The Eripuram-Pazhayangadi road is about one kilo meter long and has a moderate slope which is increasing the speed of the scooter whose break has stopped working. If allowed to continue in its current speed, the scooter would enter the Pazhayangadi town and hit someone and cause a serious but non-fatal injury. The lady riding the bike didn't have much time to react. She maneuvered the bike towards the side of the road and jumped into a bush on the side of the road. The bike fell down to the road-side gutter. The lady's sari was slightly torn, otherwise she didn't have any major injury. No one harmed in this unfortunate situation where she had little time to react.

A lorry broken down in the centre of K R Puram railway over-bridge in the after noon is further slowing down the traffic through the narrow underpass. A traffic police officer is watching the broken down vehicle as if someone asked him to protect the antediluvian truck. It should have been in that state for more than an hour and it was not enough time for the police man to think about towing away the vehicle. This ascribed me to compare this police officer with the lady riding the scooter. This guy had a lot of time to respond to the situation and remove the burden out of the narrow road. But he is standing there like an obtuse dense.

Rather less eventful, yet exciting; that is the short yet precise description about the moonlight trekking at Antargange we did on the Holi eve.

We started one hour later than planned as some people were stuck in traffic caused by procession associated with the Eid Milad, the birthday celebration of a prophet who proclaimed to remove the obstacles on the street. A large number of Muslims celebrate Eid Milad to commemorate the birth anniversary of the Holy Prophet (the same day marks his death anniversary as well). And we have a government holiday for this which is V.P Singh's contribution to our public holiday list. My father who worked for QTel which is Qatar's State Telecom Company, for more than quarter a century, never had such a holiday. A large number of Muslims, do not believe in celebrating the birthday or death anniversary because there is no historical evidence that such was the practice of the Holy Prophet.

Coming back to the moonlight trek, it marked the first commonsense approved use of my long wished Valentine's Day gift. I wonder how embarrassing it would have been when the one walking with you, who appeared normal till the moment, suddenly started taking picture of the very usual things on the M.G Road (this, this and this) with great alacrity and pretend like it's once in a life time shot anybody can take. My dear friend you should understand his desperation of not being able to find any interesting subject ever since he got an SLR!!. My diligence to use the ISO 1600 helped nothing to alleviate this desperation. The snaps were as bad as if it were taken in my old Powershot A520.

To summarise the trip:

1. The sky was clear, the Moon was fully visible, Clouds were beautiful - all these remained true till 2 am in the night.
2. After getting my first shock of the day when the auto driver readily agreed to go by the meter and the fare came only to 90 rupees for a ride from Banasawadi to Majestic, Chandru's gaadi took me all the way back till the infamous K.R Puram Hanging Bridge as close to 4 km to my apartment.
3. Chandru's assistant JLRP accompanied this time as well. In his executive wear adorned with a collar tie, he looked like fleeing fugitive who ended up in Chandru's hand. There were two other known faces - Sooraj whom I met during Kottagiri trip and Neeta who is my team mate's room mate's class mate :-P
4.  After the hottest fortnight I ever had in Bangalore, climate is now back to its comfortably cool state. The night was even colder, As we started hiking uphill, I slightly started sweating. Sweating and still feeling cold is a nice joy. Though its a mountain trekking, I don't have to get tanned under the burning sun as is in the case of the daytime trekking. For those who still didn't get it, moonlight trekking happens in the night :-D
5. The view of Kolar town from the top of the hill was awespring. In the complete darkness, the shining Kolar town looked like temple decorated during Diwali, which I have seen only in movies.

From Antaragange



6. Like Abhishek Bachan (Delhi-6 Fame :-P ), I started hopping from one rock to another, until I felt some sprain in my ankle. After all I am not a Kala Bandar. I can't keep on jumping and hopping . But this new Lee Cooper shoe proved to be perfect replacement for my old broken pair woodlands. Good grip and very comfortable to walk as well.
7. On a closing note, we reached back Bangalore by 6, much earlier than predicted. It was the most Imanic trek as I wouldn't have to miss or defer any of the "compulsory" prayers

Those two confabs brought forth the essence of next two para. Later in the evening, quite coincidently the readings in similar line in the chapter "Many Crescents: South Asia's divided Muslims" of Edward Luce's In Spite of The Gods acted as a catalyst to the post.

It all started with a question about self-flogging practiced by some people during Muharram which in turn lead to a blatant admission of my ignorance about the subject. But I acted smart by justifying my proven ignorance on the subject by pointing it to the difference between Shia and Sunny principles. The next obvious question was about the difference which I didn't even have a vague idea about. It was a catch 22 situation - which was born first, me or my ignorance. A little bit of research about the topic revealed that the origin of Shia and Sunni was not on spiritual grounds but purely on political difference. When prophet Muhammad[PBUH] passed away, the question about the next leader came up and one group argued the leader should be elected from his companions,while the other argued that the leadership should go to his descendants. Over the centuries, these difference has grown to varying religious practices which exists today. The former is called Sunni's while the latter is known as Shias.

An innocuous joke about the infamous triple talaq suddenly popped up in todays coffee-talk. Despite the fact that talaq is originally considered as a necessary evil in Islam, it's the second most well-known axiom of Islam after jihad . Even if the scholars - who had clearly declared triple talaq to be considered only as a single talaq and it requires talaqs to be made in three consecutive iddah periods (1 iddha period is 3 menstrual period) for a divorce to formally accepted - had given any fatwa against triple talaq it wouldn't have gained much acceptance enjoyed by other fatwas on inconsequential issues.