bakarapet

Jazz in the Jungle is a weekend in the hills/jungle about 40 km beyond Tirupati.  

Writeup on Jan 2008 Edition by Rail Jerker of the Dacca Hash follows:

Rail Jerker’s Diary

Jazz in the Jungle: Madras H3’s “away weekend”

When his parents named him Varanas Vishnu (Wee Wee) Reddy after a holy city and a deity, they no doubt had high aspirations about the conduct, piety and purity that their offspring will live up to. The Madras HHH has not examined whether their aspirations have been met; he is not even a member of the hash, though he has every credential to be one; but to them he is an avatar, a God-sent deliverer. Year after year he has hosted them in his jungle hideout, a. k. a. hunting lodge, in the forests of Bakarapet, located in Andhra Pradesh, a 5-hour drive from both Chennai and Bangalore.

THE JOURNEY

I joined the fourth edition of the “Jazz in the Jungle” on the weekend of 26th-27th January 2008. Sixty-seven of us were there - from Banglaore, Chennai, Hyderabad, and me from Dhaka. We were ready to start from Chennai at 7 AM, but at the last minute Coming in Pain changed her mind and wanted to take her two kids along. So, we had to wait outside her house while she readied them, and finally started at 8. We drove in two comfortable minibuses, some in cars, along the 4-lane North-South coastal highway, the milestone reading Kolkata 1667 km. On a cool, bright, Republic Day morning with an Indian tricolor pinned on to my T-shirt, I realized that these are arteries that help unify this large and diverse country. After about two hours we turned North-West on to pleasant country roads. Nearer the end we stopped for tea/coffee and bread/dal for the kids.

BRAVO KINGFISHER!

A barrel-full of chilled Kingfisher Premium cans was waiting for us at the campsite. Vijay Mallya of United Breweries Group has been a great patron of Indian hashdom for years. The beer was subsidized, and also a case each of Single Malt and of White Spirits was given. His budget airline Kingfisher is being amalgamated with Air Deccan. Did you know that together they fly 550 domestic flights each day? UB has also recently bought a share in the parent company of Carlsberg & Heineken of Denmark. Even if these two names appear in India, my guess is that Indian hashers will still prefer Kingfisher Premium. Dirty End took eight hours, instead of five, to bring the whisky, gin and vodka from Bangalore. He forgot to bring the booze, and had to go back to fetch it. The irony of it is that he is a teetotaler. A veritable hash hero!

CUISINE AND HASH

Jazz in the Jungle is not only a festival of running, beer-drinking and music, in a jungle setting, but also of gastronomy. A volunteer Kitchen Cabinet, comprising of Half Done, Tender Loins, Limp Dick, Once is Enough, Darling’s Choice, and TNT took over responsibility for all the cooking. During the preceding weeks, themes were set, menus prepared, recipes printed, and ingredients procured. On a recce trip a small team of local belles were recruited to chop and clean. I Don’t Mind did the artwork for the banner and the two T-shirts.

When we arrived at lunchtime, most of the Bangalore group had arrived; and the Hyderabad group had arrived early in the morning by an overnight train, alighting at the famous temple city of Tirupati, 40 km away. As Beep Beep, the guru of Madras H3 put it, “it is not just an event of MH3, but a regional gathering of friends”. Several veteran hash organizers were there, such as BFG, Half Moon, Flesh Trader, Hash Square, Obelix, Pervert Producer, Raw Sex, Rendu Kutchie, Scandihooligan, TNT and ZZZ.

After a light lunch of varied soups and sandwiches, it was On On! to the run – a single A to A trail, from the campsite. The trail went through an open field, shaded stony paths, bush, thorns, downhill and up, and rock faces, taking between an hour and a half to two. Walkers did take some authorized short-cuts, but none the less, it was a marvel of a trail, laid by the Bangalore hashers, Raw Sex, Pervert Producer and Expensive Night Out. For me, it made my 4,000-km trip fifty per cent worthwhile; a similar trail on Sunday morning laid by Hyderabad/Madras hashers, Obelix, Publishit & Good for Nothing completed the rest.  The veteran marathon runner, Doc (still a FRB at his age of over three scores) applied some balm on my minor bruises, and Wee Wee’s personal masseur helped soothe the limbs, as he did for others, harriers and harriettes alike.  

The circle took place under spot lights in an opening in the mangoes grove. It was ably conducted by Beep Beep, BFG, Obelix and Danish Blue. A group of local “artistes” provided some songs and dance in their lingo, which was more of a friendly gesture than entertainment. It was then time for the hashers own form of music, dance and food, making it a wonderful evening at Bakarapet.  

THE MORNING AFTER

At 6 in the morning, the cacophony of snoring and the intermittent wind having subsided, I came out of the dormitory tent to find a cold nip in the air, and Beep Beep, like me, going for the morning rituals. The occupants of the ground-floor of the modest-sized villa had not yet woken and the door was shut. Wee Wee had given up his room for the guests and was sleeping on the patio. He peeped out of his blanket and told us that there were two loos available on the first floor. At that moment Piss Artist of Hyderabad fame appeared, wringing her belly with both arms (not exactly belly-dancing) and making a sorry face. She claimed that her urgency was more than ours, and hinted that the “jungle meat” she had taken at dinner was the cause. Later, however, at the circle she admitted that it was not really a ‘run’ as she had pretended, but a one-time go. The chefs were getting the coffee ready to serve at 7, and TNT was preparing the ingredients for the mushroom and capsicum scrambled eggs to be served at 9. A cup of coffee never tasted so good!

A word about Southern fare. Not being a connoisseur of food, it was after the event that I learnt that veg delicacies are to be relished, each one separately with its own sambar and chutney, and not mixed up with poultry, pork and venison. However, this leaves something to look forward to and do it right the next time. 

My trash will be incomplete without mentioning my hosts in Chennai, Long One and the Satisfied One, and thanking them for their cordiality. Long One had recently completed the Singapore marathon, but opted out of the Sunday run on a ‘lame’ excuse. 

On On!

Juned “Rail Jerker” Choudhury

E-mail; nishatch@bdom.com

http://railjerkersdiary.blogspot.com