Thanjavurunalli thuntaata

Author: Raghu with Santhosh

This time around the elite D club decided it had to be a heritage visit. Time to do some culture jaunt.

So, Thanjavur it was, terrific Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu. A demon by the name of Tanjan-an asura lends its name to the town of Thanjavur. As per the legend the last wish of the demon was that the place should be named after him, Sri Anandavalli Amman and Sri Neelamegapperumal granted it.

The travel team comprised of QQ (Santhosh G R), NagiD (Nagaraj C), and Mandakini man (Sanjay Subramanyam) and Djinn (H K Raghunandan).

We boarded the Mysore -Thanjavur Express in Bangalore at 7pm on the 1st of October, 04. In the train Nagi talked at length with his beau almost throughout the night over the phone, 3 hours on the phone with nothing but “ene, yaake, en aaythe, yaake sumne iddeeyaa” and other inanities. We were surprised to find that Thanjavur express has no pantry coach. We had to subsist on a lemon rice diet and coffee that night.

Day 1 (by Santhosh & Raghu)

We reached Thanjavur around 6 am to find Sanjayo waiting for us. Seems Sanjay landed here early in the morning from Madurai.

We took a walk towards Hotel Oriental Towers, some 2 minutes away from the station. QQ and NagiD insisted that they would not stay in any place without AC & TV. American returnees you see!!! Even with AC & TV the place was not enticing. Costly and too foreigner friendly. We found that it was not really worth staying put there. We walked again for about 15-20 minutes towards the center of city. We were in search of Hotel Parisuddam. On the way we saw a lot of posters with advice on health. Very good SADE inspired photos, asking people not to poop on roads, sweep the poop out and what not. Further on there was garments shop called “All xxxx” which used the images of a church, temple & mosque to advertise itself and propagate communal harmony. Gazing at the photos and the wall posters for movies with scantily clad women, d_men overshot the hotel and ended up in the center of the city. We had to walk back another 5 minutes to reach Parisuddam. Parisuddam seemed to be more foreigner friendly (i.e. more bucks for the same AC/TV room). We turned back from there again towards the city center. It was a good morning walk thru the city.

Finally we settled for a low profile Hotel-karthik. This was centrally located and situated besides the old city bus stand. On popular demand we checked into a double bed AC room with TV.

As soon as we were in the room; it was pants down and poop time! QQ took his book into the shit room as is his habit. We suggested NagiD to read Sade and broaden his horizon. QQ asked DJinn if the toilet smelt of his poop before going in. Everyone had a good laugh remembering MandakiniMan and his aversion to enter the toilet when the smell from the previous users poop lingered around.

Ablutions complete; we went down to the inhouse tiffin room. We gorged on a large breakfast consisting of idlies, vadas, dosas, and pongal. The white coconut chutney was delicious. This was served in a small quantity on the plate. We asked for more cups of chutneys. All Tamil restaurants have an aversion to server chutney, you need to coax, cajole and then finally threaten to get a whole cup.

Our first place of visit for the day was kaleidoscopic Kumbakonam. Located about 45 kms from Thanjavur.

We boarded the bus at around 9 am. It was one hell of a "standing" ride in the loud stereophonic bus. Point to note; this DVD coach had 2 TV screens. The stereo system also had Phillips tweeter boxes strategically placed to give the best :-)) "loud" sound. As before QQ and NagiD refused to enter any bus without DVD. Sad, but the DVD was not turned on for the whole journey. QQ admired the deft driver who could negotiate a sharp curve while changing the cassette in the stereo deck. NagiD and QQ discussed about how good old Indian bus drivers can compete at Nascar given an opportunity.

In an hour's time we landed in Kumbakonam. We were greeted by a cool spell of rains.

The erotic sculptures at the Sarangapani, Kumbeswarar, Nageswara and Ramaswamy temples left us amazed.

Sample these;

a. Carvings of a guy balanced with head on the ground and the female sitting on top of him with their legs for support. PHEW!!

b. Community sex featuring a female in the buff "servicing" 3 gentlemen with their visible tools.

c. A cool dude with a clown like cap on his head (as we called him :-)) perched on the protruding legs of 2 females on either side. His hands are in a spread across "Yeow" position. To imagine the “Yeow” position, just think about all the hip-hop stars using their fingers to say “yeah, baby”.

d. Krishna perched on top of a tree with his legs wide open and with an expression indicating absolute lust. A nude gopika sthree is trying to climb the tree and has wrapped one of her legs around the tree. Seems like she’s trying to scratch herself against the tree.

e. A guy humping a female from behind and the other guy with his huge tool wrapping her thigh.

We went inside the Sarangapani temple (named after the Sarangam bow held by Vishnu). This is the biggest temple in Kumbakonam. The god with the same name as the temple

is seen in a reclining pose (similar to sreeranganatha as in srirangapatnam) with his head slightly raised. He had raised his head bcos an earlier pujari wanted to have a better view of the lord.

The sanctum has been built in the form of an exquisitely carved chariot. Sarangapani has driven the chariot from heaven in haste to meet his love. The temple depicts the chariot being stopped. A pair of horses in the lead and elephants at the back are straining to stop the chariot. Like modern jets there is an elephant tied up in the reverse direction which acts like the parachute used to stop planes. It has an uttara dwara and daksheena dwara each open only six months in a year.

While coming out from the garbhagudi we were accosted by a mysterious character. He was hell bend on taking us somewhere. Finally he took us to a dungeon garbha gudi where "Tirupati" Pataala Sreenivasar is present. The view of the “pataala” was accompanied by the character muttering “tirupati pataala srinivasan” almost a 100 times.

There is also a Tank at the back of the temple. This is where the resident goddess Komalavalli was born.

It rained in continuous drizzles as we trudged on through the slushy roads.

Then it was lunch time to visit the world famous Mami Mess. This was closed for a week, so we were told as “Mami” was out on a piligrimage, just like us. Disappointed we turned back (but we clicked photos before this place!!) and entered the second best eating place in Kumbakonam - Venkataramana mess. This is a nice traditional place; meals served on plantain leaves. This was a one sumptuous South Indian lunch that we had for the day. Subsequently we had delicious "golmi" halwa for desserts. Nagi was smiling at the prospect of eating this soft tasty halwa, he was reminded of a soft part in a woman’s body which had the same softness as the halwa. He was chuckling to himself in sweet nostalgia.

We walked around the streets of Kumbakonam and found the famous mathematician Sreenivasan Ramanujam's house in a small bylane. This place is now a tourist

attraction. Seems he used to gaze out his bedroom window at the people walking on the streets and work on his numbers and equations. Photography is banned here and QQ & Mandakini were disappointed.

It was around 2:30 - 3pm as we walked our way out to find a cab to go back to Thanjavur. Somehow this didn’t work out because the taxiwallahs demanded too much.

We boarded a TNSTC bus. In the bus we harangued Sanjay on traditions and the fact that one of our illustrious but tradition-less sons might ensnare his daughter and marry her. He seemed to be adamant not to let his daughter marry any one of our sons. :=))

It was 5 pm when we reached Thanjavur and decided it was time to visit the Brihadeeshwara temple. We found this was one huge structure as we walked inside its ramparts. Built by Raja raja Chola, this is a World Heritage site.

This temple has one big Nandi, the bull facing the Shiva linga shrine. This bull looks a bit demure and looks smaller in size compared to the Nandi at Chamundi betta in Mysore. The Shiva linga is around 15 feet tall inside the sanctum sanctorum of the temple.

The temple gopuram has been built in such a way that its shadow does not fall on the ground, but later found on the net that the shadow of only the dome does not fall on the ground and everything else falls..

Nagi as usual became oblivious of our presence and got attached to the phone. BSNL would have surely made a fortune by now.

Meanwhile our Mandakini was busy ogling a foreigner called Aileen and cavorting with her. He asked her about all the places she had been. Sad that he forgot to recommend our beautiful home Mysore to her. (Later while walking towards poompuhar we destined to bump into her and her boyfren quite often. It was here that Sanjay told us about her ;-))

After a small stroll in the temple premises, we sat on the steps of the Nataraja temple.

We came across an old man~mendicant seated there & singing some really nice Tamil compositions. His audience was a lone guy. He seemed to ask the old about his whereabouts. The old man snapped back saying ~ quote "Why do you want to know about me, Listen to my songs rather" ~ unquote.

We sat down right next to the old man. He recited the Srivalli-Karthikeyan katha in his sweet dulcet tones. This was one superb rendition.

