EXPLORING THE ARAVENU VILLAGE, KOTAGIRI

Our three days stay at Coonoor was about to finish and we were ready for our return journey to Chennai. We were busy with the final stint of taking snaps in the greenery at our home stay, that afternoon. We had still not thought about the suggestion given by Bala, our guide and cab driver, who had taken us around Coonoor and Ooty through the three days. It was to take the route running through Kotagiri to go to the Mettupalayam railway station.

We got into the cab and Bala took off through the normal route to the Mettupalayam railway station. That's when I asked him if we were going through Kotagiri. He told us that since we had not confirmed about it, he was taking the normal route. We requested him to take us through Kotagiri and so he turned and drove back for some distance that we had covered and then, proceeded towards Kotagiri.

Since this is a roundabout route, traffic is significantly lesser when compared to the normal route. The whole route has a beautiful canopy with tall trees standing guard on both sides. We drove through this canopy for a very long distance. I really wished that we got down and walked but unfortunately, we had not planned out our time for this scenic and quiet place. 

Bala told us that many spots on this route were popular cine shooting places. The place is so quiet and fresh, that you will find very little sign of human habitation, for a long distance that our eyes can scan. The different birds with their songs keep us entertained right through.

We left that place with a promise that we would get back and spend more time there on our next visit. It was an irony that we got to see the most beautiful place after the whole trip was done.

MY FIRST BOOK IN THE HANDS OF MY VERY GOOD FRIEND

It was in 2003 that I landed in Kolkata for the first time. This was as part of work. I had very few contacts there and they were in Old Kolkata. They were my very distant relatives. The work place location was pretty far from Old Kolkata and there I met a young man Vimal. He was my first point of contact there and with the passage of time we became friends. It was through him that I got connected to many other friends in Kolkata. 

After my dabbling with writing right through my school and college days, I had ventured into writing again with pretty serious objectives. sometime towards the end of 2000. And in 2003, I had just a small bunch of poems in my hand. My method of sharing these poems then was through e-mails. In 2009, I started blogging and thereafter , these poems got shared through Orkut. Later, with the advent of Facebook, the blog links got routed in there. And now we have WhatsApp, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google+ in addition  through which these links are getting routed.

Vimal was one of those very few who got to read those first poems that I kept distributing through my e-mails. 

Vimal, according to me has been gifted with lots of self belief and I could see that right then in 2003. He is a much younger man but he has truck loads more of self belief  than I have. There is a reason why I am saying this. After reading a few of my poems in 2003, he introduced me as a poet to everyone we met. I think it took a decade for me to believe that there was a poet in me. So many people had to repeatedly tell me "You have it in you", for me to believe it. Vimal had more belief in me that I had in myself and he was quick to spot it too. I remember presenting him with a book and a poem "Friendship's True Friend", specially written for him, when he left Kolkata for his stint in the USA.

Today I happy to see my first book in his hands in Denver, USA.