Episode III Dark Wader: Revenge of the Sithy

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...
well actually yesterday, earth, JP Nagar Bangalore.
The sun disappeared at around 3.45 pm on Friday as the
Force was enveloped by dark, electrified clouds racing across
the sky. The soul of the Force was left battered and bruised over
the past few days due to its inability to cope with the rains. Blackouts,
flooded streets, its hi-tech status down the drains. Jedi Knights... Wake up!

I was busy in office doing some work. Well I had to write it, just incase my manager reads this blog. Then we heard the rumble and saw flashes of lightening. "Early".. I thought to myself. It had been raining heavily for the past 4 days. It would rain only in the evenings, then the lights would go out. However the next morning the sun would be shining down on everyone as if nothing had happened. This was a daily affair.

Within minutes, we were engulfed in a torrent of rain. 59.2mm in one hour... One of the heaviest in recent times. Traffic stopped! Two wheelers were too scared to venture into the unknown as they waited with baited breath for the storm to pass. As they waded through the streets they bore witness to the fury of nature. Trees were uprooted. 150 in the city... 80 in JP Nagar itself... Some buses and other vehicles were damaged cause trees fell on them.

Unaware of the damage being caused we went out into the balcony to get close to the rain. There was lightning, strong gusty winds and sheets of rain. We all savoured the moment protected by the quaint building we call an office. Later there was a blackout in JP Nagar as I presume was the case with most parts of the city.

In the evening I became the dark wader, as I set out on a mission to fill my tummy. On my way I surveyed the damage... Trees blocked the streets. Poles were brought down. Every road was affected... atleast in JP Nagar. I went home that night through the dark roads... lucky to find the lights still on. There was some hope. The mossies wouldn't get the better of me.

My first half marathon

I wish I could run like no one's timing,
I wish I could let my soul lay bare,
I wish I could just go a prancing,
I wish music's in the air.

Ran my first half marathon on Sunday May 15th. Had started preparing about a month ago. Used to run a max of 2-3 kms before that on the gym's treadmill. Timing improves with practise where you start to understand your limitations and pace yourself properly. The max I had done in practise was abt 15kms in about 1hr 40+ mins. This was 2 weeks back. I remember then that I actually got bored running around in circles and stopped :-) Improved on my timing and could then do abt 10kms in 55mins. Did quite a bit of 5-10 kms runs with a gap of 1-3 days.

I spent the night at Manish's place in Shantinagar since it is about 5-10 mins walking distance from Kantheerva stadium where the marathon starts. On the day of the event I ate few bananas in the morning. Covered likely friction areas of my body with petroleum jelly (vaseline) and stuffed my pockets with some sweets. Decided to run with some wireless music to give me company along the way. Put an iPod (in button locked mode) attached to a bluetooth stereo adaptor in my back pocket. The adaptor is one of the two products I've been working on over the past 4-5 months.

5:53am: Finally armed and dangerous and err... umm... feeling a little bit sticky too, I set out to do something I've never done before. ('Chariots of fire' music in the background).... As I start walking towards the stadium I feel this sudden rush of adrenaline. I've trained hard for this day. I feel I can run at top speed to the stadium and still would have enough energy to run the marathon. Then I finally utter my first words of the day..... "Auto!".

The half marathon started about 30 mins after the full marathon. I started the run with some jazz.... We first went thru Cubbon park, then passed in front of VidhanSoudha. There was a lot of shade till the golf course... Then there were some downhill and uphill sections. I walked the uphill ones.... I was cruising along when the iPod went to some whacko state. I guess running with a 20GB hard disk device jingling in your back pocket could cause it to misbehave. After a little bit of wrestling with the iPod and multiple tries to reboot it did things start to work again... This happened about 2-3 times again along the way. The wireless headphone and wireless adaptor (built by us) worked fine all along and crossed the finish line with dignity :-). A lot of other runners had music to accompany them but none of them had wireless music. I guess I could consider myself as the first half marathon runner (in India atleast) to run with "music in the air" over stereo bluetooth :-) Got a lot of curious/envious looks from ppl along the way.... "GEEK!!" :-) Ok ... I'm sorry for getting into my PR role yet again.... back to the marathon...

