Kemmanagundi Trip - Hebbe Falls

Hebbe Falls was one of the most important items in our Kemmanagundi itinerary. But somehow, mostly due to bad planning and physical unfitness, it was quite late in the day by the time we got there.

Hebbe Falls is about fifteen kilometers from Z-Point. But most of the road is not motorable. I'm not sure why - the road could be fixed in no time if the authorities would put their minds to it. Perhaps they want to provide employment to the jeep drivers who are available on rent there to drive you down. Another possible reason is that it would make more tourists venture there and spoil the beauty of the place. As it is, only the adventurous types will try to get to Hebbe Falls. I definitely can't imagine fat aunties in heavy saris enjoying the beauty of Hebbe!

The jeep ride to the falls is one to remember. Jolting over a rough red road of rocks. Feeling quite certain at least a couple of times that the jeep is going to topple over. Hoping like Hell that no vehicle comes from the other side, because the road is too narrow for two. Laughing aloud at the contrast between our faces and the poker face of the driver. Marveling at the fact that the driver does this every day and every hour!

We jolt down the red hill side, and then pass through the comparatively better road of a coffee plantation. The driver finally deposits us at a place and says that he can go no further, as it's private property further on. We will have to trek a further fifteen minutes through the jungle to get to the falls. He promises to come back in an hour to pick us up.

So we haul out our bags and start walking. It's already a quarter past five, and we're very aware that we will have to hurry up - or we'll get very little time at the falls.

The path is wide and plain initially - an easy walk. Soon, we leave behind the coffee plantation and enter the forest - in front of us is the river. We have to cross the river twice, we have already been warned. There's a pack of five girls in front of us, and they take off their chappals and walk across with lots of squeals and shouting. Stupid people that we are, we have chosen to wear shoes, so we spend a couple of minutes taking off our shoes.

The problem with the river is not the cold water or the depth (it's quite shallow). It's the slippery stones we have to walk over. At least a couple of times, we slip and almost fall. But we make it across finally. We cross the river twice more before we get to the falls. The path has become a proper jungle footpath by now. In places, it's difficult to find it.

The first glimpse of Hebbe is awe-inspiring. You glimpse it through the leaves - a giant of black rock and white surf. Its beauty lies, perhaps, in its brute force - here is nature in all her glory, and she can kill you if you take a step out of line.

Hebbe invades all senses - the sound echoes inside the jungle and mutes all else; the spray hits you many meters away. Your mind is invaded by a strange kind of ecstasy, and you walk, zombie-like, closer to the walls.

Inevitably, the rocks are slippery here as well. We clamber over them and get as close as we can to the fall. The rocks form a kind of wall in front of the falls, creating a large pool there. We stand in this pool. The water reaches our thighs, and the floor is sandy.

Thankfully, there are very few other people. The girl gang leaves after a short while, and is replaced by a group of two young couples. They don't enter the water, and we have the water all to ourselves. We play around, splashing water on each other and whooping with the sheer ecstasy of being alive. The cold water washes away the exhaustion of the day, and we are happy just to be there, to be experiencing this spell-binding place. The outside world is far away - we know only the falls, and the rocks, and the river, and the surrounding forest.

I go and sit on one of the rocks forming the rock wall, to look up at Hebbe and marvel at its might. It's nice to sit there, to NOT note the darkening sky, the forest coming alive at dusk, the spray changing colour to gray. After a while, I go back to the gang, and suddenly there's a shout.

"SNAKE! SNAKE!"

I look around and see a long rope of orange wriggling crazily. It's right next to where I was sitting!

With a lot of shouting and screaming, we're out of the water in five seconds, slippery rocks or not. I don't even look back at the snake to see where it is. (We tried later on to identify the snake through Google Search, but we couldn't even agree on the colour - I said orange, while others said yellow, and yet others said light brown.)

It turns out that the snake arrived at the right time. We suddenly realize that it's almost dark, and that we have a fifteen minute walk through the jungle ahead of us!

Then begins a frantic half-run through the jungle, barefoot. It isn't so much the jungle we're worried about as much as the river - the three river crossings are going to be quite dangerous in the dark. We won't be able to see the stones, and who knows if even bigger snakes are lurking in the dark water?

Thankfully, we make it across in one piece. The final crossing is the worst - the river is quite wide at this point, and the stones quite slippery. It's almost fully dark. I get across first, and shine my phone's torch on the water for the others. But it's almost no use, since the water just reflects the light. Two of us slip and almost fall, thankfully with no worse result than wet shoes.

