Sun, sea and sand - The Prequel

5 days and 4 nights on a beach in a small town on the west coast of Karnataka. While the sun lit up the mornings, the moon made sure that the necks get a cramp looking at it. The clouds had their own good times spreading some showers every now and then but the stars made sure they were not missed either. The world was not just beautiful under my feet but also in front of me and above me and all I could think of was, how do I make this a sight I wake up to every morning?

Gokarna – Kudle beach

It all started with 9 months of non-stop work with taking days off only to rest my body every time I fell ill. Suddenly, in October, the work pressure looked diluted and at the first opportunity of a possible long weekend, I used up a few days off that I have earned and planned a trip to Gokarna.

It’s all about the journey, is it?

I always agreed with the phrase that it’s all about the journey until this overnight journey. While booking tickets for me and my friends and having had very bad experience with seat choices in sleeper buses, I made sure that everybody gets a comfortable seat in the overnight bus journey so we reach Gokarna fresh and energetic. After about an hour of the bus leaving the city, my nightmare started when I suddenly had to attend nature’s call as the driver refused to stop anywhere for the next 2 hours (I know this information is not what you were expecting but if we are talking about the beauty of nature why not touch the topic of how sometimes it can be disastrous). Anyway, this later got sorted and I still have my bladder intact.

The bus journey became a bad start only after an hour or two of us falling asleep when we made it to the part of the highway that was affected by recent rains and had more potholes than milestones. So the journey to the end of land and beginning of the sea began with a sleepless night.

The relief for eyes, soul and taste buds

After the sleepless night and a 20 minute walk in harsh sunlight, when we finally made it to the beach, the ocean as if was excited to see me had waves trying to reach out to get a hold of me and I couldn’t wait to just get settled and enjoy nature’s elements. And after taking a shower and getting rid of the bus smell and sweat, we finally made it to the beach. Yes, the BEACH!

Italian, the brunch option I picked at this amazing beach where a dozen shacks serve you various European/American/Indian meals throughout the day and have had tasted the original cuisines, I have to say they do a very good job at it. Though, the first day and a half was spent trying out different shacks, we eventually all agreed that this one café offered the best seafood/vegetarian/meat meals with the best fresh fruit juice options to drain down the awesome food.

To be or not to be?

Though I was delighted to be on the beach and loved the sight of land meeting water with high rocks faces on either side of the beach, I could not get myself to get into the water. I don’t know whether it was the fear of the sea or just the thought of miscalculation in the number of Jockeys I was carrying. For two days while all my other friends enjoyed the ocean and the sun, I was looking after their belongings sitting in a shack, obsessed with clicking pictures of crows, dogs, cows and various different living beings I encountered.

 

I realised that with the right kind of interest in photography, one starts seeing a possible masterpiece in everything around though capturing it can still be a task. I clicked many failed pictures to get to a level where I thought I was satisfied though it can be that I just gave up.

Leap of faith

My third day started just like the previous one and we ended up at the trying different shacks for various food options. Difference - a group of people playing beach ball (volleyball).  I jumped into the game and without keeping a track of what the score was, I kept on going till everybody retired and suddenly all the sweat and sun made me forget about the dilemma and it seemed like the ocean was calling me.

Somewhere somehow, the salty sea spreading over long distances had figured out a way to talk. Those waves rising up as if trying to stand up and face you to have a proper conversation, the water touching the shore and going back just to make another attempt to reach out to you and the sound of it hitting the rocks constantly as if making sure it has keeps your attention.

I was hypnotized and stepped in. As I got into the restless ocean, as some would say, it grew wilder but did it? I was standing there with the waves approaching me getting higher and higher and splashing me with that salty water but when I looked carefully, I felt invited, I felt like a celebrity. I was facing the vast ocean with the sun into my eyes as if a spot light one can’t directly look at and as far as I could see, I saw waves after wave and the farther they were, the taller they appeared as if an auditorium filled with people getting up to applaud me. Every drop in the ocean was trying to approach me and I could see it coming all the way from the back of the crowd. It must be a nature’s way of appreciating its various creations coming together.

Facebook status: Back from the beach and all I brought back is sun burn

The two days after the day of jumping into the water were spend playing Frisbee, beach ball, beach tennis and any sport we could get our hands on. The last day was disappointing with the thought that the well awaited break from the life of the city was coming to an end and I decided to stay out playing sports and jumping into the ocean at every chance I got. What I came back with was nothing less than a body looking like a sun dried tomato. And as I sign off this blog and add pictures to it, I am opening my new bottle of moisturizer containing Aloe Vera, good for sun burnt skin. Try it for yourself if you, like me, are stubborn enough to not just use sun block instead.