There were water stations at a gap of every 2kms. Not too many ppl along the roads initially to cheer us... The view on the Hebbal flyover (halfway mark) was lovely... The lake beside it added to the scenery. A bit after this my weight and age caught up with me as I saw some elderly runners breeze past me.... C'mon I was just being polite and allowed them to pass by!!!! .... Then the front runner, a local bangalorean, of the full marathon passed us on his way back. He was followed by some international runners... They all had so much energy... they just ran and ran and ran and disappeared beyond the horizon....

Lost my energy during the end. Walked half of the last 6kms :-)..... By this time the ppl along the roads increased, cheering us to go on, lying that there was only 3 kms left when there were actually 4-5kms left.... May God bless their souls.... Towards the end the water stations seemed to be far far away.... At one point I was actually eyeing some of the half filled water bottles thrown along the road.... Luckily I had sweets in my pockets. Also felt minor cramps but managed to stretch and then continue. There was also 2 other runners who had my level of stamina..... From the start of the race we kept on overtaking each other, then we would slow down while the other would overtake.... so we kinda maintained the pace for the other person... towards the end we started running together.... started chatting and giving each other encouragement to go on.

As I entered the Kantheerva stadium there were thousands of ppl cheering us on... most of them were the the celebration run (7 kms run) participants which was yet to start. Finally when I entered the stadium and saw the finish line which was abt 20-30 meters away, I tried to run faster... However I got a cramp in my right leg cause of the increase in speed and stopped.... I tried to hop on the left leg but it couldn't support my body... Then the crowd shouted louder :-)... A volunteer even came up to help me but I refused and limped across the finish line while the crowd cheered me on.... I felt a bit guilty as it seemed like a scene out of a hindi movie.... So I kinda completed in style... make that hindi film estyle :-) assisted by some jazz composed by my cousin, some Dil Chahta Hai, Ray Charles and finally Norah Jones enabled by a product with moi inside.....

Plan to run more.... the incentives... tanned skin, blistered feet, aching legs, back and shoulder blades.... and finally the joy of completing... cheered along the way by unknown faces and smiling policemen who stop traffic for you.....

In terms of organising the event I feel that they should have noted the timing for all those who completed. There were about 5-10 officials sitting at the finishing line noting down something when ppl finished.... They gave us blank certificates at the end.... no name .. no timing... This calls for the acceptance speech. Ok here goes, "blah, blah, blah. And finally, Mom and Dad this ones for you!!! [sob, sob]. I mean the blank certificate. Either one of you can write your name out there and put whatever timing you want." Well I completed in about 2 hrs 17 mins types.. but don't know the official timing as I was busy attending to the cramp I got at the end... Luckily the guy who finished just before me checked his timing... I'm sure there are many others who don't know their timing... However I would like to thank them for the wonderful experience. It felt great to participate....

iWISH

Wrote this for one of the products we have built at Impulsesoft. iWISH which stands for Impulsesoft's Wireless Stereo Headphone. Its an attempt to sum up the music experience.

iWISH

I wish I could dance like no one's watching.

I wish I could let my soul lay bare.

I wish I could just go a prancing.

iWISH music's in the air.

Alistair D'souza (2005)

Understanding Others, Educating Ourselves.

Saurabh sent out a mail saying that AID India is conducting a state wide education survey in TN where they would go village to village and test the reading, writing and math skills of children. Basically an attempt to evaluate the education standard in the schools there. Decided to go as I've never done such a thing a before. Besides he also mentioned that Tamil/Telegu skills were NOT necessary for participating...

