Coorg Trek — Dec 2018
It all started on 18 Sep 2018 when Hemant Ayyappant and I were in Bangalore and a bunch (large one at that) met in the evening to reminiscence about our time at TDICI (now ICICI Venture) and Gopakumar Menon offered to organise a ‘light’ trek in Coorg which all of us can go to. The idea, surprisingly, caught instant momentum and the idea started to snowball into reality. As always, a WhatsApp group was formed, guys were added, and the idea started taking a concrete shape.
Guru Gopa decided that we will go to a trek in Coorg, the dates were frozen as the 3rd weekend and people from outside Mumbai started making their bookings. There were a few dropouts, a couple of late additions and finally there were 15 of us who left Bangalore on 15 Dec (logistics planned and arranged by Sn Subramanya, and bookings done at Honey Valley Resort in consultation with Gopa, who was half the time out of Bangalore). It was an interesting mix of people -
1 x PE investor turned trainer turned wild life (and scat and spraint) expert (Gopakumar Menon)
1 x veteran PE investor (Sn Subramanya)
1 x CEO of an institutional PE fund (Ramakrishna Kv)
1 x Founder of a PE fund (TV Sunil)
2 x Partners at PE funds (Parag Dhol, K Chandra)
2 x PE investors turned traders (Hemant Ayyappan, Kumar GV)
2 x ex PE investors turned vela (1 smart — R Sampath, and other not smart — yours truly Snehal Shah)
1 x unique person who officially superannuated from a PE fund (Suresh Tumkur Shivanna)
1 X PE investor cum expert on renewables cum spices entrepreneur (Arun Korati)
1 x PE investor who was disillusioned with the industry and moved to the IT sector (Ajay Marar)
1 x PE investor turned advisor (Dinesh Tiwari)
1 x PE investor turned trustworthy investment banker (yes, this breed exists, though on the verge of getting extinct)! (Srinivas Baratam)
It was an interesting ride of almost 7 hours from Bangalore to Coorg, and we reached the resort (a nice functional place) at about 5 pm. We put our stuff in the rooms, and then had a nice “session” with Taliskers, 100 Pipers, Smirnoff, Betel Leaf Wine, and some soft drinks. The interesting part was talking about the old times and interesting anecdotes, learning some new English words (I still cant spell or pronounce them) — btw what was discussed in Coorg stays in Coorg! — and then a few of us sat around a bonfire after dinner.
The next day, we were instructed to be ready by 8.30 for breakfast and then leave for the trek. It was supposed to be about a 9 km trek and 3 hour trek one way. It was fun and pain and we finally reached the Kabbe Hill (we were supposed to have ascended 2100 ft — but the gross ascent would be 1/5 to 2x of that as we descended and then again ascended during the trek). It was a nice breezy hilltop — we had our packed lunch there and then started our descent. Some of us took a break near a stream, while others moved ahead. There were interesting discussions about trying to understand (and ultimately giving up) the rationale behind the new age consumer internet investing, stories about our trainer giving a valuable lesson (which was obviously unheeded) to one of the unicorn founders) and many more stories. The exception was Suresh Tumkur Shivanna who went for a golfing session!
We reached our resort at about 5 pm, then 3 of us went to take a dip in a small waterfall, and then all of us got together around a bonfire with our poisons and had a nice ‘besura’ musical evening!.TVS, Arun and Parag had to leave for Bangalore (busy guys!) so they took a bus from Virajpet. Some of us, before packing off, tried to discuss ways as to how to solve India’s agrarian problems:-)
We started back for Bangalore on Sunday morning at about 9. There was a snafu caused by our bus driver along the way and Ramki had an adventurous rush to the Bangalore airport via Mysore, catching a bus just in time — else he would have missed his flight, The rest of us had good fun along the way and finally 4 of us were dropped at the airport after dropping th Bangaloreans along the way!
As usual, the flight took off late, there were multiple cancellations and rebookings with Ola, and Hemant dropped Dinesh and me before going home.
Overall, a great fun filled time — looking forward to the next one. And I am sure there would be many more participants the next time!
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