Rant 12: the Second hike!

So, i guess it may come as no surprise that I absolutely love taking a hike!
this latest one takes us to Kemmangundi (i hope i got that right), which is a very scenic hill station about 7 hours from Manipal. located amidst the lush greenery of the Western Ghats, it is a very pleasant one day trek that everyone in need of a getaway should consider.
i myself was waiting for a getaway like this for quite a while now. I think maybe i was a bit too desperate, and obv any chance i get to go shutter crazy is reason enough. i went mad on this trek. my final tally after taking out the really crappy shots...was 312! this is by far the most number of pics Ive taken till date in a single session...in a day for that matter.
this was a trek organised by the adventure club at MIT manipal, thats RED-X. Even though i normally would have preferred going alone, the fact that we ended up with 2 filled up inter-state buses (if u ever saw one, u'd know what i was talking about), was actually helpful in me getting more and better shots.

so without boring ya'll with too much text...

Land formation at Sunrise point, first stop of the trek

full HD colour


a Macro touch







Rock formations


wow! check out those curves on that...rock!


mini waterfall...always a welcome break on a route like...


...this. En route to Z point...no that's the name, really!


see? the route...hence the name

Ze Z point (what I can't imitate french guys now?)


the one we didn't bathe in...Kattahi falls


7 kms to Hebbe falls...simply beautiful


crossing streams


en guard at Hebbe falls


my dream...is to fly...over the rainbow...well..waterfall!


halfway top


picture perfect end...


...however, there's always something more to think about

Rant 11: milestones

There are two milestones in sight as of now...
1) i have just crossed 10 posts
2) My college days are finally numbered...literally...i have about 46 days 14 hours and 2 mins (as of this moment) thanks to this lovely wittle widget i found yesterday.

Rant 10: For Argument's and God's sake

Of all the ***forsaken movies we've ever watched including those made by the master of satanism himself Mr. Bill Maher, needler in Bush's ass Mr. Michael Moore etc etc, here is one movie that completely blew me away...
ps: if homeland security is reading this then ...well..nothing....ukhaad ke dikhao!
it's called God on Trial.
A group of prisoners at Auschwitz concentration camp ( a lovely little retreat in Poland built by Hitler!) decide that enough is enough. The sheer injustice meted out by the Nazis is enough to warrant answers from the big G himself.

"But the horror of it! how can you put God on trial? and how is he to be represented. and we all know he himself can't come here, ha ha ha ha!" this last bit would of course point to a higher reason but we all know poor theists are 90% blind to it anyways. and that was not a quote from the film itself, but what i assumed theists would say to a statement like "can we put god on trial pleeeease!?"

Coming back to the story, what was perhaps most interesting, was that even in the face of extreme injustice, mass murder by millions etc, people were ready to believe that it was all part of a plan.
To borrow keywords from the film's dialogue, "the holocaust is part of a purification process." Yes! just like the great flood of Noah or the endless worldwide plagues, the wiping out of entire races was considered a process of re-modeling. it's like the god here screwed up often and then just so that everybody would think he was doing ok, would tag the humans as sinners, cleanse the earth and then start all over again.
hey he's god...what are you gonna do about it?
i remember bringing a similar form of enthusiasm for my 2nd grade drawing class.

anyways.

the principle charge that the Jews (primarily) in the film lay out was that God had broken his covenant with the Jewish people. This is something like a signed contract that God made with the jews. So apparently all the praying etc that all other religions did was simply false. or did god simply listen to them so that in the end he could finally realise his dream of imitating Eric Cartman and telling all non-jews:
na na na na naah naah...u got the wrong religion.... u got the wrong religion
and just for fun Nelson (simpsons): haaaaan haan!

it is here where i feel the BEST dialogue bit of the film comes into play...
firstly theists like to see the world as intelligently designed. How else could a structure so intricate as say the human body or any other living organism be formed and fucntion. all the wonders of the natural world, delicate systems etc. It all seems so overwhelming to the theist that it definitely looks intelligently designed.
I am a simple Journalist, not a scientist. hence i'll let one of my fav characters from the film, the lone member of science at the blockhouse -the physicist- talk to u for a bit.
(Gist)
" there are a hundred thousand million stars in this universe. and numerous planets like ours around them who knows? why do you people insist on believing that a god who can create a hundred thousand million stars would stop to make a covenant, a contract with only one tiny planet at the edge of an outer spiral? and not even one planet, one set of people, the Jewish people."

and staying with Intelligent Design gives us this peach of a (dialogue) delivery
There is mention of a certain kind of wasp that lays its eggs on flowers. The larve upon hatching then carry the flower's pollen to other flowers. it does not help the wasp for it cannot eat it, but it still carries it.
wow! what intelligent design

here is the physicist's reply:
"does the wasp carry pollen for all flowers or only Jewish flowers???"

(I rest my case)

Rant 9: holi shit!!

There's always been two sides to every coin right?
So as i slept away the summer heat on a day they call Holi , one side of the coin was literally being played out at a campus hangout area called KC.
Fortunately, we live in a world with digicams and one video from that morning session kinda looked like one of those Goa rave videos with just about everybody going nuts in single spot, if thats even possible.
Your's truly woke up at the ungodly hour of 12:30 pm under bright sunshine and explored the area thus ravaged.
warning: graphic content, viewer discretion is advised


..and in between (the mayhem) were caught the doors.


on they fought...the 300, err..30!

birds? planes?

no...its vests, on phone lines


battlefield Manipal


enjoying the spoils of war...cheeky bastards!


the immortal holi-war soldier.....adi