Boating in Alleppey

When I woke up, I found myself in the middle of a large open space with nobody else around. It was rather disconcerting, but thankfully there was Pavel just beginning to stir on top of his dinner tables bed. He looked like a King with his politician cap on.

<- King Pavel

We went to the private beach once again as Pavel wanted to take a dip. It was a big moment in his life, as he was swimming in the Arabian Sea for the first time. After getting ready and having breakfast, we met the rest of the gang who were in the process of deciding the next course of action. Some just wanted to laze around in the resort, while Vidya, Leena and few others wanted to go for a boat ride. I joined the boating group, and we went back to the backwaters where we were yesterday. After some negotiating, we agreed upon a price with one of the guys who owned a boat. It was a large boat, but without any shade to offer to its passengers. Nevertheless, it was a good ride in deep waters till about halfway to the mouth of the sea.

On the way back, Vidya and Leena made up their minds to have a dip right there. Once these ladies decide on something, its no mean task to make them change their minds. The boatman and his buddies had a tough time convincing them to hold back their swimming plans. Once the boat was close to one of the islands, Vidya and Leena just jumped off the side.

They were soon joined by Dilip and Tanya. Now this was too much temptation for me to handle! So I took off my shoes, gave my wallet and camera to Pavel, stood on the side of the boat, and made an immaculate dive into the cold water (at least it was immaculate in my mind!!).

The knight in shining water ->

But swimming with my jeans in the salty water took a Herculean effort, and I soon got back into the boat to dry. Once everyone was on board again, we started our return journey. This time Vidya and Leena had a tough time keeping the boatman and his buddies off of them :D

On the way back, Rex took all of us in multiple batches to a small toddy shop for lunch. It was an extremely sidey looking place filled with drunken shady men, but the food... that was something else! I tried various types of meat from fish, prawns & squid to chicken, pork & beef, and everything they brought to the table was delicious.

I don't remember much of the rest of the trip, except that we stopped somewhere for dinner, and reached Bangalore early on Sunday morning, for yet another boring day at the office :(

To Alleppey for the Snake Boat Race

The Bangalore Couchsurfing community had been to The Nehru Cup, the annual snake boat race held in Alleppey, Kerala in 2008; and they had had a lot of fun there as was evident from their pictures. So some of them decided to repeat it this year as well, and a lot of us who'd never been there decided to join them. It was a huge logistical challenge to arrange for travel, accomodation, food and sight-seeing for the enormous group of 50+ people going from Bangalore, along with many others joining us at Alleppey from different parts of the country.
But Dilip, Tanya, Pramila and a few others coordinated brilliantly and made it look like a walk in the park.

Our huge Bangalore delegation was packed into two 23 seater buses, and we were off on Friday evening. The evil genius that I am, I made sure to board last, which allowed me to make a good guess of which would be the "fun-ner" bus to be in... haha!!

<- Our bus

With the backseat girls! ->

Boy, was it a fun journey, or was it a fun journey! We had an absolute blast on the bus, playing antakshari for most of the time. This is when we discovered what a good singer Leena is. We reached Alleppey in the morning, and after some effort spent in searching, finally located the Pozhiyoram Beach Resort.

<- The lawns of the resort

The private beach ->

During the trip planning stage, Dilip had calculated that each of us would get exactly about 7 minutes to freshen up before we go and get into the boat that would take us close to the finish line of the race. But we were running behind schedule already, so we had just enough time to dump all our bags in some random room and run for the bus. Despite the time crunch, some people decided to use the loo, while others decided to shower and stuff, thus seriously pissing off the trip organizers. In the end, it was quite late by the time everyone got on board our boat and we sailed off towards our parking spot. We couldn't get as good a spot as we would've liked, but it was the best our boat guy could manage.

The chief guest of the occasion was Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, and there were a few opening ceremony rituals, including a brief acrobatic display by the Indian Navy personnel. Maybe the stunts being performed were actually very difficult, but it seemed to me like they were no big deal! After what seemed like an eternity, the first boats started emerging from the distance. Each of these snake boats is a long thin boat with about 100 rowers. There's one guy who stands almost bang in the middle of the boat, and beats a fat stick to the base. This is apparently a synchronization technique so that all the rowers are in-sync. Besides this, there are also about 4 to 5 men that stand and shout - once again in-sync. Each of the rowers exerts a tremendous amount of energy into each stroke, and the boats move really fast as well.