We decided to have a meeting a week before we actually went to the villages. We met at Saurabh's place where we given an introduction to AID followed by AID Bangalore activities . A few of the exisiting volunteers spoke about their work like the Joy of Learning program and related experiences. We were then briefed about the TN-wide education survey. We then tried to come up with our future Plan of Action which led to a long and interesting discussion with ppl putting forward their views of how a survey in villages should be carried out, some speaking out of previous experience. I was a silent observer.

On May 8th which was a Sunday, about 14 volunteers were to meet at Sulagiri, Krishnagiri District in TamilNadu. Ayush, my roommate joined in. We were to carry out the survey in Sulagiri as it was closer to Bangalore. AID-Chennai volunteers would carry out similar surveys in other parts of TamilNadu. Some of us met at Silkboard flyover. It took us about 1 hour to reach Sulagiri. And yeah... we definately played Swades on the way.... besides Ayush is a SRK fan. We drove along the bangalore-hosur-krishnagiri highway. It was a nice stretch. As we came closer to Sulagiri we saw a lot more greenery. Sulagiri is the panchayat level village and has several other villages under it. It has private and govt schools and Tamil or Telugu is taught in all.

We first filled our tummies with a good breakfast and then divided ourselves into 3 groups as we had 3 cars. I was grouped with Ayush, my roomie and colleague at Impulsesoft. Kavitha and Vamsi who are a phd couple. Kavitha is doing drug research and Vamsi works for Strand Genomics. Then there was Rajesh who works for Microsoft Research labs. Material for the survey was distributed. I only understood the math part as the numbers were in english numerals. The other stuff was greek to me.... well actually Tamil and Telugu. We then distributed the villages and set off in our respective directions. Vamsi, Kavitha and Rajesh transliterated the material. Ayush and myself were assigned the math stuff as we were useless ppl as far as the mode of communication of the village chirdren was concerned. We learned how to pronounce the basic words for addition, substraction, multiplication and division. Since we used English numerals we did ok.

Useless ppl in other groups managed to get by with their newly acquired vocabulary of 5 Tamil words and by ‘outsourcing’ where kids tested other kids. Others transliterated the material and were able to test writing skills. The actual written content was then evaluated by a volunteer who knew the language. They also spoke to the village elders to find out about the state of medical facilities, water, electricity. Testing the kids was easy. There would be some initial work to break the ice but then they would get there friends to be tested. It was nice to know that the mid day meal programmes were still carried out in schools even though it was vacation time. By afternoon we had done about 3 villages, testing an average of 25-30 children in each. We then lunched on some chocolate cake made by my mom. My cousin was just back from my hometown and my mom had sent a lot of goodies :-) We then went to about 3 more villages after that. By the end of the day, between the 3 groups we had covered about 15 villages!

It was an enriching experience. People are polite and good hosts. Reading and writing is not that much of a problem as is their math skills. Some of the kids in higher standards lack basic math skills such as subtraction with carry over.

I remember Vamsi telling me during our first meeting that AID is not about any particular religion or anything. Our group of 5 had a Jain, some Hindus and a Christian. Your beliefs are your religion and atleast for that day we all had the same religion.

Madness, Fireflies and Chocolate Mint Liqueur

Its a Saturday afternoon and I'm nice an comfy in bed. Then I get a call. I'm a bit disoriented. Its Neeti and Saurabh... The Jain cousins... "We are already at Rangashankara, when are you coming". I look at the time. Its about 6:30-6:40pm types. "I'll be there in 20-30 mins". I switch on the geyser and decide to lay down on the bed as the water will take some time to get hot. I wake up after about 10-15 mins, go to bathe but decide I have to have a shave too. The phone rings again. Its Neeti.... "Where are you... Its 7... we are waiting here... They have opened the gates and are allowing ppl to go inside.... we won't get the front seats."... I look at the time... "I'll be there in 10 mins. It will only take me about 5 mins by bike."..... Shucks... now it hit me... I have ALL the tickets. I quickly have a bath and try to search for some clothes that don't need ironing. Can't find any .... ok turn the iron on.... The phone rings again.... It Neeti again... "You better get your butt out here soon". "Err... I'm just leaving the house"... Yeah right... I still have to dress up.... Well its ok it was a simple white lie. C'mon it was well intentioned wasn't it... well intentioned to save my butt :-)

