It was Thursday Morning....

....and the telephone rang.

I was sitting at my desk in office, doing some work. It was Padma at the other end. I was surprised by her call at that time as she usually doesn't calls me in the early hours of the day. As soon as I picked the cell phone, she said we are going to Yercaud, are u coming? I said which place...believe me I was not able to get the name of the place....she spelled....Y.E.R.C.A.U.D....it is a hill station near Salem. When she said Salem, I thought, Oh Salem! Ya, this place I have heard of earlier. I told her: Padma, I will call you in an hour and let you know.
Then began the search on the net, I typed Yercaud on Google, exactly how Padma had spelled ;-) I read it is a nice and quite place & worth spending two days. Within ten minutes I called up & told her, I am coming. Nice that I decided in time, bcoz those who people who took time, missed the chance :-)

On friday, nobody called me to tell about the trip, I thot the trip is scrapped off.......thankfully Sonali came in evening & confirmed that we are going next morning. We were all set when Altaf called up Donny at 6:30am & that fellow never believed that we all at the hostel are ready & waiting for them (Altaf, Paddy & Mahesh) to arrive.

So there we were at the IIITB gate, looking at all the four-wheelers passing by, and waiting for the one which will come & stop right there. Finally...Finally...Finally... one white sumo slowed down in front of us. So, we dumped the luggage and started our trip from Bangalore to Yercaud somewhere between 6:30 & 7am.

We had hardly crossed the E-City gate and Gaurav expressed his desire for tea. We stopped at Naryana Hrudyalaya, very near to our previous college hostel...the unforgettable Balaji International…I have so many nice memories attached to it….then went to Ganesha temple there, was a nice start to the trip. They had breakfast & we started again. We were moving pretty nice....stopped in between once...were almost near Salem.....and guess wat? The tyre went flat. We got down, the driver changed the tyre and we were moving again.

At Salem, Mahesh had a traditional house. We met his parents, really caring fellows. Aunty & Uncle got amazed wen they heard that I am fasting for nine days (Navratri's) & will only eat a fruit in the night. The house was architected by Mahesh's grandpa....Aunty also showed us some wonderful South Silk sarees which they sell. Altaf and Gaurav liked some one black saree a lot...Aunty told them, “Start keeping some money aside to buy them for your fiancees later” ;-).

We started driving again uphill to Yercaud & reached there in around an hour. The beauty of the hill was scenic & there were 20 HPB's (Hair Pin Bends) in those 30kms from Salem to Yercaud. The house where we went was simply too good. A beautiful lawn, wooden work, big rooms...for a sec I felt I was at home in Agra. We played Frisbee, cricket, and clicked lots of snaps. In the evening we went for boating in the lake. Altaf & Gopi decided to race & I was in Altaf's boat. Altaf & donny started peddling, after sometime donny got tired & I took up. It was great sport. Then we went around for a long walk, dinner and then came back with all the plans for campfire, to the home where we stayed.
It was a great evening. Some of the best songs I ever heard....Sonali's bengali song about 'bhalo bashi' ;-) , Paddy's telgu one, Gaurav's great numbers, Donny's song for which he had once got a prize.....It was simply an inexplicable experience sitting in that cool night in front of the campfire and listening to those musical compositions.....

Morning everyone got up little later than what we had planned.....I MADE & THEY ATE breakfast....a big fun while cooking also....after getting ready went for trekking on the Lady's seat, Gent's seat, telescope point.

Then we started to drive for Salem. Went back to Mahesh's house where Aunty made each of us to sing a song separately.....which we have captured in videos along with many other videos....
The return journey from Salem to Bangalore was full of jokes & laughter and became emotional when Sonali & Gaurav started singing 'Purani Jeans aur guitar'.....
It was one of the memorable weekends after joining IIIT-Bangalore.....the other unforgettable one was at the time of SPANDAN.....

The description of the trip was written before the birth of this blog.