An account of my Shirdi trip

I guess I'm not much of a philosopher, deficient as I am in the requisite thinking equipment. The only important philosophical question that has occurred to me is

When you use the flush in a plane and the stuff disappears with a "whooosh" where does it really go?

According to Shakespeare, who seems to have studied the subject deeply, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. Who am I to argue with the Bard? I have been intensely suspicious of light drizzles ever since I read The Merchant of Venice.

But of late, I have been vexed with questions of an existential nature. "Who am I?" is a thought that often bothers me, though Sheela feels that it is not entirely a coincidence that these thoughts occur after consuming a few beers. So when the opportunity of taking a pilgrimage to Shirdi presented itself, I tarried not.

We took the first pit stop at Pune where we stayed with Sheela's sister-in-law's sister's family who have 2 kids aged 4 and 2 respectively. Joining us there were Sheela's brother Sundeep and his family comprising of one harried wife and three kids aged 5, 3 and 1 respectively. My kids, 13 and 10, looked like senior citizens. All these children were extremely adorable, except for the charming tendency children have of yelling, crying and throwing up without warning, sometimes simultaneously. The guys followed the time honored male response to juvenile crises - Go yell some place else - and thoughtfully sipped on Kingfisher draught. This brought forth thoughtful observations from the respective spouses as to what might happen to people who don't get off their fat butts and tend to their progeny. I had a large grin on my face throughout the proceedings since I had had the foresight to have my kids twelve years ago.

We drove to Shirdi very early in the morning - 4 a.m. in fact - the idea being that the kids would spend the entire journey fast asleep. This turned out to be perfect. The tots indeed slept the sleep of the innocent. Somehow I never got these bright ideas when my kids were growing up. Sheela and I would travel around in our Maruti van those days with all our limbs involved in driving, steering, restraining children from jumping out the window and in my case, occasionally heaping abuse on errant autorickshaw drivers. Compared to our travails this was serenity it self.

Sundeep was driving and I had the luxury of admiring the creeping crimson of day break. Presently, we came across a truck overturned, doubtless due to the driver having been observing the creeping crimson of daybreak. The truck was carrying a consignment of beer and there was a throng of happy looking villagers looking forward to a serious party at six in the morning, foraging amongst the cartons. The driver and his assistant were sitting on a culvert looking shaken but unhurt. All this had naturally caused a traffic jam - passing truck drivers had parked their vehicles and jumped into the fray. We were lucky to wriggle out of this one. The accident had just happened and word had gotten out. I could see villagers streaming in from every direction. It would have been fun to see all these people sloshed out of their minds at daybreak but we had a mission to accomplish.

Presently, we reached Sai Baba Temple at Shirdi and joined the queue. It was quite long and took us almost 2 hours to get to the main sanctum. But the crowds were extremely decorous and well behaved. Most of them were singing Bhajans. There were the usual devotees in a hurry, trying to get in through side entrances. One old man and his wife were simply jumping the line at every opportunity. No one seemed to mind, though.

Sai Baba is a mystic saint of whose origins little is known. He lived at the turn of the century and preached religious harmony. And lived in abject poverty in life, something which always wins my respect when I see it in people who have the adulation of the public. Mahatma Gandhi was another example. Have you heard of any of his sons, grandchildren, cousins, uncles, brothers-in-law, any one at all cashing in on his name? Contrast that with the present day bunch of money grubbing parasites masquerading as leaders.

Any way, I found Shirdi charming because of its simple, if garish, devotion. It is a bit tatty but thats because most of Sai Baba's devotees are poor people, but no less sincere for that. The other thing is the number of hotels here and their names. Almost all the hotels are named using the formula "HOTEL" + "SAI" + "$STRING$" where "$STRING$" is any alphanumeric string from "PALACE" to "AMRIT" to "KRIPA"

We headed on to a nearby town named Shingnapur which is famous for a Shani Temple. Shani is a demigod whose major trip in life, if astrologers are to be believed, is to attach himself to you and torment you till you pay your astrologer some money and get him to tell you what mantras to chant and when. We performed a prophylactic puja which involve pouring oil on the large stone that represents him. All throughout the wily residents of the place were trying their level best to rip us off. We put up a futile resistance till we realized that liberty was to be had by flinging small amounts of cash at all and sundry.