Ok so I finally get on my bike and am on my way to the theatre. The phone rings again but I'm smart... yeah I don't pick it up :-) Finally arrive by about 7:25... 5 minutes before the play can start and 5 mins after the first warning bell. Neeti and her friend Deepti manage to get front seats as they have friends all over. Half the place was filled with NLS junta. Myself and Saurabh enter. We are not too late... thats what we keep telling ourselves... We also get to choose our seats.... yeah either waaaay behind or waaaay over to the side... ok thats not tooo bad... I mean it could have been worse.... Like the time the doors were shut and we had to watch the play thru a glass screen from outside. hmmmm... That should have taught me something...

Finally the play starts... "Madness" Its an adaptation of Paulo Coelho's "Veronica Decides to Die". About a girl who decides to commit suicide but somehow gets saved. She is now in a mental hosptial and is told that due to her suicide attempt her heart will fail in 7 days. The storyline was good but the performances could have been better. However one of the artist performed pretty well. Well I have been going for plays for quite some time. I have seen performances of all caliber... the good, the bad, and the ugly. I think I qualify to be a critic. However always remember to mention that "one of the artist performed pretty well" just incase you come across that 'one' artist in the future :-).... Just kidding... One of the artist did perform extremely well.

The four of us then decided to head out towards Fireflies, a beautiful eco-ashram on Kanakpura Road, about 30kms out of the city. First we decide to get some anti mosquito cream and we pick up some chocolate mint liqueur and some other stuff from my place. The mode of transport... Saurabh's convertible. Its a nice car... You have two seats in front and thats it. The behind part is converted into a nice sleeping area. It has a nice comfy matress with cushions, pillows... the works!! He says that the back seats are at IIT Madras and they refuse to return it to him cause they like it too much.

The show was from 6pm to 6am... We skipped dinner as we could grab a bite at the flee market at Fireflies with the intention to witness a unique way of honouring the earth through an all-night music, dance, and film festival. The theme for this year was "the tree". We reached the venue at about 10:30-11 and remained till morning... We already had our tickets which cost Rs. 200. You could buy them at the entrance too. The stage was under a big Banyan tree... with three sides surrounded with stone stairs to make it like an amphitheatre... We took the pillows and cushions and of course the chocolate mint liqueur and other stuff. The pillows and cushions were a God send... Thanks Saurabh... thanks IIT Madras for taking his back seat. Sitting on stone for that long can cause some complications. Some junta had also come with sleeping bags. We were even thinking of getting the mattress from the car. That wasn't my idea... I don't come up with such wierd ideas. We ate some nice salads at the flee market for dinner.

There were all sort of performances... flute recitals... indian classical instruments... indian classical dance performances... then some western fusion music etc... Vasundara Das sang... Then at the end there was also some heavy metal by two bands.... the heavy metal was more of shouting. They couldn't sing. However 'one' of the artists performed pretty well.. Uhem.. playing it safe again :-) One band played well, but couldn't sing... The other band messed up some good rock songs....

We headed back home at about 6am. Neeti and Deepti dozed off behind. Saurabh was his usual self. No comments... Went straight home and hit the sack.... hard! Slept till about 4pm.

Destiny's Child

Destiny's Child

Alone, so self-contained she lies,

Looking ahead through the tears in her eyes.

She welcomes tomorrow but with a sigh,

Silenced by an angel's lullaby.

Uncertain of feelings she feels inside,

These rules of life she must abide.

So near, yet so far she's going,

She feels it too, on her face its showing.

She will leave behind for us to see,

Fond memories, for all eternity.

And will take away as she departs,

The laughter that once lit our hearts.

- Alistair D'souza (Nov 2000)

The Winds of Change

The Winds of Change

Change is a constant, or so they say.

