"XMAS" - Infosys, Mysore Diaries - #BlogChatterA2Z

 After the Wayanad trip, we started working on the project diligently. We were almost done with the implementation and were integrating the modules. There were 4 days left for the demo. 

“On the whole, the project is working okay.”, Myra said after doing the first round of testing.

“Let’s do a few rounds of testing. We should follow a schedule for testing the project. Let’s aim to finish testing by tomorrow. We can simultaneously fix the bugs found during testing”, Swati said. 

Arjun and I started creating a schedule in an excel sheet. 

“By the way, what are the plans for Christmas? It’s in 2 days and we have a holiday.”, Anusha asked. Rishi and she were making suggestions to the schedule. 

 “There’s a famous church in Mysore, I don’t remember the name of it. It is one of the tallest churches in Asia. Let’s go to it”, I suggested. Having read books like “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels and Demons” by Dan Brown, I was a fan of churches and their architecture. 

“But it’ll be busy on Christmas”, Rishi said.

“Maybe we can go after the morning prayer. I am sure they’ll not close the church very soon on Christmas day”, I insisted.

Everybody agreed to the plan. 

“Let’s also ask our college friends. They can join us if interested”, Myra suggested. We sent an email to our college friends and resumed testing our project.

The next day was also spent testing the project and fixing the bugs. The documentation was also ready. We had officially finished the project. We zipped our project files and uploaded them to Google Drive just to make sure we don’t lose any data.

*

On Dec 25^th, around 16 of us gathered at the main gate of the campus. 

“Merry Christmas”, we all greeted each other.

We then boarded the local bus to CBS (Central Bus Station), Mysore. 

We hired several autos to “St. Philomena’s Church”. The church was a few minutes away from the bus station. 

We got into the auto and were all cramped up. Myra, Swati, Anusha, and I adjusted behind while Arjun sat with the driver. 

“So Priya, tell me about this church”, Myra asked. 

“It’s a Catholic church. It is one of the tallest churches in Asia and also the second-largest in the continent. Its inspired by a famous church in Europe.”, I said.

“Is the place busy today?”, Arjun asked the driver in broken Kannada. 

“Very busy, you should wait for your turn. You can buy candles outside”, the driver spoke in Telugu which surprised us.

“Most of Kannadigas can speak Telugu”, he said. 

Soon, he stopped in front of the Church. All our friends from college started getting down the autos.

“How tall”, someone exclaimed. 

A tall building was in front of us. It had a gothic-style architecture and some patterns in white etched on its surface. We had to strain our necks to look at the cross which was in red color. It indeed was an architectural marvel and looked like a European church. We walked towards it fascinated. 

There were many people surrounding it. We walked towards the entrance when we saw a large group of people headed in a direction. We followed them and saw a white statue of St. Joseph holding baby Jesus and the statue read “Spouse of blessed Virgin Mary”. 

We then walked around the church and came across a white statue of a woman.  The statue read “St.Philomena, Virgin & Martyr”. “Sad but beautiful”, I said. 

We then walked towards the church gate’s entrance and bought some candles. On entering the magnificent church, we were surprised to see that the floor plan resembled a cross. The altar that lay in front of us was high, enormous, and was shaped like a cone. Large statues of Jesus and angels adorned the hall. There were flowers all over the altar and we were spellbound by the Christmas decoration. 

We were in a queue to reach the altar and looked around the hall. The large hall was full of benches and could seat more than 500 people. There were stained glass windows depicting scenes from the birth of Christ, the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Ascension of Christ. It was a spectacular church. 

In a few minutes, we reached the altar and lighted candles. On our way back, we sat on the benches and were taking in our surroundings. A few people passing us wished us “Merry Christmas” and we wished them back. 

We came out of the church and walked around the church once again, admiring it. We then stepped out of the church and headed back to the campus to have the Christmas special lunch in the Fiesta food court.

On our way back, I was reliving my moments in the church and remained silent throughout our journey. It was such an honor to visit the church on Christmas Day…. 

-- To be continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.

"Wayanad" - Infosys, Mysore Diaries - #BlogChatterA2Z

 The project that we had started working on was in full swing. We had 10 days to finish the project and our motto was to try and finish it within a week so that we could relax later. After all, we were nearing our time on the campus. 

