KEMMANGUNDI

KEMMANGUNDI TRIP
THE MOST MEMORABLE ONE!

Guys and Gals bringing to you a new way of expressing the MSRCP blog tour description.This blog reveals what vishal,viral and chida liked about kemangundi.Presenting to you the most memorable trip…a record of sort with 40 people on board a bus and ya not to forget even a ‘Sumo’ too.


Hi guys life in Ramaiah was wonderful and 4th year was an absolute blast special thanks to the tourism minister of Karnataka Mr.Chidananda(or should I call him Karnataka’s Mowgli?). Of all the trips we had there was one trip that everyone still remembers for some reason or the other, well I remember it as the trip which set the ball rolling for the large number of trips we had later on….


THE FIRST TRIP GIRLS CAME ALONG…


I guess this answers why it was such a memorable trip…but that’s not all….Abhinav’s b’day…Christmas time…and what more nobody was bothered about results then…..yes it’s the time we went to KEMMANGUNDI that I’m talking about.It was for the first time in 4 years that a trip encompassing 40 people was organized by Chida and the trip manager Viral.There was a lot of anxiety and enthusiasm in air and there was a flood of questions in front of Chida by our over excited crowd.Questions likeL
(CHIDA REVEALS IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW, WHAT HE WENT THROUGH ON THAT DAY).
Chida,where are we going?

What is the name of that place?

What is the peculiarity of that place?

How will we reach that place?whether by bus or train?

Where will we stay,what will we eat,the food will be palatable or not?

For how many days we will be there?

When will we leave?

When will we come back?

Saval pe saval,saval pe saval…I haven’t answered that many questions even in a viva.

But here I had to.As I was the only one who knew the in and out of this place(the name I am sure you all wont be able to recall as early as this..so then wait for sometime).You can say that I was a mobile dictionary for the remaining 39 odd people for the trip.

It was 6. 30 in the morning,and I was at slv(now please don’t ask me what is this slv?well you may still do I think…so let me tell u its bakery..the most visited spot in the 4 years).

I had a lot of thoughts running down my mind,fully confused thinking as to how will I manage this group of 39 partially wild semi social animals.

In the all bike trips conducted by me before it used to be very simple.I used to tell everyone to follow me without asking too much questions.And they used to oblige me all the times.The question of food,water,the kind of place used to be a question only.We used to explore it after reaching at the place.

Sometimes we used to just arrange for campfire or start our usual business of chit chatting and no one used to realize that we have passed one complete night over it

.And yes not to forget such trips were always accompanied by mandira..oh I am sorry I mean madira.And yes that was the formula for a successful road roaming trips that we had prior to this one.

But for such a large group one cannot be so irresponsible that you let them at their own disposal only to know that the next morning collectively they have disposed you off.So the place has to be equally interesting,beautiful,romantic and yes not to forget thrilling with some adventure in it.And so finally keeping into my mind all the vital constitutents for that ideal trip I thought of kemmangundi and abbe falls as the destination to be conquered.Also there was a theoretical reasoning behind me selecting such a place and that was:-of the 42 falls that are there in Karnataka this is the only place where water is there throughout the 12 months and it also has small and big hills with a lot of greenery surrounding them.

The problem of making the guys understand the fun factor about this place was not as difficult as it was with girls.Girls first of all had to learn proper pronunciation(kem-man-gundi) and then step by step I feeded them all that I knew about the place and so they agreed.

After a lot of discussion we booked a sumo and a bus and since the place was quite distant we started very early in the morning around 6 30.There were quite a few places which I wanted our entire group to visit and so I mentally did the sequencing of places to be seen.

The room no 41, ground floor,rmv second stage(the gujju s official residence while in blore) was full with people and were awaiting eagerly to start the journey.But as usual the driver was abused as he came much in time at around 7: 15 or so.

Just when we had traveled some 30 km towards our destination the need for a break was felt as everyone was very hungry.And that day we helped reliance fresh make some business.

There was a whisky totaller in the bus…he was having his breakfast from 6 in the morning a pickle with the mc dowells’.he got down at fresh and asked everyone to assemble close to him and then offered rather forced everyone with 60 ml each of mc dowells’.What a charitable act?

History say it that it was the man who evolved from monkey but after having mc donalds’ they say its re-evolution as they behave totally in an opposite manner.

