the conspiracy.

I need atleast a couple of days to recuperate when I get back from India.

It's not that I get jet-lagged. India is just 2.5 hours ahead of Kuwait for Heaven's sake. But the Kuwait Airways flight departs from Chatrapati Shivaji Airport at 6:10 am, and the entire night prior is spent trying to stuff forgotten bits and bobs in the suitcases and then at the tedious check-in and immigration at the airport, in a lousy mood throughout.

But besides that, I don't get much sleep in Bombay. Unless I'm on an adrenaline rush, I'm in a constant state of exhaustion.

I stay at my aunt's house wherein every single inhabitant is a raging insomniac. We spend half the night talking, convulsed with laughter, and then sleep by 3 or 4 am. I settle into bed, setting the alarm for 11 am on my iPhone, forgetting in my naivety that I was in India.

My cousin begins his morning karaoke session at about 8 or 9 am, i.e. he cranks up the volume on his speakers and sings along in his room, shattering my sweet slumber. I wake up groggy and tousle-headed to him blasting LMFAO's Shots while playing Guild Wars 2, and close the door to the room I'm sharing with his sister (who continues sleeping peacefully). The door is mysteriously ajar despite my having shut it before turning in. I then settle back to sleep, my eyes wincing in the sunlight peeking through the curtains.

An hour of very disturbed sleep later, the doorbell peals incessantly, penetrating into my dreams. I wake with a start. The house and everyone in it, including my sister beside me, is still, except for my lunatic brother who is now passionately singing Coldplay's The Scientist at the top of his voice, oblivious to what's unfurling outside his lair. Shaking my head in disbelief, I take in a deep breath, trying to muster the energy to walk to the hall and open the front door. It's the milkman asking for his dues. I politely ask him to come back later in the afternoon. I bring in the paper and nariyal pani* left on the doorstep and then struggle to go back to sleep.

Barely thirty minutes later, the doorbell unfailingly rings yet again. Nobody in the house has stirred. No sound of music from my brother's room; I assume he's finally turned in. Disgusted, I open the door with a ferocious scowl. It's a delivery from Flipkart, a few books I'd ordered online have arrived. Only slightly mollified, I make arrangements for the payment, dump the package on my suitcase and head back to bed, falling asleep.

The doorbell rings once more.

I swing open the door with murderous intent. It's the servant. I let her in while singing praises of the Lord, now she could open the door for the next disturber of the peace! I climb back into bed and collapse, dead to the world.

Ten minutes later, my 11 am alarm rings.

*nariyal pani: coconut water

(Bombay, Feb '13)

bombay, how do i love thee...

Gateway of India, lit up in all its splendour.

Bombay may fail to appeal to one for a multitude of reasons. The traffic is loud, never-ending, and stops for no one. The beggars and eunuchs that haunt certain streets leave no vehicle unmarked with their grubby hand prints, whether it's a Bajaj scooter, an auto rickshaw or a Mercedes. It's almost always terribly humid—you could wring out your clothes at the end of the day and fill two buckets to the brim with your sweat. There are slums in perhaps every area, accompanied by filth and squalor. Too many of the residents are shallow and conscious about impressing an equally shallow society. I'm not sure I could ever live there.

Worst of all, in my opinion, the locals are completely contemptuous of the gods of English grammar and scorn the staunch and unyielding faith of the grammarians, repeatedly disrespecting and ridiculing it, trying to inveigle them into joining the Dark Side, as evidenced by this ad from Sony India (October 2012):

The copywriter wasn't too...bright.

Nevertheless, I love Bombay. It's the only city that I've been to (so far) where the branches of trees on either side of the road often meet in the middle, their leaves whispering and cajoling, paying no attention to the noisy traffic that drives by below them. There isn't much sunlight allowed into the side streets; the dense foliage of the many trees stand guard to prevent too much from creeping in.

Bandra.

somewhere in the suburban side of the city

And then of course, the family I adore lives there.

I made a quick trip to Bombay last week, the primary reason for which was to complete my dental work (three crowns on root canals, one cap on implant). To the dimwitted (who unfailingly inquire, "don't you have dentists in Kuwait?"), the cost of getting all that done with a good dentist in Bombay, plus the airfare, was about a third of what it would cost me here. Thankfully, it wasn't humid at all.