Life moves on, thats just the way.

Aided through time's prism, it seems to portray,

As dawn turns dusk, and night turns day.

Change is a constant, or so we are told.

As the rigors of life in front of us, unfold.

Change to be noticed, change to be heard,

We'll soon fade away, isn't that whats feared.

Change of behaviour, change of style,

Just to fit in for a little while.

Change of desires, change of heart,

Lets turn a new page and begin from the start.

Change of ideas, change of thought,

For some apt cause for which we so vehemently fought.

Change of costume, so goes the adage,

Believe it or not, all the world's a stage.

Change is a constant, we start to believe.

Change for changes' sake, we can't tend to perceive.

But change for the better, that we must.

Till the end of days, when we turn to dust.

So change is a constant, some beg to contend,

Our ethos and our credo, thats something we should defend.

- Alistair D'souza (Nov 2004)

The Wonder Years

The Wonder Years

Masterpieces of God's creation, we are members of His flock,

Sent down to earth thru special delivery by His heavenly stork.

Membership for life we have to this club called Human Race,

Enthusiasm, promise and innocence written all over our face.

In this game of life, novices are we,

A small tender branch of our large family tree.

With our mentors beside us as each step we take.

Guiding us thru this maze of rules and virtues, for our own sake.

Unleashing on us, a plethora of knowledge and innovation,

The use of which lies ultimately at our own discretion.

We experience friendship, being parted only by the night,

Exploring alluring paths, we believe we are always right.

Sometimes we hurt each other, causing us great pain,

But the very next moment, we are best friends again.

Feelings of our first love, we wish forever it may be,

The memories of which will last till eternity.

Having mixed emotions, be begin to drift away,

Only to find someone else coming our way.

Nuturing our viable ambitions as each day goes by,

We begin to dream of building castles in the sky.

When the whole world knows of our thoughts profound,

They advise us to first build our foundation on the ground.

Finally prepared to face the world and have our praises sung,

Ironically we embark on a journey thats already begun.

In this rat race, as our innocence and integrity we try,

We don't seem to care as our conscience begins to die.

For some worldly pleasures as these new ways we choose,

Unknowingly and unconsciously a part of ourselves we lose.

- Alistair D'souza (1998)

Nobody's Children

My first poem.

Ever thought what your world would be like without the loved ones around you. Well for some it's just a way of life. I put myself into their shoes and attempted to pen down their emotions. The poem is an attempt not only to emphathize and accept them for who they are but also for us to be grateful for the lives we lead.

Nobody's Children

Born in a world with no kith and kin,

Deserted we are cause of somebody else's sin.

Often misunderstood, we are a victim of people's scorn,

Our reputation being based on the way we were born.

People often remind us of the bad blood we possess,

Hurting our feelings and causing us great distress.

In this kind of social life when we can't partake,

We pray to the Lord our soul to take.

Alone we are in a world unknown,

Knowing nobody loves us our heart is torn.

In this sea of emotions our tears go dry,

And somewhere down the line we forget how to cry.

We know not what family values are,

With a fragile ego, we often feel under par.

No father's love, no mother's touch,

Everybody deserves atleast this much.

A brotherly fight, a sisterly scream,

These treasures of life are just a far-fetched dream.

They left us this way, we know not why,

It remains a mystery until we die.

We pray to God our characters to mould,

And be our guide as the mysteries of life unfold.

And show us the way to reach our prime,

So that we may leave our footprints in the sands of time.

Alistair D'souza (1998)

Big Fat Goan Wedding

I had been to Goa for a wedding during the ending of 2004. Didn't know the bride and groom (till then that is). Just knew I was going for some relations wedding.... Along with my mom and sis. So the plan was to go to Goa... go for the wedding.... my mom had other plans too but lets not get into that.... so as I was saying go for the wedding... then to mumbai ... then to nagpur.... two weeks bliss....

