The Fortnightly Update

Hello readers,
Hope you all had a lovely april. Summer has descended on Bengaluru, loudly. Our writers are wandering about the hill stations, hoping the height gives them some bright ideas. Its holidays, anyway.Even the birds are packing their suitcases and taking a vacation. Well, with IPL and the elections, the summer is bound to be action packed and entertaining.
At wink, we bring you our regular columns - Wine, Dine and Dance - where our writer finds inspiration at a tea stall, Wanderlust - a trip into Ooty, and Funny Side Up - which goes musical this time.
Happy Reading!

Wanderlust - Ooty

Its just the place to go to when march begins. Ooty is the queen of the Nilgiris. And one can reach it from the Mysore or from Coimbature route. The bus that goes up to the hill from Coimbature is one of the slowest. It shall beep, bleep and cough, sneeze and make its way up. But its a beautiful ride, I realized, whenever that I managed to wake up and watch the scenery. Ooty was cold, take enough woolen clothing. A part of Ooty is very English, the club, the derby, the schools. I think you'll meet Charring Cross – an important land mark. Walk around the bazaar – for interesting food and yummy chocolates (which is “home made”. Whose Home, I wonder) and some local stories and lots of tea. Ooty is filled with tea, so much – that a regular tea drinker will switch to coffee after two days there, out of sheer excess. The regular things to see around Ooty are the Doddabetta peak (you have to climb this one! It's also the highest peak in south India and the confluence of the eastern and western ghats. And several confused people will try to show you the karnataka - TN borders from atop the place. Trust me, you will be confused, at the end of it) You'll see tea plantations all around, not to mention eucalyptus and a lot of pretty birds in many different colors . Its an experience, Dodda Betta. You'll have to see the botanical garden, the rose garden, the Ooty Lake if you are in Ooty. Also have a look at the Thread Garden. Ah, and mind you, you have to pay for the camera everywhere. A to-do is to take the Ooty-Mettupalayam heritage train. Its a little crowded (ok, ok, Very crowded), but worth the effort. There is lots of Nilgiris to see around Ooty – Conoor, Kotagiri and much much more. The native tribes are still an integral part of the NilGiris - the Todas and Kurumbas. Ah, talk about the High and Mighty - Ooty is definitely that.

Funny Side Up - A song and a story

At a recent classical concert that I went to, something interesting happened. It turned into a drama. And a musical one, at that. You should not expect too much activity at concerts, they are for the cultivation of the soul. The only movement is that of the sound waves causing wave-motion and reaching the pinna. The tranquility of the place was slightly altered by a little kid who ran upto the singing musician, yelling “thatha” loudly. The musician, probably embarrassed to be addressed as an old man, gave the kid a very “not-now-later” smile and proceeded to concentrate on his Bhairavi varanam (Well, I generally associate closing of the eyes as that in concerts). A frantic mother, calling out “Poonam” runs up to the stage to hold the child back and prevent its ascent to the podium. The musician was further annoyed with the proper noun being said aloud. He frantically signals the kid and its caretaker to take a seat somewhere. The kid bellows. The grand father-turned-musician or vice-versa takes note (his musical notes are ignored). Enter: kid's dad. He now takes charge of the situation. He carries the kid out for a walk around the open-air auditorium. More tantrums, more yelling, more notes going wrong. It was fun to watch. I, who was sitting with my eyes closed, all prepared for some intense Bhairavi, got up and took note. And then, I realised to my surprise, everyone was interestedly watching. The gentleman seated beside me even adjusted his glasses. I adjusted mine too. Too bad I did not take my hearing aid along.

Wine, Dine and Dance - Shruthi Stall!

My recent trip to Ootacamund and Conoor has left me with very little to say about the outside world. So, this handicap allows me to tell you about this tiny stall about 5kms from Dolphin’s nose in Conoor. If you have a vehicle of your own, the entire journey will be a 1-hour ordeal. You take the road that forks from the Sim’s park and at every step there will be a board guiding you through. We, on the other hand, decided to walk up. We were staying at the Blue Hills hotel in Conoor and it was about 16kms from there. The local authorities told us that there would be a bus at 6:45am, which we happened to miss. We assumed that the next bus that was 3 hours hence would pick us up on the way if we politely waved out. Alas!

Lesson learnt: Buses in Conoor DON’T stop! They just don’t!

We walked up. Tea everywhere, and not a drop to drink. After about 10kms we saw the Shruthi stall materializing amidst the mist. It was a tiny place that made tea and sold Tea, wholesale. The owner was there too at that time. We stood outside the stall looking down the hills. We were given binocular to aid vision. T’wasn’t must of a help, I should confess. After about 15 minutes of squinting, we realized that we were in desperate need of something hot to drink. We were invited cordially and asked for our choices in Tea. There was masala chai, earl green tea, lemon tea, chocolate tea, orange pekoe and what-not! We all made our pick and sipped on it, while the owner tried to sell some packets of it to us. We also got to know that the tea estate around the stall was owned by Mumtaz, the actress, who sadly, is dead. He also showed us an estate that belonged to a great Tamil actor, whose name I cannot recollect. But the tea definitely helped in the process of rejuvenation and we left to complete the next 6kms of the journey.