The drive all through was beautiful. This is good farming country, mostly sugarcane and grapes. The countryside was verdant. I guess the farmers are quite rich. The roads were quite alright by the exacting standards of Maharashtra where a density of 3.7 potholes per square meter qualifies as a superdeluxe express highway. We reached Pune in the evening, a bit weary but raring to get back home where some exciting homework awaited the boys. They tried everything in their powers to get their stay extended by a day. I was lending support from the outside, as they say in politics, but the motion could not be carried through because of determined opposition from the ruling junta, namely General Sheela Shenoy. So we trundled off to Mumbai, weary but chilled. And that constitutes my incoherence for today. Those of you who made sense of it, god bless.

The Planter's Club - Part II

The abiding tragedy of my life is and will always be the reluctance of Shilpa Shetty to marry me. She can find no better husband - charming, witty, not averse to polygamy - but somehow she hasn't cottoned on to the idea. I therefore decided to go with the Hoysala temples (You may recall my assertion that I would prefer seeing the Hoysala temples of Belur and Halebeedu to marrying Ms. Shetty. What prompted that statement was that she wasn't really planning to marry me any way. Alright, alright, I'll get to the story)

We set out on the assurance that the roads were "okay" and took a short cut through a place called Bikkodu. It was a beautiful, rustic drive. I wondered, as I often do, why the hell I live in Bombay when there are places like this in India. On either side of the road were forests alternating with coffee estates, resplendent in various shades of green. Every now and then we would come across a house with a garden that would be bursting with flowers of almost every conceivable color. The people on the roads were simple peasants with a serene look on their faces (except one whom I splattered by driving full speed over a nice, fresh cow pat. He lost his serene look for a while, I guess. Not my fault, I had no idea these things were so sprayable.)

Anyway, we landed up in Belur for our first look at the Hoysala temples. These temples date back to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Since I wasn't around at the time (I really regret that. Life was such a party, going by the erotic sculpture panels.) I thought it might be a smart idea to engage a guide. The guide turned out to be a motivated and serious historian who spoke excellent, if slightly accented, English. I really don't recall all the details (except the erotic sculpture panels, about which I could give a lecture series) but the intricacy of the sculpture was mind boggling.

"The stone is known as soap-stone. It is soft when quarried and hardens as it is exposed to the atmosphere. This made it possible for the sculptors to achieve this level of intricacy" said our guide, as if that made it a piece of cake. The temple was made in segments and joined with dove-tail joints and the like, as if it were wood. This makes it an achievement in engineering because the builders would have to estimate loads and design it well, lest it collapse like a pack of cards. Since that hasn't happened in the last 900 years, it would appear that they passed their engineering degree with honors. It did rather make one suck one's breath in.

We headed on to Halebeedu which is about a half hours drive from Belur through some fine and picturesque farmland. En route we were stopped by a posse of policemen standing next to a trademark rattletrap police jeep that couldn't overtake a toddler's tricycle, if the toddler's tricycle didn't want to be overtaken. I got out of the car (I was driving) and interpreted the head cop's guttural comments as a desire to see some papers. I gave him a wide choice. There were registration papers, insurance papers, papers pertaining to the first service of the vehicle, somebody's horoscope, and a blood test report. He took a hard look at them all and asked for my license. As he subjected it to his regular scrutiny, I realized he was holding it upside down. He returned all this stuff to me and decided not to press charges. Duh!

Relieved, I resumed the journey and presently we rolled into the erstwhile capital of the Hoysala kingdom. This temple was bigger - two temples adjacent, in fact - but was vandalized by the general Malik Kafur, who had sauntered into town with his army, looking for a bit of cash. This is a recurrent theme in the history of India, the Muslim conquerors' penchant for defacing fine sculpture and painting. They would come, plunder, slaughter some of the citizenry and as a parting shot, defile any decent statues they could find. The caves at Ellora will bring tears to your eyes when you see what Aurangzeb and his friends did, in the course of a weekend, to centuries of labor of the highest artistic merit and historical importance. More recently his descendants, the Taliban in Afghanistan, bombed a couple of enormous and completely harmless Buddha statues out of existence in a place called Bamiyan. And so it goes on. But let me not dwell on topics that are none of my concern, especially topics that can bring a fatwa upon my head. A fine head, if I may say so, and one that I am keenly interested in continuing the ownership of.

