New Addition

On 15th Nov, 2010 – “He” arrived on earth in the evening – at 7:10 PM to be precise according to Doc’s records.

Some points to remember about his arrival is:

1) The atmosphere went blimey – it was sudden change of season. Soon after Diwali we were witnessing the most unusual form of rain, combined with thundering firebolts and whirling winds.

2) Sweet rosy fragrance permeated the nursing home for some two minutes – the source was unknown.

3) Drashti got operated upon for precisely 35 minutes (approx from 6:35 PM to 7:10 PM). It went smooth, and the “Dayin” first informed us by making a “penda” shape with her hands. However no one could decipher her gesture.

4) The output of the whole process was normal – it weighed 2 kg 800 grams, looked dark pink, and had enough hair on its scalp. While being taken to family, it made absolutely normal baby sounds and jerked his legs – this was within the first minute of being taken out of the womb.

5) After reaching the first floor and having been handed to family, the head nurse announced, “Congratulations! it’s a boy!” – and a loud cheer erupted through out the first floor.

6) What happened after that is remembered by no one in particular order – but one thing that was sure was chaos. Some people queued up to have a first look, some to have a first hold, and some to shake hands. Others were busy initiating family calls. I informed Avani, who cancelled a project meeting, and arrived with Astha. Papa also arrived within 10 minutes, and having seen the baby, soon rushed back to buy “penda” for everyone.

7) What followed was routinely – snaps taken by mobile, continuation of blessings and wishes, shooting by camcorder, and so on.

8) Drashti was still under anesthesia, and was advised to sleep until the next morning. She was taken from the ground floor to the first floor after about half an hour of the birth. The medications were high at work, and she kept blabbering things – unaware that everything was over.

It was an end of a marathon that everyone in the two families ran. An eternal sense of relief swept across everyone’s face. That, in turn, was the reward.

P.S. The moon sign turns out to be “Aquarius” (Kumbh).

Transition…the old new thing…

Long time no see…:-)

This time it’s the nature of transition that is forcing me to scribble yet another entry after long time inertia. Yes, we moved to our hometown on permanent basis, and it’s this transition that I want to talk about.

Bhavnagar is both mine and my wife’s hometown. We both relished sweet times in Bangalore reminiscing about the old golden days – our school days in Bhavnagar. To outsiders, Bhavnagar is a laid back town. If seen from a resident’s viewpoint, however, it’s a city of decent people with polite manners who are not yet affected by greed of modern times. Living in it along changing times, there has never been a single thing that we are deprived of – be it cable TV, mobile phones or Broadband.

It is this ‘best of both the worlds’ thing that inspired us to see a dream to permanently make it our home since last three years of urban atrocities. It was only a matter of opportunity that I was dying for. It came in the form of exponentially growing freelance work which rained unfailingly to help me decide.

Finally, after our celebrating our third marriage anniversary (May 14) and enjoying along with parents and my maternal grandparents in Bangalore during rainy May (there are no snaps of any event so I don’t want to recollect all that to blog it – accept it.), I completed my notice period in June 2nd week, and permanently moved to Gujarat. Our move was marked by cross-state difficulties as well the usual urban woes from Bangalore, but it was fine and justified, given the end benefit!

Life@home is cool. Work@home is lazy…but smooth I work along with Avani after successfully setting up a shared wireless connection. I & Drashti enjoy the evening cool-breeze outings of our seashore small town. The definition of long-drive is justified here, unlike the cramped urban roads where driving is hell. We relish the Gujju spicy snacks – panipuri, pav-ganthiya, samosas – all of it amid my huge family-tree. Not to forget local icecream brands, sodas, and regional sweet dishes – shreekhand, aamras, kheer and what not! Mom makes them with great enthusiasm. Papa – always silent in execution – has taken on long-pending house restructuring. Our grandma, bed-ridden since 3 years, is finally able to rise from bed and talk incessantly. Guests are too frequent to visit, and too impatient to call. They invite us back – but we are still reluctant to go, as I find it bit hard to even spend 8 hours/day in freelance work. Avani isn’t very much different. We are too lazy to even work from home!

