Desicritics Author: Tanay Behera

Photo Essay: Smell of an Indian Bazaar

Tanay Behera — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 10:34:46 EST

It was long since I had been out to shoot with my shutterbug friends. When I got an invite, if I could join them for a weekend shot at Russel Market, one of the prominent landmarks for the native Bangaloreans, I thought why not. The reply was prompt because I have always preferred colder climes and at present winter is in full flourish. Also, wintertime mornings are usually marked with less activity and lots of freshness rules the air.

So all set and done and I reach the market place at 6:30AM. The market place was a melange of action, buying, selling, trading, chaffering, transporting, cleaning and lots more.

Russel Market is one of the oldest markets in Bangalore and it was built in 1927. The freshly painted minaret that stands across the road is a testimony that this place which was once the frequented by the memsahibs driven in their carriages is now replaced by the Marutis, the Fords and the Toyotas.

Even though the city today offers plenty of departmental stores from Sunday-to-Monday to Food World, from Reliance Fresh to Nilgiris, from Spencers to Spar but still there is a sizeable population that visits this bazaar for its weekly stock of fruits and vegetables and other requirements. The building that accommodates close to 100 vegetable shops and mandis today looks a bit jaded.

This place has narrow streets, filled with people unloading mini-trucks ladened with fresh vegetables and fruits. At one corner an old woman is selling a handful of vegetables, while at the other corner there is a middle-aged lady making a garland with different kinds of flowers, sipping hot tea from a glass. Even found a man who was so bitten by Bipasha Basu's 'Beedi Jalai le', that early in the morning he was puffing his jigar maan bari aag in a foolhardy way.

At this early hour of the day, there is action all around as vegetable vendors were busy sorting the vegetables into gunny bags which would be sent to various restaurants and hotels across the city. This place is a trading center for flowers, and florists can be seen exchanging their supply for cash. The topsy-turvyness here is more complex than what one would find in any stock exchange when in action.

As I was walked a little ahead, I saw the central courtyard, where there were neatly arranged rows of meat shops. Strung up were fresh cuts of mutton with hooks. Adjacent to the dark alleys of meat shops, dimly lit with bulbs is the street, which is a must visit place for any sea-food lover.

Variety of fish, prawn, crab, squid, etc of all sizes were available and the best part is it was all fresh stock unlike the refrigerated and preserved ones sold in department stores. This place is a beehive of activity and chances are high that a visitor would soil his/her clothes while purchasing sea-food here.

It was 8:30AM by now and people returning from the early hours mass at the nearby church were indicative of city life about to get started in a while. I along with my friend, proceeded to a nearby shop, which offers chai 24/7 and while having the chai, a person rushed hurriedly towards me. Seeing, a camera in my hand he told, 'Saab ek photo aap jaldi se lea lo, abhi thodi deear maain guard ke naukri ke liye, ek interview hai' [Can you take a pic immediately because I have an interview for the post of a guard to attend]. I had to politely decline to his request as my camera, doesn't have the instant printing capabilities.

Don't be surprised when I saw, you can click and publish pictures instantly, infact you can do this something similar to the Polaroid cameras of the 70's. This year PoGo, an Instant Digital Camera unveiled at the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, allows one with a push of a button to take pictures, edit those and then print those on full-colour, 2x3-inch prints. Can someone gift me one of those :)

You can see the rest of the pics here.

Photo Essay: Kabini

Tanay Behera — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:52:04 EDT

There are times in life when there are lots of tasks to be attended and in the heart of hearts one feels, that one needs a break to get perked up again. This is exactly what happened to me, when in the midst of lot of activities, I had the opportunity to visit Kabini and spend a day there in the Jungle Lodges and Resort.

Kabini is a river in Karnataka that passes through a picturesque terrain before joining the Kaveri near Mysore. The Kabini Jungle Lodges and Resort (KJLR) has been rated among the top five wildlife resorts in the world by Tatler's way back in 1995 but I am not sure if it still retains that ranking today.

Situated at a distance of 220 kilometers from Bangalore, a drive to reach this place in five to six hours by road is the most preferred option for most of the visitors. More so this place is close to the Nagarhole Wildlife Sanctuary, Wayanadu Wildlife Sanctuary, Bandipur National Park and the Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary, parts of which are visible during the river ride inside the jungle.

We reached KJLR by 2:00 in the afternoon. At the reception we were apprised about the rules and regulations of the resort and some simple guidelines to follow during our stay for a day there. The KJLR has colonial style architecture and can accommodate around 50 people, so advance booking for this place during the peak season is must. There are around 14 colonial style double rooms with modern amenities, 10 twin-bedded cottages and 6 tented cottages.

The accommodation is very comforting and satisfying but for those people who are used to TV and air conditioners, sorry, one won't get either of the two at KJLR. Personally I too feel that its incongruous and such luxuries shouldn’t find place in a jungle resort. It's a complete eco-friendly resort and noise of any form be it load music or partying late night is strictly prohibited here.

Food during lunch, breakfast and dinner is served in buffet style in the common dining area called the Ghol Ghar that overlooks River Kabini. I really enjoyed the food, that I had here, which mainly comprised of Indian dishes, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. Even breakfast was filling and there was a rich variety such as bread, omelette, fruit juice, dosa, idli, vaada, upma, etc along with the regular entremetses.

Leave the food part, let's get into the real action now. The first day after lunch, we took some rest in the hammocks before we started for our wildlife safari at 4:00 P.M. in the evening. The initial half an hour drive of our safari was through a small village, which is situated on the periphery of the forest. Once we entered the heart of the forest, our guide, a naturalist instructed us to be as silent as possible. So all that one could hear was the sound of engine and the tyres ruckling down the jungle road. The undefiled smell of the forest was all around us. As we drove in the open jeep, we could feel the crisp evening wind on our faces, something similar to the cool effect one gets on having a mouth freshener.

Since that day was cloudy and there were early signs of rain, spotting elephants was out of question. Suddenly our vehicle came to a jerky stop because our guide had spotted a leopard camouflaged in the branches of a tree about 200 meters from the road.

We saw lots of wild dogs, bisons, sambhars, crested hawk eagles and herds of spotted deers. Our guide told us that a pack of seven or eight wild dogs can shoot down a tiger in few seconds, even though these creatures appear to be so harmless.

The best part of the safari was when we were about to return, it started raining cats and dogs. The rain drops were striking us like tiny boulders with great force. We were in the middle of the jungle, and it was twilight by now, and because of the rain, there was practically no visibility. Since I was in an open jeep, I wanted to enjoy the rain, but before doing so made sure that my camera was safe in my kitbag.

That night, had a wholesome dinner and spent some time with my friends before hitting the bed. Early morning, I woke up by 5:00 A.M. and was able to capture the nature in its true colors. I didn’t use any filters or any post-processing for this photograph. It was taken just like any other snap, and the end result was this.

