The Ooty Diaries - Toda Temple

It wasn't very cold in Ooty and we got going to the Botanical Gardens through which you climb up to the top and find the Toda temple. 

Toda temple - cannot enter without the priest

Toda temple

We parked outside the Botanical Gardens and went in. It's lush green, filled with beautiful trees, flowers, quaint buildings of the European era, glass houses and so on. We followed the signs that said Toda mund and walked up and up and up. 

Glass House

Botanical Garden

The Botanical Gardens creeps up the hill and is at many levels. At the first level we passed and entry to the Raj Bhavan with not a guard in sight.

Raj Bhavan

Climbed higher until we reached an exit gate, walked right on the path until we found another sign and then stepped into a Toda area where they now have a stall that sells their produce. A little ahead was the temple. 

Some Todas who were sitting there guided us and told us to see from the outside and not go inside. The temple was a fascinating structure with a low door, many signs and symbols etc. There were a few buffaloes around - an animal that's sacred to the Todas.

World's Largest Camera

We climbed back down, admiring the landscape, stopped at the glass houses, and made our way back. Breakfast at the hotel and then I set off for a walk towards the Ooty lake while Abhi got down to some work.

3D Art

 It was a nice walk with the scent of eucalyptus trees. On the way back i stopped at this place called Thunder World which had a museum of antique cameras. And some other stuff. 

Infiniti booth

St. Stephen's Church

We checked out and set off to the Rose garden. But then we decided against and turned towards Mysore.

Lovely ride back through Madhumalai

The drive was beautiful again and we had Pink Floyd playing from Division Bell, an album i listened to a lot when i travelled from Mumbai to Pune in the 90s. At some point we hit Gudalur, stopped by to see an amazing house, and then headed out to Mysore.

Another beautiful drive through the Madhumalai forests where we saw some deer flocking around. A peaceful drive into Mysore, stop at Sapa cafe where we got some lunch and met Abhishek's friends Nidhi and Shreyas. Post lunch we went for a walk at the Kakkurahalle lake, a nice 5 km walk that ended with a beautiful sunset. Shreyas told me that the lake was infested with crocodiles.

Sunset at Mysore

From there to their house for a cup of coffee and we set off at 8 pm to Bangalore. Back home after a spot of dinner at 1230.

Lovely two days. 

Ooty Diaries - Bangalore to Ooty

A few years ago I saw this coffee table book that was on sale in a book store called 'Landmark'. Those were the days when there were these places called bookstores. Anyway the book was about '100 Wonders in India' and I read it and have since been trying to improve my numbers in this senseless game of visiting as many of these wonders - senseless because who knows who will come up with a different number next time. But on the plus side, ever since I got that idea in my head I knocked off quite a few - many of which I passed by in the past. 

 

Anyway one thing that stayed in my mind was a tribal community called Toda near Ooty. Since I was heading to Bangalore to listen to my old (like in old) pals Def Leppard, I fantasised about taking a slow bus to Mysore, meet my friend Dr Tenzin, then go further down to Ooty, check out the Toda settlelment, take another bus to Palghat and meet Hari for a beer and finally take a 3 hour bus ride to Kochi to meet Tharian and force him to have a beer if he's not in the mood for it which he isn't sometimes. Since they are in the realm of fantasies, I can safely plan anything.

Luckily my nephew Abhi was all game to join me on this trip and we decided to drive to Ooty in his car and consequently I cut off the second half of the trip. We set off nice and early, enjoying traffic free roads in Bangalore till the time we exited and chugged along smoothly on the Mysore road. Good conversation kept flowing, Abhi handling both driving and conversation, and we hit Mysore at about 11. 

First on agenda was to meet my old (young) pal Tenzin, now a Tibetan doctor, who runs his own clinic. Tenzin showed us his clinic which looks spick and span. He told me he was the doctor, therapist, receptionist, pharmacist and cashier. He looks good and tells me that his patient's are picking up,took us to a breakfast joint where we ate some fabulous dosas and headed out.

Now to get to Ooty we must cross the Madhumalai tiger reserve and frequent signs of 'we are not responsible for attacks by wild animals' popped up. Anyway it was a beautiful ride through the forest.

 We passed through this long, long town called Gudalur which is at the foothills of Ooty and on the border of Tamil Nadu and Kerala, just after the Madhumalai reserve ends. And then we turned into the hills - some lovely tall trees centuries old perhaps, green tea gardens, deep valleys - until we found the Pykara falls which is where everyone says the jeep safari guys were.

Anyway, we walked to the way to the falls and found that it was a 350 mt walk to the falls from the main road. Most people did not do the walk and instead waited for the battery operated buggy. Not us. We walked, the air cool even at 130 pm, went down several steps to the waterfall which is a gentle, sloping one, maybe better during rains, walked up, stopped for a bite, a drink, got info from Mahesh shopkeeper where to find the Toda mund and went. He was very discouraging about the jeep safaris.

Anyway we went as directed to the film shooting hill which requires a ticket for you to climb up the hill where film shootings take place, enjoyed the view, spotted on Toda hut down below and went down to it. We headed out after taking a few pics, admiring the blue mountains in the background. 