<- Energizer bunnies

One-by-one many different sub-races were held for both men and women competitions. Maybe these were qualifying races, or maybe just different competitions. We simply couldn't follow, because all the annoucements were made in Malayalam; and we were too far away from any of the loudspeakers.

After about 20 minutes of watching the same type of races, I was beginning to get bored. So I got into the boat, met a lot of new people and had a sumptuous meal prepared specially for us. Periodically I would get out to watch a few races, but would promptly get back in as the Sun was quite harsh out there. If you ever go for these races, make sure to carry loads of sunscreen, a good pair of sunglasses and a large umbrella.

<- Houseboats on the backwaters

Random stunts ->

Got back to the resort in the evening and had a shower after a long time (there was a coconut tree inside my bathroom, and it sure gave me a complex, hehe!).

The coconut tree inside the bathroom ->

The hotel guys had arranged for a small traditional song and dance performance at dinner time, after which we all headed to the small private beach for a beach party around a bonfire.

<- Partying on the beach

Some of us started playing poker after the party, which went on till 4 am or so. It was almost dawn when Pavel and I, the last guys still up, headed towards the large common area reserved for the boys. Unfortunately, we didn't have any place on the floor so Pavel joined two dinner tables together and lied down on top. I was not so confident of not rolling off the tables in my sleep so I got into my sleeping bag in a cramped up awkward position where I could still see some floor space. At least a few hours of sleep would be better than nothing at all.

The evolving Bollywood heroine

When PH & I were looking for "Chota Rajkumar", one of our stops was Odyssey in Indiranagar. Here we came across some Hindi movies in the DVD section, and when I was giving him my thoughts on the evolution of Bollywood cinema, he had a brainwave of arranging the DVDs in chronological order and clicking a picture.

From left to right:
a) Daag (1952) -> only the faces of the actresses are shown
b) Abhimaan (1973) -> the actress is shown fully covered
c) Beta (1992) -> the actress seems to shedding her clothes a little
d) Fashion (2008) -> much bolder actresses (wonder where the heroes vanished)

Dal, dal & more dal

Woke up really late and went for some shopping at SPAR. Pappu was playing at some gig at Bangalore Central, and Meena, Lawrence & Shaarad were going. I was too lazy so I took a raincheck.
Watched the Royal Challengers defeat the Chennai Super Kings quite easily and enter the finals of the IPL.
Meena & co came home later and Meena made a LOT of dal for us. Danny also brought some of her home cooked dal, so we had a ton of dal to finish. I did the best I could, but there was just too much dal for me to handle.

I went to bed around 2 am coz I was too tired. Woke up in the morning to find that the others had managed to finish all that dal - very impressive indeed!!

Alvida PH

Today was just another boring day at the office. Came back to see PH packing all his stuff. Shaarad, Stag[1] & I went up to the terrace at chilled out for a bit. Then we came back down and had a quick dinner. PH said his byes to Shaarad & Stag; and off we went towards Majestic on my motorcycle. After the past few days, PH had become so comfortable on the bike that he could now easily carry his heavy backpack whilst riding pillion!

PH's bus was set to leave at 10.30 pm, but we left home at 8.30 pm. We had reached Corporation Circle within no time, and I was beginning to think maybe we had started off a little too early. But once we entered KG road, the traffic came to a near stand-still and I was glad that we had a lot of time to spare. The bus-stand was about a kilometre away, but it took us close to 45 minutes to cover that short stretch.

Finally parked the bike, and began the search for platform 25 in the KSRTC bus-stand. The night Volvo to Pondicherry leaves from platform 25, which is located in some remote corner of the bus-stand. It took us about 15 minutes just to find the platform, but we did get there eventually.

Chatted about random stuff over the next few minutes, and then it was time for the bus to leave. Said goodbye to PH, and got back home.

Found Adi B, Danny, Pammu & Stag at home already. Meena, Lawrence, Adi T & Shaarad joined us later and we had a good time singing songs and stuff. Went to bed at 6 am :)


[1] - Adi Y will be called Stag henceforth!