At 8:00 A.M. we started for our 3 hour boat ride and it offered to me the perfect setting for taking some landscape shots while on the boat.

I spotted some birds in the middle of the river, right in the bowels of the jungle.

Our guide gave us tons of information anytime we spotted a new bird. We had even spotted a crocodile very near to this congregation of tree trunks egressing from the surface of the water like forks. But probably, it was the sound of the motor engine, that disturbed the crocodile and it disappeared inside the colored water like a shot.

The journey was refreshing and all, I could see around was water, lush greenery and some birds chirping in the air. At that moment our boat rider, diverted our vessel and paved our way towards a bamboo jungle adjacent to the river bed, where tigers come to have water at night. We even saw the carcass of a spotted deer that was killed by a tiger, the previous night.

I didn't realize how time passed and we were back to the resort after an unforgettable river ride.

For those of you who want to pamper themselves with a traditional massage, the KJLR has facilities for an Ayurvedic massage center, run by a family from Kerala. I went there and checked the prices and those were very decent. By this time, it was 12:00 P.M. in the noon and the custodians of the resort informed us that it was time to check out because the cleaning has to be done before another gang of visitors come by 2:00 P.M. in the afternoon.

If someone asks me, Kabini is a good weekend getaway for nature lovers and KJLR is a perfect place to stay in cottages in sylvan surroundings. The rates are not very high too, considering that it includes food, stay, jungle safari and river ride.

Complete album is here.

Warning: The carcass pic may be disturbing for few readers.

Photo Essay: Worldwide Photo Walk, Bangalore

Tanay Behera — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:47:06 EDT

Last Saturday morning offered perfect weather for going out and capturing a few moments of Bangalore city through camera clicks. I, along with other shutterbugs, made full use of this opportunity as we participated in the Bangalore leg of the Worldwide Photo Walk. The Photo Walk was held to mark the release of Adobe Lightroom, a photography software application developed by Adobe. Bangalore was the only city in India where this was talking place, apart from the other 192 cities across the world.

There was no planned agenda for the walk and it was quite informal. We all started the event at around 7:30 A.M. from Mayo Hall, one of the prominent landmarks in Bangalore. Then we clip-clopped on the Residency Road. On our journey we were free to capture anything and everything in our camera lenses.

I was in a mood to make some bio-scopic compositions, even though I was walking down a road heavily masked with glitz shopping malls. Bangalore's old memories are fading very fast, both in the physical environment and in the social atmosphere. That's a logical outcome of economic growth, so better capture those in pictures before they are reduced to dust.

Just a decade ago, anyone could walk down the narrow alleyways and sip a cup of coffee or tea for one rupee or so. But today rusted locks adorn the entrance doors of these neighborhood tea/coffee houses. The once sleepy get together places have given way to a cosmopolitan shopping juggernaut.

Something is definitely lost, for a few its for the better, while for the rest, its for the worse. The city's populace is no longer nostalgic about the remnants and with an urge to modernize fast, the Government and the builders have gutted the city's very soul.

Bangalore and traffic jams are synonymous. The intensity of the blockage varies with the time period of the day. Even though the day had just started, there were long queues of two-wheelers parked near the road.

Construction sites are a common sight but what really adheres to one's vision is the vibrant life visible on the streets. Like this one, a cobbler mending and polishing shoes, sitting on a tiled pathway by the side of the road, enjoying the cacophony of the traffic in front of him.

Today, the city that is bursting at the seams is home to people from so many different strata of life, each seemingly a different world of its own. Some enjoy food in the elegant and refined restaurants that have mushroomed in the cities and some are happy with the food that a make-shift stall owner provides.

Who cares as long as its food?

This way the walk continued and many eyes in the traffic were settled on me and few of my fellow shutterbugs. Since there were few foreigners in our group, the autowallas thought that we were tourists, exploring the city over the weekend and approached us with invites to take us on a paid tour of the city. It was around 11 A.M. that we finally decided to put an end to the walk. All of us gathered in the Mocha restaurant where many had late breakfast amidst passionate discussions about the snaps that each had taken.

All in all a refreshing way to spend four hours of a weekend, walking down the narrow streets and capturing life in pictures. By the way, were these snaps, Ok?

You can check the photos taken by all the participants in the event here.

Play Review: Lucknow 76

Tanay Behera — Mon, 7 Jul 2008 10:45:24 EDT

Few months back, Dr.BD had made a post on Lucknow, depicting few panoramas of the city sitting in a roof top restaurant relishing gorgeous food.

But why did this topic come into picture, the connecting chord is 'Lucknow', a city that I have never visited but have read about it and also heard lots about from my room-mate who graduated from IIM Lucknow. Last weekend, I was at Alliance Francaise de Bangalore, to watch a play titled 'Lucknow 76'.

The plot of the play was based on politics and history, shifting between two time frames of 1876 and 1976 looking at Lucknow city through the eyes of the common man. 1876 was a milestone for the Britishers, as that was the year, when Queen Victoria took over the command from the East India Company. 1976 was also significant in history because during that time, the once proud democracy, India was under the clutches of tin pot dictator, Indira Gandhi who had declared a state of Emergency as the Prime Minister of the nation.

So that reasons out for the numeral '76' in the title of the play.

But then why 'Lucknow' and why not 'Delhi' or 'Bombay' or 'Calcutta' or 'Madras' or 'Bangalore'. Because the director and playwright of the play, Abhishek Majumdar (AM) had spent some part of his childhood in this city. During AM's visits to Lucknow, his grand uncle, a scholar of history and geology had inundated his mind with tales and chronicles about the city from an old bungalow.

Now back to the play and the players on the stage.

The stage was a raised platform, bare minimal in terms of setting. A collage carpet dressed the entire floor. A ziz-zag geometrically-shaped stool, an artistically designed bench on one corner and few cushions were all the props used during the various scenes.

The play began with the entire cast of actors on stage firing words arbitrarily, and this state of confusion continued until two characters working in a press chisel in. Soon an old madam editor of the press enters and they discuss the sabotage of press and free speech during the 1976 emergency.

The sequence of the scenes in the plot follows a pattern like they do in these aerobic classes, one step back and then one step front. So one scene from 1876 and then one from 1976 and the flow continues. You get me right.

A greater part of the play covered, the 1876 era and it was masterly role-played.

The three lead actors for this part were a Muslim revolutionary, a Brahmin Compounder and a brownBritish madam. Now how can a British madam be brown, that's because her father, a Brit and a general on duty in India had married an Indian woman.

