Hungry at 5 AM

"It's 4 AM. No point going to sleep now"

"4:40 AM, precisely"

It was early Monday morning. We had just finished submitting a pointless report for a course from the previous term. Don't ask me why we're still at it. That deserves a separate post.

"Okay let's watch a movie and go directly for 8 AM class"

"Makes sense. We can sleep in class"

We spent the next 15 minutes finding and deciding on a movie to watch. And we simultaneously realized - we were super hungry. It was Sunday night (technically Monday morning) so Amul was closed, which meant no room delivery. I went downstairs to find Athicas closed. The Javagreen guy was sleeping. I was warned that trying to wake him up on a Sunday night might result in your being subject to comatose profanities. With not a single source of food available, I decided to go back.

Now Sunday night is that time of the week when one last desperate attempt is made by almost everyone on campus to set their sleep cycle right. Almost everyone. So it was not surprising that when I was walking back, I realized there was not a single human soul anywhere near me. Or even a dog! It was okay, I told myself, it's not a big deal. Just breathe slowly, no need to change the speed at which you're walking, because if something's out there to get you, it'll get you by the time you reach your room anyway. But after I climbed two flights of stairs, I realized that my horizontal displacement was zero. I closed my eyes and thought of all the people I loved. Imagine you're doing this for them, I thought. And ran. And stopped right in front of Deepthi's room and walked in casually. "Nothing's open dude"

There were exactly four people who were not idle in my gtalk list. Ping 1: My3 - "No food babes. Me off to bed!". Ping 2: Ishira - "Sorry, no food :-( ". Ping 3: Nishant - "I have biscuits. Come over" I finally found the will to live again! Yes Nishant, I'll be there right away. But we decided to be comprehensive. Ping 4: Hari sweetheart (coz honey, sugar, sweetheart, baby work very well with Hari) - "I have Goodday".

"Hey Deeps, me going to E block to get food. Why don't you fill the water bottles, look at the beautiful L-square from the B block balcony and wait there for me to come back.."

I took biscuits and namkeen from E 201 and Goodday from E 315 (may the good God bless Nishant and Hari sweetheart and E block in general) and walked back towards B block. I couldn't see anyone in the balcony overlooking L-square.

"Deepthi?"

"Yes baby I'm waiting. Come quickly!"

I did not have to run this time. I walked casually back to the room.

And thus, it was Casablanca time!

Nandi Hills

I had a bad cold. Some people would not like the way I started this post. They would say I was just faking it and trying to get all the attention. It's a sad world! Except for Nandi Hills..

2:30 PM: One random afternoon. All of us there did not have classes the next morning. We decide to visit Nandi hills. It's about a 2-hour ride from Bangalore. The peak is closed until 6 o'clock in the morning.

1:30AM: I just did not understand VG's rationale in unilaterally deciding we all start at 2:30 AM. I-ball had a class in the morning which she was not willing to bunk. It made sense to go to Nandi hills some other day. I tried to reason with him. He was adamant. I tried to be. We called each other names in our own minds.

2:00 AM: I left Madhushala with a whatever!-wake-me-up-whenever-you-wanna-leave.

3:15 AM: "LAUNDE! DD! Wake up!!", VG was banging on our doors. I woke up feeling feverish. I opened my door and DD was telling VG, "Dude I have a BAD headache!". Obviously, I said, "And I have fever :(" And not surprisingly, VG said, "Chal chal, no one's backing out now. I-ball is also coming. Get ready! We need to leave by 3:30".

3:45 AM: Over-sized super-warm jacket. Tissues for my running nose. Scarf to keep me warmer (actually more like back-up in case I ran out of tissues). Extra cold cream. Camera. Shoes. I was good to go.

3:50 AM: 3 bikes and 1 car. Optimal decisions on who gets the bikes, the window seats, the driver's seat, etc were made based on constraints like who has car-sickness, who has a cold, who has a driver's license, who has goggles, who needs to catch a flight.. oh hell, we just did an FCFS.

4:30 AM: Sirajuddhin Singh couldn't see the bump on the road in the darkness, again. "DUDEEEE!", we all shouted in unison as the car landed on the road and the non-existent shock-absorbers moaned. And immediately corrected ourselves with, "Hey chill no prob", "Happens dude, no issues", "It's alright, we understand it was dark"..

5:30 AM: After losing our way a couple of times, we were on the ghat. The refreshing smell of the eucalyptus greeted us and lifted our spirits. The mist kept getting thicker and thicker. At times, the tops of the tall trees on either sides of the road got lost in the fog. We spotted some monkeys on the way. Incidentally, Bhanu told us how, as a kid, he used to get slapped by a monkey.

5:45 AM: We reached the top and realized after looking at the long queue, it was Id. Holiday. People here, people there. People everywhere. So much for deciding to go today.

6:00 AM: The best part of a foggy public spot is that you never know how many strangers are there around you. We realized it was not going to be that bad after all. And I also realized, my cold was gone! Just like that, it was gone!

And we start walking up. We took a few pics of Dhal saab with his inside-the-pocket "Yo". There was a notice which said - "No sitting or standing on the walls". We took a few snaps standing and sitting on the wall. And a couple hanging from the stone arches. Bhargav was invariably hiding in all the pics. DD and Bhanu wanted a jumping pic when they were in the air. We took a video instead. And we took more pics. Of trees. Of funny notice boards. Of top-load and bottom-load trash cans. Of random poses. Of the fog condensing on eyelashes. Of creepy draculas. Of wannabes. Of the fog. Of walking into nothing. Of the valley. Of the hills. Of the beautiful beautiful trees. And then when we had enough, we decided to leave. I-ball had a class to attend too! Well that was just a lame reason. We all knew she wouldn't make it.

11:45 AM: Back to where I belonged. I had a long hot shower. And my cold was back. Weird, the way some things work in life..

So the trip that I was so reluctant to go on turned out to be so much fun. Thank you guys for making it so memorable! Especially, in the order of FCCBs owned, I-ball for bunking class to come along with us, VG for completely disregarding the claim that we were unwell and forcing us to come, Sirajuddhin Singh for being awesome behind the wheel, Dhall saab for being the cool dude, DD and Bhanu for the awesome 1-2-3 jumping video (here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RpAqfafI2w), Eda for the car (we so wished you also had come along), Bhargav for disappearing in all the photos and giving a freaky "The Ring" feeling, Kshitiz for being the little boy who slept and Hema for his vision for scripting the future!