When I wasn't getting crowned, I spent my time with friends or family, usually at home or in a restaurant. My cousins have told me only too often of the 'awesome' food in this restaurant in Bandra or that one in Juhu. I love trying new things (not necessarily food), so I decided it was time to try a variety of food in as many unexplored places possible, with relatives or friends in the short time I had (nine days). The result was that I often had to have lunch twice with different people to ensure I spent adequate time with all I cared about.

It was worth it. Mouth-watering appetizers, dumplings and sushi (the range of veg sushi included mango sushi and olive sushi. That was a bit...strange) with my aunt at Global Fusion. Mocktails and a very forgettable dessert with close friends from MBA at TGI Friday's. Pizza with cousins at Alfredo's. Churros sprinkled with icing sugar and dipped in white and milk chocolate (YUM YUM YUM!) with a friend I met online at Chocolateria San Churro. Nachos and pizza with cousins at Bombay Blue two hours later. Ginormous crabs with half the family at Gondola where I appeared to have no knowledge of table manners. Chicken rolls, tarts and eclairs with another friend I met online at Candies. Portuguese Chicken with my aunt and cousin at Gaylord.

Damn that's quite a list. A couple of days I felt I would explode. It's weird; I lost weight despite the gluttony!

When it comes to interiors, a restaurant and a cafe completely floored me—Global Fusion and quite surprisingly, Starbucks.

Global Fusion has a lovely ambiance. The plentiful lunch buffet is served all around the restaurant, so you work up a bit of an appetite walking to inspect the buffet tables. It was busy; every table was occupied. A single table stood on a wooden platform above a pool of water. There were a couple of large toads (not real ones silly), with water jutting out their mouths, between tables in another, long pool of water. I didn't look around too much as the restaurant was closing and I wanted to eat more sushi, but it was very appealing.

A glimpse of Global Fusion.
Image source: http://mumbai.burrp.com

Shockingly enough, Starbucks in Fort takes the grand prize.

My cousin was immensely excited about Starbucks finally coming to India (in October 2012) and had made me promise we'd go there together, even though she'd been before. Having lived in Kuwait most of my life, where a Starbucks branch lies on every street corner, I wasn't particularly enthusiastic. I also despise beverages. My choice of drink is water (iced tea or nariyal pani* in India). If I'm in a cafe to catch up with a friend, I order hot chocolate. My aunt however, said it was a beautiful place so off we went.

Oh Lord. It was beautiful.

This branch of Starbucks was the epitome of the 'East meets West' concept, merging the American brand with European architecture and Indian culture, as my aunt put it. The Fort branch is in the Elphinstone Building, which is built in the Neo-Gothic style of architecture courtesy of the British. The quaint interiors of the coffee shop are reminiscent of places in North India, with wooden rafters, trunks for some of the tables, old-fashioned suitcases stacked in corners, carved wooden arches, high back armchairs, some antique furniture...very unlike the Westernized outlets in Kuwait and elsewhere around the world. The rustic look worked very well. I was smitten.

Don't miss the carved wooden
partition beneath the arch

                                                       

Another carved wooden arch

A closer look at the fine carving...can't seem
to get enough 

Note the milk containers and the print on the quaint
little suitcases!

Wooden rafters. I love them wooden rafters. 

A cozy corner :) I couldn't get closer for a better pic 

The drinks and cakes weren't a hit with me, but that's probably because I wasn't in the mood for hot chocolate, hate coffee and dislike cake.

It's always hard to leave Bombay. This time it was almost unbearable (in other words, I went emo). It's been a little more than a day since I got back but it seems like a distant memory now, as it usually does when I leave a country, even if it's Kuwait. I suspect I will post more to immortalize how I felt there so I don't forget. I forget too much too soon. I'm beginning to wonder if I'm developing Alzheimer's...

*nariyal pani: coconut water

(Bombay, March '13)

Luminescence

The squeaking of the rusty swing in the deserted play area of the garden is a note foreign, intruding upon the sonance of the night.

The light zephyr carries with it secrets whispered to it by the frangipanis, as it blows through their flowering tree, loosening a blossom. The flower surrenders itself and is given a gentle lift by the breeze before it collapses onto the cropped grass. A bat, almost camouflaged in the dark, flutters out from a tree and disappears into the night.

The moon is almost full, sailing in her ascent to her cherished spot in the sky from where she reigns as the hours pass on. The clouds move with her, guarding her jealously. They claim her beauty for their own, refusing to share it with the world below. She peeks out shyly from behind an opening in the clouds that obstinately remain before her, a glimmer of her iridescence illuminating what little of the garden it falls upon, making the leaves glisten and outlining the empty playground, silent, but for a frog croaking harshly under the slide.

