random updates

1. the LGBs (small greenish insects) are back in campus. these will be a big menace for the next 2 months or so. our lives will become a living hell. god, please help us pour souls.

2. this is also the PPO season. i thought that people will be happy after getting placed in the big investment banks and other prestigious firms. but now i find most of them discussing and cribbing about their pay packages. i don't know how these people think of so many issues at the same time and not just be happy for the time being with the offer. i am sure they will find it difficult to spend the full fat-salaries that they are getting right now.

3. looks like my stars are not right these days. few days back on my way to lecture, just as i crossed a tree, a snake fell from it onto the ground. 5 seconds delay on my part and it would have landed on me instead of the ground. today on our way to city in the metro, just before the Kalighat station, there was an uproar in the front coach. soon we saw smoke coming out of that coach and people rushing towards our coach and then to the gates shouting "fire" and "bomb". the three of us tried to maintain calm and got down at the stop. contemplating that it could be because of wearing out of brakes which will delay start of metro (i won't deny that we were afraid too in case it was really a bomb), we decided to catch a taxi. the incident was an indicator of how in actual mishaps, a lot of people die simply because of the stampede caused by the commotion. thanks god for your blessings.

4. a lot of B-school competitions are happening these days. people here are very enthusiastic about these. they try to form teams with academically good folks so that they could easily win the competition. online quizzes are most common in these. the usual scene during such quizzes is that the team-members occupy 3-4 computers in neighbouring rooms. then from the central room (where 1-2 members sit filling up the answers), the members will shout the question (multiple choice most of the time) and its available options and other members will try to Google and find the best possible answer from among the options. i know for sure that not more than 5% students attempt these quizzes honestly or for that matter out of genuine interest. for others whether it's a source of easy money or a good CV point (e.g. winner of this-and-that quiz at XYZ's business festival), i don't know and nor do i participate in such events, but i do enjoy the whole scene that transpires.

5. for a change, prof. sarkar is in good mood these days while talking to us. there can be two possible reasons for this exceptional phenomenon which is worthy of entering the record books of iim calcutta, (a) he has realized that we really did a great job as statistics tutor and (b) he has nobody else to look forward to this semester. we had a long discussion on friday evening (which at time turned into a bargaining session) where he tried to coax us in agreeing to his terms and we tried all our efforts to reduce the tutorship load. finally we agreed to design more problems with the purpose of improving the quality of statistics handout (given as reading material to students) and he had promised to include our names in the future handouts. so it would be something like "this handout is designed and compiled by" and the list will include my name also (hope so for the time being). wow, sounds great to me.

6. i watched spiderman 2 again last night. this is another of those series, where the sequel has turned out to be better. tobey maguire looks adorable as peter parker aka spiderman and the beautiful kirsten dunst also looks perfectly suited for the role of mary jane watson. further, the idea of sticking with your responsibilites come what may looks very challenging to me.

the mis-adventure

as promised in one of the episodes of my travelogue, here is an account of the great adventure that some of us had while returning back from chandrtal. this is a bit long covering a time span of about 2 hours of our trek, so please be a little patient. for your visual assistance, i refer to some pics from time to time, these can be accessed here

GET, SET, GO.

starring: pal,jugnu,niranjan,avneet,palit,deepankar & myself

everything was going well. the seven of us were walking in a group on our back-trek from chandrtal when deepankar gave this idea. "yaar kyon na neeche utar kar along the river walk karen". since most of us were really bored of walking, we thought that this will be a real fun and so agreed instantaneously. to give the readers some idea of the distance we had to climb down, the pic titled "river bed from the road" will be of some assistance. at start the climb was very easy because we were moving down on rocks. but after a point we had to walk sideways since it was no more possible to walk down and we had to get to the other side of the rock to walk along the river. this was when the trouble first started. there were no rocks to hold on while moving sideways, so at each step we were slipping down if we didn't move from that position fast. you can get a better picture of the scene from the pic titled "climbing down to the river bed", there are only small stones and pebbles not the big rocks. the guy in red is niranjan and the guy behind him is jugnu.

