Vinay's blog hole on the net

Celebrating Pooja's 5th year Birthday!

2012-01-27T15:04:00.000+05:30

Jan 11th, 2012, Pooja completed 5 years!.

On 11th, Pooja celebrated her birthday with her school friends. On the 14th (Saturday), we had arranged a small birthday party in the evening which was attended by the near and dear ones, as well as her friends from our apartment.

This time, we got the cake with Pooja's favourite 'Chota Bheem' characters on it. Pooja wore a nice frock, the wings, the wand and the head-gear of an Angel and and looked like an Angel as well! We had a lot of fun with the kids playing a lot of games and dance!.

Overall, Pooja enjoyed all the gifts, presents and the attention she received, which made her day super wonderful! Thanks everybody for your wishes for Pooja and making the event a grand success.

Here are some photos and video taken during the event.

Pooja's 5th year Birthday, Jan 11, 2012

Visiting Mumbai - The Maximum City!

2011-12-31T23:45:00.002+05:30

As always, our annual year end vacation was planned well in advance. Most of our vacations have been to places which were clean and green, cool and comfortable, relaxing and fresh, but this time we choose to do something different. Quite contrary to the word 'vacation' we picked up our destination that was fast and furious, mad and metropolitan city of Mumbai, the Maximum City - The city that never Slips!

So between 22nd Dec, 2011 to 28th Dec, 2011, we toured Mumbai and other places along with Harish, Lavanya and Sanjana.

Here are the pictures from our outing. The complete travellogue is presented below.

Visiting Mumbai - The maximum city!

Day 1: 22nd Dec, 2011 - Thursday:
We took GoAir's first flight out of Bangalore @ 5:55 AM but actually got airborne only at 8:30 AM, due to low visibility at Bangalore Airport due to Fog!. Harish and family were to take the Indigo's first flight @ 6:10, but also got stuck with us till 8:30 AM. After getting rusted in the flight for more than a couple of hours, the sun finally came out and we were cleared to take off. We reached Mumbai by 10 AM and took the pre-paid taxi out of the Chatrapathi Shivaji Airport to YMCA Central @ Colaba. (Rs. 390).

During our 1 and half hours long taxi ride from Airport to our hostel, we got the glimpse of the Mumbai high-rise buildings, Traffic at Peak hours and the people at large of Mumbai. We drove past Dadar, Mahalaxmi, Mahim, Marine Drive, Colaba and finally touched YMCA Central. YMCA Central is in an absolutely beautiful location on the southern-most tip of Mumbai, a stone-throw away from Gateway of India and the Taj Hotel. YMCA Central is one of the older buildings almost a 100 years old, found that our respective rooms to be very spotlessly clean with , very clean toilets, working AC, Wall mounted LCD TVs and Intercoms. The huge floor had a huge Hall, as big as 2 full sized badminton courts, and housed 4 Table Tennis tables, 2 Pianos (Furtados!), a multi-gym, Magazine/News Paper section, a Diaz for in-house performance and a few chairs and cushions. Overall, a very comfortable place to stay. My recommendation for anybody who would like to visit Mumbai, please reserve your accommodation here. The price tag of 2K per day is a steal for the location, convenience, amenities that this institution has to offer.

After checking in, the drowsiness and the hunger struck simultaneously and went hunting for food. Just a minute away from our hotel was the esteemed 'Colaba Causeway' road, and we spotted a 'Kamath Hotel very close by. We ordered the South Indian Thali and felt sorry that we ordered it. For the taste and quantity offered, we felt it was simply overpriced (Rs. 110). We felt that they should named it as 'Khao-mat' instead of 'Kamath'.

We strolled down the busy and packed streets of Colaba Causeway and headed into Gateway of India and the Majestic Taj Hotel. Such an awe-inspiring sight!. Really, amazing. Especially, when you see the section of Taj that got attacked during 27/11.

After a lot of discussions, we finally picked up tickets for the ferry to Elephanta Caves right at the entrance barricade of Gateway Of India (GOI) and got into the ferry @ 3:15 PM. (An adult ticket costs Rs. 130.) We were initially advised that this place is not so great to visit and better to be skipped from the list of places to visit in Mumbai. But we took the risk and just hopped on it.

The ferry ride took us through the seemingly smooth waters around the South East coast of Mumbai. We went past a lot of Naval and Merchant ships, big and small. Also saw a plenty of High-end private luxury Yachts anchored in the middle of the sea. (Apparently it can be hired @ Rs. 5.8K per hour!)

The onward ride took us about 1 hour and 15 minutes before we reached the Island of Elephanta Caves. It takes atleast 30 minutes of walk from the point we got off the ferry till we reached the entrance of the caves. On the way, we passed through a long stretch of Piers where the authorities have laid a mini-train which runs half a kilometer from the point we got off the boat till the foot of the hillock. This definitely eases some strain for the oldies and kids. Next section is the upward climb of the hills, which has about 300 steps. Shops on each side showcasing fancy articles, curios, and eatables can be found all along the steps.

On first sight, Elephanta caves looked awesome. Contrary to popular belief, the caves are very well maintained and looked beautiful. The sculptures inside the caves are mostly disfigured, (many of them have broken arms and faces), but still is worth a visit. The biggest stone carving is that of the '3-Murti'. Had a lot of problems taking a photograph of this sculpture and found that I was not alone. For some reason, many other folks complained of the same issue that cameras were not able to take photographs of sculptures inside the dark. After a lot haggling with options on the camera, was able to get just enough a decent photograph of this carving.

There are supposed to be 7 more such caves spread across the island, but with very little time in hand and the sun dropping fast and our energy levels draining quick, we took some time to seize the moment at the Elephanta caves and then hurried back to our ferry already full and ready leave back to Mumbai. Anybody having doubts on whether to see Elephanta caves or not, I would say that you would be missing one of the most beautiful visiting points in Mumbai of the many the city has to offer. Highly Recommended and must visit.

On our return journey, we saw the setting sun with cool wind blowing across our faces in calm water. We took the upper deck of our ferry this time and it was a pleasure ride all the way back to Gateway of India. It had been a long day for us and more so for the kids. Fully tired, dehydrated with the Mumbai humidity, we could not pull ourselves anymore and by 7:30 PM and could not even stand for a second to take decent pictures in front of the Taj or the Gateway of India. We had our dinner at a local snack bar on Colaba causeway (Ramnath Snacks) and hit the sacks.

Day 2: 23rd Dec 2011, Friday:
Somehow, I was a little disappointed that I was not able to get a good picture of the Majestic Taj and the Gateway of India the previous evening. So got up a little early and ran upto the GOI. There was not a single soul in sight and the lights still looked breathtaking as it was in the evening. Setup my makeshift Tripod and spent good time with my camera shooting what I wanted to in that one absolutely magnificient structure of Mumbai!. I am so happy I did that.

After a heavy breakfast at 'Shakahari Bhandar' right at the junction of of YMCA and 'Colaba Causeway' road, we went back to the GOI and booked our 'Mumbai Darshan' daily tour operated by a Private organisation. Costs Rs. 160 per person. But the organizers collect Rs. 300 per person as part of entry fee for various other points he would be showing in advance so that you don't have to waste time standing the long queues in front of the venue and waste precious time. You have the choice to choose the points you would like to get into and pay the fees accordingly.

Our first stop was the 'Prince of Wales' museum which is now named 'Chatrapathi Shivaji Vaastu Sangrahalaya'.

At this point, I have been wondering what's with Mumbai re-christening all it's important buildings in the name of Shivaji. Agreed, Shivaji is the iconic Maratha leader and the founder of Maharashtra and in a way is the identity of every Marathi speaking person of Maharashtra. But somehow it does not make sense to rename every other building (constructed by Britishers) into 'Chatrapathi Shivaji'. The iconic 'Victoria Terminus' is now 'Chatrapathi Shivaji Terminus (CST). The Sahar International Airport is now 'Chatrapathi Shivaji International Aiport. 'Price of Wales Museum' is now Chatrapathi Shivaji Vaastu Sangrahalaya'!. Please, give me a break.

Anyways, the 'Chatrapathi Shivaji Vaastu Sangrahalaya' (grrrr!) showcases artifacts related the evolutions of man, civilizations, fascinating stone carvings and edicts, rare collections of artifacts of various royal kingdoms and their weaponry, dresses, (courtesy Ratan Tata!). Overall, it’s a must visit in Mumbai and the kids thoroughly enjoyed the museum for the animal kingdom section of stuffed animals, reptiles, birds and fishes. (Must see for kids and elders who have forgotten they were kids too once upon a time!).

The next one hour was a drive past the famous buildings of Mumbai. The public announcement system in the bus gave clear highlights on each of the buildings we went past. Mantralaya, Assembly Hall, Nariman Point, Hotel Oberoi, Air India building Wankhede Stadium, Marine Drive, Taraporewala Aquarium, (closed due to renovation), houses of Bollywood celebrities like Amitabh Bachhan, Rajesh Khanna, Dev Anand, Shahrukh Khan, Salman Khan, Rekha, Jakie Shroff, Farhan Akthar, Shabana Azmi. Sunil Shetty's H20, an adventure sports academy was spotted on the way as well. Sachin Tendulkar's house was a little tucked away inside in Bandra and we could only see the hind part of his house. Interestingly, Salman Khan still lives in an apartment that looked like a very decent accommodation not matching that of a Bollywood Superstar like him. Mukesh Ambani's multi-storeyed 'Billion Dollar Building was the cynosure of all eyes and this huge building offset from Peddar road was the most photographed!.

Our next stop was the Kamala Nehru Gardens with the famous 'Boot House' and the Hanging Gardens of Mumbai. Moment I saw the big shoe, I suddenly got my memories of my previous visit back in 1984, when I had come here when I was 9 years along with my parents. It was such a nice feeling to be back here. Its the same boot, same kids and the same feeling!. Nothing changed in 27 years! Pooja and Sanjana loved the place and we took some nice photographs of the view of the Juhu beach from the hill top. Across the street was the famous 'Hanging Gardens of Mumbai'. Apparently, the Brits constructed 3 huge container tanks for storing drinking water to supply the areas in and around Juhu. The containers were then concealed by growing trees and gardens over it and since the garden was 'apparently' not touching the solid earth (separated by the tanks), these gardens were called 'Hanging Gardens!'. That's some history right there. The tanks are definitely not in use now, but the gardens still give Mumbaikars of this area, some lungs to breathe.

Next to the Hanging Gardens are the Parsi 'Tower of silence'. After the death of a person from the Parsi family, the body is taken to a hospital where any organs that can be used are extracted. Then, the bodies are smeared with Honey, Sugar, and Ghee and laid to rest on the top of this 'Tower of Silence' for Vultures to feed. After a while, when only the bones remain, they are chemically treated that turn the bones into liquid / water which then is recycled into earth. The ideology here is that the human body should be utilized in every sense and should not go wasted. Parsis demand great respect from the society for this ideology.

Our next stop was the 'Orama 4D-movie @ Atria super mall'. As soon as we got into the theatre, we were given the customary 3D spectacles. A big pipe ran from one side of the theatre to the other on all rows and was wondering why. The movie started with a horror story of critters taking us through some dark and insanely roller coaster roads. Our chairs started shaking in-synch with the ride, water spraying onto our face every now and then when critters and other animals spit, lick on us (yuck!) and fans blowing hot and cold air on faces and legs as and when there is a movement of anything horrific. The kids loved it and so did the first timers too. But for the ones who have seen it earlier, it was unfortunately a routine and the cool AC being the only good thing about the movie. For me, I loved the ride at ‘Wonder La’ as it had a better movie and a better frightening experience overall.

We went past through the Mahalaxmi Temple which where we were to alight for a visit, but it being a Friday, (Lakshmi's day!), the crowd which started from the temple ran till about a kilometer into the main road. Had we wanted to take the darshan, it would have taken 4 hours in the hot sun and sweat and our tour guides recommended that we forego this venue in order to save the rest of day's visits.

Next stop was the Nehru Science Centre where we had a hemispherical screen with 3D Projection Camera. Movies such as the 'Animals of Madagascar', 'People of Tibet' and the great migration of animals in Botswana. The seating was very similar to the ones that are seen in a planetarium except the way of how the projector works. But overall a good experience for those who have not seen it earlier.

We then were asked to have lunch at the cafeteria in the same building and then to go around the Nehru Science Center artifacts. The science activities were very similar to that of VITM in Bangalore and hence did not spend too much time on it and used that for a comfortable lunch instead!. Pooja and Sanjana did get some time to do some funny experiments in the few extra minutes we got before we boarded our day tour bus again.

Our bus then took the Bandra-Worli Sealink which is a bridge that connects Bandra and Worli over the sea, saving 45 minutes. It takes only 5 minutes on a 4 wheeler to cross this gigantic bridge and considered as an engineering marvel (Read as : 'Indian' Engineering Marvel).

It was about 4:30 PM when we reached Juhu beach. This was the last stop and we got down here and spent some time going around the beach. Juhu is a mediocre beach, and plain dirty. But for the fun activities on this beach, it would be another place not to visit in Mumbai. Pooja and Sanjana enjoyed some beach side shopping of Airplanes and Parachutes and also played a round of Giant Wheeling. The Juhu Chowpatty Chaat Stalls are right at the entrance of beach and had a lot of stalls each one demanding that we check their stall out. And exactly the reason we had come over there!. So our team got on to the act of trying out every other type of Chaat under the sun. After tasting a some varieties and stall-hopping, all of us came to the conclusion that the Chaats were probably better off outside of Chowpatty than inside. The local stalls where we had our Chaats on Street ends, cafes all around Mumbai were definitely better than the ones here. We felt a bit disappointed that Mumbai Chowpatty did not have enough oomph to keep our taste buds happy.

We waited for the sunset and then waited for half an hour at a bus stand waiting for bus-route-no. 28 to get back to Churchgate (Colaba), and finally saw one coming, but fully loaded. The bus reminded me of the 'bar-magnet' that moved through iron fillings. There was no chance we could survive on that bus and immediately hopped onto a Taxi and reached YMCA by 7:30 PM.

When we got back to YMCA, there was a 'Piano' competition going on and about 20 kids who had come down from varios parts of Mumbai to participate were playing the Piano. The families of the participants were very well dressed and there was a huge gathering that night. I rested a few minutes to enjoy the music. The equipments used were top class (Furtados Piano). A first time for me to witness such a concert.

Got back to our rooms, had a quick shower and we were out again for our final event of the day!. First Day Night Show of 'Don 2' starring Shah Rukh Khan, Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta! Taking time to watch a move in the Bollywood capital of India is a must do for anybody visiting Bombay but getting tickets to a First Day Night Show was out of the world! 'Regal Cinema' theatre was a minute away from our hostel and we had purchased tickets for the night show while we were getting ready for breakfast before getting on to the day tour.

The movie itself was a huge disappointment. The storyline was very predictable (Nothing can happen to Don, no matter what the situation was). Knowing Don 1, Don 2 should have had out of the world twists and turns but what came on the screen was everybody's guess. I keep watching 'Chota Bheem' the famous cartoon series with my daughter where 'Chota Bheem' is this one guy who knows everything and will win everything no matter what the odds are. Don 2 and Chota Bheem are pretty much the same!. SRK flopped with Ra 1 and now it is Don 2. ('Flop 3' must be on the cards!) Sorry if I have disappointed any die-hard Shah Rukh Khan fans who are reading this, but Don 2 is an outright flop movie in my books. SRK should learn something from Aamir Khan.

We returned back to our den by 12:30 AM only to wake up pretty late in the morning.

Day 3: 24th Dec 2011, Saturday:
With 2 full days of hectic action, we decided that we will take the day a bit easy. Having our usual morning breakfast at 'Shakhahari Bhandar', we walked our way to Churchgate Station about a Kilometer and half away from YMCA. On the way, we went past, ‘Oval Maidan’, a huge cricketing field where there were atleast 10 matches going on simultaneously. Situated right in front of the Bombay's university building, the background makes a very beautiful ground to play cricket. Sachin Tendulkar must have scored a million runs on this ground for sure.

My perception of Local Trains in Mumbai was heavy traffic, suffocation, dirty, rusty colored coaches, fragrance of rotten fish and sweaty people. We reached the Churchgate local railway station and found the station to have become ultra modern and the local trains looked bright with interiors bright and steely. No rotten fish smell, enough air for all to breathe, and people smell better!. Thanks to the Deodorants. Infact, I am so impressed with the Local Trains of Mumbai that I wish Bangalore Metro attains the connectivity like what the Mumbai Metro has achieved. More on the Local later... We took return tickets to Bandra as big girls wanted to 'start' their Shopping. We were advised to go to Linking Road near Bandra and so we did.

Linking road is a heaven for shoppers for cheap cotton clothes, chappals, bags, shoes, leather stuff and other fancy items. After 4 hours of extensive shopping, and hungerstruck, we realized that we had crossed over from Bandra to Khar. We took an Auto rickshaw and landed at 'Vrindavan' hotel close to Khar railway station. The lunch was delightful. We took the local train again and reached Dadar terminal in 15 minutes. Came out of the station across the market, had a couple of Lassis and Chaas (buttermilk) and then took the taxi to the famous Siddi Vinayak Temple. Harish, Lavanya, Sanjana, Souji and Pooja completed their darshan of the temple, as I watched over the heavy shopping bags and the camera, which was not allowed inside the temple. The team completed their visits in 45 minutes and then we took another taxi back to Dadar from where we took the local towards Churchgate. We got down at Marine Lines station and walked a few 100 meters, right into the Queen's necklace of the acclaimed 'Marine Drive'. The most beautiful spot of Mumbai for lovely evenings. A perfect place to enjoy the setting sun and the cool breeze. The view of the Mumbai city lights from this place is simply awesome!. The dedicated wide pavement allows for the folks to slow down, take a breath and nurse their souls in their busy lives. Marine Drive is an amazing place to visit during the setting sun and till as long as the mind gets to sleep.

Tired of the day long activities, we took the taxi back to YMCA, had our lunch at the ‘Shakahari Bhandar’ hotel and rested for the day.

Day 4: 25th Dec 2011, Sunday: Christmas!
Got up late in the morning and after breakfast, took the taxi to Crawford market to do some more shopping. Next to it was the Fashion Street. Since it was the Sunday and the Christmas holiday, the shops were sparsely opened. We aborted the morning session of Shopping and took a taxi to Mumbai Central where we enquired about the trains and reservations to Lonavala and Khandala that we had planned for the next day. Post that, we went in search of 'Junka Bhakar' which was supposed to be a wonderful place to have the best Chapathi and Junka Subjees at down to earth prices. We did find one right across the main gate of Mumbai Central railway station, but the place looked like it assured a non-stop ticket to hospital considering the hygiene with which they were doing their business. So we skipped the place and the location and returned back to fashion street. Harish returned to YMCA with Pooja and Sanjana while I accompanied the ladies for the 2nd innings of shopping at Fashion Street. I sat down at the Bus stop post and spent 2 hours watching the ladies enjoy what they do best.

Later we walked all the way back from the Fashion street back to YMCA. On the way, we stopped at the Fort Area where we had the best Cane Juice in the world. The half glass full costs Rs. 5, Full glass @ Rs. 7 and Jumbo Glass costs Rs. 10! And the Jumbo glass is a full 750 ML (3/4 Liters!). Nowhere have I seen such pure and fresh cane juice at down to earth prices. We also had a couple of rounds of Paani Puri and Seva Puri before we reached YMCA. Later in the night, Soujanya and myself tried out the Arabian delicacy hotel 'Falafel's - The Veg hummus house' right at the junction of Regal Cinema theatre. We ordered the Original Falafel combo as well as the Hummus Meals. The meals had Pitas (a type of bread), Hummus (Chickpea paste), Pickled vegetables, a red sauce that was so hot that it can launch a person into outerspace, a lemon drink called Lemoneez and a Chocolate pastry (like the types of ‘Chocolava’ of Dominos). Overall the food was quite filling, and tasty as well. It was a new thing for us and we were happy that we tried something new. Would I want to try this once again?...Nah...I would go in for Mexican anytime!.

Day 5: 26th Dec 2011, Monday:
We woke up at 4 AM and got ready by 5 and reached VT by 5:20 AM. Took the tickets and got into the Indrayani Express at 5:40 AM. Thank god, we got seats and in no time we could see people standing and some sitting on the floor and foot-boards. Our train reached Lonavala by 8 AM and we had a struggling experience (the normal Mumbai style) as we were squeezed and pressed from all directions before being thrown out of the train with our luggage, but all in one piece. It was an activity that has to be experienced and enjoyed if one wishes to stay in Mumbai and travels by trains. Lonawala was pretty chill when we landed, but became warmer as the sun rose. Found a Udupi restaurant just on the entrance to the NH4 highway and gatecrashed. The hotel served lip-smacking idlis, powa, shira and dosas. We also booked a Tata Indica for the local tour of Lonavala and Khandala.