What next? A four wheeler will add to the already grown stack of pleasure – a Santro or a wagonR?

Price rise – are we overlooking the obvious?

It doesn’t take rocket science to understand that daily dose of sugar is simply out of reach to the majority of Indian population.

Lower middle class has grown thick skinned so as not to oppose such changes that threatens its very sense of existence. They are the target consumer base for parasitic middle men in sugar industry. And they need to learn that.

They also have something to learn from people below poverty line – how are they surviving without sugar, or maybe, content with lesser amount?

It’s a reality – majority of Indians are not having sugar as their principal food ingredient nowadays – obviously due rocketing prices. Probably due to shielding by media we aren’t aware, but have we lost our senses to realize the obvious?

Isn’t it possible to scale up that scenario for some period of time?

Why have we grown so much immune to injustice, vulnerable to forced deprivation? Why aren’t we thinking of the obvious?

Why don’t we STOP BUYING SUGAR until they budge?

Why don’t we all consumers stop having tea, coffee or sweets for limited time, maybe a week or two?

It’s tough, but it’s a time game. Let’s all have a war of patience with these thick-skinned storebearers of sugar. Let them pass through some testing times. They may not budge initially – they had millions stacked up in their farmhouses due to upward spiraling sugar rates since more than a year. True. But eventually, market forces of demand and supply will dominate.

It’s our dharma of the time. It’s Gandhigiri completely relevant for the time. A suitable answer to the ill forces at work.

It will be to fulfill our obligation to the society that cries to be free of inequality, injustice, monopoly, and greed. If done successfully, it will have an impact like no other in history. Yes, it will have a monumental effect matched only to Dandi Satyagraha taken by Mahatma for the sake of salt.

It sounds tough, but it’s possible. And it has to be done. Now.

Our Ooty Trip – 4 – June 2009

You might have thought this post was delayed due to sheer inertia on my part. Well, you aren’t completely mistaken. But equally responsible was a clearly visible line that separated our previous lives from this second day in Ooty. Yes, that night we slumbered like monsters, and our second day was unusually bright.

Our mission was simple: visit as many sight seeing spots. Botanical Garden and Rose Garden were on the top of our list. As we looked up the Ooty map, they weren’t quite far (we believed so, until the grave reality struck us). We set out in a public bus, and landed ourselves into main market. And the irresistible urge for shopping surrounded us. We browsed chocolate shops, garments showrooms, and some local vendors selling miniatures stuff. In all, we made several errands around  same set of shops about 2-3 times (as we usually do in our hometown), and ended up wasting about an hour without buying anything. We named the effort as market research, which anyway turned out to be useful later.

Asking someone informed us that Rose Garden wasn’t very far. We decided to walk up to the place that someone showed us by simply pointing his finger. After the next forty five minutes, we were panting and sweating like anything. We had realized that we had climbed up about 1.5 kilometers on an upward spiraling hill slanted at about 25 degrees on a warmer day, and were vowing to each other about never walking like that in future.

As if to top it all, the garden didn’t turn out to be as spectacular as expected. Careless treatment was conspicuous. Plants weren’t properly groomed. The species weren’t quite uncommon. There were very few visitors, and most of them seemed to be there for some mysterious(!) purpose of their own. After all, it’s a free country! We quickly scanned the entire garden, and managed to exit from another gateway which led us to a bit short but difficult downward path towards the main road. From there, we managed to get an auto to the Botanical Garden. We resorted to private transport. Finally, yes, it was necessary. Shut up.

Botanical Garden of Ooty is known throughout the world for its variety of species, and we saw it wasn’t wrong. The high level plan, the organization of plants and trees, the grooming – everything was spectacular. A glass house with sprinkling water and featuring hundreds of colorful roses was the key attraction. There were rough terrains and high trees, too. We marveled at the ethical sense of the planner at every inch that we ploughed through, and took as many snaps as our phones and camcorder allowed. The Garden was buzzing with many visitors even though it was about to rain, and most of them were children, who had open grassland at their discretion to get crazy. After spending about three exhilarating hours, we rested on a stone bench and ate snacks from a snack counter. We exited the Garden after paying a small visit to a tribal hut near the main gate, which had some exotic stuff (tea, clothes, condiments etc.) to offer. By then, it was raining slowly.