And so ends our Hebbe adventure. The jeep is waiting for us, and we rattle our way up the hillside again. The driver drops us to the spot where we have parked our Xylo, collects his money (Rs 800 for the round trip - which seemed way too high before the trip, but not after we experienced the teeth-rattling ride), and goes off.

The place is extraordinary in the dark. It's an open area, surrounded by hills. Almost no light all around, except for the stars up above. No sound apart from those of the jungle. We change into dry clothes - the guys under the stars, and the girls inside the vehicle. And then we start on the three-hour drive back to Kemmanagundi.

Hebbe Falls was certainly the best part of the Kemmanagundi trip. Hopefully, I'll get another chance to go there.

Stardust - Neil Gaiman

When I started reading 'Stardust', I suddenly realized that I had watched the beginning of a movie based on the novel. At the time, I had switched channels because it seemed like a kids' movie. And I felt the same about the book, too. (Well, if you discount the love-making in the second chapter.)

Stardust is the story of Tristan Thorn, from the village of Wall, who goes in search of a fallen star. Victoria, the prettiest girl in the village, has agreed to marry him if he gets her the star.

The village of Wall is a special place - you see, it's right on the border between our world and Faerie, the land of magic. The star has fallen into Faerie, and it's into this magical and dangerous place that Tristan must venture if he is to get Victoria the fallen star.

Fortunately, he finds the star without too much trouble, thanks to a little gnome who owes his father a debt. He discovers that the fallen star is actually a young girl-woman, and a pretty obnoxious one at that. Getting her back to Victoria will be a tough task, especially because she has broken her leg during the fall.

To complicate matters, there are many others who are after the fallen star. There are two princes, who must retrieve from the star a stone that she has in her keeping, to claim their right to the throne of their kingdom. There is a wicked old witch, who needs the star's heart to regain her lost youth.

The novel follows Tristan and the star, and relates their many adventures as they try to find their way back to Wall. It's a quick single-sitting read for those who have time. It took me two weeknights, and that's saying something, considering my current deplorable reading speed. 

The Fifth Child - Doris Lessing

The Fifth Child is a quick one-sitting read from the Nobel prize winner, Doris Lessing. It tells the story of David and Harriet Lovatt, who decide that the path to happiness lies in having many clever and talented children, all growing up together in a large and happy house. Their dream goes well till their fifth child, Ben, is born. It's clear from the beginning that he isn't quite human. He lacks human emotion, the other children hate him, he evokes a chill of horror in anybody who meets him.

Unputdownable is quite an apt word for this small book. It's difficult to know how to classify it, because the story doesn't quite fit into the genre of horror. It takes the reader to the edge and shows her the horrors that lie beneath, but stops short of actually terrifying her.

There is a sequel as well - Ben, in the World. The Fifth Child ends with Ben about to leave home and out into the world. The sequel seems to be about how he fares there.

The Edible Woman - Margaret Atwood

The Edible Woman is, strangely enough, the first time I'm reading Margaret Atwood. And I suppose it's an apt introduction, considering that this was the first novel she ever published.

She wrote this book when she was around the age I am right now. Despite the evidence of feminist thought in the book, she mentions in the introduction that she wrote it in the era before feminism. And her thoughts resonate well with me, in my current stage of life.

The Edible Woman is the story of Marian. Marian has just graduated from college, and is working in a company that conducts market surveys. She was dating an upcoming lawyer named Peter on the understanding that neither of them wants to get married right now. But out of the blue, Peter asks her to marry him, and she accepts. The rest of the story is about how she tries to adjust and change herself to suit Peter.

The book is in three parts. In Parts one and three, Marian writes in the first person. She has a strong voice, she knows what she wants and why she wants it. Part two is the longer part, where Marian is referred to in third person, and she goes about an increasingly strange set of situations, zombie-like. She literally runs away from Peter one night, she meets a self-centered person named Duncan and lets herself be pulled into his self-centered world, she tries to self-destruct in the strangest possible ways. Her body stops accepting food - first non-vegetarian food, and then everything.

Through it all, the reader is rooting for her. Peter isn't portrayed as a bad person. He just wants to be successful, and Marian, who is smart and presentable, will be an effective asset in his career. There was one image that particularly struck me. Peter and Marian are in bed, and Marian is lying on her tummy. Peter has placed his ashtray on Marian's back. He is smoking a post-coital cigarette and drinking a post-coital glass of alcohol. The normal Marian would have been humiliated by this use of her body as a table, but the new Marian says nothing. She gets up and makes Peter a drink when he asks for one. He removes the ashtray so that she can do that, and replaces it on her back when she lies down again.

