What I am about to write consists of all the elements fit to make a block buster of all times. To put it simply if Tom cruise is to star in the 5th installment of his MI franchise it can certainly be named as "MISSION VELLAYANGIRI" (play the theme music in your heads).
It's not often in a man's life, having taken an outrageous decision turns out to be one of his best decisions and this is one among those rarest of rare decisions. We have been planning eons for a trip like this and it took considerable time and good fortune in the form of the co-trekkers to materialise. People say travelling teaches more than a collection of books and that too in a short duration that lasts longer than anything that you could come across. This trip is the perfect example for it.
Vellayangiri is just a one hour drive from Coimbatore. One look at it, I consented to its reputation of Kailash of the south.(It doesn't matter even if I haven't seen the actual Kailash).
A few steps into the trekking and I realised it's not going to be just another difficult endeavour, but an impossible endeavour. All the doubts whether you can complete the trek in time, all the second thoughts to abandon the trip if the going gets tough(I guess subconsciously I wanted to fall sick so that I can return midway) popped in my head. An hour into the trip I began to ask some of the fundamental questions like "why was I born?, what's the purpose of my life?" and the most important of all "Why the heaven did I agree to come here?" They remained unanswered.
There are 7 hills to be trekked and at the end of the second hill with 3 to 4 short breaks in between we settled for our breakfast. We had bread and biscuits for breakfast and resumed our journey. It had been almost two and half hours since we started our journey at 5:30 am and most of it had been under trees and shade. Once we crossed the third mountain it was clear sky and bright Sun greeted us and reminded us of the gravity of the rest of the journey. 4th & 5th peaks by themselves are not draining but after you have crossed first three peaks you start to clamour for your breath. Standing straight becomes impossible partly because of the steepness of the terrain and mainly because your hips and back can't hold your body any longer.
It is at that moment of helplessness you arrive the 6th peak and there you will find a stream forming a small puddle. Drinking that water I would rather say is next to divinity. The location of the puddle and its purpose is nothing less than perfect. We even took a dip in that icy cold water and as soon as I got out believe it or not, pain in my legs vanished. It's amazing to know that you can feel refreshed and rejuvenated within minutes after four and half hours of arduous journey. That gave us the impetus to continue and complete the penultimate peak whose terrain is mainly dominated by descent. But our luck ran out at the foot of the seventh hill. One look at the seventh hill and I couldn't help but revere its beauty and and at the same time feel apprehended at the challenge it posed.
After enduring so much it felt that scaling the seventh peak alone is equivalent to scaling all the previous 6 peaks. It's very steep with no shade with a pathway that has no grass and a bit slippery if I might add. At that moment nothing else mattered. Pain is so much that senses stop working. It's like trying to measure the speed of a sports car with an instrument whose limit is just 60km. The car may be travelling at a speed of 200km/h but the instrument shows only 60km/h. My situation was similar to that.
But amazingly I made it to the top of the mountain. I did overcome the pain which I thought I couldn't bear. I did cross the sea of fear I had, about the condition of my health while climbing. I did get up whenever I slipped though I wanted to take rest. It was a constant battle between stronger me and a weaker me and to my surprise and disbelief stronger me prevailed over weaker me and in the end I was standing in front the three lingams. It's only then I felt like that moment is worth all the efforts.
In a way this journey through 7 peaks personifies the spiritual journey through 7 major chakras from "Mooladhara" to the "Sahasrara". More than just trekking it is the culmination of what one thinks as his optimal physical, mental and spiritual tendencies and then taking a step further. It may sound dramatic or you may even say that I assumed, but I wold still reiterate that it taught me many things.
Life just like this journey has many highs and lows but with a purpose.
Always have good people around you. That makes the journey interesting.
Always have less baggage i.e, minimal or no emotional attachments. This enables to sustain the energy for your journey.
Make hay while the sun shines or in other words make sure to complete major part of your journey during the night and plan to reach the ground in the morning hours. This way you can avoid the unforgiving Sun. :-)
EPILOGUE: In the end this experience is not meant to be known but it's meant to be felt and this is a feeling that surely will stay with you for at-least two days if not for a life time. (For, two days is the minimum duration for which the pain in your thighs lingers :-) ).
You can check out some of the photos in the link mentioned below.
https://picasaweb.google.com/prasad.che/Vellayangiri?authkey=Gv1sRgCKy76t-eu_KhJA#
Those who have missed the trip, just have a look at the unexpected trekker and our inspiration for the journey. :-)
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Yudham sei
Why should one have friends? Of all the reasons I could imagine, the best that strikes me is that they will buy you the tickets for a movie on any given weekend. Topping it up with crunchy pop corn and icy cool drinks. What else does one need in life? :-). As a consequence I had a chance to watch "Yudham sei"; the latest flick from the staple of Myshkin.
The movie is a dark take on the sexual abuse and exploitation, the twin shackles today's teenage girls are fettered with. The director adds elements of mystery, drama, and tragedy in this crime investigation narrative and fairly succeeds in holding audience's attention for the major part of the movie. This movie appears to take off where his earlier film "Anjadhey" had left and in my opinion this could easily be called as "Anjadhey-2".