 

Sun, sea and sand

Here are a few lines that came up as I walked on wet sand (with translations)

Rishton ke karavan se judaa ho, / Separating myself from the relationships

zimmedarion ki bediyaan todd, / Breaking the bondage of responsibilities

Main nikla tha ek nayaa khudaa dhoondne, / I went away looking for a new kind of god (mentor)

socha tha meri kism ke aur bhi milenge. / Thought there would be more of my kind

Main toh kinaare pe kadam ke nishaan chhodta chalaa, / I left my footprints at the edges (coast)

par samaaj ke samudr ki lehren unhe mitaati rahi. / but waves from society's ocean kept on erasing them

A more detailed blog to follow over the weekend!

*UPDATE* - Don't forget to read the Sun, sea and sand - The Prequel

Na La Tomatina in India

La Tomatina, a Spanish festival - now in INDIA... All over India!

I have taken the time to review the other side of this fun-filled event in case it happens in India.

- Squeeze the life out of them - Food security refers to the availability of food and one's access to it and a household is food secure when they do not have the threat of starvation. Approx. 25% of the world’s hungry people live in India (approx. 230 million) and around 43% of children under five years old suffer from malnutrition and yet we want to throw tomatoes at each other?
(Source: http://www.truthabouttrade.org/news/latest-news/18380

- Why just tomatoes? - While people across the street beg for one appropriate meal a day and yet get nothing and there’ll be tomatoes being thrown, that is not the only resource that will be wasted. If this festival picks up, they’ll be a wastage of water to clean the mess afterwards (lesser water for the rest of the city), is that fair?

Protesting against La Tomatina

- They call ‘em rotten - The organisers of the festival have claimed that they’ll use tomatoes that are unfit for consumption. The question is how does one define unfit for consumption? Does it mean rotten, infested or ‘an excuse to throw them around’? When the organisers were asked what does unfit mean and where would they source these tomatoes from, they said they’ll come out with a press release. With the festival 10 days from now, still no answers!

- Jai jawaan, jai kisaan, bhaad mein jaaye bhooka insaan? - A contradiction to their own statement about ‘unfit for consumption’ tomatoes, the organisers have claimed that they are organising this festival because farmers in Kolar had to throw away a bumper crop due to fall in prices. So according to them, the solution in this case is to buy tomatoes and throw them at each other so the mis-lead youth and unfortunate farmer are happy while the hungry are still hungry and this solution is better than buying those tomatoes at a fair price and feed the needy? In a country with more than 200 million hungry people, buy the existing food crop, give it to the upper and middle class people, squish them, throw them and let the hungry die?

- Dude, what’s the occassion? - With a successful ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ promoting Spain and its culture, the organisers decided to replicate the festival in India (and this is not the only one). Spain, being a developed country, hosts this festival in only one city once a year because of cultural reasons and historical association. India, being a developing country, we will have one in every city because we believe in our rights that come with money.

- Lack of Transparency  - The organisers have failed to communicate on many issues n a transparent manner. For example, the organisers have made such promises “La Tomatina™ will ensure that a part of the earnings are donated to NGO's or Foundations which feed the needy. Details will be posted once things are concrete”. These promises are vague and there are no details given of any NGO’s or organisations.

                                           





We should all protest against this event for them.

Images sourced from the internet. From topnews.in, themedguru.com, outlookindia.com, toostep.com

Forests need a fool

This blog post has been published on the Fools for forests website

"Jungle jungle pataa chalaa hai, chaddi pehan ke phool khila hai, phool khila hai.” This song from the Jungle Book television series is the first thing that comes to my mind when I think about the forests. Who does not remember sitting in front of the TV every Sunday morning waiting to get a glimpse of lush green forests, animals, birds, and people living in those forests. Imagine a new episode where all the trees are gone, the animals are getting killed on railway tracks, and Mowgli being employed to mine coal to power houses in the cities. Not fun anymore, is it?

Imagine a chapter on ‘forests’ in history books instead of geography for school kids. 
Imagine tears in our eyes when we listen to the song ‘Chahe koi mujhe jungli kahe’. 
Imagine camping in barren lands. 
Imagine Bollywood movies with couples singing around coal mines. 

Or just imagine Tom Hanks in Mine Gump. 
I know these reasons do not build my case but don’t they tell us the importance of forests in our lives?