what happened next could be described as funny but nevertheless it was really dangerous. at a point, niranjan stopped for some seconds and he actually started slipping. he tried hard to stop by getting into a spiderman kind of position but couldn't help much. since me and palit were close to him, we moved down and asked him to hold his hand. assured that help is there, niranjan now started asking others to take a snap of him in that "hangman" pose. it was really funny, all of us asking him to give his hand and he shouting for photo. anyways, we managed to get him up and it was all well again. for the next 45 minutes, we simply walked across the boulders next to the river Beas taking frequent breaks. all this time, we were just inches away from the river and the flow of water was so fast that if someone accidently slips and lands into the water, he couldn't do anything irrespective of how good a swimmer he was. this gave me a little reassurance that all of us are on equal footings since i don't know swimming and so was apprehensive at the start.

the pic titled "walking along the river" was taken at the end of river walk. in the pic the path looks very easy and even the water flow looks almost nil, don't get misled as that was simply because river takes a sideways turn at this point. niranjan is the front guy followed by pal and deepankar in that order. it was only after reaching this quiet river bed that we realized that our task is just 50% done, oh pardon me, actually just 35% done. our hopes of moving along the river and then climbing the road at an easy incline were shattered, when we realized that we couldn't move any further without crossing the river which in turn would be the most reckless decision of our lives. now the only option was to climb up the mountain (around 200 meters i guess) and reach the road. the pic titled "at the river bed" features palit and we had to climb half the height of the structure that you see to his left in the pic (actually that looks like a continous range till the very top, but there is a road there at half the distance, between the place where brown sand ends and greyish white sand starts).

so while jugnu and avneet decided to look around for the best place to start the climb, the rest of us decided to take a break. they zeroed down on 2 places which could best be seen in the pic titled "now how do we climb up". the first is the greyish smooth slope you can see just behind aveent in the pic and the other is at the rightmost end of the pic which also had some rocks/boulders. the first one was approximately 45 degrees slope all through but looked difficult to climb because of the absence of rocks and other things that we could hold onto in case of slipping. at the same time, the second one was also 45 degrees for most of its length except last 75 meters or so (where it looked steeper) and in addition it had big boulders all along. so all except deepankar (who went for the first one) agreed to climb the second one. it would be only later that we would regret doing so because as i had already said about distances in mountains, the same also holds true for heights, you can never say anything for sure just from a distant view, deepankar's climb which looked tougher turned out to be very easy in comparison to ours. anyways so now it was for the 6 of us to defy all odds and climb that mountain.

so we started with jugnu and avneet in the lead, me and palit following them and in the end niranjan and pal. it was a tedious but still an easy walk for first 50 meters after which it started getting difficult. the main problem we were facing was that as the person in front was climbing, many loose rocks were coming out and falling down, so the person down had to be on constant lookout of things happening above him. we kept moving this way till we reached the half-way in about 20 minutes and then took a 5 minute break pondering how to proceed further. the reason being that till now it was almost a 45 degrees slope, but all of sudden we were facing a good 65-70 degrees slope for the next 70 meters or so. at this point we also changed our order a bit. me and palit decided to take the lead leaving jugnu and avneet (the good trekkers among us) for the assistance of niranjan and pal who were trailing behind. their situation had been best captured in the pic titled "climbing our way up". this pic was taken from the above-mentioned half-way and at the bottom you can see the river beas. i was happy that in case i fall at least i won't die of drowning, the sharp rocks will do the needful much before i fall in the river.

