A Dream Come True – The Beer Challenge

Yaay, One more blog post for this month. That must be quite surprising for the ones who are following my blog regularly and my friends whom I torture to read my posts. It’s Just with an intent of blogging more frequently in the future. I badly wanted to publish this blog post before this year ends as I consider this as one of my greatest accomplishments of this year. After reading this post, you might think it’s kinda bragging or think why should someone write a post for such a trivial thing as this. But, for me, it’s a long dream come true.

There is a small backing story behind this enthusiasm. So, it’s flashback time.

Mosquito coil rotating …
My early college days…

Mom: I don’t want you to go night out with your college friends.
Me: Why? You never objected to night outs with my school friends.
Mom: I know few of your college friends drink.
Me: So what, I don’t.
Mom: I’m just worried that you would also start drinking irresponsibly like them.
Me: I promise, I definitely won’t drink now ma. But, I can’t promise that I would never drink forever.
Mom: No, you are not supposed to drink forever like your dad. It’s an addictive bad habit.
Me: I will drink when I get settled and when my dream come true.
Mom: Dream, really? What’s that?
Me: We should have our own home, sofa and LCD TV. I want to drink canned Beer sitting on the sofa and watching the TV.
Mom: You are seriously crazy. Let’s see.

Those were the times we used to live in a tiny rented house in Thiruvottiyur. Now, I have no idea why such scene became my dream. Maybe the influence of watching English movies and series.  My grandpa died cos of excessive drinking and smoking. My dad is still a teetotaler, in spite of having an alcoholic, abusive father and growing up in a rough neighborhood. The lives of above two men made me much determined against drinking and smoking. I always wanted to be like my dad. But, I do indulge in Breezer and Wine once in a blue moon. So this post is no more about alcohol or the beer as mentioned in the title.

Fast forward, I completed my college, got a job, even bought an own home and sofa. The only piece that was missing in realizing my dream was that LCD TV. There were many times I bought in the bill of buying a new TV to my home council and my mom vetoed it all. She clearly did it with a fear that I would drink Beer as challenged. It’s not just my mom who was against it, guess who colluded along with her?, my old LG TV. But I can’t blame it for being in proper working condition for the past 19 years. Consequently, my mom used it as a solid reason against buying a new one. As they say, perseverance is the key to success. After years of lobbying the home council on the benefits of a new TV, I eventually got the budget approved to get one. That’s how things are done at my home, nothing is bought without everyone’s consensus.

Our 19-year-old LG TV

A month went on researching, comparing TVs and awaiting the best deal. Finally, the day before the Christmas, I got my new Sony LED TV delivered home. It’s a mere TV for many, even my parents weren’t excited about it. But, for me, it’s a 10-year-old dream becoming a reality. For the sake of a closure, one day I will definitely have a Beer sitting on the sofa watching that TV. But, for now, I will enjoy the Breezer that my office friend bought from his Goa trip. Nothing gives the kick of fulfilling one’s dreams with his own hard earned money, not even the alcohol.

Just when got delivered

Finally

Happy New Year Fellas.

Trip To Remember – Trekking Sar Pass – Part 3

As you guessed, it’s my monthly target that pushed me to write this blog post. But, I love to write about my travel. I just love to revisit those beautiful memories and feel nostalgic about the same.

Day 6 – 23rd May 2017

As usual, I woke up early that day. As it was still dark outside, I spent time listening to music inside the tent until the sun showed up in the east.  To my surprise, no one except the kitchen staff was awake and they served me some hot tea. Then, I found myself a spot and got lost in the music and the serene nature. Slowly my trek mates started coming out of their tents and the kitchen staff served delicious Poha along with some hot tea. We didn’t just stop with the Poha, a couple of rounds of MoMos went on too, courtesy Mrs. Tarkur (I call her The MoMo Aunty). It wasn’t just the hot MoMos that added warmth, the burning woods inside her shop made the cold morning much pleasant.

Kitchen staffs in action

Lost into music

Lovely Kids

Much needed for a cold morning

Mrs. Tharkur preparing MoMos for us

How Beautiful

It’s Poha for the breakfast

A little later, we packed our lunch and was all ready to leave the camp. Our camp leader gave us 2 choices. One, an easy route and nothing much exciting on the way. Next, a relatively tough route with a waterfall along. Can’t expect anything less from our energetic group, we unanimously voted for the tough one. The best part was, our camp leader Mr. Bharath even agreed to accompany us to the waterfall. It was a bit steep route with a couple of small streams on the way. Walking further we stumbled upon a small waterfall and started clicking pics assuming that it was the one that our camp leader mentioned about. Then we realized, it was just the trailer and the main picture yet to come. I was simply awestruck by the view when we reached the waterfall. The sheer force of water and the sun rays escaping through the dense trees made the place look magical. The feel of cold water droplets splashing on my face is indescribable, even just thinking about would give me goosebumps. We spent some time there enjoying the nature and clicking some pics. As our camp leader headed to Grahan getting farewell from us, we continued trekking to our higher camp.