As the play moves to Victorian India, fervent and fiery debates rise about nation and ruler royalty neatly animated by the revolutionary and the Compounder. Questions are tossed about one's dedication to one's own motherland, supporting indigenous medicines against propagating Brit medical practices for general welfare, the language in which Vande Mataram was written and likewise. Though the two characters share views that are completely opposite, the Muslim revolutionary considering the very presence of Britishers in their own land a bane, the Hindu Compounder considering it a boon but yet they are the best of friends. These two characters expressed their school of views with downrightness.

The character of the British lady who wants to study India through the eyes of the common man was also commendable. She seeks the help of the Muslim revolutionary to take her on tours to the local bazaars, to the river bed of Gomti, to the sectors where the natives of Lucknow live, and where the street dogs, the cattle and innumerable flies add to the bustle. She is also introduced to mouth watering local food: the Dum Biryani, Sheermal, Zamin Doz, Kakri Kebab, Shami Kebab, etc.

During one of their saunters, the Muslim revolutionary cracks a joke to the Madam, the dialogue piece of which goes like this: 'Madam, you know what, in Lucknow we have more varieties of kebabs than you have Britishers in that small island.'

Few of the dialogues were engaging and just got glued to my mind. 'In a war, its beliefs that fight, not people.' You see the contemporary relevance, it was then, and it is the same, even today and I don't know what will happen in future.

The 1976 half of the play was more of a disjointed and garbled commentary. The unprovoked detention of innocent people, the abuse and torture of detainees in jails, the forced vasectomy of thousands of men under the infamous family planning initiative, the cutting down of electricity supply to publishing houses and the censorship on press were portrayed tactfully. The highlight of the 1976 era depiction was the naxal interaction which was arresting in terms of energizing acting and dialogue delivery. This bit was in Bengali which I feel quite a few in the audience could not understand.

The scenes were as sensitive as was the dark period but to add some easiness in the air, subtle and clever jokes were cracked like 'it's difficult to understand the philosophy of philosophy' (pun on Indira Gandhi's intent for the Emergency) and about the 'Mango tree on the Moon'. (Can someone guess what was actually pointed at here, for the second bit, though I have my own version but not sure if it fits perfectly to the context?)

The lighting was dim for most of the time, mostly because events showcased on stage were from pages of history. A quiet whiskered man, sitting on one corner, strumming his guitar and lending his voice to few evocative songs in Punjabi and Hindi in his countrified voice made the audience travel through the lanes of Lucknow both in 1876 and 1976. The music was a one-man-show, full credits to this gentleman.

Though I am not a connoisseur in the theatrical aspects of sound, lighting, music but still arrangements on the whole for 'Lucknow 76', appealed to me. The only glitch that I could notice, many in the audience had was that many crucial parts of the play were enacted in languages that was not deciphered by all (around 75% of the play was in English and the rest 25% in Malayalam, Hindu, Bengali, Tamil and Kannada).

There were around 12 performers for this play, (sorry, I don't remember their names, and I even lost the play's brochure) and each of them performed splendidly. This play was supported by the Black Coffee Productions in aid of the Concern India Foundation. The director Abhishek is an engineering graduate from NIT Trichy, one of the best technical institutes in India and then an MBA from Delhi University, after which he entered into his professional life in Bangalore. But his heart was in theater, Abhishek won the Charles Wallace Fellowship and went to do a course at the London International School of Performing Arts for a year in 2006. A couple of months back he was awarded the Metro Plus Playwright Award by 'The Hindu'. In a couple of months he is heading to the UK again armed with an Inlaks scholarship.

Bon voyage and wish you all the best.

Attrition And New Recruits

Tanay Behera — Sun, 1 Jun 2008 10:26:44 EDT

Attrition is a growing concern for many the firms across various sectors in different corners of the world but today the pain is felt more in India. This bruise gets highlighted more in an Indian context because of the growing gap between the growing economy and the engines which are partners in this ride to deliver. Because of employee attrition few initiatives are put on the back burner. The HR managers are having a tough time locating a suitable replacement with required experience and ability, to fill up the vacancies created on account of exit of key employees.

The points that I mention here as to why employees, especially new joinees leave the firm, a little after the embryonic stage of their job career cycle are from what I have seen in the real world corporate dynamics, heard about experiences from friends and few from the learnings and readings from various articles, journals and blogposts. These points are mostly centered around those who have spent their time and energy in the industry (mostly IT/Tech/Tech Services/Engineering) from a range of one year to four years after their graduation from an engineering school or a technical institute. Even few of the points apply to those who don a much higher number of years experience hat. The points mentioned below are not in any order of significance or priority and is just a compendium of views.

1. Opportunities available: The present economy has opened up the doors of opportunities. If a person is skilled, smart and is an inventory of ideas, s/he is like an appetizing cake, waiting for the market to react. Present day progressive forward looking youth aspire to see their career advancement as well as improvement in his financial earnings in the shortest possible time. Demand for smart talent is always there, so when an individual doesn't find his/her present place of work to offer a hotfooting atmosphere, there are other avenues to explore may be in another firm, a start-up or a similar place.

Thanks to his own ambition, and to the Indian outsourcing boom, he escaped. He gained admission to the best engineering school in India, then landed a job that he could hardly have dreamed of as a child: writing software for Oracle, the U.S. technology giant.

"I fell in love," he said, recalling his first visit to Oracle's campus in Bangalore.

But Jain's zest eventually fizzled under the repetitive rigors of the Indian back office. So he did what a parade of burned-out functionaries in Bangalore have begun doing: He quit outsourcing to create his own start-up - in his case, designing cellphone software that blocks calls from telemarketers.

2. Incorrect picture painted in campus placement talks: Many global firms work as different legal entities/operating units but under one global brand umbrella in India. To make things clear, let’s take a fictitious firm 'Desicritics Corp', which has under it many legal entities such as ' Desicritics R&D Center', ' Desicritics Software Services Center', ' Desicritics Consulting Team', ' Desicritics Technologies', etc. In most campus placements, ' Desicritics' would go as a single team for hiring but the offer letters are delivered by the different groups under its canopy. To a campus recruit, who is not aware of all these internal corporate crosswords everything appears to be the same. But after working in the industry for a year or two, when s/he realizes that s/he was offered a cozen pill, looking for opportunities elsewhere is the most pragmatic option.

3. Big names don’t matter much anymore: Today big brands in job market do not draw as much awe as it used to few years back. Big names are subtly occupying increasingly lower positions in a candidate's priority list. Individuals are perfectly fine working with small and mid tier firms because it's a known fact that sometimes the biggies cannot match the salaries offered by successful second-rung companies which functions to an extent on a start up blueprint. More so many big firms have even now withdrawn ESOPs, which were the main draw a few years ago. In contrast smaller companies are able to offer profit-sharing plans, interesting projects and more responsibility at an early stage in the candidate's career. This is like a ready made dish for a candidate working in a big firm shrouded with global policies, indefinite/infinite processes, layers of politics, and most important lack of visibility in a big crowd.

