Coonoor - Day 3

Well, considering we pretty much stayed put at Sans Souci, the rest of Coonoor was from vantage points at Sans Souci, or long walks from Sans Souci.

This was one of our favorite vantage points. Not even a tree to obstruct view of the deep valley with its never ending sloping tea gardens, and acrross the valley, the nilgiri ranges with their scattered villages. The villages were like a star sprangled sky at night. The viewer up and the viewed below.....both very pretty

This was a picture from a walk recommended by Shibani, and Diksha's capture of a bird in flight just made the picture that much more beautiful

The neighboring 'nonsuch' tea estate with an interesting but too daunting a walk up. The estates seem to have some interesting names, huh? 

Dusk in the mountains..it's always too clouded for clear sunsets, but that doesn't take away the beauty of dusks. 

We luckily caught one clear night, when we shut of all the lights in the house to see a star studded sky. It was thrilling, but also scary as its a kind of pitch dark we don't even know in the city.

I'm sure there's a pretty bird on one of those branches. I kept taking pictures of these really cute birds, but they're so well camouflaged into the green, that I mostly can't even find them in the pictures.

Those rows you see on the mountain slope on the left are the tea workers houses

There's tea picking going on there, but again a camera on your cell as against a DSLR will bring you only so much. I was asking Diksha how a trip like this would be with a DSLR, and her response 'it would be only about the DSLR, don't even think about one ma'

This one's from way within the porch, nice ready made frame it gave. And I must mention, that evening on the porch we saw the largest spider we've ever ever seen, big as a saucer, way bigger than anything we've ever seen on even national geographic. Alwyn, who did the brave job of getting rid of it, said it was poisonous to boot.

Dawn .......

Well, neither inside nor outside....or shall we just say both. One of Diksha's candid pictures, she will mostly neither take, or allow taken, a posed for picture. Has it's own charm (though at times, annoying too), and guess we survived quite well for it.

Didn't take the laptop, but then...where I go, my diary goes :)

Sans Souci

Sans Souci, our chosen homestay, was simply magical, a transporting back in time....... and it has so much character, that it just deserves it's own exclusive write up space, so day 2 of Coonoor road trip to Sans Souci.

That's Sans Souci as seen from the tea gardens up (rather down) front.

It's (to the year), a 100 year old bungalow, and has changed hands six times in it's hundred year old history, including being home to the catholic bishop of Ootacamund in the 1960s. It yet retains its old time aura...... the pre independence, colonial times feel in true essence. (Must give credit there to Shibani, the current owner of the place too). The exterior, the furniture, the flooring, the books, the artifacts, the cutlery....even tea is still served in a tea pot. 

My experience with a tea pot is only from 'Beauty and the Beast' and I almost expected it to start singing.

The full length porch, which made for coffee time, wine time, cards time, writing time, chatting time, drawing time, reading time, eating time......the gamut of being :)

This was our bedroom

The other side of our room.  The book shelf had an amazing collection...not that I could read much, but like Diksha said, just to smell those old books :)

Another bedroom

No exaggeration, saying we just chilled on the porch

And off the porch...

I must mention, it's early morning on the porch, and I see this wild rabbit zipping across the lawn, and I'm almost wondering if I missed seeing the clock in his hand, and within seconds I see two huge dogs in full chase, and I'm waiting with bated breath. After five minutes, I see the dogs, disappointment writ large on their faces pass back through..brought back the smile :)

Each room has its own fire place, and not to miss the chimney sweeping paraphernalia, it was straight out of Mary Poppins to me 

A quaint little carom room, that's cozy and pretty. We did a late night of cards and wine here one evening, Diksha's first with rummy, and I learnt blackjack :)

This was with Rani who gave us the most delectably delicious food

Here's the coup......a few old pictures from Sans Souci which I was so excited to discover there. They are all from the forties, when the Fritch family from, I think Switzerland, lived there.

Ariadne, the younger of the sisters you see in the picture with the car, actually came back in 2001 to visit the house and that's when she left copies of these pictures there.

And Grandpa Fritch ran a nursery..... you can see it in the prettiness of the house, right?