Finally, the wind intercedes and nudges the clouds, reminding them that their journey lies onward, elsewhere. Reluctantly they float on, leaving bare a jewelled sky, revealing the glowing orb in all her glory to beam down on earth.

The garden lies still in her luminescence, unmoved but for an observer who has been watching the transpiration, swaying wordlessly on the rusty swing.

The Watch Tower on Vetal Hill

She met them after spending a year abroad, greeting them in excitement. Friends of old, the three had decided to spend the early morning hours with a short hike up one of the hills in the city. Paths connected the hill to others, as well as to an abandoned quarry. There was a pool of murky water lying at the bed of the quarry; the three had once skipped stones there. She had failed miserably.

Ye olde abandoned quarry. 

They trudged up the trail that ran through thick shrubbery, listening for faint calls of the peacocks that lived within, reminiscing about other times spent there.

"There's a tower on this side," one of them said when they came to a fork in the path. "It has an awesome view."
"Is that where we're going?"
"Yup!"

An image of a turret immediately flashed into her mind. Two recent summer trips in Europe and watching Disney films since infancy had conditioned her imagination. She drew a mental picture of a high, (no not too high, she thought, the top would show from above the trees), of a medium-sized (she had no reckoning of height) tower, made of stone, with a pointed tip and a window - no glass of course. The kind of window from which Rapunzel would toss her hair down. There would be a wooden spiral staircase inside.
She wondered how they'd never stumbled upon it on earlier trips there. Then, she knew why.

"Here we are!"
The mental picture shattered.
"This?" she said, almost hysterically. "You call this a tower?"
What stood before her held no resemblance to European architecture. It was a rickety structure (high, not medium-sized), the frame was made of rusted steel bracing crisscrossing in the style of X's, over and over. Planks of wood ran up all around it at angles. It was leaning slightly on one side, as though the wind was commanding it to bend.
It looked like a dilapidated water tower. Without a tank of water at the top.

She said so in great disdain.

The other two looked at each other.

"Are you coming up?"
"Of course not! I have to attend a wedding in two days and I'd like to be there in one piece!"
"Come on! There's nothing to it, even my sister went up this. We've been up lots of times. And the view is just amazing."

She did want to see the view. She'd missed the hills.

"How am I even supposed to get up this thing?" The first step was at a height of about five feet, there were no stepping stones. Heaving herself onto it was out of the question, the plank looked like it would disengage with excessive force.

One of them hoisted himself up to one end of the 'tower', strode across the bracing at the bottom and onto the steps, comfortably ascending them. He waited at the 'first floor' stair deck, which comprised of a single plank of wood nailed across the ramshackle frame on either side.

She followed suit, gingerly climbing onto the frame, walking across while hugging the structure for dear life (she was three feet off the damp ground), and then advancing onto the first plank of the steps. She took another step up, and felt the entire structure lean to one side, as though it was being weighed down. She screamed and retraced her steps back to the safety of the earth.

"Dude! Come on! We thought you were more adventurous than this!"
"I'm telling you, the view is to die for! And the wind is just amazing!"
"I have to go back to work in a week, there isn't enough time for me to recuperate if I fall from this thing!"

A group of young trekkers stood some distance away, watching. She waved a fist at them.

The two beguiled her into trying again with fabricated anecdotes of the structure's safety and promises of the awesome view and wind. The rigmarole was repeated in its entirety.

"I can't do this! Just go up, I'll wait down here until you return."
"I'm telling you man, nothing's going to happen! My sister is the biggest darpok* and she went right up to the top!"
"Fine," she snapped, making her way to the steps again. "But if I die, my mom's going to kill me."

When she got to the first step, she ordered one of them to go on and the other to wait until she'd reached the first 'platform'. She went up slowly, there were spaces between steps where a plank had fallen through. She held the round railing tight and wished there was another one on both sides, running between the sole rail and the flight of stairs, so as to reduce the wide gap that a person could easily slip through.

She cursed the added kilos that had leeched onto her in Kuwait, and the wretched gym membership she had spent so much on. She deigned to work out once a week or two but apparently one had to be more regular for there to be an adequate effect.