He also sang kaa-kaa-kaa from the old movie Parasakthi starring Sivaji ganesan. Some 30-45 minutes rolled by and we gave him a small token of our appreciation and bid adieu to the mendicant. We then slowly filed out of the temple.

We walked along the streets hoping to visit Poom-puhar - TN handicrafts emporium. To our dismay, we found that it was closed. We stopped by a roadside juice shop and drank Paneer-Soda. This was to later become our favourite drink for the whole trip.

Dinner was a big affair with kerala parothas, dosas, utthappams topped by strong Coffee. And of course the white chutney.

NagiD and DJinn wanted to see a “pondy” movie in one of the “pondy” theatres Rani. They infact stood in front of a poster and started asking passers by about the name of the theatre in the revealing poster. QQ & Mandakini poured water over their desires.

We got back to our AC room at around 10 pm in the night. We felt hot and sticky. Thanjavur was humid allright. We put on the TV and hit the sack. NagiD laid bare his mind; thoughts ~ escapades to Quli qutub and QQ was sagely nodding and advising him considering the fact that Nagi is getting married on Feb,05. This went on till

2 am. QQ was heard commenting on how difficult life (night life in particular) has become for him after Madhu left for the US.

Sanjay was tired and was asleep in sometime. He had to catch the train back home~read Hyderabad the next day early in the morning.

The whole night was spent in watching TV, commenting on life, universe and everything and QQ complaining about the prickliness of DJinn, nagi, the bed and finally the rug. He was found undressing and dressing, removing his shirt, putting them back on again in order to get some winks.. but to no avail.

Day 2 (by Santhosh)

Day 2 started very early with Mandakini leaving early in the morning. He forgot to take the dates he had bought the previous day, and forgot to give us the sweets he had bought in madurai.

QQ was the first to wake after this at 7:30, to poop and woke up the others. The team changed rooms preferring a Non-AC room as we were not going to stay for the night. Of course the preference was still to get a room with a TV.

The new room had the loo and bath in the same place unlike the luxurious AC room where they were separate. NagiD and DJinn took forever to bathe, and after bathing half an hour was spent watching tamil songs on TV. The 3 were found commenting about the depth and talent of tamil actors, music directors and the like.

Breakfast was at hotel karthik, with the same fights for white chutney and finally drowned in some dark strong coffee.

After breakfast, we decided to hire a car and visit places nearby. Velankanni, chidambaram and swamimalai were some of the choices but had to be dropped due to tie constraints. Finally we decided to go to srirangam, trichy (why later). Going by sanjay’s techinique of estimating the taxi amount ( Rs.200 + 4*kms) we came up with Rs. 1000 for the whole trip. We were surprised when the taxi driver quoted Rs.800 and could not get ideas to negotiate further. We piled into the car with nagiD in the front.

The ride to sriranjam was pleasant and meandered thru bush, brambles and fields. A lot of topics were discussed, with NagiD spending some more time on his BSNL phone calling up his love.

Finally we reached srirangam passing a huge bridge over river cauvery. Srirangam surprisingly is also supposed to be a island on river cauvery and has Vishnu in a reclining pose similar to our srirangapatna. The gopura of the temple is one of the biggest. The car had to pass thur a lot of bylanes to reach the back of the temple. Most of the sculpture in srirangam were of decent outlook with no kumbakonamish elegance. The main temple was huge, with the biggest garuda statue. The pillars were intricately carved but due to lack of maintenance and the oil from the temple were losing their beauty. Photography inside the temple was with a fee.

Proceeding towards the garbha gudi, we found a serpentine Q to enter the sanctum. Even the special entrance was teeming with people. A watchman was selectively letting people enter the sanctum thru the exit!!! DJinn tried in vain to enter the sanctum with this watchman’s help. The watchman was not willing for money, but needed a letter from the temple manager which could be got by donating around Rs. 2500 to the temple.

Coming out with a sad face DJinn was accosted by a tout who promised to take us inside the temple for a fee. We trudged back to enter the sanctum.

The touring entourage split here. QQ did not want to go into the sanctum with the help of a tout, who might not even be reliable. NagiD & Djinn planned to stay back till 1:30 PM to enter while QQ came out of the temple and proceeded towards the huge gopura/vimana to take pictures.

Finally NagiD and DJinn also decided not to enter the sanctum. This was due to the crass nature of bribing to see the god and also bcos the tout was fidgeting to help them enter.

The team regrouped and proceeded towards trichy. The main reason for going to trichy was due to NagiD. One of the erstwhile love of NagiD is from trichy and he wanted to pay homage to his lost love by visiting trichy. Trichy had an amazing church (which we could not visit) and the famous RockFort temple for vinayaka called ucchipillaiyer koil. We had sumptuous sugarcane juice with nagiD commenting that he has survived almost 3-4 days on sugarcane. More talk from him was interrupted because of a missed call from mandya-love to which he pleaded us to let him talk. We talked thru the main bazaar to reach the foothill of rockfort. We passed thru many “AC” jewellery & clothing shops. This is a very unique aspect of both trichy and thanjavur (maybe the other cities too). Only shops which were “AC” were filled with customers, the others more dead than alive. Passing my these shops was a pleasure as one could feel the cool air rushing out into the hot and humid street.

We climbed the “inner staircase” of the rockfort. We had to pay to take our camera to the top. There was a very obstinate watchman who would examine your purse too thinking that you were hiding your camera. NagiD procrastinated about the fate if he had an “erect” tool and the watchman confused it for the camera.

Reaching the top of the temple, we were elated. You could see the meandering river and the gopuras of sriranga. We were also delighted to find sculptures of two monkeys doing it in “dog like” position and a sculpture of a couple in the most complex of asanas doing the ting-ting thing. After some photo sessions we trudged back to our car. Before riding back we had one more sugarcane juice plus a unique sherbet with bright colors and nimbu.

DJinn and QQ had a slight nap on the return trip. NagiD seized the moment to call up mandya again, in peace and filled his girl with courage to face life. The car was stopped for DJinn to take a leak. QQ asked NagiD not to take the leak as they could do in terrific thanjavur. Just a minute after this QQ was found going out of the car for a leak which distressed NagiD very much and which he recounted a lot of times.

We asked the driver to drop us in the Thanjavur palace. NagiD bought a flute and we enjoyed some more nimbu drink. We also enjoyed gazing into the kaleidoscope for sale.

Thanjavur palace is a beautiful with a watch tower and gopura. A lot of nataraja copper statues are displayed. This palace was built by Raja Serfoji of the marata clan. Serfoji’s descendants who came under british rule look all too familiar to our own Mysore rajahs with the same girth and lackadaisical looks.

First we climbed the gopura. The gopura was in sections with each section beginning in a different place. NagiD and DJinn were delighted with this structure and commented that this was used by the raja to make love in myriad positions and also to chase his harem around the building making them confused. The view from the top was fantastic. While coming down from the gopura we stopped to gaze at the skeletal remains of a whale (blue??) washed ashore.

We had a look at all the nataraja, parvati, saranga, Vishnu copper sculptures. Most of the women deity lacked any upper wear. Some of the deity sported a strip as upper wear. However the artist was very imaginative to portray the nipple of the deity peaking out from under the strip a.la. our wonderbra. We talked about the inspiration to the artist.

On the outside of the palace is a watch/pleasure tower. To reach the top one has to climb thru a stair case in pitch darkness. Our mobiles came handy to see the steps. This climb to the top is thru a spiral staircase and it was a whirlwind experience to reach the top and have a view of the countryside again. We regretted not having time to visit many of the other gopuras we could see from the top.

Coming down we saw the palace museum, the palace durbar hall, lots of large copper vessels, musical instruments.

It was time to go back to the hotel. We passed by many handicrafts emporiums and regretted not having time to shop there. We packed our bags at the hotel, saw some more tamil songs. Nagi was surprised to find his soap cover to have only water. We ate at karthik hotel, with some more delicious white chutney and proceeded towards the railway station.

We had III AC tickets for our return journey. But the AC was not working in the train for some time. We appreciated Indian railways for providing us with bedsheets and “dimbu” in the train. NagiD hooked on to his mobile again while DJinn and QQ started reading books on thanjavur and kumbakonam. A brief stopover at Trichy where we tried to get some food in vain and we hopped into our berths for the journey back “our home away from home – bangi”

Destination Coorg

Ravi:::

As I had running nose I was unsure of traveling. I somehow made up my mind to start together till Mysore. Hoping to rest in the weekend. At last made up my mind to come to this trip. This trip is worth remembering, as this is a first journey on a four-wheeler purchased by one of the d_men. The fullest credit has to be given to Dany for all the efforts he put in getting the car done for this trip.