The breakfast was over,it was time to get back to bus.The sumo was waiting for nishant,vishal and the localites.The sumo party had only mc Donald s at breakfast so when they got back in sumo, to start again towards our destination they got a little mad….and to everyone ‘s surprise started shouting at the top of their voice….HO HA HO HA…..a mahamantra given by me.

VISHAL --I was comfortably seated in the sumo with NISHU DARLING and the localites….every one knows why Nishu stayed 10 meters away from the bus….but I must admit that though people in the bus may not have been very comfortable they had more fun than us…

CHIDA--We were moving towards our destination at a snails’ pace,often taking break here and there and as a result we reached at 2 o’clock to our major halt …you know what that was for…simple guess…LUNCH.From morning 7 to noon 2 it was a fun filled journey but any journey at the end of the day is tiring and that is what we experienced after getting down from the bus at 2 pm.Everyone was angry with me as I always give the best promises….and never adhere to it.It was good that I was not in bus otherwise they would have sacrificed me for lunch.

Everyone was anxious as they were simply traveling not knowing where they are going to finally land up? or as to which place was in my mind? where we were heading to?After lunch it was time for the first spot on the trip to be visited.The bhadra dam…

We reached there just in time to have a glimpse of it and I tried hard but could not convince the guard standing there.As a result we had to satisfy ourselves with a distant view of the dam and this was not all on day one.We also went to the gajanur dam.And it was the same story of reaching just in time over there too.

But we made most of the memory card in the digi cameras as people got themselves fit in the tasveer.9 please not a 10by 12 one this was a simple 5 by 7).

I could see that all of them were not as happy as they should have had been as we had to drop out 2 places due to time restriction.

VISHAL-- when we reached Shimoga Chida ne ”LODGE BANAYA”…..it took us around 10hrs to reach with halts…but I enjoyed the halts more than the journey….cos it was the only time I felt I was doing something I was good at and that’s why I was always the first to start eating and the last to finish….

CHIDA--But to get them back on the track I thought of a camp fire which I arranged with the assistance of my cousin.We assembled the necessary items for the campfire at this place called malligne halli and lit it up at around 8 amidst lot of cheer.it was a full moon night and the joy of breezer got doubled because of such a beautiful huge crowd,place and food.
The HO HA HO HA chants were back and this time even stronger.We had all the fun that we had thought of in those 2 hours and finally at 10:30 the fire was put off ,and so with that it was time to go to lodge and put the lights of the room also off.

VISHAL—The only disappointments of the trip occurred the night we reached. Chida had arranged for a camp fire, we were going to have our dinner there, and dinners on Saturday nights are never dry ,so dinner was accompanied with Breezer and Vodka . (and a certain stuck up had created stupid controversies out of this later on)

the driver too relished the opportunity and imbibed liquor but he was too drunk to drive us back….then a guy, youngest of us all, MAULIK DUDHATRA(a kind of specimen you’ll find only in Rajkot ) decided to take responsibility cos he had driven a bus previously and was confident but others were not confident of their safety then things ended in a tussle…. I guess many would have thought this trip wont be as successful as they thought…but they were wrong things were back to normal next morning.

Next day after breakfast we were going to go trekking this was one experience I enjoyed the most….CHIDA told us that we were going to walk only 2kms… but his 2kms were endless…and thereafter if Chida said 2kms we all knew that he meant 10kms….climbing uphill was the most challenging and the girls must have given their BUTT muscles a good exercise….now speaking of climbing uphill who can forget the way Shilpi reacted after climbing a considerable distance...(she’s acrophobic…no actually, she’s afraid of everything) she started chanting the Hanuman Chalisa and mentioned the names of all possible gods she knew….we boys had a hearty laugh at that….but one thing I must appreciate the girls is that every girl climbed and reached the peak even though they found it difficult…

HAT’S OFF LADIES….

VIRAL-- viral--as 30 of us started climbing the hill top for the z point ,we found that the path actually was spiral. so i,nishanth,sujith and omkey decided to take a shortcut and did not fallow the road.we kept on climbing the steep path but did not find any connecting road.as the path was too steep there was no looking back (its always easy to climb but not easy to get down on steep path with no support

we reached the hill top and saw our friends in opposite direction. the road had taken them to a different hill. we were trying to get smart and took the shortcut and actually climbed the wrong hill . to add the anxiety we saw a stag in front of us. tension and fear crept in.... not to us but the stag.... it ran away.....
we had only one option to take the way down through another route which was less steep and join our friends then who were on the other top.but as we got down we realized that the base was a forest wiyh small water pass ....now our expert Mr NISHANT KANANI said that as there is a water and stag there can be lion and tiger too... but as we had no other option we gathered some wooden sticks and ran for life.

fortunately,we reached the place our friends were and all excitement told them this incident.the incident was quite breath taking but then we could tell our friends that we were the ones who really had made an ADVENTURE out of the whole trekking.


