This was the weekend that I enjoyed the most in US. My companion for the weekend was a consultant by profession, an instinctive poet by heart, who says life is just an imagination, who is radical in thoughts but never expresses them, who stares at life searching for its true meaning, who hates being caught in the boundaries of the society, who wants to revive the society and wants to live life on his own terms, Mr.Cool Dude! (in short Mr.Cool)
On Saturday of July 5th, after my interface monitoring job was done for the day and I was free for the next 24 hours we decided to go on a trip. I was thinking of visiting a new place, a cool place to hang out where there is no sense of urgency and away from this rat race of daily routine. We initially thought of visiting Lord Venkateshwara temple in Malibu, 60 miles to the north of LA and then drive to San Diego Wild Life Sanctuary 80 miles to the south of LA, considering LA as the midpoint of these two destinations. For some reason, common sense prevailed and we changed our final destination from San Diego to Santa Barbara, a historic town 80 miles to the north of Malibu. I started packing my stuff for next two days and was inconvenient in going to Mr.Cool's place to get his stuff. I was worried of other guests joining the party who do not match up with our frequency of thought and laid back attitude. Luckily, this guy carries an extra pair of clothing with him and we did not have to go to his place.
We visited the Lord Venkateshwara temple situated in the scenic mountains of Malibu - the place where Hollywood celebrities reside, even God keeps the company of celebrities hmm. As everyone does, we had our time praying, thanking HIM for whatever HE has given and asking HIM to grant our wishes that satisfy our needs and never satisfy our greed. Our Economics mam taught us "Man is a bundle of wants" (then what about woman?). We reached the kitchen to satisfy the hunger. As always our laziness dominated and we preferred to stay out of the queue, watch people around us and wait for the queue to end. Hunger made me think aggressively and the conservative Hindu in me woke up on seeing the females in the temple dressed in the modern outfits. I believe temple is not a place where one has to display the day to day fashion, it's OK to dress up in modern style if you are in a pub, disco etc., but not in a temple. For a moment I felt that I should be a Shiv Sainik and immediately bring in a law for the people to visit the temple only in the traditional outfits. However, the only thing I could do is to pray God, to gift my fellow Hindus sometime to think about there outfits when visiting a temple, no matter where they are. Anyways, common sense prevailed for us and we realized that there was no end to the queue, we troubled ourselves to stand in the queue and made it just in time to get the last serving of the curd rice. If not for the curd rice, we would have starved for the rest of the afternoon. After the blessings from God, we started our journey ahead to Santa Barbara, with no map, no GPS and without knowing what we will find there.
We made to the Pacific Coast Highway through the Malibu Canyon road, this route offers the beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean from the mountains of Malibu. I started playing with my new found toy and believe it to be a long time partner from now on for all the future tour programmes, referring to the new hobby that I am into, photography and my camera. We hit the north Pacific Coast Highway, the beautiful highway on the shores of Pacific with awesome views of the waves hitting the shores and the bright sunlight reflecting on the Pacific waters on one side and the mountains on the other side of the road. Mr.Cool is a big fan of Starbucks Coffee and we had our pit stop. As usual, Mr.Cool went for his tall chai latte extra hot and I preferred to have tall caramel frappucino. When we were relishing the coffee observing the people around us, two hot babes walk towards Starbucks from the opposite direction. Tring tring...we realise that there is a beach near by, made an about turn and made our way into the beach.
