The bloody red thing

Hi folks, this post is about my personal experiences with a bloody red thing. It is the fluid of life... but, not water. It is that magic potion which helps us to breathe... but, not oxygen. It treats each and every one of us equally regardless of our religion, race, class, caste, sex, belief or IPL team prefrences. The world has produced hundreds and thousands of scientists and millions of new inventions have been made. There are artificial kidneys, artificial lungs, artificial legs and there is even a substitute for Mother’s milk. But till date this red bloody thing has no worthy substitute.

My very first experience with this thing is the curious doubt I had when I learnt how to spell it in elementary school. My teacher wrote this word on the black board – B .. L.. O.. O.. D – and asked us all to pronounce it as ‘blood’. I was confused. With my English knowledge, I could only justify pronouncing B L O O D as ‘blued’ but it is not even blue to be named that. Of course, the bloody red thing I am talking about all this while is the blood itself and this post intends to tell how B.. L.. O.. O.. D can spell L.. I.. F.. E  to many in the world today through a process that is spelt D.. O.. N.. A.. T.. I.. O.. N!

During my childhood, I understood blood mostly as a nasty and dangerous fluid that runs down my nose when some stronger brat hits me in school. And I trained my reflexes to run immediately to the teacher shouting “Miss.. Blood is coming!” Basically I understood it as an important fluid which I can’t afford to lose in big quantity.

A stark realization of blood came to me when I was 16 and an unfortunate accident happened to my maternal grandmother. She slipped and fell down one day at home and her weak bones had collapsed instantly. We rushed her to the hospital and they said a surgery had to be done to implant a steel rod in her thighs to save her. She had lost a lot of blood with the fall and with the surgery  getting ready, the doctors quickly wanted to know if anyone in the family had the same group of blood. Call it a real bad fortune. There were only two people in that room in my family who shared the same blood group – my mother and me! My mother could not donate since she is a diabetic and even if I was more than willing, I could not donate too since I was not legally permitted to donate then. I was 16.

The doctors gave us 3 hours to arrange for the required blood and gave us some phone numbers to help. This was a time when there was no internet, no social media and even cell phones were a luxury. My uncle & I searched frantically for blood that day and eventually we found it through a blood bank. The surgery went on well and the steel rod safely went into my grandmother’s thighs. At the same time, the importance of this bloody red thing went firmly into my mind too. I took an oath to become a blood donor right from my 18^th birthday!

Two years passed. Pat.. came my 18^th birthday – a very special day that empowers one to do many things legally – work, drive, vote.. I will stop with that, you know this list :-) But to me it empowered me to put a needle in my veins and take out some of my blood to give to a man or woman in need. The intentions were fine. But where do I do the action? I was in a college hostel at that time and I searched through telephone directories and called up the Red Cross and told them I want to donate blood. It was actually awkward and I could have sounded silly like the bespectacled guy in that famous movie who asks ‘What is the procedure to change the room?’

What is the procedure to donate my blood!?

I went along with it and finally found a blood bank near my college where I can go and donate my blood. The medical officer there was very amused that a young boy had come voluntarily to donate blood without any prompting on his 18^th birthday. It should have been a rare case in her history!

I was very curious about how they were going to take the blood from me. Since it was the first time I was slightly nervous too. A nurse came in, checked my blood pressure ... made me lie flat on a bed and inserted a needle into my veins. She mentioned that my veins were very easy to find unlike most people. I had a sponge ball in my arm which I was asked to keep pressing continuously. I felt the prick of the needle and then I could feel the blood moving out of my body. I wanted to see it getting filled in the bottle but I was scared to ask the nurse. She was asking trivial questions about my native, interests etc. while this was all happening. After about 20 minutes, she said it is all done and asked me to get up. She took the needle out, put a band-aid on the elbow and expressed a note of acknowledgement that my blood clotted quickly too.