VISHAL-- If climbing up was a lot of hard work our guys knew how to relax on their way back….hand in hand…. couples together…. some looking on….and others satisfying themselves by holding other guys hands…..going down a steep hill is never easy and that’s when we witnessed our first fall….SIDHARTH BHATIA…who fell in a comic way…he fell twice in a single fall…

On a Sunday morning we walked for 5hrs and if you thought it was all , we had more work to do…we walked another 12kms after lunch across a stream to a waterfalls… .
We had already done a lot of trekking In Z point or the Zaveri point as we called it later for specific reasons ( can’t be specified here )


Then we headed to the biggest endeavor so far . We reached Abbey falls and as our vehicles could not reach us till the end we had to walk our way through to reach the spot. Chida told us that the distance was around 5 km so we all agreed to WALK through.

Well , 30 of us started with great enthusiasm but as we walked through we realized that the journey was not getting over . It was much much more than 5 km and it seemed to be a daunting task . It was a day with a lot of happenings which that day one of the most Memorable days of those 4 years.

The first major thing that comes to my mind is the great fun we had with NIshu with the analogy Abhinav came up with : Nishu n Sishu. Nishant had obviously nothing to respond because of the uncomforatable situation he was facing during the whole trip..

Then was the great fall of Mr. Selvin Daniel As he was racing through a so called shortcut which was really steep he had a great fall . As he Rock n Rolled Deba n Kinjal who were on the same trajectory had a greatest escape of their life. Ask Deba and I am sure he ll still be having Nightmares of it.
.

After all the comedies and tiredness we reached the spot of falls it was like heaven . Wow it was such a great place. The Waterfall was so close and loud that we had to shout to communicate.

Also the shoe throwing across the streams was made funnier by Paaaarth losing one of his shoe as it floated down the stream. As we all kept laughing on this incident I found myself doing the same mistake as my shoe too floated down the stream . Luckily Chida, our Mowgli saved me from being barefoot

Unfortunately for Megha she hurt her leg during her way and could not make it to the end
Luckily we got some Jeeps which helped us reach back. That journey was a roller coaster too. We were filled like goats n sheeps .

There was hardly any one of us who did not fall or who did not meet a strange happening . Definitely one of the best experiences we ever had. Thank U Chida.

the water was too damn chill that some feet turned blue, rocks and stones were slippery, and each and every soul had slipped and felt the chills on their bums with the exception of a few(I was one of them, all thanks to DON who saved my CHUM CHUMS but couldn’t save his own).We had walked down to the waterfalls but got into jeeps on our way back cos nobody had the shit in them to walk another 12kms and it was getting late too...

Those guys who drove us back were too damn good they took us through a path that seemed impossible to tread. The path was narrow, uphill ,steep turns, rocky right throughout….Initially I felt, paying Rs 800 for the jeep ridiculous but the path that he took us was so risky that I wouldn’t mind paying double if anybody took me across safely.


None of us had ever worked this hard on a Sunday and all thanks to Chida this is one Sunday no one forgets….there was pin drop silence on our way back till we reached a dhaba…the very idea of food revived energy in most of us and people spend their dinner recalling incidents of the smartest student that M.S.R.C.P has seen Mr. ANAND KUMAR .

After dinner those who were inebriated were the only ones who spoke at length, others all were asleep…but at the stroke of 12 we stopped the bus got Abhinav out of the bus and nobody missed out on the chance to give him birthday bumps….because he is the most ruthless kicker on your birthday.