We found the beach to be crowded with lots of people, kids and babes ;-). Changed ourselves into shorts and a T-shirts, with a camera in hand made our way to the beach. Mr.Cool was in no mood to sit and relax, he went in for a swim into the waters and I was left with the job of taking pictures of the nature around. I found the birds near the beach interesting and spent lot of time picturing them, the waves hitting the shores and of course the obvious pictures at the beach made it to the list. Once Mr.Cool was tired of spending time in the water and I tired of admiring the beauty around, we decided to run along the beach to a distant hill. Left the camera and other belongings in the SUV and started with a mile long marathon. Ran for about half a mile, realised that we can make it to the end if we run, we started walking on the beach. On reaching the hill, I found some people standing on the cliff of the hill, as I always do, compelled Mr.Cool to walk till the top of the hill. Had the beautiful view of the ocean in front of us from the top of the hill, and cursed myself for having left the camera in the car. However, some beautiful things in nature need to be left alone without capturing. The beauty of the ocean was incredible and we sat there on the cliff of the hill watching the silent ocean in front of us. As it is a practice with me I shouted out my favourite quote "I love you" that was to the nature - 'I Love NATURE'. The beauty of the world, the nature makes me think about the days of the formation of the earth and the universe. I take sometime to thank God for having created such a beautiful place for us to live in. Mr. Cool was also lost into some serious thoughts. He was explaining me about his theory of the life being seen as a wheel that rotates and being at the center of the wheel or outside the wheel. Though his theory did not make way into my mind, as I was looking at the couple at the beach and was cursing myself having not found someone till now. :D
Walked back to our car, had some great pictures of the Sun hiding behind the near by mountains and bidding us good bye for the day. I assure you that sunset is one of the pictures that every individual who owns a camera wants to capture, I am no excuse for that. We had some awesome, magnificent pictures of the sunset. We met an old man who was playing guitar, living in his RV (recreational vehicle) with his pet dog. We had a chat session with him, he informed us that his ancestors were from Germany and he was a pilot. When we told him about our intentions to visit Santa Barbara, he gave us the inputs about the route that we need to follow and the places to look out for in Santa Barbara. He asked to visit "State Street" the most happening place in the historic downtown of Santa Barbara. Having received the route details from this person, we started our journey to Santa Barbara.
In about two hours, travelled for 80 miles and made it to State street in downtown of Santa Barbara around 10 PM. We had our dinner in one of the Italian as restaurants as the Indian restaurant was closed. My cool mate had some good time sipping the wine and talking the attractive waitress in the Italian restaurant. Apart from the beautiful waitress, the good thing about visiting any Italian restaurant would be the complementary bread that is offered. I consume the complimentary bread more than whatever I order. After the dinner we roamed around the roads of State street in Santa Barbara that was full off young crowd who were in there complete Holiday mood by drinking and dancing on the roads. State street had a number of night clubs. It is said that Santa Barbara is the place where the rich and famous live. Unfortunately we could not make it to any of the night clubs as our search landed us in a hotel that was away from state street and we were completely exhausted by the time we found the hotel at 2 Am in the morning, we preferred taking rest than going out to the night clubs. We settled in one of the expense hotels as that was the only source available to us, since all the hotels in the city were booked in wake of the long weekend. Not planning a trip in advance could be expense but believe me it will be adventurous and fun!
The next morning I woke up early and with my new found hobby of taking pictures, I spent time strolling on the beach in front of our lavish hotel. It was one of those rare holiday moments that I had spent, sitting at the Beach taking pictures of the waves, birds and people doing there morning walks. It was really a great holiday. The sun was up over our head by the time my friend got up and we had vacate the hotel after the breakfast. My mate and I strolled along the beach, along the colourful streets of the town and of course taking pictures. We went around the beautiful museums in the city and pictured the colourful / relaxed people walking, bicycling on the streets of Santa Barbara. Life seems to come to stand still in this beach town. Had our lunch at one of the Indian restaurants and I was particularly amazed to see curtains sold on the streets of the city with pictures of Lord Ganesha and other Gods, and the Hindi songs played on the streets. India going global! One captioned particularly drew my attention, "Desi Chori Videsi Gori".
Considering we had attend the office next day, we started our return journey early in the evening. But with the kind of holiday mood we were in, that wasn't going to be direct to home drive. We travelled along the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping at the beautiful and secluded beaches along the coast of California. We stopped at all the possible beaches, spent time in taking pictures and some of the pictures turned our to be the most beautiful ones that we had ever taken. Thanks to Nikon D40 SLR. I
I wonder our stay in California would have been incomplete if we would not have made this trip. Also think of this trip as a tribute to the long friendship that I had with my companion on this trip. We were great friends, who had many things in common in our outlook towards life and the world. It was a great disappointment to both of us for having not stayed together. Imagine the number of trips we would have taken if we stayed together. Anyways, we were happy and glad that we were together and we made this trip.
This great friend of mine bid me farewell with these three words "Be Brave. Be Strong. And Don't be Shy/Hesitate." Thanks mate. I will surely follow your words and will stick to those qualities. However, I sincerely miss you and wish you all the success in whatever you want to achieve in your life! You are great human being, one of the best that I have come across in my life! As I mentioned earlier in this post, the trip was a tribute to our friendship.