Out of curiosity I asked her how much blood they took from me. She smiled and explained to me that it would approximately be 250-300 ml. 300 ml! That is what I told my mother with a lot of pride that night on phone. Against my expectations, she went livid immediately and started scolding me. 300 ml! Strangely she could not digest that they sucked a whole Pepsi bottle’s worth of blood from my body. A pepsi bottle! As it happens, the last time I donated blood, I noticed they too 450 ml of whole blood from my body. They have moved on to a half-litre Pepsi bottle now it seems :-)

Abey, been thinking about donating blood for long? Do it ABHI!

Funny how mothers imagine things. Like most mothers would, my mother never accepted that I am strong enough to donate blood and she still scolds me whenever I donate blood. And it remains one of my petty pleasures till date to tease her each time after I donate blood.

Word spread in my hostel that I voluntarily donated my blood and suddenly many of my friends wanted to become donors too. The intention was there in most people but they simply did not know the ‘where’ and the ‘how’! I guided them all to the same blood bank and before I realized, I had inspired about 20 odd people in the college to become donors.

Since then I donate blood around my birthday every year and also when in need. Today the blood search has become a lot easier with the role of mobile phones and social media. I am 25 now and I have donated blood nine times till now. And each experience has been very memorable to me.

I once donated to the heart surgery of a patient who had flown in from Iraq to Chennai for treatment. Without any passports or visas, my blood went abroad before I could! Quite a few times, I have met the families and close relatives of patients to whom I donated and in all those faces, I see my own plight during my grandmother’s surgery every time. Blood donation has definitely been a very satisfying soul search attempt for me and I am sure it would be the same for any donor.

Contrary to many myths, the need for blood is very prevalent in our nation and any drop of blood of any group donated by anyone can definitely play a role in saving a life. Medicinal technology has advanced so much even in this span of 7 odd years since I started blood donation and they have made the process as easy as possible. They have better needles with lesser pricking sensation now, they have better fancy beds for blood donation now, sterilization, separation and storage processes have improved a lot now and in fact, each time we donate blood, it is separated into RBCs, platelets and plasma and stored separately to help the need of three different people. All it takes is one willing effort to become a blood donor to experience this pride, this satisfaction and above all, it is just a prick and is so easy for a person of normal health! There are sufficient information online about the eligibility, process and guidelines for blood donation.

People getting treated for cancer, people giving birth to babies, people injured in accidents, people undergoing surgery for any random reason – there are millions of people out there requiring a match-type blood right now and this is a true case where little drops can make an ocean! I would be delighted if reading this post can move at least one person to be a first-time blood donor. Personally, I aim at donating blood 50 times in my life and I am 41 short of the target still. In that context for the already experienced donors, this post shall best serve as a wake up call for another  round of donation.

Blood donation is a noble cause. So don’t be O negative about it and B positive about it. You can save a life! Just open your eyes and browse for blood requirements. You will find one person whom you can help. TODAY. 

Cheers,

GS

A must-see place in Chennai and a must-introduce man to our kids

I am going to start this article with a little anecdote. It is about the fashionable Che Guerra t-shirt. We all have seen it and of course I met a cousin of mine who was flaunting it one fine day. Out of curiosity, I asked him, “Brother do you know who this man on your vest is?” He said , “Ya they've written his name there – Che Guerra”.. “Ok.. Who is Che Guerra?” "He is a revolutionary” "Well, what kind of revolution did he do?” That became tough for him it seemed.. “Hmm.. he fought for communism.. Against USA perhaps” Perhaps! "You know where he fought for communism?” “Well,that should be one among Russia, China or Cuba”.. O Ernesto Che Guerra, if you are up there and listening, better rest in peace! Well, I don't have any regrets with my brother's notion of Che. We live in an age where we have revolutionised the very act of revolution. True, we get involved in many revolutions against corruption, against injustice to women etc. We raise our voice vehemently and fervently against social injustices! We change our facebook profile pictures! And update status messages and say ‘I am a champion for this cause’

With this context, I am going to tell you about an old-school revolutionary whom I adore and salute. This man is a lunatic, a visionary, an outcast, and a poet – he lived amidst our forefathers in this very own city and his name is Mr. Subramanya Bharathi! I came to know that the home in which he lived has been converted to a memorial and it is still in Chennai. And I went there recently with some of my friends. 

