Savandurga

At 11:30 Wednesday night I got a message saying “how about going to savandurga tomorrow?” Without even knowing anything about the place, I said, “sure, I’ll come.” Then I got a reply telling me to be in college by 8:30 the next morning.

I was thinking what could this place be, so I messaged another friend who was gonna come to the place, “hey what kind of a place is savandurga.” She said, “just a small hilly area”. So I thought fine, it will be fun.

So the next morning (yesterday) I got up early, and reached college at 8:30. Sharp. And why was I not surprised not to see anyone else there! The next person to arrive came at 8:50. And slowly everyone started coming. By the time the last person arrived and we decided to leave, it was 10. Which was really late.

We had decided to go by bikes. On the way we stopped to take some food from a hotel. After taking all the food and water we went on. The road was ok, can’t really expect good roads. But the scenery was really beautiful.

We reached savandurga at 12:30. And what do I see? A small hilly area? Hell no!! It was like this huge mountain when I saw it. Gosh, it looked so huge. And we were supposed to climb that!

When I saw it, I got scared, thinking there is no way I could climb all the way.

So we started climbing it at 12:45. After 15 minutes I had enough. I was already out of breath, and my legs had started aching. After all, it had been ages since I even walked for more than 2 kms at a time. So I just sat at the rock, and told the others to go, and told them that I’ll take my own sweet time in climbing up.

I actually was happy to have just climbed so far. I would not have minded sitting there until they all climbed up and came back down.

But do they allow me to do what I want? NO! My friends were all encouraging me, and stuff. They were telling me that I had already climbed half (which was not true), and just half of the rock is still left to climb. So anyway, took 5 minutes of break, and started again. And after 15 minutes, again I had to just sit. My legs would not carry me anymore.

The rest of them were already far ahead. Just 5 of us who were slow in climbing were together. We were encouraging each other to climb ahead. We went on, slowly. Half way through, there were remnants of a fort. Nothing was there, just the wall. Must have been a lookout at that time. The view from there was just amazing. The whole area was visible. We could make out where Bangalore was even though we were 60 kms away from it. There was also some river flowing.

At this point of time, 3 of us had enough. I really could not even stand. My calf muscles were aching. We just sat there for some 10 minutes. I closed my eyes, and everything was just so dark. I was so tired that I could just sleep there. It was so hot; the sun was beating right above us. Damn. So I asked my friend who was with us, and who had already climbed this before if we three could just stay here and the rest could climb up. He said that the return way was not this, and there is another easier way to go down, and that would be the way to go down. So we had to climb up.

We were so lost, that we probably were not even thinking right. One of my friend said,” I wish I had powers like Spiderman, then I could just climb so easily.” So I said,” when you are wishing for something, you may as well wish to be Superman, then you could just fly all the way. Why even make an effort?” Blah!

After this we were taking breaks every ten minutes or so. Finished all the water that we had. And finally after 2 hours, we reached the peak. And we got to know that the others had already reached there an hour ago. We then realized how slow we really were. We had our lunch there, looked around the place. The view was fantastic. You would think I could have pictures, but everyone seemed to have forgotten their cameras. So we just took a few pictures from the camera phones. Obviously its not gonna be very clear, but something is better than nothing.

After half an hour, we started the way back down, and I find out that the way down is the same as we climbed up. I looked at that guy and started cursing him. And he said,” If I had told you that it was the same way, you would never had climbed up.”

So true. Glad he told that lie though. I would not have got the satisfaction of climbing up otherwise.

There was this dog on the peak. It would go ahead of us. Wait there, and when everyone crossed the dog, it would go even more ahead and wait for us there. It was really funny. One girl who was really scared of dogs kept telling the dog “Go. Go”. But the dog would just not go. It was showing us the way down!

So we reached the bottom in an hour. We could go down without any breaks, coz it is not as tiring as climbing up. After reaching down, we sat there in a sort of bench, and brought some cool drinks and drank that. We sat there for half an hour or so. And then it was time to leave.

While coming back, I realized that I actually made it. I thought there was no way I could climb it, but I did. And I was happy. Totally enjoyed on the way back. The weather was also cool coz it had become evening.

I went back home at 8:30, and I just slept, without dinner. I was so tired; I didn’t know what was happening around me. Today morning I got up at 8. So it was almost 12 hours of sleep!! And right now, I don’t want to move. Just want to be sitting in one place. My whole body is in pain. Even my nails are aching! (Don't ask me how I typed this.)

But will I climb something like that again? I have no clue, but I probably will. Even though the going was tough, after reaching the peak, it was just pure bliss.

Ummm... time?

I’m spending a LOT of time on the computer. I played a lot of games that I have not played in almost 2 years. Didn’t even know it was still in the computer. I tried to remember all the games I used to like, and searched for it. And I played and I played. And right now, I am just bugged. Still have not played Age Of Empires though. Have no clue where that CD is! If I find that CD, then I’m sure mom is gonna take the computer, and throw it somewhere. I mean, I am totally obsessed with that game. If there is one game that I am obsessed about, it is AOE. Now, where is that CD!