Our local tour started with a visit to the ''Raywood park' which had a temple of Shiva. The park itself was not a great hit and so was the temple. Next stop was the Bushi Dam. Streams that get formed from the valleys of the surrounding peaks bring in water into this man made reservoir and is a huge tourist attraction during the Rainy season when the entire valley looks green, unlike the time we visited where the hills looked grey and dull. The water level in the dam was about 30 feet atleast half less than what it is at full brim. There was hardly any water that was flowing out of the dam. Whatever little was going out was not making it a pretty sight either. The outlet actually runs through a series of small steps and during the rainy season, one can imagine that this would be an awesome place to visit.

Another point was the nearby Lonavala lake, a huge area of which less than a quarter area contained water. The cab driver told us that during the rainy season, when the water is full, and so are the people, there is hardly any space left to park the cabs around the lake and the small road side shakcs demand Rs. 100 for an hour to park it in front of their shop. As of now, the area looked desolate!

We continued further in our car which took us higher into the hills, where we saw a huge lake in the middle of a plateau and look quite stunning. This was the 'INS Shivaji' Naval training center, in the middle of nowhere. We climbed further up into the mountainous western ghats and were alighted at the Lion's point. This place was more of a view point that overlooks the valleys below. A hillock which looks like a sleeping Lion intersects the view from over the top and hence called the Lion's point. I guess the drop from the top of the hill to the bottom of the valley would be an easy 4000 feet!. Such an amazing sight and experience. It’s frightening that there are no barricades here and the ground has small pebbles that roll under the feet. So we had to hold onto one another to ensure that we didn't drop!.

We descended down the hills and moved towards 'Khandala' another hill station in striking distance of Lonavala. Our first stop was the 'Rajmachi Garden', where the kids spent some time playing the swing and sweating some energy. Other than it being a resting point, this garden doesn't have anything to boast, but probably looks great during the rainy season in tune with the beautiful mountains.

Walking distance away was the 'Rajmachi Garden' was the 'Sunset Point' which was not so great and a few meters away was the cris-crossing of Railway, Highway and the famous Mumbai-Pune Expressways running in 3-tier format that come out of one side and go through the tunnels underneath the hill we were standing. A good vantage point to feel the breeze and calm while watching the cars and the heavy vehicles zoom from one end to the other.

Since we completed all the tourist points by 1 PM, and we had the Cab till 7 PM, our driver suggested that we visit the new and famous 'Shirgaon Prati-Shiradi Sai Baba Temple' about 35 kms from Lonavala. We took the NH4 road that leads to 'Talegaon' closer to Pune and then to Shirgaon. The 'Prati-Shiradi' temple is supposed to have a replica of the Original Sai Baba Temple at Shiradi. The darshan happened in 15 minutes but the queue to the lunch took us forever. The dining room was huge 5 storeyed building, extensively decorated and awesome ambience, no lesser than a 5 * hotel. Food was served on posh dining tables! The only issue was that the other than the rice, everything on the menu had humungous amounts of garlic and we couldn't enjoy the 'Prasad'.

Just outside the temple was a school where all the students and teachers were busy either participating playing Cricket or sitting in the gallery of their class cheering their teams. A primary school that is supported by the Shiradi Temple and later learnt that the kids not only study here, but also live inside the schools as they were all orphans picked up from all over Maharashtra. The Kids were so engrossed in their cricket match and the pride they had on their faces was as much as Dhoni would have had when he won the world cup.

We came back to Lonavala and the last point on the way was the 'Sunil's Celebrity Wax Museum'. Rs. 100 per person entry fee looked outrageous till one gets into it. There were Wax models of Gandhiji, Nehru, Ambedkar, Rajiv Gandhi, Kapil Dev, Satya Sai Baba, Putparthi Sai Baba, Mata Amritanandamayi, Sri Sri Sri Ravishankar, Hitler, Michael Jackson, Angelina Jolie, Jakeie Shroff, M. S. Subbalakshmi, Chatrapathi Shivaji (of course!) and a few Mallu politicos. The best one was that of Anna Hazare which really breathed life!. It was so amazingly well done that nobody would believe that it was a wax model. I would bet a hundred rupees on it for sure!.

We were dropped at the Neeta Volvo Bus Point, where folks who prefer to get back to other places by bus are dropped off. This huge place close to the NH4 Highway has a huge building with retiring rooms, a huge bus stand, shopping arcade and a restaurant. We had done our bookings of the return journey over the Volvo as soon as we were 'thrown out of the train' when we reached Lonavala in the morning! Our return journey was scheduled at 7:30 PM. We did some shopping of the world-famous Lonovala Chikkis, Apricots, Jams and other stuff at the shops nearby, had some snacks and then got into our volvo. We got off at 'Sion' and picked up the local train to VT/CST. We ordered a few South Indian Thalis in a hotel nearby in later took a taxi back home. Lights off at 11 PM.

Day 6: 27th Dec 2011, Tuesday:
Lavanya had an episode of rashes due to something in the food the previous night and Sanjana had a fever and Harish did not get enough sleep during the day and hence they wanted to skip the morning session and asked us to continue with our tour of the day. So Soujanya, Pooja and I reached the Lion's gate of the Naval Dockyard on the way to VT in expectation that we could see the INS Vikrant which is now a part of the Naval Museum. To our dismay, we were told that it is open to public only on Saturdays and Sundays. So we contined to VT and picked up the Local to Andheri to do check out the place. As always, there was huge loads of people everywhere, and just opposite the railway station was a huge shopping market area. Soujanya quickly got onto the business, while I took shelter under a bus stand till she completed her activity. We walked to see if there was anything else and finding nothing interesting, took a taxi to 'Lokhandwala', another shopping destination. Lokhandwala was another street which offered a huge range of dress and dress materials. Most of our shopping was already over so this was more of a 'I have been there, I have done that' type of exercise.

We had lunch at 'High Point' snack bar and tried the traditional 'Sabudana Khichidi, Faloodas and Chaats'. All were excellent and were happy we made a good choice. We took the taxi back to Andheri, picked the local again and returned back to VT and back to YMCA. After resting for sometime, we got out to the streets of Colaba Causeway and walked the full stretch once again. Later we dined at a different chaat hotel and this time the Chaat experience was much better than the rest. We then slowly moved our tired legs to reach the Gateway of India and sat there for an hour looking at the majestic buildings, towers, boats and ships. We returned back to YMCA by 9 PM.

Day 7: 28th Dec, 2011, Wednesday: - Last day of the tour
We checked out of the YMCA in the morning and kept our luggage at the cloak room. After a good breakfast at Ramanath Snacks Souji and Lavanya split up as they wanted to revisit Crawford market and Fashion Street. So Harish, myself and the kids revisited the 'Prince of Wales Museum' for a second round. This time we spent a leisurely time at the museum checking out the artifacts in more detail which we were not able to do when we came here during the day tour. The kids too, enjoyed the museum. We later walked towards the Fort Area and again had a good serving of the irresistible Jumbo Cane Juice and then headed back to YMCA. Lavanya and Souji had already been waiting for us. We picked our luggage got into a taxi, bade goodbye to YMCA and Colaba in general and left for the airport.

Our return flight via SpiceJet departed a wee bit later at 6:10 and reached Bangalore by 7:20PM. We bade goodbyes to Harish, Lavanya and Sanjana at BIAL and then took the CityTaxi and reached home by 9:30 PM.

Overall Mumbai Experience:
At the beginning of our tour, I was of the impression that after the visit of Mumbai, I would accredit Bangalore as the best place to live in India. While that standing hasn't changed, Mumbai according to me, definitely takes the 2nd best city to live in India, and may be much ahead of Bangalore in infrastructure, history, convenience. The Local trains are so much better, faster and the connectivity it offers is unmatched. The food is cheaper than in Bangalore, Transportation is much evolved. Taxis, Rickshaws, Buses, Local etc...

Having said, the city's real estate is too costly to buy a plot and build a house. The population is exploding (12.5 Million and increasing!). The transportation systems are the nerve centers of the city and are currently stable but under increasing pressure. Any lapses will bring the city to a grinding halt.

Fortunately the timing of our travel was during the Mumbai's winter - Cool temperatures of (32 C) and lower humidity (35%) (Considering Mumbai standards). Even though we were sweating for the first couple of days, we got used to it by the 3rd day and did not cause much grief as we anticipated earlier. I am sure that would not be the case during the rest of the months of the year.

A couple of things that I could not get my head around in Mumbai Locals was the habit of jumping onto the train in a hurry when there were hardly any people in the platform other than themselves. We were getting off Churchgate and our bogie was completely empty and there were 5 people waiting to get in a hurry. They blocked us few people getting out of the train, pushed us hard and jumped into the seats when there were another 100 seats vacant. Looks like jumping and rushing into a Local train, empty or not empty happens reflexively. Found this a very odd behavior.

The other odd behavious I observed is the careless ease with which people spit right next to them whenever they choose, wherever they are and whatever they are doing. It appeared like 'Spitting is also my birthright' is a law here!

One incident that I loved in Mumbai happened while watching the 'Don 2' at Regal Cinema. We just settled down in our chairs as we got into the hall. The Cinema hall was just about getting full, the screen showed a few advertisements and then there was our Tricolour National Flag shown on the screen. In a split second the whole load of people chatting, talking on their mobiles, folks still searching for their seats stood up straight in absolute standstill attention. We did not realize what was happening and we got up too and stood along with the folks. In a couple of seconds, the National Anthem was played and everybody started singing it. Seems that this is a routine here in Mumbai / Maharashtra but something that is not in Karnataka. In sheer delight, we all sung our National Anthem with pride! It was such a great feeling to see that people if all ages, old and young, hip and shabby paid respects to our Flag and Anthem in Reflex!. An incident that I will never forget! I wish they make this a national standard across all parts of the country. I love Mumbai for this.

All my perceptions are based on the timing of my travel (during winter) and the place where we stayed (South Mumbai - Colaba), which is posh commercial area famous with tourists boasting wide roads, majestic old colonial buildings, fashionable people everywhere all the time, shops, restaurants, cinemas, museums, tourist attractions at stone throw distances. Had I stayed elsewhere in Mumbai such as Dadar / Bandra / or other places, and visited Mumbai during other months of the year, my perception of Mumbai might have been very different for sure.

With all said and done, we all loved the Mumbai experience and wish Mumbai is exactly the same way all across its width and breadth, when I penned this blog. At this point, if there is any other city I would want to live outside of Bangalore in India, then it would be Mumbai for sure!.

I would like to thank Deepa and Kitty for helping us with the reservations at YMCA Central. Thanks a lot, Deepa and Kitty! We loved the place and it was a pleasure to stay at YMCA.

Deepavali 2011 ! - My favourite festival!

2011-10-28T22:23:00.006+05:30

Deepavali has been my favourite festival 'ad nauseam'! The festival brings in the 'Kid' in us, new clothes, an atmosphere of happiness and just great feeling. It doesn't have a rigid pooja regimen or the hectic preparation behind it. Simply put, it's so much fun and frolic! Here's how we celebrated our Deepavali this year!

25th Oct, 2011 - Tuesday - Naraka Chaturdasi.
Celebrated Deepavali at 'Vinayadeep'. For a change, we decided that we will go out and explore the town, and see the world outside on a Deepavali day. We went around to Jayanagar complex and explored this part of town for the billionth time. Tried out the new food outlet 'Golmal Parathas'. 100% Veg and simply awesome taste!. Rs. 100 for a Paratha thali was reasonable considering the size of the Parathas, Quantity of Pulav and Subjees that came along. Taste was awesome and was a big hit with the family. So a good place to try out for anybody who have not been there already. This place is on one of the road that connects 4th Block complex to the 'Sapphire Toys shop'. (Bus Stand Terminal for buses going towards 9th block).

Raingods threw tantrums right through the afternoon dampening the festive spirit. Sarju, Sanjeev and Srivaali joined us for the celebrations in the evening and provided much needed company to celebrate bursting of crackers. Pooja, Srivaali and Nisha had a great time trying out their favourite crackers.

Deepu, Asha and Nisha joined the forces and literally put the entire street on fire!

26th Oct, 2011 - Wednesday - Laxmi Pooja
Soujanya had invited a lot of folks over to Chiguru for celebrating the 2nd day of Deepavali. Madhuri and the little 'Abiram' were the guests of honour for the day, accompanied by her parents. Harish, Lavanya, Sanjana, Parents-in-laws and my parents joined us for a wonderfully cooked lunch.

Laxmi pooja is the bigger Diwali for Traders, Businessmen and North Indians and the area around our apartments have a lot of these people. As expected, the evening sky was lit with amazing fireworks. I perched on the roof top ready with my camera to capture the evening sky as Bangaloreans tore into the sky with brilliant display of firepower.

27th Oct, 2011 - Thursday - Balipadyami
Soujanya, Pooja and myself joined back Vinayadeep and spent the evening with family enjoying another round of crackers and lipsmacking food.

That ended a fun filled Deepavali of 2011 and waiting earnestly for the next one to arrive! Love this festival. Hope you folks too had a wonderful Deepavali too!

Here are some select pictures that were taken during the festival.

Deepavali 2011

Vermeen's visit to Bangalore and BMS-Elec's Dasara get-togehter at Sanjeev's home

2011-10-01T23:57:00.002+05:30

Oct 1st, 2011, Saturday.

Vermeen had come down from Romania on a brief trip to India and took some time-off to visit BMS College friends at Bangalore. One of the pre-requisites of her trip was to enjoy an authentic South Indian Lunch apart from meeting us all.

Sanjeev and Surju hosted a 'propah' South Indian Authentic Lunch, and invited us all for a wonderful time off at their beautiful home. Archana and Shubha declared the dress code as Kurta and Jeans for men and Sarees for the ladies!.

Archana, Shubha, Vermeen, Tarun, Rekha, Navya, Naveen, Madhuri, Namitha, Janardhan, Sowmya, Srujan, Jaya, Sanvi, Jaya's cousin, Deepa, Soujanya, Pooja, myself along with hosts Sanjeeva, Surju and little Srivali, were able to catch up and have a gala time.

The event looked very festive and colorful. The ambience was just perfect and the kids had a great time as well. Lip-smacking food served on Plantain leaf tasted simply excellent and every bit delicious, thanks to Sanjeev's caterer! Overall a wonderful day to celebrate Dasara and catching up with old friends! BMS-Elec rocks!

Ramaneesh could not make it to the party and was dearly missed. Hope that the next time around he will be definitely be able to make it.

Here are some photos taken during the event.

Vermeen Visits Bangalore - Dasara Celebrations @ Nagehonolu

Independence Day Weekend Trip to Coonoor (Ooty)!

2011-08-24T16:10:00.003+05:30

Visiting Coonoor (Ooty) - Aug 13th to 15th, 2011

Taking advantage of the long weekend on the 15th Aug 2011 (Monday), Rajesh and I planned for a trip to Yercaud! But with no availability of hotels during the holidays, we researched other places and settled for Coonoor (Ooty). Thankfully, we were able to make quick reservations at Hotel Blue Hills, Coonoor and also booked the 10 seater MaxiCAB.

13th Aug, 2011, Saturday:
Rajesh and team along with Dodamma, picked us (Souji, Pooja, Anna, Amma and myself) at 7 AM on the Saturday morning (13th Aug). Breakfast was at Kadambam's at Maddur. Realizing the huge weekend rush, the hotel authorities has put up tents and arranged for buffet breakfasts in adjoining open spaces, and the touristers were more than happy for the quick services offered. We drove through Mysore, Gundlupet, Bandipur, Gudlur and reached Ooty by 2 PM. We decided break for lunch and also complete one of the sight-seeing places in Ooty before the evening sets in and then get back to our Hotel.

First stop was the famed Ooty Lake. The weekend rush could be seen everywhere and business was at an all time high. Street vendors, Lakeside hotels, shops and local businesses were full of people crowding everywhere. But the setting was still serene and the weather was very inviting for a good boat ride! So we picked up a 10 Seater Motor boat and did a good 2 rounds of the lake. Very enjoyable and kids, as well as Kids at heart, had a great time.

We saw the Toy-train chugging along the banks and the mere sight of a it was just enough for Pooja to push and pull us to get on for a ride. From Pooja to Dodamma, all of us got into the 'Children only' train and realized how much fun it is to be a kid and enjoy along with them! Realized how much fun it is to SCREAM when the train gets into a tunnel!

By the time we were done with all the activities in and around Ooty Lake, the sun had dropped and the cold weather was setting in and everybody said that it was time to get to the hotel which was in Coonoor. So we reached Coonoor by 7 PM and after a bit of searching, we finally managed to get to our rooms by 8 PM. We had booked 3 Suites and all of them were pretty spacious and comfortable. These were the only 3 rooms on the top floor and this was good as we were the only occupants of the entire top floor!. Also, the floor had an extended balcony which opened out to the valley of Coonoor town, making it a good view point.

We dined in the hotel itself and the food was quite tasty. Much better than the food was was this attendant/ server/crew, who was quite a character. This guy was definitely blessed with short term-memory. We named him Ghajini! This guy used to make atleast 10 trips to get even one order out!. This 'robot-in-clothes' was definitely inspired from Rajanikanth, but we wished he really had that 1 Terrabyte RAM. Despite very short and precise instructions, he made sure that he screwed up and got us what we did not want. For once we felt that we were greatly challenged with our collective abilities to get what we wanted out of him. He certainly made our stay very entertaining!

14th Aug, 2011 - Sunday:
Early morning Pushpa, Rajesh, Souji and I, went out for a walk through the beautiful roadsides of the winding hillock. The pure oxygen in the early morning was a quite a thing to feel. The road side Tea stall which served the masala tea was quite welcome and enjoyed every sip. We got back to the hotel and were ready for the day ahead at 9 AM. Breakfast was good and Ghajini's entertainment was even better as he outsmarted himself every passing day by 'raising the bar'.

Our first stop was Ooty's Botanical Gardens. This place has changed a lot (for the good) from the last visit I had made back in 90s. The grassy natural lawns which looked far and wide into the hills were such a treat to the eye. We spent quite a while going through the regular tracks, clicking photographs at every possible chance. Kids loved the place and spent almost till noon time. On the way, we stopped by for shopping the famous Ooty Home-made chocolates, Eucalyptus Oil and some Yellow Wild flowers that lives upto a month without wilting.

Starving for a good lunch, we went looking for a hotel only to find out that the whole town and all the visitors were standing in Queues to get to the entrance of the hotel!. So we chose the hotel based on the time it would take us to get to the entrance from where the Queue started and finally managed to get inside after half an hour. The linen on the table was dirty, but who cares when about those things when all you want is eat food. The food though was quite decent.

Next attempt was to get to 'Doddabetta' peak and we started climbing the hill and with the clouds flowing all over the hillock, the visibility went poor and the caused traffic jams en route. So we had to detour and on the way back found that there was a Tea Factory and View Point, which was good compromise to have taken.

The Tea Factory visit was quite a tour, where we got to see how the tea leaves get Cut, Turned and Curled (remember 'CTC' Tea?) and finally gets dried, powdered, packed and shipped. The sweetest thing was a free cup of hot tea which was quite tasty and badly needed considering that it was quite chilly and really deserved a tea break. A good way to market their product and which surely made us pick up a KG of the famous Elaichi flavoured Ooty Tea. The tea factory also had another building which displayed a Chocolate making unit coupled with a view point. By the time we did our rounds, it was close to 4:30 PM and the next point of visit was the 'Dolphin Nose' point.

'Dolphin's nose' point required us to return back to Coonoor and go past our hotel and 20 KMS further. The scenery was breathtaking with heaps of clouds coming down the hills. The pleasure of walking through the clouds is worth enjoying every second. We briefly stopped for a few minutes at a vantage point where we could see the ghats ending into an unending plateau. A really awesome sight.

We reached the Dolphin's nose 'Suicide' point and found it to be a very pretty place. The view of the water falls at one side and the green valley all around makes it a must visit. Apparently one of the dance song from the evergreen Telugu movie 'Saagarsangamam' (Telugu) has been choreographed at this very spot.

After sipping few pegs of hot tea under the cold and dark hillside tea shop, we hopped onto our van and reached our hotel by 8 PM. Late dinner at hotel and ghajini's entertainment kept us in good spirits.

