Coffee Cup Stories

At last the trip came true. It was a wonderful experience throughtout the trip. Venu organized the trip very well. To tell a summary about the trip, it was a 5 day trip, Nov 18th thru 22nd.
The plan of the trip was:
18th Morning (Saturday) – Amritsar
18th Night – Stay at Chandigarh (Venu’s house)
19th Morning (Sunday) – Shimla
19th Evening – Shimla to Manali
20th Morning (Monday ) – Manali & Stay there for one Day
21st Morning (Tuesday) – Leave to Chandigarh from Manali (A Beautiful Day Journey) 21st Night – Leave to Agra from Chandigarh
22nd Morning (Wednesday) – Agra
22nd Afternoon @ around 1:00 PM – From Agra To Delhi
And catch flights to respective places.

The details of the distance:
From                     To                 Distance (KMs)
Chandigarh         New Delhi            238
Chandigarh         Amritsar               217
Chandigarh         Shimla                  260
Shimla                Manali                  170
Manali                Chandigarh           320
Agra                   New Delhi            203

Route:
Chandigarh – Amritsar – Chandigarh – Shimla – Manali – Chandigarh – Agra – Delhi

Photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sameerkumarkaushik

Team:
Arun Mune Gowda, Kaushik, Preetham R, Remus, Venu, Vijay, Uday.

PS: if you have any plans of going to Chandigarh and plan for a cab, I would definetly suggest you to ask for the driver we booked for. He is Mr. Sukhdev. He is very humble, friendly and can get good cab for a very reasonable price. Contact no: 0981536936, 09814601574.

This was one of very funny mail forwards I got, whom shall I give credit to ?.

How to answer the usual questions asked of Indians to help the new wave of incoming migrants from India, here are the proper answers to awkward questions asked everyday:  

Q. What does that red dot on women’s forehead mean?

A. Well, in ancient times, Indian men used to practice archery skills by target practicing by aiming at their wife’s red dot. In fact, that is one of the reasons why they had many wives. You see, once they mastered the art of archery and hit the target….  

Q. You’re from India? I have read so much about the country. All the wonderful places, the forests, the snake charmers, the elephants.  Do you still use elephants for transportation?  

A. Absolutely. In fact we used to have our own elephant in our house. But later, we started participating in elephant-ride sharing schemes with our neighbors, to save the air. You see elephants have an “emissions” problem…..  

Q. Does India have cars?

 A. No. We ride elephants to work. The government is trying to encourage ride-sharing schemes.  

Q. Does India have TV?

A. No. We only have cable.  

Q. Are all Indians vegetarian?

 A. Yes. Even tigers are vegetarian in India.  

Q. How come you speak English so well? (more…)

Any trip or trek is the outcome of someone getting bored in life, or someone being overcome by a sudden bout of enthusiasm to catch up with old friends or overcome by the spirit of adventure!!!

Looking back, in our case I think it was a combination of all the  three. It all started with that phone call to dileep. It was nearly 2 years since we passed out of college, all of us hadn’t met together, moreover we had had this plan of going to KP when we were in college only, but it hadn’t materialized for any reason whatsoever, so why not go now??? Dileep was as usual ready, the problem was in finding out if others were equally eager.. So started a spate of phone calls… kaushik, bachodi, laxmi and brijesh. The results were very surprising.. None of them had any work that weekend except for brijesh who said he would inform us later on his availability… Next issues was there weren’t enough girls.. So whom do we catch hold of? The obvious answer was latha!!! One phone call n as luck had decided to favour, even she was available!!! Brijesh had to drop out and was replaced by mukund who I must say has an amazing sense of humor… U just have to talk n each line is met with hilarious retorts!!!!!!!

Latha, dileep n I started from Bangalore on Friday, i.e., March 18th night. We had got seats in the last row of the bus, the journey was very bumpy and by the time we reached subramanya at 4 in the morning, we felt we had completed a mini-trek. Mukund joined us from Hassan. Kaushik had come down the previous day itself from suratkal and booked a room for us, by the time the rest of the gang joined us (laxmi from mangalore, bachodi from surathkal), it was 9.00..

Kumara Parvata is at an altitude of 5000 feet, the route is around 15kms from Subramanya. There are two routes for reaching the peak (Pushpagiri), you can either start from subramanya or from the other side, i.e., Somwarpet in Coorg. We chose the former. Also, fortunately had chosen the right time of the year for trekking, going there in the monsoon is a nightmare because of the leeches and also the route tends to be very slippery. Going in the month of March has none of these problems but the weather is very sunny n you end up getting tired, thirsty and panting for breath every 20 mins!!

We started the trek at around 9.30.Initially, the journey isnt very ardous, there are a lot of trees(almost resembles a forest!) for shade, so u dont get tired soon, n this coupled with the enthusiasm you have started with helps in covering long distances within a (more…)

    Hello to all you pals out there in Bengalooru. It is me, Kaushika. The weather here in Hyderabadu is very cloudy since few days. I guess it is the same in my native Rayachooru too. Ah! this sounds very different.
Govt of Karnataka has renamed some of its cities to sound more native. I dont think there is anything wrong in it. Yes, one should have self respect towards their culture, heritage and language. Kannadigas should feel proud to give their capital a native name. Simple equation: Calcutta -> Kolkatta, Bombay -> Mumbai, Madras -> Chennai and hence Bangalore -> Bengalooru.
The British couldn’t pronounce Indian words, so they renamed them. When Germans can name their cities as they like, Russians can have their ‘zwaski’ names and Chinese have ‘ching-ming’ names, why can’t we have our own? We can. We should.
It is the same case in naming people too. Some of my friends have typical local names : Udaya, Prashantha; not Anglicized. I really like it that way.
Again, it is not that smooth all the way for some cities in India. For eg., tell me, if you have to rename Delhi. What would it be? Dilli? But it could also be Indraprastha. BJP would say Indraprastha, Congress would say Dilli and accuse BJP of safronising the issue. Anyways, thank God it wasn’t the case with namma Bengalooru.
Some other re-namakaranas on Nov 1st were
Hubli > Hubballi
Mangalore > Mangalooru
Gulbarga > Kalburgi
Hospet > Hosapete
Mysore > Mysooru
Shimoga > Shivamogga
Tumkur > Tumakuru