To throw the old habits away

Well, not all, but one. I've been nurturing this bad habit of asking unneccessary questions to people, especially friends, untill they get irritated. Some of them try to change the topic and some of them try to loosen their slippers.. well literally.

I thought this was not a good asset to have. Especially after colleagues in the office started attaching a 'why' to every sentence of mine. If I ask someone 'Whats your name?', then they would say 'Now the next question is "why is your name like that?"..'.. Guess this is something very serious and can turn me into a laughing stock going forth. Though Thomas Alva Edison was also like this, but he asked questions to himself and got the answers himself too. So now was the time to let go of this bad old habit of mine or never.

Yesterday I resolved not to ask such questions to my colleagues here. I decided, 'I dont know about tomorrow. But today I will not ask such questions to irritate people.' After going through Robin Sharma's blogs and podcasts I guess these ideas of self-improvement creep in by themselves. Anyways, coming to the result, though I did find that daemon lifting his head every now and then, I realised the same everytime he did and took control over the situation. Yesterday was good. But Robin says, do it for 21 days and it becomes a habit. I'm not sure if the same is true with quitting that habit too.. :). Anyways, well begun is half done. So I've won 50% of the battle.

To carry the camera or not?

Camera is my all time favorite companion. A good friend. Everytime I use it, I learn new things. It is one of my precious possessions. Today I discovered some not so good side of having a camera. Not that this was a new discovery... but I realised it today.

Had to go to NYC museum and decided to leave the camera back as the website said photography is not allowed (which was not the case.. will post some of those pics sometime later) and luggage is not allowed in the cloak room and only coats are allowed.

Once I went there and spent time watching the artifacts from across the world, I realised at the back of my mind that I was a lot more relaxed today. Had I taken the camera, it would have made me restless. Anything beautiful (well, not everything... I would have a swollen cheek otherwise) and I would start clicking. After buying the digital camera, it is still worse, since I dont have to think twice.

Also, if you have a camera, then it will be an obligation, especially when u r in a team, you end up being a photographer. Not that you shouldn't be a team player, but you should enjoy as well right?

For all these negatives, camera is always a nice companion to have. No second thoughts about that. Just set your priorities right. Thats it.

tester's woes..

developers know only of the code change

managers know only of delivery date

tester has to know what the customer wants. it is his responsibility

yedakumeri part 2

After trekking for one hour, we got the first bridge. It was about 30-50 meters long and we could clearly see mosses formed on the wooden railings as well as the iron planks that were kept parallel to the rails for the walkers.

Had we slipped, we'd be at least 50ft below where we are now.. :(.. Was that scary?. We somehow gathered courage and started focusing mainly on the metal planks and taking smallest of steps. In about 10 minutes we were through. It was an achiement of sorts, something like the fear factor you see in AXN.. :).. Stare the fear in its eyes as you conquer the stunt. It was time for a photograph. We clicked each other and started again. On the way we found some real nice scenery.. colored in mist and drizzle.. Reminded me of the Manirathnam movie 'Tiruda Tiruda'..

After the first bridge we gained some confidence and started walking more confidently on the bridges. After about 3-4 bridges, I found Ananth's leg bleeding.. Yes, it was a leach on his ankle. We did expect this. You never knew untill you started bleeding. Such master suckers.. :).. Hope our doctors were equally talented. Even after plucking the leaches out, bleeding used to continue. Looks like they have some inbuilt chemical to prevent the blood from clotting.

In between bridges, we were also moving through the tunnels. They were pitch dark inside and one of them had a small opening to go out and view the beauty of the mountains. The tunnels were wet with rainwater and we made our way only by means of torch that we had taken. After sometime, one of the torches had a battery problem, so we held on to each other's back, with the torch man in the front. Reminded me of the childhood 'railbanDi aaTa'. In the longest of tunnels, 573 meters long, we could hear bats and smell them too. But none of them hit us. I remembered reading in one of those Zoology books or Childresn's knowledge Bank, that bats have a built in SONAR in them, which indicates of any obstacle in their way well in advance. SO much so that it you left a bat in a room, with ropes hanging every 2 feet, you wouldn't find a rope shaking
because the bat hit it while flying. They really don;t need light to see. No wonder they occupy the darkest of places.