Coming back to my fine little travelogue, by the time we were done with Halebeedu, everyone was hungry. We decided to look around for lunch. Halebeedu, for a tourist destination, seemed strangely bereft of establishments that would sell food for money. We went to a government hotel set in a large ground. The major domo gave us the once-over and announced that all he could spare, at the moment, was rice and curd. We were really hungry and I was willing to eat even that, but the kids kicked at the prospect. Soon, their mom joined the agitation and I was overpowered and forced to look for another place. There was a bar and restaurant down the road, stocking, presumably, Dr. Mallya's finest. This was turned down on the flimsy grounds that it is not good to have so much beer. The rightful leftover, so to speak, turned out to be an establishment called Shri Krishna Veg Restaurant which did a set meal for Rs. 12 per head, consisting of cardboard cleverly disguised as food. I washed down as much of it as possible with America's contribution to the world of fine beverages, namely Coke.

"Time to head back", I told the lads and got a glazed look in reply. These guys had pigged out on the Shri Krishna Veg Restaurant gourmet cardboard-a-la-king! They had actually enjoyed this, these same ingrates who turn up their nose when I cook them an omelet. Not tasty enough for them, my omelets aren't! Well, I have a lot to say along these lines but somehow, I don't think you're dying to hear about it. So I'll conclude my concise and informative - well written, in fact - travelogue by telling you all that if you haven't seen the Hoysala Temples, you haven't lived. And for those of you who want the letters PhD after your name, there is a wonderful thesis waiting to be written on "The nutritional value of commercial cardboard" in the Shri Krishna Veg Restaurant. Maybe the way to end world hunger is to increase cardboard production.

The Planter's Club, Sakaleshpur

I know what you're thinking. Ho hum. Another one of them stupid vacation diaries. The Planter's Club, Sakaleshpur is where I spent a few days last week, soaking in, along with the atmosphere, a few stray drops of beer and some tremendously spicy cuisine. But hang on. The paying public demands a few footnotes and background material....

Once upon a time, long, long ago, a few Sundays back in fact, Sheela's tribe organized an impromptu outing to a coffee estate that Sheela's brother Sundeep had bought recently. Everyone was there except Prince Charming, who was basically toiling away in Bombay. Sheela rang up Prince Charming and asked him to come on his mettlesome charger and grace the gathering with his customary good humor and vivacity.

Now, Prince Charming was very busy with work, you know, slaying dragons, saving damsels in distress and sitting at the round table. He wondered aloud if it would be worthwhile going all that way just to chill out for a few days and do nothing but drink beer and eat yummy food. As he spoke, he realized that it was his beholden duty to his family to cheer them up and spend quality time with them. After all, what good is a valiant knight if he cannot spend a few days drinking really chilled beer and eating mutton pepper fry for the sake of his family? So with a heavy heart, he bid adieu to the dragons and the damsels in distress and heaved his posterior in the general direction of Mysore, wherefrom the tribe would repair to the Planter's Club, Sakaleshpur.

Well, I must confess that I (I'm taking the liberty of referring to myself in the first person. When one is Prince Charming, one does rather merit the third person treatment but jealousy abounds, dear reader. I know it astounds you, but people would actually think me arrogant if I kept referring to myself in the third person) rather imagined a planter to be a grizzled old man with his back bent from years of planting, looking yearningly skywards every now and then as if praying to the rain gods for deliverance. The Sakaleshpur Planter is anything but.

From the array of cars parked in the place, my guess was that the average Sakaleshpur Planter lived like a sheikh whose family has just installed a few new oil wells. I hobnobbed with a few and found them speaking with impeccable diction and great erudition on a wide range of subjects. One of them set me right about the Modern Art scene in India, on which topic I had recklessly shot off my mouth. I admit that I know as much about the Modern Art Scene in India as I know about the Lesser Scandinavian Poets, namely nothing, but I had never thought I would be so speedily, if gently, exposed as a goof. I quickly learnt the merits of not opening my mouth, except for the purpose of ingesting the beer and the mutton pepper fry.

