Getting back to Tada, it is a wonderful place, full of greenery fresh water and close to nature. Mahen was pretty well versed with the route and after travelling by train and share auto we finally reached there. The beauty with Tada is that as you go higher and higher it becomes more beautiful, you get lost in the beauty and finally get lost! We took the wrong route while coming down but it was pretty adventurous and at last we found our way through. It was one helluva trip and one of the best treks i have ever done.

This was the initial rough terrain where we had to jog, run ,walk and drag for about 3 kms to see the first stretch of water.

The first place where we took a halt, changed , got wet and played ultimate Frisbee for some time.

Our “Typical” shot

Me trying hard to get on!

Bliss!!

After completing the tough stretch.

Check out more photos from the trek HERE

After Tada we had to face the final wrath of sitting for three hours in the same place and scribble some thing in a booklet. They do call it exams and we were do it for one final time. We didn’t complain. As usual previous day photocopying, over night stand and we finally did it.

On the day the exams got over a few of classmates started to a place called Veerapandi a small village near Theni district. We stayed at my friend Arun’s place and the four days i will never forget. The thiruvizha, the sweet and loving family, the farms, cows, the river, the palm trees, Arun’s grand father and many more. With all these the days went off with amazing fun.

The thiruvizha (temple fest) was SO massive and i never imagined some thing like that. There were about a lakh people from the surrounding villages and the city never slept for the entire week. Music, dance, religious rituals , shops selling unseen items and two eyes was not enough to see all those. The first day we roamed the thiruvizha and one thing which made every one gape their mouths wide was the death well or the Marana Kinaru. It was a 50 foot deep wooden well like thing and the stunt men rode cars and bikes on the wall. High point was there were 3 women in the team. Imagine a car running perpendicularly on a wall at 100 kmph and the man taking his entire body out of the window controlling the steering with his legs and hands partly! You have to see it to believe! But they were risking their badly…. i second mismatch between the vehicles , sure shot kabala moksham!

Indeed…A Death well!

The next day we spent it in the farms, the river and had nungu straight from the palm trees. Also learnt the art of eating it directly by putting one finger inside the soft surface. We then went to the river and dipped in for a couple of hours.

Natural Shelter to beat the heat!

On the way back we saw the die rolling game. (Recall the Pithamagan film where Surya cheats Laila). Some what same thing. 10 ruba vecha 20 ruba. One thing which is synonymous with villages is that there will be no pechu, only vetu , kuthu, kolai! One guy made a comment during the game and it turned to a big riot. Only thing which we did was ESCAPE! The next day we went along with many of the family members of Arun and had food in the farm. Veerapandi is one unforgettable experience and i has some good conversations with Arun’s grandpa. Hard to see a man like him. He would be some 80 years and was so passionate to take care of the farm and daily went and did the irrigation and stuff.

Theni is really an excellent place with a pleasant climate. It is centrally located between Munnar, Kodai and Thekkady. We decided to go to Kodai the next day and head to Chennai from there. Kodai was good except for the summer crowd. Lots of places to explore there but we just alloted one day and so we hired a cab and checked out many places. We went to boating when the sun was about to set and the lake was filled with mist.

Finally after battling in 4 government buses and travelling for some 18 hors finally reached home!

Not but not the least, yours truly is now an ENGINEER!
The final semester result was a pleasant surprise. Scored 85% which i never thought. Although not a big accomplishment feels good to be a first class with distinction grad!

The previous day we both went to a stadium in Kilpauk and after waiting for long time and many confusions we completed the registration and got the riders license. The best part was one guy comes and tells…
A: You both are now representing Tamilnadu…
We: Oh!!
A:He is your coach and Mr.John will be your pilot.
We: Thats nice!

Earlier, i never knew how to go to Kilpauk and thought i could take a bus to some distance and then take an auto. I was reminded of…
Inda bus Kilpauk poguma?
Nee yerina enda bus vena pogum!
Fortunately that didn’t happen!
I decided to stay at Ganesh’s house since we had to leave at 4 in the morning. It was Vicky’s birthday and we called him at 4:30 AM and ganesh spoke like Vicky’s senior official and vicky was not able to understand what was happening. We then conveyed the wishes and started. A truck was supposed to carry our cycles from chennai to Mayajaal and unfortunately it left. So we had to cycle all the way from Thiruvanmyur to Mayajaal which added some 15 km just even before the race started. We reached there exhausted and the race started just 15 minutes later adding fuel to the fire.

There were a good number of foreigners in our category and almost everyone had the geared mountain bikes excepting us. We used the ordinary MTB. The race had awesome prize money and all those professionals were highly focussed and were beating the shit out of their asses. It was 15km up and 15 km down and by the time i did my first lap someone would have finished. The best part was we went to a kaiyendi bhavan and had our breakfast in between the race! 6 dosas and 2 vada costed 18 bucks….dead cheap and they were pretty decent and clean also.

Me and Ganesh at the small hotel…

Ganesh at the finish line….Everybody started clapping and people thought he finished first! Even till the evening lots of people shook hands with him thinking he won!Since he has stopped blogging, i will have to stress the fact that he got more claps than the winner

Exhausted…Just after the race.

For more pics check HERE

I learnt a lot of lessons from the race and met two really inspiring people. Mr. Venkatesh was the man behind the NGO which conducted the race and we had a good chat with him. This man is doing something great and i wish i could do my little help in achieving his goals. Then there was this 53year old foreigner who rode along with us in the 30KM category and completed in the top slot. Then i was amazed to see this guy at the start line of the 140km amateur race and he completed that race too in the top 20. What a man he is! I wasn’t able to even imagine riding a cycle at his age.

After completing this i have planned to take part in the chennai marathon and also try rowing. We even found some guys at ICR who were interested to do rowing. The best lesson learnt was to cushion your seat else you will not be able to use your ass for the next day and will have to sit on the bag in the classroom