Journey to Mysore

"Kusi, do you have the cotton in your ears" said madhu when we started for which santu didn't know what to say, for which I & dany pitched in to pull santu's leg. Santu then had to put some cotton to cover his operated ear. We started at 7:00PM on friday night but to everybody's surprise, it was raghu who came late instead of me. Santhosh was like raring to go, his restlessness was saying it all. We started with a 'BANG' in nagi's words. We/I started with all our heart in our hands since we thought dany would send us all to the place where we came from. We started with Dany's system playing some good hindi music from radio city. Sad, but true that dany had to be told some routes to mysore. At some point santu was instructing dany about the tricks of driving though it is a known fact that dany has more driving hours than santu. I started appreciating dany when he could handle the ring road traffic with out using the brakes (I meant half clutch expert). Then I felt safe at dany's hand then unknowingly came my appreciation "dany you drive really like a bond". Then we all sympathized with raghu that some photos were rejected at the first round of screening itself. When questions were raised about my fitness dany commented that "Ravi the point is you are.... sick". I got an opportunity to talk one of dany's girl friends at ICICI twice in a gap of 10 minutes. I had to pick those calls since we were scared about our and our driver’s life. Then taking my role as a telephone operator I received calls of dany's brother for which I was suppose to tell Bindu (dany's brother) that we were only 20 minutes short to mysore. Then came a call from dany's father this time I corrected my mistake and told dany's father that we were only 10mts short to mysore. After receiving some calls for dany I switched my job to being a DJ, I was finding it really difficult to understand the functions of the player. The fact that player was too close to the floor gear of the car stopped me from doing any experiments on learning the functions. At somewhere near bidadi I started feeling damn hungry. My brain normally stops functioning, when I am hungry. As per santu's suggestion we thought of having food once we were really close to mysore. Had a worthwhile dinner at a junk Dhaba it was probably named Delhi Dhaba. Truckers were having food on the "char payees". They were all staring at us when we got down. There we had some roti's, butter kulcha, navarathna kurma. We took no time to empty the onion pakoda's placed on the table. Madhu and Santu were the first to see off that night followed by raghu. Jimmy got a cuddle from his "cool dude" owner at raghus house. Thanks to my father for arranging beds for Dany and me at his old age. I and Dany spent that night at my home and somehow managed to get ready by 6.00 AM for the journey.

Mysore to Bailukuppe

Though, we had some problem with our vehicle we thought we’d get it repaired at coorg and hence started early. We had our breakfast at some hotel on our way. As usual dany left something uneaten in the plate he was probably so eager to feel that pleasure of his gun. As usual dany didn't get a relief from his smoking gun. I saw a lily flower blooming near around. We had the veg-burgers prepared by madhu's mother. Then we all started santu and madhu took over the front seat. Mid-way we stopped at all places were we saw some good sceneries. In one of the place there was a banyan tree (pillar roots) roots hanging upside down. Being fittest of all the apes among us, I could climb two steps up. By then santu came with an idea of taking some snaps of we aping over banyan roots. We could see some more scenaries on our way I explained all about how a wild brinjal would look like. Santu gave some valuable information about led zepplin being leading rockers of all the time.

Baillukuppe

When we reached bylukuppe it was around noon (don’t remember the time) after an extensive search we found where the monastery was. At first, from outside the monastery looked like a temple’s outer wall. I started appreciating the beauty of it only after I was asked to blindfold myself before having a look at the monastery (temple in our terms). We watched wall paintings, which were too good to be told in words. Raghu noticed a monkey having ride over and elephant with its tool uncovered. With madhu’s help I got a real good feel of what a monastery would look like as I entered with my eyes closed. I saw three “mighty” statues of Rin Poche(sowmya moorthy holding a bowl with some food in that ) , Buddha (Cool dude ..quote Raghu) & Amitayus(with his aggressive looks he held only kalasam couldn’t deduce any reason for that). We saw some paintings on the inner walls of the monastery, Buddha (this I am not sure) posing in all kinds of weird poses like killing demons, hugging women passionately and also in calm godly pose. The inner walls of the temple are studded with some exquisite paintings. Found some good artwork at 3 levels on the walls. The lowest one depicts gory (glory) pictures of monsters/demons picking out brains from the hapless victims, intestines being gorged out. The middle level shows paintings of the 25 disciples of buddha in meditative moods. The top most level depicts the paintwork of peaceful smiling face of Buddha. Quli qutub (Santu) was seen pensively remarking that this probably indicates elevation of humans from ignorance to bliss. Ravi and Raghu were also engaged in discussions about spirituality, religion, peace while circling the Golden temple. Saw a cool girl taking a glance at the painters, painting the monastery. It turned out to be none other than Madhu. Then we went to hotel which was there near by I was so desperately waiting for some kind of food. There we had Tibetan native food called momo (beef) & thukpa . The 4-5 kms stretch in bylakuppe-Monastery road is laden with some 25 humps (thoughtfully counted by the uber cool dude Raghu :-)). Dany's car's under portion seemed to be kissing the humps almost every time. The d-men were also found debating about the technicalities of the humps. We were all trying to get the ropes of eating food with only chopsticks. I wonder, how I could learn the technique of having noodles using chopsticks in such a fast pace. When we were traveling back to our next destination it was like we were traveling towards the horizon where heaven meets the earth.

Bailukuppe to Dubaare

As soon as we came out from the monastery I yelled to raghu that “how much ever man creates, can he match Mother Nature?” Everybody was wishing we should have visited the palacial building also, which we saw while we were coming to monastery. On our way to dubaare we got a feel of how good roads in coorg are! I remember dany telling us that this road was a state highway, just think of how good the road was that we had to be told that it was a highway. On our way we saw a route to chiklihole (chikkahole) reservoir.

Dubaare elephant camp

Once we reached the dubaare elephant camp we could see the river kaveri draped in one of her best dresses. Raghu & I stood in the shore under a mango tree where there were many ripe mangoes fallen on the ground. Somebody whistled to get the motorboat to the shore where we stood. I kept staring at her (kaveri) while santu and dany (of course with his batteryless camera) could snap some photos of those splendid sceneries. After reaching other side of the river we all wanted to have an elephant ride. Manu was waiting till we bought the tickets, since we were odd in number we lighter guys sat at one side of the elephant and the sturdier guys at the other side (this was my interpretation). Mahout (named kumar) introduced us to prasanth who was busy carrying a family, ganesha and his mother vijay (I wonder why a name vijay which is predominantly a male name). Dany told us about how rosewood tree looks like. I felt bad about we having a ride over manu are burdening him. Manu on the way found some bamboo according to our mahout elephants don’t like the bamboo shoots which human eats they rather like the stem part of the bamboo. It all started when prasanth and manu could find some broken bamboo stems on their way. Then we got down and had a snap with the manu and prasanth. I saw manu crying (madhu consoled me that it is only a lubricant to the elephants eyes). I wiped his tears. Then vijaylaxmi stopped us from having a closer look at her new born (whose baptizing was yet to be done). We walked back to see some human monkeys dancing nude. With a bit of acrobatics we would get the boat to our side of the river. Then with my insistence for rafting whatever the cost would be. All of us started waiting for the raft. Hungry d_men got to eat some food bought at the local grocery store (petty angadi) since food at the hotel was all over. I got some stuff to eat from madhu & walked across the shore for a while. We again went to the hotel asking for food, we could get vade and tea. There we met acchu and his sister. Said goodbye to the place since our river rafting program seemed to have not materialized. Our coordinator from Jungle resort told us that if we saw the raft while going back we could return and resume our programme.

Dubaare to Chiklihole Reservoir

We could see the raft being transported on our way back, but decided not to go back. I directed dany as to where he should take a turn to chiklihole dam. Then it was seemingly endless journey towards the dam at last we could see the dam revealing herself more as we stepped closer to her. I kept my eyes still on the dam enjoyed it to the fullest. It reminded me (madhu told me that this was how the world was a million years before) of Jurassic park movie when I reached the center of the dam. I saw a house built at the other end of the reservoir felt how fortunate they are. We walked across the dam and chalked out a plan as how to save more water for Karnataka. Madhu went in search of some probably precious herbs. Santu and I thought of having a climbing race up the dam. To all our surprise this time raghu came first and I stood second (but not according to dany). Then we thought of having another competition of having the stone pitching over the water everybody stood equal with 4 pitches over the water, madhu stood first in the womens race with 3 pitches. Then came the jolt when we started throwing the stone to longest distance we could. This time it was santu who led the race in the mens group. Me being so desperate to win there was yet another race with santu excluded I could neither win that. I had to get contended with the second place now that raghu again had made it. Except for santu all of us pissed to get it raining (literally).

