A Distant Blur

A few years ago, my memory used to tell me - the color of the ball I used to play with as a child, the rainy day I spent drawing my biology record, the days I were the first one to reach Arul Institute and used to open the door ;), the walk home with my friends, the class rooms at college, NCC, the projects, hostel, cricket, Rs. 10 movie ticket, the dance in cul fest, Munnar, Valparai, Avalanche, Sikkim trips and many more.. But now, he has quietly signed off and refrains from chatting. Everything seems to have blurred - like the Sun from aboard the Voyager spacecraft! Life has settled into a melancholy monotony.

Happiness is made up of little things - the things that put a smile on our face when we think about them. They destroy tiredness, punctuate life and show us that we are indeed alive. They always lighten our mood whenever we feel down and help us sail through rough times. Memory links similar things like 'Molaga bajjis in beach' and saturday nights with friends or a hot cup of tea and monsoon in Western Ghats (which reminds me of the bike trip with Shary & Sridhu - best ever!). Most often, one "brings up pictures" of the other and it is happiness abound.

Memory is fading.. May be I'm "busy" enough these days to not think about them, or may be something else ("responsibilities") has occupied my mind - I'm not focusing enough to make memories vivid, or is it because I'm getting lazier by the day.. Whatever it is, life seems simply boring like "padam paakuren color eh illa".

Most often in life, memories are all that remains of times that we wish lasted forever, things that we want to do over and over again, things that remind us people care, things that make us wake up with a smile. Memories are life.

If we turn back and cannot see the path we tread, it is as good as not being here.. I hope those precious memories live on in my mind for me to rediscover them again.

கடவுள் தந்த கவிதை - அவள்!

மொட்டுகள் மலரும் மெல்லிய சிரிப்பால்,
மின்னல் தோற்கும் மின்சார பார்வையால்,
தென்றல் மகிழும் கார் குழல் ஸ்பரிசத்தால்,
சூரியனும் மறைய மறுக்கும் அழகால்,
மயிலும் மயங்கும் நடையால்,
படைத்தவன் விழுந்தான் காதலில்...

A Dream that lasted long

It was a quiet winter evening, as a E18 with a few passengers was thundering through to Tambaram from Guduvancheri. I had a window seat, and was gazing into the faint drizzle. It was then I saw this girl wearing a backpack, holding up her blue umbrella and evading the puddles on her path. My memories were thrown back a few years.

It was the beginning of a wonderful dream, one that lasted long enough to make you wish it had lasted forever. She was wearing a black churidhar spotted with flaming orange flowers. Holding her umbrella up, she was trying to cross the puddles on the famous pathway through the lawn. She was jumping from one landing to another, with a childishness that adorns her to this day. As I watched her disappear behind the famous building, it was raining joy...

She was not the beauty queen there. Yet I liked her. I liked everything about her, right from the way she holds the pen with her left hand to the way she giggles for no reason.
The few strands of hair that danced on her cheeks and the way she used to get them behind her ears were poems themselves.

Most of what my teachers used to teach over the next few days went over my head as I sat in the class dreaming of her. Of gardens, and swings.. Of roses and violets.. Of a long walk on a winding road.. Of a poem I would tell her.. Of sharing an umbrella in the rain.. Of fighting for an ice cream.. Of sitting on a park bench.. Of holding her hand.. Of being together.....

Never could I forget the way she smiled, giggled and said a 'Thanks', when I presented her an hand-crafted gift. To this day, a flash of that memory, lifts my spirits higher than anything else... I was smiling thinking about the wonderful day, when the driver applied a sudden brake jolting me back to my senses.

My destination was nearing. I turned to face the gloomy sky outside, and my music player in N72 sang away...
un karam koarkayil ninaivu oar aayiram..
pin iru karam pirigayil ninaivu noor aayiram...
...
...
kaadhal inge ointhathu..
kavithai ondru mudinthathu..
thedum bothey tholainthathu...

Walking with the clouds

Every trip to Valparai is etched in memory not only because of the place, but also because of the people whom I went with! The train journey to Coimbatore was coloured with a game called Mafia. It involved only talking and a lot of talking and that is what we did best :P We had planned to spend friday night at our friends' place at Udumalpet (kukgraamam :P), but thanks to Indian railways, we could reach their place only around 3 on Sat morning.

Udumalpet is located at the foot hills of the Western Ghats. It's close to cold climate and blooming trees made me fall in love with the place immediately. Our friends' places were awesome! We started to Valparai on a Tempo Traveller, after 2 hours of sleep, mango juice and a lot of kuzhi paniyaarams :D We didn't get to see much of Udumalpet, but I guess it is one of those places which made Bharathiyar sing 'Kaani nilam vendum Parashakthi'.

We started our climb to Valparai accompanied by Pasanga movie and a lot of ribbing. The road rises up steeply from a dam called Aaliyaar. The complete view of the dam from the 9th hair pin bend was as good as flying with a Hawk! We stopped at Monkey falls, a small waterfall which didn't exceed our expectations. It might look good at the end of the monsoon. A little higher, and we were greeted by thick fog and heavy rain, which made us forget Chennai altogether. A few hundred gear shifts, breath taking views and 42 hair pins later, we found ourselves at Balaji temple which lies just before Valparai. Probably, a holy beginning to an unforgettable trip.