In just 3 short years, the world has changed. When I wrote this column for rediff.com in June 2004, it was still a big deal to join one of the Big Five. Except, perhaps at an IIT.

With the rising aspirations of fresh grads the same jobs have lost their sheen. The net has to be spread wider and wider, to tier 2 and tier 3 colleges, which would not be on the recruitment map at all a couple of years ago.

At a lesser known college it is a matter of pride that 'Infosys picked up 6 students'. The feeling is that of having 'arrived'.

But next year when 60 join, and then 100, the same 'we are being recruited like alu and pyaaz' feeling sets in.

Bottom line is: 'Aapne kaam se maatlab raakho, yeh big brand maain rakha kya hai'.

4. Company and personal goals clash: Many of the smart recruits in many local and global firms are hired through campus placements in engineering schools during the pre-final year days. Placement talks are like major brand shows and each of the hiring firms tries to outshine others in the fray by attractive presentations in diverse formats. Company goals and visions are put forward to candidates and these tastes like the best recipes to accelerate one's career. The message that is sent is: 'With the company's goals, all measures are taken for an employee's personal development also'. I am not denying the fact that there are companies who do orchestrate company's goals and employees' personal goals but the number is less. Come to the work place, the real world is not that hunky dory. This is completely out of phase, of WYWPIWYG assurance (what-you-were-promised-is-what-you-get). In short most of the cases of attrition thrive on the thread that firms place their priorities ahead of employees' goals, without understanding the employees' basic aspirations resulting in friction.

Although their HR depts claim that they have systems which ensure a smooth induction, training and deployment onto projects that isn't quite the case for everyone.

An interesting post related to this ishere.

5. Change in mindset, among individuals and society: Gone are the days, when one stuck to a job even though it was not satisfying, solely on grounds of monetary benefits. The present young generation wants money, no doubt about that, but it's just not money, it has to be enwrapped with stimulating job assignments and responsibilities that tickles one’s tastes. More often than not, the most heard verdict among individuals is.

Besides, they soon learn, the job is not really about programming at all... One such dude sums up the average IT career path on a Pagalguy forum:

There is not much of a ladder is S/W industry as such. For most life is quite typical. One or two years in a company. Then a chance to go onsite and see some money. Then back home. Another 2 years and then one becomes an analyst and after 5-6 years, a manager. And your engineering branch is the last thing that would matter here.

Even parents and family members, do not evaluate much when they realize that their children are not very happy with their professions and wish to pursue something that is completely out-of-the-box and divergent to their present occupations. These parents stand as pillars supporting their individuals realize their dreams. I know of few people who have left their regular 9 to 5 jobs in tech firms to work full-time for a NGO, to practice as a freelance photographer, to run a restaurant, etc. The attrition resulting from this is miniscule but it is happening these days. This case is more like pre-caution is better than cure. So when one realizes that s/he had boarded an in-correct ship that would never reach the destination s/he had sculpted in their mind, so better get down in the initial phase before it’s too late.

6. Higher studies plan: A sizeable number of campus recruits move to the U.S. or other countries to pursue higher studies and explore more attractive career opportunities after working in the industry for a year or two after their graduation. They form a small pool of the attrition camp. Few go abroad for their Masters degree, few for their PhDs and few others stretch their stay in India to apply later for an MBA program abroad later. It's not that foreign lands are the only destinations, these days many prefer to go for a Masters program in the IISc, IITs, NITs, or even BITS in the engineering and tech stream and to the coveted IIMs and other top ranked B-Schools after clearing the CAT in the domain of business management. Even ISB with its global tag in business education along with many other private schools in India partnered with other western schools of Business Management is an irresistible destination for many who wish to put their lives on a fast track road. Every year just before the admission season, many managers wait dumbfounded to see how many of the ambitious wickets would fall.

7. Manager-employee Relationship: A smart manager is one who can understand the aspirations of his/her employee and can harness the true capabilities and potentialities to the last drop, brusquely pointing the areas of improvement among the team members. Now that appears as a picturesque and cheeky definition never to be realized in reality because a greater chunk of IT related work in India is service and maintenance oriented, which in turn is purely dependent on margins and numbers. More often than ever, a manager can't do justice to both numbers and fulfilling aspirations and finds him/her self in a Catch-22 situation. For some inflammation or misunderstanding arising at work, involving the manager and employee, mostly the bosses chalk up the tension to a personality clash. There is a tendency, according to management experts, to think that personality is the cause of organizational discord rather than perhaps an effect of it.

Ben Dattner, an associate at Dattner Consulting executive coaching firm, believes that personality conflict might be a symptom of a larger organizational issue. "When I work with my clients, I often try to get them to see how it is not just a conflict between two people. I try to get them to see that it is also potentially a conflict between two visions, two agendas, two constituencies or two visions for the future."

The most applied remedy in this case by young employees is to nip off the problem at its root, just leave the job and find a job elsewhere that suits to one's personal liking in most aspects. Quite a number of exits happen in many firms because of the above mentioned reason.

8. Team one works for: Fresh out of engineering schools, many graduates have a swelled head for being a product from a top school in India. This is very much human and expected behavioral pattern that this crowd aspires to be a part of best of the available work/assignments in any organization in the initial days of his/her career. But since most of the IT industry in India is doused in services and maintenance layer of the entire business cycle as stated in Point. 7, easy to follow processes are defined to streamline the execution segment with élan and efficiency. After doing the same work in repetitive cycles, it's no rocket science and even a normal graduate can tackle that in the most cost effective way without necessitating the presence of smart engineers who demand higher pay checks for the same job.

This air of exclusivity and clannishness lingers in the minds of many for the initial few years. Unfortunately if they happen to belong to a team that is of a different clan/tribe than their's in many vistas, they connect with their friends and settle in zones that match their bandwidth. A sizeable number of exits in many firms fall under this category.

As I mentioned here, the points stated above are my personal views and are collected from various sources. This is definitely not intended on any organization, firm, group or for that matter anybody and everybody. This is an open post and would love to hear other diverse views, if you have any.

In Traffic: Window With Many Views

Tanay Behera — Sun, 25 May 2008 14:00:13 EDT

The mini-bus comes to sudden stop and I along with few of my colleagues board the bus, which would ply to my destination about 5 kilometres from where I reside. The day has just started and it's 8:30 A.M. and the roads are already gridlocked.

Congested roadways mean we spend hell lot of hours in traffic. Some newspaper reporter or township planning consultant would equate the lost hours in traffic to the surpassing loss of fuel, not to mention environmental damage. In fact each one of us have read endless stories on these topics, the infrastructure problems, and the few resolutions floated by citizen forums to curb this menace, being well aware that governmental action takes years to mature.