This is a place where you don’t get invited to. You don’t hangout. You seek the place!  I sought the place. A little bit of Googling and I found its co-ordinates. It is about a 10 minute walk from Triplicane MRTS station and just opposite to one of the entrances of the Parthasarathy temple. When I went there I was expecting a museum of sorts – antique pens and furniture used by him. It was different and had the more plain stuff – photographs and his poems neatly framed and adorning the walls. 

They have actually framed a very crisp history of his – in fact it is an easy job because he lived only for a short time, at least mortally!

Of the photographs that I saw there, there was the classic Bharathi photo that we see everywhere with the spark in his eyes. There is another rare photo of him and his wife – one person sitting in a chair and the other standing adjacently. A classic husband and wife pose! The twist is that Bharathi was the person standing. And this was pre-independence ! Well and truly, it should have required a lot of guts and intention to do this and flaunt this photo on your living room. And he had both!

As I strolled along I observed his poems in his own handwriting mounted on the walls. And it was really inspiring to watch his handwriting, the old style Tamil alphabet and to think of the moments when those immortal words would have been created! He actually knew that these words are going to be immortal and he has written about that too!

தேடிச் சோறு நிதம் தின்று – பல
சின்னஞ் சிறுகதைகள் பேசி – மனம்
வாடித் துன்பமிக உழன்று – பிறர் 
வாடப் பலசெயல்கள் செய்து – நரை 
கூடிக் கிழப்பருவ மெய்தி – கொடுங்
கூற்றுக் கிரையெனப்பின் மாயும் – பல

வேடிக்கை மனிதரைப் போலே – நான்
வீழ்வே னென்று நினைத்தாயோ?

He is a man who was clearly ahead of his times. By all means, one can argue that he is ahead of even our times. A man who had eyes set on the future and feet tied to the present which lived in the past. He took it on his shoulders to drag the society to the future – HIS future! And at times, his frustration at the society comes out in his words 

நல்லதோர் வீணை செய்தே - அதை

நலங்கெடப் புழுதியில் எறிவதுண்டோ?

சொல்லடி சிவசக்தி - எனைச் 

சுடர்மிகும் அறிவுடன் படைத்துவிட்டாய்!

What I like about him the most is his arrogance of a genius. I am using the word arrogance and not confidence. In his language, he calls it  ஞானச் செருக்கு. That is evident in his writing.

My Tamil teacher told me that he knew 8 languages, which is at least 5 more than most of us. But I have never had an opportunity to see what he has written or spoken in other languages. They have in this home a letter in English that he wrote as a fundraiser to release one of his books and the language used in the letter would make any English professor proud! Talking of arrogance, he asked for people to send him 100 Rs. each to raise Rs. 20,000 to release his book and he even wanted the people to sell their assets and support him, if need be! He was so confident of earning a lakh rupess in book sales and returning their money with interest.

Which never happened of course, and they have framed another excerpt from his wife Chellamma adjacent to it. She says if there is one art that my dear husband never mastered it is the art of money making. How true is that!

And as we were about to leave, the caretaker enquired our whereabouts. He was so surprised that we have come from a place as far as Tambaram to see this place and that explains the massive audience that he manages each day at job. I at least wanted my Che Guerra t-shirt cousin to go there once and I told him he should check this place out. Gladly, he did.

Two things happened after his visit. One – he started reading about Che Guerra and two – we ended up discussing why don't we see a Bharathi t shirt now! Why not ? This man can inspire!

As destiny would have it, the very next day after I wrote this piece, I saw a Bharathi t-shirt (at the Crafts shop, Dhakshin Chithra, ECR, Chennai) and I only take it as a good omen!

I prod you, persuade you and pester you, Chennaiites, to visit this place, take all the kids in your family and tell them that a great man lived here! 