Interesting place, in short, and it wasn't really opulent or anything, it had a beautiful location and great comfort. The staff was an absolute throwback to colonial times. An extremely geriatric gentleman turned out to be the cook. Eighty two years old, would you believe it. After a particularly delicious meal one evening, young Sundeep sent for him, to thank him for the wonderful meal and cross his palms with silver. It turned out that he wasn't interested in the money at all. That seemed unusual. We looked at him quizzically. After a bit of hemming and hawing, he inquired if he might speak freely. We urged him to ask unto half our kingdom, but all that he wanted, it turned out, was a large drink. The bar had closed and the bar clerk had left for the night, taking with him the keys to the liquor cabinet, so we couldn't buy him a drink. He looked yearningly at a half finished bottle of Scotch that we were sampling rather extensively. Without a second's hesitation, young Sundeep handed it over to him, the rest of the company agreeing that it was a mere bagatelle in the appreciation of culinary genius.

Next morning, we were amply recompensed for the generous liquid gift of the previous night. He cooked up a beautiful meal of "akki rotti" (rice chapaties) and some deep red concoction of spice and tomatoes that was tangy and delicious. I found I had nothing to do. Sundeep had to go back to the estate for some work, so I thought I would hijack one of the cars and explore the countryside a bit. The wife and kids agreed to join and we ended up going to the Belur and Halebeedu temples about an hours drive away. Was that good? Let me put it this way. If I have a one-or-the-other choice between seeing the temples and marrying Shilpa Shetty, I would unhesitatingly choose the temples. Only if it was a one-or-the-other choice, of course. I would much rather do both..........

My Aurangabad vacation - Part 2

On the following morning, I woke up feeling a bit woozy. Probably caused by all that overwhelming history and culture presented in a very short time to someone who, beneath his boorish exterior, conceals a boorish interior. Sheela begged to differ and opined that perhaps I should have had more of the soda and less of the whisky but she's so prone to jumping to conclusions! And any way, I was drinking vodka. But I'm drifting. As I said, I was feeling a bit woozy and looking forward to some calm and repose when the mother and children jumped me and hauled me off to the next destination. One Daulatabad fort. Squinting in the bright sunshine and wishing I had a couple of aspirin, I landed up at an impressive heap of stones and a BIG gate. One of those Buland Darwaza kinds, wooden gates studded with iron knobs and hundreds of tourists BRIGHTLY dressed, causing my eyes to throb.

A distuinguished looking man sidled up to me and inquired whether we required a guide. Some quick thinking told me that in exchange for a trifling sum, this fine gentleman would keep the progeny entertained while I reflected on the inner meaning of life. I quickly nodded acquiescence - a move I regretted doubly, first because it made my brain crash painfully against the back of my eyeballs and secondly, because the distinguished gent insisted on speaking to no one but the head of the family. Me. To make things worse, his history of the place started way, way back before the fort was built. In fact, I have a hazy recollection that he actually started off with the big bang, moving on to condensation and coalescence of matter, life emerging from the primordial slime and, eventually, thirty word filled minutes later, to the said fort.

I could look up all the history for you. Then again, you could look it up yourself, saving us both the trouble. But the fort struck me as the doing of one immensely paranoid king. There is everything here - moats, twisted pathways leading to death drops, dark chambers where people could be burned to death, niches where people could hide and pour boiling oil on other people, the list of traps goes on. And impregnable it was. The fort was never taken in battle. But there were rat finks back then too, and you could easily bribe the gate keeper to pass you the key or otherwise provide access, as one Malik Kafur found out to the lasting regret of Raja Harpal, whom he flayed alive.

