narkanda, on NH 22

realizing a fun-trip is not half as fun or easy as when om is around.

but after a lot of deliberation, cajoling and planning we {a total of 4 guys} embarked on the trip to narkanda. i decided on it for two major reasons: 1) its height {2700 meters} - with a simple trek to a height of 3400 meters 2) it position on a national highway {less time consuming}

a street called narkanda

upon reaching there a relief that came with a disappointment was that there were a plenty of rooms available as there was no snowfall {a delay}. according to what the manager + valet + house-keeper + guide at the hotel told us, we missed scenes that would be very similar to what om is experiencing at his current base in milwaukee.

snow, but a little afar

anyways, the couple of days that we were there went by with us all huddled inside our rooms inside the quilts for our dear lives. the temperature didn't seem to go over 4-5 degrees centigrade even when the sun shone as bright as it does in delhi. nights were either below freezing or around freezing. our drive plus trek took as around frozen sluggish ponds and half-frozen half-tricking streams to a peak called hatu at the altitude of 3 kilometers above delhi.

official declaration of our achievement ;)

the last day saw us coming down to shimla. i wasn't really keen but more than half of the members vetoed my intent. and with the lure of hotties i too didn't fight tooth and nail :D but shimla was disappointing. the mall was full house and even the lots of very beautiful girls [who incidentally were all petite, fair with ruddy cheeks, straight hair, wearing converse canvas shoes, with ultra low skin fit jeans, and one or the other brand of sports jacket - they all looked so similar that i couldn't even recall one face that stuck to my mind] there couldn't seem to make up for what the overcrowding was doing to the place.

this view was available in shimla too, but i clicked this a kilometer above

~~~

i clicked very less number of pictures, none at all of shimla.

the legs

although i have still not stopping cribbing about it but it seems to get a little better. it is a little colder and girls are looking nicer, not that they don't do otherwise, but i am still waiting for it to plunge to around 10-15. it shouldn't go above 15 anyways. even the bloody minimum is higher than normal still.

anyways, last evening, while the guys at vodafone were dillydallying my patience away, i felt like looking for a restroom, which i did after my unsatisfactory rendezvous with them. the closest formal loo was in the centerstage mall. so there i went. and though i wasn't surprised to see a couple of females in teeny weeny skirts, i sure felt a little colder. that mall has one of the most popular clubs in ncr - elevate. the moment i went inside the mall - i saw the biggest number of girls wearing skirts at one single place. and it didn't took me a moment to determine that they were all school kids [who probably came for a christmas party thrown by school/someone] - but all those legs on the show didn't warm me up a bit. disappointing, would you say? not at all. i would prefer a single pair of 30 year old legs to all those 20 year olds any day.

i miss them a lot

it has been a week since terror stuck us. we are limping back to normalcy although with great effort.

but didn't want the disgust and hate against terror die, so have created a badge and put it up so that it reminds me to do my bit against terror.

i wanted to write something cheerful today.

~~~

i miss my classmates of college today. they were beautiful girls - the best bunch in the whole college. it was the course that used to attract the best looking of the lot. i guess that was the trend with whole of delhi university.

but somehow we didn't use to treat them with as much affection ;) as they deserved. ghar ki murgi... after all. i still remember those short ones i used to dance with. those snobs who used to threaten us but still laughed like crazy on our back-bench jokes. those geeks who sneered at us yet scored less than us. and i remember them all huddled around us on valentines day and urging us go talk to girls from other courses - and us just having day of our lives when guys from other courses used to come with roses to them.

we people were like a group who were best of friends without acknowledging. we used to go for movies, leched on hot teachers showing off in their sareers, got concerned when anyone was heart-broken, and still didn't share notes so as to score more than others - which anyways no one ever did.

i miss the trip to daman and the trip to shimla and daily trips to lajpat nagar. i miss the parties, i miss their fits of anger and i miss those giggles that followed. i miss their notes, and i miss their complaints to teachers and i miss their expressions when annual results were declared :D

i now wonder why didn't i fall in love with any of them. probably because i loved them all in a way.

we are still as unsafe

there is no point crying hoarse about deplorable security measures even after such a tragedy striking us. you can not really check and frisk and scan each and every citizen who goes in to a mall, a departmental store, a railway station, an airport. there are millions of footfalls there. especially, when you do not have any security implementations on the macro level.

it is like you are letting drainage seep into fresh water lake and then hopelessly trying to find ways to avoid fresh water lake adulteration.

there is no point of increased local security if:-

1. dawood is still living a normal life there, as is his family here
2. pakistani trawlers are still roaming our waters with much disdain
3. we are still being spat back on our faces when we ask pakistan to hand over the criminals
4. audacious threats are coming in the form of 16 terrorists still free, targeting delhi
5. eastern borders are still as porous

let those buggers rot in hell

everyone across the social setup maintains one thought and i am sure many people would be supporting it in their hearts - that these murderer terrorists do not belong to any religion.

i say if that is the case then their would be no guideline on whether or how they should be cremated.

then i think their dead bodies should be hung in a open place, very much visible to the public eye - to rot and to be eaten by vultures.

i am very sure it would elicit responses from those quarters which need to be exposed in the first place

stop terrorism

some outcomes are visible of the deceleration of government to seriously clamp down on terrorism. i hope that all these continue and gather steam as it roll and not loose steam. some visible steps are:-

1. home minister's, chief minister and deputy to the chief minister's resignation [and acceptance of two of them]
2. prime minister's commitment to define steps and strategy within 100 days
3. finance minister's change of role

although we would like to hear steps such as:-

1. nab all the terrorist's associated with the planning of this one within 100 days
2. destruction of all terrorist training modules in kashmir and other parts of country before this year end
3. sealing of porous borders in east with immediate effect
4. formation of single point of contact agency to counter terrorism under central government which will interact with defense staff, intelligence bureau, raw, state police and governance before year end

some of these points in wishlist might sound improbable but until and unless we want to crack these at war footing, it would surely fizzle out this time too




and i don't blame english or australian or any cricketing teams from deciding against traveling to india now. if i as an indian do not feel great enough to go out shopping for diwali, i certainly can't expect their folks to be willing of letting them go.