another one of them historical documents. this one was written around july 2004, when statphys was in progress and all of calcutta was hanging around the institute. this included my sis and her research group.
\documentclass[12pt,a4,epic]
\maketitle{so i went to nandi hills. }
\begin{document}
statphys happened... went to the banquet on wednes night. not impressed.
correction, badly let down by the food. thence to drama practice. then at
some point my sis suggested that we all go to nandi hills on the morrow.
chump that i am, i agreed. so on thuirsday morn, we hopped into the
triwhhelers and heigh ho for majestic, where it took us a little while to
find out that the last bus for nandi hills has left. finito, i thought.
nyet, they said. so we grabbed a bus for dodeballapur, halphway there. the
conductor yelling something which sounded like 'goromjol' as the bus
filled up. hot water, the babelfish sez. my feelings exactly. now i will
wax lyrical: the gathering thunderclouds slowly climbing up the horizon
filled me with a sense of foreboding. so off we went, witha merry song on
our lips and joy in our hearts. well, not quite, we were actually fighting
over the last pack of biscuits, and no merry song made its presence felt
(i won the fight).an hor and two and a halphe dreams later, the conductor
told us that we better get off now.
\section{dodebbalapur}
is not even a one horse town.. more like half a tired donkey... just a
waystation for tired truck drivers. and some kinda grand central station
of kanthals. more than i have ever seen at one go in a life. something
like psmith in billingsgate....'anything that has nothing to do with
fish'. more kanthals. still more. piled up in huge heaps by the road. a
walk to the next busstop. a conversation with a panwalla. mostly
handgestures and repetitions of the words 'nandi hills'. ok, this is the
deal, twenty od kays to nandi cross. then what? we ask.. he
replies...'climb mari'. silence. wait for the next bus to nandi cross.
this sucidal puppy crossing the road, nope actually out for a walk on the
divider, completely oblivious to the cacophony of a hundred truck horns.
there must be a god who watches over sucidal puppies. working hard. then
the bus turns up.
\section{to nandi cross}
the bus. a ramshackle arrangement that moved more by willpower than
internal combustion. it is one of the irrefutable laws of nature that such
buses which ply the vilage roads will invariable be packed full of honest
son of the soil folk, who will ensure that some of the soil rubs off on u.
and such crowded buses will, occasionally carry skawking chickens. this
one, thankfully didnt. but it did carry this homo who tried ummmm...
getting too close to me for comfort. i panicked. then the music. such
buses will also play, at sound levels high enough to violate local
strategic arms limitations treaties music which has never been heard
inside any metropolitan district. this one played a song where the bloke
periodacally breaks out into a series of 'excuse me's before relapsing
into his, thankfully incomprehensible default lingo. the other song had,
possible the first bloke's best freind telling his dame that he was sorry.
this much i got. the rest was, again, sorry to say, beyond me. oh, he did
tell her that he was sorry some 378 times during the song. hey, we are at
nandi cross.
\section{the long climb}
nandi cross. the howl of the wind sweeping across the desperately bleak
landscape chilled us to the bone. presentiments. ok, back to normal mode.
it was cold. it was windy. and there were no buses. and the signpost said
nandi hills. 8 km. get the idea? but there was kanthal. what doez a man do
when he is being controlled by forces so vastly beyond his comprehension
that he scarcely understands that he is being controlled? some one wanted
us to have kanthal. we did. then we negotiated with a cattle van driver to
take us to the top. a leetle while later, we are whizzing up. the driver
must have been in f1 in a previous life. or his normal passengers do not
register too much protests when the side wheels skid across the gravel on
a hairpin turn, and ur whole life flashes in front of ur eyes. then its
started raining. big fat droplets that actually hurt when they hit.
incidentally, remember the bus? it also carried kanthal. ok, after some
time, we are at the top. not quite. the vanwalla tells us that for twenty
rupees more, he will take us to the summit. this is where the state buses
stop. pecuniary absolution having held away, we are forced to decline.
nyet, my genius sister tells him to go take a hike. interesting, in the
light of later events.... uphill now. ok, this is a strenge hill, u gotta
get tickets to climb. climb we do. it rains. once we are firmly on the
road, backpacks secured, umbrellas at the ready, the clouds growl sotto
voce. then roar. then the great deluge begins. noah had no clue. having
lived for five years in shillong, and having made the necessary
pilgrimage, i thought that i have seen the worst that rain could do. heh
heh. the rain soaked us down to the skin, and then some. soon, i was
walking in my own two personal puddles. my shoes. a few monkeys huddled in
the trees saw us. and burst out laughing. they really did. the raindrops
drum a staccato beat on ur head. trust me, i have had nightmares of rain
since. we climed two hundred steps after a kays hike along the road.
\section{at the top}
THE top. the summit. a paragliding centre. closed. the mist closes in. we
cant see beyond our noses. we have lunch at the hotel 'ranjitha fine top'.
ok, so ranjitha, bless her soul, has a fine top. big deal, the current
goes the moment we enter. lunch by candlelight. wow. rather, meals by
candlelight. ok, at this point, i can certify that the worst southie meals
ever arte to be found here. go and despair. eat and regret. we ate. the
papad had the consistency of a roti, soft. and the roti needed pliers to
tear it. or shears. the badam milK saved us. twas still raining. meal
over, out we went. and discovered that there was a much better hotel a few
hundred feet away. that was for tourists, this was for the drivers.
hmmmmm.. and through the mists, the dreary cliffs did send a distant
sheen. nor shapes of men, nor beasts we ken, the fog was all between.
(sorry coleridge). then after wandering around aimlessly for a while
longer, we came down. waited for the bus. wrung out the socks, smoked,
looked for booze, unsuccessfully. u want booze on the hilltop, you better
bring it urself. waited while the rain suddenly decided to change tack and
come through the open sides of the shelter almost horizontally. i found
out that u can never be so wet that u wont get a little more wet. a cow
walked by, gave us a glance of kindred feeling, and walked off to its
destiny.
\section{back home}
the bus came. we clambered on. fell promptly asleep. got home. boring huh?
but there is a lesson. thou shalt not bunk thy labmeeting to go
sightseeing. or thou shalt get soaked.
Ps- the kanthal was quite good.
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