On Saturday of July 5th, after my interface monitoring job was done for the day and I was free for the next 24 hours we decided to go on a trip. I was thinking of visiting a new place, a cool place to hang out where there is no sense of urgency and away from this rat race of daily routine. We initially thought of visiting Lord Venkateshwara temple in Malibu, 60 miles to the north of LA and then drive to San Diego Wild Life Sanctuary 80 miles to the south of LA, considering LA as the midpoint of these two destinations. For some reason, common sense prevailed and we changed our final destination from San Diego to Santa Barbara, a historic town 80 miles to the north of Malibu. I started packing my stuff for next two days and was inconvenient in going to Mr.Cool's place to get his stuff. I was worried of other guests joining the party who do not match up with our frequency of thought and laid back attitude. Luckily, this guy carries an extra pair of clothing with him and we did not have to go to his place.
We visited the Lord Venkateshwara temple situated in the scenic mountains of Malibu - the place where Hollywood celebrities reside, even God keeps the company of celebrities hmm. As everyone does, we had our time praying, thanking HIM for whatever HE has given and asking HIM to grant our wishes that satisfy our needs and never satisfy our greed. Our Economics mam taught us "Man is a bundle of wants" (then what about woman?). We reached the kitchen to satisfy the hunger. As always our laziness dominated and we preferred to stay out of the queue, watch people around us and wait for the queue to end. Hunger made me think aggressively and the conservative Hindu in me woke up on seeing the females in the temple dressed in the modern outfits. I believe temple is not a place where one has to display the day to day fashion, it's OK to dress up in modern style if you are in a pub, disco etc., but not in a temple. For a moment I felt that I should be a Shiv Sainik and immediately bring in a law for the people to visit the temple only in the traditional outfits. However, the only thing I could do is to pray God, to gift my fellow Hindus sometime to think about there outfits when visiting a temple, no matter where they are. Anyways, common sense prevailed for us and we realized that there was no end to the queue, we troubled ourselves to stand in the queue and made it just in time to get the last serving of the curd rice. If not for the curd rice, we would have starved for the rest of the afternoon. After the blessings from God, we started our journey ahead to Santa Barbara, with no map, no GPS and without knowing what we will find there.
We made to the Pacific Coast Highway through the Malibu Canyon road, this route offers the beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean from the mountains of Malibu. I started playing with my new found toy and believe it to be a long time partner from now on for all the future tour programmes, referring to the new hobby that I am into, photography and my camera. We hit the north Pacific Coast Highway, the beautiful highway on the shores of Pacific with awesome views of the waves hitting the shores and the bright sunlight reflecting on the Pacific waters on one side and the mountains on the other side of the road. Mr.Cool is a big fan of Starbucks Coffee and we had our pit stop. As usual, Mr.Cool went for his tall chai latte extra hot and I preferred to have tall caramel frappucino. When we were relishing the coffee observing the people around us, two hot babes walk towards Starbucks from the opposite direction. Tring tring...we realise that there is a beach near by, made an about turn and made our way into the beach.
We found the beach to be crowded with lots of people, kids and babes ;-). Changed ourselves into shorts and a T-shirts, with a camera in hand made our way to the beach. Mr.Cool was in no mood to sit and relax, he went in for a swim into the waters and I was left with the job of taking pictures of the nature around. I found the birds near the beach interesting and spent lot of time picturing them, the waves hitting the shores and of course the obvious pictures at the beach made it to the list. Once Mr.Cool was tired of spending time in the water and I tired of admiring the beauty around, we decided to run along the beach to a distant hill. Left the camera and other belongings in the SUV and started with a mile long marathon. Ran for about half a mile, realised that we can make it to the end if we run, we started walking on the beach. On reaching the hill, I found some people standing on the cliff of the hill, as I always do, compelled Mr.Cool to walk till the top of the hill. Had the beautiful view of the ocean in front of us from the top of the hill, and cursed myself for having left the camera in the car. However, some beautiful things in nature need to be left alone without capturing. The beauty of the ocean was incredible and we sat there on the cliff of the hill watching the silent ocean in front of us. As it is a practice with me I shouted out my favourite quote "I love you" that was to the nature - 'I Love NATURE'. The beauty of the world, the nature makes me think about the days of the formation of the earth and the universe. I take sometime to thank God for having created such a beautiful place for us to live in. Mr. Cool was also lost into some serious thoughts. He was explaining me about his theory of the life being seen as a wheel that rotates and being at the center of the wheel or outside the wheel. Though his theory did not make way into my mind, as I was looking at the couple at the beach and was cursing myself having not found someone till now. :D
Walked back to our car, had some great pictures of the Sun hiding behind the near by mountains and bidding us good bye for the day. I assure you that sunset is one of the pictures that every individual who owns a camera wants to capture, I am no excuse for that. We had some awesome, magnificent pictures of the sunset. We met an old man who was playing guitar, living in his RV (recreational vehicle) with his pet dog. We had a chat session with him, he informed us that his ancestors were from Germany and he was a pilot. When we told him about our intentions to visit Santa Barbara, he gave us the inputs about the route that we need to follow and the places to look out for in Santa Barbara. He asked to visit "State Street" the most happening place in the historic downtown of Santa Barbara. Having received the route details from this person, we started our journey to Santa Barbara.