Towards Ponnampet

Able guidance of dany delayed our arrival to Ponnampet atleast in Santu's war of words. Dany had to taste the dust. Since kishorekumar’s songs were being played I found it really difficult to concentrate.

Stay at Dany's home

Welcome by dany and his family, with kajjaya, obbattu, burfi & tea. But not before we all had a wash. By then we were all hungry like dogs. Then we all went out for a walk.. my reckless walking style irritated santu & madhu. In ponnampet; dany's insistence that we shouldn’t look at the chiks around. His justification that he is a well-known figure there. Dagar!. We went for a short walk where we could watch valley. At the valley we all planned to build the condominium. Discussions went on about the pigs dung and all the shit man talk. Madhu and all of us got an invitation by those workers to join them for the dinner, madhu was more than willing to join them. Dany gave some good advises as to how I can save money ..! look who is talking. We all took bath though raghu disagreed to do so, so that he can get soaked with his drool in night (probably) after we all managed to clean ourselves. While we all were busy cleaning dirt on us others watched Coolie No 1. Then Dany some how could muster courage to ask for grape wine, the wine was too good. We had a nice meal that night enjoyed the pork, pulav, bamboo shoots and what not. Then upon big dadda’s command we all managed to ask dany for more wine, dany again sheepishly demanded Ginger Wine and Grape Wine, which was accepted blissfully by his father. Since we wanted something hot that night dany couldn’t do much about that. Then we all shared uncle’s concern about dany's life and dany's wife. Discussion about dany’s wedding went on after dany’s father said goodnight to all of us. We unanimously had priorities set for Indian/Japanese bride for dany.

Sunday morning

I woke up to koyal's kuhu kuhu in the morning upon dany’s advice. We saw for the first time Dany cleaning his car. Dany took his mother for pooja of his car in the car. While big dada was busy showing his prowess in yoga I, Raghu did some exercise to fulfill my hunger for more exercise. God knows how many hours of worth yoga he did. Then we had nice breakfast of paput (coorg kind of idli's) since all of us were very hungry we had almost all the side dish finished before we asked for more. I had nice tea over after which upon santu's insistence on me having coffee in coorg I managed to make a cocktail of Tea and Coffee in my stomach. Photo session by all of us, santu tried his luck this time for autoclick.

A drive in the Thick forest reserves of nagarhole

Journey towards Nagarahole

Also met up with dany's old friend Miss WhatzHerName(Mangala) who initially failed to recognize dany and then dagar dany's charm worked on her. Sure that she will forget the other dany (that she was talking about!) and remember him now. Found a lot of snake burrows (I don’t know what is that called as). Madhu threw some light on snake’s food, also let us all know that snake do not like having milk (as is written in hindu mythology). We spotted plenty of spotted deers some of them deservedly got a snap from madhu. Some birds like mina, sparrows (explanation by madhu), woodpecker (madhu madam's repentances of her lack of knowledge on the woodpeckers)

Reaching mysore and having our lunch at TopStuff

While speeding ahead towards bangalore we could see some awesome sceneries. Dany was racing like shoemaker. I gave a piece of advice for dany to drive a bit “aggressively”. Santu laughed at my statement asking dany to drive “aggressively” over the cow standing in the mid-road. Santu's claim that I won't ride the Bike properly was taken for granted after raghu’s silence was heard. After much of analysis and enquiry we decided to go by mysore-bannur-malavalli-kanakapura-bangalore route. We all had some food at TopStuff in Mysore.

Driving to our "home away from Home"

We stopped at malavalli to have some onion bajji and tea. Onion bajji was so nice that I couldn’t dare to eat the last piece of mine. Picturesque rainbow against backdrop peeping out of dark rain clouds. This was like a sword being pulled out of its leather pouch. Spotting a snow-capped mountain that looked orange and pink in the evening sun. Verdant green as far as one could see, even in a dry place like those hallis we drove thru. The snake kusi mari spotted on the road, hurt by our car, but managed to escape the next vehicle. Missed a good sight of sunset by a minute.

Reached karma bhoomi at 8:00

Putoff raghu's treat as per madhu's suggestion. We planned a dinner at our usual hideout la-casa. over-exhaustion ... only solace being his smoky litters. We all had a mug of beer to cool ourselves down. and Dany’sSanturaghu went on with their calculations it turned out to be one the cheapest outing we’ve planned till date each had to shell out just 500/- Rs from our pocket. Bid googbye, atlast though unwillingly.

Hyderabad Trip

Author: Sanjay

One good decision which Daddas took is to visit "Hyderabad - Land of Nizams" With lots of Halla gulla in participation, three of us (Raghu, Santu and T man) could make to the trip. The trip was schedule from 24th January 2004 (Friday) to 26th January 2004 (Monday). The weather was cloudy which was ideal for the tour.



Day1:

Our day started with “Salar Jung Museum”. This museum is famous for largest one man collection in our country. This is named after Mir Yousuf Ali Khan popularly known as Salar Jung III who contributed most of his collection. The museum was quite big and it took almost 3 hours to see all the displayed items. The best one I could remember was of two sided statue and western lamp shades. This museum is also famous for the "Round Clock" (which was not looking round), in which every one hour a poppet comes up and rings a bell. We meet T Man at the Round Clock who had gone to his uncle house soon after arrival to Kachiguda.



It was almost 1.00 PM we headed straight to Charminar. Charminar which means four Pillar which was built as Victory symbol by the Quli Qutub Shah in 16th century. We took some snaps at ground and top floor of the monument. We had a nice view of the old city which was giving a spectacular Arial view. We came out from Charminar at around 2.30 PM and we directly to directly to “Parvez”, No. 1 Non-Veg Restaurant in Hyderabad. This restaurant is famous for Hyderabadi Chicken Biryani and we had the same and enjoyed delicious food. For desert we had "Kurbani- Ka- Meetha", which was ultimate and felt like heaven food (Ravi Darling, you missed it like ANYTHING, Man!!!!!).



After lunch we headed to Golconda Fort. It was almost one hour drive from the city. We reached the fort at 4.30 PM and we hired Guide to explain the fort and its history. This fort is famous for its olden day’s communication where the clap can be heard at the top at the fort when clapped at the main entrance gate. The king used this technique to secure the fort and the palace. The guide narrated us the history of the fort. The history of Hyderabad can be described in four words i.e BHAGYA WATI --> HYDER BEAGUM, BHAGYA NAGAR --> HYDERABAD!!!!!!!!!!

It was 7.30 PM when we came out from Golconda fort and we headed strait to home where Raghu had plans to buy Pearl for his Mom. We went to “Elite Pearl shop” where Raghu and I bought pearl set to our Mom and Santu bought it for Madhu. Then we went to "Paradise Restaurant", No. 5 restaurant for Chicken Biryani. We again ate the Hyderabadi Biryani and "Kurbhani ka Meetha" too.


Day 2:



The second day was programmed to Ramoji Film City. We started our day at 7.30 AM from “Yatri Nivas” where we had purchased the transportation and entry ticket to visit Ramoji Film city. The bus started at 8.15 AM and our first stop was at Sai Temple. The uniqueness of this Sai temple is that the idol is carved similar to the idol of Shirdi’s Sai Baba temple. It was a 1/2 an hour break and then we moved to Ramoji film city. The Ramoji film city is one of the world's largest, most comprehensive and professionally planned film production centers. Professional Designers, Landscapists and Architects have worked on this vast 2000 acres complex of Studios, Gardens, Hotels, Multi-storied buildings and special structures of all kinds. Filmmaker can shoot Indian village, or recreate a London Street or any other desired location all at Ramoji Film City. We reached the film city at around 9.30 AM we were dropped at "Eureka" (starting point of film city). At this junction we get Ramoji’s buses to all other locations.
In Ramoji, we visited Brundavan garden, Mughal garden, Tea Garden, London Street, Village, Japanese garden and not to forget Dadajin. The studio is so vast and beautiful that a day is not sufficient to explore the film city. We had our bus waiting at 4.30 PM and we reached Secundrabad at 6.30 PM. Then we then straight to Punna Reddy's Sweet show room. We bought sweets worth Rs. 600/- went home. For dinner we went to a pub near to my room where we had two bottle of chilled ice beers each and came back home.



