The Bad Stranger

It was my lover's birthday,
I was looking for a pretty dress
for her in a clothing store.

Only the dresses worn by dolls
were impressed me.

So I made two, three dolls nude
and that night made her so.


என் பொம்முக்குட்டி காதலிக்கு

Last June (2011) in the hot summer, I evaporated to the vapor state and traveled to a place called Kasol in Himachal Pradesh. There I was converted to liquid state due to the chill air and later frozen at a higher point of the mountain.


Well, I went for a ten days trekking in Kasol. It was a memorable event of my life that brought me enormous amount of joy. It was like a sweet dream, the way it was started, went on and ended.

At the base camp, the mobile signal was staying around us. But after we moving out from base camp, it was lost amongst the deep forest. So I had no access to any news about Tamilnadu and it's people.

Is Rajini still alive?
Kanimozhi got bail?
Has the dravida party head karunanidhi issued any funny statement?
Has tamilnadu become a heaven under the governance of Jayalalitha?

Having no answers to any of these questions, I was happily climbing the rocks and roaming around the hills like hillbilly. Only few networks popped their heads in two or three places. At the time the people were screaming aloud and called their families as if they took a Wrong Turn and lost inside a dark forest that infested with cannibals and yeti.

I experienced my first flight journey in this trip. Too late?

Window seat added extra thrills to my journey. The Air India air hostess, wow! snow white girls.

so fair...
so beautiful...
so chilling to your eyes...

Their dress code, traditional Indian wear "saree" exposed the beauty of their 'Delhi' belly.

The white moving clouds outside the window
The flat moving hips inside the window

Which one to look out for? Really, I was in a fix.

Seems I am diverting from the topic. ;-)

My friend and I went to this trekking thru Youth Hostel Association of India (http://www.yhaindia.org/). By knowing a few Hindi words, we said "Chalo" and started the journey.

We reached Delhi, the corruption capital at 10:30 AM. From auto rickshaw man to anyone, we always started the next round of the talk by telling "Hindi nahi maalum". The tamilnadu dravida party's politicians who are responsible for our language struggling in Delhi were also feeling the heat in the same city in a different way (2G).




As our bus to Kasol was in the evening, we decided to look around few famous places. We went to Qutub minar. I laid down on the floor and snapped a low angle shot of the tower. Next, we hastened to the Red Fort and took a majestic pose in front of the fort.

The Next day while we were reaching Bhuntar, it was started drizzling lightly. The bus traveled alongside the Parvati river. My tryst with nature began there.

First Day in Kasol:

We reached the Base camp in Kasol. The kitchen gods served me a plate of noodles as they perceived that I can no longer stand the hunger.

My friend and I were chattering something in Tamil.

"Are you Tamil guys?"

Couple of guys surprised us. They are Varishta and Mahidara. We felt very happy.

We thanked god for giving us two hindi speaking Tamil slaves...called Translators. By god's grace later we found more of their kind. ;-) totally 8.

We registered our name for the trekking program by submitting the medical certificate and stamp size photos. The next two days are for training, to acclimate ourselves against the forces of raw nature. We began our trekking on the fourth day.


YHAI is a no-profit and no-loss organization which organizing the SARPASS trekking program every year on the month of May. Daily one group will be coming to the base camp. Each group shall have 50 members maximum. People will be coming from across the country. In our group there were 49 members as one of my friend was not able to come since his dad expired recently.



Once you have registered your name, you will be lodged into a tent which can accommodate up to a dozen people. It does not a matter if you are a Ambani and you are living in Antilla. You should stay in the common tent and get your food when the whistle blows.

In the evening you will be provided with couple of blankets, a sleeping bag and a rucksack. You will come to know the full weight of the blankets by next day morning.

After dinner, its the camp fire. If you go in the desire of getting the warmth of the fire, you would be disappointed. You will see only color lights glowing in red, green and yellow. For preserving nature, they don't use real fire. First the certificates will be provided for the people who finished SARPASS successfully on that day. Next is cultural event. You can sing, dance and perform mimicry.


There were two hard headed camp leaders. They laid down many scary ground rules that makes one quiver.

Thou shall not Drink.
Thou shall not Smoke.
Boys should not go into Girls tent and Vice versa.

My friend asked me, "Why they are not allowing boys and girls in the same tent?

I replied, "Then the tent will get shacked and fell".

Here, I should tell you the most important thing, is food timings

1. Once you wake up, coffee with biscuits not Coffee with Karan.
2. Break fast at 8 AM
3. Lunch at 1 PM
4. Again Tea at 5:30
5. Dinner at 7:30 PM
6. Bournvita at 9:30 PM

For everything including food for ten days, they are paying only 3 thousand something. No-profit and no-loss.

Second Day:

That night if you think like "yippee!!! This trekking looks to be more jolly"
and get into your bed sheet with your full head covered and started Dreaming & Snoring etc, Sorry! it's not.

The next morning after bed tea, they will make you run to a place to do your morning exercise. If you don't have your shoes on, then be ready to round the YHAI camp ground three times. I thanked god, there was no evening exercise.

After doing all the painful exercise, they will ask you to do a LoL. (Laugh out Load). How Pitiful!



After breakfast, we have to send off the previous group who is ready to go for the cold war (SARPASS).

Then here it comes...

Now you have to take your two bed sheets and pack it in your rucksack and ready to feel the love of walk in the nearer hill. Its for you to get accustomed to climbing with your rucksack on your back.

Third Day- Rock Climbing:

After finishing the routine works, its the day for you to ROCK ON on rock. Its hilarious event. They will tie the one end of the rope in your hip and the other end in a tree which is on top of the rock. You should not touch and use the rope. You should use your hand and leg in the cracks of the rock to climb on.