We had started working on the project on Tuesday. By the end of Tuesday, we were ready with the analysis. On Wednesday, we started working in groups of 2 on the design document. Anusha and I started working together on some use cases of flowchart diagrams. Though we would waste time once in a while, we were good when it came to completing the task on time. By the end of Wednesday, our whole group got substantial work done. 

During dinner, Anusha said, “We only have 2 more weekends on the campus. How about we go on a trip to Kerala? ”

“Nice idea. But will we get reservations now?”, I asked.

“Of course. Some of my friends from other colleges have recently been to Wayanad in Kerala. They gave great reviews”, she said.

Everybody agreed to this. The best part of this trip was having information on travel, hotel, and itinerary. We just had to make reservations.

On Friday night, the 6 of us along with Chetan, Suraj some other friends of Arjun all started to Wayanad in a 20-seater vehicle. We sang songs during the journey. After a good 6-7 hours, we reached a beautiful resort called the Sunrise Valley resort. The resort had small cottages, a swimming pool, a basketball area, and separate fire pits for each cottage. It was dark by the time we reached it and a few fire pits were lit. The whole area had a serene vibe to it. 

“Let’s spend some time in the resort too. It’s beautiful”, Chetan said.

We went to our cottages. Each cottage could accommodate 6-7 people. All the girls chose a cottage and entered it, the room was spacious and had bunker beds. I chose the topmost berth. We got freshened and headed to the dining section for dinner. The boys also joined us and we had dinner. We were 10 in number and it was nice to relax and have good food. The unique dish on the menu was the pineapple pickle. It was tangy and sweet. After a nice meal, we all retired to bed. We wanted to try the firepit on the following day.

The next day we woke up early, had filter coffee and breakfast (idli), and headed out to visit the Meenmutty waterfalls. This involved a short trek where we had to descend a hill to enjoy the waterfalls. 

“After the Scandagiri Hills trek, this seems quite simple”, Arjun boasted to his friends. They haven’t been to the Scandagiri hill trek.

The waterfall was lovely, we tried being adventurous and enjoyed the falls thoroughly. The magic was in the air which helped us dry our clothes very quickly.

“Let’s go back to the resort and take a shower. We’ll head out to other places after lunch”, Rishi said.

After enjoying waterfalls and the trek, we all went back to the resort, took shower. For lunch, we wanted to eat authentic Kerala food and went to a Dhaba like place which served meals. The food was great, everything had coconut in it. After a leisure lunch, we visited the coffee and tea plantations in the surrounding area. 

At night, we went back to the resort and asked our host to fire the firepits near our cottage. We had dinner at the resort in the same dining area as the day before and after dinner, headed to the firepit area. Around the fire were a seating area and low benches. After a day full of activity, it was nice to sit around it.

After a while, we played music. Soon, the boys started dancing. Arjun danced to the Dabang title song and he had great moves. Soon everybody joined Arjun and we did a mini-flash mob to the Dabang title track. We danced to some other great party numbers as well. After a few hours of dancing and fun, we all retired to bed. 

The next morning, we all woke up with great excitement to visit the Edakkal caves. Also, we were leaving after the caves and we had to check out from the hotel as well. We packed everything, checked out and bid farewell to the lovely hosts. 

We then started to the Edakkal caves. These were supposed to be natural caves representing the prehistoric settlement from 6000 BC.

We reached the caves and were not surprised to see the queue. We joined the queue which was leading a trail of steps down the sea level. We got down the steps and entered the caves.

It was ice cold and the whole area had strong earthy and moldy scents. A tour guide was talking about the history of the caves back to the Stone age and explained some of the carvings on the walls. The carvings were of men, animals, and man-made instruments. 

There was a possibility of connection to the Indus valley civilization. Also, the Edakkal caves were not technically caves, but rather a cleft, rift, or rock shelter caused by a piece of rock splitting away from the main body. 

After a good tour of the caves, we took the stairs and went back to our mini-van. We had a sumptuous meal in a restaurant nearby and went back to the campus. On our way back, we continued talking about the caves. Caves with history are quite intriguing.

But after going back to the campus, all we could talk about was the most intriguing part of the Wayanad trip. And it was Arjun dance moves to the Dabang title track….

-- To be continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.

"Vista Food Court" - Infosys, Mysore Diaries - #BlogChatterA2Z

 After our hurried trip to Udipi, we came back to the campus on Sunday night. 