Day 3:

Our final day started first by visiting Birla Venkateshwara temple. This temple is constructed white Rajasthani marble at rocky hills which was overlooking the Hussain Sagar Lake. We had the darshan of Lord Vishnu we moved on to our next destination which was Lumbini Park.



Lumbini Park is situated at bank of Hussain Sagar. This park is famous for Sunset view of the lake, musical fountain show, Speed Boat, Para Sailing and Ship ride. As it was morning we had the option to select between Speed Boat, Para Sailing and Ship Ride. We opted for speed boat which was absolutely thrilling 1/2 hour ride from one end of Hussain Sagar to other end. We had close view of idol of Buddha which was placed at the center of the lake.



Our next destination was at Movie at IMAX Theater. This theater was at Prasad’s multi complex which was built by L V Prasad, former producer/director in Telugu film industry. The complex contains 5 Movie Theatres, an IMAX Theatre, Shopping, food court and restaurants. In India there is only one IMAX Theater and specialty of this theater is that it gives 3D effect without any 3D spectacle, 70 MM screen and 12,000 Watts music. We had booked the tickets for “Everest” movie and the movie was absolutely breath taking has touched our senses by brings all images to life like reality. This movie experience took our breath away...literally!!!!!



The movie was short & sweet and we came out of theater at 3.00 PM and went straight to Aditya Andra Mess where we had traditional spicy Andra meals with Pappu, Brinjal Pickle and other side dishes. After our lunch we headed to our last destination to Karachi bakery. This bakery is famous for its bakery products especially Cookies from past 60 years. We bought Biscuits and headed straight to old city (i.e. Near Charminar) for closer look of Bazaar and the monument again. It was 5 KM stretch for Karachi bakery to Charminar and we decide to walk through the old city. We reached Charminar and spent almost 1/2 an hour there and had fresh Sugarcane juice to regain our energy.



As all good things come to an end out trip was also over. Dadda's had to catch Bangalore train and none of us was in mood to go back to mechanical. This trip relaxed us from our hectic life and helped us to regain our energy back.

We reached Kachiguda station at 5.30 PM and left the city of Nizam with good memories behind.






From: raghunandan.keshava@accenture.com
Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2004 10:33 AM
To: d_men@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [d_men] Hyderbad Trip Travelogue


On the sidelines;
Lo magney Sanjay, you always get it wrong, its Pulla Reddy. Pure Ghee
Sweets.(dont ever forget to mention the 3 words!!)
Some info; The Quli qutub shahis were 9 kings in all and had 62 wives and
362 daughters?all daughters!!! Randy guys really!!!
Qubani ka meetha is an ultimate dessert that we had..i think 4 times.
For 2 days we had Chicken biryaani for lunch and dinner. With every burp
and fart we felt the flavor of chicken rising in us. Consequently,
Santhosh_gr made a lot of visits to the kakka room in sanjay's place. He
had also brought a SAP book to read while downloading his pile.
We had 2 sisters for company while visiting Ramoji city. Saree clad, sexy
sisters, i would call them. They in turn had a guy for their company. It
looked like he had married one of them. We saw them frequently throughout
the day in the film city.
Dont forget to visit Dadajinn when you visit hyderabad. Everest base camp
is a goal now.
Not to forget the no. of paans that we ate and no. of nimkai sodas in the
streets of hyderabad. It was awesome.
Finally, the yenne party was good as always?this time around sanjay was in
full spirits.

Dadajinn man, your contribution due. Might as well Tekula man's tales. ;-)

K To The M - Shit!Man Stories

Author: Santhosh_GR

There were some very unforgettable quotes, expressions & moments provided by Shit!Man raghu which are …..

1. Predator behind your poo

Second day morning. Morning ablutions time. The previous night, Shit!Man had slept peacefully, while Dagar and Stinker had woken up from the cold, cursing the lack of firewood. The whole night, they had also cursed Shit!Man for snoring loud and clear.

Shit!Man fended off his sleep and snoring saying that he didn’t feel cold because he was “kaal na kayyalli tap maadthaa idde, adakke chaliyalla hoythu”. But this was obviously a mystery. If tapping was the solution, then it should be patented. Stinker remembered the song from one of Dany’s inimitable hero kaashinaath’s film, which goes “thattonaa thattonaa, swargada bagila thattonaa”, in one of his crass movies. Maybe Shit!Man and kaashinaath went a long way back “thatting” each other for pleasure.

Anyway, time for kakka, and the 3 went off in search of the soundproof and smellproof bush, so that the other did not hear nor smell the ass bursts and shit respectively. Of course such a bush was elusive. One also had to consider the fact that the sweet smell might attract something wild, which would obviously be out looking for some sumptuous breakfast.

Stinker and Dagar, did not mind each other’s proximity and went off together in the same direction. But Shit!Man preferred the moat around the guesthouse as said earlier in the travelogue.

He sat in the moat downloading his pungent poo, enjoying the sadistic pleasure. Downloading being one of the sexual pleasures according to Freud and Sade he was obviously oblivious to his surroundings.

Suddenly there was some stomping behind him. Shit!Man was afraid and jumped up. Some animal had come attacking from behind. He turned around warily; ready to run with kakka still sticking out of his ass. Life is for more important than a greasily smeared rear.

But wait, there was no predator. No wild bison or jackass for that matter. In fact in his wild abandon of downloading; his bum or shit or both had fallen on some twigs and had created the thumping, crackling sound. There was no predator behind his poo

2. Thika mucchinkondiro ravi

It was the second day afternoon. Shit!Man and our other guide Kumar were tired. Shit!Man was ruing the day he had agreed for the trek.

But our over enthusiastic DagarMan was over the top literally. DagarMan is the kind of guy who will climax with a phantasmagorical orgasm just at the sight of good scenery and a hard workout. He was in nether nirvana owing to one very special factor of the trek/Unga which was – the shortcuts. Now, the trek was done on a dilapidated century old road from Kodai to Munnar which had gone bad, just like the hair of DagarMan’s over shigekai’ed hair. Every now and then when the road wound itself in a hairpin bend, there would be a shortcut to go up instead of using the road. This shortcut was steep, almost a 45 degree gradient. Painful and tiring to climb. But for DagarMan this was manna from heaven, he wanted to daintily climb up the shortcut, sweat, and be ecstatic at having climbed it. He was goading on Unga to take each and every shortcut.

This went on for quite some shortcuts, must be arnd 2 to 3. After the 3^rd shortcut it was only Unga, DagarMan and StinkerMan trudging along gaily up the shortcuts. Shit!Man and Kumar were breathless. They would lag behind each shortcut, cursing DagarMan’s enthusiasm. After the 4^th or 5^th shortcut, they had killer looks. They would have killed DagarMan and worn his balls as trophies for making them climb up. But DagarMan was oblivious to the agony behind. A dog in it’s sexual frenzy will never realize the boys getting ready to stone it.

The next shortcut was a long one. It went on at a 45 degree gradient for almost a kilometer I must say. Obviously Shit!Man and Kumar lagged behind and were lost. Unga had to shout, coax them and lead them thru the thickets only thru his voice. They were nowhere to be seen. At the end of it, the two emerged out of bushes like wet puppies yelping. By a quirk they had made a shortcut of the shortcut and had emerged abt 100 meters behind.

DagarMan by now was gloating. He was exclaiming “sakkat santu” to StinkerMan. He wanted Shit!man to come over and join him, bask in his sweaty glory. Obviously he must have been a eugenic gigolo in his previous life. He shouted “Raghu, illi munde baaro”.

Shit!Man was unkind. He had suffered all thru and now here was DagarMan acting like a Dagar. It was a fitting moment. He just curtly said…

“Thika mucchikondu iro magane”.

DagarMan was like a dog with the tail between it’s balls. Silent. No more gloating.

3. Elephant dung – Rubber legs

After having climbed the innumerable shortcuts, cursing DagarMan for making him take the shortcuts, Shit!Man was at his bodily nadir.

This was the exact moment for another chilling encounter. Fresh elephant dung. Unga like the professional he was used a stick to poke arnd the shit and said that the shit was fresh and the elephant was somewhere nearby. He said that we should all run downhill to escape from the elephants.