I am not going to repeat those chronicles again. This is my personal view from what I have seen, most of the people who quetch about traffic issues are master preachers. This should be done, doing things in that way would make the traffic flow seamlessly but those are the very same people who break the traffic rules, take a left turn when the small hoarding right in front says, 'No Left'. The same set of people who profess that there is lot of pollution in the environment, are generally the ones who proudly own more than one fuel-guzzling vehicle and this is rigidly coupled with the environment contamination issues.

You know this, I know this and we all know this. So let's leave the chapter closed here.

What I like the most during my short long commute by bus is the colors, the multifariousness, the disparities that I see. The society, the changing dynamics of the economy, the emotions in action are the dominant players in this movie called 'The Race'.

Driving in city traffic does not involve a great deal of concentration because we are going through a route we have traversed before more than 10 times at least and our minds are sort of automated to the flurry of external factors. But is it as smooth as it sounds in my words here? Definitely, no.

Road rage and the sudden proliferation of irrational drivers are the prime traffic tremor creators. I feel that keeping aside the infrastructure shortcomings, most traffic jams aren't the result of an accident or a breakdown. The best place to show a child the dynamics of chain reaction is a busy traffic jam.

I guess you are laughing now, or saying that I have gone crazy but tell me the truth have you encountered the following or not.

A driver reacts to another driver, more out of ego, disrespect for others, and non-acceptance of one's own fault than anything else. Imagine you are fiddling with the music player in your car, and unknowingly you get close to the car in front. Damn, you hit the brakes, but it's a bit too late.

This small mistake can make a queue of vehicles for miles and one gets to hear the blaring sounds of horns from vehicles. Now if the two people involved in the minor mishap would have behaved with a small pinch of maturity, by bringing both the cars to the side from the main path and then got into an argument or verbal tussle, then the traffic would have coursed smoothly.

So too, a single erratic vehicle can trigger feedback effects that push the entire system into a state of stand stillness often denying passage for emergency passengers on the road such as a loaded cab plying to the airport or an ambulance transporting a patient to a specialized hospital in another corner of the city.

How can you be on the road and miss the ubiquitous auto rickshaws? Often known for charging more than the accepted rates, I can see from my bus, an auto rickshaw driver bargaining with a lady, with one hand bent down with the laptop bag and the other carrying the lunch box, rushing to her workplace.

'Madam, traffic jam, madam one and half.'

The lady finally agrees and the three-wheeled speed demon snakes its way through bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Suddenly my eyes catch a glimpse of some of the most adept multi-taskers and acrobats. True to the punchline of Hutch Telecom Services, which goes as 'Wherever you go our network follows', I find many people on bikes and on cars uttering, blabbing and talking on their mobile handsets, completely oblivious of the outside cacophony.

I also get to see the benign material side of India's growing economy. After more decades of socialist deprivation, when consumer goods were so limited, today I see the latest models in gadgets right from my bus window. Laptops with plug in data cards for connectivity to the internet even when in transit, Blackberries synced with office e-mail boxes pumping in messages, iPhones, iPods playing music are no longer scenes restricted to the western world. I see these panoramas amidst traffic.

Earlier seen only on weekends, now seven days a week is their new schedule. I am referring to eunuchs in their usual makeup and sari. Clapping their hands and tapping the closed windows of the cars/jeeps if they are closed asking for money is a usual sight. Those in bikes and auto rickshaws pass a one- or two-rupee coin to the eunuchs immediately to avoid being hassled. Today such coins have lost value in general and the eunuchs at times turn aggressive when the amount tendered to them is less than five rupees.

I see, a long 'Q' of cars with the stickers of various MNC firms on the rear glass, generally on one corner. A few small kids tap the rolled-up windows asking for a rupee, probably that would buy them a few peanuts or half a cup of tea.

Suddenly, a few bikes driven by handsome boys carrying their helmets, their stylish girlfriends as pillion riders, dressed in thin sweaters over tights, short boots, high heeled boots, scarves tied snappily around their necks zip-zap-zoom past my bus. Just then I lift my head to see, a new billboard, sporting the flamboyant Vijay Mallaya and it has a catchy punchline 'King of Good Times'.

Right next to the billboard stands a mother, bony thin who carries a child in a thick blanket wrapped around her waist. The matted hair of the child has a dull look and the mother stares at another lady sitting inside an air-conditioned car pampering her maybe 5-year-old kid with fresh fruits for breakfast.

You, I and everyone else feel good that India is in on a rapid economic transformation ride but for a few, life seems very much the same. The mother with her kid now shifts towards the new shopping arcade, hoping that someone would give her an amount that would feed her and her kid for the day. But no luck as the city's rich and nouveau either spent their money buying Parisian lingerie, Swarovski crystals, FCUK apparel, flat-screen TVs, Virgin mobiles, Calvin Klein jeans, DVD players, digi-cams, and more and more and more. Or they are just not bothered.

My mind has been wandering across these various boulevards, intermittently flipping through the pages of 'In Spite of the Gods', tapping the window pane of the bus, suddenly to realize that the vehicle has come to a stop and it's time for me to enter a classy office corridor.

Now this is an interesting news item I read recently as to how the Royal Thai Traffic Police trained 145 of its officers in basic midwifery. The reasons were to help newborn kids needing help when stuck in traffic with their parents and to assist pregnant ladies to deliver in traffic.

So next time onwards, don't crib when you are stuck in traffic. Keep your eyes open and I can assure you a wide kaleidoscope of human emotions, expressions and behavioral patterns to view.

Photo Essay: Sunfeast World 10K Run

Tanay Behera — Tue, 20 May 2008 01:15:50 EDT

For a moment forget the regular kvetching that one hears in various sources of news and media regarding Bangalore's woeful infrastructure issues. Keeping aside all these daily resentments, everyone rushed to the Kanteerva Stadium on a bright Sunday morning.

But what for? To be a part of the Sunfeast World 10K run, this is an international annual event, and was organized in India for the first time. The Sunfeast World 10K was touted as the richest 10K runs with total prize money of 150,000 USD up for grabs.

The event comprised of six races: World 10K Elite Men, World 10K Elite Women, Senior Citizens run (4 KM), Wheelchair event (4 KM), Open 10K Run and Majja Run (5.7 KM). Since the event was slotted between 6AM and 10:30AM, the city police authorities had made punctilious plans for minimal diversion of traffic during the four-hour marathon which saw active participation of around 20,000 people.

When I reached the spot around 7:30AM, preparations were in full swing for the Senior Citizens run which saw an impressive crowd of 700 plus participants. Most of senior citizens were aged above 60 but the energy and the exuberance that they displayed, quashed the roar of helicopters circling the stadium. Harmony, an NGO organized the senior citizens run. Each of the participants was given a T-shirt by Harmony and once they were dressed, there was a wave of uniformity at the starting point, very similar to a sight when children assemble in schools for morning prayer before classes commence. The highlight of this race was the high energy level of the senior citizens making them feel as if they were still in their teens. Jokes were cracked, few laughs were shared and there was an infectious air of camaraderie among these people who came not only from Bangalore but also from different parts of India.

