Makalidurga Trekking with Bangalore Hikers

 Trekking to Makalidurga with Bangalore Hikers/New Year Celebration 2015 

Diwali is known for the Festival of Lights.
Holi is known for the Festival of colors.
Pongal is known for the Festival of Harvest.
And if you say, New-year is for the Festival of Resolutions then I am sorry you are in Retro’s. New Year is the festival of Drinks (not Nandini Milk), DJ and Night Party.
Ahan…Don’t give an atrocious look. That’s what people in metro say. And for people like me who don’t like to go to parties and drinks they suggested an extraordinary option. I.e. Sit at home and sleep.

Sarcastic!!!

Then there came an Email from Bangalore Hikers– “New Year Celebration - Night Trek to Makalidurga." Let’s welcome the rising sun of the New year from the Hill top."It sounded very exhilarating and I registered the next moment!!! 

ROFL. If you think so, then the answer is "No". My Laziness encouraged me to register later. (Filling that Membership ID seemed to be a huge task). My amnesia did an exceptional job and I remembered about the event only when I received the follow up e-mail "Thanks to the overwhelming response. Registration is closed"

Awful!!

After a few days, I checked whether any dropouts are there and my luck, there was and I am in for the Trek!!!
But there came another twist. The train was at 5.45P.M from Majestic. Getting leave or permission to leave early from office was impossible, but somehow I managed to get permission at 4.30 and planned to catch a train from Yelahanka. My team mate booked a cab and it was on time. There was less traffic and I reached Yelahanka Railway station at 4.45 and my train was at 6.20. Even the hikers boarding the 5.45 train from Majestic might have not reached. It was a very dry area with only countable people at the railway station and was damn boring to sit alone.
Then there came a bunch of guys with loads of luggage. They saw their train number in the display. The platform number was not displayed yet. But their eyes glued the symbol “A” which was meant for Arrival/Departure and a guy (seems he was the leader) said, Platform “A” and he guided others. This is the platform “A”, and this is platform “B”. Our Train will halt here and waited over there.

WTH?!

After many such funny incidents, I got a call from Santosh to buy Cool drinks. I was double excited since going out of the railway station and buying it would be a good time pass. I went to the shop and saw a big queue. Everybody was busy in buying the cake and it took so much time to enter the shop and get the shopkeepers attention. It was 6.10 and I was nervous whether I might miss the train.

“Anna, Anna, please fast Anna, Train Train, I miss Anna” after repeated begging, he gave finally and it was 3 bottles altogether 7.5 liters. I felt like lifting a barbell and hard to take it back to Railway station.

The train arrived and Santosh waved his hand to get in. As soon I got in, there were ‘guess-who-I-am' games. I terribly failed. Pulling off each other’s leg started rapidly and in a fraction of second everybody got comfortable. But I got close only with 2 hikers. One is with Sumithra, since she had DSLR camera :P and the other one. . . Who carries the CAKE!!! We wanted to ban Santosh for forgetting his Torch, but somehow we forgave him.

As soon as we got down in the station, one hiker went missing. Later we found that, he went to take selfie with the Makaliduraga station board. Later, we went to Tea shop and had tea in a very big cup and waited for Shree, who missed his train just by 30 seconds. He saw the train taking off slowly and tried to catch the train like the Bollywood hero’s. But the people stopped him, thinking that he is going to kill himself by jumping into a train. After purchasing Maggi, water bottle, we kicked off our journey.

Big Tea Cup

Some adventurous hiker suggested doing railway trekking, but we dropped the plan since it was dark and would be risky. But trust me, that highway road seemed to be risky. Since it was a New Year eve, People were drunk and driving crazy and making noise. Imagine 5 guys came in a single bike to buy a cake. 

We maintained pin-drop silence while crossing the Village thinking the villagers may stop us from doing a night trek, but the dogs barked and revealed us. 8.45 PM we started from the base and reached the top by 10.15. The trail was straight forward and we were able to find the route easily even in that dark. The mountain was full of dried Cymbopogon and it was swaying rhythmically to the tune of wind breeze. I felt it was better than the music played in DJ. It was a pretty difficult trek with huge steps. I was a bit disappointed because when I surfed about Makalidurage it was mentioned it’s a granite hillock. But I could not find a Single Granite stone. I met Bhavisha and heard of lot interesting information from her. She explained about the 30 day Basic Mountaineering Course (BMC) offered in Nehru Institute Of​​ Mountaineering and the places she explored till date. 