15th Aug, 2011, Monday, Independence Day!:
We checked out of the hotel early and headed to one of the restaurants in Ooty for a good breakfast. The idea was to leave Ooty as early as possible to avoid the return journey rush back to Bangalore. On the way back, we got down at a hillock just outside the town of Ooty. This place had huge grass lawns completely natural and was surrounded by the most beautiful views all around. Sanjana, Vishal, Pooja also did a round of Horse riding while all of us took a while to admire the beauty of this location. The name of this location did not register in my head, but it is definitely not short of a beauty point. No entry fee, no nothing! And everybody will know what I am talking when they reach this point on their way into Ooty or when leaving. We spent about an hour before we got back on the bus for the long return journey home.

We retraced our journey through Gudlur, Bandipur and stopped briefly for lunch at Gundlupet and then reached Mysore by 4 PM. The traffic was heavy right from Ooty and on Mysore road it got even worse. So without a break we reached Bangalore at 8 PM. Thanks to the traffic, the return journey was a bit long and strenuous.

Rajesh, Pushpa, Dodamma, Vishal and Sanjana continued to their homes after dropping us all at our house. All said, it was a wonderful opportunity for all of us spend some quality time together. Dodamma, Amma and Anna joining the trip made it even more special and the kids loved the trip and the overall company.

The highlight of this trip was Dodamma, Anna, Amma were able to join us despite the potential Monsoon downpour, Cold and other weather related adversaries. If not for them, the kids and all of us wouldn't have enjoyed as much as we did.

Here are some select photos during taken our trip:

Independence day weekend trip to Coonoor!

Bheemana Amaavasya Celebrations @ Chiguru

2011-07-31T22:01:00.000+05:30

July 30th, 2011, Pooja, Sanjana and Nisha celebrated Bheemana Amaavasya at our home.

Pooja and Sanjana decked up their hair with long flower garlands and looked resplendent in their silk attires.

Here are some photos taken during this festival.

Pictures from Bheemana Amaavasya

3 day trip to Wayanad

2011-07-07T17:04:00.003+05:30

The past three months was very hectic in office and didn't get enough time to take the family out anywhere. Even though Pooja had her summer holidays, we could not take her out due to my official duties. Our Wedding anniversary celebration also had to wait till the first week of July till the launch of of a highly visible project at office. The successful deployment during the last week of June gave us a window during the first week of July to relax a bit before getting back to the helm.

Soujanya, Pooja and myself decided to make a quick 3 day trip to Wayanad and make up for what we missed during the summer. As usual, called up Netravathi Travels and hired a Tata Indica, the previous day and that's it, we were all set for a long weekend getaway!.

Day 1: July 1st, 2011, Friday:
(Bangalore - Maddur - Mysore - Bandipur - Gundlupet - Muthanga - Sulthan Bathery - Karapuzha Dam)

We left Bangalore at 6:30 AM and had a quick breakfast at Adigas@Maddur. We made brief halts at Mysore, Bandipur, Gundlupet, Muthanga Chekpost for taking pictures of the sceinic route. Acres of Sunflower farms, Elephants @ Bandipur and Deers at Muthanga were a delight to watch. We reached Wayanad's Sultan Bathery by 1:30 PM and headed straight to 'Orchid Resorts' which was recommended by one of my office colleague. The drive to this resort was kind of off track, lost in the woods and desolate. We checked out the room and found it to be stuffy and very dark. We dropped the idea of staying over there and returned to Sulthan Bathery and checked out a hotel in the middle of the town, but Soujanya did not like getting into a concrete building again while the sole purpose of our trip was to get close to nature! In our quest for finding something in the middle, we came across 'Pepper Grove' a KSTDC approved hotel, not too far from the town and not too deep inside and which probably had the best mix of Openness and Modernity that satisfied all our needs. The time of the year being an off-season, we were the only occupants of the 'resortish-hotel', apart from a security guard, a pantry guy, a person who handled the guests and a helper.

We refreshed ourselves at the hotel and after a super duper pure veggie special meals at a near-by Udupi hotel, we quickly got back on the road by 3:30 PM and head towards the 'Karapuzha' Dam (Karapulla), about 20 KMS from our hotel. Again, with the off-season kicking in, apart from us three, there was absolutely nobody at the Dam, a blessing in disguise to get away from the crowd. The overcast clouds and the mild drizzle gave us the perfect weather that we were looking forward too. The Karapuzha dam overlooks a few hills and has a very sceinic setting. We stayed for about a couple of hours covering every corner of the Dam and surrounding areas. By 5 PM our tired legs could not take it any longer and wanted to get back to the hotel. We got back to hotel by 6 PM and took it easy for the next part of the night.

Day 2: July 2nd, 2011, Saturday:
(Pookod Lake - Vythri Resorts - Lakkdi View Point - Soochipara Falls)

Next day morning, (July 2nd, Saturday), we were up early and after a heavy breakfast of Poori and Saagu, at the hotel, left for Pookod Lake, about 50 KMS from our hotel. On our way, we came across lofty hills, Tea and Coffee plantations, thin air and greenery all around. We were probably the first to get into the Pookod lake at 9 AM (probably even before the staff arrived!) and found it to be rather small in area compared to the other lakes that we have seen in the past. Nevertheless, we did our regular routines of Paddle Boating and shopping around the lake. We then visited the most acclaimed, 'Vythri resorts' which took us through 30 minutes of narrow, single lane, muddy and slimy road. After a long wait at the reception, the Operations Manager finally agreed to allow us (visitors) to take a look at their propery which otherwise is strictly for their guests. Post our whirlwind tour of this resort, we felt happy that we didn't book over there, considering the pricing, distance, and the hype around the resort. The resort is so remote that once you get in, it is very difficult to get out of the place and to see things outside the resort.

We then got ourselves out of the resort and took the sceinic route to 'Lakkidi' view point, one of the ghat-sections that has a great view point similar to Agumbe in the Western Ghats, from where the hills end and over look the city of Kozhikode(Calicut). The view was breathtaking and the elevation put us on a high.

Our next stop was the Soochipara falls, which was about an hour and half drive from Lakkidi. The approach to the bottom of the falls was very tiring. The winding steps of unequal heights made the 2.5 KMS trek through the hills a real pain in the back. Midway, Soujanya sensed something wet and slimy under her feet and when she removed her footwear, started screaming as her heel was filled with blood! On searching what caused the bleeding, we found the dreaded Leech sticking between the toes and happily bloating in size to glory. We managed to pluck the Leech out, but the bleeding continued till half an hour more. This was Soujanya's first experience with a Leech bite!

We reached the bottom of the falls in 30 minutes to open our eyes to one of the most beautiful falls, with water gushing from 20 meters. The place was just perfect for a wonderful dip into the small lake it forms around the waterfalls. The water was pristine and crystal clear. An amazing spot, not to be missed by anybody visiting Wayanad and worth all the pains it took us to reach the bottom. Climbing back was a real pain and demanded a lot of pit stops in between. By the time we reached our car, we are almost immobile. It was about 4 PM and really hungry. We got back to the Udupi hotel by 5 PM only to know that lunch closed at 3 PM and all they had was snacks. So we had to settle with what we had! The restaurant owner assured us that he will have dinner available from 7 PM to 10 PM and we could come back anytime during the period. We got back to 'Pepper Grove' and spent the rest of the evening relaxing. After about a couple of hours of rest, we were back on the streets of Sulthan Bathery shopping for some Banana and Jackfruit Chips, which are the must-buys for any visitors to Kerala. We hurried ourselves to be in time for the dinner at the Udupi restaurant only to be disheartened again as the hotel was 'out-of-stock' for meals as there was a huge surplus of visitors that day and they ran out of stocks by 8 PM itself!. After repeating the same snacks that we had 3 hours earlier, we saddled back to our hotel and nursed our worn out souls.

Day 3: July 3rd, 2011, Sunday:
(Kuruva Island - Kalpetta - Banasura Sagar Dam- Sulthan Bathery - Muthanga - Gundlupet - Bandipur - Nanjangud - Mysore - Bangalore)

The morning on Sunday (July 3rd) after a heavy breakfast of Dosas at Pepper Grove, we left for 'Kuruva' Island, about 50 KMS from Sulthan Bathery. Our KSTDC guy at the hotel gave us all the route information, what to do over there and all the details. As always, we asked everybody whoever we came across for the directions to this place and everybody cheerfully gave us the directions to the island. We went through amazing Areca nut plantations, Rubber plantations and Coffee Plantations as well. We did a quick pit stop at one of the Rubber plantations and gained good first hand insights into how making of the rubber for various commercial uses. After 2 hours of drive we reached the Kuruva Island check post kind of an office and an elderly person popped out with tickets in his hand and collected Rs. 5 for entry and let us in. We drove for another 10 minutes looking at the sign boards, which are quite rare and if they exist, very confusing. So ensured that we always asked another 100 people on the road for directions. We were probably 5 KMS from the Island, traveling for the past 2 hours that we met one of the 'well dressed' college student and on enquiry, got to know that the Island is closed for visitors since the months of May, June and July!. Well, we had driven 50 KMS and enquired with 50% of the population of Wayanad and none of them ever gave this important information and allowed us to reach the summit only to know that it was closed since 3 months! We any ways, drove till to the entrance of the Island, which was completely empty, the muddy river in full spate and floods. Not a pretty sight and a good experience either.

On our way back, we stopped over at a house which had a huge Jackfruit tree which was 'fully loaded'. So we asked the owner of if he was okay to gift us a Jackfruit. The owner gladly welcomed us, plucked the best jackfruit, cleaned and packed it for us, loaded it into our car, showed his house, introduced to his family and offered us home made chips! Wow! Such humble people! We spent some time with their family and gave a few pleasantries that we had brought from home and got back onto our car, with a faint smile on our face, which completely masked the disappointment of the Kuruva Island expedition.

Our next stop was the Banasura Sagar Dam which is supposed to be Asia's largest 'Earthen Dam'. On the way, we came across an open field with a huge gathering of youth in sporting uniforms. Getting closer to the crowd, got to know it was the Mega final of the 'Monsoon Mud-Football Championships' sponsored by Wayanad Tourism. Man! This was fun!. Watching two professional teams battle it out on muddy slush was absolutely awesome. Checkout the photographs and that should tell you all about this as the pictures speak a thousand words! By now, our faint smiles had turned into a full blown giggle.

We reached Banasura Sagar Dam by noon and walked up to the ridge to come across the most beautiful sights of the catchments lake formed by the dam. The cool breeze, the lofty peaks, the mild drizzle and the setting was too good to be true. A wonderful place to visit and a must see for anyone visiting Wayanad. We spent a lot of time, taking photographs. We found a makeshift swing tied to two jackfruit trees and Pooja had a great time enjoying the lengthy strides. After spending an hour and half, we hit the roads again to get back to the hotel.

We checked out of the hotel by 2 PM, finally managed to the super duper lunch at the Udupi hotel and started on our return journey to Bangalore by 3 PM.

We retraced the same roads of the Muthanga wild life sanctuary, Gundlupet, Bandipur and Managua. We got off at Nanjangud and made a quick visit at the temple of Lord Sreekanteshwara. To our luck, the darshan completed in less than 30 minutes and also got ample time at the sanctum-sanctorum right in front of the residing deity. Post that we quickly crossed the road to get a glimpse of the majestic Kabini river. A few minutes later, we continued again on our return Journey. By 6:40 PM we were at the Mysore Palace. We watched the 'Mysore Palace - Lighting of the lamps' event which commenced exactly at 7 PM and continued our journey again. After a quick stop over at Maddur for a light refreshment and 'Sulaimani Tea' at one of the hotels after Ramnagar, we reached Bangalore at 10 PM, after a wonderful 3 day tour of Wayanad.

The timing of our visit was just perfect as we did not encounter any torrential rains which were prevalent during this season. The overcast sky with the Sun playing hide and seek, the diffused sunlight right through the trip was a perfect opportunity for taking some good photographs.

Here are some photographs that we took during our trip to the Wayanad!

Trip to Wayanad

Supporting information for other travelers:

Dates of travel: July 1st ~ July 3rd (Off-season)
Total no of days: 3 Days, 2 Nights.
Total distance: 918 KMS (Bangalore to Bangalore)
Overall Approximate expense for the trip: Rs. 12,000 (approx)

Taxi charges - Rs. 6K (Tata India - Rs. 5.75 per KM + Driver Bata + Kerala Check post charges)
Accommodation at Sultan Bathery: Rs. 4100
Sundries - Rs. 2K (approx)
Sweet sense of rejuvenation - PRICELESS!

A day out to Confident Cascade Resorts!

2011-04-13T14:18:00.004+05:30

The Sunday of April 10, 2011, Rajesh, Pushpa, Vishaal, Sanjana, Deepu, Asha, Nisha, Soujanya and myself visited the Confident Cascade Resorts near Bannerghatta National Park and had a wonderful day out.

The outing was thoroughly enjoyed by the kids and highly recommended for anybody wanting to make a quick one day outing without much planning. The higlight of the resort are its 2 Swmiming pools, one of them under the canopy of trees.

Here are some of the select photos from our outing.

Weekend getaway to Confident Cascade Resorts

About the resort:

1. Confident Cascade Resort was well maintained. Good greenery all around.
2. Costs Rs. 450 + taxes per person (Lunch and High-tea).
3. 2 Swimming Pools. Well maintained and is directly under the canopy of a lot of trees. (One specially for Ladies and kids). Swimming costume is mandatory to get into the pool.
4. Showers and Toilets were clean and well maintained
5. Admin Crew members were helpful and polite
6. Lunch was just about okay, no big shakes.
7. Lawns were well maintained.
8. 4 TT tables and 2 Badminton courts (Indoor stadium) were all in good condition. Raquets and TT Balls were avaialble in excess and was of decent quality.
9. Kids Play Park with Swings, See-Saw, and others were not available due to renovation.
10. Playing Tennis was a costly affair:-> Rs. 100 Per person / hour. Racquet and Tennis Ball were provided by Resort.

Touring Rajasthan - Palace on Heels!

2011-01-02T01:32:00.008+05:30

This year's vacation plans were conceived sometime in August of 2010 and booked well in advance so that we got proper railway reservations. Flying turned out to be a bit expensive considering that there were no direct flights between Bangalore and Jaipur. Also for the fact that Pooja likes the train journey much better than the flights.

Starting the 19th Dec, 2010, 6 of us i.e. Harish, Lavanya, Sanjana, Soujanya, Pooja and myself explored the 3 J's of Rajasthan - Jodhpur, Jaisalmer and Jaipur, during our 10 day trip, returning back on the 29th Dec, 2010.

Here are a few snaps that we took on our onward journey to Jodhpur.

Onward Train Journey to Jodhpur

21st Dec, 2010, Tuesday, Jodhpur:
The journey was quite comfortable except that we had to leave our belongings under the care of thousands of cockroaches in our compartment. It was nice to see that Railways now gives bedding for every occupant of AC coaches. Toilets were flushed, cleaned and vacuumed more frequently by some 3rd party company and Hand wash liquid was replenished more than often which really made us feel comfortable, considering that the journey was pretty long.

We also got good company from a family which lives in Jodhpur and during our conversations, we made sure we took notes of what to see, what to eat, and other nuances around it.

Getting down at almost every stop on the train was fun. Poori and Subjee at Ahmedabad, cup loads of chilled 'Rabdi' at Mt. Abu Road was simply Ummmazing!

After a full 48 hours of travel, we reached Jodhpur on 21st evening. Quickly got into a 'big' auto rickshaw and zipped to our hotel 'Chandra Inn'. Threw our bags there, freshened up and were ready to see the City under the lights. The first stop was to the 'Soazti gate - Nai Sadak' which is the most happening place of Jodhpur when it comes to shopping or dining. We got down right in front of 'Janata Sweets Home', supposedly the best place in Jodhpur for sweets. We tasted 'Mawa ki Kachori, Pyaaz Ki Kachori and Mirchi Vada'. While the 'Mawa ki Kachori was a bit oversweet, the Pyaaz Ki Kachori was outstanding and but the winner certainly was the 'Mirchi Vada', which demanded another try. Just too good. Half full, we quickly crossed to the other side of the street into Priya's Restaurant where we had Parathas, Gol Gappas and Rajasthani Thalis (another hotel on the top of the charts for Pure Veggie like us). Oh! - by the way, Rajasthan is full of Veg Hotels, and is a heaven for Veggies. Way to go Veggies!

The 'Nai Sadak / Soazti Gate' is a street tailor made for Tourists with wide variety of shops ranging from Rajasthani 'Bandhej' sarees, dress materials, Camel hide Joothis, Souvenir shops and others. Perfect place to go when you have 'Master Card in your hand' !!!

The City lights, Beautiful shops, Welcome chill weather, brilliant hues of Rajasthan left us all with a very warm feeling towards this part of India. After a pretty long day, we got back to our hotel and hit the sack, after striking up a deal with an Auto rickshaw guy for taking us out on a full day tour of Jodhpur for the next day.

22nd Dec, 2010, Wednesday - Jodhpur
After a quick breakfast at 'Sukh Sagar' we started off our day long Auto rickshaw tour of Jodhpur. First stop was the 'Umaid Bhawan Palace'. Situated high up on a hillock, this beautiful Palace is still being used by the Rajah of Jodhpur, 'Gaj Singh II'. Only 1/3rd of the palace is opened for public and the 2/3rds are held by the royal family. The palace has majestic halls, corridors and intricate carvings. As usual, a lot of exhibits belonging to the royal family are displayed in the halls. Situated over the hillock, this palace looks stunning from far and wide when the lights get turned on during the evening hours.

Next stop was the 'Mehrangarh Fort'. Again situated on a hilly terrain, the walls of the fort are as high as 200 feet! Simply gigantic in structure, very well maintained and has some great vantage points providing breathtaking views of Jodhpur city from over the top. One could see heaps of houses across far and wide of the city, painted in Blue and is why city of Jodhpur is called 'The Blue city'. Now you know!

Next stop was the 'Jaswanthada', Cemetery of Royals. No big shakes here, as this was just one another spot with a small kalyani and a few cemeteries. After a quick pit stop for lunch, we visited the 'Kalyani Sarovar', a huge natural lake formed in the valley of 2 hillocks. The last one on the tourist map was the 'Mandore Bagh', a government park, with huge area of greens, trees and thousands of 'black faced, long tailed Langoors'. Pooja and Sanjana were greatly amused with the rendezvous with their tailed cousins. Mandore Bagh also features a few other temples in Jodhpuri and Jain Architecture. Just outside this park was the 'Jal Jeera' gaadi with a Earthen Pot fully decorated with Pudina, Nimboo, and various types of masalas. Just the look of it was mouth watering and not to mention that each of us slurped a gallon.

The sun just set, so we hit back to the hotel, freshened up and again hit the Nai-Sadak, for a second visit to munch the Mirchi Vada, Pyaaz ki kachori and the Rajasthani Special Thali!. Later that night, we boarded the train to Jaisalmer, our next destination.

Here are some of the snaps that we took during our tour of Jodhpur.

Jodhpur

23rd Dec, 2010, Thursday - Jaisalmer
After about 5~6 hours of overnight journey, we reached Jaisalmer by about 4:30 AM in the morning. Pretty Chill, it must have been around 5~6 Deg C. We were fully under wraps and literally frozen. Thankfully, the hotel folks where we planned to stay had sent across a cab to pick us up from the railway station. We stayed at the 'Siddhi Vinayak Hotel' (With 'Roof top Swimming Pool' as they advertised). Room was pretty cozy and neat, and the crew were very helpful, friendly and supportive. They helped us plan our day by making arrangements for the city tour of important monuments and also for the Package tour to the Desert Sands. A Chevy Tavera was given at our disposal for the whole day.

A heavy breakfast (complimentary) of Alu Parathas, Bread, Butter and Jam, we gathered enough steam to explore one of the most beautiful places of Rajasthan. Jaisalmer is also called a as the 'The Golden City' as a reflection of the colour if the sand, forts and monuments. Now you know again!.

