The "Famous Five" go to Nandi Hills
An impromptu trip, a bus journey, and some fun along the way.
Billy Bunter, Enid Blyton, and the 'unwoke' generation.
How many of you know the Billy Bunter and Enid Blyton books? Enid Blyton and Frank Richards (the author of the Billy Bunter books) created five friends called "The Famous Five." I discovered modern authors rewrote their books to make them politically correct, killing them. The 'woke' wave sweeping the world is crazy, confusing people, creating conflict, and making everyone wonder what they should say. I belong to a generation that prefers to be rude, politically wrong, and rambunctious. Any person of the younger generation listening to how we joke and make fun of each other will faint, wrinkle their noses in disapproval, and demand we mend our ways.
Bangalore.
I did my MBA at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, which is now officially Bengaluru. Politicians love changing the names of roads and cities. When bored and at a loss for how to govern their region, they change a place's name, insisting they are acting on the public's demand and incurring considerable expenses. Sometimes, they do this over a cup of chai and, at other times, over a glass of their favorite alcoholic beverage.
Bangalore is in South India. During my time there, it was small and quiet (when compared with Delhi and Bombay! ), with fabulous weather and decent traffic. Since then, the city has changed beyond recognition, with crawling traffic, snarling drivers, crumbling infrastructure, water shortages, and old people wailing about the old days. The climate is much better than Delhi's, and the people are intelligent and civil, even while snarling.
I arrived at the Institute in the dead of night.
Our Institute was in the boondocks, with a mango pulp processing factory to keep us company. I remember my train arriving in Bangalore five hours behind schedule, and I caught an auto-rickshaw at 2 a.m. We drove through the town, reaching a dark road infested with ghosts, making me wonder if my excellent driver was a gang leader. Then, I smelled the mango pulp, and my rickshaw driver pointed me towards a bulb gasping for life. "That's your college," he said.
We drove in through the gates, and darkness enveloped us again. I spotted some dark shapes in the distance: the college building and our hostel. The warden of the hospital looked at me with suspicion, thinking I was a crook, and put me in an open room, asking me to sit through the night with the light on. I had mosquitoes for company, vicious little fellas.
Today, you may whizz past my Institute. Gleaming offices surround it and seem to be in the center of the action. Time marches on, and builders are like nature: They abhor empty spaces, which they fill with concrete structures.
Nandi Hills
The Journey to Nandi Hills
Class started, friendships formed, and the boys queued to woo the lone single woman. The rest were married or engaged to be married. A few months after classes began, a long weekend came up. The 15th of August was on a Thursday. We took a quick trip to Nandi Hills, about 60 kilometers from Bangalore.
The rest of the class scoffed, challenging us to make the trip. We—"The Famous Five"—scoffed at them and took a bus to the terminus to catch a bus to Nandi Hills. None of us wished to miss our evening chai and snack, so by the time we reached the terminus, the last bus to Nandi Hills had left. The bus wagged its tail at us, mocking our greed and love for chai.
The five of us almost turned back to college, defeated, when one of our group got up on his hind legs and yelled. "We are not going back. Everyone will laugh. We will find a way." He stood there, waving his finger, almost like Aragorn waving his sword, urging his troops to wage battle against Sauron's forces. Every army needs a hero, and we hopped onto a bus to the base of the hill. We had a vague plan to walk up the winding, hilly road to find a place to stay.
The bus bumped its merry way to its final destination, and the other passengers got off, leaving us on the bus. Darkness was falling, and the trek to the top of the hill lost its allure: we failed the challenge. Yet, we refused to bow to defeat and bribed the bus driver to take us to the hilltop. I am unashamed to confess, with pride, that we bribed the bus driver. None of us considered how he intended to account for the fuel consumption or his time. We focused on our destination.
The bus trundled up the hill, and on our arrival, we realized we hadn't booked a place to stay. This habit of 'winging it' is still part of me. While I plan, I refuse to make detailed plans, project flows, Excel sheets, Word documents, and travel armed with files containing detailed information about the hotels, attractions, restaurants, and information on the pretty girls. Detailed plans are tedious and take away much of the surprise, shock, awe, and joy that often greet you when your plans remain guidelines.