Just outside the Botanical Garden is a shopping place where tourists buy woolen clothes on bargain prices. The sellers are nepalis whom you see in your own city every winter, and they are as approachable as anywhere else. After rigorous selection and bargaining that satisfied us fully, we bought some really good clothes for us and our relatives.

After having some snacks in a nearby parlor, we bought some bargain homemade chocolates from the same place, and headed back to Hotel Lakeview. We jumped and cuddled into our bedsheets. We ordered lunch in our cottage itself. We drank two teacups and watched TV till late night, and still managed to get decent sleep. After all, this was one of the busiest day of our life.

Our Ooty Trip – 3 – June 2009

No matter how mankind progresses, travelling will always be synonymous with frenzy, madness, and uncalled urgency.

Eternally. Yes.

Despite our one-week advanced planning, on the departing day, we were busy as hell, counting what to take, and what we had already packed. Despite my constant insistence on packing minimal things, Drashti ended up packing 4 complete pairs of clothing for each of us (you remember  we only had 2 nights booked in hotel). I didn’t fall behind either, and increased my packing stake by stuffing as much food items as I could – to avoid external food (as if it was going to be possible.)

Just before we locked our doors, we cleared up our camera and mobile memories so that we could endlessly snap (as if web was starving for good Ooty photos) . Just after we set out for bus station, Drashti announced that we had candidly forgotton to install the memory card into my mobile. Now the onus lay on both – the camcorder and her mobile – both having limited memory. That wasn’t her regret, though. The regret was, we were two hours early when we reached Shantinagar Bus station, Bangalore.

Ooty buses were already departing at 8:00 PM, and there was little chaos there – due to all late and earlier buses departing together. People asked each other if theirs was the one on the platform or the one waiting behind. It was well-lit, crowded area. Inquiry people were responding well to the passengers’ queries. Some were being helpful by shouting departure times of the buses that passed. Bus drivers, too, were being proactive, so that their passengers won’t miss the bus. Probably off season was affecting KSRTC, and it was responding well to it.

At 9:45 PM we were able to board the bus. There weren’t much passangers to start with. It was Rajahamsa coach (non A/C), and the seats were bit uncomfortable. The bus didn’t start at 10:00 PM. We waited inside, sweating profusely, but it was proving to be endless. At around 10:30 PM, someone cracked that the conductor was waiting for a family of around 10 people, and was very serious about it. This angered all the passengers, including us. But all kept quiet. Such discussions required native language proficiency to be effective, and everyone fell short in that area. After some time, a frustrated uncle, who seemed to be from military, shouted: “Its an hour late and no one seems to be concerned!” The conductor tried to pacify him with random arguments, but not with much success.

After some ten more minutes, the family arrived. They took fifteen more minutes in arguing among themselves on who should sit where. And since now the driver had vanished somewhere for some kick, the bus remained fixated on the plateform till 11:00 PM. It finally made a graceful exit from Bangalore city at around 11:30 PM, after some wait on Majestic bus stand . Hail KSRTC.

The night was warm, and the road till Mysore passed like a blur. Most of that time I remained asleep. After Mysore, at about 3:00 AM, the bus halted at a barron looking place – Malabar Plaza hotel. The surroundings, especially the bathrooms were extremely dirty and very poorly lighted. For a while, we imagined, what would aged, diseased passengers do, if they sat out over such a tadious route with no good place to halt.

Most of the hotel chefs were sleeping in the outhouses nearby, apparently because they were off in the night shift. As a result, all snacks were served cold, including tea & coffee. An uncle complained vehemontly about the problem, but he was laughed at. All cold drinks were priced well beyond MRP. We decided to consume the snacks brought from home itself, and were satiated enough by it to sleep for the rest of the trip.

When our eyes opened again, we felt dizzy as we looked straight. The bus wasn’t heading in any clear direction. When we looked left & right, we were flanked by fog, eye-candy grasslands, high stones and dense bushes. It was then that we woke from half-sleep, and realized that we were already climbing Nilgiri hill. We weren’t able to see the valley from any point during our ascent, but half-wet grassy areas that often passed by reminded me of the scenery of New Zealand I had watched in Lords of the Rings series.

