Enroute to Palar Trek

This trek is organized by the Govt. of Karnataka forest dept. It starts at M.M.Hills and is a 2 day trek. The first day halt is at Naagamale and the trek gets finished at Palar. It is rated very difficult by the website mysterytrails.com. M.M.Hills is supposed to be a pilgrimage of some sort dedicated to lord Shiva.

We all started from Bangalore on a Friday morning and it took about 7 hours by bus to reach from the Bangalore bus station to MM Hills. Given our large group it was a comfortable bus ride. We took a night halt at MM Hills and started the trek the next day. Accommodation is fairly difficult to get owing to the fact that MM Hills is a pilgrimage spot. One might want to plan this part in advance.

On day 1, we started the trek at about 11 in the morning. It was about 14 kms from MM Hills to naagamale. The first half of the trek was fairly easy as the terrain was relatively smooth except for a few areas. Given the higher altitudes, the climate is really cool and welcoming. We encounter a couple of dainty little towns along the trek. There are a series of uphills and downhills which aren't for the faint hearted. The first day though not very adventurous, was a spectacle to some breath taking views on the way to naagamale. There is a good spot where you can rest for a while and enjoy the view. The whole of the 14 kms to naagamale doesn't take more than 4-5 hours. So make sure that you stop regularly and enjoy any location that you might feel like enjoying. We reached naagamale at around 3, where we had lunch. We took some canned and ready-to-eat food fearing the worst. However there is a small hotel kinda thing that serves sambar rice. Post lunch we went to see the Shiva temple at naagamale where the rocks form a serpent shape around the temple. There are no guest houses at naagamale. We had to stay at a warehouse (Looked like one atleast!) where we slept in our sleeping bags.

The best part of the trek was Day 2 where we headed from naagamale to palar. We started at 7 in the morning when the sky was fully cloudy. The visibility was hardly about 10-15 meters. It was about 8 kms from naagamale to Palar. This route was a lot more complex than what we encountered on day 1 as we had cross 3 mountains. Treading the boulders we moved on towards palar. There was a good location to stop in the middle where river flew once. We rested there for about an hour and then proceeded to Palar. This part of out trek was far more challenging physically.

We reached palar at about 3 where we had to catch about 3 buses in order to reach Bangalore. It a whole different story once we reached bangi as it involved teachers and tequilas and what not!!

What to carry : Sleeping bags, Water(Lots of it), Some ready-to-eat food stuff. Tents were not really necessary.

Difficulty : Moderate

Whom to contact : The website provides all the details of the phone numbers and addresses

Overall cost : It was one of those cheap ones that cost you around 2000 INR.

The Fountainhead

The Fountainhead is one of those books that have stood the test of time. It has been regarded highly as a classic from the time of its publication in 1943. It has been read by the masses for over 5 decades and it has continuously been in the limelight, be it for controversies or for its critical acclaim. Fountainhead glorifies the concepts of individualism, self respect and egotism in its purest form. It denounces collectivism, the concept of altruism and selflessness.

Ayn Rand consummates the concept of egotism. You can find many instances while reading the book where egotism has been viewed as an ideal that truly propels creativity and ideal thinking. Self sufficient ego is what matters the most. If one doesn’t respect oneself, he can have neither love nor respect others. There are men who want to be great and there are those who want to be thought of as great. These men lead second hand lives. They live through the others. They are what the others think of them.

Beauty of the human body is in the wholesomeness. It hasn’t got a single muscle which doesn’t serve its purpose. Not a single line wasted. This beautifully explains the ideology of integrity. Though the backdrop of fountainhead is architecture, it claims that integrity is not the monopoly of artist but is the ability to stand by an idea which of course presupposes the ability to think. To think is again creating something that is your own rather than borrowing the ideas of someone else.

What is the one principle driving Howard Roark and his kind of people?

Honesty? Idealistic? Courage?

Roark possesses all those virtues hailed by the book such as individualism and egotism. His portrayal is what a man should be. The heroic in man was displayed through Roark. There are certain statements about Roark that I feel standout. "You are a profoundly religious man, in your own way". Religion, not in the usual meaning of worshipping at a temple but worshipping once own work is exhilarating. Austin Heller makes a comment on Roark where he tells him that he is too arrogant to boast. These are a little contrary to our general perception of the terms arrogance and Religion. I think that the beauty of fountainhead lies in the fact that it gives a whole new meaning to terms like self-respect, selflessness, altruism and egotism.

The heroic in man is not through the eyes of the beholder but through our own eyes. The true exaltation is when we can preserve our self respect and can look back upon a life of no regrets! The worst possible thing is not to kill a man’s self respect but to kill a man's pretense at it. In fact a quest for self respect itself is a proof of its lack. Man can survive only in 2 ways - By the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by minds of others. The first kind constitutes men like Howard Roark whereas the second kind is the second hander. Even though many people think that wanting nothing for self, which is defined as selflessness, is a virtue, it is actually a sin.

The power and the dominance of Roark are made possible because of a character such as Ellsworth Toohey. Toohey’s technique to capture the soul of the human being and make him addicted to Toohey was brilliant. It was due to the power of this character that we understood the true strength of Roark. Roark loved his work and he was punished for it.

This book has the ability to nurture extreme feelings. One can either love it or detest it. I always felt that there was no other feeling that could exist. Detest considering the fact that such an ideal world is unimaginable and is "too Ideal" to exist. It creates a feeling of loathe to self if we try to emulate Roark and his principles. Mainly because it is not practical and "because things don’t happen that way".

The reason it can create absolute joy and a sense of elation is when we can experience the success of a martyr fighting for a dying cause over all those second-hand men trying to suppress greatness of any kind, no matter however insignificantly small the victory may be. We get a feeling that the victory is our own and the feeling persists!!

On a personal note, there aren’t many books that have given me a sense of pure exaltation and joy while reading and an air of despair as I have reached the end. We are scared to express something that is not common place. It is that independence and that courage what the book showcases. It is the hardest thing to do in the world -- to do what we want and it takes the greatest kind of courage. Love, charm, kindness and charity are all substitutes. Competence has no substitute.