When we were resting in Yedakumeri, I plucked out a fully grown leach from my ankle and threw it a couple of feet from my legs. It was not dead yet. So it had started looking for its way towards blood probably. It started lifting its head and hitting the ground, each time moving to a new position, as if to make a circle, with its feet in the centre of the circle. Once it pointed towards me, it stopped making that circle and started moving towards me!!!!. How in the earth did it know the direction of food? oh.. try to zoom in to my leg for a leach.. :). Leach sucks.. :)

The longest bridge (above) that we came across was about 250 mts long and the worst part was the wooden planks that support the rails were missing in many places!!!. The depth was almost 300 ft with water flowing in full swing. We could hear the roaring of water below. Adding to the thrill was a bird sitting somewhere in the deep jungle trees, which was making fun of us. It sounded like a whistle that the traffic police use to blow. Initially, it would start with a very low note and then increase the tempo as we started moving deep into the bridge. We had to virtually crawl on the rails for about 2-3 meters. It was also slippery.

GJ had another trip here and discovered that what we covered was one of those and had to be a lot more such bridges. phew...

We took just about 30 minutes to cross this one beast of a bridge. We rested for 15 minutes after this. Had some snacks, looked back at the milestone, tooksome pictures and started again. At about 12:30 in the noon, we came across a bridge and we could hear the water again. We came to the middle of the bridge and found a beautiful water falls on our left. It was amazing sight. In a hurry to reach there, I stepped over a mossy wooden plank and slipped!!. My left leg was under the bridge and the right one, above it, perpendicular to it.. :(. Luckily, nothing bad happened except for a few scratches.

After getting refreshed with some nature fresh water, we continued on the tracks and less than 15 minutes.. we were in the Yedakumeri station!!. Our destination for that day. But we found that the tracks were blocked due to land slides and as a result we changed plans. A Mallu friend there (remembered the joke about Mallu chai-ki-dukaan in north pole.. :).. But they are a great help anyways..) guided us climb the mountain and reach Kagigeri. From there we decided we will take a jeep to Sakleshpur bus stop and from there, a bus to Bangalore. Things went on smooth as expected and we were home on Saturday night at 11pm!!!.. Whole 24hours of sheer excitement and the next 7 days of sweet pain.. :). Do I feel those stones on the track on my feet still?

Memory of an old trek to Yedakumeri...

I had written this travelogue about my trek to Yedakumeri .. the raiway track trek between Sakleshpura and Subramanya, which passes through a lot of tunnels and bridges. Thought of posting it now. Found some photos also in the mailbox somewhere.

This is the Donigal station from where our trek started. More of it later. Let me begin my narration first.. Thanks to Aravind for the photos...

We (Myself, my friend Aravind and his colleague Ananth) started from B'lore on 13-aug-2004, a Friday, to take advantage of the weekend. We boarded a KSRTC bus to Mangalore at 10:30pm from Majestic and landed in Donigal, in the midst of the picturesque Western Ghats at 4AM. We killed time till 5:30AM in the hotel (Buses/trucks plying between B'lore and M'lore stop there for a short break. So the hotel is open 24hrs. a day!!. The photo again...

We started walking towards Donigal Railway station which was 5 Km from the place where we had tea. Later on we found we could have skipped this walk had we dropped ourselves off at Marenahalli instead of Donigal. Anyways, it was fun to walk in the wee hours in slight drizzles. We reached Donigal Railway station at about 6:25AM. It was a very old railway station, abandoned long back. There is a Morse Code machine in the station master's room, a waiting
room, with a couple of broken benches and a signal room, which we didn't explore. We finished our nature calls and had a light breakfast - Chapathi + Jam that Aravind had brought. We started our trek (violating an order on a board in the station)

The Railway track was, for sure, deserted for a long long time as we could see the rusted iron at most of the places and the mud completely covering the tracks at other places. But the pieces of white rock that were kept to support the rails were still intact. There was no other go but to step over them, hurting out feet in the process. This was another of those experiences, which is unique to this trek.

Some of it in the next posting... This was just part 1....

Bunny at Central park west. He was posing for me for a long time. If not for the blinder, it would have been better. Will try to remove it using GIMP.