In about two hours, travelled for 80 miles and made it to State street in downtown of Santa Barbara around 10 PM. We had our dinner in one of the Italian as restaurants as the Indian restaurant was closed. My cool mate had some good time sipping the wine and talking the attractive waitress in the Italian restaurant. Apart from the beautiful waitress, the good thing about visiting any Italian restaurant would be the complementary bread that is offered. I consume the complimentary bread more than whatever I order. After the dinner we roamed around the roads of State street in Santa Barbara that was full off young crowd who were in there complete Holiday mood by drinking and dancing on the roads. State street had a number of night clubs. It is said that Santa Barbara is the place where the rich and famous live. Unfortunately we could not make it to any of the night clubs as our search landed us in a hotel that was away from state street and we were completely exhausted by the time we found the hotel at 2 Am in the morning, we preferred taking rest than going out to the night clubs. We settled in one of the expense hotels as that was the only source available to us, since all the hotels in the city were booked in wake of the long weekend. Not planning a trip in advance could be expense but believe me it will be adventurous and fun!
The next morning I woke up early and with my new found hobby of taking pictures, I spent time strolling on the beach in front of our lavish hotel. It was one of those rare holiday moments that I had spent, sitting at the Beach taking pictures of the waves, birds and people doing there morning walks. It was really a great holiday. The sun was up over our head by the time my friend got up and we had vacate the hotel after the breakfast. My mate and I strolled along the beach, along the colourful streets of the town and of course taking pictures. We went around the beautiful museums in the city and pictured the colourful / relaxed people walking, bicycling on the streets of Santa Barbara. Life seems to come to stand still in this beach town. Had our lunch at one of the Indian restaurants and I was particularly amazed to see curtains sold on the streets of the city with pictures of Lord Ganesha and other Gods, and the Hindi songs played on the streets. India going global! One captioned particularly drew my attention, "Desi Chori Videsi Gori".
Considering we had attend the office next day, we started our return journey early in the evening. But with the kind of holiday mood we were in, that wasn't going to be direct to home drive. We travelled along the Pacific Coast Highway, stopping at the beautiful and secluded beaches along the coast of California. We stopped at all the possible beaches, spent time in taking pictures and some of the pictures turned our to be the most beautiful ones that we had ever taken. Thanks to Nikon D40 SLR. I
I wonder our stay in California would have been incomplete if we would not have made this trip. Also think of this trip as a tribute to the long friendship that I had with my companion on this trip. We were great friends, who had many things in common in our outlook towards life and the world. It was a great disappointment to both of us for having not stayed together. Imagine the number of trips we would have taken if we stayed together. Anyways, we were happy and glad that we were together and we made this trip.
This great friend of mine bid me farewell with these three words "Be Brave. Be Strong. And Don't be Shy/Hesitate." Thanks mate. I will surely follow your words and will stick to those qualities. However, I sincerely miss you and wish you all the success in whatever you want to achieve in your life! You are great human being, one of the best that I have come across in my life! As I mentioned earlier in this post, the trip was a tribute to our friendship.
1 comment:
I Tried to understand your feelings. I am also with the same pain as you are. I am just helpless with the way we are our system is functioning. Even common people are not able to develope understanding up to level to improve humanity and so governing.
I thins i will take another 2000 years to improve understanding of common people.
I am sorry gentle man i have written 2000 years but i see no hope before that.
LOL
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