Million dollor snake!

Sand Boa, one of the common snakes found in India is usually seen in dry land containing loose soil. I heard a rumour a few months back saying that sand boas are sold for unbelievable price. Then I saw this news on news paper and a short report about this business on television a couple of times. Want to know how much it costs? The price ranges from 10000 Indian rupees to 3 million Indian rupees. Yes indeed! thats a jack pot snake! Was thinking for a while to search for one after i heard the price of this harmless species. hahaha.. But how to get started and whom to approach even if i get one by luck. Questions arise one by one. People say that there are agents who buy the snake for very low price and sell it to the final party for the maximum profit. The catcher of the snake from wild hardly gets 1% of the final price for which it is sold. I keep hearing such stories now and then. People say that they are bought by the pharma companies to carry research on a drug that is extracted from this snake and This drug can cure AIDS and cancer. Is this a legal business or smuggling or simply a rumour? If this is legal i'm in ;) But till now, i haven't heard anyone saying that he/she has got money selling that snake.

Justified or not??

My previous post about the existing policies in India gave rise to hot conversations between me and some of my friends and perhaps some unknown people as well. I failed to mention clearly about my idea of reservation. It need not be only for the lower caste people but it could be for anyone who is economically weak. There is no offense from my post for the poor harijans who want to claim reservation. And writing such a thing in my blog gave loads of feedback which will make me to think twice before i pen down. I hope i justified what i wrote.. As usual, I'll be back with my fotos, things happening around me.. Welcome back some time later..

India - A secular nation.... SAy what????

I never wrote anything on politics on my blog. But this is the time raise my voice. Every engineering graduate who passed out in 2008, 2009 and even who passed out many years back are appearing for BSNL exam thats gonna be held on 21st june 2009. All candidates are expected to pay examination fee of Rs.700 except the scheduled caste and scheduled tribes and physically challenged people. I agree to pay Rs.700 for the examination. But do you think that studying engineering is free of cost in India? Do you think that someone who studied engineering degree don't even have Rs.700? I bet there must more than 1 million applications for this and there must be considerable amount of people who applied for this job in SC/ST category. They don't only enjoy the benefit of taking the test for free of cost but also they get their transportation fare(2 ways) refunded. They can take exam anywhere in India and they get their fare refunded. This is just one tiny example. One needs pages to describe the total benefits or just read what is written in "Indian Constitution".Why is this government so inclined to the minorites? Does BNSL need Rs.700 from each candidate to conduct test? This is quite a big sum of money to conduct the test. Its not a big amount for me though, but for so many people it is, For every class from rural area its a big amount. This is not justice and toally unfair. A set of bull shit rules were framed some decades back. No ruling government wanna change anything to neutral just because their votes are as valuable as anything that you can imagine. Come on! lets all say that "India is the biggest secular country in the world".