Dancing in the rain

As planned PH took it easy at home most of today, and later went out exploring the city by himself. He was actually looking for a particular tree in Lalbagh, and eventually managed to find it too. Once back home, he recounted his experiences of the day of being greeted by random strangers on the road. Entire families would sometimes come up to him and have their picture taken with the friendly white guy :)

Apparently, everything was not all fun and games for good old PH, as he got accosted by a gay who probably just wanted to try his luck. That ended up in a sour note with the two getting into an argument. I felt bad for PH, but couldn't help grinning from ear-to-ear :D
PH is a funny guy even with his limited command over English. I'm sure he'll have his French speaking friends in splits most of the time!

It started pouring cats & dogs in the evening, and Shaarad was itching to get out in the rain. Finally, he couldn't control his urge anymore, and against all warnings from our cook, off he went and stood in the middle of the road in the torrential downpour. PH was out of the house in a jiffy as soon as he had seen Shaarad. I continued to stand in Shaarad's balcony and look at them in the street outside. Finally, the peer pressure became too much for me to handle; and I jumped out from the balcony and joined the other two.

We could see so many people staring at the three psycho buggers from their windows and balconies; but we were too busy dancing and playing around in the rain to even care!

When we'd had enough, we got back home and had an amazing chicken dinner prepared by our cook. Later, when the rain subsided, we went to Legends of Rock where PH bought us a few beers, while we watched the Royal Challengers Bangalore beat the Deccan Chargers to enter the semi-finals of the 2nd Indian Premier League.

When we got back home, we saw that the entire basement parking lot was flooded; but fortunately the water hadn't risen high enough to cause any serious damage to the engines.

<- The tree PH was after

View from atop the hillock in Lalbagh ->

Busy day for PH

In the morning I took PH to my workplace and showed him around. Ramjee, PH & I went to the dhaba at Michael Palya for lunch.

Then we went to all the big bookshops around Indiranagar looking for the book "Chhota Rajkumar".
['Chhota Rajkumar' is the Hindi translation of 'The Little Prince'. It has been translated into more than 180 languages, and remains one of the best-selling books ever!]
Although we couldn't find it, PH gifted me the English version. He said that even though it is classified as a children's book, it has some very valuable lessons for adults.

Next, we went to the Vidhana Soudha and clicked a few pictures.

From there, we rode to Majestic and saw the KSRTC bus-stand, the BMTC bus-stand and the railway station from a distance. PH was fascinated looking at the huge crowds of people!

Then we went to Rex Cinema to book our tickets for the movie tonight (99), and finally returned home.

PH was exhausted by all the information overload, and slept through most of the first half of the movie. He's planning to take it easy tomorrow, and stay in and around home most of the time.


<- Ramjee & I at the Michael Palya Dhaba

BMTC bus stand (Majestic) ->

<- The crowds at Majestic

PH & I on the bike ->

More French speaking people!

After getting back from work, I took PH to the Oasis Center and we did some clothes shopping. He had to meet a friend of his at Forum in the evening so I took him there. Met Claudine, invited her to Angie's farewell dinner tonight, and left PH & Claudine to catch up over coffee. Claudine's phone number is so much similar to mine, that its almost eerie!!

Later in the evening, PH, Claudine, and Claudine's flatmates Morris & Nabeel came over. So we had a lot of French speaking people in our home that evening!

Walked to Nandhini in the slight drizzle, and met Meena, Adi T, Angie & Sarah who were there already. Adi Y & Lawrence joined us later, so we had 7 different nationalities being represented at our dinner table!!

Shaarad - UK
PH & Claudine - France
Nabeel - Lebanon
Morris - Senegal
Sarah & Angie - USA
Meena - Australia
Adi Y, Adi T, Lawrence & me - India

<- Googie, Claudine & Morris at our place (sorry about the quality)

Angie's farewell dinner - Googie & Shaarad ->

<- Angie's farewell dinner - Angie, Meena & Lawrence

Beer @ Pecos

Today Shaarad had a sudden craving for having beef, and he sent me an e-mail suggesting we have some beef for dinner. I'm always up for any kind of meat, so I was game; and we chose to go to Pecos. As luck would have it, the cook called in sick, so it seemed like there was nothing to stop us from going out to get some beef for dinner - till we spoke to Adi Y. Adi Y in his usual manner made a long face, saying that he wanted to have Punjabi food. After what seemed like ages, we somehow managed to convince him that we also get some paneer in Pecos, and off we went to good old Brigade Road.

