Mom wanted to buy a fruit bowl. He's a nutcase. He insisted it's a hat.

Proves my alien on earth theory.

Yesterday, Samit Basu, whose books it cost me more to post by courier than it did to buy, called me sinister.

Incidentally, my brother loves the Gameworld trilogy (which made posting it to him worth it)

Years ago, bro made a poem

My mother is a bother

My dad is bad

My sister is sinister

But I am a saintly lad

.....................................

In Kullu, I took a bath after 5 days of trekking, then put my towel out to dry. A few hours later I noticed that the colorful yellow and blue stripey flag on the lamppost across the road was my towel.

This kid in school, my old school, he brought a note, 'to the hon'ble principal'. It was handwritten. This other guy, peeped over his shoulder, giggled and said," Looks like, 'to the horrible principal".

And that is all I can say about that...he had the last word

It is very very hot and humid in Kolkata right now.

Overheard conversation on road. Gentleman to other gentleman-

"It's so hot! I drank five litres of water......I peed only around 250grams"

heeheehee

Balls For You. HA

Confederations Cup going on right now. My major source of entertainment.

For those who dont know its an 8nation football tournament, the world champions and all the continental champions, and the hosts.

This is Kopanya. The Ball they are playing with. It's currently my favoutite football. I think it's beautiful! Kopanya means together.

Other footballs you all should see are...

Teamgeist meaning team spirit. This is the golden one which was used in the final of the World Cup.

Europass. Used in the last Euro Cup

Fevernova

T90 (cant find the picture in my laptop right now)

And lastly the Uefa Champions League ball. The prettiest of them all.

Little Ivan and the rest of the trek

So we came down the mountain. Ivan doing it with two crutches, a feat which seemed incredible when we later came to know he's fractured his leg in three places.

I also became friends with porter RumSingh when he pulled my suitcase for me after I was calling home and telling Mom that I'm gonna throw it into the Beas and she can fish it out of the Ganga in Kolkata. We made RumSingh sing in his language. Kulvi I think he said it was. RumSingh made me sing in my language.

We reached Kullu pretty late. The first thing we did was run around the room screaming in joy at the sight of the beautiful bed and bathroom. Literally. Then we changed out of our trekking clothes. Muddy, dirty and in my case torn. My windcheater had torn after I tried to jump into it in world record time after spending two hours sitting right beside a fire with the porters and guides. Chhotu and Gopal. Apparently the rest of the team couldnt take the heat. I spent my time peacefully drying everyone's wet clothes. I remember somebody's sock drying on a branch fell into the fire. The Somebody coolly threw the other sock in too.

Anyway, then we ate tandoori rotis with meat and fell asleep. Federer won the French open.

Next day was spent eating plums, apricots, peaches and hanging around Ivan's room. By evening I had become fast friends with the kid. Little Ivan has a very enchanting something. R crushed on him and Nepu (short for nekapusu or silly pussy) actually replied when he called her Nepu. Upon which he turned and winked at me fully aware of his achievement.

Next day we went to Manali. Manali has these temples. For Hidimba and her son Ghatotkach. Both portrayed as rakshases in Aryan literature ie the Mahabharata. So the G I have mentioned before is called Ghotu, short for Ghatotkach. This gave rise to a lot of merriment and the kids enjoyed Manali. We took loads of pictures for Ivan. I ate a 4-in-1 softy icecream in Manali. Choco-vanilla-strawberry-black currant. Slurrrp! mmm... I also found a Tibetan jewellery store which everybody loved. Thanks to that I had to sprint down the mainroad of Manali with an uncle coz he wanted to buy some for his kid and there was 5 minutes left to reach the busstop. We finished the world record sprint and jewellery buying but then I sprinted off again when another guy offered to treat the kids to momos. We ate like 4 momos each then packed the rest and ran back coz the leader of the expedition was calling us up and yelling through the cellphone. Special mention must go to S (kid who stranded me in frozen water). He ate 8 momos in under a minute without choking.

The next day was the bus journey to Chandigarh. Train at midnight. The train journey consisted of singing our lungs out and exchanging phone numbers. Me and Little Ivan also discussed injuries and football and lots of things. We also ate all the remaining supplies which included a box of chocolates.

Ivan told me a great story. When he was sitting with his plastered leg at Manikaran a Punjabi came up to him and asked about his leg. Then he said,"That's a nice shirt." "thanks" "But weren't you wearing a different one yesterday?" "Uhhh....yeah...." "Hm.""Why? When did you put on the shirt you're wearing now?" "I dont remember."

Then we reached good old Howrah station and I squeezed the breath out of my Dad and went home and ate breakfast and lunch consecutively. Not brunch ok? Both.

And that, is the end of my trek chronicles.

The Trek

After the highlights comes the match replay :D

So after a month long round of exams I come home dying to do something. Lugging with me an extra suitcase full of winter clothes coz Mom has arranged for a trek with a group of people I do not know. She knows one of them. And as it turned out, the group consisted of no-one my age.