First stop was the Jaisalmer Fort, (A.k.a. Swarnanagari). This fort was different in a way compared to that of the Mehrangarh fort in Jodhpur as this fort is a 'Living fort'. About 5000 families continue to live inside this fort and this fort is a City in itself, with its own Schools, Temples, Clinics and Bazaars. The entire roads and gullies of this fort has various vendors and hawkers displaying and selling their artifacts. One can see the rich colours of the Rajasthan heritage in their dressing styles, the items for sale, the colour of the walls of the fort and the soil itself. Amazingly colourful! It was a great sight to see Musicians singing, playing Sarangi (the famed stringed musical instrument of Rajasthan). Pay them a few rupees and they will sing the Rajasthani songs in perfect Hindustani Classical Style!. Wish these folks knew of reality shows such as 'Meri Awaaz suno / Indian Idol' etc ...). The streets are adorned with folks selling Jeweleries, Colourfull Puppets, Dress materials, Bedspreads, Bags, Chappals, Joothis, unmistakable Rajasthani Pagdis(head gear) in resplendent colours and many more, all in traditional Rajasthani style and culture. A treat for any visitor, Indian or otherwise. A great place to shop if you know how to bargain!. One will really feel delighted to walk these forts with so much to see and explore. The forts encircle a lot of shops, temples and housing colonies. We also visited the Jain Mandir with intricate carvings on all sides and from top to bottom. There are so many such things to see around that one will need to use the process of elimination in order to be satisfied with the choices at hand. A small gully lead us to a huge 'Bronze Canon' placed on the edge of the fort overlooking the city of Jaisalmer. This spot gives a panoramic view of this Amazing city of Jaisalmer from over the top. The feeling is such delightful that it can only be perceived can cannot be expressed in words. While the pictures speaks a thousand words, it still does not do justice to being there in person!

The next stop was the 'Ghadisar Lake'. A beautiful lake surrounded by temples all around. We hired a paddling boat and enjoyed boating under the warm sun. Great views of the temples built in the middle of the lake and at the entrance to the lake. Worth the visit as Kids enjoyed the boat ride to the maximum.

Next stop was at the 'Patwon Ki Haveli'. Apparently 'Patwa' is one of the tribes of the Royals of Jaisalmer and they have their Havelis / Bungalows constructed in the city. They are very similar to the Havelis seen in the movie 'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam'. (Much more compact and crowded than that shown in the movie). Again, the kind of craftsmanship of the artisans who made such stunning bungalows is simply amazing. Its impossible to even describe the intricacy of the design and will let the photos do the talking.

A super-duper lunch at 'Riddhi Shiddi' a hotel suggested by our Driver as the best of the best in Jaisalmer for having an authentic Jaisalmeri / Rajasthani lunch. The special lunch offered us 'Desert Beans curry, Bajra Rotis, Kadi, Lassi and other Subjees and gave us a sample of the Jaisalmeri dishes. We quickly got back to our hotel and got ready for the next big thing of visiting the Thar Desert, the acclaimed 'Sam Sand Dunes' and the Desert camp.

We got back on the car and left for the Desert. The land terrain changes drastically and suddenly turns barren with only little shrubs here and there. That too because Jaisalmer had received 'over the average' rainfall this year. A totally flat, wide and zero traffic road that took 45 minutes into the drive with no civilization in between and then we reached a point where we saw a huge gathering of camels and loads of people. We got down and our Camp co-ordinator gave each of our families a camel to ride! Soujanya, Pooja and myself jumped onto one of the squatting camels with hardly any difficulties. The camel's lift off was pretty scary as the tall animal that camel is, lifted its hind and threw us up in the air. While Pooja and myself enjoyed the lift off, Souji was petrified and had to be consoled to hold on and continue.

Sitting on the Camel was fun! The person in the front enjoys the view, but has nothing else to hold onto, other than a tiny grip. Souji was our captain-in-charge! (The reins of the camel anyways were in the hands of the Camel caretaker guy, walking next to us). Pooja was in the middle. Very safe and in a very comfortable position. I was sitting at the back and really had to hold onto the camel as at every step, I was feeling like I would be thrown out of the makeshift saddle anytime. Wish I had an ejection seat with a chute option. One thing I observed of the camel was that it lifts and moves the front left and hind left legs at one time and then switches to the right side pair. This causes a twist and turn effect on it's spine and the person at the end of it's spine (me), got the greatest twists. Now I know why 'belly dancing' is a famous with the Arabs. You don't have to learn belly dancing. Just ride the camel and it will teach you not just belly dancing, but a few Latino moves like Shakira did on that 'Whenever Wherever' track. Some camel ride it was. Amazingly entertaining. (Long live Zandu Balm!)

Our camel caravan took us about 2.5 Kms into the desert towards the Sand dunes. 'Sam' (pronounced 'sum') is a village, where the sand dunes begin. The brilliant colour of the golden sand was a delight by itself. Hundreds of Camels, touristers and locals throng the sand dunes starting from here and ending somewhere in other side of Thar desert of Pakistan. (The India-Pak Border is about 15 Kms from here). We had a wonderful time playing on the sand dunes and the kids enjoyed the sand thoroughly. Cameras came out in the thousands and you could see pretty much everybody taking a snaps. The sunset was viewed from the peak of a sand dune. The huge golden ball of fire slowly drowned into the horizon and that's when we started walking back from the sands to the village nearby (1 Km), where our Cars would have arrived through the road. We found our cabbie, who then took us to the maximum possible stretch deep inside the Thar desert and then returned back. We drove back almost to the point where we started the camel ride and were lodged into the night desert camp.

The name of our camp was 'Prince Desert Camp'. A warm welcome by a lady clad in rich traditional Rajasthani attire accompanied along with a Drum roll. The perimeter of the camp had about 20 tents pitched for overnight stay. A red carpet was laid out till the central area, which had a stage in the middle for performing musicians and we were seated across the inner perimeter with soft mattresses and comfortable cushions. We chose our spot and quickly tucked into the warm cushions to beat the chill breeze and getting as much warmth from the campfire laid at the center.

The musicians (Seasoned vocalists, a dholak, a Sarangi, and another hand held rhythmic instrument player), started rendering traditional Rajasthani tunes. The salted peanuts, hot tea and coffee made the guests comfortable while enjoying the performances. A couple of dancers danced to the high energy songs and on one occasion pulled all the guests onto the floor and got them dancing as well. Soujanya and Pooja enjoyed their stints in the middle and had a great time. A couple of hours of music and dance, the traditional Rajasthani Dinner buffet was ready and staged in one of the tents. We just had enough space in our tummies to taste and later bade good-bye to the musicians and dancers and hit the road back to our hotel, after an amazing, adventurous and long day at Jaisalmer. A truly memorable outing.

Supplementary information: The Desert Package costs Rs. 600 per person (all inclusive of to-and-fro transportation to the camp, camel ride, Desert camp, music, dance and dinner).

24th Dec, 2010, Friday - Jaisalmer
We had our early morning breakfast of Alu Parathas, Poha, Noodles, steaming hot coffee and tea at a nearby hotel called 'Aangan'. Next we set on foot to explore the city of Jaisalmer by foot and almost retraced our route around the Jaisalmer fort which gives a lot of shopping options. We tried the specialty sweet of Jaisalmer 'Ghotuan', a sweet made out of Besan and Milk. Walking the gullies of Jaisalmer was itself a pleasure and we whiled away a lot of time in looking around small shops. Pooja and Sanjana were dreaming of getting into the swimming pool right from the moment we reached Jaisalmer, so we returned back to the hotel and got them into the pool. We adults were completely sure that these kids would not have the courage to get into the freezing cold pool. Well, kids are kids and adults are not. Pooja was more than happy to shiver and get into the pool and enjoy half an hour in near zero temperatures. Harish helped Pooja do the swimming, and his lower part of the body was almost numb by the time he got out. I tried to get into the pool but was out in the first 3 minutes as I could not sustain. Not sure how the kids managed this feat! Amazing!

Here are some snaps taken during our Jaisalmer tour:

Jaisalmer

We packed our bags and left to the railway station to catch the 5:40 PM train to our next city, Jaipur. The compartment was neat for a change with 'less' number of cockroaches this time. We had skipped lunch due to our hectic schedules during the day and hence ordered a meals our night dinner. On our way, we got to know that the train does not have a Pantry car as well. Our train had to go through Jodhpur and then to Jaipur and terminates at Delhi.

We reached Jodhpur and so did the meals arrive. About 10 minutes into the halt, while we were having dinner, we heard from our Coach attendant that there were news of our train getting re-routed to Delhi and would not be touching Jaipur. Apparently, the Gurjar agitation was in full swing in one of the stations between Jodhpur and Jaipur and the fish-plates of the railway lines had been removed by the protesters and hence the train journey to Jaipur had canceled. Harish and I and almost the 90% of our train's commuters ran helter-skelter trying to understand what was happening and reached the enquiry section on Jodhpur railway station. The 'Enquiry' attendant had only one thing to say. Folks going towards Jaipur should make alternate arrangements to reach Jaipur as the train will now not touch Jaipur. Any other question regarding what will happen to our tickets, refund, cancellation, e-tickets, continuance of journey on other trains, arrival/departure of next trains to Jaipur, fell on deaf ears. I have always thought of Railways to be very responsible organization at least during situations like these but this time I felt very agitated and very embarrassing that they had nothing to offer us. Absolutely no support from Railways in times of crisis.

Harish and I ran back to the coach, where the rest of our families were still on and asked them to unload the already heavy luggages and sleeping kids in the middle of the night, under freezing temperatures. Just when we got our luggages on the platform the train marched and departed to Delhi. Many of the people inside the trains may not even know what was happening. We had 20 minutes between the time we got the info from the cabin attendants and the time the train left Jodhpur.

We counted our bags and found that one of Harish's luggage had remained on the train going to Delhi on a different route. Harish approached the Station Master and appraised him of the situation and Quick arrangements were made by the Station Master who asked the Station Master of the next station 'Merta Road' to unload the luggage so that we could go and collect the same from that station.

Next we lodged our folks in the station waiting halls and starting thinking on alternative plans. Harish and I went outside and found a Taxi operator with whom we struck a deal to get us to Jaipur for Rs. 7000 on a Chevy Tavera. There was a lot of confusion and chaos before getting onto the Taxi as there was another Taxi guy that we had enquired in parallel and got into a huge fight on who would be driving us. 2 hours later we finally managed to leave Jodhpur in the middle of the night towards Jaipur. Wait! We still had to pick up the luggage from an unknown, nondescript station called as 'Merta Road' in all assumption that the station master takes the initiative of finding our bag from the train and unloading it in the middle of the night. Thankfully, our road trip to Jaipur did cover 'Merta Road' which was about 15KMS off from the 'Merta town'. About 2 hours into the ride, we got a feeling that we may not be able to find the railway station itself, forget about the luggage!. It was pretty nervous as there were no directions to the railway station, freezing temperatures and absolutely nobody on the street. Somehow the driver was able to make calls to his base station and get us to the railway station. The biggest surprise and a breath of relief came when we found the missing baggage at one of the offices of the railway station. Talk about luck!

25th Dec, 2010, Saturday - Jaipur
We reached Jaipur in the morning by 7 AM, starved of sleep, and got lodged with the 'Jaipur Youth Hostel'. Much wanted breakfast and Tea arrived and we were ready for the day's proceedings by noon. We hired an Auto rickshaw for Rs. 600 and asked him to show all the important places and monuments in Jaipur.

First stop was the 'Jantar Mantar'. We bought a composite entry pass that covers Jantar Mantar, Hawa Mahal, Amber (Amer) Fort, Albert Hall and other points for Rs. 50, valid for 2 days. We marveled at the accuracy of these astronomical contraptions and how the accurate the readings were related to Time, Zodiac, and Planetary positions. Next stop was the City Palace where we saw many fine halls, Sheesh Mahals, 2 huge Sliver Jars weighing 135 Kgs each ('Gangajali') and many other artifacts.

A quick lunch at a local dhaba, we reached Amber Fort (Amer fort). When I saw Jodhpur fort, I thought it was the best. Then I saw Jaisalmer's Living fort, and thought that was better. Now I was on Amber fort and starting to think that this was better than the earlier ones. Every other fort seemed to out beat the other! Rajasthan has been simply awesome! This fort starts out with a small pond in front and takes you over a hill through multiple gates at varying elevations and providing great view of the city at each stage. Every landing has a huge open veranda the size of a half-football ground covered with pink porticoes and other buildings. Amazing fort. It took us at least 2 hours to get to see this fort and even after that we found that we still had a lot to see. Every other corner you had one or the other view or important sight to see or cover.

The sun was dipping as we got down the fort and the next stop was Rajasthan Tourist Development Corporation (RTDC) Shopping plaza. A huge building where one can do all the shopping from Bedspreads, Shawls, Razaais, Dress materials, Paintings, , Antiques, Marble items, Carvings, and other things. After about an hour and Five thousand Rupees lighter, we walked across the street to the Jal Mahal.

A magnificent Mahal built at the middle of a lake makes a beautiful sight. The evening lights made the palace even more beautiful with and we spent time taking a lot of snaps.

By this time, we were all mostly exhausted due to the long travel, lack of sleep the previous night and the full activity during the day. So we got back to the hotel and hit the sacks early.

26th Dec, 2010, Sunday - Jaipur
A good sleep overnight and heavy breakfast of Parathas, we set out for the day's tour of Ajmer and Pushkar. We struck a deal with a Auto rickshaw guy who led us to a Tata Indica travel agency for the day's tour for Rs. 1650.

We reached Pushkar by about 1:30 PM and had a full course meal before getting to the World's only Brahma temple (Attested by the 'original' Brahma himself, as there are other Brahma temples around India). I wish they have put a board saying 'We have no branches' board at the temple!. The road to the temple were adorned with a lot of small shops selling all kinds fancy and beautiful. The moment we got of the car, we were hunted by packs of the 'dalals' who would want to offer their services as a guide and explain in detail about the temple with stories, which we were not interested in. Entry to the temple was easy. Cameras, Mobile Phones and anything other than wallets are not allowed inside the premises. The temple is kind of old, decently maintained. As you reach the sanctum-sanctorum, the light and disciplined queue disintegrates into a chaotic confluence of human race as if the only standing Brahma temple is going to vanish in the next few minutes. Learning from the adage 'When you are in Rome, be a Roman', and going by the name 'Pushkar' which for a Rajasthani means 'Push - Kar' ('Start Pushing'), we got pushed from behind and we pushed the people in front to get the darshan of the most intelligent 1/3rd partner of the holy trinity, Lord Brahma. A major achievement it was to see a Temple with a Superlative attached to it. The temple itself is very ordinary, the Prasad ...Well, will keep my mouth shut here. Overall, it was fun.

We then waked past the gullies of Pushkar and a kilometer inside to get to the Pushkar Sarovar. A holy lake, very serene. Pooja loved this place as she was able to chase and shoo away the pigeons of Pushkar in hundreds.

We next left for Ajmer about 20 Kms from Pushkar and visited the Dargah there. The streets wore a festive look with beautiful lights coming in from the shops with hundreds of people buying flowers, sweets, offerings and head gears. Again, a huge rush inside the dargah. Very suffocating and no-order. No cameras, mobile phones inside the premises. Visiting a dargah for the first time was a unique experience as we did not know the nuances of visiting an Islamic place of worship. People from all religions converged here, mostly tourists and mostly Muslims. People who waited patiently till the end of the 'namaaz' suddenly rushed to the entrance of the dargah almost creating a stampede. It was very suffocating and was very uncomfortable.

We started our journey back to Jaipur on our car and we had already put ourselves into Panic mode as we had gotten the news that our train to Bangalore from Jaipur may have been canceled due to that Agitation. Sitting in the car, we made hundreds of calls to every one possible back in Bangalore so that we could make alternate arrangements to reach Bangalore in case it got confirmed that the trains were confirmed to be canceled. We headed directly to Jaipur railway station and got the confirmation that the trains will not be canceled but will be re-routed through Ajmer and will be reaching Bangalore late up to 12 hours. The mere confirmation that the trains would run and are not canceled gave a lot of cheer as we could not risk getting stuck in Jaipur for longer.

26th Dec, 2010, Monday - Jaipur
We got up early and had a breakfast of Poha and then picked up an Auto to go around Jaipur for those places we could not cover on the first day. First stop was the 'Hawa Mahal', an important Landmark of Jaipur, right in the center of the Pink City. Surrounding it was the shopping areas called as the 'Pink City Shopping area'. A whole set of Streets tailor made for the wandering tourister. All things that were found in Jodhpur, Jaisalmer could be found here at almost the same cost. We shopped for some bedspreads, bags and other small stuff. Next on the line was the Johari Bazaar where the ladies tried to their luck with Jeweleries (mostly imitations). The gullies around these shops lead into the vastly unexplored heavens, apt for a foodie of Jaipur. Innumerable Sweet Meat Shops adorn these streets. From Jamoons, to Bhujias, Mirchi Vadas, to you name it, you have it.

While the rest of the herd was busy helping themselves, I got into the by lanes of this gullies where another heaven opened up!. The lane that sells 'Kites' in wholesale! Thousands of them. Man! I was overjoyed looking at the umpteen colours, ranges, sizes and shapes of Kites, being sold in thousands. A sight uncommon to the people of the south. Varieties of kite threads ('Manjas') wound over 'Lathis' was stored in various sizes and prices. Me being a devout of kite flying, this was one of the points of pilgrimage that I happened to visit by chance. I bought 'mini kites' just 3 inches X 3 inches, made of plastic and guaranteed to fly! How cool!.

The next stop was the Laxmi Mithai Bhandar (LMB Sweets) on Johari Bazaar. We tried the 'Paneer Ghewar'. Apparently LMB is the most renowned and internationally acclaimed for this sweet. We packed half a KG back to Bangalore, as I seemed to enjoy the taste of this sweet. We also tried the Dodha, Dhoklas and a few Bakarwadis as well.

We tried the famous Gol-gappas of Jaipur before we walked over to the Albert Hall Museum. An important landmark of Jaipur, it houses many artifacts worth seeing. The most interesting for me was the 'Mummy', which has been kept on display. It is authentic (certified by the Museum that it is authentic). Different musical instruments, Pagdis, Illustrations of Kings of Rajasthan are some of the nice things on display.

We reached back the Youth Hostel by 4 PM, packed up and checked out by 5 PM to catch our final train back to Bangalore. As expected, the train did take a re-route and after a long, long, really long travel of 51 and half hours (2 days and 3.5 hours) later, we touched down in 'Namma Bengaluru' at 11.20 PM on 29th Dec, 2010 (Wednesday).

Here are some snaps that we took during our tour of Jaipur.

Jaipur, Pushkar and Ajmer

A fantastic tour of Rajasthan. A full 10 day extravaganza of beautiful places, amazing food, good and warm people of Rajasthan, breathtaking views and great company of Harish, Lavanya and Sanjana, made this trip a grand success.

Supplementary Information:
The total cost of the trip for 2 Adults and 1 child came to about Rs. 32,000 for 10 days. Inclusive of Train travel, City Travel, Entry and Parking charges, Food and Lodging, expenses. Not inclusive of Shopping!

Auto Rickshaws generally demands between Rs. 70~80 for point-point, but should be negotiated to Rs. 40~50 (For a distance of 4~5 Kms). An approximate charge Rs. 10 per KM.

Rajasthan is a state where Vegetarians hotels are in abundance where ever you go. Jain hotels and food is available everywhere. On an average, Rs. 75~100 per person per Lunch/Dinner in a decent hotel.

Temperatures during the Day across Rajasthan was between 20~25 Deg C during last week of December. Thermals are not needed. During the nights, it would go down to 7 Deg C or a bit lower.

Did not see many Cybercafes kind of shops, but every hotel has its own Internet Kiosk.

Below is the map of Rajasthan:

Deepavali 2010!

2010-11-21T16:59:00.001+05:30

Once again, Deepavali came and went and gave us as much fun and pleasure as always. One festival, which I believe to be the best when it comes to festivity, celebration and spirit. I simply love this festival! New Clothes, lots of people, great food, kids enjoying crackers - so amazing!

Off late, I have not been getting enough time with my camera and Night Photography has always eluded me for want of a good source of inspiration.

What better source of inspiration do your need for Night photography than Deepavali! So, on the 2nd Day of Deepavali, I climbed up to the roof top of our apartments and spent some time experimenting with my camera. Even though I must have taken a 100 pictures, a few of them cut into 'Pass' category!

Have uploaded the same here as well as on Facebook.

Deepavli of 2010

Enjoy and have fun. Don't forget to ink your thoughts.

Signing off in anticipation of many more bright and colourful Deepavalis.

Regards,
Vinay.

Pooja's First Day @ Schools!

2010-06-20T08:06:00.002+05:30

First few days at school are always filled mixed feelings of anxiety, enthusiasm and nervousness!

