I was feeling guilty everytime someone gets married in my gang. Why wont I be.. They took leave for my marriage and spent weeks with me. And for their marriage? am sitting in Singapore and feeling just guilty.. Off late, I was hit with these thoughts. Surprisingly, Senthil’s Mariaage and Shiva’s marriage destined to happen on the same day that too on a sunday. No matter what day, I made sure I should fly for 2 days for these marriages. Luckily 26th was Hari Raya (Bakrith) festival (here) and got another day..Having said that, my wife happily said she could join. She runs on much more tighter schedule than me all the time except the fact that I roam in India while she spends time with her parents. We decided to get one more day for the road(?!) and bunked 26th Nov as well. 25th night we left SG.
Most of the time, my plans would be complicated.. 😀 and luckily works.. This is no exception.. Hear the plan for 4 days. I should have landed in Bangalore but my flight dont land at Bangalore on Wednesdays. So chose Chennai to land and wanted to start to Krishnagiri (my home town) that night itself. But my wife and her parents didnt encourage a night drive hence had to plan for early morning.. On Thursday morning 9:30 (early morning??!!) I started to Krishnagiri. Being the day of my brother’s Birthdady (26th Nov), day was more meaningful.
Luckily my driver hit 110+ in the tacho meter most of the time and I was home for lunch. Hardly I spent couple of hours with them and headed to Bangalore. Have to be so grateful for dad and mom for their understanding.. :-).. Having Vijay’s birthday bash, I cant be there anymore.. Started to bangalore and that was almost eventless. Bangalore is slowly recovering its traffic woes especially the electronic city to madiwala stretch. Am hoping for a good next year but who knows, if the number of vehicles going to grow, who can save the road. Coincidently, Krish started from office (poor guy travels almost 10 KMs more from electronic city from bangalore). Even though the distance between my bus and his bus was huge he told me that we would definitely bridge the gap at Bommanahalli with the Traffic Jam. And he was right. We were counting pillars and exchanging the pillar numbers to share where we were.. Good time pass isnt it.. 😀 We met in Madiwala and went home. My brother was home and I felt like am home after a longggggggggggg time.. After all, I spent almost 4 years there. I know the air in there. Seemingly, the street is getting better and better. Almost every house has got a car parked in that narrow street. Good going, I thought.
In no time, we collected the cake and decided to take it to the restaurant itself so that every one would join. Karthik and Selvakarthik came with a cool Birthday candle, we hopped on in his Verna and headed to Bagicha at Maratahalli. I recollect vaguely that this is my first ever restaurant where I had my first Team dinner 7 years back.. Vinoth, Bharathi, Joy & Kasturi, joined little later. Somehow the restaurent lost its charm I guess.. Cant help when its filled with people always. The birthday boy did cut his cake and shoved a piece to me first. Gosh, I wish to be there every year to get that piece. Then we went on hogging 😉 with the chat which would never end. Before they wanted to say its mid-night and leave, we promptly finished and headed back to home. Even before I chewed the day, my eyes said good night to me. A total dreamless sleep which always yearn for.
Whole Friday went with some long pending tasks. In the evening got a chance to visit Vinoth’s sweet home. Bharthi prepared us Akki rotti (a famous dish in Karnataka) which I never knew could taste that good. With some constructive arguments over the Indian politics and parenting, I rushed home in a Volvo bus. Honestly, Volvos are good thing but it was fully crowded. Every now and then I was crushed to the bars. For a change, I enjoyed the journey and reached home. Always there are surprises; The trip would be hectic and managing with one driver is almost impossible, so I have had asked for a backup driver. But what we got was a Tavera and just one driver for the next 3 days trip. We didnt have time to get annoyed. We hopped on to the Tavera and hit the highway. Myself, Vijay, Karthik, Krish were ones to start. Arun and Praveen were suppose to join us in Salem. With a quick dinner at my home in home town, we accelerated. At Salem, we picked Praveen and heard that Kavitha (Arun’s wife) was not well and Arun decided to stay back. Oops.