Twice, she looked down. Bad idea. She had a sudden visual of slipping through the wooden boards and dashing against the steel. She forced her head up, muttering a prayer and concentrating hard on getting up to the platform atop the structure and back down with all limbs intact. There was more safety in bungee jumping, she thought crossly.

Finally, they were at the top. A lone rail on each side was all that separated them from certain death. The platform was missing a plank and she refused to go any further, declaring she could see perfectly well from where she stood and that the sights wouldn't improve by taking another three steps.

That isn't her foot. In case you thought so.

The trees of the surrounding hillside were still a lush green, courtesy of the departing monsoon. She was glad she hadn't risked her life for a browning view. The clouds rode low, shrouding the sun, and the morning mist threw a haze over the city that looked so distant from where they stood. There was a slight wind, although it wasn't as 'amazing' as promised. The view had been worth it after all.

Civilization obscured by the morning mist.

The derelict 'tower'.

After a few pictures, they descended, making their way to the bottom. There were no incidents except one, when the structure shook slightly. The climb left no physical evidence on her, but for jittery knees and a strong reek of rust on her palms.

She went to the wedding and enjoyed it. A week later she was back at work in Kuwait, a longing for the hills buried deep in the recesses of her heart.

______________________________________________________________

Notes:
*darpok [dar-poke] - fraidy-cat

Based on actual events that occurred at the watch tower on Vetal Tekdi (hill) in Pune city. 
Dedicated to the two maniacs that took me up that tottering pile of planks.
Narrative and dialogue may have been embellished (just a little) to increase reading pleasure.

enough.

When 26/11 happened, people were outraged at the government. Ten gunmen held the city hostage for three days, murdering hundreds of innocents in cold blood and it took the security forces that long to get to them. But the perpetrators were not from India; the cause for the horrific attack on Indian soil was external.

So what do we do when the threat is from within?
To take a specific case in Mumbai - when two men protecting their women friends are stabbed mercilessly by 13 thugs?

How do our politicians react to that?

By promising the killers' family justice, that's how.

Here's the gist of what happened from aamjanta.com; it's almost like a movie. If you know how it plays out, skip ahead:


The Murder of Keenan Santos
On 23rd October 2011, a group of cricket fans came together to enjoy a match on a big screen, have dinner at Amboli kitchen and Bar, eat paan and have fun. What followed didn't quite work out that way. 

Dinner done, as they were at the paan shop, a drunk man stumbled against one of the girls. Thinking that this is your average garden variety drunk, one of the men in the group, Avinash Solanki, slapped him. Got into a verbal spat, another friend, Reuben Fernandes, hit him too. However, this was no garden variety drunk lecher (which are kind of common on streets). This man had two murder cases pending against him, and he was a barber and roaming around scot free.

He was accompanied by a few other men. Angry and wanting revenge, he swore he’d be back, and the group dismissed him. Shaken over what happened, but not expecting trouble, they continued to stand there. Meanwhile, said man returned with a group of people in three rickshaws – thirteen, many said – and his original companions. They were armed with swords and knives. Keenan and Reuben tried to reason with them while the others got the girls out of the way to safety. Keenan Santos was stabbed viciously, and his intestines spilled out. As Bejnamin tried to get the girls into the restaurant, some of the thugs followed them. Reuben Fernandes got in their way and was viciously stabbed too. As onlookers watched in shock, Avinash Solakni hurled a nearby ladder at them and pulled Keenan and Reuben into the restaurant. The thugs did not follow them into the restaurant, and left.

Read the rest here.

Keenan Santos died the same day. Reuben Fernandes succumbed to his injuries yesterday. May their souls rest in peace.

None of the bystanders did anything to help, let alone offer the friends a lift to the nearest hospital. I have never witnessed something like this and when watching something similar in a Hindi movie I always found it abnormal the way passersby huddled around in a circle, incapable of being of any use whatsoever. And I always thought - 'as if'. It's heartbreaking to learn that people really are like that. Have we become so insensitive to the needs of our fellow human beings? Pause for a minute and think, if you were there, would you charge in to help? Would you atleast call the cops? Or would you hold back, not wanting to get involved?

I am disgusted by some of the comments the articles covering the altercation and deaths of the two men has received. 'They shouldn't have been there', 'they should have left', 'they were showing off in front of the girls', 'they should have let go of their ego'. WHAT? Is that all you can think of? They were there and they were brave. They stood up for what's right. And they faced the consequences. Someone very rightly said, 'no good deed goes unpunished.' Then again, the world would be a worse place to live in if nobody cared to perform that good deed.