Nov 10th, 2008 - Penguin Play Home (1 Year and 8 Months)
June 1st, 2009 - Apple Kids International Play School (2 Years and 5 Months)
June 9th, 2010 - Delhi Public School (3 Years and 5 Months)

Here are some snaps of Pooja's first day at various schools.

For a bigger version of photos, follow this album.

Pooja' First Day @ Penguin, Apple Kids and DPS!

FIFA World Cup Theme Song - 2010 - K'Naan

2010-05-23T09:02:00.003+05:30

Just can't stop loving this! UMMMMMAZING!

Ring Tones here:
http://www.zedge.net/ringtones/999148/fifa-world-cup-2010-ringtone/

Lyrics here:
http://soccer-portal.org/cat/news/352-fifa-world-cup-2010-theme-song-announced.html

The Sea-side Vacation to Kovalam and Kanyakumari

2010-01-29T23:46:00.000+05:30

This January 2010, Souji and I fixed our vacation plans the moment I had finalized the plans for moving on to the new company. The plan was to get out of Bangalore in the 15 day break between the last working day with AOL and the first day with McAfee. After long discussions we rounded off on vacationing at Kovalam and Kanyakumari. Bookings were done over the net for our flights between Bangalore and Trivandrum, Accommodation at Kovalam and Kanyakumari.

"A picture speaks a thousand words" and if you want to skip the story and quickly take a look at the pictures and videos, here they are!

Visiting Kovalam and Kanyakumari

Here is a pretty _long_ summary of our vacation between the 18th and 23rd Jan, 2010.

18th Jan, 2010, Monday.

Thanks to the wonderful Volvo service offered by BMTC, it made all our lives so comfortable. We reached Bangalore Airport by 5 AM. We departed Bangalore to Trivandrum at 6:30 AM with Kingfisher Red and reached Trivandrum by 8 AM. This was Pooja's first Airplane travel and I was very excited about it (probably more than she her!). It would have been even more exciting if she had even opened her eyes atleast once during the flight!

The Kerala Govt. Sponsored Prepaid Taxi counter at the airport asked for Rs. 350 for a drop to Kovalam Beach Resort, but considering it was just 12 KMS from airport, asked them if there were any other means of transport like AutoRickshaws, Buses etc. that we could hire. "Trivandrum does not have Auto Rickshaws unlike other cities, buses do ply but not very frequently and to 'Kovalam' not a chance" came the authoritative reply from the lady officer. I looked past her through the small window behind her and spotted an auto rickshaw zoom by. I said thanks to the lady, came out of her cabin and carried my luggage out of the Airport premises to find 100s of Autos over there. Jumped into one of the Auto towards Kovalam and we were there in about less than 30 minutes. Inspite of escaping the first tourist-traps, still got hammered by the Auto guy who demanded Rs. 225 for the drop. The Autowalah dropped us 1/2 a KM short of the beach and told us that his 'gaadi' cannot go the extra distance due to the non-existent roads. So we picked our luggage and walked through some coconut plantation and finally found the backside entry to 'Pappukutty Beach Resorts', our home for the next 2 days.

We had our bookings done with 'Pappukutty Beach Resorts' after a lot of research over the net. Our first sight of the resorts didn't impress us as we came from backside entrance of the hotel. As we moved towards the reception, the feeling went from 'wyuck' to 'wow'!. Our resort was right on the beach alongside 100 others. Right at the entrance was the restaurant and 10 meters further was the beach, separated only by a beautifully tiled pavement. A whole lot of shops selling handicrafts, fancy items, beach wear were dotted all along the 'C' shaped beach. Our resort hosted quite a good mix of pool side cottages, regular 2 bed and 3 bed room accommodation both AC and Non-AC versions, a Ayurvedic Massage center, a very nice swimming pool and a restaurant. Our room was quite comfortable with great view of the sea from the balcony.

'Kovalam' as I am told hosts 4 'Crescent' shaped beaches. 1. Light House Beach, 2. Hawah Beach, 3. Samudra Beach, 4. Ashoka Beach. Ours was on the Light House beach, with the towering light house posted on a small hillock. Actually I was able to spot the beach while descending for the landing at Trivandrum and fortunate enough to capture it from my camera.

The unending sounds of the splashing waves pulled us out of our rooms and in 5 seconds all three of us were on the beach!. And when you are playing with the waves, time just flies and sure it did. By the time we got exhausted it must have been close to the evening. We retired back into our room with full of contempt. For once, the 'paradise' photos of this resort as it was posted on the resort's website, was really real. As the growling noise from the tummies got the better of the splashing waves, our brains started to realize that it would be hard for a veggie to manage as the only food you get in the evenings will be sea-food specialities. The word 'vegetarian' was as virgin as the beach itself over there. The localities also did not have a clue of this cuisine. Fortunately, a small board somewhere behind a thousand others read 'Lonely Planet' - Pure Vegetarian Restaurant!. Our tummies felt full just by the sight of it!. We went in, got seated and checked the menu items and then the pricing against each one of the items and behold, the hunger was gone!!!. Pretty costly Vegetarian food I must say. But later realized that at a Sea-food paradise, vegetarian food is a specialty! A heavy authentic veggie meal of Avial, boiled rice and curries prepared in coconut oil on a hot and humid afternoon, was just enough for us to get back to the room for a nap.

Later, we went to watch the Sunset along the rocky side of the beach. The cool breeze brushing past our faces while the sun was setting down slowly, created a picturesque setting. Dinner again at the Lonely planet, we ended our day with a broad smile on our face with what we had accomplished during the whole day!

19th Jan, 2010, Tuesday

The next day morning, we got up early and took a stroll on the beach. The sun was still rising and we could see the early-bird foreigners all ready in their swim suits doing the Yoga, jogging and things like that. For once I found out how lucky it is for you if the other person has put on their ipod. One of the old ladies jogged past us and Pooja started singing "Shame Shame Poppy Shame" with her little hands pointing towards the lady. My heart stopped for a moment, but consoled it by tapping my heart a few times and saying 'All izz well' and ran back to our hotel in the opposite direction. A rich European breakfast at our resort which had a good menu of Bread and Jam, more Bread and Jam and some more Bread and Jam. Cornflakes, Coffee/Tea and Fresh fruit juice followed. By this time, Pooja was jumping on me to take her to the pool and so we did. For the next 4 hours we had a great time in the pool facing the beach. Soujanya tried the Authentic Kerala Style Ayurvedic Oil Massage prescribed by the in-house Ayurvedic doctor. One hour later and half a thousand spared, Soujanya came back with a big smile of satisfaction on her face, a testament that she loved the treatment. Our team slept off blissfully during the heavy hot and humid afternoon, while I slipped out of the room to explore the sections that we had not covered. Went up the upper deck area close to the bus-stand and found another 'vegetarian' Punjabi Dhaba and couldn't resist the temptation. The food was great, much much cheaper than Lonely Planet and very edible for its price. For fellow vegetarians visiting Kovalam beach, please remember: You have 2 and only 2 Pure Veg restaurants. Lonely Planet and the Punjabi Dhaba on the upper deck, on the way to the main bus stand. By 3 PM I came back down to the beaches looking at all the variety of shops. Knowing that the Light house is open between 3 and 5 every day, wanted to make sure that I was ready to be up there.

The light house was half a KM from our resort on the same beach. Buy your ticket for Rs. 10, and Rs. 20 for your camera, and you have the license to climb and shoot. 200 + steps later, I was over the top of the light house. Man! the view was breathtaking. Over the top I could see all the beaches of Kovalam. The wind was blowing fiercely and the aqua-green sea was looking beautiful. All this while, Soujanya and Pooja were still sleeping, so called them up and asked them to join me which they did . A few more snaps got clicked again with all of us in the team. A must visit place for anybody who visits Kovalam, but looking at the meager crowd over there, did not seem to be high on the agenda as a point of visit for many of them.

By the time we came back, my legs were not moving. So wound up the exploring bit for the rest of the evening and hit the bed for a couple of hours. We took a small stroll in the evening across the beach with lights from the street shops looking so pretty. By 8 PM, we all went to 'Lonely planet' for our dinner and Surprise Surprise! There was a classical dance festival and buffet dinner. Not a single place to sit as it was aimed only for the 'phirangs'. The floor was packed and the buffet was a whopping Rs. 450 for the same Avial and boiled rice!.

Deprived of a vegetarian meal, we asked our resort folks to prepare something at least close to vegetarian and that they did exactly that. The North Indian cuisine was served to us under candle lights right at the edge of the beach. Another amazing first time experience as we could enjoy the beach in the fullest with its amazing scenery.

20th Jan, 2010, Wednesday

We got ready for an early breakfast and checked out Pappukutty Beach resort by 10 AM. Picked up the Volvo Bus service over the top of the Upper Deck area which costed just Rs. 23 per person back to Trivandrum. Was just thinking how much the visitors get ripped inspite of taking precautions to overcome these fraudsters. Our train to Kanyakumari was at 3:30 PM and we were in the deep-fry zone of Trivandrum by 11:00 AM. So we pushed most of our luggage at the Railway Station's Cloak Room, and set again for some street side window shopping. Trivandrum's most happening place is the M.G. Road (as always) and the Chellam Street right opposite the East Fort area. Piggy riding Pooja under the sweltering heat took a toll on her as well as on us. Trivandrum has good number of Veggie hotels and right opposite the Railway station, we had one by name 'Archanas' which had a good spread. After a good lunch we were back into the waiting halls of the Railway station. Our train journey to Kanyakumari took 2.15 hours for a mere 87 KMS. It hardly had many stops but still took a lot of time.

Anna had booked our stay at the Vivekananda Kendra for the next 3 days and the moment we landed, we hired an Auto and it took us about 5 minutes to reach Vivekananda Kendra. Our room was assigned and found it to be very good considering that a non-AC double bed room costs Rs. 250. Considering the time and age we live in, Rs. 250 in any part of India for a 2-Bed room during peak seasons is an outstanding deal. No TV and Hot water though. Well, the reason being that this place is not a hotel. It is an institution and that provides a lot of things other than affordable accommodation, Awareness to youth, Yoga, Harnessing the power of Youth to build a strong nation, propagating the values and culture of our great land as envisioned by Vivekananda himself. The campus has a about 6 different blocks for accommodation, a few buildings for discourses, conferences, a huge canteen serving great food at very nominal prices, an Internet Browsing section, a small shop selling all consumables required for the stay and to top it all, a private beach for itself. More details can be had from "Vivekananda Kendra" @ http://www.vkendra.org.

Later that evening, we took a stroll down the main road of Kanyakumari, and located all the places that we wanted to see the next day. The area around the temple had a festive look during the night with the glittering shops showcasing their best products. The street side vendors were selling lorry loads of Sea Shells, Conches, Star Fishes and other artifacts which was a rare sight for us.

21st Jan, 2010, Thursday.

We had a great breakfast at the Kendra and headed straight to the Kanyakumari temple. The queue was quite small. As in temples all around South India, the temple requires asks the male devotees to remove their Shirt and Banian. The darshan at the temple was 100 times easier compared to Tirupati and more satisfying. In 30 minutes we were all done with the darshan and out of the temple. We then took a stroll around the temple and walked towards the 'Triveni Sangam'. This is 'the' southern most tip of India and the point where Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea meet up. For me personally, it is a geographical landmark worth visiting. 'Cape Comorin'as we had read in our Geography classes. From this point we could see the Vivekananda Rock, The huge Thiruvallavur Statue. The beach is just about 20 meters with Rocky terrain, but that did not stop the folks from taking a dip into the sea. We took a lot of photos around this serene location too. We got back to our room and took a good nap. Later in the evening, we came back for visiting the Light house, which again was open between 3 and 5 PM. The view from over the top was as good as the one at Kovalam, this time, it was view of India's tip covered by the 3 seas that took our breath away. Such a beautiful place. Kanyakumari's Light House is not as tall as that of Kovalam but the view was as good as the former. We were glad to see Pooja climbing up 135 steps of this light house without even taking a stop in between while we were gasping for breath!.

Next stop was the adjacent Gandhi Memorial. This was the place where the Ashes of Mahatma Gandhi was kept before it was immersed into the ocean. Resembling central Indian Hindu temples in form, the memorial was designed in such a way that on Mahatma Gandhi's birthday, 2 October, the first rays of the sun fall on the exact place where his ashes were kept.

The sun was almost setting and we climbed on top of the building which houses a huge terrace where Sunset can be best viewed at Kanyakumari. Kanyakumari is one of those few or only place in India where Sunrise and Sunset can be viewed. Hundreds of people gathered to watch the orange ball of fire go sinking into the Arabian Sea.

Soujanya did some street side shopping around the temple area and soon our day came to end after a sumptuous meal at the Kendra.

22nd Jan, 2010, Friday

With Souji taking care of Pooja, I left for an early walk around the Kendra's campus and read a board 'Sunrise beach' and followed the directions. 1.5 KMS later, I ended up on a beach along with 100s of folks from the Kendra all waiting for the sun to wake up. The breeze was heavy and occasionally had enough power to push people of their feet. The golden sun emerged again and in minutes, every other person started moving towards their next task at hand. We started the day with a good breakfast and then went to the port which runs steamer boats to the Vivekananda Rock. After a long queue and waiting for about 30 minutes, our time had come to board the boat for the rock museum. It took about 10 minutes of swaying through the seas to reach the Vivekananda Rock Museum. Nice to see that the port authorities have formalized the use of life vests for every one who takes these rides here. Vivekananda Rock Museum is a something that should not be missed in a lifetime. I had seen this earlier way back in 1981, but this was the first time with Pooja and Souji. They loved the place. The winds were so hard that it could simply push anybody to the ground. We spent about a couple of hours checking out the island and taking snaps. We returned back to the mainland and Soujanya continued her 2nd day of shopping on the shores. We spent the noon back at the Kendra.

In the Evening we took a local bus to a small temple town called 'Suchindram' about 20 minutes from Kanyakumari. The huge temple over here showcases better architectural styles compared to that of Kanyakumari. The sitting deity is the combination of Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara all in one single piece!. As always, temples have become more of business then a place of worship. We could see a foreigner taken for a ride by the temple poojars. The poor lady was coaxed to do arathis after buying the deepas at 10 times th actual price. Blissfully unaware of what was happening, the foreigners eyes were bright and happy to be doing whatever the poojars asked her to do!.

Our visit to Suchindram was over in a couple of hours and we took the next bus back to the Kendra. We started packing our luggage for the last day of our trip and then had a good dinner before we hit bed.

23rd Jan, 2010, Saturday

We got up early and visited the areas around the temple again for some last minute shopping. After a quick breakfast, we checked out of the Kendra and reached the Railway Station and bought tickets back to Trivandrum. We left Kanyakumari at 10:30 and by 12:15 we reached Trivandrum Central. Again, we pushed our luggage into a cloak room and started walking towards the M.G. Road. Trivandrum hosts a lot of Jeweler Majors like Joy Alukkas, Josco, Bhimas and many more. We visited a few of those to check out some designs. 'Aa bheil muje maar' it was and had to pay the tax for a Gold ring at Josco. Soujanya loved the gift and made up her day!. We also visited the Chellam road pretty much similar to the Avenue road of City Market in Bangalore. For the first time, I tried the 'Nendra Bale' - the Red coloured Banana. It tasted good and not very different from the regular ones, but was a bit tangy. With so many new 'first times' during this trip, we headed back to the railway station, freshened up and left for the Airport. The 7:45 PM Kingfisher Red flew us back to Bangalore by 9:15 and Pooja was wide awake the whole duration of the flight and I was happy more than her to see her awake and enjoying the flight. We took a taxi from the Airport and reached home @ 15 past 10.

Overall, this trip was spent leisurely compared to the touch-and-go types that we took in the past. There were many 'first time' in this trip for all of us and every day was as exciting as the previous ones. We returned back home a 2-tone 'darker' than before, but the experience got us 2 times better!. We all returned with the same good health and spirits and great memories, a few of them have been captured in the form of Pictures and Videos provided below.

Photos and Videos of our adventure:

Visiting Kovalam and Kanyakumari

Summary of the trip:
5 days and 6 nights.

Distance Travelled:
Bangalore ~ Trivandrum : 753
Trivandrum ~ Kanyakumari: 87
Kanyakumari~Trivandrum: 87
Trivandrum~Bangalore: 753
In and around these places: 150
Total Distance travelled (approx): 1830

Expense Report:
Airfare - Bangalore to Trivandrum round trip: Rs. 12,600
Accommodation (Trivandrum + Kanyakumari): Rs. 6000
Food: Rs. 2000 (approx)
All other Transportation charges (Rail, Autorickshaws, Bus and Ferry): Rs. 1500 (approx)
Approx. Total cost of the trip: Rs. 23,000. (Exclusive of shopping).

South India Tourist Map

Pooja completes 3 years!

2010-01-28T09:26:00.002+05:30

Jan 10th (Sunday) and 11th (Monday), 2010.

As per the Hindu Astrological Calendar, Pooja completed 3 years as on Jan 9th and so we celebrated her birthday on 10th as it was a Sunday. We also had a small family scale Satyanarayana Pooja function in the morning at our apartment premises and later in the day, decorated Pooja's room with colourfull buntings and balloons on the wall.

Sanjana, Siri and Anirudh were the guests of honour for the evening occassion while a lot of other folks who missed out the Satyanarayana Pooja joined us for the event. We ordered two cakes from Kaggis bakery, one for the evening party and the bigger one for Apple Kids Play school on Jan 11th (Monday).

Here are a few photos from both the events.

Pooja's 3rd Year Birthday Celebrations

A day trip to Hogenakkal Falls

2009-12-29T09:52:00.003+05:30

Dec 27th, 2009, Sunday.

Rajesh and I finally managed to keep up with our proposed one day outing to Hogenakkal falls. The plan was to visit Hogenakkal falls which is about 180 KMS from Bangalore. The Innova car got confirmed from our travel agent and so we were up and running for the trip. Pooja, Soujanya and myself were the first pickup at 7:30 AM and got in from our apartments and picked up Sanjana, Vishal, Pushpa and Rajesh on the way. As usual, the driver started late by an hour and so Rajesh had gotten the breakfast packed instead. In an hour's time we had already crossed into Tamil Nadu via Hossur and found a huge petrol station where we stopped for fueling our car. The place was really huge, had a small little lawn at the back where all of us decided to fuel ourselves with Idli and Vada. The roads were very nice and journey was effortlessly smooth.

By 10:45 AM we reached the Parking lot of Hogennakal falls and walked towards the falls. The small road leading towards the falls was littered everywhere, small road-side shops selling unclean food, pathetic sights of lambs being slaughtered in the open road and other non-veggie delights were not what we were expecting, but had to be contended with the fact that things might get better as we get closer to the falls.

The road suddenly steered us into an opening to the river side where a 'Theppa' (Coracle) agent latched on to us and assured a good package and we bought his plan. By 11:30 all of us jumped into the Theppa - a bamboo stick/straw skeleton covered with sheaths of plastic cement bags smeared with Tar on the outside. The next 3~4 hours of our trip really transformed our day into one of the best trips I have had this year.

The water for once was clean and clear inspite of the maddening crowd dirtying it everywhere. Our Theppa 'captain' crossed the shore and landed us into an Island'ish area from where we were able to view the beautiful Hogenakkal falls from over the top. The sight was awesome with the full view of all the falls together from one location. The exploding sound from the falls crashing onto the rocks underneath generating tons of fine mist around the falls really makes up the for the apt name 'Hogenakkal' falls. A few snaps here and there, we moved back onto the longer version of our ride and this time, our captain took us around huge rocky gorges as high as 60 feet and got us pretty close to the bottom of the falls. The ride was really enchanting and worth every second. Nothing could be missed. We must have seen atleast 50 other 'Theppas' moving in and around and the river was looking like a highway for the Theppas.

A few funny things that we came across was the mobile Theppa market. Couldn't believe my eyes when a couple of Theppas came around selling Chips, cool drinks and water. What a smart idea! Right on top of the 60 foot cliffs, we could see young local kids bidding and bargaining with the folks on the Theppa. Once the deal was struck, we could see these kids jumping 60 feet from the cliff tops into the river below! Man, that was some stunt to behold.