the next 30 minutes that followed can be described as one of the most difficult and exhausting time of my life. the rocks and boulders were very very loose and i was afraid that by mistake i would let some loose. in fact what followed was exactly what i was dreading. i grabbed up one boulder (which looked to be stable) with one hand and just as i was about to catch hold of the other one, the first one came out and started to roll down. i almost started slipping and with all last ditch efforts stopped myself by digging both of my palms in the sand. (this later became a nice lesson of climbing: rely more on gripping sand by the palms rather than by the rocks). at this point let me shift to what was happening with others. the boulder that i had let loose had started to fall at full speed and as i was told later by others, they heard some rock falling from above and it went down bisecting the points at which pal and niranjan were standing. pal later recollected, that he was multitasking at that point: saying his prayers to all possible gods that came to his mind. after this incidence, niranjan declined to budge from his position and had to coaxed by avneet by promising the remaining pepsi when they reach the road (at this point let me tell you that niranjan is a real pepsi freak, he can do anything for a pepsi). the greed for pepsi set niranjan in real motion and the four of them started again. in the meantime, i heard a big "YO" from palit. he had completed this steep climb, from his position he could see the road and it was now a mere 30 degree climb for another 30 meters or so. this really boosted my spirits and i started climbing real fast. finally we reached the road, thanked god and congratulated each other. this was followed by a long 15 min break (in which we actually started worrying a little about others but were sure that jugnu and avneet would prevent any mishap) before pal appeared and then the remaining three joined after 5 min. after all of us had taken sufficient long break, we started for our destination, this time on road, with smiles and a sense of accomplishment on our faces.

now when i think about that climb, i feel that i mightn't have been able to do that in case i was alone. it was because i had friends around me and the mutual inspiration that we were sharing that helped us climb that feet. also i would like to thank farhan akhtar for the concluding rock climbing scene in the movie Lakshya, i was remembering that scene all through my climb. it's just a matter of coincidence that i don't have a single pic of mine in this climbing experience, would have treasured it for the rest of my life.

travelogue - part 3

here is the third and final episode from where i left in the previous post:

the next morning we were woken up by the guides. the reason was that for a change there were clouds (rarely seen at those heights) and the first rays of the sun coming out of the mountains and passing through the clouds were presenting a beautiful view. we undid our tents for the last time, packed up our bags and started the back-trek soon after the breakfast. our small group was walking real fast and by 10 (2.5 hrs of walk), we estimated that we would reach Bartal in another hour. at that very point, something mischievous got into the head of deepankar. he gave us the idea of taking a shortcut via walking along the river bed. we were in real adventurous mood. so 7 of us decided to leave the road and get down to where the river was flowing and walk along with it for some distance and then climb back to the main road. what followed had been described as "near-death experience" by one of our group member and requires a separate detailed account. all i can say is that in the next 2 hrs we covered barely 1.5-2 km and when finally we reached the place where our bus was waiting, we found that our guides were real angry with us for not following the road. the whole experience reminded me of "never take shortcuts in life". anyways so we had some cold drinks at a shop, boarded our bus and left for manali.

the rest of the bus ride was normal except that we were worried whether we would be able to cross the rohtang pass before it gets dark. the reason being that it gets all misty there and it is not possible to drive in dark. if it so happened, we would have to camp at rohtang itself and we were in no mood to put up the tents again. luckily for us, we crossed the rohtang in time and so reached our hotel at manali around 9 pm. after sleeping in tents and sleeping bags for so many days, the sight of proper bed with matress and quilts was heart-warming and we all crashed into bed immediately after having our dinner. next day after the breakfast, we decided to check out some local places. so we decided first to visit the "hot water spring" and from there to visit the "hidimba temple". the spring was a letdown, i was expecting something like a real spring coming out of the surface and throwing water in the air. unlike my imagination, there was this small rectangular pond which was getting the water from some source. first we decided to leave without taking a dip but on second thoughts the idea didn't sound appealing. so we landed into the water and then only realized why it is called "hot water" spring. it was so damn hot that it was impossible to stand under the flowing water for more than 5 seconds at a go. from there we took an auto and reached the Hidimba temple. for the mythologically-unaware, she was the wife of gada-dhaari Bheem (second of the Pandava brothers). there was also a temple, actually a small altar under a tree, of great Ghatotgacha (son of Bheem and Hidimba). within the compounds of the temple itself, there were local people offering the visitors to take a picture with rabbits and yaks (yes, there were two of them). on our way back, we came to hear about some monastries so we visited them too. i went to a monastry for the first time in my life and it felt really good. the entire atmosphere there is very quiet and soothing to the mind. we returned back to our hotel in time to watch the Italian grand prix which was won by my favorite team Mclaren.