VISHAL--Reaching around 3 in the morning all were dead tired that many of us didn’t go to college the next day. This one weekend had given us a break from that sick old boring routine. Things worked so well on this trip that we looked to have a trip every weekend and as we stepped into a new year we looked to make the most of all weekends.

this trip i think still continues to reverberate and gives that feeling of oneness that we as a batch
experienced. the fun and furore on the trip was unparalleled and unmatched.this was possible only because a record number of people(40 of them)were involved.a 10 on 10 for this one.isnt it..........?

by

vishal zaveri

viral sha

v jagruth

chidananda

JOG FALLS A TRULY WET EXPERIENCE

JOG
FALLS
A TRULY ‘WET’ EXPERIENCE

In life there are so many different kind of affairs –we have political affair,religious affair,social affair,environmental affair etc and yes not to forget two very important affairs- the love affair and the extramarital affair

.Well,you might be confused that where is this leading to.The above explanation leads to our unofficially official last trip where we got in sync with the nature and green environment.The guys who love the beauty of nature coupled with adventure and trekking,had a love affair with this place called SHIMOGA…

the place that we had zeroed down for our GO GREEN trip.While for the few others it was simply an environmental affair.Sorry,but cant expand more on this.Let us get back to business.Whenever any tour had to be planned Chidananda used to be our ‘Man Friday’ and rightly so, as he was a wanderer and had been to almost all places of Karnataka.And in ourselves Chida found a team of wanderlust guys.

There was one particular reason for selecting this particular place…The WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY(JUNE 5) had just passed by and so we had to respond to the ‘call of nature’.And one cannot deny such a call,one has to simply obey.


To ease ourselves of the academic burden we had decided to make the trip a 3 day affair.Hurriedly we buried all the worries of the upcoming sessional and got ourselves soaked into a enthusiastic mood.


We got into the state transport bus(K S R T C) and within 6 hours we found ourselves transported to shimoga.It was around 9 pm.All of us were very hungry.So we attacked on whatever we got at the restaurant(HEVEN IN) .

The guys who were hungry as well as thirsty formed a different group and they quenched their thirst as well as got some food in their stomach.
It had been a long day for all of us traveling,so after having food it was time to catch up with sleep.
But in the room adjacent to which I had to sleep,had a very interesting combination of guys…it was Abhinav,Anup sam,Rajesh,Viral।The child in Abhinav and Anup sam came out (I know its hard to believe but its true that even boys can bring a child out of them)and Rajesh fell a victim to their pranks।The amount,intensity and the frequency of laughter that had evoked that particular night would never get erased from my memory।We screamed out our lungs,ribs were tickled to the maximum extent possible and the food in the stomach also got digested as we had given a lot of exercise to our stomach muscles।The mysterious chemistry that existed between Tom and Jerry came out in full magnitude that night

We caught up with some sleep finally after having a booster dose of the best medicine.We broke the fast of approx 8 hours early in the morning by having a heavy breakfast(IDLY AND VADA)

then headed towards jog falls-which is Asia’a highest waterfalls at a height of 996m.

It was a journey of about 2 hours at the end of which we reached our destination.The Raja,Rani,Rorar and rocket(name of the 4 falls) which together form jog falls were at the peak of their performance as it was raining cats and dogs when we reached over there.

It was a beautiful sight with the fog covering the falls for a few seconds and then again we could see the spectacular free fall of the water.It was a treat to eyes.

One more thing that one cant forget with this trip is that it rained whenever we got out of bus and gave us a ‘wet welcome’.It made us exclaim that this place is ‘cherapunji of karnataka’.

After spending enough time at the jog falls we moved to the next place।We saw the falls from different angles and at particular angles there were atleast a few of us who fell for the fall as it was so beautiful

।

It is said that,’Sometimes the journey traveled turns out to be more beautiful then the destination reached’।In this case the destination turned out to be even more beautiful then the journey।

So on the first day we explored the different areas in and around jog falls।We went to the bridge leading to jog falls and got ourselves fixed into the digital इमागेस।

We then went to the power plant(MAHATHMA GANDI POWER PLANT-KARGAL).

All the while what we saw was not much different.I would like to recall one particular incident where in the process of getting photographed one person blocked the entire view of jog falls.There was no background of falls.Now you decide who is bigger (obviously in size) the jog falls or that person?

So this is all that we did on the first day.The tired legs of everyone did not oblige to walk more anymore and on top of it,it asked for energy.So we decided to keep the rest of the places in our radar for the next day.


But that night at dinner again the thirsty guys got mad as they got their act together and they kept on asking for more and more of licensed water.There was one guy who found out his voice that night - Tom(You know this fellow?I think you definitely do.) as he repeatedly sang one particular song (main shayar toh nahin which according to him is main kayar toh nahin) and the song was indirectly dedicated to Jerry ,with love.

I guess I wont have to spell his name as he is the same guy about whom I have written earlier also.Finally it was time,we went to the room and caught up with some much needed rest.