Forests are a carbon sink. Forests are important for wildlife. Forests are a hub of biodiversity. There are many other reasons to save the forests but obviously those out to destroy forests don’t care about them, do they? 

Their argument is that India is on a high development path and it is foolish romance to think that we can keep our forests and still develop at the same rate. Development has to be sustainable and there are ways of ensuring that. But those governing our country are so ‘smart’.  

If that’s the case, then I am proud to be a FOOL! A FOOL FOR FORESTS!

Join the movement at foolsforforests.org/english/

Airtel it’s time to act

This blog post has been published on the Greenpeace India website 




I remember when my dad bought one of those ancient stone age cell phones at a time when they were not a necessity. I was amazed! A phone with no wires, expensive calls, the fact that I could call my dad whenever I wanted and most importantly his first service provider Airtel. For a house with a mobile phone, Airtel was probably every child’s best friend.

Over the last decade and a half, things have changed. From a being a child’s best friend, Airtel has moved to being very stubborn and harmful to our environment. They are using tax payers money to run their towers on dirty diesel which pollutes our environment. I believe they can change, so I decided to take the message to them myself.

On the morning of June 28th I was on my way to the Bharti headquarters along with few more activists to ask Chairman Mr Sunil Bharti Mittal to clean up dirty Airtel. I was excited and nervous at the same time. We got there around 9 am and in no time, we were able to paint our message on their signboard, display the solution by setting up a tripod symbolising a telecom tower with a solar panel on the top and hang a bigger banner  on their building asking Airtel to ‘Switch off Diesel’.

We were out in the scorching sun while the Greenpeace India representatives were having discussions with the senior Bharti management. The company gave a verbal commitment to continue discussions with Greenpeace and work on the plan to phase out diesel from its mobile network towers. When our campaigners asked for a written commitment they refused to oblige.

After a three hour long discussion, Bharti decided to call the police and aggressively remove the non-violent activists. Eight of our activists were detained and later released without any charges.

This last decision distanced me from Airtel, who was a childhood friend for me. I still think Airtel can be my best friend, especially when my ask is clear and the solution is available. So let me ask them again, “Airtel - Switch off Diesel!”

Image 1: © Greenpeace / Sharbendu De
Image 2: © Greenpeace / Sudhanshu Malhotra

The land that still runs wild

Dandeli, Karnataka

As the January was coming to an end, the first month of a new year and a new decade, I realised that I didn't go visit my true love - NATURE!!

After googling various options for a weekend get-away spot, the destination was zeroed in to be Dandeli. And to add to the spice of travelling to a nature's paradise, we decided to make it a camping trip.

The broken chariot

The adrenaline rush came even before we hopped on the bus when we had to gather all the equipment for camping and it started with borrowing a 2 man tent from a friend and renting sleeping bags form an adventure sport store. But the same rush was killed once we set a foot on the local over night bus which was supposed to be our chariot to our destination. Only thing, the chariot's wheel had some other plans.

Preparing the firewood

A simple 8 hour journey was converted into a 14 hour journey but we finally reached or should I say almost reached our destination at 10 in the morning. The bus station we got off on was 30 kms away from where we wanted to go so quickly grabbing a beer, we took a cab to the place.

Valentine's day

Beautiful thick forests with that cool breeze and the sun shining hot, just made me think of sitting in front of the refrigerator when I was a kid in those hot summer days waiting for my mother to open it. Well, coming back to the present, it feels like it is nature's way of saying welcome by satisfying all your senses.   And I was still trying to consume as much of the view as I could, the river decided to show up. The river right in front of my eyes swirled as it got lost into the dense forest around it. However, standing on the bridge when I turned around to see where it came from - was in front of me the big disappointment of my life - A monstrous solid DAM and that's the word that came out to describe the feeling as well.

Moving on from the disappointment of seeing a man-made monster spoil the beauty of what evolution had created and after find a place to throw our stuff at, adventures began with a hike to be followed by Rappelling our way down on a flat face rock. The 1 km hike through the forest was rather exciting as our rappelling expert narrated his stories of living in the wild while we walked through it.

Once we got there, the excitement was all gone and the way down seemed the wrong way down. But getting over the initial fear, once the rope was in my hands and I was hanging on the verge of the rock, to my disappointment, it was not a rock at all. We were rappelling down on a side of a hill which has been a victim of soil erosion and those money making resort businesses that probably chopped of some trees to make a rappelling spot there. Once down, we were already thinking of the next target, white water rafting. Without giving you too many hopes, let me tell you that we didn't do it. It was level 2 and more expensive than level 4 and level 5 we had experienced before so we made a switch to kayaking.

