Wondering, Wandering, Pondering

It's too hot to be doing anything! I don't get Summer vacation. It's wedding season. My teeth can no longer tolerate sour delicacies like आवळा (Amla), चिंच (Tamrind) and कैरी (Raw Mango). The number of treks I can go to reduces drastically. MSEDCL decides that Summer is the best time for power cuts. It seems that the whole country has migrated to hill stations like Mahabaleshwar, Lonavala, etc. The rain gods, in all their wisdom decide to re-enact the Ghanan Ghanan song scene from the movie Lagaan . Any free time you get is mostly likely to be spent recovering from the Summer heat. The only advertisements that the TV seems to host are of ACs, Cooler and refrigerators. This blog post is part of the  52 Weeks Blogging Challenge.

Is trekking* a sport? Many people get confused whether to classify trekking as such, since it does not exactly fit into the usual descriptions of a sport. In my opinion, trekking is a an activity which requires the trekker to make use of various skills and equipment. The trekker is required to have a good level of physical and mental fitness to participate in this activity. A trekker not only has to carry himself up to the destination, but also has to carry his equipment and luggage with him. This fact alone is enough to consider trekking a sport! Trekking may often make use of special equipment such as ropes, harnesses, carabiners and other specialised climbing equipment. As such, a trekker should have some knowledge about using such equipment. Trekkers may often come across situations in which they have to make decisions based on the limited information available. The best example I can think of in my context is choosing the correct path to your destination. Many a time, a path...

Discover Pune is a treasure hunt which has been organised by the Rotaract Club of Shaniwarwada every year for the last decade. This event is organised in collaboration with INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art & Cultural Heritage). One of my cousins , who is a member of the Rotaract Club, had been on my case to get me to participate in this event. This was the first time I actually managed to get a team together. Discover Pune is a treasure hunt with a twist. The organisers of this event always have some new rules or new factors which make this event much more than any regular treasure hunt. This year they had divided Pune into 13 regions (A-M) and had created a Revenue System. Each region had a set number of revenue points which were counted on an hourly basis, while each location had some Heritage points. These Heritage Points could be used to create/destroy capitals. A team could create/destroy capitals only when they had discovered a minimum of 5 locations. The advantage of...