another gone weekend

yesterday was one of those days when everything seems to be going the way it should but it still wasn't providing any sense of happiness.

gurgaon is very far for anything. especially with such a hard clutch as in case of my zen and temperatures trying not very hard to successfully touch 45 damn degrees. reached the other correct end of the city without much hassle or phone calls, got parking space after being a spectator to what looked sheer stupid collective predicament of all those people. movie tickets were easier and food filled before half of the plate was empty. movie was fun and ice tea were too. coming back took double the time. and folks weren't in great mood.

monday morning don't affect me like they popularly do. but today it isn't as exciting. hope it gets better.

delhi - chopta - tungnath - not chandrashila - delhi

the most damaging thing about being commonplace is that even beauty isn't credited if it is commonplace. you sleep while you are driving through the 12 hours of winding roads in absolutely beautiful green almora hills with turquoise alaknanda flowing like a stream in almost picture perfect settings of the valley; when any travel guide in the world would be begging to place the settings in the top 25 most beautiful must see places, if the settings are cut only a frame and placed anywhere in sahara, you really don't seem to pay a lot of attention.

this is what happened to my drive to chopta this last weekend. and the philosophy resonates in everything. the girls that would seem incredible in sector 18 would be commonplace in gk1. so thats how cruel commonality is. so coming back to the drive that started past midnight in a tee and pajamas ended almost 14 hours later in the tee buried deep under couple of fleecy layers.

excitement was propheciesed by the adventurous omen that had all of us trying to control our heartbeats. the omen was the cab ride backwards and downhill with everyone outside and inside trying to stop it with the help of gear [manu], brakes by hand [that SOB driver], muscles [subbu], handbrake [deepak], stones [me] and screams [dear prashant :D]. we reached the base-camp nonetheless with couple of guys and a girl we picked up on the road in the kitty.

small banging in my head withstanding we started the trek and as unexpected reached a little less than half-way. the first night without electricity or phone connections was past literally in the nature's lap after our gang gobbled up around a crate full of eggs, half a dozen dal servings and another half dozen veg and rajma servings with half-hundred rotis. pin-drop silent night went without anything but forest sounds.

our timings the next morning were comfortably couple of hours off-target, not that anybody did mind, but it ripped off plans of any other excursion from the schedule. another thing that nature does to you is that it takes nude girls off your mind. or maybe that nature of that trek was such that you keep on thinking about saving your own ass from rolling downhill instead of the corresponding part of the anatomy of the fairer counterparts. the next morning we did it in half the time and were rewarded for our enthusiasm by virtually empty temple courtyard which was otherwise filled with 4-5 feets of snow and light snowfall. the trail to chandrashila was invisible so trekking it went out of the equation. negotiating descent on snow was as tricky as the ascent but the pit-stop at the hanging cliff was beautiful. i am awaiting the pics of that part from prashant's and deepak's camera.

drive back home had me sullen for the couple of hours for the unhappiness of losing my aviators. but i was happy when i found them [with dear prashant's 100% help]. and alaknanda looked all the more beautiful then.

desire is a tricky emotion

i bought it twice but started reading it for the first time. i have an history of taking wrong first impressions, it seems. at the onset it seemed coarse. talking about sex but not using the [im]popular words. 'the alchemy of desire' is a fat novel which it seems would grow upon you. it has a certain mystery to it which makes you turn pages when at the same time you wonder if it is interesting at all.

i might take it to the chopta-tungnath-chandrashila trip. although it would add to the load but it should be a fun read in the long journey.