Sharp at 12.00 we cut the Death By chocolate cake, Death by Vanilla Coke(The Name we gave to Vanilla cake) on top of the temple and welcomed New year with full of positive energy. After Dance and Chitchats Surya suggested to play Mafia, but on hearing the description of the game we all felt our head spinning and dropped the idea. Later it was followed by Antakshari and we slept in the temple.

Camp Fire @ Makalidurga

Open Karnam Style

No Comments :P 

Tea Preparation 

Next day, when I woke up, tea was ready. Everybody was busy clicking themselves and Ram got busy in washing the Tea utensils. We got a shortfall of water and hence used Coke to wash it. Abbbaa, The stain, rust, tarnishes got removed and it shined like a sun. “Let’s welcome the rising sun of the New year from the hill top”. I did not see any sun rising as it was cloudy. May be the organizer must have mentioned this Shining utensil!!!
We started descending down and in 30 minutes; we reached the base and halted to take a group picture.

After the Groupie :P 

We heard the sound of trains whistling off in the distance while trying to take groupie (Let me assume, if picture of yourself is Selfie, then the picture of the Group is Groupie). Still, we all were engrossed in Gropie and Santosh placed his costly camera on the Railway track and set the self-timer with the delay of 10 seconds. By the time, the 2nd Sense Vision detected the arrival of Train, our sixth sense did not click to get off of the track. The Train was getting closer, the countdown of the camera began, 3, 2 ,1 Click we all rushed out of track to save our life. But Santosh rushed to protect his camera. We waited for the bus grinding all the snacks and departed.
This trek was an excellent one to kick off the New year. 

"The best thing in life are the people who love, The places you've seen and the memories you've made along the way" 

Thank you each one of you for making this event a memorable one

Place: MaKalidurga, Karnataka
No. of hikers: 19
Event Organizer: Santosh Kumar
Trip Expense : 200 Per person

To Explore more places in India Join Bangalore Hikers

What is Bangalore Hikers? are a club that travels to mountainous regions of the India for trekking, hiking, photography and nature exploring at all levels of ability. We run day trips, weekends away and longer holiday trips. We are an online social platform, we are the all non-profit, all volunteer-managed and run hiking and outdoors association based in Bangalore, Karnataka.

Touch of Mist book review by Nitesh Jain

Touch of Mist Author: Deepika Muthusamy A story that slowly but surely enters the readers heart and eventually stirs the soul. A must read for people who are juggling between love, desires and commitment. Binding: Paperback ISBN: 9788182534407 Publisher: Cyberwit.net Pub. Date: 2013 Price: INR 225 Visit Publisher's Site Overall rattings: 4.5 |

The plot

Here comes a refreshing story of Gautham and Reena, working in Bangalore, who fall in love and then traverse a journey that is no longer the proverbial bed of roses. After convincing their parents for marriage they unite and begin to savour the marital bliss but what comes their way almost ‘tears’ their life apart. Misunderstanding, ego-clashes, possessiveness, take-for-grant attitude take the driver’s seat and one by one clip the wings of the love birds. While Reena feels that there is no hope left in her life and almost decides to end it, Gautham on the other hand, tries to move on by pursuing a higher degree abroad. Comes Kishore, the couple’s colleague, who not only acts as a peace maker but succeeds to preach the couple the real meaning of Love, Life and Sacrifice.

Highs and Lows

The author wins brownie points for introducing a ‘sweet intervention’ of Adam and Eve in between the narrative. The insights provided by the duo bring smiles on the reader’s face each time they enter the scene. The social initiative taken by Reena to combat suicide is another high point of the story. The reader might as well wish for such an initiative to materialize in real world. It is rather quite difficult to point out any lows in the story, however certain situations in the plot seem unintentionally funny which eventually succeeds in adding the required flavor to the entire proceedings.

Plot: 4.6 | 

Creativity: 4.5 |

Overall Rating: 4.5 | 

Language and Style: 4.4 |  

Verdict
A deliciously baked story of love, marriage and reunion told from the heart. Touch of Mist, debut novel by Depika Muthusamy manages not only to touch the readers heart but pledges to enter and stay there forever.