 தத்தரிகிட தத்தரிகிட தித்தோம்

- GS

Beach cleanup for the olive ridley turtles - Tiruvanmiyur - with CTC and EFI

On February 10, 2013, I chose to wake up early on a Sunday morning and ended up feeling very contented for the decision eventually. Chennai Trekking Club had partnered with Environmentalist Foundation of India to organize a clean-up morning at the Tiruvanmiyur beach, Chennai. This initiative was to keep the beach in a welcome position for the olive ridley turtles that are soon to migrate in masses to these shores to lay eggs. The cause intrigued me and I signed up for the project and managed to convince 2 other friends too to wake up early that day. 

At around 7 AM, I went to the beach and there was already a lot of activity going on. Around 50 volunteers were actively picking up all sorts of garbage from the sands in a particularly ear-marked space in the vast beach and dumping them all in a common place to be collected later. All volunteers were provided with gloves and garbage was collected in many plastic buckets. There was another pile of black garbage bags filled with waste cleaned up on the earlier day. It was pleasing to see the spirit of people participating in the mission. 

We got into the act straightaway and started to pick waste. Plastic cups, chocolate/ ice-cream/ gutkha covers, polythene covers, single leg slippers, torn underwear, bottles (plastic and glass), thermacoal sheets, dog skull bones, what not... I was able to find them all half-buried in the sand. There were a few interesting people whom I spotted during the session. There was a father and a 10-year old son participating very eagerly in the act. The father was educating his son all the while about cleanliness in public places and the impact of pollution. The son's enthusiasm was evident as he was pestering his father with questions on what is degradable and what is not and it all seemed good sport to him. I paid a moral salute to the father for trying to mould a responsible citizen. 

There were many youngsters as expected from both sexes and it was very reassuring to see their involvement. There were even a significant lot of middle-aged people - again from both sexes - which was even more heartening. Many onlookers and beach-walkers enquired about it to us and a few of them joined in impromptu in our mission too. But most onlookers just continued on with their regular chores. 

A few foreigners who were walking/ jogging there stopped by and checked about the event very enthusiastically. They also expressed praise for this country and its people for taking this initiative. 

I also met a curious character that day. He seemed a very pessimistic, dejected old man and he approached me with a cynical look. He asked me, "What good can you do by cleaning up this small area today? There is so much of garbage out there in the society. What are you going to do about it?"... "Well.. this is just a step in the big movement.. If more hands join together, we can try to make a difference" - I replied. He took the conversation on to new levels of cynicism and started to talk figuratively about garbage and went on to politics, Justice Party, Periyar, casteism, corruption and all sorts of topics and eventually ended up with this astonishing statement - "Nothing will work here. Only guns can change this nation. You youngsters should drop all these garbage bags and start taking up guns in your hand." !!!!  It was not even a conversation. It was more of a soliloquy. I felt that I was just an audience to his sermon. 

Though I agree not just a bit to his views, I was just curious to test his limits and let him talk on for some time while collecting garbage nearby. At the end of his sermon, I asked him a simple question. "All is good.. Sir, why don't you put on a pair of gloves and join us first in this cleanup. We ll work to clean this beach for a few hours before deciding whether to take up guns".. His reply - "I am sick pa.. I have dust allergy.. blah blah.. In my age, I was more active than you and all. Now I can only rant. But if you youngsters take guns, I will stand behind you" .. I was half-expecting this answer from him :-)What do they say about barking dogs?

When a reasonable stretch was cleaned up and the sun reached the peak, we came to the close of the session. There was a group photo session and a thank-you note from the EFI team along with a briefing on olive ridley turtles and their activities along the Chennai coast. I was expecting such a brief at the start of the day so as to align all people with more knowledge on what they were working on. Anyway, the information was well-delivered! I also made a mental note to check on these turtles in Wikipedia that evening. 