Oprah Winfrey once said running is the greatest metaphor for life, because you get out of it what you put into it. This was the kind of perseverance exhibited by a group of steel-willed people. Braving the heat and the dust, the handicapped persons maneuvered their wheel chairs, reflecting the true spirit of participation.

Suddenly the action shifted to inside the stadium because the World 10K Elite Men/Women had entered the final stage. In a closely contested run, Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea bagged the 1,50,000 US Dollar Sunfeast World 10K title by completing the marathon in 27:51 seconds just three seconds ahead of his rival Moses Kipsiro of Uganda. The women’s section witnessed the rarest of rare photo finishes in any 10k run, with both Grace Momanyi of Kenya and Elevan Abeylegesse of Turkey, declared joint winners. The complete results can be seen here.

There was cut throat competition in the Open 10K run which had large groups of amateur runners, trying their level best to live up to their own expectations. Few ran, few jogged and rest others just walked in the spirit of sport.

Everyone was indeed up and running. It was a place where the east met the west while running.

The most delightful aspect was to see each one run irrespective of caste, creed, color, religion, sex, age, language, region, etc.

There was one single motive to be a part of the excitement and ebullience.

The Majja Run as the name signifies (majja means fun) merriment was the epicenter of frolic and liveliness. Though the distance to be covered for this particular race was only 5.7 kms, what separated this one from the others were the variety and the diversity. There were runners turning up in varied costumes with powerful messages, banners and placards.

Few celebrities like Dino Morea, Rahul Bose, Charu Sharma and Vijay Amritraj had the crowd screeching as they made their appearance for the Majja Run. Everything here resembled a mini-carnival and fancy dress competition. Girls with different attention-getting dresses very much like the Indianized version of IPL cheerleaders attire.

Someone even put on special clothes to appear princely, like the mighty Tipu Sultan.

The one that surpassed every other costume in terms of ingenuity and colorations was the Ravana attire. Participants were pulled in towards this individual dressed as Ravana to take a few snaps in the midst of the race.

There were lots of groups and voluntary associations such as Parikrma, Harmony and others who all came under one umbrella 'Bangalore Cares'. This aggroup participated in the race for a number of causes such as children welfare, greener and pollution free Bangalore, togetherness, etc.

How can an event of such extensive magnitude and variety happen without the support from corporate and business sponsors and advertisers? Well of course there were some sponsors from a wide spectrum. DHL was the logistics partner and it participated in big numbers, with few of the team members having flown from Mumbai. To name a few, Nike was the running partner, Kingfisher, the airline partner, Radio Mirchi as the radio partner, Manipal Cure and Care, as the medical and health partner, etc who passionately supported the cause and diversity of the World 10K experience. Steve Young, General Manager, Nike Inc., Asia Pacific Region, had flown in from Portland, U.S., to participate in the Sunfeast World 10K run. CNBC-TV18 was media partner and it brought the event live to millions of Indians on that day, to the television sets from 7AM onwards, along with a potpourri of other coverages and programmes related to this the event.

All in all, it was a well organized event with got an equally receptive reactions from all those who participated for this run. This race put Bangalore in the map of conducting with dynamism and zings a global marathon. More so, it was a testimony to the fact that multiple goals can be achieved through sports and citizen’s active participation and above all how sports are a social leveler.

In this huge ocean of human beings, I could see some human faces which pulled my attention like a magnet pulls pieces of iron. There was this elderly woman selling ground nuts who was a bit perplexed to see a sea of people just running, a very new site from what sees in her day to day life.

This man was also confused to see this sudden wave of sneaker lovers on an otherwise traffic struck road.

But one of the most satisfying moment in this entire event running with my camera was to capture this bubbly toddler, who had come with her dad and brother (if you can see, the young brother is just hidden from the father) to be a part of this race. She was giving poses which to me meant, 'Daddy isn’t allowing me to run or crawl this year, well next year I would be there to tip toe with other people'. That's a smart and emotionally charged expression, so I and my fellow Bangaloreans would wait for you, sunshine girl, till we meet again.

The rest of the pictures are in this album.

Photo Essay: Tramway Trek in Parambikulam

Tanay Behera — Thu, 1 May 2008 09:15:59 EDT

I had to cover close to 50 kms in two days, trekking thorough one of the best biodiversity hotspots in India. Can I do this or I can't, a cloud of incertitude eclipsed my mind. With this dubiety kicking in mind, I boarded the bus a late Friday night after the day’s work hoping that the weekend would end up with some exciting experiences.

The next day morning, I woke up as the bus stopped in search of the correct route when we reached Pollachi. While we were motoring along the road planked on both sides by trees, I could see big billboards of Jayalalitha and Karunanidhi which confirmed my curiosity that we were in Tamil Nadu.

But we were going for trek in the forests of Parambikulam which is in Kerala. The puzzle got resolved when I learnt that the only entrance to this wildlife sanctuary is through the Annamalai Wildlife sanctuary which is in Tamil Nadu. We paid all the necessary fees at the check post to get into the sanctuary and the sky appeared a bit cloudy that day.

Along with few others, I was going to start my trek which is commonly known by the name 'Tramway Trek'. There is a little bit of history to this which says...

The tramway was set up in 1905 under the visionary of Maharaja of Cochin Sri. Rama Varma to transport Cochin teak from Parambikulam to Chalakkudy. From there it could be exported to the rest of the world thorough the Cochin Harbour. The total stretch of this tramway is close to 49.5 miles running through the thick forest, crossing many rivers and the time taken to cover this distance was 9 hours. It was around 1953 that this tramway was stopped for a number of reasons.

All that remains today are the remnants in the form of rails, bridges, wagons, etc. A couple of years back as a befitting tribute to the centenary of the Cochin State Forest Tramway, an eco-friendly trekking plan was launched along the tumbled down tramway route. The foot trail along this rail trail will give an opportunity to see the remainders of bygone days of the transport system, besides seeing hundreds of birds and animals including tiger, elephant, sambhar, spotted deer, sloth bear, porcupine etc.

This is one of the best managed wildlife sanctuaries in India.

The bus took all the trekkers near the gate of the Parambikulam Dam, which was the starting point of our trek. From the bus, what we saw were a pleasure to eyes, peacocks dancing in the woods and spotted deer milling around.

The route offered some fresh sites that made me indulge in fantasy as if someone was using the river water bed as a mirror to teach the basics of reflection.

The trek started at around 10AM and by now the sun was shining bright and smart. The entire trek course was along the river and it was amazingly beautiful.