Half an hour passed, and we reached Ooty Bus stand. Railway station is also situated nearby. The cold was moderate. We caught an auto to Hotel Lakeview, and the driver agreed to charge according to the standard rate (which is announced at both bus stand and railway station, for anyone to see). We checked in at 7:30 AM.

The entire Hotel Lakeview is set of cottages spread over a steep slope which ends at Ooty Lake. Our cottage being suite cottage, it was downhill, but contrary to the design intention, it couldn’t provide us the view of the Ooty lake because bushes had covered that bank.

The cottage was very clean and tidy, and its first sight gave a feeling of comfort. It had a nice living room, a cosy bed room with wall-sized glass window, a dining table, a coffee table, double bed, and an attached bathroom. Closets, dressing table, TV, and an intercom were other pleasing assets. What made us extremely happy, though, during our entire two days’ stay were:

1) Hot water came in bath rooms for 24 hours.

2) Power never went off.

Fireplace was the only distinguishing feature of the suite cottage – as announced by the hotel staff, but interesting fact was that logs were charged at Rs. 70 / kg. No initial stock was provided. The hotel had a nice department called housekeeping which honestly answered and fulfilled all such and other (room-cleaning, bedsheets etc.) queries over the phone. Their response itself proved warmer enough, and we stopped feeling any desire for firing the chimney. Besides, we were too tired. After having two cups of tea (and yes, it was too much!), we slipped under the bedsheets for indefinite time.

Late afternoon when we woke up, sun shone fully over our room, but it was considerably cold. After taking long, hot water bath (yes, the heater worked.), we readied ourselves for a small walk. From a map printout, we knew that Ooty Lake was the nearest point (2 KM). It also occurred to us that taking a casual stroll to a nearby point was the best way to take stock of the city and the climate and plan our remaining days in better way.

The road to lake was mostly empty, except for some sight seeing vehicles, but was completely safe. Passers by greeted us with warmer smiles, and children returning from school marvelled at us for still unknown (!) reasons.

We reached the lake after about 30 minutes walk. The place, as we had expected, was bustling with visitors despite it was Thursday. We immediately spotted what we were looking for: fast food stalls. The food was good, reasonable, and just right for the time & place. We chose leasurely from sandwiches, south Indian food, chats and an assortment of cold drinks and fruit juices. (All Dosas and Utthapas and sandwiches were priced below Rs. 40 – even pizza were available in the same range.)

The place was generously spacious. The lake just in front added to the flavor. In spite of enormous appetite, we took a long one hour to finish our “lunch” glancing over the ripples in the lake. Then we continued towards a small garden where families played with their children.

A packaged tour arrived, and the lake front became livelier with voices demanding hot coffee and tea. Upon a closer look we realized that the bus was from Gujarat: Every member occupied the queue until he claimed beverages for his entire family, and all of them were standing in the queue. (well, beverages were not free!)

After some calm moments in the garden, we proceeded beyond the restaurant. A tiny hut lay there that looked like a village railway station – and it was, well, a railway station! We purchased two tickets (Rs. 10 each) for a mini train. The train arrived after some 5 minutes. We jumped into to it to fully occupy one of its four family sized coaches. It ran for a stretch of about a kilometer, showed us the various shades of the Ooty lake. We could see some boats taking peaceful trolls, while other pacing furiously, creating whirlpools.  We took a glimpse of Hotel Lakeview from the farthest point where the train took us. Then it returned with roaring children peeping out of the windows.

When we reluctantly made our exit from the garden, Drashti made a groundbreaking discovery that I had quoted in the beginning of this blog series: We saw a public transport! A bus – packed with natives, just nearby a chocolate shop in front of the lake-garden. Without hesitating, she asked the conductor if it would take us to Hotel Lakeview. He nodded, and we climbed in. Never forget this: Nothing satisfies a true Gujarati more than a dime saved when it is called for – millions can make their way when a cause requires. We enjoyed standing among the returning schoolchildren of Ooty, but it just lasted for 3 minutes. Reason? Our stop had arrived!