“For the first time, I feel relaxed coming back to the campus on a Sunday night. We have no important classes tomorrow nor an upcoming test. Feels great”, I said.

“Same here”, Myra replied, “I can finally spend some quality time with Chetan”

“Spend all the time while you can. We have about 14 days left on the campus. “, Arjun replied.

Myra looked taken aback and worried, “You’re right. Let me call Chetan right away “

Arjun and I looked at each other. We sped up so that Myra could talk to him in private.

“Lucky fellow”, Arjun said.

“Who?”, I asked

“Of course, Chetan”, he replied.

“Do you like her?”, I asked without thinking.

“She’s a good friend. Nothing more. I did get a little upset when she started dating Chetan and that did confuse me. But would I ask her out? No. I cannot spoil what we have by asking either of you out.”, he said. I was surprised that he’d given such a long explanation without any prompting. 

“Nice thinking. But didn’t you like anybody in these 6 months?”, I asked. Arjun smiled. 

“Come on, you must’ve liked someone. I had a crush on Gaurav. Myra dated Chetan. “, I chided him.

“It's a secret.”, he smiled mischievously. 

I was annoyed and did not prompt him anymore. 

“Priya, where do you think we’ll be posted?”, he asked me after a minute.

“Hopefully, Hyderabad. We listed Hyderabad and Bangalore as our preferences, right?”, I said in a worried tone.

That was the only worry remaining: our posting location. 

“We’ll have to wait a week”, Arjun said.

“Yes”, without realizing it, we had reached our hostel. Myra was far behind us. 

“Let’s meet tomorrow? She seems to be busy.”, Arjun said.

“Sure! Good night, take care”, I replied.

I always felt nice talking to Arjun, he was a friend in a true sense. No judgements, no complications, just a friend with whom you can have both simple and deep conversations. 

                                                                                               *

The next morning, we had a short session about projects. The instructor gave us an overview of what they’d be expecting from a typical project.

“You have about 10 days to complete the project. You are all expected to work in teams. Each team can have about 5 members but that’s flexible. We have a list of projects and you can choose one. If you have ideas of your own, please talk to me.”, he said. I mentally chose my team members.

“Each team has to work on all steps of a typical SDLC (Software Development life cycle) which include: Requirements gathering, Analysis, Design, and Implementation. You have to submit deliverables for each step of the SDLC. For e.g., for the “Design” phase, you’ll have to submit a high-level and low-level design document. I’ll share a document with all the details. Your project is deemed to be complete when you submit all the required documents. Also, on the tenth day, you are supposed to give a demo of your project. You can now form groups and you are welcome to work with your groups in this classroom”, he concluded.

Anusha, Rishi, Swati, and I gave one another a thumbs up. 

I could see Myra and Arjun walking towards us. 

“Let’s check with the instructor. We’ll be a team of 6”, Arjun said.

“You are smart”, Rishi said to Arjun. 

“Of course, anybody could guess our group members”, he said.

“Let’s go”, Myra said. We walked towards the instructor.

“So quick?”, the instructor said, looking at the 6 of us.

“Sir. Can our group have 6 members?”, Myra asked.

“Sure. Would you like to register your group?”, he asked us to which we agreed. We finished the registration and came out of the class.

“We have 10 days to finish the project starting from tomorrow. So today, we are officially free. What shall we do?”, I asked our group, coming out of the class.

“Let’s explore the campus. We haven’t been at all the places on the campus”, Rishi said.

“Nice idea. Let’s make a list of the places that we haven’t explored on the campus.“, Swati said.

We went to the Magna food court and came up with a list. 

“Let’s visit the place where the word “INFOSYS” has been formed from a cluster of buildings. We can see this from the aerial view of the campus”, Myra suggested.

We all agreed, had a quick lunch, and started to the place. This was located far deeper inside the campus. It was nice that we had lunch before walking to this place. After a while, we reached the location and could see the buildings. They were just normal buildings and did not look as if they were intentionally placed to form the word “INFOSYS”.

“This is clever”, I said.

“But disappointing. It’s just some buildings.”, Anusha said.

“Fortunately, there’s a beautiful food court nearby. It’s called Vista and it’s not operational all the time. It’s mostly for the ICICI employees working on the campus”, Rishi said.

“Have you been here before”, Swati asked him.

“No, but Manish told me about it.”, he replied.

Arjun pointed to a sign. It said “Vista food court” and had directions to reach it.