the next morning we finally said goodbye to manali and left for chandigarh at 10:30. the journey was again very normal, actually it would be more appropriate to say that after our "real adventure", things like bus falling in the valley etc etc have lost all its significane and looked like very trivial means of meeting god. we reached chandigarh at around 10 in the night, had our dinner at a restaurant which was real bad. we reached the station in good time to catch the kalka mail but this time we got divided into 2 groups with our compartments being at almost the opposite ends of the train. the train journey went peaceful, there was no bomb-scare this time and we finally reached the joka-land next morning in time to attend the morning lecture, only to realize that i had no lecture on wednesday.

this is the end of my story. looking forward for more such trips in future. thanks for bearing with my bad and boring english.

travelogue - part 2

here is second episode from where i left in the previous post:

next morning we again packed up our bags and started for Chandratal. this was again supposed to be around "14-15 km" long but the only added advantage was that we were no longer required to carry the heavy sleeping bags. the ponies were doing the favour for us. just a 500 meter walk and the guide started climbing up an incline. thinking that this is the only route, though we could see a normal road going ahead, we followed suit. the climb turned out not be a very difficult one and when we were finished, we were happy because the few who were coming by road had to walk more than 1 km on the dusty road. after that, it was like another routine walk for many kilometers but we took breaks more frequently on this trek. after walking for close to 4 hrs (including another good incline and this one didn't have stones also, but it was all sand so we didn't slip) we came to a place where the guide told us that now the chandratal lake is just 2 km away. further he added that it is 1 km of straight walk and 1 km of decline, that's it. after this, he continued ahead but 4 of us decided to rest thinking that we are almost there and rest of the folks are far behind us. we slept there, even with sun straight into eyes, for more than an hour and when we woke up realized that all others have passed by. this was like the story of rabbit and turtle, though we were not having any race. anyways so we started for what would turn out to be the longest 2 kms of my life, adding to it the fact that for miles there was not a single human being in front of or behind us. we were badly missing civilization. it was not before walking for 4-5 km that we got sight of lake and this fact really invigorated us. thankfully, there was a shop there which supplied consumer goods and we filled our stomachs with some food and cold drinks.

after taking some rest, we put up our tents and had photo-session with the lake. the lake is spread over an area of approximately 2.5 square km and is a source of medicinal herbs. infact the greenish-blue colour of the lake water is due to the numerous herbs at the lake-bed. but there were some bad news in store for us. one of the group members was in real bad shape, in fact he had to be given oxygen at night for quite some time and only then he was able to say a word. many others were having severe headaches and some were simply feeling very bored at the prospect of continuous walking whole day. so it was decided that these people will go back to manali the next morning and the rest will proceed further. we were actually only halfway our final destination, Baralachala Pass (altitude 4600 meters), and had more than 2 days of trek left which also offered 2 river crossings. but when we woke up the next day to restart, we came to know that the plan had changed completely. in view of the fact that some of the people were not well and that there was no further means of retreat once we move ahead of chandratal lake, it was decided by the guides to cancel further trek. so the guy who was not well was taken back on ponies to the place from where bus was available to manali, a couple of guides and 2 of our group members also accompanied him. later we came to know, that he became all well as soon as he reached manali.

since the rest of us were to leave the next day only, we had one full day to enjoy the place. the guides encouraged and three of us took a dip in the lake water, it was real cold but soon we forgot that fact because after missing bath for more than 3 days (in which we walked and sweated a lot), the touch of cold water was feeling very nice. later in the afternoon, we came to know that avneet has gone alone and that too without water to climb a mountain top. so when he didn't come back for long, we got worried and three of us decided to go on a lookout for him. me and jugnu were in floaters only but we gave up the idea of changing into shoes thinking that we won't be doing much of a climb. it was a rocky mountain, so the initial climb was quite easy and we took only a couple of breaks in the first around 100 meters of climb. but after that we really started feeling the pain of oxygen-thin air. after every few steps, we were taking a break. also there were still no sings of avneet so we had to climb even more. we walked for another 100 meters, and it took real long, and finally decided to give up assuming that avneet must have gone on some other peak. so we decided to climb down which turned out to be real fun. when it was another 100 meter to go down, god knows what got into my head, i started running (one wrong foot especially with floaters and i would have been rolling down on rocks, but for some reasons unknown to me, i could not resist the temptation) and climbed the remaining distance in about 2 minutes. it felt nice to be back into the tent and soon avneet also joined us. as assumed, he had gone in some other direction, he actually climbed for more than 2 hrs and finally successfully touched a glacier. at this point, i remember the story. when someone asked a great mountaineer "why do you climb all these mountains" and the answer was "because they are there". nothing unusual happened rest of the day. this was the silence before the storm that was to enter in the lives of some of us the very next day.

