When it calls for a tip with the oldies, I would have rather had a day without booze, had it been my college days. And my definition of ‘Oldies” included any beyond the age of 30 and with a mix of colours in hair. As I myself reached the milestone and also with my acquaintance with lot of so-called-oldies, with much better stamina than myself, my apprehension was slowly being cleared. Final nail to the coffin was the Kotak Trip to Yercaud, where of the lot it was mayhem – 4 bachelors vs 6 married & 5 under-30s vs 5 over-30s…. J
Okay, coming to the point of discussion, Yercaud is somewhere near to Salem in the west side of Tamilnadu. Being a Mechanical Engineering student, I never did well with Geography. J Our trip was supposed to start at 11 30pm under the command of Captain Sanjith Nair, but due to unforeseen conditions, the captaincy was handover to none-other-than me J… being my regular self, mess was inevitable, and this time it was in the form of Mr. Velu (my booze-delivery-man) who in the last moment duped us without any beer. The sight of three bottles of pure Pondicherry-stuff royal stag whisky and one Black and Gold Brandy couldn’t control my grief as my boss was a pure beer-man and appraisals were around the corner. Search for scape goats and sourcing of beers were all done in fantastic fashion and we set our sail off to Salem.
The night started with a fistful of action in form of various extremely horrendous tamil Movies, in the bus…. It really kept me wondering doesn’t the actors feel odd acting in movies like these J.
Three pegs and two movies down, all had found bliss in whatever we call as sleep in a bus moving like a rollercoaster. I had an extra job at hand, as I had a encroacher seeking chance to occupy the best cushiony seats under me. J
The Sight of the resort was extremely welcome, after the sleepless night in the bus… but the thought of murder of the captain did arise as people stepped into the dormitory. It reminded me of the insides of the jail I had seen sometime before…. Putting your raised eye brows to rest, I was talking about the jail museum at Andaman Nicobar Island J
Though I would have loved to have a pillow under my head and a bed beneath my body, I found myself roaming around the streets of yercaud from the morning hours itself. But the town was really refreshing and soon the entire crowd had forgotten about the tiresome journey and started trying their hands (rather comically) on various things, like boats to bicycles. It was fun riding an old fashioned bicycle through a sleepy town, had the bicycle had an engine of its own. A short trip to the nearest deer park, which lacked in nothing but deers and which efficiently replacing them with concrete statues of something which looked like giraffes, saw off the outing of our first day.
The second half of the day and the first half of the night, we were in par with the world in the small city of Yercaud – cheering the Indian team as they found their way to a world cup victory. One of our team mates would have been murdered had he ventured third time into the TV room, both time previously had seen an Indian batsman walking back to the pavilion!!! J With Balaji’s whole hearted cooperation and with our prayers and cheers joining from those from world over, Indians won and we sounded our joy rather veraciously. Four chicken in the barbeque and the buffet meal was absent by the time the cricket was over, to the utter displeasure of the ardent fans. J
The second half of the night was partly lived upon by four souls, myself, Sanjith, Sajith and Pant. That too wound up soon, after a well-aimed hit on my eye brow by Mr. Sanjith Nai-ehm ehm ehm-r, by his mobile…. With that the first day of our Yercaud trip had come to a close.
I myself would have shocked to death, to see me up so early next day morning. I was a part of the trekking party, that got ready before 7 in the morning. J believe it or not J people with weak heart or pregnancy shouldn’t read any further – even Sajith and Rajneesh were up!!!! J
The trekking party went up the hill a bit late, thanks to our guide who turned up late. He inorder to cover up the lost time, got us to the shortest hill possible, which didn’t tire even me!!!! And we the fearless team from Kotak Chennai ended up conquering the unconquerable Shevaroy Hill….. On the way I did get some good clicks and since I couldn’t find any animals around to feature in, Rajneesh and Srinivas provided me the required models J
Once back, it was pack up time… and we showered our love to the guide in the form of snacks (left –over) and returned. Return was also accompanied by some hardcore Tamil movies…. Not the kind of hard-core, I expected, as soon I found myself and a few others sleeping in the bus.
Over all, this trip cemented my love for oldies as trip-companions, after the sabarimala trip fiasco.