Droplets ❤

The path is never easy

The little waterfall

This place is magical

Joy Max

Smile says it all

With Bharath, Our camp leader

The route was a bit steeper than I imagined, but the energy in the group kept us going. As usual, I enjoyed trekking in my own phase. Out of nowhere came our lunch point, a tiny shop where we ordered some hot Maggi and had it along with Chapatti and Potato Curry, the ones we picked from the camp. We resumed after our lunch followed by some rest. From the lunch point, it didn’t take us much time to reach our next higher camp Padri (9300 ft), actually quite earlier than expected. Cant expect anything less from our young and energetic group.

Maggi being made

Yummy….

Camp Padri

Padri is like a valley cleared for cattle grazing. One can see mountains with snowy peaks surrounding it. Cattles passed by the camp all the time, can’t blame them, after all, it’s their place we were occupying.  We had a lot of time to relax that day with most of my time spent in the company of music lost in thoughts. Soup, tea and dinner were served in the meantime. Post dinner something really interesting happened. As a tradition, signals were exchanged between our camp and yet another higher camp Nagaru using torchlight. All we could see was a tiny spark of light flickering in a pattern far away from the mountains. Nagaru is the highest camp in this trek and it would take us another couple of days to reach there. In my case, sleep comes out once the food goes in and it was cold to stay out. On the contrary, my tent mates were wide awake with playing both Uno and music. So, I switched to another tent full of similar sleepy souls and dozed off to glory. That’s how yet another awesome day on the trek came to an end.

Snow covered mountains

Cattle grounds

UNO Night

One of my fav pics, Kalyan Ji.

Day 7 – 24th May 2017

The day started witnessing one of the best sunrises ever. The view of Sun rising over the mountains from the camp was stunning and the lighting was perfect to click some photos and selfies. To our surprise, they served Penne Pasta for breakfast along with some hot tea. We resumed our trek after bidding our farewell to the camp leader.

Sunrise over the mountains

Mountains, Breeze and Flare, What else I could ask for. #SmileIsAllWhatIHaveGot

The glasses aren’t mine

Penne Pasta for the Nastha

This one lovely view ❤

The route was initially steep downhill. With a bit of rain last night, it was damp and slippery. We had to carefully watch each of steps, luckily the Bamboo stick (pole) that I carried along came in handy. We came across a stream, think I can call it a small waterfall, from there the route elevated steep uphill, crazy mountains I must say. Out of nowhere on the route, we encountered a small tent shop which sold chocolates, chips and packed juices. Though the prices were up to thrice the MRP, it seemed fair to pay considering the location and the fact that we would be their only customers for the day. Energized by the brief rest along with some snacks, we continued our journey.  The route was a bit flat until our lunch point, I even saw a  tree burnt by lighting and my favorite Rhododendron flowers on the way. The lunch point was the most scenic of all. A perfect place to take a lot of pictures with mountainous background and I didn’t miss it either.

Steep & Slippery

Crossing the stream

Route Markers

A shop from nowhere

Rhododendron flowers

Burnt by lightning

So Relaxed

Panorama from lunch point

It was all fine till then, the route was kinda flat until we reached this spot which I call the great wall of Mingtatch cos it looked like a wall between us and the camp. It was a highly steep zigzag path uphill, so steep that they even had supporting ropes to hold and climb. It was not just the tough path that caused trouble, the most unpredictable mountain weather had also decided to join the party uninvited and It rained all of sudden. We took shelter under the tree covering ourselves with the rain cover and Pancho. Added to the steepness, rain made the path slippery too and that wasn’t fair at all. Just a slip and we would be dead in the valley few thousand foots below us. That was one of the scariest parts of the trek for me. Somehow we safely managed to reach Mingtatch (11200 ft), our next higher camp.

Steep climb starts here

Steep wall of Mingtatch

Finally…

Rain clouds out of no where

Within a few minutes, the clouds disappeared, the sun shined back and there wasn’t a trace that it rained. Mysterious mountains, I must say. The hot Tea and Potato Pakodas they served felt heavenly. The dispersion of sun rays through the clouds at the time of sunset was an awesome view to watch. I whiled away clicking pics and playing our favorite UNO. Then, as usual, sleep followed the dinner and yet another awesome day on the trek came to an end.

Tea & Pakodas

Dispersion of rays

Heavenly view

A lot of trees

To Be Continued…