Our New Year started off on the blissful morning of December 31st with a drive to a beautiful location hidden among majestic western ghats. So let’s go on this journey together.
We gathered at 5 and as usual, some of us were late and so as planned we left at 5:30 for a very memorable new year’s. With our 3 cars off we went to Chickmangalur not knowing what it had in store for us, As team KH drove in 3 different cars with only 14 of us, we had space around us and in our stomachs. Our first stop was at the inevitable A2B, no drive is complete without some tasty, oily South Indian food. After literally belting every dish there we were set for a 6-hour drive to our final destination ( don’t worry nothing happened to anybody).
When we left the restaurants we started off with some melodious English tunes and like how every drive turns into ours too quickly changed from “Watermelon Sugar” by harry styles to “Tumse milkar” by Lata Mangeshkar. A few 100kms later all of our mobile networks gave haath so what did we do? The medieval stopping of every auto wala or pedestrian and asking them for directions, trusting their directions usually helps but luck might have been passed out that morning, that their directions led us into a broken bridge, and I’m not kidding it was broken. It felt like an episode of khatron ke khiladi, but we made it out alive.
All that felt microscopic when we reached our Homestay: bilagali homestay in the Chikmagalur region. It was filled with lush paddy fields, open grounds, and crispy air. Personally, I’ve never had the oxygen that pure ever before, so I did feel different on the inside, it might have been the company I had but I think the air there had something to do with it. We were greeted by this lovely family that owned the farmhouse, they were so caring towards us that the second we felt that love, all we did was look at each other with a sigh of relief knowing that our New Year’s was going to be one that we would cherish forever.
Apart from their amazing greetings they also fed us with some finger-licking Horanadu food, some of which I can’t even pronounce. And we also had a few other godly creatures with us, yes you guessed it right. There were dogs!!! yes, plural. there were more dogs than fingers in my hands. After a tiring session of catch with Bagira( a baby Newfoundland). We took a jeep through the farm to discover a waterfall, our very own private waterfall. This day just couldn’t get any better, we had the ones we loved around us in a very scenic farmhouse with some amazing dogs and our own waterfall, it was everything anyone needed to live a happy life. After the waterfalls we trekked some more only to find a freshwater pond, just waiting for us to jump in and so we did. A blue pond under the blue sky did feel like a Mani Ratnam movie scene for one.
By the time we finished with this, it almost was night time and the sun had already set. So we decided to camp near the pond, have some snacks and some cold beers. The situation for our New Year’s was set, let me list out: campfire, tasty snacks, cold beer, Kuberans House family, shooting stars, absolutely no traffic along with some gratitude and relief that 2020 was coming to an end. We had the last half an hour of 2020 when we started our toasts and shared what we learned from this year and how we can adapt ourselves for 2021 and be ready for every bowling ball that’s thrown to your face. As it struck 12, we couldn’t have been in a better place. 2020 has taught us all how to love one another, so I hope you enjoyed how we celebrated New Year’s, in a beautiful farmhouse on the outskirts of Chikmagalur. Stay tuned for more of our stories of how we met and how Kuberan’s house, which was just an idea came out to be this huge success not just in our lives but for many more people all over this country.