We checked in at Green Hills hotel around 12. After having our lunch there, headed out to some "sight seeing" :) Valparai, being a reserved forest area, is not a well developed tourist place. So, where ever we went, we were the only tourists around there. The first on the list was a place called Nallamudi Poonjolai. It is a view point lying around 10km from Valparai town. From here, we could see vales and falls and peaks, all of which makes you forget everything. Had there been an option, I would have stayed there for the rest of my life :D We were trying to capture the scenic beauty with our eyes and cameras, when it happened...

Winds carried with them clouds from far away. We could see heavy rains heading staright at us. Given the fact that we were the only tourists there, we wanted to head back to the safety of our vehicle. As always, we chose not to :D There was a small room by the side, which gave us shelter. The clouds completely covered the view & what was once green and huge with water flowing everywhere was just white smoke now. Basically, it was beauty beyond words. We played in the rain like children from the Sahara! To sum it up, as someone once said, 'aayiram figurea paatha maari irunthathu' :P

After stopping for a brief interval at Niraar dam, we headed over to Chinnakalaar falls. It is a small waterfall, which lies after a lot of greenery, a city of leeches and a broken hanging bridge (like that in Indiana Jones :D). Sometimes people say loneliness is the best gift to a city mind. We just got that. Imagine a 1km trek through leech laden forest followed by a bath in the icy waters of the Chinnakalaar falls, with no one around. It rejuvenated us further. Although, we got a few leech "bites", it was nevertheless interesting. It was eerie being alone after a point, and we were worried about flash floods. The place was too slippery and few of us fell down here and there, none hurt though, it was rather funny :D Mr.P's heroic leech removal technique rid us of the leeches we acquainted with on the way back.. We started back to the hotel after a cup of hot black tea and few chappatis. I don't know when & where I slept :P

The next morning we visited Sholayar dam, a visually deceptive place. The shores ran deep and far, but we couldn't know how far as there was no reference to compare the depth. The stones we tried to throw from the road hardly reached the water. Only after we saw a few people at a distance, we could gauge the depth and distance of the waterline! We walked all the way down to the water to take snaps again :D The climb back was exhausting and Mr.D would have fainted if it had been a few metres more :P

Driving west for a few minutes more, we reached Kerala border and headed to Athirampally on a route that was soon to become an unforgettable piece of geography. Hills on both sides covered in a sheet of green flora, young waterfalls from the recent rains on the walls of the ghat road, much needed loneliness, grey clouds all over, occasional drizzle, the cold breeze, and everything pristine there is, wrote a tale of travel which is unforgettable! Of all the scary places in the lonely road, the half constructed bridge, with water logging was the worst! The ride was funny with all the ribbing, especially Mr.YYYYYYY's confession :D In the last leg of the route, we stopped for sometime by a lake and started throwing stones into the water as usual to see who throws the longest, a competition that started in Sholayar (and ya, I won as usual - given that this is my blog :P) At the end of the route was a small falls which was a treat to our eyes in more than one way :D

Finally, we reached Athirampally, a beautiful place :P This place has 2 main attractions, a walk down the steep hill to see the foot of the falls, and dips and dances upstream of the falls. At first, we went to the foot of the falls and took a lot (yes! a lot) of photos. Kisses of the cold mist from the falls was more than rejuvenating. I didn't take the dip upstream as it was far too crowded for me to step in :P This place was more majestic than lonely.

From Athirampally, we headed over to one of our friend's place near Ernakulam. We attacked the mango juice, jack fruit and banana fry like a group of Piranhas :D A huge garden had a variety of intriguing flora only `God's own country` can offer. After bidding adieu, we started back to chennai in Chennai mail. Well.. the way back was quite pleasing to the eyes :D

And that's that! A lot of travel, teasing, eating, photos, fun, rain & "sight seeing" made the trip, something we want to head for again!

The ride back home

Dark clouds on the horizon said it was not an usual evening. The twilight looked darker through my visor. The cool air was a pleasant escape from the sweltering summer heat. It did not take long for those tiny li'l drops of water to hit the ground.. the cool air and the drizzle were too much to be missed that I reduced my speed to the least my bike can take in top gear. For a few moments it felt like gliding through the air, before the drizzle became rain and started pricking me :) made me wonder how slight variations in dosages can make such a remarkable difference.. It was too much for me to drive and I took shelter under a closed shop which was crowded as the rain was a surprise package that day!

There haven't been many such instances in the past few years when I had all the time in the world just to stare at the rain and the streams it makes on the roads. The rain was so heavy that the road was literally invisible after a point.

I was gazing around into empty space, when a little boy who was trying to get a puppy back into the house caught my attention. He tried desperately, and the puppy kept running around eluding him. Finally, he gave up and joined the puppy in welcoming the rain :) School girls in bicycles, a couple on unicorn, speeding honda city on the empty road, the water body across the road, trees dancing in the rain and memories from years ago gave a feeling of being transported into a completely different world..

I came back from the trance only after the rain stopped. My FZ was all soaked up, nevertheless it was a beautiful ride back home. Scenes from the evening kept flashing before me even hours after I reached home.

It was a wonderful evening when everything around me looked so beautiful...