And the journey really started. With couple of tea breaks, we headed straight to ValParai. Plan was to spend till evenig there and rest of the evening for Shiva’s pre-marriage functions and travelling overnight to Dharmapuri for the Senthil’s marriage in the next morning. Well, it worked. 😛
Some homework (at office) about the place really helped. First we had hit Pollachi and already it was dawn. We headed further and we started to see the full glory of nature. I rubbed my eyes and got ready with my shutter bug. I had no idea why am feeling light whenever I see nature at its best. I love the rocks with green fungus. I go crazy with the color. Our first stop was at the 9th hairpin bend of Aaliyar Dam. When we started with the hairpin bends, the dam looked like a small one. But the magnificient size is visible from the 9th Hairpin bend. A small view point is there and its okkay for its class. Unlike ooty or kodaikanal I didnt see petty shops and annoying noises. Exactly a private view point. As we passed those roads, road safety walls were occupied by number of monkeys. To keep themselves warm they use the strategy of forming walls by hugging. Though I have seen this in the pictures, first time I saw that front of me. And ofcourse have to say this, after the trip, whenever I saw those picture of monkey, there were some questions like why it chose that safety wall etc. Hmmm..
We headed further and the true beauty started to feast our eyes. Attakatti was on the way and Rotti kadai was the next. I thought Moonar was the best one in the view of Tea plantations. I was totally wrong. These places are gorgeous, totally gorgeous. Anyone who sees the place, without thinking would claim this is the best. The tiny hills of Tea plantations and the trees in between them (to grip the soil) were absolutely beautiful. I was so glad that it was not polluted and ‘developed’ for tourism at all. But it has every ingredent to be one the best tourist place. Heard that Tamil Nadu Govt has plans to develop, but didnt see any symptoms. Let that be that way!!.. 😀 If you have a weekend and if you have a (good) car, you can enjoy one of the best weekend of your life. Take friday off and make it a 3 day trip, you wont forget it at all, anytime.
Little dillemma whether to stop at monkey falls or not was decided to skip the place when we saw a bus with full of sabari mala tourists. Valparai is kind of located in a very comfortable zone of nature. Western ghat and hills surrounded but a secluded small little town. Honestly, town doesnt have decent hotels or resorts. Anyhow our intention was just to finish the morning chores and a bath. We got in a hotel and with all due respect to driver, requested him to sleep. I know we cant use the driver for rest of the day. Plan B time!. We got a local and settled for 1200 rs for a whole day trip in his Omni which is cheapest for the place and for the day trip. He was kind and waited till we hogged our breakfast in a super tasty mess nearby. It was excellant.
It seems the omni driver was obsessed with music. That vehicle had super bass speakers. As we started the day tour, he played songs from “Minale” a Harris Jeyaraj album. I cant explain those refreshing thoughts. Beauty of the place, friends, wits and height of it extreme quality of music. As I listened to those songs, I felt lighter and lighter. Greatness of the music especially the cinema albums is that would make us to visit the period when we listened to those much (may be when they got released). Am really not sure, but it recollected those carefree life of Bangalore before marriage. Just forgot my senses for a while.;-)
Our first stop was Chinnakallar dam, a small tiny in a secluded area. Nothing much to write about it. But if you have time its good to visit chinnakallar falls which we didnt go as we knew we would lose much time. Next stop was at Nirar dam which better than the former. Again view was good not the very best. May be evenings in monsoon period would turn you into a poet there, I guess. Initially wanted to save my DSLR after seeing “No Photography” sign, but who bothers, our guys took enough number of pics including the warning sign. Next stop was at Koozangal (koolangal) or “Nalla thanni aaru” river. It was just bigger than a stream and we were not at all interested in getting into that. But we heard that it looks smaller but has number of death trap zones. Jeez.. Next stop was at Nallamudi Pooncholai to which we had to get into a beautiful Tea-estate. From there, we have to walk a KM (easy stretch) which has a extra-ornidary view of a valley and nearby tea estates. I tried to take a snap like floating in the cloud. But with our guys, its always fun, never can be serious. We couldnt get succeeded with taking a ‘good’ photograph on cloud floating. hmmmm…
Our next stop was at the most anticipated Sholayar dam. Our driver being a local took a route which I would never forget. Even a 4×4 would have 100 problems in that route. But our driver managed to drive with the expertise he gathered in years. At times we felt like we are heading to a footpath. Sholayar dam claims itself the second deepest in Asia. When we went there, with lots of walking (thanks to our driver), reached the dam to see a small portion which was almost similar like Nirar dam. When we headed back to Valparai, we were already loosing sun here and there. Cant afford to goto Shiva’s function late. The thought was running so hard in me and the omni understood that need as well. In those rugged roads, driver didnt want to take his leg off the accelerator.
