Hare Krishna...........Heyyyyy Ram

I am back! ….yes after more then a month’s hiatus and a lot of thinking what to write on, I have finally come up with something ….

This lull was not just coz of me not able to think of what to write on, it has a lot to do with my work environment …ya u read it correctly “WORK”! ...I have been put to work now and the surroundings which I have at present don’t really shore up to creative phenomenon like Blogging … :( There is all so called “Techie Janta” in the backdrop here, that they might come up with some unwelcome work 4 me if they even see me reading a blog forget about writing one…and the entry level software engineer that I am, I can only dream of my company buying me a laptop…and for god sake don’t put your brains thinking that how come I cannot afford one still…I can assure u I can’t ....so this is the extra hours I am chipping in at work to write a blog, and ‘I am loving it’…

This weekend I was thinking of doing something or going somewhere to get of out routine life which I have, but didn’t coz couldn’t find nething to do neways, but this thought reminded me of one great episode which occurred with me and some of my friends almost an year ago…. We were new at our job and Bangalore both ….so the trainee gang of ours had much enthu to sort of explore Bangalore on weekends in particular, but as those who know this place can tell u there is nothing much to do so …it’s a city which has I.T offices where u earn on weekdays, a few malls and some other places where u spend on weekends …nothing else much to do around …so we came up with an idea to visit ISKON temple …not that me our some of us were any devotee or something but just that may be the spiritual element that we all have as being an Indian we were born and brought up in that manner that everyone’s ready all the time to go to a temple …so this is all abt what happened that day when we visited the temple or shall I say what happened after …u will get to know…

We decided to meet at the ISKON temple directly at 4pm appox. Lazy me and that too Sunday …man it was tough to get ready and mentally prepare 4 a daunting task ahead coz the place was supposedly 15-20 kms. from where I live and on top of that I was new to ‘namma bangaluru’ and did’nt know the exact way to that place …so somehow I managed to get ready and leave in time …to reach the place I believe I had to ask in total 5-6 times the way from auto fellows and people waiting at red lights, coz in Bangalore light take ample time to change to green that one can easily ask the routes thoroughly…finally I reach the place traumatized to know that I was probably the first one to reach, so now I had to wait some more time 4 may friends to appear before I could enter the place…finally everyone turned up and we went inside …it’s a very remarkable and immense setup…one of the most fine-looking temples I have seen in my life, very neat and well managed temple of lord Krishna …no wonder they get hefty donations from people world over being an international society and it shows …thus it took us some 2hrs to look at it from start till end, moving at a snail's pace in a long queue which included a process of enchanting “Hare Ram hare Ram, hare Krishna hare Krishna” fleeting over 108 small square shaped stones…there is a direct route 4 darshan as well if u r in bit of a hurry and don’t have time to do stepping stone …but then we had all the time in the world so we thought it would be fun to do it the apt way…by the time we did the darshan and came out it was somewhere around 6:30 and odd…

Now it was time to leave to our respective places after a bit of chit chat and hovering around that place ….but then destiny had something else in store 4 me …this other bunch of my friends had 4 bikes and were 9 people …so it was peculiar situation where 1 of them had to take an auto or something to reach to their place…so the bighearted self of mine suggested that it would be some odd 10-12 kms off-route 4 me, but better I shall drop him instead on him taking such pains and spending so much to reach at his place …but then as some wise man had said “A weak man has doubts before a decision, a strong man has them afterwards.”…so I was of the latter types now I know…there starts the convoy of 5 bikes speeding towards destination called as Bannerghatta which is a different extreme of Bangalore altogether …as it always happens this one friend of ours “dude that he is” takes the charge and leads the way, so sure that he new the way flawlessly. I was unaware that even these guys had come to ISKON the way I did: inquiring the route on the way itself…so we were in wrong hands and on wrong path…we had traveled some 10-15 kms. already and we were nowhere close to place that we had to reach to …in fact we were now on some periphery roads with almost nil traffic, but we had assumed that this Mr. Navigator knew the way…but then “ass-u-me” can be interpreted differently …we still kept traveling till one of us stopped and asked somebody the route…surprise-surprise ! ... “Guys u r on wrong track-bannerghatta is the opposite way some 20-25 kms. from here” …we r screwed, we r screwed, we r screwed!!!!!!!!! …I should have guessed if there was no traffic its can’t be B’lore…now we start again, and these odd roads with name of places we came across even more strange …after some 10-15 kms. we have shock of our life when we see a big board on the road which reads “WELCOME TO BANGALORE”… o.o…where the hell we were so far…now we know that the road we were on was actually some highway leading to B’lore …To finish we still we had to travel some 20-30 kms …finally we reach Bannerghatta, but I still had to travel again some 15 kms. to reach my place...I start off and after a very very long and painstaking ride, I finally reach home…what a day it was, appox. My bike’s trip meter read some 90-100 kms. of travel that day …and I could feel the every bit of it… I guess it would have been some 108 kms. like those steps at the temple but this time around I was enchanting “Hare Krishna….Heyyyyy Ram” with the every km. that I must have traveled…Societal work was not my piece of cake, at least not this one…Only now I knew.