I was on a week's trip to AndhraPradhesh - My lead's wedding gave this chance. Missing Rakesh, others in our team (Pulavar selva, kadalai krishna and silly sanjay) started rushing from chennai on a friday night, around 9pm to Chennai Central. The trip started auspiciously with selva and krishna sharing a whisky mixed coke in the train. We really got bored travelling north, especially after waking up the next day morning to find that we need to travel till 12 noon atleast, in the scorching summer! "Huh" was everyone's expression when we got down at Kaakinaada.
Though it was sunny, kaakinaada looked okay. Sanjay surprised me by fighting with an autowala for just a bargain of 5 ruppees. I just thought to myself "not bad... not bad.." Reaching his home finally for 45 rupees, we were forced to see sanjay being bombarded by his mom, for not letting her know that we'll b late - he stayed cool though! after all, he meets his mom just twice or thrice in a year, what would be memorable other than cho-chweet scoldings? A good lunch - a small rest.
We were at the beach that evening, sanjay enjoying a lot swimming like a kid along with krishna and selva, me staying at the shore clicking the best photographs at them. I tried to catch two "jaang" girls in my camera, as usual, but it was almost night and so they werent caught properly. started back to home saying to myself, "Better luck next time!" :-(
That late evening was good spending some time with sanjay's elderly friend, who claims himself to be his fathers' colleague, discussing some FAQs on practical life. We were raoming on one of the main roads of kaakinaada in the name of night walk, near sanjay's college. LimeSoda after years at Kaakinaada tasted great then. Later we arrived at a plan to catch the first bus to Annavaram for the wedding, next day and went to bed after a tiresome travelled day.
Next morning we were at Annavaram temple, searching the bride and the groom and atlast found them in a small hall amongst many similar ones. Havent been to such a colorful wedding procession! It was great, but with no attractive girls :) except the bride. Almost hesitating to stay there further, we were about to move out of the hall, when we found one atlast! Thank God!!! He didnt betray us! feeling rejuvenated, I started clicking "thiruttu" stills of her - all just for my soul should in peace, later! :)) Tiffin, followed by colorful events of the wedding - the bride and the groom were recursively showering each other with colorful beads, jimkis, etc.. - we atlast, gave pose for an "urgent" photograph and started back to sanjay's home.
That travelling was really irritating in the hot sun and we somehow managed to getback. Sacrificing the lunch, we started immediately to Visak and reached it at 7 in the evening. As soon as we landed down, we went to enquire about the train availability for our next days' plan to Araku valley. It took some time to find and choose our hotel and finally we settled down at 9. My first booze started here at a local bar with a beer. it should be just 1/3rd of a full beer or even lesser, i remember. that was fun and gr8! ...we went to bed at 11 in the night.
The next morning, I was hurrying up everyone to catch the train and got angry when krishna was still sleeping. this is where krishna got tensed and he could hardly express it at me. finally he did. it was a good learning for me - we went to relax from busy schedules and i was not doing that - thanks krish for that!
Surprised to find a very very long queue in visak rly stn, i remembered that it was april14, the tamil new years' day and of course, a friday to begin a good weekend. doubtfully we stood in the queue for tickets to arkau. only after reaching the train we found that it was not at all crowded. slowly the train started and hardly it would have few 100 mts, a very big crowd populated the entire coach. We did not even imagine that all of them (almost 40+) belonged to the same family. we had enough space to sleep until this mob peeped in. but then, slowly asking for little space to park their seats, their attempt to capture seats ballooned and in one situation, made us evacuate our own seats for them! most of them were ladies!!! he he he :))
there was an unexpected climate change favouring us when we reached araku. it was calm, mild and humid. we liked the cheap auto trip to a good hotel. after dropping the luggages down, we rested for a while and started to visit the three spots narrated by the autowala who brought us here. we liked driving down the hills and the empty roads. the most expected film shooting spot, turned out just to be a creet, spit by an unknown waterfall! Bad!!! it was dry and very little muddy wate sprinkled the creek! We did not want to make the moment discouraging us and hence started taking it positively and later, we really enjoyed a little. selva trying to pose to his camera while jumping across the creek and falling down, but managing himself to get up, sanjay never minding the camera but jumped across faster than expected, me jumping across a very narrow path with my broken leg, were all the scenes captured in his camera, under the then discovered mode of capture!