'Sans Souci' literally means 'no worries'...what a wonderful name.

Road Trip to Coonoor

It was a dream trip, conceptualized on a whim, iffy till the last moment, and consciously kept at a no itinerary space. 

The view from Sans Souci

The No Itinerary was like a mantra to the trip.......it simply takes away any kind of expectation, and puts you in this nice space of 'just being'.

Coonoor can just envelope you in its tranquility and beauty..... just being one with the mountains and the clouds....and Sans Souci, where we chose to stay, was this quaint old house from times gone by, and has pretty much been retained as is, including all it's furniture.......giving the whole experience a feeling of timelessness.  

That's the frontal view of the house. And as we go in, the excitement just keeps mounting, and I hear Diksha say 'It'll take us two days to just explore this house ma'.

Let me start with day 1. 

We got off to an early start, and it was an interesting drive as it crosses four different kinds of terrain. Bangalore to Mysore is this crazy busy highway, where entire focus is almost just traffic, but that pretty much gets done in under three hours, breakfast included. We did Maddur Wada at Maddur, but I guess that was more experience than taste, so won't talk much for the wada. 

Mysore to Bandipur, was mixed bag. First a great road stretch and then an awful road stretch as it's under patchy repair for a few kilometers, and not nice stress on car and driver (me)

Then you get to the Bandipur Tiger reserve, and that's an interesting drive through, more the feel and smell of jungle than any wildlife really. All you get to see on a sweltering summer afternoon is lots of deer, and boar and lots and lots of monkeys and langurs. And that's where you also cross into Tamilnadu. Its called Bandipur on the Karnataka side and Madumalai Tiger Reserve on the TN side.

Monkeys in Bandipur

Then the ghats. That was lots of excitement as it's after all the Nilgiris and part of the Western Ghats of India....about 2250 m above sea level, so a really steep climb with loads of hair pin bends at crazy angles and we even got to see a bad accident where this car got totally over turned, which just added more focus to our own driving. While driving up was full on focus, it hit when I got to Ooty and felt my arms so sore and knees literally buckle. The stress and strain of a first timer I guess :)

          

We did lunch at Ooty, and then another hour to Coonoor, and a further hour to Sans Souci.

A village on the way to Coonoor

Finding Sans Souci was a crazy challenge as no two people seem to pronounce it the same way, and the only landmarks are gravel roads and tea estates :)

That was our gravel road, and it goes on over a kilometer to reach the home.

Diksha of course found some doggy friends at a neighboring farm. That's her with the little boy Surya and the doggies Shanthi and Rosy

We reached the home stay at around 4 in the evening, and then we just chilled and took in the place :)

Diksha wanted this pic because she felt it was like ammamma's paintings :)

As we were driving through the blistering summer heat, I'm telling Diksha 'gosh, it'll be so nice to turn on the ac and crash, and she's like 'you don't seriously expect ac's in coonoor, do you?', and imagine our surprise when we get there and find that...'forget ac's, they don't even have fans'. 

But that's Coonoor, we actually used a razai for the night !

Anticipation Enhances The Now

I read a post today...one that spoke of a Paradox.  It said 'Eternity is in the moment......Cut off the path that led us here and cut off the road ahead, stay deep in the moment ...that's where eternity is.... it's where we are truly living'. 

Profound stuff. And I completely completely agree.

I spent the day totally like that. In each moment.

Stepped out in the morning with a long checklist for the day, and went about it meticulously, doing it wholeheartedly and ticking off. (that's why I love checklists)

The twist? All of today was about tomorrow. I was planning and preparing for a road trip.

Every single item on the checklist was for tomorrow, right from last minute shopping (which annoyingly seems always needed before a trip, as it's something I vehemently, wholeheartedly dislike and so never gets done), the picking up of favorite road eats (from random different places, because you're in an indulgent mood), getting the car done, coolent and tyre pressure and all (especially the stepney, which we never otherwise do), the visit to the salon ( I guess feeling good makes you also want to look good), and so on.

I listed only to show how it was all about tomorrow.... but then, all totally in the now. I loved the day.

Anticipation is not about the future...it's about now. Enjoy the anticipation...not as in waiting for the future. Paradox again !?!