It was real hot and I could see a significant tan on my skin almost immediately after I reached home driving from the beach, though it was partly due to my own negligence. Sufficient warnings were given to carry sun protection from the organizers. Indha moonjiku idellam thevaiya nu I was careless about it :-) 

Takeaways from the activity :-

1. Boosted moral responsibility not to litter in public places

2. Boosted knowledge about turtles and their mass breeding phenomenon

3. Boosted confidence in the greater good that will somehow survive in the society

4. Boosted tan on the skin

And I posted this as a status update on fb that day : "Brothers and sisters.. there are good souls out there ready to get their hands dirty cleaning up your mess.. But please don't overburden them"

Thanks to CTC and EFI. 

Cheers,

GS

The ultimate social game for the non-player

Thanks to Alan Cleaver for the image

Disclaimer: If you are a Mafia wars/ Glassdoor/ Farmville/ Criminal Case/ What-not enthusiast, you might find the content of this post 'hurting' your sentiments and if you can rally around with a strong army which can threaten chaos to law and order, you might even win a ban to my blog and give me great publicity. That way, I can improve my blog's followers from this meagre number to a healthy chunk. 

Every civilization starts with farming it seems. In retrospect, how fitting it seems to be ! If only people resisted to being drawn into agriculture and cattle rearing on computer screens a few years ago, we would have been living in a different planet now! Of course the Vice cities and the like would still have been around but those people would be innocuously killing and looting in solitude in their homes and at best through a LAN connection. And I would not have been receiving invitations to solve murder mysteries on social media now .... If only !

These game hosts refuse to learn even from the age-old wisdom transferred across generations. They missed their last chance when they all entered into their fancy Glassdoors. Nobody seemed to realise that those who live in glass doors should not throw stone at another. Boy! They were throwing invitations around like a storm, forget a stone. Once the glassdoor fad was gone and they emerged out of the door, there was no turning back. The latest one is the crime scene. Most people who claim to solve murders are people who can't find the glasses on the nose when they desperately search for it all around the place.

Luckily, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is not around to see everybody becoming a Sherlock Holmes now. If so, he should only be writing recipe books titled like 'How to become a detective in 30 days?' or 'Anybody can investigate' to find a living in the world today.

Point emphasized. Period.

What will the innocent non-gaming souls like me do to avoid these invitations once and forever? What is the panacea for our fate? Blocking each game and each friend from sending us game requests is like breaking a mountain pebble by pebble. What if we clean it all up in one stroke? I have a solution.

We should play! 

Yes, for one last time, we should play a social game. Not any game. A new game that I propose here. *Inspired from the adage that thorns have to be taken out by thorns*

Thanks to crdotx for the image

Here's the game for you. I have heard friends say about this Vice city game where you can freely roam around and kill, loot, kidnap and do whatever you wish. People actually like that chaos and want to be the bad guy so badly while playing this game. I propose a social game which is much bigger than any small silly game that they play now. It will be like the Vice city of social media.

It integrates all known social games into it and create one huge world and connect all gamers in the world in one platform. Farmers can tend to their cattle, mafiosos can plot murders and investigators can investigate them all in one synced place. O yeah.. the glassdoor guys can continue throwing stones at others. Everybody logging in from their social media account and living in this world.

All I want is an exclusive vice-city type license also to be built into this game. Which means, the vice city morale is also to be built in this game. A user should denounce from playing all other games forever to play this game in this mode. Once I start playing the game in this mode, I can freely roam around the place, sit in mafia meetings and randomly fire at people, destroy crime scene evidences and basically, spoil the party of other gamers. Much like what is done in Vice city.

Not just any party. Whenever I get an invite from a so-and-so to join in his game, I should be getting an alert on what game he is playing and I should be able to spoil that particular so-and-so's game. What fun it will be, right?

Here is the masterstroke. Basically, people want to spoil the parties of others and be the bad-ass guy (as Vice City taught us). So, there is a greater proabability that more and more people will start playing this game in the Vice-city mode which means more and more people will have to denounce from playing all other games forever on social media which means invitations from other games will die out in a few months. We will only be spammed with invitations to this game.