Those goons should not be allowed to get away with what they did. But of course, it looks like they're going to. Why else would a man with two (now three four) criminal cases against him be so cocksure when he says he'll be out of prison soon? How much political backing does he have?

Political parties have been playing both sides, sympathizing with the victims but visiting the killers' families assuring them 'justice' (whatever that means, their dictionary must hold a different meaning of the word) as the area the latter live in is a huge vote-bank.

How long are we going to allow our 'leaders' to manipulate us for votes? When will we unite as a people and say, 'Enough!' and mean it when we do? 

This hasn't received the media attention it should have. That can be changed, with social media. Organize a tweet-up. Get the word out on Facebook. Get celebrities involved via Twitter. Social media has empowered each and everyone of us and we can no longer get away with just waving our hands in despair and saying 'this country has gone to the dogs'.

Will you be a bystander? The choice lies with you.


Join the group on Facebook.

home is where the luggage is.

I thought Pune was home.
It ceased to be.
Not just because I moved back to Kuwait.
It seemed distant this time. It's exhausting living in a city where the people lack any consideration for other human beings and where you have to be on your guard consistently 'coz you will encounter some moron or the other who WILL try to fleece you. It wearies one.

I love Bombay. I love my family and cousins. But Bombay is more foreign to me than ever, with its shallow and materialistic lifestyle. I don't care for the damn designer clothes and shoes or the 'branded' crap. I don't drink, I abhor loud noises and mainstream music so a pub is the last place you'll see me in. I've stopped watching Hindi movies. I don't follow Bollywood or Hollywood gossip and muse on who slept with who. I feel a deep disgust for Indian television and despair at how self-absorbed Bombaiytes are and at their money is God attitude. I write, I read and my renewed passion in these has made me an alien there.
The freedom there, is what I miss.

Even though I lived most of my life here in Kuwait, it was never home. I could never call it that except when saying stuff like, 'I wanna go home and crash.' NRIs love the comfort, low gas prices and tax free income of the Gulf and quite a few of them could never adapt to India again. But a place that doesn't accept you is not a place you could call your own.

So.. where the hell is home?

I wonder now, am I a third culture kid (TCK)?
Wiki defines a TCK as 'someone who, as a child, has spent a significant period of time in one or more culture(s) other than his or her own, thus integrating elements of those cultures and their own birth culture, into a third culture.'

Oh yeah. Fosho. Definitely closer to that than anything else.
At 5 months, I flew way before I took my first step.

Third culture kids aren't supposed to fit in anywhere. But they are very open to different cultures. Sure, I got that. I love meeting people from diverse backgrounds and expanding my awareness about their cultures and traditions.

TCKs are also multilingual. Er. No.
Having lived in Kuwait I'm supposed to speak Arabic. I'm ashamed to say I don't. I can fathom just a bit.
Again, having lived in Pune I'm supposed to atleast understand basic Marathi. I don't.
The only couple of words I bothered to learn is 'shut up', 'stop' and 'idiot' (you may roll your eyes, but they were pretty handy). I know a hell lot more Japanese watching anime than I know Marathi. I picked up and spoke more Czech in my two week visit to the CR than I ever did Arabic in all these years.
French? I'm glad I still remember quite a bit of French from school.
Hindi you ask? My dad is from Hyderabad and the mother from Bombay originally from a region called Kutch in Gujarat so the dialect I speak is a bit.. strange. Hyderabadis speak Urdu (based on Hindi structure, with words from Arabic and Farsi) in a manner no one else does, honing a drawl while they speak, stretching out the words. I disowned the accent and developed my own, based on the mother's and her family's. My grammar foundation though is not strong. Back in college, even if I attempted a conversation with my friends in their Hindi, my Urdu-Hindi whatever, some pronunciations, due to my linguistic background were different. My friends found it a scream.
They're darn tootin' lucky I never laughed at their English.

So much for multilingual. I only seem to have a knowledge of languages that have so far been of no real use to me. But for English.

People generally have a place they chill out at. Like the mall, a cafe maybe a pub. The only place I can admit going to regularly is the airport. Any airport. I don't seem to have gone anywhere else more often than once. Except the bookstore, but then I interned there.