When at hotel room, we were tired, but quite happy. We ordered ginger tea (this time only 1 cup – and it was enough) and ate home made breakfast we had brought together. Room had a TV and a newspaper – enough for a couple to survive whole day if required. To our relief, power hadn’t vanished, and we could take a hot water bath if we wished.

Later, we decided to dine in Hotel Lakeview restaurant itself.  We went to the hotel restaurant and ordered sizzler (room deliver costs 20% more on every item).  Food was OK quality, and we didn’t have any complaints. We found the chefs polite – they would inform in detail about items and rates even when not queried. The restaurant was ambient, spacious and clean.

We slept at around 10:30 PM. It wasn’t until the sunlight that penetrated the pale curtains that we woke up from that calm, dreamless sleep. It was in time, though, for that day, we had a rigorous mission ahead of us.

Day’s rambling

Today is important for three things:

1) On this day, in 1985, mommy & papa had bought me a metal school bag – the one which is available at utensil’s shop and resembled a mini-trunk. During my study in 2nd through 4th standard, I everyday saw the date 6-7-85 embossed over it, and that’s how I remember it till date.

Contrary to today’s leather bags which children carry like an ox pulling a cart, it was extremely suitable from ergonomic perspective.

Later on, it took many wounds over it, often protecting me from potential mishaps of every kind on my way to & from the school.

I am sure it’s still lying somewhere on the shelves at my Bhavnagar home.

2) The budget released today has disappointed  ”aam aadmi” – the middle class.

No substantial changes in Incomtax slabs. There are many other things notable, and I don’t think I should mention them.

The trend continues – all goodies going to poors, backwards, minorities, disabled, wounded, and so on – as usual. I can see it how it will be after some years: all of them would refuse to rise. They will be joined by more & more weakened, until everyone will be special. Then they all will demand because they are special, and never worthy.

Even in days of its global reckoning, India keeps alienating its intellectuals who believe in producing all that’s worth. Brain drain isn’t surprising. It will continue, despite of racial attacks and through out thousand recessions.

3) Federer won his 15th grand slam! This kept energizing me through out the day.

Since days of Staffy Graff & Borris Becker (I was in my primary school), I had been a fan of tennis – especially Wimbledon and French Open. But in-between my interest had drained up – largely due to lack of class players and fair competition.

In those drained up days, I missed the marathon struggles between Rafa & Fedex and Samprass & Agassi.

It was late when I woke up.  I was looking forward to this final, to see how Fedex revives from his recent defeats and setbacks, mainly the last Wimbledon snatch-up by Rafa.

I wasn’t disappointed.

And what a match it was – 16-14 in the last set…while Federer was at his usual best, Roddik wasn’t behind either.

To me, they both were excellent – result didn’t matter much. Though I was personally with Fedex through out the match – because of his struggle to stand up to the top – and yes, again. That’s something of an impossible feat if you look into human history.  His every shot seemed pinnacle of hardwork and excellence.

Such things still keeps our internal flame alive…

No matter if the world turnes upside down – we must excel.

Our Ooty Trip – 2 – June 2009

Here is a tiny post, long awaited, before we proceed.

Posting the Ooty trip photos -

http://www.flickr.com/photos/drashtibhatt/

I think this is viewed best before you read further (and decide whether you want to or not!) parts, which I will be posting in forthcoming weeks.

Inspiration: In all big functions we attend, when many big people are to speak, organisers don’t serve tea / snacks until @ the end, but announce it beforehand to keep people seated! You are saved of that exploitation here.

So thank us!

No, do not thank. Instead, just say: the photos are too good!

Our Ooty Trip – 1 – June 2009

Living in Bangalore, a place we have come to recognize as Urban Hell in our last two years of stay, a tour was on our mind since more than six months. Our mission was neither pilgrimage nor research, but something everyone in a traffic-laden megacity yearns for: Some time away from everything, a time to attain peace of mind.

There was a list of southern India destinations. Considering the time available, the budget, and proximity, Ooty (Udagamandalam, if you ask Indian Railways, Utakamandalam, if you go by usual perfectionist pronunciation) topped the list. Besides, there was an urge to combat piercing questions by friends and family: In south, and haven’t seen Ooty?!! (You should be ashamed, and deserve that Bangalore tortures you. Full stop.)