In my opinion Myshkin can be Kollywood's Anurag Kashyap. Anurag who is an acclaimed bollywood filmmaker reminisces one of his experiences with the censor board during the certification of his recent film "The woman in yellow boots" which as you might have guessed is again a dark movie with sexual overtones and wide use of expletives. He says that one of the censor board persons had asked him to get his mind checked for only a disturbed person can make this kind of movie. In the same breath he also says that when the movie was screened in an European country (the name I forgot)one filmmaker had actually asked him why the movie was so subdued and why had he made the film so polished despite the content being so raw.That's how our Myshkin too has treated this film.
If movie is a way to let people know something, then Myshkin surely lets us know that he is angry. Very angry over the way women are treated in our society. How decency and virtue are crushed under the juggernaut of power, corruption and muscle power. This movie though looks like a crime thriller on the outset the director emphasises on the emotional turmoil of the investigator the subject of investigation throughout the movie. All his usual touches like low angle shots, scene establishment through the movement of the feet, low light shots, wide angle shots, scenes sans dialogues etc, all are present. These make him one among the directors whom one can guess by just watching a few scenes in his movie. The performances especially that of the character "Judas", the police inspectors are top notch. In one scene Judas actually looks directly into the camera and justifies that it's not wrong to take law into one's own hands and weed out the scum breeding in this society and it's bound to become a reality if people are pushed to the edge. That's a highlight which reminds me of a similar scene from the classic "Rathakanner" in which M.R.Radha looks directly into the camera and justifies that it's not wrong for a married woman to remarry if the husband turns out to be a pain in the err... neck. Though dialogues are different, both scenes reflect the times and challenges of the society in which they are actually set.
Mainly on the flip side, the climax song at the end of the movie was totally unnecessary. It was so absurd that even the very beautiful and sensuous Neetu chandra bending and gyrating to the song actually made me cringe and at one point I thought of going out and have a fag to let out some steam.
Psychiatrists say that today's abominations of gender mistreatment are as a result of projecting women just as objects of sexual gratification and not as human beings with mind, intellect and bodies just like men. Though this movie shows the consequences of the tumour present in our society, when it comes to projecting women, in one single stroke or should I say in one single song, the director fails miserably. The song is so ridiculous that the guy even address the woman as paramour and the woman along with other group dancers go on with their pelvic thrusts unmindful of how they are addressed.
EPILOGUE: Nice movie depicting pain, suffering and deprivation albeit a bit violent. But a total waste because of the one song. Good attempt by the director but unfortunately he himself makes a mockery of his film and his characters with that one bullshit song.
The movie is a dark take on the sexual abuse and exploitation, the twin shackles today's teenage girls are fettered with. The director adds elements of mystery, drama, and tragedy in this crime investigation narrative and fairly succeeds in holding audience's attention for the major part of the movie. This movie appears to take off where his earlier film "Anjadhey" had left and in my opinion this could easily be called as "Anjadhey-2".
In my opinion Myshkin can be Kollywood's Anurag Kashyap. Anurag who is an acclaimed bollywood filmmaker reminisces one of his experiences with the censor board during the certification of his recent film "The woman in yellow boots" which as you might have guessed is again a dark movie with sexual overtones and wide use of expletives. He says that one of the censor board persons had asked him to get his mind checked for only a disturbed person can make this kind of movie. In the same breath he also says that when the movie was screened in an European country (the name I forgot)one filmmaker had actually asked him why the movie was so subdued and why had he made the film so polished despite the content being so raw.That's how our Myshkin too has treated this film.
If movie is a way to let people know something, then Myshkin surely lets us know that he is angry. Very angry over the way women are treated in our society. How decency and virtue are crushed under the juggernaut of power, corruption and muscle power. This movie though looks like a crime thriller on the outset the director emphasises on the emotional turmoil of the investigator the subject of investigation throughout the movie. All his usual touches like low angle shots, scene establishment through the movement of the feet, low light shots, wide angle shots, scenes sans dialogues etc, all are present. These make him one among the directors whom one can guess by just watching a few scenes in his movie. The performances especially that of the character "Judas", the police inspectors are top notch. In one scene Judas actually looks directly into the camera and justifies that it's not wrong to take law into one's own hands and weed out the scum breeding in this society and it's bound to become a reality if people are pushed to the edge. That's a highlight which reminds me of a similar scene from the classic "Rathakanner" in which M.R.Radha looks directly into the camera and justifies that it's not wrong for a married woman to remarry if the husband turns out to be a pain in the err... neck. Though dialogues are different, both scenes reflect the times and challenges of the society in which they are actually set.
Mainly on the flip side, the climax song at the end of the movie was totally unnecessary. It was so absurd that even the very beautiful and sensuous Neetu chandra bending and gyrating to the song actually made me cringe and at one point I thought of going out and have a fag to let out some steam.
Psychiatrists say that today's abominations of gender mistreatment are as a result of projecting women just as objects of sexual gratification and not as human beings with mind, intellect and bodies just like men. Though this movie shows the consequences of the tumour present in our society, when it comes to projecting women, in one single stroke or should I say in one single song, the director fails miserably. The song is so ridiculous that the guy even address the woman as paramour and the woman along with other group dancers go on with their pelvic thrusts unmindful of how they are addressed.
EPILOGUE: Nice movie depicting pain, suffering and deprivation albeit a bit violent. But a total waste because of the one song. Good attempt by the director but unfortunately he himself makes a mockery of his film and his characters with that one bullshit song.
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