money on a silly mistake.

Out of 100 times you are traveling ticketless, 99 times you will be caught by the TC. The one time you got saved can be summarized as ‘Every dog has his day’

(P.S:- Please share your experiences getting caught traveling ticketless and if any new category can be added to this post)

Snooping

After getting a hard fought seat in TNA-VA local in morning, I settled with last minute revision (You can’t revise today’s subject due to its huge complex nature but I can pretend to revise) for today’s exam. A man in age of 25-30’s, well dressed, stands in between the space of two opposite facing row of seats.

Slowly the action starts to unfold. He starts to break free the numerous knots in the headphones that were crumpled in his breast pocket. He takes out his blackberry whose screen had a big scratch (:D) He starts to talk when the train starts in motion and the conversation with the other talker goes on.

Here are some titbits of the interesting conversation.

It turned out that the person was ‘Gujju’ (Gujrati speaking) he was talking so loudly that all my concentration to do revision transpired and I started to listen to this guy. He was complaining about something, here are the two complaints that I remember.

First one, ‘I bought a new trouser worth 1500 INR from Big Bazzar and she washed it in washing machine destroying the fine texture of the trouser. She could have at least asked me before washing it.’

Second one. ‘She buys stale vegetables from Big Bazzar and doesn’t go to buy fresh vegetables from Thane station area‘

He was complaining about his wife and looks like he was newly married. And guess who he was complaining to, his beloved mother. Looks like an arranged marriage and when something goes wrong in the marriage, you can hold your parents responsible for it. (You can’t complain if you have a love marriage) He had a bad night with his lovely wife and was venting out his all frustration on his mother.

Luckily for me the call dropped as we were in a fast moving train(Why a call drops is a mobile communication concept which only telecom engineers can understand :P ) and then he sat with glum face all throughout the journey and I happily started my so called revision. 

End Semester days

Back counting started from 27^th December. The day we finished our last paper of seventh semester and the back counting has intensified due to 100 ton load of Lab work and assignments being compounded on us like a geometric progression series. The frantic days of end semester are the moments that I enjoy the most. A single paper lost here and searching it among your batch mates is like searching a needle in the hay. I have been observing this for the last seven semesters and this semester will off course be a no exception it. This tradition will go on for ages to come.

Copying assignments is one thing that I dread the most and try to write it on my own as copying some wrong and shit answers written by others is not the turf that I deal with. In extreme cases, when professors who don’t have mercy on poor engineering students and give us too many assignments that can’t be counted on finger tips, in such cases, I have photocopied faster than a zerox machine. At the end of semester, tracing the original source of assignment is difficult and questioning him why have you written this answer is a complete waste of time. Also you will get replies like, ‘Copy karne ka kam kar’.

Lab work==Donkey work. Okay, I made some observations and have thoroughly understood what’s going on with the experiment, then why to write and waste pages. Save trees and ‘Go Green’.

This is high time of year when you get to see the human nature of all your batch mates and it’s a rat race to cross the maze first. A tiresome process which drains a lot of energy and after crossing the maze first, you have achieved really nothing. At this time of year, you come to know some real friends who help you sail peacefully through a rocking sea.

As you queue microprocessor instructions in the stack, so do we stand to get our files checked. How can a professor sign so many pages in one day? I have seen professors stocking up red ball point refills before the checking assignments season starts. They too know that they are in deep trouble over piling work. I have heard professors who tell students, ‘Please check file before Friday, I am going to my native place on Monday’. This pushes panic button among students and everyone tries to complete that subject’s file by Friday leading to again a long queue. And on Monday, he is still there in the college. He used it to fool us so that he is free on Monday. A clever ploy indeed! But I did no fall to this silly ploy in the semester when he came second time to teach us.

When you go to check your files, try to remain innocent about all the misdeeds you have done in your file. The Professor is also in a hurry and tries to ignore it unless your luck runs out and you had a very bad semester with the concerned professor. Never take ‘panga’ with any professor in your life time while doing engineering.

Hope these last days of our life as an undergraduate student go peacefully and let us enjoy this last end semester days.

(PS: Dedicated to BE- EXTC batch of A.Y. 2010-11)

Trek to Harishchandragad

Trek to Harishchandragad is a dream trek on the itinerary of every avid trekker who loves Sahyadri’s and likes to explore the beauty of nature around him. This trek was on bang on schedule due to some advance planning and the enthusiasm that creeps in when you go for the first time for a two day trek.