We parked our motorcycles near Crossword, and began walking towards Pecos. Thats when we realised that we were closer to Mojos, and since the management is the same at both places, the food & beer must also be the same! Moreover, Mojos is not as congested as Pecos. We were just about to get into Mojos when Shaarad got a call from Lawrence, who said that they were already at Pecos. So we decided to simply join those guys.

Met Angie, Meena, Lawrence & Ajay at Pecos, and had a very heavy dinner. Got back home close to midnight.

At around 12.30 am, I was just preparing to go to bed when I got a call from an unknown local number. I wondered who could be calling this late, but answered it anyway. It turned out to be Pierre-Henri Le Besnerais (PH) from France. He had requested to surf my couch sometime back, and I had agreed; but I had completely forgotten about him :) He said he had just landed in Bangalore, and was going to take a taxi to our place.

So I waited, and PH reached at around 2 am. We spoke to each other about our countries, our languages and our cultures till about 3 am. He was so excited to be in India, that he had to smoke a few cigarettes back-to-back to calm his nerves...

Bicycle Ride # 1

Woke up early in the morning on Sunday (after only about 4 hours of sleep), and also awakened Adi Y. Both of us got to the Oasis Center with our bicycles at about 7.15 am to find Eva, Ash & Megha waiting there already. The original plan to ride to Begur got canceled and we decided on an alternate route.

Read more about the ride here.

Came back home and crashed after the ride, only to wake up in the evening. Went to SPAR with Adi Y and did a lot of shopping for the house. I was wearing the red "Shiamak" T-shirt, thanks to which one Mr. Roomi came up to me and enquired about the classes for his kid. I took his card, and later e-mailed him the details he needed. Shaarad got back from Delhi, and we talked a bit about making a short trip to Bandipur the coming weekend. Lets see if that works out...


Photos of the bicycle ride (same as those present in the above link):


<- First break (Sarjapur Road, Outer Ring Road intersection)

Weed covered Bellandur Lake ->

<- The group at Bellandur Lake (L to R: Adi, Googie, Megha, Ash & Eva)

Riding along the narrow streets ->

<- The route (http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=2829565)

Saturday party & late-night movie

Woke up late on Saturday morning, and watched TV for a bit. Meena called sometime in the evening, and Meena, Lawrence, Anupam & I went to one of Meena's friend Ruchi's place for a house party. Today was a dry day (meaning no alcohol to be sold anywhere) since the counting of the ballots cast at the recently held assembly elections was to take place across the country.

But since our country is a place where all sorts of "jugaad" is possible, I heard that they did manage to buy alcohol but at outrageous prices. Anyway, reached Ruchi's house late in the evening to find an already well-stocked fridge. Helped myself to a small drink and a few munchies. I had to leave early (just when the party seemed to be picking up) since I had an early start on Sunday.

Since I was very close to Hashir's place, I thought I'd drop in to say "Hi" to those guys. But they weren't at home, so I came right back hoping to get to bed early.

But Adi B & Danny were at home already, and Adi Y was busy making something in the kitchen. Chatted with them for a while, and someone decided to watch a scary movie. "The Amityville Horror" was chosen, and I agreed to watch it with them - albeit a little reluctantly. The movie ended close to 3 am, after which Adi Y & I dropped Adi B & Danny home. Finally got to bed at about 3.30 am.

Dinner at MTR

Shaarad had gone home to Delhi this weekend to meet his Mom, who had come down from the UK; so it was going to be only Adi Y & me at home this weekend. On Friday afternoon, I was preparing for a lazy weekend and wondering what I could do to keep myself busy. In the evening I got a call from Adi T saying that they've planned to meet for dinner at MTR. Since I wasn't doing anything, I decided to join them.