The rest as I have mentioned was ‘much needed’ as after being to highest waterfalls of Asia,
the next day we were going to climb the highest peak of Karnataka-Kodachadri.
We got up and started our journey by 8:30 am. Quite early…isn’t it?(but that’s only by our standards).

First we went to a temple called Ikkere(AGORESHWARA TEMPLE).The temple was very old but still it had retained its charm and the sun rays making a silent entry on it was a beautiful sight to behold.The intricate carvings and design had a larger message to be conveyed but unfortunately due to lack of time we could not decode it.

Next from there we went to Hasirumakki(Sharawathi back water)।This place was simply mindblowing।It was so simple yet so attractive that one could spend hours over there sitting idle and doing nothing।But we didn’t had that leisure time and so we got ourselves

ferried from one end of it to the other so that we can reach our destination of importance –kodachadri.

Once we reached the base of kudachadri we found that we don’t have liberty of spending more than 3 hours over here।(This was quite unlike the movie ‘Lakshya’ where Hrithik takes 22 years and 18000 feet to find out what his ultimate lakshya is!)For us,the lakshya was clear-to get to the top and then get back to the bottom again

all in 3 hours or else-you miss the bus to Bangalore!And so we decided that we would go by jeep till the actual place from where the climb begins.

And believe it or not this decision proved to be a blessing in disguise(though a few like me initially very strongly felt that we should trek all the way to the top) as otherwise it would have taken more than 3 hours because the road…oh I am sorry, the rocks leading to the peak were very sharp and they were all over the way(for the cartoon like-ing people the road was full of flintstones).

It seemed as if they have not been placed but they have erupted out of earth following a quake.I am sure prior to this trip none of us would have had a such a rocking experience.At the left and right turns we were just tumbling left and right like robots-exactly in the same fashion in which you find the people in that famous fevicol ad.

But all in all it was a very joyous trip in the jeep and we understood the correct meaning of the saying that ‘smooth roads never makes skilful drivers(sailors)’.

We reached the point from where we had to be all on our feet…it was time to start climbing.But not before some last minute instructions by chida.They were

1- Please walk,don’t run.
2- There is a 100 m passage inbetween which is covered on both sides by trees and bushes..A snake bite over there means you are down and out…this gave everyone a shiver down their spine.No amount of snake venom poisoning knowledge of pharmacology will help you.So please- beware.
3- Finally,there are blood sucking leeches all throughout the way from which you have to save your soul.So help yourself to save yourself from them.

Finally we started climbing the peak.It was very pleasant out there.There was a cloud cover,mist,fog and the slow and the gentle rain which was apt for complete enjoyment.Step after step it was getting better and beautiful and no one could feel the agony of climbing against gravity.All they felt was the ecstacy of being to such a place.We took pics,refueled ourselves with biscuits at the top of the peak and finally at a slow and steady pace came down.



The blood sucking leeches had targeted their man and a few had the ugly experience of a leech bite।But hats off to one guy who had a leech in his shoe but that didn’t bite him for some 2 hours then

The reason that we discovered later was that the leech got anaesthetized…all thanks to the X like effect that his shoe contained.






That was all about kudachadri।It was a truly adventurous experience which witnessed no casualties but was jam packed with the leeches

After we got down we still had time for one last spot which was on our way to Shimoga.The last place to which we all went was the Nagara फोर्ट।

which was previously a military fortIt was majestic,covered a very large area and it seemed to be very old.

This was the place where we guys got the RDB kind of photo.The mood was exuberant and everyone had a good and a great time at the fort.

Finally that moment came when we had to say goodbye to such a lovely place.Slowly we started our journey towards shimoga recounting all the joyful experiences that we had had in the past 2 days.
A emotional chida gave what is said to be a emotion in motion (i.e a speech)

before we finally started our return journey back to Bangalore. The trip was good and it was made better by the camaraderie that each one shared with the other.This trip will be remembered for the
(1)mysterious Sam-Rajesh that bloomed like never before.
(2)definitely the Jog falls and the Kudachadri trek which fulfilled the desire of many of us to have atleast one adventurous trip in the final year

(3)And,of course the innumerable funny incidents(now, all cannot be described) associated with this trip.
The torchbearer for almost all the trip that we made in the final year- chida,this goes out for you…

It is said that, “ A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first few steps”. And the steps that lead to jog falls and kodachadri would be cherished by everyone as they were filled with joy,enthusiasm,pranks and laughter and it had enough of it to be described a complete package.This trip will leave a permanent imprint on each one’s mind.


Jagrut Vaishnav