29^th and 30^th December, the dates that were fixed as we wanted to avoid the new year partygoers rush and wanted to trek only in winter to avoid any risk of getting slipped on a treacherous rocky path that we will shortly be encountering on the path to summit.
Pre-planning- Scanning google earth for all the information and landmarks as we were going without a guide. Get a big bag such that you have enough supplies for two days. This made our bags really heavy. No plans to cook on the top (we are not bad cooks) Necessary enquiries from friends about their trek to the same place.


29^th Dec:


5.30 a.m.- I and Sushrut arrived on time below our building and still no news of our third companion, Angad. This is usual thing. His bag was small and packing it was proving tedious job for him. Finally, we left our building at 6.05 a.m.
We got a 2*2 semi-luxury bus to Kubhi phata much to my satisfaction and I took extra precaution not to sit with Sushrut in the bus.


8:35 a.m.- The conductor of the bus forgot that there were passengers on board to be dropped at Kubhi phata and when I informed him about our presence, he dropped us at the middle of NH-222. We walked down to the wall of the dam. It was a long walk, four kilometres to Kireshwar. We were praying that we get a lift from passing vehicle but it was difficult even to spot a man walking on the wall of Pimpalgaon dam. This is the place where ‘Bingo’ effect took place on me. Cold wind was blowing over the dam and I was sweating profusely due to sweater and the heavy back pack. Couldn’t decide whether to remove my sweater and monkey cap as the wind was harsh and the sweat was trickling inside. A perfect recipe for getting cold on the trek. After completing more than half way, we got a lift from a tractor. The ride was bumpy, Angad and Sushrut bore the brunt sitting on the top of tractor. I tripped while getting down the tractor. Not a big deal! A slightly peeled off right hand. We ate ‘garam’ poha which had not so hot green chillies which tasted fine in the cold morning at a nearby hotel.


10:49 a.m.- The trek started bang on time. The gradient of slope was not so steep and time passed quickly till we reached Tolar Khind. Khind is narrow strip of land between two mountains. We had refreshing lime juice here.


12.45p.m.- we started to climb the rocky patch after Tolar khind. It was the most challenging part of the trek. The rocky patch is steep at some places coupled with loose soil at some places. Never look down while climbing this patch. 600 feet plunge awaits you if you take a wrong step anywhere. Villagers have installed iron poles on the patch but they too vibrate due to heavy gush of wind due to narrow gap between the mountains. Be careful in every step that you take while climbing this patch. It requires effort and concentration while climbing this patch. It took one hour to clear this patch.


2.00 p.m.- We cleared the patch and ate boiled eggs on a small thatched roof shelter with the view of dam and Kireshwar village form the top. Awesome view from here! We took a wrong turn and we were a bit lost as the path ended and frantic use of GPS and GPRS made us realize we took a wrong turn and turned back and here we wasted our 20 minutes. Back on correct path, shouting ‘arrow baba ki jai’ we were cruising towards the main temple on Harishchandragad. We knew that we had to climb seven small mountains but the magnitude of going up and down four times drained our whole energy. A small pit stop on the route and we got clear view of temple complex around 3:45 p.m. and we were so relieved to see the caves in which we were going to spend our night. We misjudged the time required the time required from rocky patch till the temple complex and were really exhausted climbing the small seven mountains


4.00 p.m.- We ate our home packed lunch and visited the temple of Lord Shiva. The temple is beautifully carved and artistic impressions of Hindu mythology were clearly seen carved on the rocks. One group of around 8 people was stationed inside the caves of the temple complex. We dropped our plan to see sunset on Konkan Kada as we were tired and decided to see it the next day’s morning.


6.00 p.m.- Hot tea by a cook who was stationed near Ganesh guha, the cave at which we were staying for the night. We were surprised to see a family of four with whom we would be sharing the cave. The family consisted of cute little twins. The time passed quickly looking at the dark sky above our head. The stars were shining brightly and we were unable to guess any of the star formations. Wish we had an Android phone and the cool app that points out the star formation when phone camera is pointed at the star formation.


9.00 p.m- We took to sleep. The cave has a bit rough surface and adjusting our bed sheets on the surface was a big pain. I tried very hard to sleep but the rough surface was not the normal one that we sleep in our home. Really the tiles of your home are more comfortable to sleep than the surface at the cave. I slept at around 1.00 a.m only to be woken up by hard surface 3 times. Finally the next day dawned.