We walked towards the food court. We reached a clearing and on crossing it, there was a beautiful building which was surrounded by greenery. It had an open layout and a large shed-like roof. The words “Vista food court” were etched on the top of the door. 

We took the few stairs in front of it and walked inside. The food court was large and spacious. We looked around –there were a few stalls but there weren’t any vendors. 

“Guess, it’s not operational”, Myra said.

We stayed there for a few minutes walking around out the spacious hall.

“Time to go, not much to explore”, I said and we all walked out of the food court.

It was a beautiful food court but wish some stalls were operational. 

“Okay, next location: Mythri food court”, Anusha said and we all started walking towards it…..

-- To be continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.

"Udipi" - Infosys, Mysore Diaries - #BlogChatterA2Z

 After flunking the JSF test, the next few days passed by quickly. I got over the shock and started paying more attention to the modules. Unfortunately, there was no make-up test for the JSF module and I had to make up for the lost GPA in the module tests and the final Comprehension test.

 One after the other, the tests got over quickly and I scored well. Soon, it was the final Comprehension exam and I had to score above 80 marks to make up for the lost GPA. I sat in the exam hall, extremely nervous. I started answering the questions and before I knew it, I had completed the exam. I checked the time, there were 15 more minutes to the test. I rechecked all the answers and with trembling hands, clicked on “Finish”. “90%” the screen displayed. I came out of the exam hall feeling relieved and happy. Coming out of the class, I saw Myra giving me a thumbs up. 

I had officially passed Infosys training at Mysore. I looked around, people were coming out of the exam halls. I stood there, waiting for Myra and Arjun.

“Congrats to all of us !!”, they said.  They had passed the test too. 

The three of us waited for the rest of our friends. They had all cleared the test. We all congratulated each other and started going back to our hostels.

“We have to go to Udipi”, Arjun said to Myra and me.

“Why?”, I asked.

“I made a vow that we would go to Udipi if the three of us cleared all the tests”, he said.

“That’s so sweet Arjun but we still have a project to finish.”, Myra said.

“Yes, but I’ve heard that projects are not tough.”, Arjun said.

“Okay, then. Let’s go to Udipi this weekend”, I said.

We planned a trip to Udipi, we were to leave early next day which was Saturday and start back to the campus on Sunday. We asked a few of our college friends but they wanted to take rest after the strenuous exams. 

On Saturday morning, we started to Udipi in a travel bus. Udipi is notable for its Krishna temple and is also known as Temple city.

We reached the temple by 11 AM. The gate was enormous and was very artistic. It was bright red in color and was beautifully sculptured. 

 

We entered the temple. It was beautiful. The temple had a series of mandaps and had a huge veranda. It also had a pond in the center and had a mandap on it. 

The whole place had a serene feel to it. 

There was a long queue to the main temple and we waited for a long time. After a while, it was our turn for darshan. We were mesmerized by the idol of Lord Krisha and had a very good darshan. 

After the darshan, we were extremely hungry and were about to leave the temple to find a restaurant when an elderly priest came walking towards us and pointed us to the “annadaan” section. We couldn’t say no and we sat in the veranda for food along with many others. Soon, volunteers started serving lunch and we had a sumptuous meal. 

We thanked God for such a unique experience and after a few hours in the city of Udipi, we retired to our hotel. The next day, we went back to Mysore with happiness and content….

-- To be continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.

"Treading on thin ice" - Infosys, Mysore Diaries - #BlogChatterA2Z

 After our trip to Scandagiri Hills, we had body pains for about 2 – 3 days and we could hardly walk. In my case, along with the body pains, I was very sad. I was missing home terribly. It’s been a long time since I met my parents, younger sister and I had this sudden longing to see them immediately. I couldn’t stop thinking about them and I was missing them like crazy. 

“I want to go home this weekend and see my family”, I said to Myra while walking to the class. 

Myra stopped walking. 

“This weekend to Hyderabad? How’s it possible? “, she said.

“I can book a direct bus from here or I’ll go to Bangalore and take a bus from there.”, I said.

“When I asked you how’s it possible, I was not asking you the itinerary. How can you travel when we have the JSF module test next Monday?”, she asked, slightly alarmed.

“I want to see my parents this weekend at any cost. I cannot wait for another week”, I said.

“Can’t you wait for one more week? JSF is a tough and important module.”, she said.