People say travel is best when one is carefree. So we set out for Ooty without much thought. But not without how, when and where. We had learned, the harder ways, that travelling in India doesn’t come out fruitful if you have some conscience of value for money  & time – despite of having enough of both. We dug up the details harder before finalizing.

If I sum up our trip in three simple steps, they were: Planning, planning and planning.

Planning:

We began to plan for travel about two weeks ago. Our main source was web, and since travelling to Ooty from Bangalore isn’t something to worry in advance, our main focus was to check hotel availability and rates. We spent first couple of days checking Ooty hotels on travel sites. We heavily relied on travelguru for rates and holidayiq & other blogs for reviews. We observed that personal blogs were more unbiased (reviews being paid or sometimes driven by hotel staff), and we used Google’s blog search as well as some other sites like blogsearch.com. After some initial research, we found that every decent hotel in Ooty had its own website. It pays to visit it if you wanted what’s publicized.

Firstly, we came across an excellent hotel – King’s cliff. It’s actually an ancient palace turned to hotel, and is designed around mysterious Victorean English themes. Online reviews said excellent things about it. We came to know that in British raj, only foreigners stayed there. The group that runs this runs four other hotels, too, and all of them are elegant. We inquired with King’s cliff, and they quickly came back to us with tariffs, room types, and facilities. We were so overwhelmed by its photos (seen on blogs, and hotel website) that we almost decided: if we don’t book it, we would drop the entire plan.

But as with any other advanture started enthusiastically, we came to think logically as days passed, and that allowed us to consider other important factors.

Firstly, we came to know that season was expiring on 14th June (due to starting of school and onset of monsoon), and rates would marginally lower after that date. Almost all hotel charged about Rs. 300 less per night in off-season: 15th June to 30th September. It was obvious that rain would not abide by any dates on hillstations. Considering this, we postponed our travel date by a week from 11th to 18th June.

Second concern was sight seeing. We were quite aware of Newton’s first law for Indian hillstation visit: Exhorbitant, inconsistent rates are charged by sight seeing vehicles across all hillstations. Easiest way to curb it was to reside at a place where we could opt from multiple options, bargain wholeheartedly, and/or could find people who would share the cabs. Casual stroll in the market was also on our mind in case we were too tired to trek, but ready to shop. (It’s all in our blood – being Gujaratis!)

King’s cliff didn’t quite fit into this criteria. It was 3 KM away from the market, bus station & railway station. The hotel had its own sightseeing service, but as with any other hotel, it wasn’t pocket-friendly (we didn’t know the exact rate, but so said vateran Ooty visitors on the web.) Not only King’s cliff was far, but also it was in an isolated area, and we thought it would be difficult when it came to dining at odd hours if we wanted to try something different from the hotel restaurant (which was reported to be pretty decent by bloggers & reviewers, off course). It was quite regrettable to put it off, but we had to look for options.

Another round of Internet research gave us only 3 star and 4 star hotels, which satisfied our criteria, but weren’t quite appealing – there were online complaints regarding cleanliness, staff’s behavior, hidden charges levied, and lack of an eye for overall comfort. Above all, King’s cliff still dominated in the backdrop of our minds.

It was then that we took the most rational approach we could think of:

- Performed search on leading travel sites: travelguru, yatra & cleartrip

- Sorted the results by prices: low to high

- Began to look for the best feedback score posted.

- Book from the site which would give the highest discout for the selected hotel.

Doing this almost gave us what we wanted: we found a single hotel that fit into our budget, wasn’t quite far from the city, had substantially higher number of positive reviews, and had a unique feature we always fancied: private cottages. Our small doubts were promptly and politely answered by hotel staff via email.

We zeroed in on Hotel Lakeview, and booked 2 nights suite cottage on double occupancy basis via yatra.com, which offered a meagre cashback, and it helped stripping off the tax portion of the booking cost. There wasn’t any star rating mentioned about the hotel, but the cottage was Rs. 1300 / night (off season rate), and we later realized it was decent value for money.

