three guys, a girl and a beautiful trip

this is to document my bangalore-kolar trip, starting on the 7th of june and ending this morning, on 12th of june.

day 1: june 7

early start at 4:30am just so i could make it to the airport on time by 6. we board our hopping flight to blr and after a bumpy flight we land safe at BIAL to see for ourself what's all the hoopulla about the new airport. it's afncy, it's clean n rather small :P

our next mode of transport was a volvo bus to the city and i must say the drive was pretty! we drove around, i'm assuming, the old part of the city which frankly was a bit of a let down considering i was expecting the silicon city to be swankier and smooth. this place was cramped, old and all in kannad! churches, convents and cemetries lined the road and when they thinned, the army took over. the houses were typically sufferring from a bad english hangover and the roads couldn't be wide enough to accommodate two of these high capacity buses! this is bangalore?!

finally we reached our destination by 1 and had for lunch the most unique paranthas...kannad style with sambhar! our tryst with the sambhar was only just beginning, as we were to discover much later. we were driven down to kolar, some 90 km away in what seemed to be a journey meant to tantalise sleep! exhaustion of the past week and the day was fast catching up but the bumpy road and lack of leg room kept us in between sleep and awareness.

kolar turned out to be the msot unexpected place...a protected defence area with luxury rooms! where we'd expected hot southern summer, we found cool coastal monsoon winds. where we'd expected run down basic student accommodation, we got pretty rooms! where i'd expected some confusion and awkwardness at being the only female around, i found receptive and supportive scientists who were more than glad to have a girl around and gave me my own room!

once we got down to business we kept our eyes and ears open wide to the incoming competition and possible glitches in our PoA. not to late to realise we'd found one...our final ppt got promptly left behind in delhi in one of the many pen drives we'd used all year round and considered unncessary for this trip! we didn't have a ppt! which meant we cursed, we shouted we cried and stay up the night! registration and briefing was where i first laid eyes on those who'd come this far like us and those who were judging us equally critically. also watching them was a girl. and like always i found 2 taller than i :(

the night was full of palpable friction and tension and frustration was just setting in. working with guys till late at night was a new experience and something i was sure i'd pull despite all my apprehensions and i must mention the guys made it much easier on me by treating me like a guy most of the time(i'm more comfortable that way) and like a girl when it was most necessary.