We reached the foot of the falls and could see the beauty in all its splendor. The view was quite breathtaking. Our captain then drove downstream passing jagged rocky cliffs of granite and drove till we found a little less crowded sandy island. He anchored his 'no-brakes and 2-hands-powered' gizmo while all of us got down and let the kids enjoy the shallow river. Vishal, Sanjana and Pooja had a whale of a time in the crystal clear water. The not-so-sunny weather was not so chill either and was just perfect for a good dip. We spent the next couple of hours watching the kids enjoy themselves playing merrily, collecting stones and shells. After a quick grub of high-engery Nutri-bars, we jumped back into our ship and started our journey back to the main land. Most of the journey was upstream and our hero captain had to really sweat it out for the next 20 odd minutes to steer the ship till we docked back to the main land. By 3:30 PM we were all set to leave the place and bade good-bye to one of the most beautiful falls that I have ever seen. Our captain earned the much deserved 1400 bucks for filling our day with beautiful sights of splendor and the lovely playtime in the river.

Interesting co-incidence was that the last time we both (Rajesh and I) were on a picnic together was to the same Hogenakkal falls which we visited in the summer of 1986, (23 years back!) along with a whole lot of other families. We got back to our car and left Hogenakkal falls at roughly 4 in the evening. By 4:30 PM we were in Dharmapuri and took an hour's break for lunch at 'Saravanna Bhavan'. The rubberized Idlies didn't quite soak in the tasty sambar, but the Chutney and Dosa's managed to slip down the throat quite easily. The coffee was really good though. With our tummy-meters indicating full, we started the longer segment of our journey back to Bangalore. The journey was filled exchanging a lot of puzzles and solving a few of those. It was amazing to see Vishal solve many of those puzzles. I must say, 'Like-father-like-son' in this case.

We touched Rajesh's house by 7:45 PM, and then by 8 PM I signed off our car rental services from my place.

Apart from the good time we spent at Hogenakkal, the only thing that left me sad was the fact that the government had provided absolutely no facilities for the visitors. The word 'Cleanliness' and 'Hygiene' does not seem to exist. No toilet facilities, Not a single good-clean restaurant. Vegetarians like us will have to depend on packed food or survive till we reach Dharmapuri, the nearby town about 46 KMS from Hogenakkal to get anything close to being vegetarian. There is no police protection, no hospitals / medical care and most importantly no emergency response teams in case of any accidents on water, no nothing. May be these facilities are there, but there were no information, directions or sign-boards anywhere and I am sure that this place that attracts so many people is a disaster waiting to happen and I hope I am absolutely wrong about this. If the same kind of natural treasure were to exist in developed countries, it would have been advertised and marketed as a wonder of the world with a place on the global map with Resorts, Airports, Package Tours, and all facilities to ensure that everyone atleast can enjoy this place without any worries. I do hope that one day, this place will have atleast the basic amenties that ensures the traveler a worry-free outing.

Overall, the day was spent quite well and these cherished memories will definitely go into our books for a long time to come. Rajesh and Pushpa's company was just perfect and thanks to Sanjana and Vishal for keeping Pooja entertained right through the day.

Here are a few pictures and videos taken during the picnic.

Photos: A Trip To Hogenakkal Falls

Videos: A Trip To Hogenakkal Falls

Visting Chennai for Abhi's Upanayanam

2009-10-27T13:40:00.009+05:30

The preparation to visit Chennai for Abhi's Upanayanam began as early as a month before in order to beat the Deepavali holiday crowd. Reservations were made well in advance to ensure that all of us had a good travel to Chennai and back.

Amma and Jyothi Aunty left early on the 15th of Oct. Gopinath Uncle pulled along Soujanya, Pooja and Anna on the Shatabdi Express on the 19th of Oct. Kiran, Anu, Naveen, Sowmya, Dwarakanath Uncle, Geetha Aunty and myself took the Night train on the 20th of Oct.

Chennai this time, greeted with moderate heat and sultriness giving us all a lot of comfort. Delicate 'Bangaloreans' that we are, it was still hard for us to bear the humidity of the place.

We went straight to Paddu Aunty's house at Tambaram and got ready to hit the choultry after a quick bath. As expected, Abhi's Upanayanam had gotten over by 5:30 in the AM, so there was nothing much to be done at the Choultry, but to find a suitable location where air was in abundant supply. So we all found that beautiful spot somewhere on the 2nd floor and let ourselves loose to dissipate some heat.

While the most of the male tribe was horizontal, a few of the unlucky ones thought of a brilliant plan to have have lunch early and visit a few places before a few of us left back for Bangalore. Using all the networking skills of Naveena, we quickly arranged for a AC Tempo Traveller and in the mean time finalized the quick trip plan to cover Ashtalakshmi Temple @ Besant Nagar and the Marina Beach.

In the middle of things, we caught Abhi, Balaji Uncle and Paddu Aunty straying from their home range of the first floor and managed to take a few group snaps for posterity.

During the lunch hour, we witnessed the 'Post-Upanayananam' rituals of Abhi. The food was served and must say that it was Umm-mazing! By 3 PM, we had taken a small nap and all set to leave for the trip. So we packed our bags (well, we never unpacked in the first case!) and up we got loaded into the AC environs of the Tempo Traveller. We bade good-byes to Paddu Aunty, Balaji Uncle and Abhi and hit the road for the Ashtalakshmi temple.

We spent an hour or so at the Besant Nagar beach. The sun was shining hard, but the beach was pleasantly less populated, so out came the cameras for a whole lot of pictures. The setting was just perfect and all the pairs in the team wanted to be in front of the camera for once. Pooja had a whale of a time playing with the waves. The difficult part came when we had to pull her out of the beach to move on to the Ashtalakshmi Temple which is right on the shoreline.

The temple was neat, well maintained and visiting the 8 different Lakshmis was a breeze. There was no huge rush and we got ample time to go around the temple and spend some time there.

Once we came out of the temple, the male bastion latched onto a street-side bhelpuri-wallah and later the ladies joined the club. In my frank-est assessment, we made the Bhelpuri-wallah richer than the 'Ashtalakshmi' standing for eternity, inside the temple. Well, the Lakshmi is any ways the goddess of money, so she wont need it as much as the Bhelpuri-wallah!

We got back into our cab and next we left for the Marina Beach. The sun was almost going down and so we quickly took a few more snaps. A few "Shundals" later (Chennai's most renowned Beach-grub), we sat down on the off-white sands of the Marina, on a moon-less evening, surrounded by thousands of other visitors sitting bumper to bumper and watched the waves lash the beach.

Kiran, (Soujanya's maternal cousin), who has started working in Chennai a few weeks back, met us while we were leaving the beach. We pulled him along for a dinner with us. Later in the night, we had a sumptuous dinner at one of hotels near the Railway station.

We bade good-byes to Amma, Jyothi Aunty, Gopinath Uncle and Kiran (Souji's cousin) who would stay back at Chennai for a some more days and the rest of us (Anna, Soujanya, Pooja, Kiran, Naveen, Dwarakanath Uncle and Geetha Aunty) jumped into the train in our designated coaches on returned back to "Namma Bangalore" after a beautiful day @ Chennai.

Here are some photographs and videos that we took during our visit to Chennai.

Abhi's Upanayanam and Trip to Chennai

Deepavali of 2009

2009-10-26T18:42:00.012+05:30

Ah! The festival of those wonderful lights, bursting crackers, meeting people and the wonderful food during the 3 day extravaganza! None of the festivals in the Hindu calendar can beat this one, at least for me.

17th Oct, 2009, was the "Naraka-chaturdashi" day.

This year, Amma had to leave to Chennai for Abhi's Upanayanam ('Cross-Thread ceremony' for those who don't understand our rituals ;-) ). So her absence was definitely felt during the festivity all through.

So Soujanya, Pooja and myself along with Anna, got up early on the 17th for the "Enne Shastra". ("Enne" as in "Oil" not "Alchohol", you perverts ;-) ). For the first time though, Pooja did the Aarthi to all of us. Brand new clothes bought the previous day was waiting for us and we wore them all, looking bright and cheerful for the rest of the day.

Our in-laws had invited us over for lunch along with a whole bunch of fun loving family members including Souji's Chikamma, Chikappa, Kiran, Lavanya, Harish, Sanjana and Soujanya's eldest uncle from Hyderabad.

Delicious food after noon was followed by huge discussions on every single topic under the sun and kept us awake for the rest of the afternoon. All of us then migrated to our house in Hanumanthanagar for the simulated war-zone experience "Deepavali@Vinayadeep" session, which lived up to it's name for the rest of the evening. Every kid on the block was making sure that there was more cracker papers for the next day morning sweeper to clean.

Souji and Pooja decorated the house compound with neat looking "Deepa" (Diyas). Our home looked so beautiful with all of these lights. It was definitely a pretty sight.

Nisha, Deepu and Asha too joined us for bursting a whole lot of night crackers ranging from just ordinary to the ultimate fancy ones. From the hissing snake to the Swastik ground chakras to the whistling crackers to the North Indian imported "Anaar", one after another, the marathon session continued non-stop for 2 hours. Pooja loved the night crackers and wanted more! So did the young at heart.

The most hilarious one was a cracker which looked like a "Post card". It was marked - "To NaraGasura", "Address: Hell". Costing 50 bucks, this was such a hopeless let-off after realizing that it was a rip-off.

Overall, the day went pretty well and all of us had a great time together.

Here are a few photos and videos that we clicked during the event.

Deepavali 2009

Photos from Deepavali of 2008

BMTC Vayu Vajra Volvo Service to Airport (BIAL) Timings and Schedule

2009-09-16T13:44:00.015+05:30

One of the truly amazing things that BMTC has done in the recent past is introducing the Vayu Vajra buses to Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) from all corners of Bangalore.

Recently, I had to fly out to a couple of places and was unsure whether the service was operating as they had announced on their website. I even got up in the middle of the night on the previous day of my journey and checked out if the midnight route was functional or not. And to my pleasant surprise, the bus arrived and departed exactly on time. Since then, I have always used this service and every time it has been a really good and reliable experience.

The Volvo buses and the journey to and from the airport was truly top class.

Thanks to BMTC for this wonderful service. They also have these Vayu Vajra Schedules hand-outs which can be picked up from the nodal points or can be referred from the BMTC website for latest schedules. Just in case, I have uploaded the scanned schedules with the current Timings and Schedules of Vayu Vajra routes to Bangalore International Airport (BIAL). Overtime, the timings may change, but is current, as of today (Sep 15, 2009).

Hope it is useful to all.

Regards,
Vinay.

BMS - ELEC catch up @ Kuntz's place

2009-09-08T12:59:00.017+05:30

Sunday, the 6th of September, all(most) of us - BMS ELEC - folks caught up at Srikanth's place @ J P Nagar.

Attendees included Sudheendra, Meera and Shruthi, Sanjeev, Sarju and Srivali, Naveen, Madhuri and Namitha, Sudhir and Jaya, Janardhan and Sowmya, Pooja, Soujanya and myself along with hosts Maaya, Chitra and Sreekanth.

The day warmed up with some major discussions around Sudheendra's recent invasion of China and how much he loved that place and his (mis)adventures with pure vegetarian food he consumed over there. Post that, we had some discussions going over with Education and Schooling in Melbourne, Bangalore and elsewhere followed by Alternate forms of Schooling, latest trends of schooling being adopted in Bangalore, followed by a few ideas on starting our own schools with the only motto of making money. With gray matter utilization reaching 100% and no space left to think more, Srikanth and Sudheendra went in search for Food for thought.

A super duper lunch with Spicy and Steaming Pulav, Raitha, Thair-Vada, Jamoons, Curd rice and Pedhas were just what the hungry souls wanted. Bur-rrrp!

The kids hijacked most of the lunch session and the next two hours afterwards, by a very good practical demonstration of how to bring the roof down with their tantrums. We (poor parents) were made mere spectators to the sunday matinee show of their amazing display of how easy it is to take control of the parents. Time was the only weapon the parents could bank on and we regained some strength when the sedatives worked to our benefit!

While entering the house, I remember the neatly ordered magazines, the creaseless bedspreads, all the cushions decked in place, chairs ordered neatly across the dining table. Well, need to admit that this was not how we left the house after the meeting! Thanks to our kids!

The tea-time soon followed where a new thread of discussion on Sudheendra's IIM college exeperiences which triggered off the nostalgic college days @ BMS, which continued till the late in the evening. Starting off with our exploits with various lecturers, our exam scores (and re-scores!), Copying stunts during tests (and its fallouts!), expectation of results after exams and consequences after results, Basketball days, amazing experience with our favourite lecturers starting from MNV, MM, Meena M'am, Alasingar, GG, RSD, SR, DRK, 'Crowbar' and many more!

By the way, no BMS-Elec discussion is ever complete without talking about the beautiful girls who have made BMS college of what it is today. The full list of girls right through our college days was discussed in the minutest detail. A few of them I guess are still being tracked even till today!. With all these discussions coming without any filters, I am sure newly married Sudhir and Janardhan would have a long drive back home. Sudhir, Janardhan, take care buddies and all the best. We will discuss about your 'traveling back home' experiences in our next meeting!

The event can be treated as one of the most 'rarest of the rare' in the recent past. Not because, it was difficult to get everybody under one roof with a short notice, but because, Sudheendra made it !!! 'Everybody' which included himself, wanted a photograph with him. A great group photo did the trick. Click on the snap below for a few other snaps.

BMS - Elec meeting @ Kuntz place

Well, at the end, It was just another fantastic day to spend time with friends and hope many more do come by. It simply brightened up my day inspite of the outcast weather, the recession hit IT industry, and the rising price of Dals and Sugar.

Thanks so much everybody for taking your time off for keeping in touch with each other. We definitely missed Tarun, Rekha, Navya, and families of Archana, Shubha and Vermeen. Thanks Kuntz and Chitra for hosting us all. (to be read: for being patient till we all left)

Folks - It would be great if you can send across snaps from your camera as well. I will add them onto the blog.

Pooja sings National Anthem on Independence Day - 2009

2009-08-15T15:36:00.006+05:30

Aug 15, 2009 - Independence Day

As India celebrates it's 63rd Independence day and Pooja sang our National Anthem with great pride. The best part was that she did it in 56 seconds !

Click below for the video!

From Pooja Sings "Jana Gana Mana" on_Independence Day 2009

Happy Independence Day to all.
Proud to be an Indian.

A quick visit to Suryanarayana Hills

2009-07-15T20:22:00.004+05:30

The Sunday of 12th July, 2009, Deepu took us to the location of his new plot @ Bidadi. Earlier in the day, Asha had called Souji and asked if we would like to join them for which we agreed. I guess thats where the idea of calling a few other folks got seeded. A beautiful cloudy and outcast Sunday afternoon, no big things hapenning in Bangalore and nothing on TV either to sit back home. In a flash, the whole of GRA's (G R Annaswamy Rao, my grandfather!) family was all set to make the most of the day and in 1 hour, 18 folks were on their toes to join the party and visit the plot.

We left our houses at 3:30 PM by our own cars:

Deepu, Asha, Nisha, Anna, Amma in their Santro
Anu Maama, Sandhya Aunty and Deepthi in their Maruti Omni
Jaggu Maama, Shubha Aunty and Amamma in their Santro
Kiran, Anu, Jyothi Aunty, Gopinath Uncle in their Santro
Soujanya, Pooja and Myself in our Maruti!

In less than 45 minutes we glided on the super smooth Mysore Road and were standing in front of his plot. His plot was looking lush green with vegetation. After a brief half an hour of looking around landmarks, connectivty and connecting roads, the program was almost looking to be over. -- OR -- was just the begining! Anu Maama and Jaggu Maama suggested that we check out the Suryanarayana Hills close by, which was suppossed to be good. Nobody had any other plans anyways and considering that the weather was beautiful, there was thumbs-up all around.

So we all got back into our cars, and went off in search of the Suryanarayana Hillock. We had just gone about 5 mins into the drive, the ladies yelled that they wanted a coffee break. We stopped by a local coffee shop. First it was just the coffee and Tea, but I guess it was just a teaser to devouring whatever the hapless roadside mini hotel had to offer. We did not leave till each of us had atleast 2 portions of Gobi manchuri and Masale Puri. As usual, the owner of the hotel had absolutely no count of what we consumed and had to use complex mathematical approximation models to come to anything close to the actual bill.

Deepu and Anu maama made the hotel owner a rich man and in return asked him to help us find the Suryanarayana hillock. The hotel guy guided us through some rough sandy and marshy roads where a couple of our cars got stuck but somehow managed to get past it. Finally in 25 minutes, we reached a gate which was locked by Security staff and only to be told that this was the back entrance to the place. The main entrance was all the way 180 deg opposite and has a beautifully asphalted road right till the top of the hillock!. Again, Anu maama used his magick wand to make belive the security folks that we were not bad guys and the security folks allowed us in. Another 1/2 a kilometer on the rugged terrain, we started seeing a road which looked more car friendly. Finally, we reached the place, a beautifully landscaped garden, A 25 foot high Suryanarayana, majestically standing in his charriot of 7 horses. Really a spectacular sight, Simpy huge and very well structured. Just a few paces around this statue, was a cool green artificial meadow where people could sit down and relax while looking at the beautiful surroundings on all sides.

We spent a lot of time clicking photos of everybody and the setting was just right. All of us had a great time together. We watched the peaceful sunset atop this hill and slowly huddled back into our cars to get back home. This time, we made sure we got out out through the right section of the road. At the exit point, we found that name of propreitor of this property and it was the Eagleton Golf Resorts ! Well well well!

By 7 PM, we all headed home again on the Mysore road. The next agenda was the unfinished business of dining out considering how hungry we all were after all. So we all got back to our house (Vinayadeep @ Hanumanthanagar) for nursing our hungry souls. Masala dosas, Mangalore Bajji's, Plain Dosas from Durga bhavan was packed. A brilliant idea stuck and Anu maama and I struck a deal with the 'GolGappa' guy to get his belonging and serve it in your front yard. In 15 minutes, we made the GolGappa waalah to shut his office for the day and pulled him off to our house.

Everybody were delighted to see so many items getting dished out in a matter of minutes and the entry of a gol gappa store just made it even more entertaining. One after another, everybody took filled their tummies full as if there was no tomorrow. By 9:30 PM we were all done and left for our respective homes after a wonderful day.

What started out as a casual outing turned out to be one of the most interesting Sundays we have ever had in the recent past. It got all all the folks under the GRA family to spend a great day and relax. One more of those events which was never planned but the output was just fantastic. As I have mentioned on my other previous blogs, Unplanned outings has this element of surprise, the element of unknown that brings in a whole lot of exitement.

Need to have more of those. Thanks all for making a Sunday worth remembering.

Check out a few photos that we took during the visit to the plot, Suryanarayana hillock and the dinner at Vinayadeep.

Suryanarayana Hills

Summer trip to Adoni for Latha's wedding

2009-05-31T08:26:00.007+05:30

This summer, 9th and 10th of May 2009, we had been to Adoni, a mid sized town which belongs to the Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh.

Well, you may ask why that place and on top of it why at that time? Latha (Soujanaya's maternal cousin) got wedded to Sri. Phanibushan and Adoni being their native place, the wedding was arranged there. The wedding was on the 9th and 10th of May, but Soujanya had left to the party a couple of days early with Pooja, Lavanya and Sanjana, while Harish and myself joined the function on the 9th. Harish and myself stayed @ the Hotel Bhima Residency in an A/C room which was pretty close to the wedding hall and acted as a cooling waterhole to beat the heat.

The wedding went pretty well and gave us a chance to witness the Andhra style of wedding tradition. It had pretty much the same rituals but with it's own flavours. The Andhra style food preparation was a delight but the take away was the 'Mandige', a pretty rare North-Karnataka dish which only few folks from Bellary know how to prepare.

Other highlights apart from the wedding was the simmering heat of the summer and I was told that we were running 42 deg C the last few days over there. A few of us took some time off the marriage hall and visited the market area of Adoni. Memorable were the gullies of the market where we saw the makings of 'Kadlepuri' which are a kind of rice puffings used which in great quantities for a lot of dishes. One of the primary ingredients of Bhel Puri as well! Check out the video, along with pictures. We stopped by at a Soda-parlour in the middle of the town and must have tasted about all the different varieties available over there. That shop was supposed to be the Soda-capital of Adoni, serving various flavours.

The last important or not-so-important information was that on our return trip on the 10th of May, Soujanya surprised me with a Birthday cake cutting ceremony on the Train, along with Harish, Kiran, Lavanya, Sanjana and Pooja. A very special moment that will be there for a long time to come!.

A few photos of the event captured through the eyes of my camera.

Latha's Wedding @ Adoni

Weekend getaway to Sangama and Om Shanti Dhama

2009-04-18T14:34:00.025+05:30

On a heavy Wednesday Scrum @ office, Kiran calls me in the middle of the daily standup and I pick up his phone and conversation starts. All I could catch with one ear on the phone and the other glued to the official meeting was 3 little words 'Outing - day long - in our cars - long weekend'. Well that was 4 words. I don't even remember what I spoke over the call, but faintly remember to having given a thumbs up and not sure if Kiran could see me doing that!