Next we approached the transport part. We decided to go for state transport – KSRTC has abundant buses destined to Ooty – almost all leaving at night. We didn’t quite want to experiment with other options, as we thought we could manage an 8 hour journey anyhow

(which didn’t quite proved right, as I would mention later, but anyway, is there a thing called “all comfortable travel”?).

The third, the least urgent, yet quite important planning step was for a unique Ooty feature: booking for toy train. In our last trip to Matheran, we had failed to get a reservation in the toy train  (which runs between Neral to Matheran) . This time we wanted to make up for that. The various Ooty toy trains run between Mettupalayam and Ooty (via Coonoor), and as everybody describes, it’s a must have experience for any Ooty tourist. Again, we scoured the net for online booking, and soon found that Indian railways offered it. We booked 2 first class tickets on irctc.in – we had to register first (it doesn’t even allow you to see the schedules before you register), and we chose e-ticket option instead of i-ticket, which is actual train ticket couriered. (With e-ticket, as usual, we were required to carry ID to be displayed to TC) First class fare (Rs. 100) is 10 times higher than unreserved class. But later in train, we saw that it was justified.

Everything up to this point was accomplished a week before our travel dates. Then, all we had to do was to sit back and dream about the trip, hoping that everything would go as planned. It actually did for the most part. And it didn’t, for little part.

That little part was responsible for the thrills that make every tour a treasure of memories.

Stay Tuned…

Living in Bangalore, a place I & Drashti have come to recognize as Urban Hell in our last two years of stay, a tour was on our mind since more than six months. Our mission was neither pilgrimage nor research, but something everyone in a traffic-laden megacity yearns for: Some time away from everything, a time to attain peace of mind.

There was a list of southern India destinations. Considering the time available, the budget, and proximity, Ooty (Udagamandalam, if you ask Indian Railways, Utakamandalam, if you go by usual perfectionist pronunciation) topped the list. Besides, there was an urge to combat piercing questions by friends and family: In south, and haven’t seen Ooty?!! (You should be ashamed, and deserve that Bangalore tortures you. Full stop.)

People say travel is best when one is carefree. So we set out for Ooty without much thought. But not without how, when and where. We had learned, the harder ways, that travelling in India doesn’t come out fruitful if you have some conscience of value for money  & time – despite of having enough of both. We dug up the details harder before finalizing.

If I sum up our trip in three simple steps, they were: Planning, planning and planning.

Planning:

We began to plan for travel about two weeks ago. Our main source was web, and since travelling to Ooty from Bangalore isn’t something to worry in advance, our main focus was to check hotel availability and rates. We spent first couple of days checking Ooty hotels on travel sites. We heavily relied on travelguru for rates and holidayiq & other blogs for reviews. We observed that personal blogs were more unbiased (reviews being paid or sometimes driven by hotel staff), and we used Google’s blog search as well as some other sites like blogsearch.com. After some initial research, we found that every decent hotel in Ooty had its own website. It pays to visit it if you wanted what’s publicized.

With little effort, we came across an excellent hotel – King’s cliff. It’s actually an ancient palace turned to hotel, and is designed around mysterious Victorean English themes. Online reviews said excellent things about it. We came to know that in British raj, only foreigners stayed there. The group that runs this runs four other hotels, too, and all of them are elegant. We inquired with King’s cliff, and they quickly came back to us with tariffs, room types, and facilities. We were so overwhelmed by its photos (seen on blogs, and hotel website) that we almost decided: if we don’t book it, we would drop the entire plan.

But as with any other advanture started enthusiastically, we came to think logically as days passed, and that allowed us to consider other important factors.

Firstly, we came to know that season was expiring on 14th June (due to starting of school and onset of monsoon), and rates would marginally lower after that date. Almost all hotel charged about Rs. 300 less per night in off-season: 15th June to 30th September. It was obvious that rain would not abide by any dates on hillstations. Considering this, we postponed our travel date by a week from 11th to 18th June.