The love for the peaceful part of the river made me row like I have been doing it for years. The calm unending river surrounded by green forests in front of me and a busy resort behind me, I just wanted to row, row and row to get away from the human world and complete give myself away to nature until my arms gave me a wake up call when they started hurting. Being in the middle of the river with the sound of silence surrounding me, life could not have been better at that moment. The reflection of the surrounding trees and the open skies in the river gives you a joy that no modern architecture can provide. Nature must have been the finest architect of it's time to build something that can connect to your soul through all senses and take all negative thoughts and feelings away.

Anyway, stepping out of that thought process to complete this blog, we found a land to camp on and made friends with the locals who gave us enough stories over campfire to get us to sleep. The day after we changed 3 buses to get back to our materialistic life. Even though urbanisation has crawled into this land of the wild, nature gives you a canvas big enough to find your spot to paint your day the way you want.

Artistic me

And this is how I painted mine!

Pai Vieng Fah - Thailand

Pai Vieng Fah which is a Thai phrase that means Pai, heaven under the sky is the perfect description for the city of Pai located in the Mae Hong Son province in north of Thailand.

My journey to this beautiful place started with a over night bus ride from Bangkok to Chiang Mai - a tourist hot spot. Apart from the state bus service, there are plenty of private bus service providers that will provide you an inexpensive option. The bus ride I took had a complete flight-like service starting with an in-flight snack and dinner to having a beautiful hostess. The chairs in the bus are not just convenient to sleep in but also have an inbuilt massage option. One of the most comfortable over night journeys I have experienced in a very long time.

Once I arrived in Chiang Mai early morning, I got into a smaller van that took me from there to a 3 hour away city of Pai located in a different province. Once can avail this service for anything between 150 to 200 Baht.

The final destination of this 14 hour journey was a location one dreams of when thinking about a peaceful and laid back vacation spot where words like stress and worry only exist in the dictionary but are yet to have a practical application. The city was covered with backpackers from all over the world but yet seemed like it was hardly a tourist spot. The tourists were concentrated in one part of the city which existed upto 2 kms of the bus station.

Though camping next to the river seemed like an interesting and easy to execute option in this city, I took a room in the resort that goes by the name Pai Vieng Fah which perfectly describes the town itself. The place is owned by a very interesting guy who goes by the name 'Him' or as we jokingly called him 'Patrick' and him and his dad have designed the whole resort by themselves and this is how it came out to be.

The Thai suites located just above an artificial water stream

The usual Deluxe and Superior rooms with amazing view

The owner has hand painted rooms, this one's mine.

For those who are interested in checking out the Thai website for this resort, log on to www.paiviengfah.com

Heaven under the sky


I personally planned this trip to find peace in life and what I got out of it was more than just peace, a completely new meaning to life. The scenic valley and the mountain range surrounding the city provide a mesmerising view that will take your breath away and give you a glimpse of heaven on earth. The mountain tops are clearly in front of you at one moment and then surrounded by clouds in the next, the rice fields turn into natural vegetation and then the hills as your eyes scan the scenery. The clouds moving over your head make you feel as if you are flying through time where as the laid back scenery makes you believe that time has stopped for you to absorb nature's beauty.

Each and every day in our life is full of nature's attempts to paint a canvas for us and we being a part of it tend to ignore it as we go through our busy schedules. In Pai, the same canvas seems to be a work of a graphic designer who has photoshop-ed the canvas and made it so beautiful that the only option for you is to STOP and capture what's on the canvas. Apart from my philosophical description of the place, I am adding some un-edited pictures taken by an amateur photographer, hoping that I was able to bring back some part of hypnotised me. 

 

 

 

The trip does not just ends at the scenic beauty. For the wild ones who look for good places to drink at and make friends, Pai is the city with friendly people from all over the world. With some bars playing the reggae music, some playing live classic rock while some just sticking to a conversations between people who just met at the bar, this place is a good mix of languages, cultures and music. Some cocktail bars would even offer you a free drink as long as you are friendly.

Apart from the alcohol, you can find different cuisine as well all along the walking street - which is the most happening place in the evening as soon as the sun disappears. Street food, cheap clothes and some crazy people have some crazy fun are what make this street a place to be in the evening.

In all, my vacations in and around Pai was a complete vacation and the only thing I hated about it was to leave it to come back to the real world and get back to work.

There is no better place to live after you retire. PAI VIENG FAH!!!