Fictional Udyavar :)

Sitting in an extremely non-stimulating Economics class, my mind simply cannot help wandering to the fact that there is a nice, long weekend ahead in Manipal; and for once with almost nothing to. Highly excited at the thought of running away some place nice for the 3 days, I start to consider the probable destinations. But, before that the task of convincing people to actually take off. My mind works on overdrive, I’m prepared for a small speech and everything; ‘We can finish college on Thursday, take off, spend the weekend elsewhere, wrap up and head back just in time to make it to the Monday morning lecture at 9. This is one of the best things about studying here, lets do this guys;’ just wait a minute; what am I thinking; please it is Manipal, almost everyone is looking for an excuse to have a good time.

The timing of the weekend could not have been any better; people all around me were extremely tired of doing the same boring things day in and day out and wanted to take a solid break from the hectic schedule of lectures, conferences, lab sessions and workshops; and what other way of ringing in the party mode other than the perfect weekend getaway as we MU students are undoubtedly keen on living life king-size.

Now the big question, where did we want to go? Goa- the beach, the booze, the bikes, the clubs and the absolutely delectable sea-food; prawns, kalamari, lobster, shrimp sautéed and the others around me are already salivating at the thought of glorious Goa, until the smart one pipes up reminding us of the current scenario post the teenage murder. Close patrolling, no loud music and closing of shacks before midnight, honestly does not sound all that great. A unanimous decision was made in a matter of minutes; we needed to move on to option number two.

Gokarna- a secluded stretch of sand, a nice bottle of Beer, a lazy dip in the beach and some good and easy to score grass for the boys! Sounded like the perfect option to our ears. We decided that was it and almost booked our train tickets when at the station we saw a bunch of our acquaintances; loud, annoying, opinionated, brash and so not funny (well u can pretty much guess by now that they were not our favourite people in the planet) boarding the train the very same place saying, ‘Arey yaar! Aap log bhi Gokarna aao, bahut mast lagega bey!’ (U guys do come to gokarna, it will be so much fun) What happened next is pretty predictable; a quick about turn and back to base one, looking for another destination.

Shimoga- the land of the reputed Jog falls, the biggest in the country. It was rather surprising that we had spent almost three years here without having been to the place. Since it would not be that time consuming, we decided to throw in Murudeshwar as well, spend a nice and quiet night by the sea-front and unwind at the resort there. Some of us were also keen to visit the temple there the next day and then we could head back Sunday morning and catch up on some sleep for the coming week. We call up NJ travels to sort out our entire itenary only to find out that the falls is not a very good idea with the weather being cold, rainy and unpredictable.

And we are back once again to the risingly familiar room where we sit down and brainstorm for what seems to be the fiftieth time in one day; you see we Manipalites don’t give up that easily, once we make up our minds it is almost as good as etched in stone! J

Then comes the bright suggestion of Udyavar- the native place of a friend of ours, we had access to a cosy house, warm beds, yummy food, a delightful boat ride across the river to reach the shore and of course Mattu Beach, the one place that can be aptly described as isolated paradise. We quickly make a couple of calls, rope everyone in and decide to take off on Friday morning. Five bikes, five pillion riders, a bag of sandwiches, a couple of drinks and lots of sunscreen for the girls and we are finally off- on what turned out to be one of the most memorable trips this semester.

So we did end up getting the perfect holiday; the sun, the sand, the drive and the best of all, good old Manipal company! For people here, the sky is indeed the limit!!