In my group, some people hugged the rock for long time (did not able to climb). Some guys did not climb, since they didn't want to break the tree.



Fourth Day:

This is the day we start our journey to hunt the nature's treasure. The other groups will send off us with more clapping, wishes and slogan "PASS PASS SARPASS". That day you will go back to your school days. Yes they will pack your lunch in your lunch box and give it to you, will clap and send off you.



Starting from that day, we have to reach six camps in six days. The last day we have to return to base camp. Each camp will be in seven to ten kilometer distance. On the way to every camp, we sang all the Tamil songs of legends (from M.G.R, Illaiyaraja, AR rahman to Yuvan) and teared them completely and thrown into the river that running across.


You will find small some shops on the way to destination. The price will be directly proportional to the height you reach. For example one small pocket noodles prices goes from 20, 30, 40 to 50 max.

Once we reached the second camp "Padri" which is placed in a beautiful place, Ice rain started. The words were not enough to describe it. I went crazy and was trying to catch every piece of ice. At that time, I felt like I enjoyed enough and wanted to go home. But it was the beginning.

The dogs and crows in the hills were big in size. The crows were cawing as if someone sticking it neck to kill them.


There will be a camp leader for each camp. After the whole group reached the camp, he will tell about the food timings and other important things and rules.

Where to get the drinking water?
Where to get the water for cleaning purpose?
Where is the kitchen?
You should not go into kitchen other than food timings. This rule is implies to girls too.
The place for nature's call (1 & 2).

Other than base camp and the next one (Grahan), every other camp is open university. IITians and IIMians can't say NO. Camp leader will divide the area into two, point his finger and say "This area is for girls and that area is for boys"

No border crossing. Its strictly prohibited.
Trespassers will be prosecuted in front of the whole group.

Its good to have the toilet tissues always with you. Tissue paper?/Water?/Stone?, its your choice. Here I want to tell you about the chillness of the water. If you wash your leg or hand in the cold water, your hands will burn as if you touched fire. Think twice before doing anything. Its advised to have the pain spray with you. The guys will get disappeared often inside the trees with a bottle in hand.

At the higher point of the hill (Nagaru camp), you have to dig the snow and fill your waste and then close it with the snow. But its your talent to not to step on the shit holes made by previous group. My idea/advise is, it's better to keep a small red flag in the shit hole. If you want to create history, then have to pee on the peek of the hill.




Nagaru is the camp placed at higher altitude. They insert a pipe into the snow and collect the water into the barrel before the sun set. Its hard to walk on the surface on your bare feet. But you can manage to walk on your toes. If you have a girl friend, it's a very good place to practicing for ballet dance.

They will give you the nutritious and energetic food. Most of the time they will serve you Rotti with potato subji. If you eat more of them, then you wont get problem with your mouth. Control either your mouth or ass.




There is no electricity other than base camp. So we have to finish our dinner before the sunlight goes. From nagaru camp we have to wake up at 2:30 and start walking at 4:00 am to cross the snow area called SARPASS. If we start late, it will be danger to walk on the melting snow surface due to sunlight. After we crossed the SARPASS, then we can play the ass chilling event called snow sliding. They will ask you to lie down and push you a little, then its a great journey for a short time.

The god must not be crazy as he created the nature to enjoy this beautiful life to a great extent.



When either you or your rucksack is overweight, you can use porters. In our group three porters came with us. With your luggage on their back, they are moving faster than us and guiding us the way.



The porter girl in that group asked me something. I said "Hindi nahi maalum". Then after some time she deliberately asked me
"Aap ka naam kya hey?"
"Kathirvel" I said.
She doubted that I might have misunderstood and told the wrong answer.
"What is your name?" again she asked in english
She laughed when I said "Kathirvel" again.

Only one thing we don't like in the trip was, we were not able to take bath for 10 days. The camp leader will warn you to not to take bath.
You are happy now?
But this is the reason for one of my close friend wants to go trekking next year. No wonder, he will not take bath sometime even in Chennai.


Other than this, I had a personal disappointment. I have not had a good SLR camera. I missed a lot. I always interested to take the snaps of nature. I have one of my friend, whenever I try to take a snap of nature's beauty, he will jump into the focus area and make the snap immature.

The last day on our return to base camp, we went to a small town "manikaran". There we took hot bath in the natural hot spring. Then we heard the news that in gurudwara temple they are giving free food. We went there with the kerchief covered our top head and finished the job.



We took a mini bus from there to the base camp in Kasol. Due to traffic, we got down just few meters before kasol and walked to base camp. We returned the rucksack and collected our certificates and packed everything perfectly. To our luck we got the same bus that we came from manikaran. It was crawling in the traffic. We reached bhuntar to get the bus to Delhi.

The next day morning we reached Delhi. From there, we decided to take the metro train to reach Airport station. I reached customer care girl to ask for details. She replied to my questions in husky voice as she is my lover. I did not hear anything. Again asked her. This time I was tucking one of my ears into the hole. But no results. She got tensed as if I am a deaf and she written it in a paper and gave it to me. I didn't do anything rather mumbling myself "F*** You".

I told that to my friend whose nick name is "Orkut". He too had the same story. Why the heck she is working in customer care when not able to speak loud?

The next day morning, we arrived to airport to come to Chennai.

It was the same scenario.

Air India, 
moving clouds 
and the great confusion.


God must not be Crazy (என் ட்ரெக்கிங் அனுபவங்கள்)

I dream more
And the more is you.

Your absent for the day
Makes my mind the same.

I'm always thinking about you
But still don't know your name.

We have long road ahead
Lets start up with your name.