When we reached valparai, quickly checkedout the hotel and waited for our driver. He happily absconded somewhere. hmmm.. We guessed he should be in the mess where we had our breakfast and found him there. Without disturbing him we came back. Atleast now we know where he is. When he came back, we urged to speed a little where he can but definitely not until we reach the foothills. We reached pollachi and deviated to Udumalpet where shiva’s marriage will happen the next day.
Without difficulties we found the marriage hall and we entered. As we had friends at both ends, it was easy to settle down to dinner as the first task. Considering the fact that we were hungry, we treated ourselves. It was a nice dinner. This side of the tamil nadu, marriages vary greatly. We didnt get any chance to see the bride and the groom together. I got hold of Shiva’s cousins (more than 6-7) and as we knew them started talking. That was the first blunder ever I did in the trip. They royally teased and ragged me. Well, kids growing. I almost ran off and settled inside the hall and we were talking to friends. Bad time follows. After a shortwhile, those ‘kids’ came inside and happliy settled down next to us. There it started. Next two hours, we will be ragged, teased, punished. My god, they are talented, quick witted and fearless. Honestly and frankly the questions whatever they asked were unanswered at our ends. They gave us nick names in 20 mins. Nobody did that to us. It was total fun and we almost forgot what for we were there. Thinking ahead, we collected ourselves and Met the Sivakumar and he got us the bride and we took a snap with the team. We bidded bye to them as we wont be there till the marriage. Kids were really attached now and they were sad on hearing us that we wont make it for the next day. It was kind of relief at our ends that we wont be there, to be too frank. Those kids didnt leave us and kept on taking photos using my DSLR and they were really quick learners with taking pictures and viewing them. Little later, we managed to leave the place and started to Dharmapuri for Senthil’s marriage. We were thinking that we would reach there just on time for the marriage. Luckily driver took us by 5:00 am. Thank god. Vinoth who didnt make it to the trip was already there in the pre-booked hotel for us. All we knew was sleep walking into the hotel and slept with the alarms set to get up early. Thats dangerous. After such a hectic trip, none were able to wokeup on time and Vinoth was taking trips to all the rooms and tried to get our guys atleast for the muhurtham. By the time we got readied, we got a call from Vinoth saying the marriage is already over. Oh noooooooooo… we rushed in a share auto. People over there didnt allow us to enter the hall first, they insisted we go to the breakfast hall. How can I explain him our sitution, we sneaked and got into the marriage hall. I met couple of college friends as well. Senthil the ever smiling with Ilavarasi made the stage to glow. As if we were good, we seated and little later, again because of the push, we entered the breakfast hall and filled ourselves. Later, we spent good time with senthil and worked a little (??!!) for his post marriage stuffs and called it a day. They didnt encourage my plan of taking our guys to my hometown for lunch. Hence we stayed back and enjoyed the lunch as well.
Later we started to our home town (on the way to Bangalore). I packed my stuff and started back to Bangalore shortly. Considering the traffic, it would be tough to take the normal routes. So we took the sarjapur route and dropped Vinoth at his home and we continued to Airport. Happily we spent long time there and called it my ‘TRIP’.
I told you it was hectic, but some how it always works.. 😀
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