Since, the initial trek path is flat and regular, I was looking for some excitement and it was just the right time that our guide showed us a herd of elephants near the river bank. After drinking water and cleaning themselves, the elephants moved towards the trek route and this was an ultimate moment of excitement. These colossal creatures were just 60 meters away from the group. We were all lying on the forest’s leaves carpeted floor like soldiers in a war field and I positioned my camera lying down to get a perfect composition. People wearing white shirts and caps immediately put on something non-white because elephants react aggressively to white color. We were resting on the forest floor with pin drop silence, except for the sound of the birds chirping in the woods and the crackling sound that one gets when walking over a bed of dry leaves till the gang of elephants and calves (total number was around 15) passed by.

It was 11:30 AM by then. Our guide told us that, we could catch some more wild actions since this was the time when a bunch of tigers would plunge into the river for some coolness. Hope ran high, but we couldn’t trace them. But we spotted few crews of deer and sambhar, but these species being a sensitive lot, vanished when they encountered a foreign element in their territory.

The gang reached a small tribal colony in the midst of the forest at around 1:30 in the noon for a small break after having trekked for around 10kms. The entranceway to the tribal colony was a bridge across the Kuriakutty River. The bridge though not in operation, still stands intact and the rail line snakes through some thrilling landscape.

Lunch was served to us by the tribal people, which comprised of simple rice, sambar and cabbage fry dished out in dry leaf plates. The food provided the much needed energy and the journey started again. The dry forest was slowly given way to dense evergreen forests.

En route, we traced many birds such as grey hornbills, the great pied hornbills, etc. Also I found some snake's outer skin, hanging from the branch of a tree.

As I was trekking through this abode of greenery, a lot of emotions swam through my mind. And one needs to be in such a secluded place to feel vulnerable to the wild, exhilarated, beatified, commoved, expectant, anticipative, disappointed and happy at the same time. There was exquisite greenery all around with no presence of human beings and I was walking alone with music on my ears courtesy my iPod. It just appeared that the road ahead was never ending.

It was around 5 PM in that we reached the endpoint of day one trekking. The night stay was in an anti poaching camp at Muthuvarachal right next to the flowing river at an elevated altitude. Just imagine the excitement, when someone is there in the dense forest, with the only source of light as either the moon-light or the candle light. Insects creaking and mosquitos' bombinating to attack were the only sounds that one could hear. Even though this camp was at a raised tract, surrounded by trenches, there were still chances of tracing some wild animals in the pitch dark.

We had dinner, which was boiled rice and legumes again courtesy, our tribal friends. We woke early in the morning the next day at around 6 AM and set out for a walk. The jungle was fresh with the earthy smells of the morning. Strolling through the luxuriant vegetation, we saw some pugmarks of a leopard and marks left when the prey was dragged over the dampish soul.

We returned from our morning jaunt and had our breakfast at around 9AM. Then we started for our return journey which lacked verve and we planned to trek till lunch time. As I trekked I could see lots of 'manchans' (tree-top houses) but the most interesting finding was a bird studying center in the heart of the forest. This unit is built in the honor of late Dr. Salim Ali, a renowned ornithologist who had found more than 100 species of birds, traveling on the tram way route.

I saw a wide variety of insects, frogs and other creatures during my return journey. It was around 2PM that, we all had lunch in the same tribal colony, where we had food the previous day. Since we were drained out of energy, our guide asked us to take the Tempo traveler else it wouldn't have been possible for us to leave the forest by 6PM.

As the vehicle was traversing through the bends and the curves of Western Ghats, the scene of the Parambikulam dam was breathtaking from a higher altitude. The next break point was to see the largest and the oldest (as it is close to 450 years now) teak tree in the world, Kannimara Teak. Parambikulam was once home to some of South India’s finest stands of teak but most of these are now replaced by teak plantations, which cover around 9000 hectares of forest land.

We saw a couple of monkeys, lion-tailed macaques, Indian Gaurs too from the Tempo traveler. By now it was 6PM and the return journey to Bangalore started. We made a couple of stops on the way back for dinner and for having tea from road side stalls and before we could realize, we were back in the concrete jungle by 4:30 AM.

Since I was tired, I took some rest before the grumbling and groaning Monday work started, unwilling to let go of the endearing and striking Sunday. Monday, I had a business meeting in the Taj Hotel at Bangalore, and then when I was having lunch there in the neatly manicured gardens, it just reminded me, how life changes suddenly. Just 24 hours ago, I was in the woods having food in a tribal colony and now I am in a restaurant, with a great assortment of cuisines.

Well that's how life is. Take it as it comes.

The remaining pictures of the trek are here in this album.

The Common Man

Tanay Behera — Mon, 7 Apr 2008 10:23:57 EDT

'Whatever I make must be affordable to the common man'. These were the words of Chinni Krishnan who is acknowledged as the father of the sachet revolution in India.

But who is the common man?

Is he the fictitious character which R.K.Laxman, created that has decorated the Times of India's front page even before I was born. A man in his puckered dhoti and a checked shirt, ever silent yet always representative of the hopes, aspirations, troubles, achievements, strengths, weaknesses and idiosyncrasies of an average India.

Or

Is he is part of the crowd that is today most sought after by the various engines of India's burgeoning economy. A 'Nano' car for the common man, 'Nokia' mobiles for the common man, 'Simputer', the computer for the common man, 'Air Deccan', the common man's airline, etc.

Or

Is he the one who is today fading in the shadows of anonymity? Someone lost in this world of consumerism and inflation, hunted down by the agents of power and prestige, someone who puts his sweat for his daily bread, but whose voice is on the fringe of decision making circles.

Replies to this simple question: 'Who is the common man?' was the theme of an interactive play, 'The Common Man' by the Yours Truly team, that I attended a couple of days back at Rangashankara in Bangalore.

Before we proceed, let me tell you, why this was tagged as 'interactive' play. The plot of the story would flow for a while and then it stops abruptly in the midway. Then the audience is asked to weave its viewpoints to end the chronicle. Opinions are then stitched to end the story, after which the actors complete the ending as given to them by the audience.

The story begins with the birth of a common man who like you and me attends school, becomes ardent follower of rote learning, graduates from an average college, gets married, has a regular job and runs his family. All these stages are 'ordinary' and 'common' and is very much a part of the social fabric that surrounds us.