A quick look at Google maps showed me the shortest route to get there, and I reached just when the others had found a table. Preeti, Angie, Meena, Adi T & I had a heavy dinner, with Adi Y joining us midway. From there, all of us came to our place and chatted a bit. Adi Y then left for his friends' place in Marathahalli and the rest of us decided to watch a Brit comedy movie "Hot Fuzz". Nobody seemed to be enjoying the movie so much, so we stopped after an hour or so. It was close to midnight then, and they all prepared to leave just as Adi B & Danny came over.

I dropped Preeti home, came back and chatted with Adi B & Danny till the wee hours of morning. We also put up a poster of Slash that I had got from the US. Then I dropped them home, came back and went off to sleep at around 5 am.

<- The Slash poster that now adorns our living room

From up-close ->

Good Reads (for the creative types)

Since I have some time to myself after ages, I thought I'll read up on something I was trying last night - making logos! I started off searching for some tips on logo design, but then I ended up wandering into some really interesting pages:

5 vital logo design tips

How To Be Creative

How To Boost Your Creativity

101+ Places To Get Design Inspiration

Return Journey Fiasco

My return flight from Chicago O'Hare International Airport was scheduled for 6.20 pm on Thursday. I had decided to drive to the airport and return the car at the AVIS location there. I had seen the route on Google maps, but I had forgotten to take a print-out of it. All my Illinois maps were also packed in my bags. So I decided to risk relying completely on my memory, which turned out to be a bad idea. It didn't take long for me to be lost in downtown Arlington Heights, and time was slipping away. Just as I was about to stop and ask for help, I spotted a road I'd seen on Google maps and heaved a sigh of relief. I soon got back on track, fueled-up the car and reached Avis.

It was an emotional moment for me to say goodbye to the dark gray Hyundai Sonata that had been my constant companion for the last two and a half months. The AVIS shuttle dropped me off at the airport. After checking in my bags and passing through security, I settled into the United First Class lounge waiting for the announcement of my flight. One is really pampered and treated like a celebrity at one of these lounges! Traveling first class also means you're the first into and the first out of the aircraft and your bags are the first to show up on the conveyor belts :)

Boarding the aircraft, taxiing on the runway and taking of happened as usual. Once in the air, I reached out to the buttons on my armrest to tilt my seat into a more comfortable position only to find a small sticker on it that said "Defective - defect # 438". My seat would not budge from its initial upright position. That would mean I would have to sit straight in that position for over 8 hours till we landed in Frankfurt. That would also mean that my company is paying a first class fare for me to sit in a seat that is worse than an economy class seat!! I immediately called one of the flight stewardesses and expressed my displeasure about the whole situation. After discussing among themselves for a long time, they finally decided to exchange my seat with another passenger. The other guy was probably traveling for free or else who would agree to sit there? Also, he was all pally with the staff on board, so I suspect he was a United employee. Anyway, I got a proper seat, and the rest of the flight was very comfortable indeed.

Once in Frankfurt, I made my way to the United lounge, took a shower, had breakfast and settled in the lounge waiting for my next flight announcement. BIG MISTAKE!!!
My next flight from Frankfurt to Bangalore was a Lufthansa and this was a United Lounge, and they wouldn't announce departures of flights other than United. By the time I got suspicious and went to the lounge reception, it was too late. The lady said that my flight had already departed, and I would have to take the next flight. Imagine my horror when she said that there were no more flights to India that day, and the one to Bangalore the next day was all booked. I would have to take a flight to Mumbai the next day, and then another one from Mumbai to Bangalore. All of this would cost me about 200 Euros (a cool 12500 Indian Rupees). But since I didn't have a choice, I gave her my credit card and asked her do whatever she thought best while I waited in the lounge cursing myself :(

After about 5 minutes, I heard them calling my name over the intercom; and I slowly walked to the reception to find out how much damaged my pocket had suffered. Now comes the best part...
Imagine my surprise and joy when the nice German lady at the reception said that my original Lufthansa flight to Bangalore was delayed and I could still make it if I hurried. I could not believe my luck and nor could she. She said she wished some of my luck would rub off on her. I hope it does, because she was a very pleasant woman indeed.