30^th December:


7:30 a.m.- We set off to Konkan Kada. We trekked all way to see Konkan Kada. Missing this point is like your 5 hour trek is worthless. A small 25 minute walk takes you to this beautiful point. We were breathless seeing the concave mountain and we looked like small specs on the huge concave mountain. The sheer depth of the valley below us was simply awesome and a must see place on earth. You bend and look how you are standing on the patch which is hollow below you. Amazing place to be on this huge round earth. The experience standing here was extraordinary and the feelings can’t be described here. We could also see the tough ‘Nali chi vat’, another trekking route to Harishchandragad. We bid adieu to this place here and started to trek down towards Tolar Khind. One last look at the temple area and started our way back. We ate bread jam and bread butter near a small stream before rocky patch.


11.50 a.m.- We started to descend the rocky patch. It required lot of concentration and the loose soil at some places made the matter worse. Though I was afraid at some places on the rocky patch, I managed to go past all the tough patches where we all were really scared. Finally we made it to the bottom of the patch and I was overwhelmed by joy that I did it!


1:30 p.m.- We started to descend with very good speed and were at the base village by 3. We had a small lunch and walked back to NH-222. Luckily we got a 3*2 bus whose fare was 18 Rs. cheaper than the 2*2 bus.


We headed back home with a bagful of memories and loads of experience to be cherished in our mind.


Photos of the trek can be viewed at
Harishchandragad

Trek to Peb Gad(Vikatgad)

Trek to Peb Gad (Vikatgad) forced me introspect why all the enthusiasm and the hyper activity in me just before the start of trek dies as I begin to climb the path to the summit. I keep pondering all the way when will this hardship end and when will I lie again on the soft bed of my house. Damn! You should watch my face at the end of trek. I vow to never trek again and the next day, I am ready with the plan for next trek.

This trek too was arranged hurriedly which I hate the most and it got finalised on the previous night itself. So much less time and I started to take the necessary things with me. This is one of the few treks that didn’t force me to wake at 5 in the morning. I aroused from my bed around 6:30 a.m. to catch 7:51 train to Karjat from Kalyan.

You can reach Peb Gad by alighting at Neral station on KYN-PUNE route. Catch any local to Karjat or Khopoli. We had a small breakfast at a local eatery which served a good dish Misal-Pav which had a slight taste of Chicken Masala in it. The Chicken Masala taste has a distinct signature of local ‘Agri’ community which lingered throughout the trek in my mouth. 

There are two ways by which you can reach Peb Gad. First one is the one I am describing below:

Walk form Neral station to the base village Fanaswadi which takes roughly 45 minutes. Keep asking locals for directions to reach the base village. From our initial survey on net, we had found the path to trek a bit tricky and decided to hire a guide. We bought down the price of our guide from INR 400 to INR 100 and decided to take the young boy with us. He was wearing only slippers for trek! The trek started with a beautiful waterfall awaiting us after base village. We decided to give it a slip as we had come for trekking and not to soak ourselves in waterfall. The initial path was of medium difficulty with steep climb till you reach the plateau. The initial climb blew away all the energy I had in me and we still had a decent half way to go. The heart beats were being heard in my ear and we took a small pit stop on the way. I sat on a rock while my friends wondered to take snapshots of the beautiful plateau and the green carpet surroundings.  

After a small rest, we all started proceeding towards the final challenge. The second part of this trek passes through dense forests which can mislead you. The guide showed us the correct path and we started to climb a small waterfall. The climb is bit steep here and sudden change weather had me and Shardul giving out heat waves from our body. You could literally see the water vapour waves coming from our body. The humidity factor was striking us hard but in the end we reached a point where we could finally see Peb Gad and the ridge joining Peb Gad and Matheran. Then came the rocky patch about which I had read on several bloggers site. The rope was hanging dangerously from the rocky cliff and we had to put the whole weight on the rope and push forward our body to clear the patch. Good Samaritans had made the job easy as they had preinstalled the rope firmly to the rocks. A small walk leads us to the caves which are well maintained and has a small bust of Shivaji Maharaj.

We had a small lunch and proceeded towards the ‘Buruj’(wall or protection of the fortress)which overlooks Matheran. En route, you will have to climb steel ladder which vibrates due to heavy gush of wind. One step wrong while climbing the ladder and will fall down in the valley. So be extremely careful here. Keep walking straight to the Buruj. The view from that point was simply amazing and breath taking. You could clearly see the ridge joining Peb and Matheran. The deep valley, the dense forests and cool air took away my tiredness instantly. We were also able to see the path from Peb Gad towards Matheran. The toy train line is also clearly visible from here. After initial heated discussions, we decided to take this path towards Matheran as our return path. We bid adieu to our guide and started going towards Matheran. This path was completely new to us and another group guided us till the end. The return path is very simple and straight forward with no twists. You literally cross over from Peb to Matheran over the small thin ridge. Here we encountered extremely heavy rain and our path turned into muddy water stream. After sometime the path became more or less manmade with concrete steps laid till you reach the toy train tracks. A bench awaits you installed by railway authorities and a sign board signalling the Peb Gad is visible from here. Walk down with the tracks to reach theNeral-Matheran road. Many small waterfalls awaits you on the track route. If u take opposite path, that is, if u start to climb upwards with the road, you will reach Dasturi naka. We easily got a lift from a Taxi who dropped us till Neral station. You can take this opposite path if you want to avoid rope climbing. This is the second path viable for newcomers and is very easy.