A little more about the couple. The bride (Natasha) is my second cousin. My mom's father's sister's daughter's daughter. Met a lot of my distant relations, a few of them I had met before. The groom (Adrian) is from SriLanka.
How they met...
Well both work in Dubai in the same bank...
One day he opened his account to her,
Her interest being ever so dear,
So they decided to build a strong love affair,
On investments of equal share.
.....
ok so you get the point..... btw stole and modified the above lines from the net....

Spent most of my time in Margaon. Was based at Coelho Towers which overlooks the busy Margaon market area. The building was filled with relations. Was partying almost every night... beaches... live bands... discs... The bands play really well. On christmas there is this particular band called forefront who totally rocked... esp the lady lead singer who looked like a jamaican ?? amazing voice...

Jude Wanigasinghe, the best man was pretty sporting. At aunty Cynthia's b'day, we troubled him a lot but he was game for almost anything. Also have some photos to embarass him every now and then :-) Anslem too entertained us from time to time.

Well days were spent visiting some of the many relations we have in Goa. Had an overdose of Goan food. Had been to the exposition too i.e. St Xaviers. Spent a lot of time freaking out with Ryan, Kim, Ron, Sonali, Anslem, Priyanka, Jude, Ruth, Joe and Karishma. Took a liking to my cousin Ryan's cute little daughter, Shania. My mom forgot her age and was one of the gang in her own way. My dad didn't come to Goa as he had to baby sit our dog, Scamper. We also played cricket on the beach. I played for the SriLankans. I even managed to score the second highest total. yippie!!! ok..ok... my sister was bowling.

We then heard about the tsunami. It personally felt good to hear about the efforts been made by fellow Impulsians related to the tsunami episode. 50 odd people in Impulsesoft put together 1.09 lakhs.... that was nice... I can tell ppl I'm in good Company :-)

Talking about narrow escapes my mom's cousin is stationed in Port Blair. He had just left an island after which all ppl and personnel on that island were washed away by the tidal waves.... Also the groom, Adrian is from Sri Lanka..... They live along the coast but at an elevation so their home escaped the wrath of nature. Infact they were planning to get married in SriLanka instead. A lot of their relatives and friends were affected.

Initially the plan was to spend a week in Goa. Then go for a friends wedding in Mumbai.... then to Nagpur for New Year. Two weeks.... yeah quite a long vacation..... infact some of my colleagues who were getting married, took less time off than me. However things didn't go as plan. Our relations somehow convinced us to extend our stay there..... Actually they didn't have to do a lot of convincing :-)

Hick!!!!! Excuse me....

Some new year poetry from the web.
-------------------------------------
To leave the old with a burst of song;
To recall the right and forgive the wrong;
To forget the things that bind you fast
To the vain regrets of the year that's past;
To have the strength to let go your hold
Of the not worth while of the days grown old;
To dare go forth with a purpose true,
To the unknown task of the year that's new;
To help your brother along the road,
To do his work and lift his load;
To add your gift to the world's good cheer,
Is to have and to give a Happy New Year.
- Author Unknown

The himalayan getaway

Had been to 'Har Ki Dun' during the end of May 2004. I went with some office guys. We really slogged it out at work for the 2-3 months before that so we all decided to just run away somewhere... :-)

'Har Ki Dun' is situated in the picturesque Western Gharwal Himalayas in Uttaranchal. Its about 170-180 kms from Dehradun. Here is the itinerary for the trek. It mentions the altitudes and the distances.
http://www.greatindianoutdoors.com/trekking/har_ki_dun.htm

Day 0:
Left Bangalore for Delhi in the afternoon. Caught a train at Delhi for Dehradun at night. The train journey took about 10 hours. A bus/jeep would take about 4-5 hours. The train journey took long cause it covers most of the stations on the way often going back and forth.