we walked over a hill for a distance and came down after a while as the sun started shutting down. we enjoyed riding on a jeep's foot rest in almost 50s which thrilled and scared me a little. but it was enjoyable. got down near the hotel and had our camera catch us drinking sprite in 3 different directions! Tired, we got into the room and slowly starting with me, others started relaxing. when we got up at ten in the night, we found that all of us went into deep sleep and missed the dinner. it was tragic and still memorable to recall how we managed that dinner, almost pleading like anything, for food in the closed-for-then hotel... Yes krish - thrill, adventure, experiment and tragedy - all these made the trip memorable ( bloggable :)) admist my unncessary pressure to do this and that before time! I learnt how to tour!!!
the next morning when everyone was asleep i slipped down the calm road to capture some nice scenaries, though there were none, really! managed to capture some flowers and few instances of the dressing and culture that prevailed there, i returned back to hotel and still found them sleeping. after waking them up, we started to quit the room and had a good breakfast. we left the place to travel back to visak.
the return journey was through the mountains (hills, others say) both sides of the road forested, travelled less, scary downt the hills with steep curves and few hair-pin bends, smelling green and fresh, to the Borrah caves. that was good, though not amazing as we didnt know its speciality. we captured some snaps of monkeys sitting over sign boards that said " dont tease monkeys ", sanjay enjoying shouting inside the caves, me posing for few snaps, selva rushing out before we all did to download his undigested incredibles, were the scenes that cross my mind now. oh yes, we met a tamilian, a diamond stones merchant, near the caves who wanted to take us to visak but had a very small car, just showed it concern and disappeared down the hills. selva and krish made themselves cool with a beer and soon we continued our travel to visak. it was almost six when we reahced visak. after buying a gift for Reddy's reception, we had some tiffin and bid goodbye to sanjay back to kaakinaada. myself, krish and selva were at the railway station just on time the train started to vijayawada.
there was a confusion in the train seat reservation which the ttr cleared soon. we got settled and were chatting for a while before sleeping. the next early morning, we were at vijayawada, travelling down to the bus-stand from the rly-stn, to catch a bus to Reddy's native, Ghodad. It was two hours and i didnt know what happenedd then as i had a good sleep in the bus, enjoying the chill air through the window. soon we reached Ghodad and we were received well by Reddy. the best hotel at the place was reserved for us and we refreshed there lazily. breakfast at reddy's house, with a small intro to his parents, filled our bellys. we suddenly planned for a telugu movie and we were later into a cinema theatre for the movie, "super",starred by Nagarjuna garu! hesitating to spend money, we were forced to sit in the third/fourth row and some neck pain following. after the film, we were back to room, getting ready to reddy's reception.
Everything was good and new - the music orchestra that sounded odd to me, no people following the bride's car to the temple, fantastic decoration at the reception, first sight of people with no gifts to the reception :) not-well managed, but no-other-go food, "aaa-ante-annavaram" dance by one of the orchestra singer who was almost pleading for crowd to clap after every song, etc... we rushed back to hotel to pack things up and start back to vijaywada. it seems we missed reddy dancing with his wife! and also seems that we would have missed our train back to chennai, if we did not board the bus we did at nearly 11:45pm. reached the station to catch the 3am train, we found it sleepin on the track, waiting for us to come!
it took time for us to sleep - almost 5 am - but the journed was boring and made us wake up soon, near 7. i was hungry and was first to have some breakfast while others followed late. very later, we came to know that the train is actually later by few hours and so we would reach chennai only by the afternoon! with no-way to escape, we travelled and after a long time i felt happy entering tamilnadu when a rly stn sign board read "gummidipoondi" in tamil and english. then it took an hour+ to reach chennai central and was sharp 12 noon, not even a minute late, which i purposely captured in my camera - just because krish pointed out that i will not miss EVEN that! with an orange juice at the station, me and selva bid goodbye to krish who took a different route from us to reach home. At last, selva caught his bus first, followed by me.
A not-bad trip with few things learnt, little experinenced, the one that made me miss a not-that-great but native festival, gave me a very good sleep that night and I was fresh, back to work, the next week!
From left: Sanjay, Krish, Me and Selva
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