Shit!Man was exhausted and tired. There was no way now he could run. All his running abilities and preparation had been laid waste with DagarMan’s enthusiastic shortcuts. Given a chance he would cut short Dagar’s dick, not that he thought Dagar’s was a long dick.

Walking a bit further, Stinker man suddenly saw elephants walking in the front. No wait, they were some rocks, but from afar they looked like elephants. He showed Shit!Man these elephants. Shit!Man with his tiredness and iyengari naivety also believed them to be elephants. His words were gems..

“lo santu, eega enadru elephants bandre agalla kano. Full rubber thara agogidhe legs. Bandre anena enadru maadikollappa antha sumne ninthubidteeni”.

4. Unga or Elephant

Walking past some 2 or 3 instances of elephant dung, we finally reached the run down guesthouse with no doors, roofs, in fact nothing but walls. Just a bit ahead of the guest house, Unga showed us some more of the hateful (but madhu’s favourite) elephant dung. The path beside the guest house was the elephant path. There was a patch of mud where you could see footprints of all possible animals. Maybe one could also find the footprints of DagarMan in his kaadumanusya days.

The night was going to be a long one. We needed a lot of firewood “kattige”. The previous night had been bad because of DagarMan. He had burnt all the firewood in the evening itself. He had been over excited seeing the fire, maybe he had remembered his favourite uma bharathi’s fire colored dress and wanting to see more and sleaze more had burnt all the firewood. We had no firewood for the night and had suffered. This night would not be like that one. We would have enough firewood to last us thru the night. So off DagarMan went to collect firewood. Stinker man was collecting the dried up eucalyptus leaves.

Shit!Man having gotten to the final resting place after the tiresome walks, was resting. He had laid down like someone who had just puked all his food out and was in a fitful sleep.

StinkerMan was lazily still collecting the eucalyptus leaves.

Suddenly there was a rustling and stomping sound. StinkerMan exclaimed “ane irabahudu kano”. Shit!Man was all ablaze. His sodden legs suddenly came to life. He jumped right out of his reverie. It was a better jump than a grasshopper can ever do.

But the sound was nothing but Unga coming out from the other corner of the guest house. Looking at Shit!Man jumping he had a hearty laugh. For Shit!Man Unga or Elephant, the constant was pissing in his pants.

5. Sondilu

We had little protection from the wild in the dilapidated guest house. Just fire and some tin sheets to cover the door. The tin sheets could not cover the whole width of the door, but only covered some part of it. The rest of the door, abt 5 inches wide was left open.

During the night Shit!Man was left alone to his tapping and made to sleep in a corner. The corner towards which there was a gap in the tin sheet. Dagar and Stinker slept huddling each other, so that they could heat each other up.

Stinker was regretting not bringing his girl/wife along. He was saying how she would have given him respite from this accursed cold. Shit!Man and Dagar did not like this. They didn’t want only Stinker to be hot while they were languishing cold. They said “ee thara maada baaradu santu, namma hotteyannu hurisabeda”. But Stinker was oblivious, hoping to be hot just thinking.

All thru the night Dagar and Stinker would get up, go to the fire, get their tika, and hands singed in the fire, come back and sleep to again get cold. This went on for a long time. Once in between Dagar wanted to pee and went out holding on to his torch, one in his hand and one inside his pants. The torch was to be lit while peeing. We didn’t want anything jumping out and trying to pull out one’s dick thinking it to be a lolly. As usual, Dagar was his uncanny self. He wanted to experience the bliss of peeing in the dark. He turned off the light. But this time even he was freaked. Not able to even get a drop out in the dark he turned the light on.

Coming back to the guest house, in his fret, he forgot to cover the door completely with the tin sheet. The gap between the sheet and the door was wider.

All this while Shit!Man was in his tapping heaven. Tapping this legs with his hands, maybe even tapping his tool for that momentary fleeting pleasure. Now when I look at Shit!Man and see his flattened pants, like a woman gymnast, and unlike a male gymnast, I wonder whether the tapping of his tool has made it recessed, maybe sent the tool back hiding between his legs not able to take the tapping. Ace Penture pet detective and the villain man in the dress of a policewoman in the end, if you care. He woke up in the middle of the night. The first thing he saw was the sight of the gap in the tin sheet. That was frightening.

As he told us the next day morning. “lo, rathri ella onde hedarike kano. Swalpa gap itthalla, adarinda enadru ane sondilna toorisi nan kaal hidkondu eledu bisaaki bidutte anta, enla maadodu aa thara aadre”

6. Durra burra

The night was uneventful at least with respect to the wild life coming-a-calling.

Morning obviously was again shitting time. This time Kumar and Unga warned us not venture out far and also to be near each other.

DagarMan as ever was effervescent, happy to search a place. After much deliberation a path bifurcating from the elephant trail and going uphill was chosen. After all if there were ane’s we could run downhill.

Dagar and Stinker were ready, having grabbed their share of tissue paper, for that matter even the previous day they had used tissue paper. They sat abt 10 meters away from each other, unbuckling their pants and wrapping the kacha and pants arnd their knees.

Shit!Man’s job was not so easy. He couldn’t shit with his pants around his knees. For him shitting necessitated removing his pants completely. He had to be completely bare naked below his butt. That was the only thing which would given his some smooth slidings.

With Dagar and Stinker convincing him that they would not see his bum, of course they wouldn’t have wanted to see the bum, who knows how warty it would have been, he undressed and sat down. Where he sat there was elephant dung! He didn’t care. He just wanted to shit and slide away.

Now there was a problem. Shit!Man had wanted to shit right since early morning. But he had been afraid to go all by himself. Dagar and Stinker had delayed the shitting rituals by an hour or two. This meant nuclear disaster. Shit!Man’s problem was that the longer he delayed, the more his farting sounds, the worse the smell. To add to his woes Dagar and Stinker were also down on their heels just a few feet away.

He warned both of the impending hiroshimaesque risk and went about his job clinically. Stinker and Dagar were inundated with the blasting of Durra Burra and submerged in the intoxicating smell.

Coming back to the guest house Stinker narrated stories to them. A few weeks back at home having farted to his satisfaction an idea had stuck Stinkers brain. He told Madhu that he would create a new super hero called “The StinkerMan”. This superhero had the gift of having the stinkiest fart. While crimefighting he would jump, flip around to face away from his enemies and launch the stinkies “oosu” right at the face of his enemies. Madhu obviously cried blasphemy. She didn’t want any of this nonsense. She had hit StinkerMan hard and told him never to create this super hero.

Now sharing this story with the team, everyone was excited. Lots of epithets flew around, Pukerman Raghu, Buttkick a.k.a sidekick Ravi, SadeLady Madhu, Dagarman, Shitman. The names you find above owe to this story.

Long live community-collaboration-shitting-oosing.

7. “Shit Man!!”

Third days walk was very very tiring. The elephants had mauled down, uprooted all the trees on the path on which they had passed. Stinker and Shit!Man had to jump, bend over the trees. Over and above the legs were rubbery as said above.

We were all walking in a line. Unga up ahead said something to Dagar. Dagar passed this message along to Kumar. Kumar passed this word along to Stinker and Shit!Man behind.

Kumar had said “There are wild-dogs ahead”.

Shit!Man could take no more. His legs were rubbery, all thru the path he had seen elephant dung, ready to go downhill at the first hint of the dreaded sondilu. Now there was one more thing to bane him. This was way too much or as Malashri says in one of her movies “idu too much alla three much”. He shouted

“Shit Man, Shit”

His exasperation had lent itself to this gem of a statement. The tone, vocal frequency was the right pitch. Sad that only Stinker heard this jewel.

There had been no wild dogs. There had been a wireless station ahead and this is what Unga had said. By the time it reached our ears it had turned into “wilddogs”.

8. Stalking syndrome

It was a long long walk. 10 kms thru the jungle, most of it downhill, some uphill too. Elephant dung all thru. There were some places where the elephant had crossed the road. The trees on either side were all broken and there was a wide path. It seemed like the elephant had gone downhill. Unga’s suggestion to run downhill had no merit. The elephants would have run too. We would have been flattened below it’s legs. Even it’s dick with it’s weight would have easily crushed us according to Shit!Man.

After having walked about 7 kms, Shit!Man wanted to pee. Unga was not in the mood for resting. He wanted to reach topstation as soon as possible. Nobody would stop if Unga did not stop. Shit!Man not able to control stopped and went off to pee.

Even the pee was not relief providing. Shit!Man felt that there was something wild, some animal watching him pee so as to attack him. He couldn’t even pee to satisfaction. I bet he just held on to his dick and ran peeing on the road.