That's right.. saavungada!

Voila ! Here is the solution to that as well. As more and more people play as chaos agents, there will be less and less people playing other games whose parties can be spoilt. Eventually there will be no innocent guy tending to cattle or investigating murder and everybody will want to commit crime in this game. So they will have nothing to do and they can't go back to their normal cattle lives as well (remember the denouncement).

Hence proved. So, all non-gamers and those who get annoyed at investigation invitations, support to bring this game real in social media and save a civilization.

As of now, for the crime scene investigation invites I receive, here is my answer: I don't do murders unless provoked and I don't play games on social media even in provoked. So don't make me a murderer.

- Cheers,
GS

Learning a different language of the body

I am going to write today about how I learnt a different language of the body recently. Please note I am not using the phrase ‘body language’. It should aptly be the ‘language of the body’. Is there a difference? There should be in the context I am going to speak. Language is a form of expression and general perception typically confines it to the limits of linguistics. When we explore beyond the conventional, we shall be amazed to know how many languages are out there around us – that which we never consciously take notice of ever in our lives. There are languages of the tongue, which we all are familiar with. There are languages of the eyes, which people in love know to speak. There are languages of computers, which coders and programmers manipulate for a living. There are languages of the soul, which philosophers tend to. And then there are languages of the body, which the human body learns to express. 

Dancers, Gymnasts, Actors and even martial arts experts will tell you what this language of the body thing is. It is an expression of the body, with a meaning, structure and grammar on its own. It has to be learned like any other language. It can be used to communicate to and fro with people who know the same language. The language of the body that I am going to talk about today is that of swimming and my terrain is a swimming pool in the summer vacations where I signed up for a swimming course at the age of 21.

Melancholy, guilt and sexuality - a WTK report

Ever felt so melancholic about the ill-fate hunger serves to countless souls and stomachs across the world? If yes, your melancholy could have possibly been caused because you took an extra serving of dessert at a friend’s party a few years earlier. This is hypothesised as per a gentleman named Christian Heinroth’s (1773-1843) views on melancholy as a psychic disorder. I shall be talking more about his theory in this post later. At least my mind can easily digest that there can be some reason in his proposed relation between the dessert and hunger. What it cannot easily gulp down is another gentleman named Shlomo Sigismund Freud’s view that an intensely repressed sexual instinct could have prompted you to take the extra serving of dessert that night. The world knows this gentleman better as Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) – the father of psychoanalytics.

Err... I have been reading an interesting and very heavy (size-wise and content-wise) book called ‘Sigmund Freud & The science of psychoanalytics’ recently. I know it sounds a bit weird but I can assure you all of my mental health while writing this post. It is a passing reference to Heinroth and his work in the book that stimulated this thought in me that has emanated as this article. Yes.. now you may understand what the WTK means. If you can bear with this kolaveri, read on further. 

Why every entrepreneur should read Harry Potter

A quick question to start with – Have you read the Harry Potter books already? If yes, you will not need my help with the Potter jargon and you might as well find this post interesting, especially if you are an entrepreneur of some sorts, considering the angle in which I have tried to bring out this article. If you haven’t read it yet, I would recommend it if you have the habit of reading and I can give you an assurance that it is not, as per the general perception of most non-readers, an over-rated childish story.

I always have a special feeling about Harry Potter and I just feel that the time has not come yet for it to be unanimously accepted by all reading community as a classic. This is a usual problem that many contemporaries face since the work would not have been time-tested yet. People would have even debated about the quality of Iliad or Ulysses or the Lord of the Rings series when they were initially published. As they withstood the test of time and passed on to our generations, we accept their classic status without a question and some even go on to stack them in the most inaccessible corners of our book shelves.