Luncheon brought some respite from the bright sun and the almost incessant torrent of historical trivia. I started feeling a lot better after a good Dal Makhni and tandoori rotis washed down with a little kingfisher beer. Burping manfully, I flung the chest out and readied myself to face the world only to find the wife and kids snoring away in the hotel room. I roamed around the hotel looking for people to chat up and sample local colour but in the p.m., all of Aurangabad sleeps. We took in a bit of shopping in the evening - Aurangabad is the center for Paithani sarees, which have the same effect on women that a bikini clad Monica Belluci might have on the hirsute sex - and tied up the odds and ends required to enable departure for the homestead on the morrow.

As we drove into Bombay, traffic snarling and the smog greying everything, I could not help but reflect on the wondrous days that our fine country has seen in the past and wish we could see glory again. The chances, methinks, are remote.

My Aurangabad vacation

Did I tell you about the time I went a-vacationing with kids and wife to Aurangabad? It's not much of a story, because
(a) I came back alive
(b) I came back sane
(c) Aurangabad is still where it is.

But as I always say, if Karan Johar can write a story, so can I. Moreover, mine doesn't have songs.

Aurangabad is one of those grimy, industrialized towns that one finds all over the country these days. You can tell from the cockiness of the autorickshaw drivers that this is one burg where the economy is rocking. He has no time to waste and finds it impossible to conduct conversations without spitting out of the side of his mouth, as I found out when I was trying to elicit directions to our hotel. In a sleepy town, on the other hand, the typical citizen on the street has the aggressiveness of William Wordsworth.

We were booked into a nice, sprawling but slightly musty hotel called the Ambassador Ajanta which must have had its interior designed around the time when the three wise kings were following the star.

I was looking forward to this vacation because the kids were booked into a separate room which meant I would have a big window for romance unlike at home where its always crisis time.

I don't know if you've had that experience where you take time out from your busy schedule, smile winningly at the old spouse, get to the point where holding of hands is imminent and in barges your younger son, brimming with complaints of persecution and demanding immediate arrest and sentencing of the guilty party, namely the older one. Who has a good "not guilty" defense lined up and by the time you pass the final order ("faults on both sides"), all thats left of the fire of love is ashes.

We thought that the romantic environs of Aurangabad, coupled with hours of blissful solitude would re-kindle the romance to a quality that would inspire sonnet writers. It turned out quite agreeably. The old helpmeet actually smiled a couple of times at yours truly, an event comparable, in its rarity, to the sighting of Haley's comet . The rest will have to be silence lest an enterprising Subhash Ghai convert this into a multi-crore blockbuster with mega dance sequences.

Coming back to the vacationing, we started chilling soon, the mustiness and griminess forgotten. Being true Bombay wallahs, unable to sit in one place and soak in the atmosphere, plans were hatched of going sight seeing.

We went to see the Bibi ka Makbara, a sort of mini Taj Mahal built by Aurangzeb's son in memory of his mother. We hired a guide who was enthusiastically bustling around and we did not regret our decision. He pitched into his speech with gusto and told us a lot of interesting details which, sadly, could not be understood since he had no front teeth. I'm not a dentally prejudiced person -not all of us can have front teeth, is how I look at it- but front teeth are important for effective public speaking. Our raconteur's performance only made the kids giggle and the grown ups struggle to keep a straight face. And later, out of motives best known only to him, he started spouting "shayaris" or Urdu couplets. We abandoned all attempts at keeping straight faces - the kids were rolling on the floor long ago - but our large grins only kept him going.

It was with the greatest of difficulty that we extricated ourselves from the poet's grasp. Taking advantage of a lull in the monologue, we crossed his palms with silver and vanished post haste to the next place on our list, the Aurangabad Caves.

I had no idea these caves existed. I had heard of the Ajanta caves and the Ellora caves. Aurangabad caves? Well, had they been anywhere else, I tell you, they would have been super heritage monuments. Here they were quietly collecting dust. Their average age is 1800 years which makes them older than even Parmeshwar Godrej. Curiously (and this I found in the other cave groups at Ajanta and Ellora too) they had equal numbers of Hindu, Buddhist and Jain caves. I read up later that this was the main trade route from the Hindukush to the Deccan Plateau and these caves catered to merchants tramping to and fro uninsured and with daughters of marriageable age in tow. Resting posts such as these must have been most welcome and the said merchants must have dished out generously to help fund the monks. Needless to say, the scale and quality of the sculpture in the caves was amazing. I couldn't help but wonder if the people who built this were racially and genetically related to the chaps, for instance, who built our local ward office of the Municipal Corporation. Where has all that aesthetic sense gone?