So I bought a rucksack, a jacket, a sleeping bag and two pairs of rubber-soled shoes and cheerfully set out to 'see mountains' as I put it. That's because thanks to a very asthmatic childhood all my vacations are seaside. Or hill station. But I had never seen snowcapped peaks. Or snowfall.

At the railway station I was introduced to a group of children, around 15 years old at an average and their parents and a core group of trained trekker and mountaineer men.

So we piled into a train and set out. Singing cheerfully.

We reached Chandigarh at midnight day after that and piled into a bus. After a twelve hour bus journey with breaks to eat and pee we reached Manikaran. Manikaran is famous for hot water springs. The cool part is that we lived in a gurudwara. Incidentally, bro says, Manikaran has one of India's only two geothermal energy plants. Anyway, so all 46 of us in one room in a gurudwara and eating in a langar was a total new experience. Next morning we piled into cars and set out for Tosh village. Lots of us threw up. It's called altitude change.... (I'm going to take a line here to wish a friend. Dear Vineet, that was probably ur b'day. Happy Birthday. It probably sucked coz u had exams right after but hopefully knowing that people threw up may make u feel happier coz of ur weird interest in puke)

Tosh is this beautiful village. Last outpost of civilization. Last plugpoint. Last bed. Last potty. Wild weed growing everywhere. We stayed in a little hotel run by a local couple. In the afternoon they took us to see the waterfall and the local dam and power project. They almost ran along, leaving us huffing and puffing and hurting experienced trekker uncleA's ego pretty badly.

Next day we started trekking. Wonderful little trail. Snowcapped mountains in the distance. Pine and fir trees around us. Colorful wildflowers.

It was a short trek and we reached camp quickly. Just one minor mishap happened. R and T, two teenagers managed to walk right into the middle of a lot of squishy mud and sink ankle deep in it and get totally stuck. They screamed for uncleA and he came running and pulled them out after handing me his rucksack. I had an attack of the giggles then. I think the altitude had a little to do with it.

Campsite was called Budhaban. My first time living in a tent.

The next day the trek was really really long. Exhausting for everybody. Adding to my misery came a round of menstrual cramps. My stomach felt like someone had pumped it with lead. The guide Teedee, a mountain of a man, put up with my moaning for the last two hours of the trek. How much longer? I don't want to walk anymore....

Just twenty more minutes is what he said every time. The man must have a terrible impression if me.

Camp was called Sharamthach. Night was bitterly cold.

The third day's trek was amazing. We crossed the treeline. We had to cross glaciers, freezingly cold rivers and stretches of the trail were so narrow that one misstep meant disaster. I was walking behind a kid for most of the way. He's got some trekking experience and is good at picking out the right way to go but when it comes to glaciers and rivers he's BAAd. Glaciers, his formula is to cling to the rope and be pulled across coz otherwise he slips. The entire dig in the side of your foot doesn't work for him. Rivers, he just stopped in the middle of one when he found some rocks, leaving me stranded barefoot in ankle deep water which was freeeeeeezing. Man I howled then.

We reached camp. Samsithach. It started to snow. We pitched our tents and rushed inside. Our tent hadn't been pitched too well as we discovered later. The sides weren't pulled tight and water seeped in all night. Added to a porter spilling water in our tent while giving us warm driking water made our tent quite the mother of misery. We fell asleep sitting in the cold wet tent. I was apparently the only one who managed to sleep well.

Bad weather conditions forced us to start our descent the next day after a quick snowball fight. We never made it to Papsura base camp. Lots of us did heave sighs of relief at that.

Descent in the slippery snow was difficult. Two people and me managed to take a little bit of a wrong trail and ended up climbing up the side of a mountain straight to regain the trail. that was fun. After that me and uncleA trekked a long distance. This was fine and we just sat down to eat boiled eggs when 13year old G who had crapped his pants arrived. Apparently he hadnt been, crapping behind rocks not being his thing, and then slipped in snow and done it. He stank something terrible and gave me and uncleA a lot of speed. Little Ivan broke his leg that day. he completed the trek with two crutches. (Applause)

After a last night in tents we reached Tosh the next day and piled back into buses to go to Kullu. That was also the day I realized I was crapping in a Marijuana field.

Little Ivan's xray revealed three fractures and his leg was put in a cast.

last three days to be written later..... :P

Trek Highlights

Crapping- in the middle of a marijuana field, behind a rock while a huge he-sheep comes and stands majestically on rock. (stare right back and he goes away)

note to self- is he-sheep a word, he-goat is. 

Sleeping- in a tent which had come open at the top and is thus tiptilted and has snowfall outside with cold water dripping down the sides and a lot of overturned water sloshing around the floor. I was the only one who managed solid sleep given the conditions. Yay for me.

Eating, then not washing the tin coz it was too cold and getting a round scolding from a 15year old little pahari boy who simply refused to buy the excuse of 'cold'. 

Snowball fight.

more later....