A new lineup Our last show with Korak was in November, post which he left to pursue his post-doc. After the show, I was out of Bangalore to enjoy my yearly, month-long vacation. Once I was back in Bangalore, we were frantically looking for a drummer. Sudipto did most of the work in connecting with people … [Read more…]
If there is one word that describes The Castafiore Emerald, it has to be deception. This is one Tintin album that is not like any of the other Tintin albums. There is no villain, no adventure, no travel, no action, or anything else that can be remotely associated with the hallmarks of a typical Tintin album. This … [Read more…]
About an year ago, I embarked on updating my hybrid with a better groupset (Deore M61x). It was during that time that I had observed that the braking surface on my rims were absolutely gone. The nail in the coffin came with a nail in my rear tyre. This insignificant piece of rusted object lying … [Read more…]
One last trip around Dehradun As soon as I got up, I went towards the bus terminal. The board showed that the first bus left at 6:30 AM and the last one at 7:30 PM. I knew that I couldn’t take the first bus and make it in time for my 8:00 AM flight. Instead, I … [Read more…]
If I had done Har-Ki-Doon, today would have been the day that I would have descended from Sankri to Dehradun. The shorter Kedarkantha trek gave me a window to explore Yamunotri. The earliest bus to leave for Dehradun was scheduled at 7:00 AM. Shubhajit, Mahavir and me freshened up, packed our bags and woke Mohit … [Read more…]
During winters, the hotels do not have adequate staff to take care of the few rooms that are kept open. The room in which Mahavir and Gautam slept smelt a bit funny. Mahavir, who was in general a very well-dressed, cleanliness-seeking guy, complained about the smell. There wasn’t much that could have been done. We … [Read more…]
The sweet shop across the street was visible from our window. I saw them taking out a fresh batch of samosas and alerted Shubhajit. We had our breakfast—samosas and tea. It was in this shop that we met Prem Singh Rana—a frail looking man who smoked bidis with a shaky hand. He had been guiding, porting … [Read more…]
We packed all our stuff one last time, returned the micro-crampons and had some tea and pancakes for breakfast. It still amazes me how these guys were able to cook anything so tasty at that altitude, battling those dips in mercury. I would praise myself if I was able to cook anything at all. Once I … [Read more…]
I, along with the others in the group, had to wake up by 5:30 AM, freshen up, have breakfast and leave. I was not so confident about the state of my stomach but last evening’s dosage of Loperamide appeared to have done its job. I had no issues for the rest of the day. One of the trekkers was … [Read more…]
If waking up early in extreme cold was a problem, imagine the amount of pains I had to endure when I had to go for a pee at midnight! I was on a course Diamox. It was not necessary but it helped in acclimatisation. The compound, Acetazolamide, is a diuretic and caused me to rush to the toilet one … [Read more…]