From there I ran like a madman through the mighty Frankfurt International Airport so that I would make it in time to my departure terminal. People all around were staring at this psycho running like that, but I was too overjoyed to care. I made it well in time and got my boarding pass. Everyone else in the terminal was sulking because the flight had been delayed for about 2 hours, but I was the only one who couldn't stop smiling. They must've surely thought I was insane :)
In my hurry, I forgot my Wrangler jacket in the United lounge itself - but I'm still not complaining. I'm just glad I could catch my flight!!

My Lufthansa flight was Business Class but I would say it was as comfortable as, if not more comfortable than United First Class. There was a South Indian woman sitting next to me, who had been upgraded to Business Class since she was carrying. This was her first time in Business Class and I spent some time showing her all the cool stuff at her disposal :)

Thankfully everything else went well and I landed in my own dear country a little after midnight, on Saturday, 27th September 2008.

Time To Say Goodbye

I was proud of Project Sears, and I wanted to keep it. But then, to fly it halfway across the planet would involve rolling it up and placing it in one of those tubular containers. This, I was sure, would damage my beautiful piece of art :)
Also, I wanted to keep something in Libertyville for Satya & Chebs and the other guys to remember me by. So I decided that Project Sears would stay in the country in which it was made.

I had already kept the big poster in the boot of my car, and in the morning took it to office and kept it in Chebs' place. I'm sure he got a shock looking at the enormous Sears in his cube! Everybody liked it, and we also chose a place where it would be put up.

Those guys promised to send me a snap of it when they had put it up, but that snap has still not come. I hope they have indeed placed it there as promised. I need to remind them to send me a snap asap, and when they do, I'll upload it here as well.

Chebs, Praveen & I had a quick lunch at Viccino's, after which I said bye to everyone and left. Satya was not at work, but he called me to wish me a happy journey.

The Sun At Last

I was pooped by the time I finished Project Sears. I must've fallen asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, which was around 3.30 am. At 5.30 am the alarm rang, but this time I couldn't press snooze and simply go back to sleep like I had done on countless occasions over the last 2 months. Had I done that, I would've missed the sunrise over Lake Michigan yet again, and I didn't know when (or if) I would get the chance to see it again.

So in the next 10 minutes I was out of my bed and in my car, driving towards Sunrise Beach. This time I followed all the posted detours, and managed to get there at about 6.30 am - well in time for the sunrise.

After parking the car I walked down to the beach and positioned myself on the rocks. The Sun did rise but unfortunately it was a cloudy morning, so the charm just wasn't the same as last year. Nevertheless, I was proud to have caught the Sun; so that I could finally strike-off all the entries in my "To Do in the US" list.

<- Destination

Sunrise Beach and The Rocks ->

<- Lake Michigan & The Sun

Project Sears

The evening of 24th September, 2008; my last evening in the US. I was working late that day, getting all my documents in order so that there wouldn't be any problems during my return journey. But before I left, I had to complete my experiment, the one I called Project Sears; and go and catch that elusive sunrise :)

I left work at around 9 pm and drove to Fedex Kinko's at the intersection of Butterfield and Peterson. Luckily it was open and I was able to buy 4 large sheets of chart paper. Then I went back to the hotel and borrowed some cello-tape from the hotel reception, and got to work. First I had to stick the 4 large sheets together to form the base. Then one-by-one I had stick all the color print-outs in the right order to bring my Sears Tower to life!!

[put the pic on the floor here]

It was back-breaking and time-consuming work and by the time I was done, it was 3 am. I took my finished masterpiece to the hotel reception and asked the guy to click a few snaps.

The master and the masterpiece ->

Then I bid goodbye to him because that would be the last time I would be meeting the friendly man. I took the large poster out and kept it in the boot of my car, so that it doesn't get damaged.

<- Sears in the boot!

I finally hit the sack at around 3.30 am only to be rudely awoken by the alarm merely 2 hours later...

The Elusive Sunrise

If you haven't watched the sunrise over Lake Michigan, you have missed something...
You can only watch this sunrise if you're somewhere on the west side of the great lake, and thankfully, that's where Chicago happens to be.