Day 1:
We met our guide from GIO (great indian outdoors), Nalin, at Dehradun station and headed directly for Taluka where we would stop for the night. We stopped at a village on the way to pick up thermals as there was a sudden change in weather. It rained most of the time during the drive making the path a bit dangerous at times. At one point our driver told our guide that the jeep could tumble anytime. We saw a couple of landslides (not sure how recent they were) on the way. The fright in our drivers eyes spread like a virus. Finally he turned on the light for the Ganpati statue in his jeep. Without the rain the route is pretty safe. We finally reached Taluka late in the evening. The thoughts that were running through our heads at this point was whether we would make it to HKD in this weather. Our guide told us that whenever possible wear less warm clothes so that we would acclimatize to the change in weather.

Day 2:
Still raining.... But that wouldn't dampen our spirits. We trekked about 12-14 kms to Seema passing through a quaint village along the way. The village was nicely fit into the mountainside. The stretch before lunch was mostly along cliffs. After lunch the rain stopped and the terrain too was flatter. We finally reached Seema late in the afternoon.

Day 3:
Day 3 took us by surprise. It has snowed during the night. At this point it seemed that HKD was a definate 'NO'. We went on a hike early in the afternoon. However it started snowing again and the reduced visibility too made it dangerous to hike in the slippy mountains. However late in the afternoon the sun came up and with it brought hope that we could indeed make it to HKD. We took another short journey to a village called Osla. The children welcomed us with their strikingly vivid smiles, more than willing to be photographed. The people of Osla worship Dhuryodhan. They believe that the Pandavs are the bad guys. We visited Bachan's (works for GIO) home where I _tried_ to smoke the hukka :-)

Day 4:
It seemed that our prayers had been answered. The sky was very clear. The perfect setting for our trek onwards. For the first 1 and a half hour the terrain was smooth. Then we had to trek through snow, along the edges of the mountain, digging our feet deep in with each step we took. I came across a beautiful white horse along the way. Not sure if it was wild or whether it belonged to the villagers. We passed some Canadians and Americans on the way. Nearing noon the sun became a bit too hot. The last 2 kms or so was extremely tiring. Somehow I managed to push myself forward. We came to a spot where it was written welcome to HKD. Our guide told us that when people go a few feet ahead from there, they just gasp in awe at the beauty/greenery of the place. However at the turning we went 'aaarrggghh' as our lodge still seemed to be about 500 mts away. That last 500 mts stretch took me about 20-25 mins! This is the only point in the trek where I was completely drained of energy. Got some minor cramps. We had sunscreen but didn't use it till the next day. Bad decision :-) Temp in the night went below 0.

Day 5:
Sun was up again. The snow along our path had hardened which made us slide for the first km or so. After that the entire trek was smooth. I came across the white horse again. We camped about 2 kms after Seema. We decided to take a dip in the cold water, our first bath from the beginning. We set up a campfire at night. Nehra (one of the porters) treated us to some Gharwal folk songs.

Day 6:
We reached Taluka in about 4 hours. The trek was smooth. Then we were off to Mori by jeep to camp at 'Mystic River'. Its about 25-30 kms from Taluka. We camped among pine trees, which also had one of Asia'a tallest pine trees. We had a campfire again at night with some singing. Couldn't go rafting cause the water level was too low.
Camp Mystic River.
http://www.greatindianoutdoors.com/camping/mystic_river.htm

Day 7:
We trekked a bit to some natural swimming pools among the mountains in Mori, the pool being about 20 feet deep. By afternoon we were off to dehradun.

Day 8:
Back in Bangalore early in the morning. Ppl at the airport looked at us in wierd ways cause our skin had started peeling.... yikes...

We experienced all types of weather during our trek from scorching sunshine to rain to snow to near/below zero temps at night. We trekked about 60 kms, with about 55 being in 4 days. I feel the rain and snow made it better cause it made us push harder. It made reaching HKD more satisfying cause just the previous day we thought we would never be able to go there. Our knees took a beating, our skin started peeling but it was worth it. Without the weather change the trek would have been a cakewalk but that wouldn't have made it as interesting/exciting, would it :-)