The Mysooru Musings

The time was 3 am on an early sunday morning in December. Dad's weary eyes welcomed me home as I got off the vehicle that was my home for the past 20 odd hours. As I unwind the 20 hours, I felt, a day should have had 72 hours a day. If wishes were horses...

Friday night was long after boss's party ended late. During the day, my friend, Manju was busy planning and planning and planning the tour itinerary for saturday. Finally, we decided to go to Kushalnagara and Dubare camp halting at Mysore for some time. I had my doubts about Manju's planning, cuz he was always known for pulling it off the last minute. Saturday dawned pretty early for me when the alarm disturbed my sleep. I reached Manju's place and we started off from there to his office. I had my own doubts about being part of this trip, mainly since I was the odd man in the entire group of manju's company folks.

After the initial handshakes and intros, we started towards Mysore. We were 8 of us including the hero at the wheels. He was always busy either driving or talking. He seems to know every other driver on earth. Either he would wave at them or curse them. Occasionally, I had to listen to his endless banter on driving and bland topics. We had a light meal at Kamats since Anju had invited us to her parent's place for breakfast. We reached Anju's place in Mysore around 11 am. Her parents and bro accorded us a warm welcome and made us feel at home. The house was home to love birds, a pair of daschunds-crystal and pluto, and antiques. There was a rifle stand which amazed us no end. There was a pair of swords, bravery medals, and a grandfather's clock as well. Now this clock surprisingly was not an antique, but made-to-order. It can always be passed as an original to the gullible page 3 people though :-). We bid our gracious hosts goodbye, after savoring authentic Coorgi dishes and hot coffee. All along the route, Irfan slept occasionally before a hump or a pothole disturbed his sleep.

We hit the Hunsur road leading to Coorg. The bumpy road seemed less strainful since we all crooned some popular hindi songs. On the way, we stopped for some ever tender elneeru or tender coconut water. Nandroling monastery and the famous golden temple was our next stop. This place is in Bylakuppe, a Tibetan settlement camp near Kushalnagar. The next one hour was spent inside the temple and the surrounding environs. It was, as if we are in a Buddhist country and no longer in India. The paintings and the architecture kept us spell bounded and the place was clean and well maintained except for the washrooms. Manju captured every moment of the temple with his new handycam. We reached Dubare- an elephant breeding camp that also doubles up with cottages for tourists along the river Cauvery. Unfortunately, we missed the elephant ride since the time was over. Yogitha was sad since she was excited about riding an elephant. Finally we were lucky enough to view an elephant feeding on what appeared like a raagi mudde. We spent some time there and after some snacks we started our journey towards B'lore.

It was 7 pm and the road was pretty dark and we started the return back home. After some time, the vehicle stuttered to a halt and we realized that we had run out of fuel. The ever-tense manju was seen somber and I had to calm him down. We were lucky enough to get some fuel and we started again towards Bangalore. En route, we stopped at Greens for dinner. The place resembled a Victorian building replete with a big lawn. The weather forced me to down a peg of vodka with hot water. It helped me stay warm all along the drive back. We reached B'lore around 2 am in the morning and dropped everyone home. The long day ended at 3 am and it was a good outing away from the usual grind in the city. I was definitely wrong about thinking myself as staying an odd man. I gained good friends and a good day out. Until I write again...so long.