So maybe I am a TCK, atleast partly.
Nursing the incurable bite the travel bug left me with, I desperately want to travel more. It's just been about two weeks since I got back and I'm already planning a trip in my head which, most probably, will just stay in my head. Maybe it's 'coz I can't seem to connect to any place anymore and I want to find it. It would be nice to feel a sense of belonging to something more than your AT suitcases. The sister doesn't even bother unpacking anymore. She's the first one to finish packing every damn time; all she has to do is zip up her bags.

So after some retrospection, I have come to a conclusion.

I am a nomad.

I have no home. But I prefer to think I just haven't found it just yet.

Have you?

road guide.

(Recovered from drafts)

The 24 year old half Iranian was about to leave the shelter of the building, but caught sight of a raindrop and shrieked.

"It's raining!"

"No, it's just drizzling," I expostulated.

The skies decide to set free from their midst another drop of rain, right in front of the 24 year old half Iranian's noggin.

"Then it's drizzling heavily!'

The nakhras* I have to reason with. o_O

You need good judgement to meander down lanes in India. Especially in the rains.

If you've ever lived in Pune (or anywhere in India for that matter) and have ventured out on foot, you'll agree that the concept of a footpath or a sidewalk is a little hazy here. If it does exist, which is increasingly rare, it will be encroached upon by hawkers and the homeless, trees, bus stops, signposts to either inform citizens where they are or which politician's birthday it is or who they should vote for, or there's litter (more like two-week old garbage of half the neighbourhood) strewn over the unbecoming red and yellow tiles.

So where does judgement come into this? Let me elucidate.

It's 'drizzling heavily' (no really, it is). The sidewalk lies in front of you, sometimes impossible to walk on due to the thick overgrowth of impenetrable branches of trees or bougainvillea crying for a trim either on the sidewalk or on the other side of a wall running alongside it. To bypass it the road must be walked, not an easy task as the sides are full of puddles. Here's where the judgement comes in. You're considering leaping over a puddle but decide against it if your legs, like mine, aren't long enough and your pants, like mine (in this particular instance), are a little too nice to be muddied more than they already are. So you sidetrack it, the corner of your eye looking out for road hogs coming up from behind you. You dodge past cars and motorcycles, step over the front wheel of a rogue rickshaw, squeeze your way through bumper to bumper traffic. And if you must cross the road, Lord grant you patience and the ability to make a quick sprint before the multitude of cars that race toward you. But if your courage fails you at the last moment and you cower at the sight of the monstrous oncoming traffic with the occasional rally driving motorbike or car zipping through (they don't really care if you want to cross; they'll intentionally try to run you over if they can), then oh woe is you! For you are doomed to stand there till the end of time.

A couple of hours atleast.

Revelation for the day: If you indulge in chicken prepared the Indian way (read garam masala**) and head out for an intense yoga class ten minutes later, you will get heartburn. And die.

*dramatics

**A seasoning made by blending dry-roasted, ground spices, such as black pepper, cumin, cloves, and cardamom, used in the cooking of northern(?) India - answers.com (couldn't have put it better myself)

last sunday.

Weekend getaway: Kalote Lake, Khopoli, Maharashtra

Joyfully reuniting with the family after eons - aunts, uncles, cousins, kayaking - setting out for unchartered lands only to be driven away by the frenzied barks of dumb animals as soon as our paddles touched the soil, the boat capsizing as another 120 kg of manflesh tried to get onto it, floaters depreciating beyond repair, getting thrashed by a merciless waterfall and emerging with backs bruised and battered, trekking with great care on moss covered rocks with bare feet crabs and tropical looking bugs and spiders accompanying us to the source of the waterfall only to be forced back by relentless agonized paternal yells, making the descent sitting on rocks having nightmarish visions of tights ripping at every 'sat', posing in the water, trying to catch roosters and chicks on the hike back, chasing guinea fowl at the resort with my adorable nephew whose energy levels would put to shame those of anyone who downed 20 cans of bull, kayaking again this time with more company only to have to wait in the boat barefoot (yet again) as neil armstrong set out to mark the land in his Vans, huddling together for a final picture, covered from head to toe with cuts, bruises and a (now) lovely tan that ends before it even reaches the clavicles, and at the end of it, none the worst for wear.

And as I lay in bed, I felt the strange sensation that I was still rocking in a kayak.

All in all, a good day.

Oh yes, a good day indeed. ^_^

A forgotten boat - Kalote Lake, Maharashtra

The waterfall!

The trek up on the rocks hidden behind the verdure.

A huge shoutout to everyone who was there.. YOU made it happen! :*