In this portrayal of daily life and its interconnected parts, the artists on stage covered a kaleidoscope of events. To cite a few are, the regular neighborhood scuffle, the incursion of mobiles into each and every aspect of our lives, traffic jams, etc. The common man works in an office among some smart IIT-IIM educated graduates, believes hard work and honesty as priceless tenets only to realize one day that the 'Best Employee' award is feted to someone always kowtowing to his boss. The common man witnesses tinges of city life and wants to be a part of that lifestyle, but his meagre pay cheque throttles his inclinations. The dark irrational blocks of thought acting like a corrosive fluid had destroyed the way he looked at life. As time passes by his only child grows, is educated and is married to a girl who prefers to be a part of the apartment culture, rather than stay with the in-laws. In short, the plot swinging between modernity and bumpkinly, clouds the common man in state of confusion.

For someone, part of a herd known for slow cooking and eating leisurely, adjusting to a microwave cookware generation is not easy. The common man finds himself in such a situation.

Life goes on and everything moves on the regular way.

One day while returning from work, something unusual and not so ordinary thing happens. Out of the blues, the common man is selected to appear on a TV interview.

Stop stop stop, the story comes to a sudden halt here.

Will the common man come on TV interview? If yes, why? Will he speak and if he does, what will he speak? This opened a train a questions, the answers to which was provided by a potpourri of views by the audience. An air of camaraderie engulfed the auditorium as comments bounced back and forth among the viewers before tailoring the final plot. It took about twenty minutes to complete this exercise.

The performers were sitting on the stage and listening as the plot was knit. They were back again on action without any rehearsal once the final plot was decided.

The common man attends the TV interview and for the first time in the play, he opens his mouth and speaks out. He becomes a small time celebrity, an unheralded change from his previous image of a common man. Few in the society look upto him with awe, offer him regards and perfunctory politeness. The common man is still the same person as he was, before metamorphosis to his new stature to his family members and a handful of his relatives. Some things change for good, some remain as it was before, but the inner soul of the common man is still in turmoil, in civil war. One fine day, he breaks free from the monotony of life and ventures into a secluded place where he can find peace. Shaky but much better perched, the common man starts writing his autobiography highlighting the traumas, the annoyances, the triumphs, the frictions, etc. A dozen different scenarios all fleshed out in considerable detail.

Then there is a brief silence. The common man cries like a child and says, 'time goes fast and yet it is so dull here and all he wants is to be the same common man and lead his life the common way'.

The play ends.

All these scenes were played on stage with the effective usage of light and gestures, without any props. The only accessories that were used were a few colored dupattas and a bunch of umbrellas. The performers on stage made good use of tingling umbrellas which when used in a bunch symbolized the vexations that crossed the common man’s mind.

The sudden appearance of the common man in a TV interview was a symbolic representation of reality programming that has put the viewers at the heart of a transformation. A transformation that is allowing a few to attain the 'megastar' status, leaving rest others as small time celebrities who are tickled for a short while to be left on their own to struggle later. This was my interpretation.

The team was definitely enjoying while performing on stage as the audience could feel the flow of energy and enthusiasm in a palpable wave. The play was written by Nandini Rao and was directed by Nandini Rao and Ranji. The young cast consisted of Amit Agarwal, Amrutha Varshini, Gaurav Gupta, Karan Shah, Nandini Rao, Pramod Nair, Radhika Mehra, and Sumit Acharya. There was no elaborate settings for music too. The background music was through a keyboard played by Vasanth Mohanraj and few songs that garnished the play were by Gaurav Hombali.

All in all a good performance that all the more made an otherwise ordinary evening stuck in traffic, more pleasant.

Photo Essay: Athirapally Falls, Kerala

Tanay Behera — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 09:42:42 EST

At last, I am on a train to Kerala, where I am heading to attend a friend's marriage. During the long night journey, traveling in a second class sleeper compartment of the Indian Railways, sleep is difficult to procure. I sit by the window, and just take count of the invisible sights in the dark that pass by as the train races. Meanwhile, I didn't realize time passing, and fell asleep amidst mild rain that poured through the window railings provided the natural coolness.

Finally at around 4 A.M. early in the morning, the train reaches Thrissur a town in the coastal state of Kerala. From the station, I ply on a local bus to reach another small town Chalakudy. The early morning freshness and the luxuriant tropical scenery which unfolds as the bus speeds towards the destination, afford me perpetual delight. The sight of houses, palisaded by shady coconut trees, and plantain trees is in sharp contrast to the apartments that I see in my daily life where greenery in such expanse is a rare sight.

At around 8 A.M., after having my breakfast (idli, vada, sambar and coffee), I head towards Athirapally Waterfalls, located at the entrance to Sholayar ranges which is about 35 kms from Chalakudy. The journey to this place, traversing curvy tracks, throws some spectacular views of the valley, intertwined with lush green forest cover of Western Ghats and sizzling silver cascades. Though, I learnt from the locals that monsoon is the best time, to be here, this off-season visit was nevertheless gratifying.

Once one reaches the spot, one can see the source of the waterfall, before it plunges down with vigor.

To enjoy the waterfall at its very best, I walked across the riparian forests to reach the foot of the falls with my minimal mountaineering skills. The journey was a bit tiring, but the pleasant breeze revived me. As I stopped at regular intervals, I was able to locate some forest houses amidst the greenery which are maintained by the tourist department to attract visitors.

The breeze stirs a row of trees which line the entire stretch from the top till the foot of the waterfall. The further I walk down, the more incredible sights opens up before me.

The ground around is covered with virgin bush, sometimes thickly overgrown. The cacophony of birds chirping in the woods gets diluted as I descend further down only to hear the roaring sound of the water as it dips with force. The enduring landscape reveals nature in all her own raw grandeur. There were families of grey and brown monkeys around jumping across the clumps of trees and garden chameleons too.

There were hardly any people at the foot of the fall, though there were some security men guarding this area. The air was covered in mist and visibility was hindered to take many photographs, as the tiny droplets carried by the wind just settled on the lens of my camera. I settle under a rock, and watch this inexplicable performance of the nature as the water falls down this 150 foot cliff, with a standing puzzle. (Please be careful, if you go down, as the area is bit slippery and the best way to be here is barefeet.)

The quiet ripple of the waves came to my ears. It is pleasant to catch the tang of a faint breeze which blows and carries with it tiny droplets, as if someone is using a water sprayer. The waves in force appear like liquid sapphire.

After spending a couple of hours near the base of the fall, I made my return trip to reach the top again, traversing the same path that I followed for downhill trek. Once I settle near the top, I was completely exhausted and was hankering for some water or a cool drink. There was a humble soul who was busy constructing, a roof with leaves, who rushed down, seeing a visitor near his make-shift stall and offered me two tender coconuts.

After I feel a bit energetic, after sipping two tender coconuts, I board the bus that would take me back to Chalakudy. As the bus journeys through the valley, the hills vanish behind in the curtains of the forest. The sound of the water pouring, gurgling and trickling diminishes and all I can see from the window of the bus, are few streams which run as brown as Indian Railways tea.

Places, people, insights, colors and above all experiences. All these sum up what traveling is all about, don't you think?