In the end, the trek was completely a new experience for me. The beautiful surroundings of Peb are simply breath taking you ought to visit this fort once if you are an avid trekker.

Circus

First a fall, I would like to specify that circus here doesn’t mean an album from Britney Spears. Next it is a salute to all artists and all species of Kingdom Animalia for entertaining me for following 10 reasons:

  1. Joker and again not the ‘The dark night’ joker. An eternal part of circus. Life of the circus. Made me laugh till I fell from my seat. Most vivid memory-One joker strikes the arse of another joker with a bat so that a small fountain of water comes out of his zip which I thought as a small kid as if he was urinating in public in front of all.

  2. Elephants- for playing cricket and Doctor-Patient. Elephant injections really frightened me.

  3. Aerobatics- For all those men and women who performed remarkable feats high above the ground. Fantastic synchronization!(Synchronisation sounded fantastic till Microprocessors came to haunt me)

  4. Tigers and lions- They were seen in action till I was in 5^th Std. Ring master showed dare-devilry in taming them. Sight of tigers and lions were attraction at the end of all shows. Maneka Gandhi bought halt to this show. They remained as a burden to circus as they couldn’t be released in wild.(never saw a Liger at circus though the lions and tigers were kept in same cage)

  5. Stunts performed by bikers in the round sphere(Centrifugal force reminded my teacher in school-again enjoyment crashed like a computer hard disk)  

  6. Colourful parrots. They were imported( Off course illegally)

  7. Dogs for performing doggy tricks.

  8. Artists for riding one tyre bicycle.

  9. Various artists for doing tricks that I hardly remember

  10.The circus managers and all backstage performers for doing a perfect job and delivering high      quality entertainment at INR 70 only

‘Rambo’, ‘Jumbo’, ‘National Circus’ are the few names that I remember even now. The real question here is the entertainment that we got from animals was cruelty or not? Did I enjoy this at the cost of the poor animals? Once I saw a Hippopotamus at a Circus. Hippo’s are not even found in India. How did the Hippo live in a small tank of a truck? Some questions remain really unanswered…

Young Forever..

Let’s dance in style, let’s dance for a while

Heaven can wait, we are only watching skies

Hoping for the best, but expecting worst

Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?

Let us die young or live forever

We don’t have the power but we never say never

Sitting in a sand pit, life’s a short trip

The music for a sad man

Forever young, I wanna be forever young

Do you really want to live forever , forever and ever?

Forever young, I wanna be forever young

Do you really want to live forever , forever and ever?

Who doesn’t want to live forever young? Watching this video on VH1 sung by Jay-z feat Mr.Hudson made me think to live forever young. The young blood flowing through your veins in the age of 20 is more gushing and takes along with itself all the joys and sorrows with it. The blood gets roughed up easily with the thick walls of our veins and flows vibrantly. The blood flowing at the age of 40 has thick dirt on its wall and roughing up against the thick walls causes more pain than in the age of 20.

The craziness, the energy, the enthusiasm, the will to try new things is experienced by all of us only at young age. Once this golden period is gone with the wind, the routing bore schedule of adulthood starts which takes away the desire to try new things. Being young gives you freedom to try new things which your elders have never tried.

Failure at a very young age can pinch you more than the teacher who used to take it in school. You will 

stumble along an untraded path many a time but that is a learning curve for you. Failures make you wonder about all the hardships you have taken and still you are a ground zero. Digesting a failure and coming across a new idea is more palatable at young age. But after we go in adulthood, is it possible?

Responsibilities grow as the age progresses. We don’t have time to think about ourselves. We are cared what the world is doing and try to follow the world.

Running down the street of your neighbourhood at a very young age with joy overflowing over a small reason to make you happy arouses curiosity among neighbours. Try this now. Neighbours will be ready to dial 102 to take you to mental asylum.

Life changes so quickly in a matter of years.

Live it!