He hurried to catch up with the team ahead. Walked fast. But he still felt that there was something stalking him. He could feel the cold calculation of some beast behind the bushes and brambles trying to pounce on him. He could take it no more. It was stalking syndrome at its worst. He ran the rest of way to catch up.

I saw him flushed with his face red when he caught up with us.

9. Sugarcane juice

The whole of 4^th day morning had been walking around the Meenakshamma temple. We were tired. Shit!Man’s legs had gone rubbery again. DagarMan was hungry and wanted a good meal. We were on the hunt for a good restaurant. But there was none in sight. The arya bhavan we had been to earlier was fake.

In Munnar we had wanted to go to Saravana bhavan. But Kumar said that this saravana bhavan was fake. Saravana bhavan is supposed to be best hotel chain in tamil nadu. Our Buffalo Nagi loves saravana bhavan. His affections for Glory (his girl) compete with his affections for saravana bhavan, that’s how deep his connections towards Saravana bhavan go. Nagi claims that there is a Saravana bhavan in New York also. It is true, there is a saravana bhavan somewhere in 28^th st and Lexington avenue in New York.

Kumar said that you could identify a real saravana bhavan from a fake one by looking at the photo behind the cashier. If it had a photo of the owner with specs then the restaurant was original else it was a fake. He had not seen such a photo in the Munnar hotel and hence his claim that it was a fake.

The arya bhavan we went to in Madurai also had a photo of the owner with specs. But I think it was some other “dabba nan maga” as DagarMan said.

Our hunt for a good place to have lunch led us nowhere. We were exhausted from the dirt and “dhool” of madurai. Shit!Man was dead tired and did not want to go any further. It was at this time that we saw our oasis. It was a roadside sugarcane juice stall. Dirtier than dany’s old underwear hung in BTM layout since 2 years. But we were ready to take the plunge. Nothing could daunt Stinker, Dagar and Shit!Man.

The juice was like amruta. Sweet with the surgar from sugarcane and also the dirt of madurai and lesions on the sugarcane juice vendors puss filled hands. We had a nice full glass.

Immediately after gulping the juicke our Shit!Man was up and firing on all cylinders. He said “full shakti bantu kano. Innu ondy ardha-ondu ghante bekadru naditeeni”. The juice had worked its wonders on him

Why “K to the M”

Author

Santhosh_GR

Anyone who has seen Rajnikant’s BABA will be able to appreciate this. The team are big fans of Rajni.

In BABA there is a constant background song “B to the A to the B to the A, BABA”. Our trek being from Kodai to Munna it was the “K to the M”.

K To The M - An Account of the Trek'athon

Author

Raghunandan.Keshava



The Cast;

StinkerMan: Santhosh_gr.

DagarMan: hm.ravi (who else!!)

Shit! Man: raghunandan.keshava.



Prologue

After the Kodai pleasure cruise Team D had decided on the challenging trekking endeavor from Kodai towards Munnar around December. Finally, the strength of the venturing team reduced to a mere 3 from the earlier 6 what with Dagar dany and Samsaarasta Narada backing out.



So it came down to the ace 3some - StinkerMan, DagarMan, Shit! Man.

The D-day (25th Dec, 2003) came and the trio was ready with their 10kg heavy backpacks and armed with Sharada Devi's small booklet in their pockets.



The Story begins...

The night journey to Kodai Road on the Toot'kudi express was uneventful. Their guide Kumar was waiting for them in the Station as the frikkin' train arrived late on Day One. They were off to Kodaikanal and reached Kumar's residence at around 11.30 am to complete their morning ablutions. Shit! Man was by then really feeling the thrusts in the pelvic region. It was a very cold December there. They were raring to go when Kumar came in and told them to board a jeep to go to a spot near Berijam Lake some 10 kms from Kodaikanal. The trio was also introduced to their Trail expert Udayakumar a.k.a Unge. For the next 2 days this soft spoken pro was to lead them safely through the dense jungles in Tamil nadu and across the Kerala border to Top Station.



It was around 1 pm when they started on the trek. At around 2:30 pm they halted for lunch. It was a pre-packed delicious meal all thanks to Kumar and Unge. They were off again to walk for quite some time. Breaking twigs on the ground, sometimes treading on the soft grass of the jungle & sometimes on hard terrain they had to walk around 8-10 kms to reach their first base-camp before nightfall. And walk they did, fast and furious. Unge led them wonderfully through the jungle and also showed them the haunts of the wild bison and the sambhar.

Circa 5:30 pm, the Go5 spotted their rest house. This was one cold place. Fortunately it had some mats on the floor for them to sleep on. Unge immediately got busy in getting wood for fire.

Soon they had a blazing fire. They sat down happy and tired thinking about the next day. They ate some snacks and brandy gave them some respite from the cold. After an hour they were back in the hut to start another fire inside. Dinner was a small affair with some rice & sambar.

StinkerMan and DagarMan were soon to face their coldest nights ever that night. They woke up often during the night to warm their cold arses. They were often up and huddling close to the fire for warmth.



Day 2 arrived.They all had a cup of tea early in the morning prepared by Kumar. The trio then went off to take their shit armed with tissue. Shit! Man sat in the hole (a moat like structure) prepared by the forest staff around the house so as to prevent elephants/wild dogs to come near the house. It was a nervous 'shitty' session for him. They had to cover quite some distance, around 20 kms to reach their next camp before nightfall.

So, they started off. Occasionally they rested for a while & savored the beautiful locales all around. They replenished their water stock from the mountain streams. This session was a tough one alright with most of the trek being uphill.

Kneeling & tripping through fallen trees, they trudged on through the dense vegetation to reach Pulimanjaru. They took a well deserved rest there; they were also able to spot a few trout in the nearby stream. Unge also displayed the skeletal remains of the head of a bison; two actually, one old and the other quite new.

The group also took large doses of glucose to boost their reserves. This was one helluva session for the group. Unge also urged the group to move on fast as they spotted pachyderm poop along the narrow, thorny trail.

Around 3 p.m; the group reached their stop for the second night. This was a dilapidated hut with no roof. It was also dirty. They got busy in accumulating wood for the entire night. DagarMan set about on this task with great enthusiasm. They cleaned up one corner of the house and laid plastic sheets to lie on.

Unge also cooked a delicious meal which included rice & tomato curry. The MTR ready to eats were also eaten up. Not to forget, the brandy and one quarter of rum (Thanks to Kumar!!). Unge also showed us the trail of an elephant that had passed just inches close to the house. StinkerMan had his thermals on, DagarMan wore jeans over jeans and Shit! Man wore his Cots wool shirt, all in anticipation of a very, very cold night. The 3some chatted for some time. StinkerMan was heard telling DagarMan a Birbal tale. Shit! Man was frequently tapping his feet to stave off the cold with not much success. They could see the starry night sky while sleeping. They could also spot a shooting star.DagarMan's opinion was that it was some satellite/planet in orbit. Shit! Man also put on the pocket radio that he had brought for the trek to hear on the cricket score but all that he could get to hear was some crap.



It was a cold Day3 morning they all woke up to. They had their fill of the morning cuppa prepared by Kumar. Then it was time to Shit. So the 3some sat down in close proximity to download their pile accompanied by some music emanating from their arses. Unge and Kumar cooked another delicious breakfast for them. Then they were off for the final session of trekking. They were told by Unge that they would reach Top Station by afternoon.

They marched along the elephant trail very ably led by Unge. For some time the trail was uphill. Then it eventually eased out. They reached the Chinnar forest reserve. They walked on and on for quite some time with relatively no rest periods in between. Unge urged them to keep on walking because he felt that it was risky. Unge also advised them to run downhill in case they came face to face with the pachyderms.The weather was pleasant and that alleviated their stress. The trail was also slushy as they walked on. They also spotted fresh elephant dung that really set them flying on their track. Finally, they crossed the check post and felt safe enough to relax. They found leeches crawling on their feet. They were disposed off with bits of salt that they had thoughtfully carried. Another 10-15 min of walking & they found themselves in TopStation, their final destination.



They posed for a group photo along with Unge and had a cup of tea to refresh themselves.

They deliberated among themselves on what to do and where to go next. It was decided that they would visit the temple town - Madurai from Munnar.



