Rohan | Bangalore | Week 3

This week was also an equally frustrating experience at work. The permission for me to use my laptop at the office has still not gone through – as one person approves it, there’s another who still says no. To ensure I still get my work done, I”ve been going to the office for a couple hours every day just to ask questions, and coming back to the hotel very early and continuing to work in my room. Since we’re already at the halfway point of my internship, and we’re still having logistical issues, my boss, Venkat, suggested that I don’t come into the office for the next 2 weeks and completely just work from the hotel, so I wouldn’t be wasting my time traveling and sitting there for a couple hours before returning.

Since I won’t be going anyway, I thought I’d take this as a nice opportunity to spend time with family. I’m heading to Hyderabad (catching an overnight bus in a couple hours actually) and will be staying with my cousins for the next 2 weeks. Venkat was okay with this since I told him I’d keep in touch and give him updates on my work as it moves along. I have close to 25 immediate family members who live in Hyderabad, so I’m very excited to be going there. And especially for the delicious home cooked meals. And of course there’s a pani puri stand right by my house (best I’ve ever had), which I’ve frequented on a daily basis the last 4 times I’ve visited.

I also took the easy week at work to go see the sunrise at Nandi Hills on Wednesday morning with some friends who are interning here in Bangalore as well – the same ones that I got dinner with a week ago. Tuesday night, I went to their place and stayed over and chilled. Since it was a 2 hour drive from Bangalore, we promptly left at 3:30 am to make sure we’d get there on time. The drive up the hill was treacherous – it was dark, rainy, steep, and completely foggy (barely had 10 feet visibility). Just going 9 km took us almost 45 minutes. Once we got to the top (at about 4300 feet), the sun began to rise but due to the fog we really couldn’t see it. Just saw the fog light up all around us – which was still a really cool effect, but we were a little disappointed.

On the way back down, thanks to the fog, we passed the view in the picture below, which was simply breathtaking. It was really interesting how the two circles of fog were just circling around that one peak. It took me almost 30 minutes to capture this picture. With fast moving fog, we would have just a second or two of visibility and then it would disappear again. We drove back down, got some breakfast, and I finally made it back to my room by 12:30. I had gotten permission from my boss to work at home that day, but after not sleeping for the last 28 hours, I crashed immediately.