Final Transit

I was strolling in the park yesterday with my friend. Out of nowhere, a red maple leaf came flying by and landed on his hair.

“Oh …, I guess Fall is really here…!,” both of us exclaimed as I took the leaf off him and blew it away. It flew again for some distance and fell on the ground after what seemed like a brief but thoroughly enjoyable flight.

Red Maple Leaf

We looked at the landscape around and indeed it was covered with random yellow, red, golden leaves. Dominated by maple leaves but filled with such a diverse variety of leaves, so many shapes and sizes and colors, yet living together and yielding to the weather as a cohort. It seems so natural for nature to co-exist.

The green trees look colorfully dressed, like a forest on fire - yellow, golden, red, but it doesn’t matter. In a few weeks all of them will disappear leaving nothing but naked branches at the mercy of cold winds and snow.

So many things changed around me in last few weeks but I was too busy to notice.

::::

I had a strange dream last night. It was in the middle of nowhere. I was digging a trench. It was very deep. I spent hours and days digging this gigantic hole in the ground. To give you an idea of how deep the ditch was, imagine four elephants stacked on top of each other. The fourth one could barely reach the surface. Yes it was that deep and yes I was measuring the depth using elephants even in my dream (how geeky!)

I don’t know why I was digging.

As soon as the digging was over, I started filling it up. With bricks. Layer after layer arranged in a neat manner. I was building prototype of a city. So I started making little roads, houses, palaces, temples, gardens etc. In no time I created a model of a well planned city inside the big ditch. Being inside the earth, it was secret and sortof protected. The city looked very systematic and very beautiful, just the way I liked it - I loved my work.

No sooner had I finished admiring the work than I started throwing big stones on top of my beloved city from the surface above. One by one the buildings crashed, arches collapsed and gardens were filled with rubble. In no time, I had completely destroyed my entire city. For some reason, I thought that that was the natural thing to do.

Then I sat there, crying over the loss of my creation. (To clarify: I was crying over the destroyed city and not because I was the one who destroyed it.)

And then I woke up.

::::

A hundred more leaves must have fallen and mixed with the earth as I finish typing this post I have several useful interpretations of this dream, but if you do too, I would gladly welcome any insights.

cheers,
Priyank.

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Sun rays piercing through a blanket of clouds. Looks like a spaceship to me!

Picture taken: May 2005, about 13,000ft from the base of Kedar Kantha peak. Here is the travelogue of my [tag]Har-Ki-Doon[/tag] trek. The weather was changing so rapidly that within 30 minutes we had a hail shower, bright sunlight and then a wet spell. Needless to say, it was chilly, but unbelievably beautiful outside.

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A long walk

Picture taken: May 2005, about 10,000ft in Garhwal Himalayas. Here is the travelogue of my trip.

One of the interesting things about high altitude camping is the unique taste of the food. Above the tree line, water becomes more-or-less tasteless. Since Indian cooking involves generous use of water (from stewing vegetables to preparing dough), food cooked here does tastes funny. जेवणात चव उतरत नाही (the taste doesn’t sink into the food). Even before you hit the tree-line, cooking yummy food becomes increasingly difficult.

There are other operational issues:

• Due to low atmospheric pressure, boiling point of water reduces. So, water boils at a much lower temperature, for example, at the place where this picture was taken the BP would be approximately 90° (Rambodoc would say: “Its cool to boil water”)
• The only source of ignition is firewood. The three basic factors required for a fire are - (1) source of ignition, (2) Oxygen and (3) heat. The last two being less available, it takes long time to light a fire.
• More water needs to be used to compensate faster losses (moisture in the air is very low).
• Finally, food needs to be cooked for a longer time.

Why??

Consider boiling an egg. In the plains, water boils at 100° and it takes 5 minutes for an egg to boil (assume). At 10,000 ft however, water boils at 90°, and in order to equalize the heat (calories) gained by the egg, it has to absorb heat for a longer time. The cooks that I spoke to told me that it takes 25 minutes to boil one egg (boy! thats a hard-shelled egg).

Turning up heat will not make a difference. Figure out why

Baking food needs even more care, such as leavening gases in breads and cakes expand more, or an extra egg may be required to enhance bonding and strength. I have no knowledge about cooking meat though.

Can I cook the same taste food somewhere else? I tried using Distilled water once, but thats just one factor. Perhaps in a laboratory simulation, cooking few grams of high-altitude tasting food would be possible!

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