Of course, there's the obvious question - isn't it natural to need to change yourself when you experience such a huge and important event in your life? Surely, Peter would have had to adjust as well? True. But we see Marian quitting her job, we see her body protesting her decisions, we see her entering into self-destructive friendships. It's clear that this marriage is not something she wants. This is something that she's doing because of society's expectations. And other women are jealous of her for having found such a catch so early on in life.

The book ends with another striking image.

[Begin Spoiler Alert]
Marian finally realizes what is happening to her. She bakes a sponge cake in the image of a woman, and she offers it to Peter. Peter gets the message,  and leaves. But in the final twist, the cake is finally finished by a person who is probably even worse for her than Peter.
[End Spoiler Alert]

Having liked my first taste of Atwood, I've now resolved to read more of her. Next up is her Booker prize-winning novel, The Blind Assassin. 

Winter

It smells like winter. It smells like dusty sunshine. Like naked trees and wandering leaves. It smells like hot smoky bhutta, fresh off the coals. Like morning mist and warm afternoons. Like sleeping in the sunny afternoons, and waking up for tea and samosas. Like reading in the sunshine. Like being taken aback by the beauty of the golden sunlight on the warm green leaves. Like lazing around, secure in the knowledge that tomorrow will be the same as today.

How I miss the Delhi winter. And yes, the Jamshedpur one, too.

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House Hunting in Koramangala

Nikhil and I have discovered a new dream profession. It requires zero intelligence, vast networks, and smooth talking abilities, and has good work-life balance because you only need to work in the evenings and on weekends.

It's the job of a broker.

When Nikhil and I started off on our house-hunt, we dreamt of finding a nice cozy little place. We knew the rent would be outrageous, considering we were looking at Koramangala. But we were okay with that, Double Income No Kids couple that we are. All we asked for was a place that we could come home to after work and find peace in.

Both of us had house-hunted in Bangalore earlier, and had found nice places in Koramangala with relative ease. Based on those earlier experiences, we decided not to use brokers this time. They charge a month's rent as commission from both the owner and the tenant, which struck as way too much. What was the internet for, anyway?

Till we discovered the reality. About 95% of the ads on real estate websites are posted by brokers (and half of those posting as 'owners' turn out to be brokers). No matter which site you look at - Sulekha, Magic Bricks, 99 Acres - they're all teeming with the blood-sucking leaches called brokers.

At one point, we were so desperate that we spent a rainy afternoon going back and forth along the lanes of Koramangala, searching for 'To Let' boards. A hopeless pursuit, of course, because brokers don't allow owners to put up these boards.

Finally, we gave up and called in the brokers. That was on Wednesday. Since then, we have covered every inch of Koramangala on Nikhil's bike, following young broker boys as they zip along without helmets in patched-together bikes, flouting all traffic rules, but never getting caught. We have been baked in the morning heat, we have been drenched in the afternoon rain, we have yelled at each other out of sheer frustration, we have been passed along from broker to broker like lucky coins.

The specimens of houses we have seen have been amazing. Houses with no bathrooms except a sort of servant quarters at the back (Rs 14, 000), a house that stank of dogs and made Nikhil almost throw up (Rs 11, 000), a house that stank of urine (Rs 16, 000), a house with a staircase a fat person would have trouble squeezing into (Rs 18, 000), a house a stone's throw away from a drain (Rs 19, 200).

We have seen at least 6-7 brokers during this time. Most were nice, except for one guy who took us to a place we had already discovered on our own, and then insisted that we pay him brokerage just because he told us it was still available. We're not taking the (mostly nice) house just because we don't want to pay him brokerage.

Right now, we're contemplating the Rs 19, 000 one near the drain. It's on the second floor, so we're hoping the stench of the drain won't be too much. It's a nice house, cozy, yellow, warm colours. It has an open kitchen, and a balcony that runs the entire length of the house. And the bathrooms are big enough, something which was an absolute must-have for me.

We've resigned ourselves to having to pay the brokerage. But really - does any profession pay so much for doing nothing as does brokering? You're getting paid just for your networks. And if you're in Koramangala and manage to get some 4 new tenants in a month, you're already above the Rs 1 lakh barrier. And I bet none of them pay tax either. Wow.

Swarathma

The first rain of the season. I can hear it through the window. I can smell it, though I'm closeted inside. I can feel the sweetness on my face, I can feel the wind on my arms.

I'm lost in music. Music about the rain, music about longing.

This is heaven. An image of brown earth, a red sari blowing in the wind. Loneliness, romantized. Possibilities.

Music really does make life worth it, doesn't it?

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