I still have to play games online. Pool. It’s been forever since I played.

Other stuff on the computer is browsing. Read all the blogs that I had to read - almost 3 times. Funny thing is that I read so many blogs that I didn’t even remember if I already read it. I see a link, and I think, ’oh, I have not read that blog today. Let me read that now.’ And I go to the blog and realize that I already read it today. Damn my memory!!

All this free time, and I got nothing to do. Will be reading few books. Still don’t know which books I will read. Wanna watch a few movies. Don’t know how many I will finally watch.

Weird thing is that when I had exams, I used to think that I would do this thing, or that thing. Now I don’t even remember what I wanted to do.

I’ve been waiting for this whole college thing to end. Now that it is over, I don’t know what to do. Its not like I hated college or anything. It changed my life, the way I thought. Almost everything. I made friends, which I hope I would keep in touch. Don’t know if that will happen eventually.

I’ve been in orkut for a while, and I saw few of my old classmates from school. Nice to hear what they were doing and such. But the thing is, if all these years (almost 6) I didn’t care enough to keep in touch with them, why talk to them now? Nothing has changed so drastically that would make me wanna know what they are doing. All the close friends that I had, I was in touch with them anyway. Yeah, we don’t meet, and talk as often as we thought we would, but we still speak, and meet whenever we can.

Oh, I'm going off on a tangent.

[But there is NO point to this post anyway. So it does not really matter.]

Anyway, what to do now… Been listening to a lot of music while playing games. I didn’t even know I had so many songs. Now I have to sit and download some new stuff.

Ok, that’s enough for today!

Cops!

So today I was on the road on my two-wheeler, happily riding away, when a cop stood right on my way on the road, and asked me to stop. And so I did. I stopped, and waited for him to ask what he wanted. I mean, there’s no reason to stop me right? So he comes to me after 2 minutes, during which he was catching other unsuspecting people on the road. He says, “Can I see your driving license?” In English! I was so shocked that he was actually speaking to me in English and not Kannada! I said sure, and showed my license. And then he said, “You can go now”! Again, in English!

This was so different from the other experiences that I have had from cops in Bangalore. I’ve been caught three times, for the same reason of showing the license, the emission certificate, and once the guy checked even the insurance. All the three times, the cop was so rude, and so arrogant. They behaved as though I had committed some weird crime and I was getting some punishment for that.

Anyway, this was the 1st time a cop stopped me in almost 3 years. Looks like the cops have something against me or my vehicle, coz I know of friends who have not been stopped ever. And I was stopped four times! Atleast today he was not rude… still waste of my 3 minutes.

Maybe my bike is jinxed. Once I had parked it in the end of parking place. But just before the line that is drawn. The parking guy took a buck from me coz I parked there. I finished my work, and I come and see that my bike is missing. Sigh. I looked around, and no parking guy. He must have run off somewhere. Then some people around that place said that cops came and took my bike. Though I didn’t understand why exactly they took it, coz it was in the parking place, and not outside it. Screwed up people. So I had to go to the police station, pay 300 bucks and get back my bike.

So now we have English-speaking cops. Great.

Remember me?

I don’t know why, but I just can’t remember names. I had thought I could remember faces, if not names, but I guess that’s not true either. Like I found out yesterday. I was in a mall, and this girl comes up to me, all smiling. I thought, ‘maybe she’s smiling at someone behind me’. And then she comes to me, and says, “Recognize me?” I didn’t. And I had no clue what to say! The best I could come up with was, “ummm, no” and give her a stupid grin. Ridiculous, I know. Then she told me her name, and turns out she was my classmate in school. We went to school together for 2 whole years, and I didn’t even recognize her. Then we spoke for like a minute or something, and went on our ways.

Anyway, after she went, one of my friends who was with me started laughing coz I said that I didn’t recognize her! I never know what to say with people I meet after such a long time. I mean, we have not kept in contact all these years coz we weren’t really the best of friends. What do you say? So how are you, what are you up to? That’s it.

So I was in the mall, with all my friends from college. We were celebrating the end of our exams. Promises to meet each other, once a month atleast. I had made these plans when I was in school too. Probably with the girl I met as well. I must have forgotten her name coz I was not really close with her, but still, I could have remembered her face right? But no!! Funny that she could recognize me anyway.

I realized that I don’t really have a contact with all the people from school. I just know what a bunch of people are doing right now. Rest of them, I have no clue. If I see them on the streets, I would probably not recognize them. And they would not recognize me either. In fact, I don’t even remember all of my classmates’ names from school, or from PUC. That just royally sucks.

Exams are over; don’t even ask how it was. Now I have so much time in my hands, I don’t even know what to do!