Ajanta, which we saw the next day, was even more impressive. I won't wax eloquent on the artistic merits - there are enough web pages and more on that - but I will say that its a very well appointed monument of national heritage as monuments of national heritage go, because the Japanese government spent some 500 crore rupees (100 million US!) on doing it up. Unlike poor ol' Aurangabad caves, which commands as much attention as a public housing project.

Ajanta was full of high pressure salesmen, though, selling everything from stones to water to trinkets with the intensity of insurance agents. Extremely irritating and ironically, the biggest victims were the Japanese tourists who swarmed the place. I don't know any Japanese intimately, but the one's I've seen in India have always had this air about them of being sorry to be alive and try to make up for it by being excessively polite and bowing to almost every animate object and quite a few inanimate ones. It was sad to see them harried like this. There ought to be a law.

Ditto too, Ellora. An awesome place, inspite of being substantially defaced by the Emperor Aurangzeb and his goons. The piece de resistance is one Kailas Temple. Hewn out of a solid rock and full of intricate sculpture. Two thousand years old. It took my breath away. I wondered idly what the motivation for such huge public enterprises could be. It is said to have taken a 100 years to complete. Would have spanned at least three generation of sculptors and patrons, if not four. No blue prints or sketches even. How did they ensure the continuity of design? Here, in my factory, it is apocalypse when a designer does not turn up even for one day! Though in all fairness one must admit that there are a few road excavation projects like that in Bombay (100 years, no plans) but certainly not so beautiful........ (To be continued....)

COORG – a travel guide

When you actually get there, it's incredible that a place like Coorg, (or Kodagu, it's official but not frequently used name,) should be off beat.

It has all the ingredients but one for making it is as a major tourist destination. It is quite accessible from Bangalore (5 hrs) and Mangalore (3 hrs), both international airports. It has a Yorkshire dale like feel, with a gently undulating landscape and pastoral scenes. It has one or two nice hill treks which, while not Mount Everest exactly are tough enough to deflate a couch potato like yours truly. The people are cultured, friendly and polished. English is spoken almost everywhere.

What, then, is the missing ingredient, you must wonder. There are no pani puri stalls. No, I'm joking, of course. That too, I mean, but primarily, their economy is not tourist dependant. Which is why its marketing is so laid back.

Coorg is India's top coffee growing district. Pepper grows very well too. So does cardamom. So do oranges, guavas, avocado pears, passion fruit and I don’t know what else. The people here are serious farmers. When they meet in the market, its not "Did you hear? Suzy's leaving David!" but "Psst! Ramu's pepper vines have the wilt disease".

Times are changing, however. A few enterprising people have set up resorts which are doing fabulously well despite near zero advertising. But hang on. A travel guide is required by law to first give some history and background.

History and Background

Coorg is a bit like the indomitable Gaulish village of Asterix comics. The Coorgis (or Kodavas) have a strong martial tradition. Indeed, some of India's finest military commanders come from here.

It remained a small, independent kingdom for most of recorded history repelling all and sundry till Tipu Sultan got emotional and tried to wipe it out circa 1785. Then they shook hands with the British, who too wanted Tipu defeated and thus paved the way for an almost English life style that continues to this day.

They have impeccable table manners, speak flawless English and are extremely reserved with strangers. Not hostile or anything, but not chatty like your Bombay host who, after five minutes of conversation is willing to marry into your family. They can be charming hosts, though.

The people themselves have exotic theories about their origin. One is that they are descended from Alexander the Great’s Greek soldiers. Not much proof, alas, but interesting anyway. Their features, language and customs are distinctly different from other inhabitants of Karnataka. So there's an anthropological mystery waiting to be solved here.

Their language is different too, a mixture of half a dozen regional languages that outsiders find difficult to follow. But best of all is their culinary style which is distinctive in the method of preparation as well as uniqueness of ingredients. I suppose I had rather not write too much on this topic lest I drool into the keyboard and gum up the keys. Its happened before.....