And today, while I write this blog, I feel overly impressed considering that I managed to say yes to one of the most beautiful weekend getaways I have had in a long while.

So the moment the plan got fixated, the first thing as usual was to get my car to the service station and get everything set for the next days trip.

Over a few calls with Kiran, it got decided that we were going to 'Sangama' and a visit to the 'Om Shanti Dhama' just 4 kms somewhere close by. 'Sangama' is a location about 83+ kms from Bangalore, which is the confluence of rivers Arkavathi and Cauvery. It is also the point where folks can trek to Mekedatu. There are several blogs which talks about what to do there and how to get there and so I am not going to elaborate on that.

11th of April, 2009, Anna, Amma, Souji, Pooja and myself shrunk ourselves into the cozy Maruthi 800 DX and met Jyothi Aunty, Gopinath Uncle, Kiran, Anu, Kruthi, Kiran (Kruthi's hubby) and little Anusha on their Santro. We left Konanakunte cross by about 8 AM and drove an hour where we got into a stone throw distance away from Kanakapura. We stopped by a road side restaurant whose name board had a larger than life 'Veg Hotel' hoarding than compared to the size of the hotel itself. Bakasuraras that we were, we gluttoned whatever was on the menu making sure that the server had completely lost count of what each of us had. We left the hotel guy by making him richer for sure. The next time you folks go that side, if you happen to pass by a 5-Star hotel, 4 kms from Kanakapura on your right side, believe me, we laid the foundation to it.

Burp!, Now that breakfast was over, the thoughts of what we would be having for lunch just began. We reached Kanakapura in the next 5 mins and Anna could not resist the temptation of the watermelon sitting on top of each other in a huge lorry load of mound. The green demon fixed into the boot of our spacious luxury car without any issues.

We drove for another hour crossing Kanakapura through the winding and picturesque mini-ghat section and reached Sangama. We then decided that we will first checkout Om Shanti Dhama and then get into the waters at Sangama. So we drove another 3~4 kms through a mud road till we found an arch 'Om Shanti Dhama'. It was such a relief to see some trees that provided a good shelter from the simmering April heat. At the entrance, we met Arvind, an official from Om Shanti Dhama, who mentioned that he would guide us into the institution.

We asked Arvind if he could help us find a good location for us to drench in the river and he took us down a shortcut for about 5 mins from the school. And then, and then, we came across the most beautiful, out of the world location where small rocks bifurcated the huge river into an area which looked like a natural jacuzzi! Simply out-of-the world. It couldn't have been better than this. River Cauvery, all to ourselves and not-a-soul around. C'mon that does not sound real is what you might say, but check out the photos and am sure you will call me up for some directions to get there.

Well, I will let you folks salivate while the photos and videos do the talking.

Om Shanti Dhama

Photos from Kiran

What a blast!. When we just thought, it could not get better than this, a good cloud cover came from nowhere, masking the sun and sinking the mercury down making a very pleasant weather. All there were just happening for us. The sparkingly clean and crystal clean water allowed us to enjoy the colors of the fishes zooming in left right and center. The rocks around was just enough for the 10 of us 'Securely' enjoy the beauty of the private river bank.

Pooja and Anusha had a whale of a time and for once, we left them to make the most of the opportunity. Jumping and splashing the water, throwing the sand on each other and what not! Not to be out done, the elders imitated the kids by becoming one themselves and the fun did not end till about 2 PM.

While we were having fun, Arvind kept a watch on the other side of the river to ensure that we were covered from any mis-adventures from our crocodile friends, whom we heard, live in large numbers around this area. Also got to know from him that elephant herds do come on the other side of the bank in the evenings by 6 PM for partying it out, every day.

After a relaxing for 3 hours in water and in no mood to leave the place, we walked back to the school where we were invited for lunch. A good lunch onwards, we were given a guest cottage where all of us switched off for a while and took a cat nap. Oooooof. What else do you want on a hot summer weekend? We got it all.

Later, a few of us met the swamiji of the institution, who took us around the school premises and gave us a complete tour of the Gurukulam. He gave us the mission on which the school was built and the necessity to have such Schools to bring back the lost treasures of our Hindu value system and identity and propagate it to the whole world. All along the tour, Anna and myself inquired a lot of things on their methodology and the swamiji was more than happy to answer our queries. His answers were more practical and tactical than open-ended philosophical types, which made us feel the worth of their effort.

'Om Shanti Dhama' is an institution which imparts Vedic and modern system of education in the true Gurukula methodologies. Nestled in the middle of nature all around and river Cauvery winding around this school, zero noise levels, zero pollution, the location was just like what we would have heard in movies and fairy tales. Imagine a 'Vicco Vajradanthi' Ad where the white bearded swamiji churns out a few herbs and gives out the toothpaste to a beautifully garlanded female beauty!. Well, apart from the 'garlanded female beauty' part of the imagination, the rest was all still in place!

Back to reality, this school, offers education from 5th Standard to 10th Standard and even further if somebody wishes to pursue further studies. The mission of this school is to rediscover the lost vedic methodology of education and create students who would become the ambassadors of this methodology and enable them to propagate the rich value system inherent in our vedic system of education to the entire world. About 70 students are currently studying here. They have hostels named by the Vedas where they are housed. They have daily schedules from 4:30 AM in the morning to 10 PM in the night covering from Yoga, Yagna, Veda-Abhyasa and General modern studies. The 10th standard students apply in private for the final exam. No Saturdays, No Sundays. All days are the same!

Interestingly, this school is a private initiative, with no government support and run mostly by public donations and philanthropists. 'Ramdev Baba' the Yoga icon of international fame is one of the proponents and a huge donor to this Ashram. More details can be found though their website: http://www.omshantidhama.org.

We went back to our cottage, where we sacrificed the green demon that we had bought back at Kanakapura. The fruit was gone in 10 seconds.

Later, we refreshed ourselves and said bye to our wonderful hosts and on the way went to the adjacent 'Ananda dhama' which is a resort offering summer camps for children young at age and at heart.

By the time we went there, the sun was already setting and we sat in the beautiful environs and ordered coffee and tea. While paying the bill at the counter, we were told that Tea and Coffee were complimentary!. Man, we couldn't trust our ears. The whole day looked like it was made for us and everything seemed to be working for us!. It was magically mystical.

With Om Shanti Dhama and Ananda Dhama providing and serving all the relaxation that we wanted from the trip, we left Sangama for the rest of the Junta to explore and enjoy. (He he he ;-) ).

By 7 PM, we started backwards and reached Kanakapura in 45 minutes. We had great Masaladosas at a local restaurant and to top it all with Gudbud ice-creams. We dragged our bloated tummies, back into our Maruthi and Santro and found that the cars struggled to pickup. But, at times, you need such kind of a pampered treatment at-least once a year! We were home by 10 PM and I personally did not want to sleep, to stop the current run of things to be taken over by a stupid dream. For once, the real day was better than the best of the best dreams!

My Musical Cravings went online!

2009-03-15T11:17:00.004+05:30

I have always felt the urge to put all my musical likings online and here is an attempt to do so. Am starting a new blog that will capture all the songs that seem to be running in my mind as of now. Will keep them updated as soon as I find anything that interests my mind.

http://musicinmygenes.blogspot.com/

Regards,
Vinay.

Pooja turns two! Happy Birthday Pooja!

2009-01-18T21:00:00.015+05:30

The Sunday of Jan 11th, 2009, turned into a festival for us as we celebrated Pooja's 2nd birthday. This time we decided to do the function over our Apartments and leverage the flat's basement area for dinner/lunch while we can do the rest of the party in-house.

Here are the snaps from the event. Thanks to Harish for his set of snaps.

Pooja turns two!

So it all began with our buying the Birthday dress for Pooja while we were on our Trip to Udupi and other places. On a brief stop over at Mangalore we bumped into this Kid Store where a beautiful dress was hung on one of the window panes. That's it. One thing led into an other and before we knew, we had bought this silk-ish white and glossy red-brown Midi-frock for her.

Back in Bangalore, Soujanya had this desire to distribute printed birthday invitation cards and so we fired the Internet to find some cool applications that we could use. Thanks to 'Smilebox', we were able to create our online invitation in a jiffy.

After successive discussions (a.k.a. arguments with fist fights), we finalized on the caterer (Kaveri Caterers) and most importantly, the menu. The same day, we also booked the cakes from 'Kaggis', the new posh outlet that has started close to our house. Pretty good range of designs I must say.

Soujanya always wanted the birthdays to be filled with loads of balloons and colours and cartoon characters. So we called up these event management folks to come over and give us their designs. Even before I disconnected the phone, the folks from 'Showtime' was at our door, ready with their portfolio of all kinds of designs and decorations. After an hour long discussion on the specifics, we finally decided on a design that liked and customized to our requirement.

On the early morning of 11th, we decked up Pooja and visited home and along with Anna and Amma, visited the 'Panchmukhi Ganesha Temple' at Hanumanthanagar. In one hour, we were back in the apartments for getting ready for the function.

The 'Showtime' folks were on time with their stuff and started working immediately. With a Vacuum cleaner fitted with a modified/customized air outlet, they started filling the balloons one after the other for about a thousand or more. One of the other person, got down to do decorating the stage. This went on for about an hour and before we knew what was happening, the full house was decked up with wall hangings of colourful balloons everywhere. The stage was decorated with a Blue background canvas fitted with a whole lot of cartoon characters from the little mermaid to snow-white to other angels. Tall pillars of Balloons mounted on a frame were placed on each side of the Diaz. Just at the door entrance of the door, another angel cutout stood there calling out loud that Pooja's Party was here. The blue-orange-green-white-pink-red-yellow balloon drops continued from our door and stretched on till the main gates of our apartments. Overall, it was such a beautiful sight and I have to admit, it was looking very pretty. Soujanya was delighted to see the way the way our house had transformed. It was a riot of colours everywere with an atmosphere of festivity all around.

Pooja had slept for a couple of hours by then and woke up completely fresh. Very vital for kids to have a decent nap before this event. By 3:30 PM, All the kids in our flat came down and the party began. To the cheers of all the kids and to some good music, Pooja cut her cake all in smiles, while lighting a candle. The kids had a great time with Samosas, Chocolates, Chips, Ice Creams and cakes. A few games of Passing the ball kept them occupied between another round of snacks. Soujanya had pre-packed and readied the return gifts for the kids. Pooja had a great time playing with all these kids even though most of them are elder to her by an year at least.

Once the kids left, we got ready for the next set of invitees. All our families, relatives and friends. And by 6:30 PM, our house had turned into the most festive place ever. Everybody turned up for the birthday and it was a very happy occasion for us. Pooja was looking grand wearing the new dress that we bought from Mangalore. The good thing was that she was not perturbed by the presence of so many people around and was as normally naughty as ever. For her it was just another day! But one thing for sure, she was enjoying all the attention she was getting and maxed it to the limit.

All the lights in our house was switched on and the Diaz was looking bright. The L-Section in the hall provided just the exact offset that was required for setting up the Diaz so that we had the Diaz on one side and the folks on the other.

The birthday cake was prepared in the shape of a Book with one of the cartoons on one page and the greetings on the other. By about 7:30 in the evening, Pooja cut her big Birthday cake to loud cheers and wonderful birthday song and to the claps, blessings and wishes from all the family, relatives and friends who had gathered around. Such a pretty sight. Flash lights did not stop for the next 5 minutes till every movement from every angle was captured from the folks. (Including mine!). As always, my camera was working overtime to capture the best moments. From Kids, to kids at heart, aunts to uncles to grannies to grandpas, all were there for the photographs.

Checkout the Video here:

By 8 PM, we all moved downstairs for the dinner. Avarekai-Alu-Methi-bath, Cucumber Raitha, Dry Jamoon, Rava Vada, Rice, Rasam, Curd-Rice and IceCream along with Cakes were served on buffet. Coffee was made available right from the early evenings so that people don't have to escape the building in search of one or a 'by-two', having traveled a whole lot of distance to our house. Not to mention the cold outside would have warranted to go in for the other 'by-two' as well!

Pooja collected a whole lot of gifts from everybody. Not sure if she understood why she was getting all the gifts, but anything was okay, as long as she was on the receiving side! We were delighted to see the way she carried herself without any hassles.

Overall, a wonderful day to remember. All of us liked it. And it would not have made the event such a success without all the people who came over to bless the litttle one. Thanks everybody for making Pooja and us feel so very special.

The next day, with most of the balloons on the floor, we moved about a 1000 plus balloons into Pooja's room. Pooja enjoyed a great deal playing with the balloons and it was an awesome sight. She had not seen (including us!) that many balloons and infact she gets lost under them while playing.

Its almost a week now, as I type this blog. There are a few balloons still hanging over the walls and we have let it hang there, just so that we can keep remembering and relish the good time we had. Every time I look at the balloons, my heart goes Happy Birthday Pooja (and Soujanya ;-) )

Trip to the Beaches and Temples of Coastal Karnataka

2009-01-03T11:20:00.017+05:30

This time around, I wanted to enjoy the annual vacation (of 2008) to the fullest. Initially, the plan was to spend a decent time at Kanyakumari, but with the 'Aiyappa' season @ Shabarimala, all the tickets to everywhere on all modes of transport was booked and very few options were open for us to choose. Finally, we decided on visiting a few beaches and temples on the coastal side of Karnataka.

Following, is the travel-log-commentary of our Trip to half-piligrimage, half-sun-sands-beaches tour. We (Soujanya, Pooja and Myself), were accompanied by Souji's parents and my parents.

Click here for some of the best snaps and a few videos of our trip.

Trip to Udupi and other Places

22nd Dec, Monday
~ Departed Bangalore by 7 AM.
~ On the way, visited temples of Yediyur (Siddalingaleshwara), Kaala Bhaireshwara (Adi Chunchungiri).
~ Roads till Sakaleshpura are fine. Beyond Sakaleshpura till you reach Dharmasthala, God save you and the vehicle. 100s of hairpin bends with 1000s of ditches all set to give you a bumpy ride. Welcome aboard the Shiradi Ghat section of the Western Ghats.
~ Spent about an hour at the Nethravathi River, next to Dharmasthala temple. Really good and clean water. If anybody wants to enjoy lazing around a river, this is the best place to do so.
~ Visited the Dharmasthala Manjunatha temple by about 6:30 PM. Temple reopens for public at 7:15 PM.
~ The queue was pretty long and took about 1.5 hours to complete and come out.
~ *__ Important __*: If you are visiting this temple (or any other temple on this side of Karnataka), you will need to be dressed in a dhoti and a shalya. Trousers, Shirts and Banians are not allowed.
~ Yes, you will need to pull of your banians too! Any questions, you can get the divine interventions from Lord Manjunatha himself.
~ Left Dharmasthala at 8 and reached Subramanya Temple at 10 PM.
~ Got accommodation at 'Sri Niketana' Lodge, just 50 meters from the temple.
~ Took two 2-bed rooms. Each costing Rs. 250. Decent place, *Clean* toilets, Spacious, and good enough for spending a night. Hot water facility for Rs. 8 per bucket.
~ *__ Important __*: Only 1 medical shop for the whole of the town. Closes at 8 PM itself. Just couldn't believe it. Pooja got travel sickness and my assumption that there will be some medical help available (at this time and age) proved us wrong and costly.

23rd Dec, Tuesday
~ Visited Subramanya Temple in the morning
~ River Kumardhara was good, but not as crystal clear and beautiful as we had seen when we visited this place 20 years back. That time, there was nothing except the temple and the river, but now, a town itself has come up, totally contrary to my expectations.
~ After a good breakfast, we left for Subramanya by 10 AM and headed for Mangalore.
~ By noon, we were in Mangalore. Didn’t expect this much of heat and sultry weather in Mangalore. Unbearable heat in peak winter too. (That is probably because of being Bangaloreans)
~ Shopped a great dress for Pooja. Costed a bomb, but looks good on her.
~ Never thought Mangalore has such posh outlook. Good buildings, hotels. Every single hoarding atop every building is about Jewellery! So definitely a cash-rich population.
~ Lunch at Hotel Utsav was great. Highly recommended for budget minded travelers.
~ Cancelled plans of visiting 'Ullal beach' supposed to be good and ice-creams at ‘Pabbas’ (Highly recommended by others).
~ Left Mangalore at about 3:30 PM and headed towards Udupi.
~ Brief stopover at 'Panambur beach'. Nice and calm beach. Whole lot of fishing activities. Stayed there for half an hour and moved on.
~ Reached Udupi by 5 PM and headed straight to 'Sri. Krishna Dhama' just behind the temple, next to Geetha mandir. (Co-incidentally, the same place where we stayed 20 years back!).
~ Got this tip from our Driver that Malpe beach closes by 6:30 PM and Police would drive people from the beach by that time. So hurriedly left for Malpe beach.
~ So much has changed since the last time I came here (With Shashi and Ande (1995~96)). Not a single soul was around that time, and now, this beach is not short of any other beaches in Chennai (Marina), except that Malpe beach is 100X cleaner.
~ White sand, beautiful sunset, good mix of all types of people, no bad odour of dried fish [except passing through the fishermen colony, on the way to the beach].
~ One of the best beaches I have seen so far. Highly comparable to beaches in Goa. Not too crowdy, not steep. Highly recommended.
~*__ Important __*: There is a 'Pay and use', really neat and clean toilet facility just 20 mts from the Beach. Happy to see that there.
~ Beach also offers street-side coffee shops, snack bars and light foods. Mineral water bottles available everywhere.
~ By 7:30 PM, we headed back to our lodge and found it in good shape. Clean and tidy room and toilet. Costs Rs. 150 per day. Took 2 rooms.
~ Refreshed ourselves and had a quick tour of the temple town by walk. Nothing changed much around the temple. Brought back nostalgic memories of our previous visits to Udupi.
~ Dinner at 'Mitra Samaja' was good. Hit the sack by 9:30 PM

24th Dec, Wednesday
~ Visited Sri. Krishna temple by walk.
~ Easy no rush, no mess temple. Ample time for darshan. No fuss or non-sense. Generally felt good visiting this place.
~ Parents and In-laws too liked the temple very much.
~ Due to 'Dwadashi', lunch was served at 9 AM itself. We were made to run around the temple from pillar to post, as nobody was guiding us to the location where the food was being served. Finally, we made it.
~ Free food, so no complaints. Very filling. Need to take off Shirt and Banian while having food. This was a bit strange considering the fact that people are allowed to visit the temple with Shirt and Pants, but for having lunch, we are supposed to remove Shirt and Banian.
~ Next we left again to Malpe, for visiting the St. Mary's island.
~ By 11 AM, we were at Malpe beach again. Got to know from locals that the ticket to St. Mary's Island needs to be bought at the port harbour itself.
~ It’s a 5 minute drive from Malpe beach to the Port. One straight road that you cant miss.
~ Inside the port, ask for the ticket counter to St. Mary's Island and the security officer will direct you.
~ Ticket costs Rs. 70 per head. No queue at all, inspite of the holiday period.
~ Got transferred into a ferry along with 30 other people.
~ Took 25 minutes to reach the Island. Very nice and comfortable ride. Clear blue water. ~ No foul smell over the ferry, no dirty seating, comfortable and enjoyable. Good crowd.
~ St. Mary's Island is a small piece of land. Beautiful place. Must see and highly recommended. Good white sand. Very clean and hardly any people.
~ *__ Important __*: The far side of the island is very scenic and beautiful. Good mix of rocks and beach. Pristine water.
~ *__ Important __*: Beach has a deceptively sharp gradient. Huge pull from the waves.
~ Pooja enjoyed a great deal here.
~ Unfortunately, misadventure by 3 schoolboys got them pulled into the sea.
~ *__ Important __*: No security guards, life guards, and very few people.
~ After huge efforts from the ferry operators, 2 were rescued early. 3rd kid was rescued quite a while later as he was farthest from us. Believe me, that kid was not looking good. Traumatic experience. Finally, the insane teachers/organizers of the school trip left the place back to Malpe in emergency mode as the 3rd kid had to be hospitalized due to breathing problems.
~ We spent about a couple of hours and posed for snaps. Inspite of the happening, this place is highly recommended for anybody visiting Udupi. It’s worth the salt.
~ *__ Important __*: Do not get into the water unless you are an expert in swimming. Otherwise, just relax and enjoy the view.
~ Our return ferry came back to pick us up and another 30 minutes, we were back at Malpe beach.
~ Visited 'Dianas' Restaurant at Udupi. Again, food was very affordable, delicious, no garlic, and ice creams were awesome! Highly Recommended. Good varieties on the menu.
~ With tummies full, went back to the lodge and packed just as much stuff required for our trip to Horanaadu and Sringeri.
~ Left Udupi at 3 PM and were at Agumbe by 5 PM. Waited for Sunset, but the sun was in no mood to get down and hence moved on wasting 30 minutes.
~ Touched Sringeri bypass by 7:30 PM and moved further towards Horanaadu.
~ Pooja was showing signs of travel sickness and dysentery.
~ Absolutely nobody on the roads, no other vehicles moving in the same direction as of Horanaadu made us believe, accommodation would be easy.
~ When we were just a kilometer away from Horanaadu, saw 3 buses standing one behind the other and that’s when the panic set in.
~ All this while, we had confirmed accommodation, except Horanaadu, and when reaching the town realized, it was turning out to be the mistake of the decade.
~ There were atleast 150 buses, same number of cabs and a huge Christmas holiday seeking crowd all moving helter-skelter looking for reservations.
~ All the hotels were booked and on waiting list.
~ Our cab driver asked us to enquire at hotel he knew and luckily, we got a single 3-double cot room for Rs. 600. In the circumstances we were in, we were more than happy to log in.
~ Accommodation was decent with attached bathroom. Hot water facility from 6 AM to 8 AM. Need to fetch water from a tap next in the corridor space just outside our room.
~ Pooja health seemed to deteriorate over the night.
~ *__ Important __*: Got to know that there is no pharmacy at Horanaadu. Really irritated me. So much people and not a single pharmacy / medical store. General medicines are available in shops close to the temple, but not the antibiotics or other types of medicines. Nearest pharmacy is at 'Kalasa' a bigger town, 11 KMS away. (It’s on the way to Horanaadu).
~ In-laws opted out to stay back with Pooja in the hotel, while Souji, parents and me, had a darshan, and prasad (night dinner) at the temple. Temple was as resplendent as ever.
~ Huge loads of people arriving every hour of the night.