“No, am going. I’ll book tickets after going to class”, I replied. Myra seemed annoyed. I knew that she meant well and that I was treading on thin ice. But I couldn’t describe my frantic thoughts about going home. I almost felt as if something bad is going to happen if I don’t meet them ASAP. I couldn’t beat that feeling. I HAD to go home that weekend. 

After going to the class, I started looking at tickets. There was no direct bus from Mysore to Hyderabad and hence, I booked 2 tickets from Mysore – Bangalore and a super deluxe bus from Bangalore – Hyderabad.  Beside me, Anusha and Rishi were wondering what I was up to. I signaled to them that I’d tell them later. 

I then sent detailed emails to Myra and Arjun and a second email to Anusha and Rishi. This was to avoid any follow-up questions. In short, I did not give them any scope for advice or questions. They could do nothing but send me “Take care” replies but I knew their opinion on my impromptu and reckless decision.

Soon, it was Friday evening and I boarded the Bangalore bus at about 4 PM at the Majestic bus station. 

 

I was traveling alone for the first time but the anticipation of going home took away all my fears and gave me a lot of strength. I reached Bangalore at about 7:15PM and boarded the next bus at 8PM. I had to travel overnight for 12 hours to reach Hyderabad. I was seated in a 2-seater beside a guy, who was also a Software Engineer. I did not realize how reckless my decision was until the guy next to me extended his seat to a sleeping position. I felt quite uncomfortable. One thing was sure – I was not going to use my seat as a sleeper. I stay wide awake the entire night. At about 5AM, the bus stopped at a location and the driver asked us to use restrooms. The guy next to me was a thorough gentleman and brought me tea. 

“Guess you did not get any sleep”, he said to which I nodded.

In about an hour we reached the MGBS bus station at Hyderabad.

I got down the bus and the minute I saw my father, I ran towards him and hugged him. I went home and met my mother and sister. All the heaviness in my heart had melted, I felt lighter. And then, I started talking. I did not stop until I had shared every single detail with them. When I’d told them about my impromptu decision, they were alarmed but they know me and did not argue much. They had also missed me a lot.  They told me what was happening at their end. Talking to loved ones in person beats phone calls any day. In the evening, I met my best friend from school, Sridevi, and spent quality time with her. 

The weekend passed by in the wink of an eye and before I knew it, it was Sunday afternoon. My father dropped me at the bus station. For the return trip, I got tickets for a direct bus to Mysore. I had brought the material to study on my journey but I was extremely tired and couldn’t study.

On reaching the campus, I had a familiar feeling as if I belonged. This was the first time that I realized that the campus had become my second home. I hurried to my room, got ready, and met Myra. We started walking to the class when Myra revised a few important topics for the test. I felt slightly alarmed because I did not remember most of the topics that she was talking about. I remained silent but I knew it – I was going to fare very badly. On reaching the class, the atmosphere was extremely tense – just like it had been for the POJO module. 

Soon, the instructor came in and we all started taking the test. People were not lying; the test was tough and without any proper preparation, it was horrible. Before I knew it, the time was over and my test got submitted without my intervention. I was staring at the screen – I had flunked!!

-- To be continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.

"Scandagiri Hills" - Infosys, Mysore Diaries - #BlogChatterA2Z

 The next week passed by very quickly, we were all working hard for the JPA module. By Friday afternoon, we finished our exam and were all extremely exhausted. 

Myra, Arjun, and I met our college friends for lunch. Everybody seemed exhausted and hungry. After a few minutes of silence and frantic eating, people started talking. Manish who was kind of the leader of the boys said, “All we need is a good break. It’s been a while since we all went out on a trip. Let’s go a trip”, he said.

Myra and I looked at each other, we haven’t told anybody about our Coorg trip. We remained silent, Arjun who was sitting opposite us did not say anything too. 

“Let’s go to Coorg”, Teju said. 

My heart sank. 

“No”, Anusha said instinctively. Anusha and Swati also came to Coorg with us but they were sitting far away and we couldn’t communicate with them. I panicked, what if she blurts out about our trip.

Maybe, it’s not a big deal if we tell them about our Coorg trip. But we’ve kept it as a secret for so long and also lied about it for so long. Telling them about our trip now seemed like a bad idea. I cursed our stupid idea of keeping it a secret.  