Getting there

Way 1:-

Stand in your shower cubicle and say “Beam me up, Scotty”. If that doesn’t work, fly in to Bangalore. There are dozens of airlines from everyplace. You can also ask for my LearJet (they’ll be delivering it any century now). From here, the easy but expensive way, if you are travelling en familie, is to hire a cab to drive you to Coorg. It would make sense to retain the cab for the duration of your stay since there isn’t much public transport especially in the interior. A Toyota Innova is highly recommended because quite a few of the roads in ol’ Kodagu are the “rough” or “butt conditioner” variety. The Toyota Innova, in my humble opinion, is the easiest on the large muscle situated there. There is an inexpensive and characterful way too. Take a state transport bus to Mysore, and from there to Madikeri. Be prepared to share it with livestock, though. I traveled once this way for a lark and had to share my seat with a goat and a rooster. (When I told this to Sheela, all that she asked me was “Were they MBA’s too?” Talk about empathy!) From Madikeri, autorickshaws will take you pretty much anywhere in Coorg. This is classified as an adventure sport here, taking the place of white water rafting.

Way 2:-

Get to Chennai, using any of a dozen airlines or my LearJet (provided, of course, no one’s taken it to Bangalore). Take a Shatabdi train to Mysore which takes about 6 hours and is an experience in itself. The grub they serve is really tasty and the babel of languages can be truly unintelligible. Frons is prawns, for example. A broh is a bra. Not that either of these words can crop up in a decent conversation but my motto is “Be Prepared!”

Way 3:- (Most picturesque)

Get to Mangalore. This is user friendly only from Mumbai, unless of course my Learjet is available in Chennai. You can take a cab from there. Coorg is about 3 hours away through lush plantations and forests. You would be well advised to remember the caveat about the Toyota Innova on this route because it is even more of a butt conditioner. This one can condition your butt to the consistency of chocolate mousse (or strawberry mousse, depending on race). The road is really pretty though, winding and verdant

Where to stay

I wouldn’t really know, because I have always imposed on the princely generosity of Sundeep’s in-laws (Sundeep is Sheela’s brother. His wife hails from Coorg and her family have an incredibly beautiful coffee estate.) But the Orange County resort is highly spoken of. So also is the Club Mahindra resort. There are many bed and breakfast places around – they call them “home stay” here – and you can experience coffee estate life first hand. The food is sure to be great because almost all the ingredients would have been plucked out an hour or two before you eat them, including food items that were flying, crowing, grunting or bleating before you decided to meet them.

Where to eat

Hotel East End, Madikeri serves the best Coorg cuisine. Try their chilli chicken, its awesome. The food is spicy and goes beautifully well with Kingfisher beer. (But then, what doesn’t?) The real mccoy is the Chilli Pork (or Chilli Fork, as it is sometimes pronounced) but my dear wife, bless her heart, opines that, in my case, it would count as cannibalism.

What to do

Apart from eat, drink and sleep, you mean? Nothing much, really. There are a couple of hills you can climb up. They say there are great views there but for some reason, very possibly because the escalators weren’t working, I never made it that far.

There is also a great forest reserve nearby, the Nagarhole national park (which, along with many schools, colleges, hospitals, roads, townships, battleships and scholarships, is now named after Rajiv Gandhi). It used to be ruled by Veerappan, (poacher and sandalwood smuggler, the guy who forgot to shave, if you’ve seen his photographs) till he decided to stop a couple of police bullets with his chest. The happiest with this turn of events must be the tigers and the elephants. Chances of seeing the former have greatly improved though it still involves going around in circles for hours in a rickety forest department jeep. Its great fun, though and is a must do for everyone regardless of age or sex.

Conclusion

Its one of the most de-stressing of destinations I’ve been too. I’ve been to some fancy and pretentious ones in my time where you are inundated with luxuries proffered by oleaginous attendants with one eye firmly on the ten percent gratuity. Coorg is not like that. While the average Coorgi would be pleased to know that you were having a great time, he wouldn’t give a damn if you were displeased with the service or decided never to set foot here again. I think they feel that the stuff is all there, its up to you whether to like it or not.

I loved it!