During my previous US trip in 2006-2007, I had witnessed this sunrise twice; once with Moiz and Ramesh, and then again with Vignesh & Ramesh. Of course, if you want to experience it, you have to sacrifice on your sleep a little, conquer your laziness, throw yourself out of bed by 5 am and get out of your house by 5.30. If you consider that I had done this twice, you can probably begin to imagine that there must be something to this special sunrise.

I'm sure it'll be a great experience to watch it from anywhere along the west coast of the lake, but we used to go this particular place called the "Sunrise Beach". From Mundelein you have to keep going east on Route 176 till you come to a fork on the road. Here you take a left, and you'll eventually end up at Sunrise Avenue. You have to park somewhere here and walk down to the beach, where you can sit on the big rocks by the water and wait for the Sun to rise.

When I was still in India planning for this 2nd trip, watching the sunrise in that particular place once again was one of the things high on my "To Do" list. But unfortunately I procrastinated over it for so long that it was already the 23rd of September and I still hadn't done it. So I decided that I would finish it off on the morning of 24th no-matter-what.

Come 24th morning, I struggled to wake up but somehow got out of bed and into my car and started driving. What I had not accounted for (simply because I was unaware of it) was all the construction going on on Route 176, and all the detours thanks to it. It didn't take long for me to lose my way, and by the time I got back on track, I could see the full Sun in the sky right ahead of me. I was really disappointed because this meant that now I had only one more opportunity, on my last day in the United States, to catch that elusive sunrise!!

Skydiving

My Orkut status now reads, "There are 2 types of ppl in the World - those who haven't jumped off a plane, and those who HAVE". I'm proud to have crossed over to the "have" part of the divide!

Some of my friends have been for a skydive in the past and I once had a long chat with Ravi about his own skydiving experience. At that time I never thought that I would ever have the guts to jump off a plane like that. But on 18th September, the idea to actually experience it first hand came into my mind. The coming weekend was my last in the US on this trip, so I had very little time to play with. I quickly asked Andy & Vishwa if they would be interested, but unfortunately they had "terrory" and "pricey" issues :) So I posted a thread on the Chicago group of CS to see if anyone there would be interested. A few guys were, but the timings weren't working out for them. I realized that if I had to do it, I'd have to do it by myself. I called up many places around Chicago hoping to find a good deal, but skydiving being an expensive affair, it would cost me $300 at least (including a video of the jump). At this time, I was still unsure if I had it in me to go ahead with such a scary looking adventure.

On Friday, 19th September, Ravi & I went to a Malaysian restaurant called Penang in Arlington Heights (the food is a little expensive but its good. The first item on the list of appetizers - Roti Canai - is just superb!!!). I told Ravi about my skydiving plans, and he asked me to go ahead with it. It was here that I decided I'm going to do it, no matter what the cost. I spent the whole of Saturday mentally preparing myself and waiting to see if someone else would join me.

It seemed like all the mental preparation was a waste because I couldn't sleep a wink on Saturday night. It was a mixture of the adrenaline in my blood and the terror in my heart. I was just rolling on my bed trying to sleep, but all I could think of was whether I would be lying on this bed the next night. I must have drifted off to sleep around 4.30 am just to be rudely woken by the alarm at 6 am. Got ready quickly and left the room around 7. I had chosen Skydive Chicago in Ottawa, IL for the jump because they were the only guys who could accommodate me on such short notice with no reservation. After some difficulty in finding the place, I finally reached there around 11 am.

