Nostalgia.........

Nostalgia.......the smell of good old days...........back to my childhood......... 

The beautiful clouds embrasing the hills

I'm presently residing at calicut; I had spent my childhood at wayand, hardly 80 km from calicut. I was remembering those days at wayand and sharing that with my wife on a sunday, it was a lazy holiday, we hadn't had any work apart from routine cooking, which we have finished already. Do you wanna see those places...!!!!???  suddenly I asked her, Her eyes widened with surprise..........!!! Really?? Can we go ???? The answer was another question....I do like driving a lot, that too to a place with a scope for photography. Wayanad is a beautiful tourist place....the places where we played and lived are busiest tourist places now....so a journey to there is definitely a mind blowing one...

 We were planned to go all of a sudden....changed dress....checked the wallet.....bagged camera.....grabbed the car keys..........yes the journey to the nostalgic memories started.....

Elephant bath

We drove through wayanad many times, but never felt to visit these places before...may have forgotten all those memories....but when we chat about that, it was too enthusiastic to visit these. We were actually enjoying the drive hence the speed was average...on the go we saw an amazing scene of an elephant taking its bath from the drainage!!! Not that dirty as you think....it used the water flowing through drainage..... after heavy rain...we were approaching the famous Ghat road- the entrance to wayanad...I remember the travel on bus through these Ghat road when I was studying away from wayanad, when the bus reaches wayand, the AC like climate will tease your skin sensitivity- I wanted to experience the same and lowered my window glasses to welcome the fresh air in to my car.

We stopped our car near the famous banyan tree which is believed that a ghost has been captured on that tree, there is a little history there about this....at the time of British empire so many have tried to build a road to wayanad but failed to find the way up between dense forest and hill, there was a tribal man who used to climb the hill as he know an easy way, hence the fellow who was doing this work has approached this tribal man and with his help he found the way, later the foreigner killed this tribal man thinking the fame of building the road should come to him. But later when the road became a reality no vehicle could enter to wayand passing the spot where the tribal man got killed, and somebody found that it’s the ghost of the tribal man who got killed is acting there and captured his ghost in a banyan tree with a big chain, and the chain is still there hanging over the tree and the tree hence named as “chain tree”

St.Joseph's UPS

We moved after obtaining some photographs of the tree and stopped at a small hotel to have lunch. It was awesome beef fry we got there with chapathi ..mmm...yummy...I always like spicy food and this taste is something finger licking one. We moved in to beauty of wayand I was keep on explaining her all those spots appear there and realised with wonder that I still remember this place as that of the school days....there was my school visible so far from the road and those memories  rushed to my mind and mouth, St.Joseph’s UPS Meppadi, where I studied from 2^nd to 7^th standard, where I was a arts club secretary won among 4 contestants for a majority of more than 150 votes, Where i was a scout leader who got selected unanimously when even my seniors are there in the scout, where i got elected almost a school leader and withdrawn myself saying “I cant come too early to school as I’m coming from one hour journey distance depending only on KSRTC bus”. A bit self praising??? Okay....we will move on...

We were approaching Kalladi a place where we used to measure the rain strength in monsoon....no .....I havn't worked with weather forecast department...that is the flow in this river will make us judge the strength of previous day’s rain. In our childhood when we go to schools we used to travel on bus for nearly 13 kms to school, and wayanad is such a place where monsoon at its highest in kerala. We used to enjoy those journeys by helping the driver to blow horn and the conductor by controlling the bell. Yes we do even helped them by pouring water from side by river to the heated radiator to continue our journey to school....the present day students can’t imagine all these types of things,...isn’t it???

The junction where the road to the whole world starts

The journey was on a narrow road between tea plants...usually my wife will sleep immediately I start my car but she never felt sleepy during this journey, it was so exciting.....we were passing those places where I had lived as a child, the places where we were waiting for bus to and fro schools there was no school bus at that time....only KSRTC...that too 1 per hour or more....meanwhile I showed her some quarters we lived. My mother was a staff nurse worked in the hospital of a tea estate, hence we lived in many quarter there as she got transferred to different hospitals of estates. 

My 1st standard school

Finally we reached a place where 

I studied my 1^st standard...she was astonished rather shocked by seeing my old school....she is convent educated with uniform tie and shoe with class rooms in terrace buildings.. and thought I am joking by showing some old building. But it was true there I started learning....and the funniest part of this place is that that was the last stop for the bus and as a 1^st standard child I always believed that the road of the whole universe starts from there!!!...as there is no road further...but another question was there in my mind, if it starts from here then where is this ending??? I got answer for this when I visited Kanyakumari when I was in my 3^rd or 4^th standard...haven’t you seen the road ends there near the sea!!!