i will conclude my trip details in the next episode.

travelogue - part 1

after my end term exams, i went on a trek to himalayas. since this was my first trek of this sort, i decided to write an account of the same. here is the first part:

we boarded the Kalka Mail for chandigarh. since it was a real big group, people were having good fun. i went to sleep early (after effects of sleeping less bcos of exam on the previous day) and i when i woke up in the morning, realized that the train is running some 5-6 hrs late. on enquiry found out that there was some big engine problem at night, some wire had broken, which led to the long halt and the delay. soon we found out from someone, that in newspapers this has been reported as a "bomb scare on kalka mail". it was hilarious, these newspaper people can distort any news. anyways, rest of the day went as usual and we reached chandigarh early morning. there we had great food at ashin's place and then took our chartered bus for manali. the driver was driving real slow plus he was repeatedly playing the audio casette of fida, that was real painful but compensated by the good scenic views that we were getting. we reached manali very late night, went to the hotel and soon dozed off.

next day, we boarded the bus that was to take us to our base camp. this time we were also accompanied by our guides who will be later helping us with tents, food etc during the trek. we stopped at a place called "mahri" for lunch. from there, the rohtang pass was visible though still at a great height. after another hour and half drive, in which we covered only 11 kms, we were finally on rohtang top. people clicked some snaps of the beautiful locale with clouds floating all around you. anyways so we started again as we had to reach our base camp before it got dark. the road was pathetic as expected, there were big digs at places least expected and so we were using the services of heavy-weights amongst us to keep the bus balanced. supposedly before "2" kms of our base-camp, the bus was stopped and we were asked by our guides to walk till the place. after 45 min of walking which was aimed at getting us in shape for the coming days, we finally caught sight of our bus. we also realized never to believe these mountain guys for what they say of distances, their notion of 1 km is quite different from ours.

we were taught how to put our tents, it was a nice learning experience as most of us were doing it for the first time. but the best part was the night sky. i don't remember looking at such a clear and bright sky in my lifetime, there were simply infinite stars and that too in big bunches and we had great difficulty in identifying even the simple constellations. another breathtaking view was the "glow of the milky way" which was later explained by pankaj. numerous shooting stars were observed with one having a real long trail. finally a few of us spotted a small object in the sky moving real fast and then suddenly coming to a halt. we started joking that it could be one of the UFOs when ashin commented that it could be the ISS (international space station). we all were like "wow" !!

next morning after breakfast, we started our trek. we had to walk 14 kms (note: the mountain "kms") and reach the camp at Bartal. the terrain was plain but we were having difficulty because of the heavy sleeping bag that we were carrying along with our rucksacks. so we took the first halt after an hour at a waterfall and had some food. of all the things that we were carrying in our lunch packet, only the chocolates looked good. we started again and after trekking for another hour decided to rest adjacent to the Beas river. this turned out to be a long stop, some of us had fun in water, others who were more tired dozed off. the third and last part of the walk was the most painful. the terrain was a desert (really !!), we were not expecting this at such an altitude (and then we thought of the real desert The Gobi). the problems were enhanced by passing sumos/jeeps who were leaving long trail of dust all around us. finally when we saw a bridge 200 mts ahead, assuming that our camp will be after this bridge only, we gave up. it was 2 in the afternoon and the direct sun was taking its toll. just then, a few of our groupmembers came and told us that the camp is just 50 mts from our resting place. so we mustered our courage and asked our jaded spirits to give one final shot and reached the camp.

i will continue from here in the next episode.