Onwards to Ooty where we reached in the evening times after a couple of stops and checked into hotel. We stepped out to eat a snack, went back, found this lovely church of St Thomas right next to the hotel which had war graves. The church was from 1857s I think.

 

We rested after a light dinner, having decided that the Toda temple behind the Botanical garden should be our place of visit tomorrow. Lovely drive, interesting journey, great music. Abhi played a group called Leisure which sounded good to me. I should explore that a bit.

Miranda Days - DU Beat and The Geography of Grief

A's article for DU Beat - The Geography of Grief

And Another Concert of an Old Favourite - Def Leppard

I gave some kind of an intro to my history with Def Leppard which goes back some 40 years in my earlier blog. The concert was at NICE grounds which is at the other end of the city - a good two hour drive or a 90 minute Metro ride. 

My three nephews Abhi, Shrinjay and Shashank decided we'll drive and it took us exactly 2 hours 7 minutes to hit the parking lot at NICE. Parking was organised enough and we quickly entered our designated Gold space and found some place to stand and sway.

Thermal and a Quarter was opening for Def Leppard - the group so named because it has three Malayalis and one quarter Malayali - and it was celebrating its thirty years in existence. I loved their numbers, their political statements, and their energy. The nephews made visits to get food and drinks.

A half hour break during which it threatened to rain and then the 1977  band from Sheffield in England - 'Def Leppard' came on stage. An ageing Joe Elliot, Rick Savage, the ever smiling Rick Allen, and others came on and sang. Some of the numbers went by without me knowing them but the ones i knew we had fun singing along etc. 

'Animal', 'Foolin', 'Rocket', 'Love Bites', ''Armageddon It', 'Rock of Ages', 'Two Steps Behind' came along with some songs I was not too familiar with and ended with 'Hysteria' and finally 'Pour Some Sugar On Me'. They played visuals of the group playing in their younger days and they looked so young and so good. But you got to hand it over to them - to still come and sing to an audience that they are only connected through music work all their heart and soul.

The crowd was elderly, people trying to relive their memories like me. a smattering of slightly younger lot who had perhaps heard these numbers and very few teenager types. Families came, old friends gangs (one raucous old gang of men, college gang perhaps, in front of us raising hell), people swayed, danced, women dresses in hippie like 60s fashions and not the clothes of today's turn. No singular magic moment, but lots of good memories. It was too loud and I could not hear myself at all. I borrowed ear buds from the ever resourceful Abhi and tried to limit the damage to my poor ears.

Overall I was glad I went. I enjoyed listening to all the old hits. Then we headed out even as the band played 'Pour Some Sugar on Me'. The return journey took two hours again.

Def Leppard in Bengaluru

There was this time during college days in the mid 80s that I took a liking to this group called Def Leopard. I enjoyed listening to Hysteria and then bought Pyromania. Hysteria always made my slow rock playlists and was one for those long drives. 

So when Abhi, my nephew, called from Bangalore to say that Def Leppard was playing, i jumped at the opportunity. So here I'm, going to the concert with my nephews Shrinjay and Shashank and Abhishek.

Who would i have thought I'd be listening to them live one day. Of course my friend George wasn't so kind - help them in to the stage - he said. 

Looking forward.

Flowers of Delhi

Delhi has these beautiful gardens and flowers, wide open spaces, many parks, all of them aesthetically landscaped and well maintained. 

Just a sample. 

Laughter Channel - Krishna at it Again

One more gem from Krishna that had me laughing out loud. Thank you Krishna.

Indians are the ultimate experts on appearance. They are these ultra-sophisticated, precision- tuned, super-sensitive instruments built to detect the tiniest change in your exterior from twenty paces, and bring it to your notice, unsolicited, at the first available opportunity. At parties, banks, restrooms, potti kadais and funerals (sometimes your own), the average Indian’s appearance-analysis antenna is always working, twitching to pick up perceived changes in compatriots, and transfer info thereof to his filter-free mouth to be disseminated to the drive-by victim with no time-lag whatsoever. They range from: You seem to have put on weight. You seem to have lost weight. You seem to have regained your lost weight. You seem to have lost your regained weight. to You have gained colour. You have lost colour. (I have never known which of these is complimentary. Because ‘white’ is the preferred colour, as we know. But does one get ‘whiter’ by gaining colour or losing colour? Because, white, technically, is the absence of colour.) You seem to have lost some hair (to men). You seem to have gained some hair (to women). You seem to have aged (to someone they haven’t seen for twenty-eight years). I have a list of these guys. They are all repeat offenders. Here are responses you can expect from me if I catch any of you saying anything about anyone’s appearance in my presence: Your loins seem to have sagged a bit. Why didn’t you bring your chin along today? You look so much like your father when he was being cremated. You seem to be wearing your dandruff a little differently these days. So cool of you to go bra-less, man. Your paunch seems to have a double-chin. Nice to see you’ve extended your bald patch evenly over your head. Your mouth smells different. I like that whole asymmetrical-butt-cheeks thing you’ve got going. Are you wearing those trousers ironically? Your wedgie seems to have deepened since I last saw you. Can you move your nose a bit so I can see your face? (From the archives)