Second concern was sight seeing. We were quite aware of Newton’s first law for Indian hillstation visit: Exhorbitant, inconsistent rates are charged by sight seeing vehicles across all hillstations. Easiest way to curb it was to reside at a place where we could opt from multiple options, bargain wholeheartedly, and/or could find people who would share the cabs. Casual stroll in the market was also on our mind in case we were too tired to trek, but ready to shop. (It’s all in our blood – being Gujaratis!)

King’s cliff didn’t quite fit into this criteria. It was 3 KM away from the market, bus station & railway station. The hotel had its own sightseeing service, but as with any other hotel, it wasn’t pocket-friendly (we didn’t know the exact rate, but so said vateran Ooty visitors on the web.) Not only King’s cliff was far, but also it was in an isolated area, and we thought it would be difficult when it came to dining at odd hours if we wanted to try something different from the hotel restaurant (which was reported to be pretty decent by bloggers & reviewers, off course). It was quite regrettable to put it off, but we had to look for options.

Another round of Internet research gave us only 3 star and 4 star hotels, which satisfied our criteria, but weren’t quite appealing – there were online complaints regarding cleanliness, staff’s behavior, hidden charges levied, and lack of an eye for overall comfort. Above all, King’s cliff still dominated in the backdrop of our minds.

It was then that we took the most rational approach we could think of, and we implemented it:

- Performed search on leading travel sites: travelguru, yatra & cleartrip

- Sorted the results by prices: low to high

- Began to look for the best feedback score posted.

- Book from the site which would give the highest discount for the selected hotel.

Doing this almost gave us what we wanted: we found a single hotel that fit into our budget, wasn’t quite far from the city, had substantially higher number of positive reviews, and had a unique feature we always fancied: private cottages. Our small doubts were promptly and politely answered by hotel staff via email.

We zeroed in on Hotel Lakeview, and booked 2 nights suite cottage on double occupancy basis via yatra.com, which offered a meagre cashback, and it helped stripping off the tax portion of the booking cost. There wasn’t any star rating mentioned about the hotel, but the cottage was Rs. 1300 / night (off season rate), and we later realized it was decent value for money.

Next we approached the transport part. We decided to go for state transport – KSRTC has abundant buses destined to Ooty – almost all leaving at night. We didn’t quite want to experiment with other options, as we thought we could manage an 8 hour journey anyhow (which didn’t quite proved right, as I would mention later, but anyway, is there a thing called “all comfortable travel”?).

The third, the least urgent, yet quite important planning step was for a unique Ooty feature: booking for toy train. In our last trip to Matheran, we had failed to get a reservation in the toy train  (which runs between Neral to Matheran) . This time we wanted to make up for that. The various Ooty toy trains run between Mettupalayam and Ooty (via Coonoor), and as everybody describes, it’s a must have experience for any Ooty tourist. Again, we scoured the net for online booking, and soon found that Indian railways offered it. We booked 2 first class tickets on irctc.in – we had to register first (it doesn’t even allow you to see the schedules before you register), and we chose e-ticket option instead of i-ticket, which is actual train ticket couriered. (With e-ticket, as usual, we were required to carry ID to be displayed to TC) First class fare (Rs. 100) is 10 times higher than unreserved class. But later in train, we saw that it was justified.

Everything up to this point was accomplished a week before our travel dates. Then, all we had to do was to sit back and dream about the trip, hoping that everything would go as planned. It actually did for the most part. And it didn’t, for little part.

That little part was responsible for the thrills that make every tour a treasure of memories.

Stay Tuned…

Our first post…

We, Bhatts, pride ourselves as an elite Indian middle class family. That says a lot about us.

Automatically, we are ready to boast what’s best about us. And eager to accept what’s best outside. Blogging is one such arena.

I, an IT savvy component of it, feel like representing our centuries old tradition on the web (-x.0 for the sake of version neutrality and future adherence!), and write this blog to represent:

i) My great ancestry – comprised of simple living, high thinking middle class who love to love & hate to hate

ii) My ??? offsprings – yet to arrive.

iii) My contemporaries – sisters, brothers, cousins, and the one & only – wife.

Well…that’s for now. Keep flipping through the journel. And whenever you find some similarity or contrast, feel free to comment. We will be happy to read what’s likeable or acceptable, and delete the rest!

Cheers,

-Nirav

(On behalf of Bhatts)