Once there, they give you a form to fill which in short says that you're jumping of your own volition and nobody can sue them if anything goes wrong. You have to read all those clauses and sign in multiple places. The words "may cause PERMANENT INJURY or DEATH" appear all over the form. This is when another wave of fear caught me and I found myself asking, "Should I do it or not?". I could've just dumped the form and walked away because I hadn't paid the money yet. But I gathered up my courage once again and just went through with the process and paid up. Then we were taken to a classroom where an instructor showed us a video and explained some basic things. After that, they said that I had to wait a long time for my turn to jump, so I walked out to the field to look at some of the other jumpers. Looking at all those people doing their jumps successfully gave me a lot of confidence. There was a small mishap when somebody landed in the middle of a corn field harder than he/she would've liked; but I heard that it was nothing major.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, it was the turn of my 'load group' to take to the skies. I got into a jumpsuit and they fixed the harness to my back. I met my jump master Enzo and my personal paparazzi Kenny. Enzo gave me an altimeter and my diving goggles and explained the basic stuff once again. After that we all got into our small 23 seater plane that would take us to 14000 feet (about 4267 m). I looked out of the window at 2000 feet, and it already looked quite high! I couldn't even begin to imagine how it would feel at 7 times this height. At this point, the needle of your altimeter and the popping of your ears have a very significant effect on the beating of your heart :) In the flight, Enzo buckled his own harness on to mine and explained the procedure once more. After about 15 minutes of boarding the craft, we reached the required altitude and then it was go-time. One of the crew members opened the door and we were hit by a blast of cold air. One-by-one jumpers in front of us started exiting and we were slowly but surely moving towards the door. Once there, we took 3 short breaths with the up-down-up motion that we had practiced, arched our body backwards and jumped.

Almost all first time jumpers experience a 'sensory overload' at this time and I was no exception. Since your body doesn't know what to expect when you jump off like that at 14000 feet, your senses send more messages to your brain than your brain can handle. So I simply cannot remember the first few seconds. Later your brain adjusts and thats when you really feel the biting cold and really enjoy the free fall. The feeling is more like flying through the air than actually falling. Kenny the photographer came and held my hand and spun us around as all the 3 of us continued to fall at around 120 mph (about 192 kmph).
All this while, you just have to keep your back arched and smile for the camera. You should also keep looking at your altimeter, so that you can open the parachute when you reach an altitude of 5500 feet. This is what I didn't do because I was too busy with other things - like posing for the camera, for instance!

Thankfully, Enzo did that part and released the chute at 5500 feet. At this time Kenny continued to free fall, and opened his own chute at about 3000 feet. The free fall is an extremely rapid, bitingly cold and furiously noisy 60 seconds; whereas the chute descent is a very silent, calm and serene 10 minutes. Once the chute opens up, you can talk to your jump master, look around and enjoy the beauty and feel the deafening silence. If neither of you talks, the only sound you'll hear is the wind against your chute. Enzo showed me how one can control the chute with just the 2 straps in your hand. I was amazed to see that we could go fast, go slow or even come to a complete halt as if we were driving a car. These modern day rectangular ram-air parachutes are far superior to the round ones that we are so accustomed to seeing in the movies. If you're skilled at handling one of these, you can control exactly where you land. That's when I realized how the skydivers of the Red Bull Air Force managed to land so perfectly on top of the jump platform on the day of the Flugtag.

After about 10 minutes of floating in the air and maneuvering the parachute, we gently landed on the ground sliding on our butts. The first words that Enzo said to me were, "Welcome back to Earth!". I was more relieved than anything else at that point of time. This was followed by a brief post-jump interview with Kenny and then Enzo signing the jump certificate. So this makes me a CERTIFIED SKYDIVER!!!!

Some snaps from the day:

<- Enzo & I before getting into the plane

The leap of faith ->

<- The point of no return

Free fall ->

I have a video of the entire jump but its about 200 MB in size. I haven't been able to upload it to YouTube yet. Once I have it there, I'll embed the video here as well.

Twenty Six

That's how many years I've been around for now. I just celebrated my birthday yesterday. "Celebrated" is really not the right way to put it. "Spent" would be more like it. As usually happens with all my birthdays, this one was also very ordinary.
Here I must say that my 25th birthday was probably the best one I've ever had. I still vividly remember P coming and waking me up early in the morning, making me get ready in record time, giving me all those wonderful gifts and making the entire day very special.

Coming back to the present, yesterday was like just any other day. Woke up late as usual and got to work late. Took chocolates for my colleagues, then went with them for a normal lunch and to a Starbucks for coffee later. Uday bought me coffee there, so I did get a b'day gift after all :) Spent a long time replying to all the birthday wishes on Orkut and Facebook!

People usually go to a temple on their birthday, but I can't remember the last time I did something like that. I'm sure my old pal Kini would've made up for my lack of piousness by visiting the Gods many times during the day (Kini and I share the same b'day btw).

<- Satya says, "Pass the camera".

Chilling at Starbucks ->