Kar Gayi Chull

Some little things just slowly creep in as rituals.....a song after a movie review is becoming one :)

But I promise, only if there's a song worth sharing, ( a natural check...if I rewatch, then I share....then again I get to rewatch :). This one is for the pure energy of it....the music, the dance, the weed, the beer, the games, the chemistry, the joy. And it's so naturally and casually done...you almost feel like you're there.

Going the Distance

From Seth

The distance from 'can' to 'will' keeps getting larger.

You can connect, lead, see, speak, create, encourage, challenge and contribute.

Will you?

The confusion kicks in when we become overwhelmed by all the things we can do, but can’t find the time or the courage to actually commit and follow through.

In the face of all that choice, we often confuse can’t and won’t. One lets us off the hook, the other is a vivid reminder of our power to say yes if we choose.

Kapoor & Sons

Firstly what led me to this movie.....

A friend had called and said, 'there's so much reality in that film, it's pretty fascinating and scary how close to the truth they come, and so unassumingly and easily ..... we're not used to seeing reality, the drama without the melodrama, in normal Hindi cinema.'

          

And two episodes were quoted; one about 'how she's a good mother and how she even does wrong by one son to help another, because she thinks the younger son can manage and older son needs the help'. (and I was left wondering how that makes a good mother) .

And second was this conversation between the two brothers, 'one saying "bro, the two mattresses that have been separated, you realize what that means? mom and dad are using two separate rooms !!" and the younger one saying..."chill bro, if you live with dad for twenty five years, you want to use another room." 

It had my curiosity piqued.

The family is the dada (Rishi Kapoor), the father (Rajat Kapoor), the mother (Ratna Patak Shah), Fawad Khan as the elder son and Siddharth Malhotra as the younger.

The two brothers, one living in New York and one in London, (one an aspiring writer and the other a published writer), visit their family home in Coonoor, when their dada has a heart attack......only to realize that their parents marriage is on the verge of collapse, the family is in a deep financial crisis, and it's full on family drama as each story unfolds and the brothers stories get added into the fold. There's a lot of underlying non acceptance and bitterness, squabbles and fights..... and I could have so easily used the word 'dysfunctional'. But then is it really....or is it just way more common than we're willing to admit.

And sure....each of those situations and emotions seems overly dramatic, but then it's only because its entire lifetimes issues crammed into two hours and twenty minutes.

Then the energy, the bonding, the hopes, the possibilities all exist to give you a high energy space.

Real kudos to the director, writer, editor and all others involved; they've done an amazing job in giving each of the main characters equally strong space in the film.  And where normally films have a conflict built and a happy resolution following, this one leaves things in natural flow.

Ratna Patak as a jealous and tired housewife,  her strong expectations from her 'perfect' older son, and how she faces the issues there.... beautifully emoted.

Rajat Kapoor as always.......quiet, dignified, serious, intelligent. I think I've had a long time crush on him.

Fawad khan as the perfect elder child, responsible and controlled, is the simmering volcano. Tired under all the expectations and pressure of having to live a lie....and you expect only controlled outbursts, but you realize each one has their own threshold.

Siddharth as a easy flowing, fun loving guy..... yet this deep anxiety within, and it surfaces on short fuse...but he's yet so loveable.

Alia Bhatt in her teeny hep attire is smart, slick and adorable, total eye candy, and brings a lot of zing onto the screen...and it's still not out of place even in laid back Coonoor, as she's a Mumbai pori.

And yes, not to forget the porn loving grandpa, who while enjoying mandakini on the ipad, has this last desire of getting a happy family group photograph. He was a riot...at times overdone...but yet a lot of laughs.

It's an emotional roller coaster, a term I love to use. The base is solid, but the surface is all the excitement.....there's tears, there's joy, there's strong chemistry, even between the brothers who at points seem to feel raw hatred, but it's an interesting dynamic, shared so easily over a joint. (the openness with which they did weed surprised the hypocrite in me)

Like I read somewhere..it's about the chaos of relationships, yet with an underlying stability.

I loved the spontaneity, the lack of pretense and the flow ......an overall wonderfully made film.