We bribed the manager, too.
Don't assume our planning was terrible. We planned for the essentials and ensured an adequate supply of booze, drinks, and snacks. The challenge of finding a comfortable bed for the night remained. When we reached Nandi Hills, darkness enveloped the town, even though it was not yet 9 p.m. Hill folk—those days—slept early, and eerie darkness and silence greeted us.
We had not accounted for other people who also planned for the long weekend: every hotel was booked, and no room was available. Eventually, corruption prevailed, and we bribed a hotel manager to let us spend the night in the hotel's dining hall. The staff had placed the chairs on the table, leaving us with the hard floor. Our excellent manager gave us the dining room on one condition: that we clear out before breakfast. The night was long: we laughed, joked, emptied the bottles, gobbled the food, and slept, drunk, like the dead.
Early the following day, the manager shook us awake. The sight of us dead souls angered him, and he refused to let us use any of the public toilets in the hotel. We brushed our teeth in the dining hall's washbasin, then went outside to add our solid fertilizer to the garden. Our empty bottles were invaluable: we couldn't have washed our bums without the water we filled into the bottles. I was lucky. I stumbled outside and squatted. Too late, I realized my bare bum was an inch above a cactus plant, the sharp needles aching to pierce my delicate skin. If you wish to strengthen your legs, strip off your garments and squat above a cactus plant. Do it, and you will focus on your position, strain every nerve, muscle, and ligament to stay in position, and pray. This exercise is an excellent way to seek God.
Wandering in Nandi Hills.
We wandered around Nandi Hills during the day. It was a quaint little town then, but I bet it has lost much of its old charm. One incident stands out. I wandered down a stream, itching to get a few dramatic photographs. Not realizing I was walking down a slippery slope, I skipped along until I fell on my bum, sliding down the slope. I held my camera high in the air to prevent any damage. A few broken limbs would mend, but my dad would not buy me a new camera. I loved – and still love – my Olympus OM-2n.
My parents chased me to get married, and I insisted on telling them I was married to my camera. The argument worked for years until I met the woman I would marry.
I slid down the slope, protecting my camera, without thinking. If I broke a limb, how would I get to a hospital? The closest hospital was in Bangalore, sixty kilometers away. Youth is beautiful: you don't think of mundane issues like medical care, injuries, and hospitals; you are convinced of your ability to conquer the universe. The universe has other plans for all of us, which we discover as our stomachs distend and our hair greys.
I remember climbing to the top of the hill with my buddies to visit the Nandi Temple. Nandi is the bull Shiva rides on, and I am convinced people named the hill after the temple. I don't believe the hill looks like a bull, but someone placed a bull statue on the hilltop. I like small, unattended temples with few or no priests in attendance. Priests need to make money, but they do so by creating meaningless rituals, fear, and false promises. There is a price for every ceremony and 'sacrifice,' whereas I always say that offerings must be voluntary. Prominent temples attract shops and markets, selling flowers and offerings, which devotees and temple staff often junk. Walk around a large temple; litter will greet you in the little lanes surrounding the temples.
I remember eating at one of the semi-government restaurants in the town, with reasonable pricing and bland food. The advantage of these places is that you don't get a stomach bug.
We wandered around the town, up and down the hill, the cool breeze fanning us, making the short treks pleasant. Consider this: it was August, and my classmates wore sweaters. Now, the thought of wearing woolens in August is inconceivable; if this is not proof that we live on a warming planet, I don't know what will convince the idiotic climate change deniers who populate our globe.
We Get Back—the End. For Now.
By the afternoon, we were ready to return to Bangalore, our mission successful and our egos intact. I don't remember if we laid a wager with some of our classmates, but it did not matter; we won the bet. We rose to the challenge, smashed the barriers, and walked into the Institute feeling like champs!
Photography.
I used my Olympus OM-2n and black-and-white film. We visited Nandi Hills long ago, which erased parts of my memory and prompted a question: Did I carry my zoom lens or not? I think I only carried my 50 mm prime lens, but I may be wrong. Color filters accompanied me on the trip; otherwise, I would have been miserable and cranky!
I remember this old man well, his photo being one of my favorites from the trip.