Shruthi stall – tea for one and all….

Ahoy April!

Ahoy, readers! Welcome to the April Edition of the Wink. We've gotten all our ice-trays re-filled and freezers stacked with ice creams back here. Our writers have been drinking more lemonade than ever! And we bet, so are you.. Summer is here, isnt it? Our writers are beginning to make noises about being too fatigued by the heat to write. And we're just giving them "COLD" stares, to help them beat the heat!
In the Wine, Dine and Dance, we "talk tea" in Tranquilitea. We wander to Jodigere in the Wanderlust and go "achhooo" (bless us!) in the Funny Side Up. We have received a size-able response to our previous edition. Keep writing in! Tell us what you are doing to beat the heat this summer, or about your hill-station vacation plans, or your new summer hobby (if there is such a thing as a summer-hobby). Happy reading folks!

Wine, Dine and Dance - Tranquilitea (Tea Lounge)

Hidden amidst the tea plantations in Coonoor, Tranquilitea is a niche Tea Lounge found in the Sim's Park Road. We found it on a wander walk from Sim's Park and it came to be a pleasant surprise. The ambiance is posh, relaxing and beautiful. One can sip tea and sit at the lawn, or enter the 100 year old house, beautifully built and experience the decor. Sandeep Subramani, the proud planter and also the owner of the Tranquility, explains that this is an experiment to provide tea connoisseurs with the best of tea to taste, and provide the commoners with a better understanding of tea. He patiently and enthusiastically explained the process of tea making, the different tea varieties and how tea tasting is close to an art form, as indulgent as wine tasting. We were thrilled to hear about the Silver Tip (And were equally thrilled to taste it!) - a tea that is picked before the bud opens up and a rare variety. We tried the Handmade tea, CTC tea, flavored tea and other varieties. We understood the Orange Pecko too (and that's +20 points to us!) Brought in cute transparent glasses, the tea tasting was seemed much more sophisticated and stylish than what we thought it would be. Tranquility also offers a selection of snacks to munch on – we tried the Waffles and scones, and they were good enough to melt the soul. Sandeep, the owner of the tea lounge, also made a wonderful host – charmed our way through the tea story. In the setting of the blue mountains, nothing is as natural as “talking about tea” in a Tea Lounge! And thankfully, we can continue to enhance our tea-story at Tranquilitea, Bangalore (in white field). You can have a look at this and get to know it better.

Wanderlust - Jodigere

A breathtaking experience at Jodigere - I wouldn't be surprised if you suspect the existance of such a place because I did so wheni first heard of it. We happened to accidentally stumble upon it when we were chalking out a trip to B R Hills near Mysore. First of all, getting there is an issue. One requires a written permission from the forest departmant to get there. This place is known to be the hiding place of the Sandalwood kingpin of Karnataka (I aint saying it aloud...) So obviously we were all excited to be there. We bokked 3 cottages, bought ration fo survival (and oh, you have to do all the cooking there yourself... this place is totally DIY) By 12 noon we got into the interiors. There was a guide along with us well equipped with a double barrel rifle (just in case). Geeting to the hill top in a Tata Sumo was an ordeal. Really. If you want to get there in a Marithi 800 or a Santro, then you can forget it. It takes huge power to get there with the terrain at 60 degrees to the horizontal. Once we reached the top we knew we had made th right decision. The place was heaven. On one side was Karnataka and the other, we could see the mudumalai range of Tamil Nadu. It was raining on a nearby hill and the wind blowing in our direction forced it to chase us into the watch tower for shelter. It was an inexplicable feeling. Absolute ecstacy. The journey back to the cottage which was 8km from the hill top was a different story altogether. But that's for another day! So stay tuned!

Funny Side Up - In Sickness and In Health

"Aacchoo!"
I had been to a wedding recently and in the common humdrum and chitter - chatter I fought to hear to the vows of the to-be-man-and-woman saying them all in a fit of emotion. I nodded at every line said. The man said "I shall love you for the rest of my life", and I thought "good for you". The woman said, "I shall bear your kids" and I said "Not too many, please". The man said, "I shall feed, shelter and clothe you" and I said, "You better!". The woman said " I shall take you in sickness and in health" and thats when I was hit. Hit hard. In health seemed fine. But the sickness part confused me. I thought, maybe the woman had a peg more of whisky during her bachelorette party the previous night or maybe she was blindly reciting something that some wedding planner had planned for her to speak. Why was I baffled? Well wouldn't you be? In sickness is so broad a term to commit oneself to. Sickness comes in various shapes, sizes and colours. Thickness too. Some make you go red, some blue and some yellow. What sort was she even talking about? The previous week I had caught flu, a terrible one and I was intolerable. I constantly puked, frequented the bathroom, vehemently spoke about death and slept for the majority of the day. Now having gone through all of that, would I be a position to promise, and promise in front of a priest that I'd stick by to watch all of this again happen to someone else? I guess not.... So I decided to write my own vows, just in case, and the last line says, "in health and health alone".

P.S : The flu persisted for over 4 days.