In my native language Tamil, I can draw the analogy of the most recent cult-classic- Kalki’s ‘Ponniyin Selvan’, which was initially published as a long and continuous story in a magazine that came every week. I can imagine how the story would have fascinated readers back then and made them waiting for the next edition of the magazine to catch the story’s next chapter. This is a fascinating story that made me sit and read about 2000 pages at one go in 3-4 days. I can see the pride in some old timers even now when they say that they read the Ponniyin Selvan in the magazine version and that pride emanates from being a contemporary witness to a classic in its creation stage. Many of them have even went on to name their kids after certain lead characters in Ponniyin Selvan. For all we know, we might be the generation that names their kids Harry, Albus or Severus* and speak proudly about the experience of waiting for the release of the next Potter book in the future.

The bald truth about cynicism

One question before you read anything in this post. Please take a paper and pencil and list down the ten most cynical men you have met in your life. He can be a famous cynical celebrity; your school's principal; or even your distantly related uncle who has staunch doubts about the Indian economy and your company's future in particular (though he thinks that the MNC where his son works is well hedged against all risks). Now that you have written down the names, count the number of bald men in this list. How many did you get?

If you are at any stage of balding yourself, I bet you will cynically complain about the purpose of this exercise, question my sanity and move on to the next complaint. If not, there are bright chances that your answer contained more than half of names in that list. Why did we do this exercise? Let me take a little detour. I had a recent conversation with a very cynical man on a very sensitive topic. What started as a conversation turned into an argument before culminating in a long 'there is no hope' sermon which I was forced to sit out. Thankfully though, halfway into the sermon, this sudden hypothesis struck me and it seems to grow in logic with time as I think of it. Can baldness be related to cynicism in men ?

As I thought further, most cynical people whom I know turn out to be bald, though the corollary does not seem very convincing. Most cynics are bald. All bald men are not cynics.

My bucket list of biking

Image : Thanks to Michael Wilson photography

Motorcycles and horses have a very close similarity in my thinking and they fascinate me equinely - oops .. equally ! I do not know which passion came first but they feed one another mutually with petrol and oats and a lot of dreams. I admired bikers and horsemen alike when I was a kid and as I grew up, I learned to ride one of them and the other one still remains a distant admiration. Considering that I had to wait till I was 18 and officially approved by the state to ride a bike as per my uber-cautious parents, riding a horse seems quite a distance away in my life yet. But I still have a strong hope on the fuel prices and I am just waiting for the day when I can ride my own horse to work :-) If I were to make a bucket list of things to do before I die, horse-riding will definitely figure in that list (the Marina beach horse rides are only teasers and they strictly do not fill this bill). So, that sets aside the status and story of one passion for now. As you read on further, you will be introduced to my bucket list of biking - things that I have planned to do at various stages in my life associated with motorcycles and my current status for them respectively.

Bike and trek to bliss – Chennai to Tada falls

It’s been a long while since I set out on a bike trip after two memorable previous experiences. Moreover I was waiting for the first adventure road trip on my ‘own’ bike too. A lot of plans came and went and finally the wait got a deserving due. Recently I accomplished a road trip to Tada falls (Andhra – Tamil Nadu border) from Chennai and trekked all the way upto the highest point where man can reach in that hill. This story summarises that great experience.

The seeds for this trip were sown abroad. A friend (Vasu) of a friend (Anand) who studies abroad (ya... the same geeky GRE MS route after B Tech in Biotechnology) came back home recently. He was impressed by the movie Zindagi na milegi dobara and was planning such a trip with his friends. Anand, who is my colleague too, was browsing for a lot of such adventure tourism places in the 200 km radius of Chennai- mostly during office hours- and thus I came to know of it. Bugged by the bait, I also threw my hat in the ring for that trip. Hats came in plenty very soon into the ring. My friend Danie, who knows neither Anand nor Vasu, heard of this and he too joined in. Danie spread the word and his friends whom I do not know also planned to join. Eventually, we finalised the date and venue with exactly 20 people and 10 bikes to conquer Tada Falls. Funnily, the longest distance in degrees of acquaintance among these 20 turned out to be 4. Yes, connect any of Danie’s friends to Vasu! Try that. Thus we planned for everything and were excited about this trip with great scope for biking, trekking and befriending new people.