The Great Kodai Trip: Day 1

this post on our kodaikkalanal has been pending for a very long time now ... i was collecting some info for some time and then i never found time to pen down my thoughts ... my apologies for those many ppl who ve been askin me all this time...

this idea of kodai trip was the conceived by sham, jilu and vivek sometime in the april. one sunny day in the begining of may while i was thinking (read brooding) as usual in the lab seeku came over and told me abt this plan.

seeku: dei, me sham, shanka and others are going to kodiakkanal for a week da
me (hazy): oh ... hmmm... good... can i come too? (it was sort of involuntary)
seeku: hmmm... lets discuss with others and make up a plan

after a week, a detailed plan was charted out in a set of yahoo conference chats. the plan was for 4 days... was supposed to be more than that but Mr.sincere ravi wanted to be back asap and finish the dont-know-when-it-will-end-GPS project "by the end of this month" (now this has been the claim by this group comprising kiran, harish and ravi for some 2 years).

well, so 4 days it is. the travellers- me, seeku, ravi, shanka, sham, vijay from chennai. vivek and jilu would join from madurai. the plan was one night stay in madurai in vivek's place, then 2 days one night in kodaikkanal and then one night stay in jilu's place back in madurai. jilu took care of the arrangements of our stay and sight seeing in kodai.

innumerous phone calls mar the preparations for the travel and all is set for the 6:30 AM train on saturday, 20th of may.
on friday at 10:00 in the night i receive a call...

Me: hello?
Shanka on the other end (how can i miss the distinguished voice): hello sreeram irukkana?
Me: dei mokka... yen veettukku phone panni seekuva kekuriya?
Shanka: Oh sorry da... apparam .... yellam eduththuvechchuttiya da?
Me : almost da
Shanka: hmmm... camera marandhuraadhe
Me (whats with this sudden care?): hmm... ok da... nee?
Shanka: hmm... adhellam yeduththuten da... apparam oru news... naan varele!
Me: yenna!
Shanka: enga amma-appavukku naalaanikku aruvathaam kalyaanam da, ippoththaan therinjadhu (great news... great son!)
Me: ok da... munnadiye sollirkalame... ippo intha ticket waste ayiduchche
Shanka: Dei, kalyan varuvaananu kettupaaruda (shut up and hang the god damn phone idiot!)
Me: seri phona veyi

Shanka repeated this stint with all the other members of the gang that night and needless to say, everyone was pissed. but then thats shanka for u... always with a SURPRISE (yuck!... some one hang him please!)

Day 1: Saturday, 20th May, 6:30 AM, Tambaram Railway Station

and so five disgusted people boarded the train the next morning. me, sham and ravi caught the train in tambaram and were received by seeku and vijay who had boarded in egmore. as the train arrived on the platform, something got into vijay suddenly and he did a maddy stunt... he got down the running train to show off to a girl walking past! god knows wat sort of beauty he found in tambaram!

the journey commenced... i hate day trains and this one was no exception... no room to strech ur legs and the scorching heat to give u company... heck!

a cute little 7 year old named Jannat (meaning 'paradise') was at the next cabin and she gave us good company. Ravi was like taking her snaps all the way

we reached madurai junction at 3:30 PM . and we get down to see that no one has come to receive us. we are stranded inthe platform like refugees waiting in vain for either vivek or jilu to turn up (Huh... nice way the pandiyan land welcomes its guests). after 15 mins when we were convinced that neither of the two blokes ever left their places, vijay calls them up

jilu: oh! train vandhuduchcha?... itho, innum 10 mins la vandhudren (Oh come on!)

jilu arrives at the scene in 10 (read 25) mins. vivek follows shortly.

jilu: sorry da, vivek yenakku train vandhuduchchunu phone panni sollave ille (Oh, so u would
assume we never came if he dint call u till night?? )

we take a bus to vivek's place. unlike my usual trips to bangalore, my cug WAS working now which made me feel good! i informed home abt my arrival. vivek's house is in a place called nagamalai, on the outskirts of madurai. its a quiet place with some engg colleges around (every suburb in every city in india has an engg college for sure!). the surroundings were quite pleasant, resembling my place back in chennai. vivek's house is two storeyed, the first floor has a large room where his mom takes yoga classes. this room was prepared for our stay. the backyard has a small garden and a basket ball post. jilu and vivek's bro were playing some ball there while we were refreshing ourselves.

after a small snack and a chat with his parents we set on for our journey to a near by hill named Samana Malai. it was quite far and fearing climbing in the dark, we took an auto to the place. on reaching there, we realised the hill was more like a very giant rock. with a small temple and a lotus pond at its foot, the hill posed a very impressive structure indeed. steps were carved into it and we hit the path way right on. the trek way up was pleasant but tiring, it had already become dark and we dint venture the very summit though sham and jilu went very far. tired we sat there looking at the evening sky when jilu narrated to us the history behind this hill...

we all know the throught out ages, madurai has been the hunting ground for religion. some one and a half a millenia ago, some thing happened which may sound absurd if seen under the present context- hinduism was on the brink of extinction! yes... people kept deserting the age old vedic traditions and embraced the new growing faiths that were buddhism and jainism.

the rigid casteist practices and the isolation of a vast majority of the population in the name of impure blood left the masses dissatisfied and buddhist and jain monks took the advantage and influenced the whole land with their liberal ideas. soon they had royal patronage and hinduism and its priests were sidelined. buddhist dominated regions grew in size and confrontations with the vedic followers almost always led to conflicts. legend has it that the very land we were standing on was once occupied by these monks and the brahmin priests sent a cow, a horse and an elephant to drive them away and these three animals transformed into 3 hills. we were on one of them. (i shall go into more detail on madurai's traditions and legends in post dealing with our day 4 visit to the meenaxi temple)

tired and hungry, we decided to call it a day. the journey down was more scary than the journey up. we crawled down the steep surface into the darkeness beneath. we couldnt see beyond a few meters. and then we started walking toward the main road. the road was quite deserted and huge banyan tress flanged both sides. at a distance i could make out the silhoutte of the hill we left...

vivek: u know guys, this place is supposed to be haunted

and thats it... it triggered off a catastrophic booing and howling among us folks scaring every passer-by to death! seeku started waving his hands with his tongue sticking out playing ghost which made us all feel for am moment he was possessed!

we got home... had a nice meal prepared by vivek's mom and then sat down to watch the 2nd ODI between India and West Indies. the bowlers were in total command and team india seemed to be on the verge of another convincing win and we got bored and left sham and vivek to watch the rest of the match (ofcourse that match turned to be a thriller and we lost it as sham told us the next morning). tired after the journey and the trek me, seeku, ravi and vijay almost immediately fell asleep. sham and vivek, meanwhile spent most of the night on the open terrace watching the stars. tomorrow its kodaikkanal baby!
(contd.)