Javvadhu hills

Hmmm.. Most of my blogs are about my traveling experiences. In recent past, i didn't travel anywhere except for one big travel from sweden to india :) A few days back, I went for a short trip to javvadhu hills, tamil nadu, india. I went along with my uncle who had to fix a police communication equipment in the top of highest peak in javvadhu hills. 3 other freinds accompanied us. We departed from chennai at 3.30. we reached thirruvannamali at 8.30. A jeep came to pick us from the bus station. It took about an hour to reach a place called polur which is at the foot steps on the javvadhu hills. We purchased vegetables, chicken and some snacks there. Immediately after shopping, we started to drive to the peak. When it was about 13.00 when we we just entered the forest limits, jeep broke down. Some tube got burst out and started creating smoke. It leaked about a kilometer before we noticed it. We came down the hill and parked the jeep in a safe place.It was unexpected!! But never got tired of that.. I and my friends started exploring inside the forest. No mobile phones were working properly. No proper signal. But manged to call some automobile technician with poor signal.
After having our lunch in the forest, we walked along a dry river. We were eager to see some water there but what we say was only boulders. After an hour or so I and my friends returned to the jeep spot. The technician fixed it! this was not the only problem with that jeep, we used to push it to start :) But even this was fixed with just a piece of waste cloth and the most important thing, a condom. The technician was looking around for some plastic or rubber material to wrap it around the oil tube, the driver came with a condom and asked if that could help? It worked. The tube didn't leak and even we didn't push the jeep after the technician serviced. He didn't change the batteries or refill it will distilled water. We all were wondering how a condom could save you from risks! The risk i meant here is your vehicle getting break down in the middle of no where.
We started to drive up the hill. At about 17.00 we reached Indian institute of Astrophysics. They didn't allow to us to take snaps inside. The environment was so pleasant. Fresh air, beautiful flowers, trees and soothing cookoo bird sound. I saw the biggest telescope in Asia there. The telescope had a mirror whose diameter is 93 inches. It was huge and the setting to observe stellar objects was massive as well. It was a informative trip in short.
At about 18.00 we reached a town called jamunamathur. We waited there for a few minutes and relaxed. meanwhile I and my friends went to buy some booze(my uncle didn't know that). It was long journey indeed. You see, we started at 4.00 hrs and still we didn't reach the destination. All the time my uncle was telling me about the rough terrain that we have to take to go to this place. The road was ok till we reached jamunamathur. Even after jamunamathur it was ok for a few kilometers. But for about 15 kilomters, the road was terrific. Only rocks and boulders and big pits were seen. Hardly we could drive at 15 kmph. In some places we even thought that jeep could break once for all.
After driving hard through that tough terrain, we reached the peak at 20.30. We had our dinner sitting outside the police microwave repeater office. The weather was pleasant that day. It showered a bit and strong breezes recalled the chill climate of sweden. For your information, we Indians say weather is pleasant if it showers a bit and breezes gently :) Never I will its a great day when its sunny in summer. I'm tired of summer already but yet i have to face the hottest month the year. Hmmm.. You may see my frustrations about anything in the middle of any topic you must get used to it. Well I was saying about dinner. The chicken gravy was toooo hot. I dont have to explain how hot it was. Felt like my lips were exposed to microwave oven. While eating we were eating out, lightning strokes were flashing. The clouds were in the same altitude as that of the peak. The lightning arrester on the microwave tower absorbs the lightening and releases to the ground. I could hear the charge getting arrested. It sounded like "phrrrrrrrr" when ever the lightning stroke and got absorbed. It scared the hell out of me. We all rushed into the office. Never in my life i faced lightning so near to me. It was not just one instant the lightning stroke. It was so close everytime and we heard that sound of charge getting absorbed. It got late and we all went to sleep. We had some plans for the next morning.
We 5 of us went down a kilometer to take bath near a well. We got refreshed there and started walking towards a small village called melpet. We say the oldest tree in asia. We couldn't get the exact info how old is that. But i remember once that tree was shown in television as the oldest tree in asia. people say it lives over 500 years and it looks huge and seems to live for yet another 500 years. we walked back to the peak as my uncle had to work. I and my friends ate our breakfast and packed our beers and snacks to go for adventure in the jungle.
We were expecting wild buffaloes, wild chicken, deer and lot more animals there but all we could see was only a wild lizard that could camouflage itself. I'm happy that i clicked a close up short of that lizard and its one of my favorite snaps. We went inside the forest along with the police chef. He is a local tribe. He took us to the village through the forest. We were little disappointed since we couldn't see any wild chicken or rabbit or anything of that kind for our barbecue :P Hmmm.. But we cold always buy chicken somewhere even in the forest :) The cook helped us to buy some live chicken. He then skinned the chicken. We barbecued it. We thought it would taste good but it didn't. Again this barbecue was just to make ourselves feel happy and give a feel of living in the wild. So i never bothered how it tasted. It was time to booze as well.I also had a 50ml bottle of the swedish pride "absolut vodka". I got used to that taste. I took a 25ml shot and gave the bottle to my friend. He hadn't tried shot of vodka before. He saw me taking the shot easily. So he too tried casually, he just made mr.been face. I laugh even now when i think about it. He didn't stop with that, he puked. That was one hilarious moment in that trip. It was time to move on. We started going back to the peak when it was 1700 hrs.
It was time for photos. Just before a couple of hundred meters from the peak is a nice view point of the deep valley. It was great time to watch the sunset. We clicked enough of pictures there. We all then reached the peak so exhausted since we didn't have proper food for lunch as our barbecued chicken was not good. We ate our supper and then dinner in a hour and spent the evening sitting in the office terrace.
The next morning we had planned to leave early as we all planned this trip for jsut 2 days but unfortunately the jeep would return to the peak only in the afternoon. so we had time to do something in the morning. We walked over 4 km to a village called chinna keezhpattu. One of the police chefs (local tribe) is from this village. We thought to meet him and get some jack fruits. The trees we saw in the wild didn't have ripened fruit. 2 of my friends wanted to climb up the tree and fetch some jack fruit. They cut a fruit and sent it down. It was so heavy it must have weighed over 25 kilos. The chef gave 1 more fruit. We carried 2 fruits. The 25 kg fruit was tied with a rope and looped inside a pole and I and one other guy carried with our shoulder. For every 10 steps we changed the pole to other shoulder. I felt the pain so much because i was taller than him so I lifed more than the other guy. We reached the village back and sat at the chefs house. The chef got another fruit for us which was ripened. We fulfilled our hunger with one full jack fruit :) We got our life back. We were totally exhausted carrying that jackfruit on the hill. The chef said to keep the fruit in his house and when we return home in the jeep we could get it from him. Remember there are no roads to his house as well. It looked like a night mare for us when we saw the fruit when were eating at his place.Fianlly we kept it in his place and left to the peak. It was noon when we started to depart from the peak. The driver left me and my friends in the middle of the forest and asked us to walk down a road. They drove the jeep to the village and got the fruits. We were confused at one point. We didn't know which direction to take. The roads diverged. None of the mobile phones were working. We didn't know which road to take. We then asked for the direction from a guy who drove a tractor down that road. We wanted to get down from hill. He showed the road the to take and we also asked him if he saw the police jeep on his way. H said no. Just after we took 10 steps, we the saw the jeep coming behind us. we took the jeep and got down the hill. It was late in the evening when we took the bus back to chennai. we reached chennai at 1.00 hrs. Felt so tired. Even now i'm tired of writing it this long :P