 “Why not, it’s a beautiful place?”, Teju asked. Arjun was about to say something when Rishi interrupted.

“Coorg is more of a scenic place. Why don’t we go on a trek? It’ll be a nice adventure for a group of 20”, he said. Two or more people nodded. 

Soon, more people were warming up to this idea and I felt relieved.

“Where’s the trek?”, I asked.

“Near Bangalore. It’s called Scandagiri Hills, and it's famous for trekking and sightseeing. Its surrounded by the famous Nandi Hills. The specialty of Scandagiri Hills is that the hilltop is very close to the clouds. Once you reach the top, you’d actually be standing inside the clouds.”, he said.

“How long is the trek?”, Manish asked Rishi.

“About 4 – 5 hours, we can go for either sunrise trek in the morning or for sunset trek in the night. You’ll actually be near the stars at night but getting back might be tricky.”, he said.

We were all fascinated by this idea and decided to go on a morning trek. Our plan was to hire a mini-bus from our campus, start at 7PM that evening to Bangalore airport, halt at the Bangalore airport for a few hours and reach Scandagiri Hills by 4 AM. The entire trek would take about 4 hours, so we would reach the hilltop by sunrise. We would come back from the trek by 9/10 AM, have brunch and reach the campus by Saturday evening. We planned it such that we had enough time for rest.

“Get extra layers”, Manish said as we all started leaving from lunch.

We went back to our hostel rooms and I started packing clothes for the trek. I never went on a trek before and going on a trek with 20 people seemed exciting. 

At around 7PM, we all boarded the min-bus and reached the Bangalore airport. We stayed there for a while and started to Scandagiri Hills at around 2 AM. We were all sleepy but full of anticipation. We reached the hills at 3:30 AM. The hills were so high that I had to strain my neck to look at the hilltop. Would I be able to do it was my question? 

A person, supposedly guide walked towards us and we booked him for his guidance. There was nobody in the vicinity but the guide assured us that soon there’ll be a lot of people trekking the hills. Without further ado, the guide started walking along a pathway and we followed him. That path seemed straight forward with only a couple of stones on the way. I wondered if the trek would be as simple throughout. That’s when the guide started climbing the hill on all fours. Some of us stopped walking. 

“Should we actually climb the hill on all fours?”, someone said.

“Yes, seems like it”, Arjun replied.

“But it's so steep”, they said to which no one replied.

We had signed up for this, we had no other option than to do it. Soon, one after the other, we all started climbing the mountain. We slowed down at times but I could say that we were at a moderate pace. Halfway through, someone who was ahead of us shouted, “Don’t look down”.

We all looked down and I literally reeled. At that point, I realized what fear of heights feels like. I’d never been at such a height before and that’s probably the reason for my late realization. I found a lot of people experiencing the same. My mind completely blanked out but the logical side of me said – “You’ve no other option than to climb. Just keep going and don’t look down. Also, you’re not the first person who’d done this”

 Without a second thought and before my mind could trick me, I started climbing at a faster pace. I did not look back even though people from behind tried speaking to me. When we halted for rest, I only looked upwards. Finally, before I knew it we were on the top of the hill. 

Everybody started shouting on successfully having reached the hilltop and I joined them. And then, I looked around. It was breathtaking! We were actually in a cloud – it was misty all around and slightly raining too. 

I was still taking all this in when someone pointed to the sky. The sun was shining orange and seemed very close. It was magical. Even the most avid photographers took a while to take out their cameras.

 

Once the surprise set in, we started going around and exploring the place. The surroundings were spectacular, we got the best view of the Nandi hills. It is then that we realized how cold it was, nice that we wore all the extra layers. 

The cherry on the top was the tea, maggi vendors, and a clean restroom. We all had Maggi and tea and spent a while walking around. That’s when one of us spotted a temple, it was Lord shiva’s – I had expected this, there had to be a temple here. We went in one after the other and had a quick darshan.

After spending a good 1 hour there, it was time to go down. I don’t want to go into the details of our return trip but it was very strenuous to climb down the extremely steep hill. But we were still in the aw of what we saw upstairs and hardly any of us complained. Soon, we were down the hill and looked up feeling proud of our trek. 

After coming back to the campus, while limping back to our hostel, I still had a smile on my face. This would remain one of the best experiences of my life.

-- To be continued

This post is a part of the Blogchatter A2Z Challenge.