So, they took the bus to Munnar and found themselves face to face with some breathtaking locales (tea plantations all along!!) along the winding, hilly roads. Munnar was a busy little place. They spotted Saravana Hotel there (Note, Nagi!!) and very much wanted to eat there. But they were told by Kumar that it was a fake. So, they had a tasty Kerala style lunch and boarded the bus to Theni. This was another grueling 4 hours journey which had apparently 18 hairpin bends. Soon the 3some parted ways with their guides. It was another hour's journey to Madurai from Theni. Kumar had given them a map to move around in Madurai and also given us the address of a nice hotel called College House. It was around 10 pm in the night when the trio checked themselves into a nice double bed room of College House which also had the luxury of a TV.



Day 4’s morning saw the group in a relaxed mood. They first went to the Railway Station and booked general tickets till Kodai Road. Then it was time for a hearty breakfast at Arya Bhavan. Then they walked towards the famous Meenakshi temple. The temple was spread across

16 acres of land. Huge temple towers dotted the landscape. They also tried in vain to get a good guide to tell them about the history and subtleties of the temple architecture. The thousand pillared hall is a great place to visit. The trio marveled at the mélange of sculptures of humans, gods and animals. It seemed that great attention was paid to physical details by the artisans’ right down to even a lion’s testicles. It was art, sublime art at its erotic best. This perhaps highlighted the attitude towards eroticism in that period. Matter of fact, some figurines had revealing bustiers and some had nothing below their waists!!



They came out of the temple for lunch and resolved to go in again in the evening. Lunch over, they came across a theatre nearby which was showing a 3D movie called "Revenge of the Shogun Women". Some kinda Neeli chalanachitra. They watched the movie for about an hour and half. They went back to the temple and had a glimpse of Meenakshi Amman. An hour later they were back in their hotel room and packing up to catch the train bound homewards.





Epilogue

Like all good things, the adventure had come to its end. In the train the awesome threesome pondered on their memorable & eventful 3 days that they had spent together and indulged in “Yes, we did it!!”, “Sakkat kano!!” expressions. All in all, it was a worthwhile excursion perhaps physically demanding but very satisfying.

Kodai Trip

Author: Nagi

Hi,

Some how i'm able to write this. Jst add something is missed. Don't have a time. Meeting ko jana Hai.

Madhu .. If spelling mistake/Grammer mistake idre jst adjust madi. namge English nimastu Barodhilva. OK

Tell me one more time how to pronounce "Love"... We can't .. becoz we born and bought up in India. Wat Say Guys..

Enjoy Madi.






Day 0 -> 22-Aug-2003
---------------------

After a long and dreary set of discussions [or the lack of it :) ], the coterie of itinerants decided to take on the

KodaiKKanal (Sanjay & Madhu, Check out the spelling, I did't miss splet it, isn't?) head on regardless of the heavy rains in

the region. Notwithstanding the usual trait that has come to be associated with the gang, we decided to move along and have

a nice time. It was decided that we will meet at the rendezvous in Jayanagar. It did't happend. This time culprit was Nagaraj

. We boarded at around 9:45 p.m. [ no "sharp" here :)) thanks to Raghu for the tickets) The tuticoron was to take us to

KodaiRoad, from that to Kodaikanal which was to be our base over the next 2 days. after all the initial hiccups, we finally

set off towards Kodaikanal and its pristine offerings.

Day 1 -> 23-Aug-2003
---------------------

The sole chatterbox in the group [ ???? ] woke us all with a rude jolt at the unearthly hours of 4:00 a.m. when we

were only expected to wake up at 06:30. (Guess Who else!! Sanjay's Mobile) With the bantam of tamil knowledge finally we were

able to hire a taxi to Kodai. A slight drizzle greeted us on the way to Kodai. This immediately set us worrying as to our

agenda for the next 2 days.Thankfully, the rain was only in trickles.

We managed to find out the location of the "ITC Guest house" with more than a little help from Madhu's Memory. Selvaraj of

ITC guest house gave us a warm welcome in the late morning. Thanks again to Madhu reminding us about the ferocious Bhira

(Dog). We met the Selvaraj manager and Madhu spoke to him, It was decided that we will take some brunch and will leave by 12

Noon. we then met software engineer Kumar as our guide/driver/Companion for the next 2 days.

The gang was up and raring to go at exactly 12 Noon We had a good breakfast. The chutnee was delicious. I could smell some

Mysore taste in that chutnee. Thanks Selvaraj for making that. Then we are all set for our endeavour for the day.

Our first stop was to be "Silent Valley". We had a good view of the nature and we took some snaps there. Then next

spot was Shanti Valley, ( Kannda Version of Silent Valley - joking). The view was even wonderful than Silent valley. Then we

moved towards Guna caves. On the way we saw one more place where full of eucalyptus trees( This is called shola * - donno the

exact name). Madhu showed her strengh again by climbing the tree. (Wonderful Madhu, I could remember the Adimanava days).

Then we stopped at Guna caves. This suppose to be the best spot in Kodai. but unfortunately we did't have luck. The Guna

caves was closed since 2 yrs. We had a vague view of the Guna Caves and proceed further. Me did not wasted no time in

reminding Raghu/Sanjay about the BSNL's Superior reach to Airtel's. This was to become a routine affair until the time the

twosome could get back vengefully which was when we reached Kodairaod. More on that later.

Then we had a nice lunch @ HILVIEW Restaurant and some snacks in the near by bakery. Then journey headed towards Twin rock

view. Again we did't have enough luck to see those rocks. Then we went to see the suicide point near the golf field. This

golf field is the second biggest in asia in terms of natural. In Bangi/Chennai we have much more big fields but these are

artifical. Then Kumar took us to Uppper lake view, we had good view of the Kodai lake then we went to 150 yrs old church.

Santu showed his genius by recalling some facts abt the chirstianity.

Then finally we went to Vishnu temple. We can see the Palani view from the temple. Kumar showed us the direction and we could

see some sign of the palani temple. It was drizzling and we saw 2 rainbows @ a time. I havn't seen 2 rainbows at a time in my

life. We also had some photo sessions in this place. One googly we faced Guess what !!. Liril falls. It was Shane's Google

only. Finally we have signed off the day and went to guest house. Had nice dinner and as expected we started the party.

During the party we enjoyed a lot by watch ZEEMGM. Then Ravi D beat me in the carrom board :((- then .......slept...


Day 2 -> 24-Aug-2003
---------------------

Ravi woke at 06:15 did some jogging, exercise and we were ready to leave by 8:45 after some of us had a cold shower. Our

agenda for the day was treking and boating. We first headed for Treking which is about 6 km away from Kodai.The route to

this place is studded with lush green forests on either side of the road which was almost an illusion to me. This did not

deter the enthusiasm of the group and we had no plans of giving up.This place, supposedly the abode of a hermit, is around 2

km of trek away from the parking lot. Initially we were faced with the disappointment when all we could see was a small

cavern atop the Hill. This taught me not to jump to early conclusions as we were to see some spectacular sights enroute our

way to the spot. We we reached the pinnacle that was the heaven for me. we were immediately awe-struck by its splendour and

misty mountain backdrops Nothing else we had a good time there and spent quite sometime to refresh our memory.

We returned wearily to our bastion at around 1:00 p.m. and promised to meet Kumar to again after an hour. We finally

vacated the Hotel at around 3:00 after the lunch. The plan for the rest of the day was boating and boarding the Bangi Exp @

kodaikkannal.

We had a bombat time at the boating. First we took 7 seaters boat self row boat, Madhu was our Driver/Ambiga for all of us.

Thank God finally we were able to escape from all the misfortunes. Then we 4 decided that we will have pedal boat. Ravi and

Madhu are eagar to get another 2 seater self row boat. This time when we were acutally in the middle of the lake, the rain

started. We 4 came back and later madhu and ravi joined us in the rest room.

Then we are all set to go back to kodai road. We started at around 3:45 pm. On the way we saw cascade falls and rat tail

falls. Finally we reached the kodaikkanal road @ 6:30 PM. We could spent some time in Kodaikanal road and finally our Bangi

Exp. Came @ 8:15. We bought some food packets for dinner that night and almost devoured the entire stuff within 1 hour of

boarding the train.The group went to sleep at around 10:30 dreading the day that was to follow after all the excitement of

the last 2 days.

Day 3 -> 25-Aug-2003
---------------------

The train was literally toying with us for 1 hours before we were dropped at Majestic.

A special thanks to Raghu & Ravi for being the wonderful co-operation .

Thanks again to one and all for making the KODAI trip memorable for more reasons than mentioned above.So long till we meet

the next time.