25th Dec, Thursday
~ Pooja's health was really worrying.
~ In-laws did the early morning darshan of Annapurneshwari and once they were back, we did our 2nd round in the morning.
~ Idea was to get closer to civilization as early as possible, keeping into mind Pooja's health condition.
~ FIL administered doses of Homeopathy medicines to take control of the emergency.
~ Later called up family doctor and got some allopathic medicines administered at Kalasa on our way back to Sringeri.
~ By 12 noon, we reached Sringeri and made a quick darshan of the temple. The weather was getting hot and humid.
~ We stopped for lunch at 'Akshaya Mess', a home which serves pure vegetarian lunch just 500 meters from the temple. Same place we had visited 20 years back is now bigger and better. Food was homely, tasty and filling.
~ We left Sringeri by 3 PM and the tired souls opened eyes only when we reached Udupi by 7 PM.
~ Staying at the same rooms of 'Sri. Krishna Dhama' lodge, we quickly freshened up and got a quick darshan of Udupi Krishna.
~ Relaxed the remaining part of the day at the lodge.
~ Pooja's health started to improve. Very rare to see the chatterbox going silent for a whole day.

26th Dec, Friday
~ Pooja was looking better. But we all made a decision of cut down the trip to Karwar and Goa.
~ Instead, we planned to short-circuit the rest of the tour through Kundapur, Anegudde, Maravanthe, Murudeshwar and reach Saagar. (Heggodu, Asha (SIL) place).
~ We packed our luggage and said bye to Udupi by 9 AM and visited Anegudde Ganesha temple, a beautiful Temple on the highway.
~ Next was the wonder spot, "Maravanthe", where the national highway road seperates a river (Netravathi) from the sea for about a kilometer. On one side you have the Arabian Sea and the other side you have the fresh water river. Amazing sight. There will be very few places in the world like this. Must visit spot, right on the highway.
~ We reached Murudeshwara by about noon. The weather was hot and sultry. So wanted to take some rest. Inspite of loaded tummies, we went into the Naveen Beach hotel and had lunch by the Sea. Amazing view of the sea and a must visit hotel. Food is crappy, but the experience of having lunch over the sea was awesome.
~ Compared to my last 2 visits to Murudeshwar, one 10 years back and the other 5 years back, this place has improved for the better. The beach sand was clean with no human or animal landmines. Huge loads of people and children. Water scooters, Speedboats, and colourful fishing boats made a merry sight.
~ Overall, great improvement in cleanliness and tourism development. Highly recommended.
~ The queue at the temple was too long and hence opted to stay back with Souji and Pooja, while parents and in-laws disappeared into the long and winding queues.
~ While Souji and Pooja took shelter from the scorching sun, I pulled out my camera and click-click-click went the snaps.
~ By 4 PM, we were all done visiting the small hillock with the huge Shiva statue just behind the temple.
~ Pooja was getting stable but still had a whole lot of weakness in her.
~ We all got back into our Qualis and headed towards Saagar.
~ By 8 PM, we reached Heggodu's Honnesara, the residence of Asha's Parents. Thanks to Anna for his acute sense of direction and night vision in guiding us through untrodden roads under zero visibility.
~ We anchored at this place for the day and Asha's parents had made all arrangements for a comfortable stay. A good dinner followed. For the first time in 6 days, we came in close contact with a TV. Discussions on Politics, Mumbai Terror Attacks and Cricket Mania took over for the next couple of hours before we all hit bed.

27th Dec, Saturday
~ Woke up lazily in the morning and spent a whole lot of time with Anil (Asha's brother) and parents.
~ Our idea of leaving back to Bangalore post lunch session was anulled the instant it was conveyed to Asha's parents and they wanted us to stay atleast till Monday.
~ Completely overwhelmed, we bogged down and Anil made all the plans about how to spend time in Saagar.
~ First Anil, took us all around the Arecanut/Beetlenut farm.
~ Next he took us to the headquarters of 'Charaka', the place where the cotton is weaved into a fabric and then later garments are made and export to Charaka outlets all over the country. This institution makes use of local people, talent and technology to create contemporary Cotton garments, wallets, pillows, dress materials, bedspreads and other accessories. The cost is very reasonable and stylish too.
~ The proprietor, who was Anil's friend, gave us a complete walkthrough right from the dyeing of yarn to the center where garments are exported.
~ Later he showed us the way to the location where we could buy a few of their products from their outlet nearby.
~ And that's exactly when the apocalypse happened. Souji shopped for a whole 2 hours, picking up whatever came into her sight and she had to be literally dragged out, just in time for me to escape bankruptcy.
~ With pockets bearing only vacuum, we visited 'Vardha moola' temple (birth place of river ‘Vardha’) about 10 Kms away. A small village fair was around the temple and made a brief stopover to check anything interesting.
~ We came back to our home away from home and had a sumptuous lunch and a much wanted nap.
~ In the evening, we made a quick trip to Saagar town and then took a stroll to 'Hongirana' a residential school close by where an annual day celebration was going on. Found that event not very interesting and also that it was getting colder and breezy, and opted to return back to home for another session of great dinner.
~ Hit the sack pretty early.

28th Dec, Sunday
~ Last day of our tour.
~ Much needed break for Pooja, to get back to normalcy. Pooja was enjoying her stay.
~ We all got up early and had a fantastic breakfast.
~ With goodbyes and handshakes to Asha's parents and Anil, We left Heggodu by 10 AM on our way back to Bangalore.
~ The journey was comfortable and did a stopover at Tiptur for lunch followed by a brief stopover for tender coconuts on the way.
~ Reached Bangalore by 5:30 PM, all in good condition.

Overall, a full week of journey, temples, beaches, fun and wonderful memories, worthy of a vacation. Great company and a trip to remember.

Sincere thanks to Sri. Narasimha Murthy, brother of Gopi (Colleague at my office), who helped us out with accommodations at Subramanya and Udupi. Thanks to Priya (another Colleague at my office) for the accommodation at Goa, which we couldn't make it though. And our wholesale thanks to Kantaraju, our cab driver, who exhibited great and comfortable driving skills, support and adaptability both on and off the road.

Supplimentary Information:

Travel Period:
22nd Dec ~ 28th Dec, (7 days - 6 nights)

Total Distance Travelled:
Approximately 1350 KMS.

Travel Route Plan:
Bangalore -> Dharmasthala -> Subramanya -> Mangalore -> Udupi -> Horanaadu -> Sringeri -> Udupi -> Kundapur -> Maravanthe -> Murudeshwara -> Saagar -> Bangalore

Travel Route Map:

Mode of travel:
Hired Toyota Qualis for the entire trip (Bangalore to Bangalore). -> Rs. 7 per km -> Driver Bata of Rs. 175 per day.

Pooja's Video: Laughter is the best medicine !

2008-11-15T12:21:00.003+05:30

One of the videos of Pooja where she laughs with some wierd style, I must say!

You need to have speakers ON, even though you may not understand her language ! Nor do we! :-).

Enjoy and have fun while watching it here.

From Laughing with Pooja

Deepavali 2008 @ Vinayadeep

2008-11-03T21:39:00.002+05:30

First of all, Wishing you all a Very Happy and Bright Deepavali!

We celebrated Deepavali on the Oct 27th, 2008 (Narakachaturdashi) and the hightlight this time around was that Pooja really participated in lighting the crackers and had a whale of a time. Infact, We were a bit apprehensive about all the noise the crackers would make, and were expecting that she will stay inside the house. But discovered that she loves to see the crackers going burst and enjoyed every variation we had. Overall, had a great time and enjoyed the festivity.

Here are some pictures taken during the event.

Deepavali 2008

Mysore Trip with Pradeepa and Family.

2008-10-19T14:03:00.013+05:30

Achtung!: Long Post below, If you just wanted to see the photos, here it is:

Mysore Trip with Pradeepa and family.

Just the previous day, I called up Pradeepa and asked if we could do something about the 4 days of holidays that we have (Oct 9~12) and decided that we would just get out of Banglalore. So we planned not to plan anything and leave the rest of it to surprises.

Day 1: Thursday: Oct 9th
So the 'Awesome Twosome' families of Pradeep and mine inclusive of all P(t)axes (Usha, Pratyusha, Soujanya and Pooja) left Bangalore at 5 PM from our apartment. Doctor Pradeep B.S, [MD (Community Medicine), MBBS, Car driver], was in full mood as things started working right from the start of the day. Praveen (Pradeepa's elder brother) gave the PetroCard to us to fuel the car right through our travel which meant that we didnt have to worry of the paying for the fuel through our nose!.

We reached Mysore by around 8:30 PM and the Mysore greeted with the world famous "Dasara" Celebrations. Vijayadashami day, the streets were garlanded with lamps making it a sight to behold. It was majestic and the momment you entered the roads adjacent to the palace, you could see thousands of folks moving up and down in abosolute festivity.

We finally reached the place of overnight stay, Usha's Chikamma's house. After a warm reception, we met up with the folks and introduced ourselves over the dinner and that got us comfortable right from the word go. Vijay and Prasad joined us for dinner and Prasad extended us help by becoming the 'official guide' for next few days to take us around Mysore. Vijay is Usha's elder brother who is a dentist (MDS) now settled in Mysore while Prasad is Usha's maternal cousin who stays at H.D.Kote managing the farms and also into Real estate consultancy as well.

We tried in vain to hit the sack early, thanks to the tantrums of Pooja, the whole neighbourhood went sleepless till about 12:30 in the night.

Day 2: Friday: Oct 10th
We started about 9 AM in the morning with mouthwatering Masala dosas prepared at home. It was Praschi's (Prasad) birthday as well, so wished him our best wishes. We filled the petrol for our car to the brim while hailing Praveen for the next few minutes. (Long live Petro card). Our first stop was the house of Prasad's in-Laws house where we got a chance to meet his Kid and wife. We also went to a neighbours house where we saw the "thotti mane". A unique design of the house where the center roof of the house is open to the skies so that light and rain directly hit the floor inside the house, giving it a courtyard type of feel. Amazing design, mostly seen in South Indian films.

Next stop was the Kapila Reservoir. Not much of water in store as the catchment areas haven't received enough rain this time, so the crest gates were still closed. Irrespective, the Kabini Dam looked to extend towards both sides to a kilometer each from where we stood. Huge dam. Unfortunately, the security folks did not allow us the permission to walk over the Dam due to their constraints. Irrespective, it was a nice place to have seen. On our way back, we made a quick few stops on the backwaters of this dam, where we took a few snaps.

It was almost time for lunch and Prasad took us to his home in H.D.Kote where we had stumptous lunch and refreshed ourselves from the simmering and sultry heat. We met with their folks and spent a good time with them. For our way back, his folks packed lipsmakin' hot 'Chillie Bajjis'.

Next we came across the Nugu Dam. Built across the Nugu river, An unknown reservoir with is built only for irrigational purposes. The actual name was 'Brigu' (after the sage Brigu maharshi, but got lost in the accent of the localites and is better known as Nugu). The water was crystal clean and blue. Acres of paddy fields all around. On our way back, we got into one of the paddy fields nearby, just to take a few snaps. The greens were so irresistable and tempting.

We also found trees along the paddy field with tree houses. Thats because H.D.Kote is where the wild elephants live in close proximity to the human population and are frequent visitors to these fields. In order to protect the fields, security staff live on these tree houses to scare the pachyderms away. This also brought back memories of Heggada Devana Kote being the center of "Khedda" operations where wild elephants were caught and tamed.

The next stop was the backwaters of Nugu, which looked like an unending lake. Pooja played for a while on the shores and before she had her full (which never seemed to be even remotely close after 15 mins) we had to literally, 'tow' her away out of the place. About 30 mins into the drive, we were climbing the "Chikkamma Devaru" hills. After a risky steep drive, we found a small temple with very few visitors. A small temple that it is, it has a whole lot of visitors on Fridays and Tuesdays. But the temple itself is not why you need to be here. On the setting sun, about 1000 ft above the ground, this place opens up to the sky. The view was breathtaking as you could see the Kabini reservoir at the far end, the Nugu backwaters and the unending flat green paddy fields surroundings us by 360 degrees. Such an awesome place. We spent quite a while enjoying the scenes and the camera went hot clicking almost every second.

After an eventful day, we got back onto our car and the rain gods showed some mercy on us and threw some drizzle to cool the hot air for a while. Absolute Paradise!. In about an hour and half, we were back to "our" home in Mysore. Usha's Chikamma was ready with the dinner. The speciality was the fried cury of Beans, Carrots and Onions with coconut gratings ! With rice and desi ghee, it made such a good combination, I wish I could attach it along with this blog for the world to taste. Without further ado, all of us hogged as if there was no tomorrow. Thanks to the tired souls, we hit the sacks early and the next thing we know off, it was 6 AM the next day.

Day 3: Saturday: Oct 11th
After a heavy breakfast of Idlies, our team left for Gopalaswamy Himavad Parvatha. On our way, we touched Nanjangud, and Gundlupet before climbing the hills. It was a beautiful drive and when we started climing the hills, we realized how thick the jungles were. And then Pradeepa stopped the car for a momment and pointed us towards a couple of elephants enjoying their breakfast. The gentle giants stood there about half a kilometer away on a mountainous terrain. To see an elephant in it's wild is always fun. As we continued our upward climb, the air started to cool, the winds got heavy and the tree branches got covered with a thick layer of green moss, an indication that these regions are generally are always under mist. In about 15 minutes we were on the top of this hill which houses the Gopalaswamy Himavad Parvatha Temple. This temple is mostly covered under a blanket of cloud all most all the time and hence the apt name "himavad parvatha" meaning "peak coverd in mist". Gopala Swamy (Krishna) is the deity here and hence the name Gopalaswamy Himavad Parvatha. Lord Krishna is playing his flute here and for the fist time, looks good (and handsome too!) in comparison with other idols of Krishna across temples. The temple has a huge front yard open to the skies and offering a breathtaking view of the serene surroundings. The cool air and cold temperature makes you feel you are in Ooty or Kodaikanal for a while. And frankly, it was no different. Unfortunately, the temple is at it's best during the early mornings as one can see the clouds dashing the temple itself. But we were there only by noon and missed them. Nevertheless, we still enjoyed the cool environs of this place. One thing to remember is that not a whole lot of Bangalore folks know about this place (yet, I believe). So if somebody is planning to go towards Mysore, they should include this place in their wishlist. Before we knew, the camera got rolling again with whole lot of snaps from every angle. A location worth visiting.

In the next 30 minutes, we reached the foot hills and reached Gundlupet where we had our lunch and moved on over to Nanjangud for a pitstop, where I bought "Nanjangud Hallpudi !!!" (Anything bought at the source is worth it !). Its a Toothpowder prepared here by an Ayurvedic doctor and I remember using this as kids. It has that unusual tinge that tastebuds gets confused and cant deciper. I couldn't have imagined going back without buying them as novelties from this place. Just when I thought my shopping was done, Pradeepa reminded me of the "Nanjangud bananas", again famous here and it didnt take too long for us to devour half a dozen each. The ladies now demanded that they needed to do their bit of shopping and held us gunpoint to take them to the Mysore Silk Saree Showroom.

So we reached Mysore's famous Mysore Silk Weavers Corporation Wearhouse, the place where the world famous Mysore Silk sarees are made and sold. Our womenfolks who held us gunpoint, were ambushed by the price tags on each one of the sarees as the starting price for a saree was about 3.5K. A decent saree was tagged at about 6K, which by gods grace our ladies felt was a bit high priced (brand name). I wiped my cold sweat as I regained my lost smiles and drove the folks as fast as I could just incase that they dont change their mind. At the same time, we also felt sad for the ladies that we could not get them a good deal on the sarees as we had come with so much of hope and aspirations of buying them one. Well, with half a smile and half a frown, we then moved to 'Urs' road, equivalent of the M.G. Road of Bangalore, we packed a few sweets and namkeens for our hosts back at Mysore.

We reached our home, met with the folks and refreshed in about 30 minutes and were back in the car by 6:30 PM. The idea was to watch the Mysore Palace in all it's glory under the lights and visit the huge exhibition right in front of the palace. Saturday - 6:30 PM - Dasara Season - going towards the palace ? (Something told us we must be nuts ). Well that's what we realized as we caught up in a huge traffic jam leading us nowhere as the whole of Mysore and other places was exactly there. Suddenly the huge roads of Mysore chocked up and made us feel like we were in Bangalore. It took us a good 45 mins to move to a place where we could breathe. We passed the Palace main gates still under lights and before we could arrest the beauty of it, the lights went off on dot at 8 PM. Adding salt over injury, the rains started pouring cats and dogs. Man!, this is not how we thought the day would end.

Pradeepa bieing Pradeepa, asked us to get down and buy tickets to the exhibition while he would park the vehicle "Somewhere" and "find us" in the exhibition among a few million crowd! And we did that (Dont know what would have happened if we did not heed to his words at that time). Pradeepa and Usha rejoined in about 20 short minutes inside the exhibition. For once, we felt that we are proud of the mobile phone services, and that we were never apart. The famous Dasara exhibition showcased a whole lot of shops ranging from jewellery, household, carpets, kitchen utilities, garments. Not to forget the quick chats, juices and snacks followed by kids section with merry-go-rounds, columbus, boat rides, monorail and others as well. This time, the government had decked up this place more beautifully than ever with water fountains, information booths, public address systems, toilets and phone facilities as well. A good step forward. I leart from Pradeepa that they had spent crores on just the garlanded lighting of the roads and government had announced a reward for the most well lit buildings. A move to attract a whole lot of visitors paid off.
We went back home at about 12 in the night, and were received by Raja and his wife (Cousin of Usha, who lives in Banglore). After a few rounds of discussions, we were back to our rooms after bading goodbye to the wonderfull hosts.

Day 4: Sunday, Oct 12th
We got up early and so that we could spend some time with the hosts. Usha's uncle Sri.Rudraswamy is a Proffessor of Political Science, now retired and Usha's Chikamma (Smt. Nirmala) manages the house, while Cousin brother Raja is a Physiotherapist, and Raja's wife Ms. Vanamala is a Dentist. Other daughter is also a Dentist and so is their Son in Law. Over all, the whole family is into serving the people through their profession. While the time we stayed there, we never felt that we were away from our home. Such homely was the treatment and the company was so good and it felt as it we knew them from years.

Vijay and Prasad were also present in the morning before we packed our bags to bade us goodbye. By about 9 AM, we took leave of the folks after a group photograph.

The next agenda was to checkout the Masaladosa from the 'Mylari Hotel'. A family known as 'Mylari' runs this business which shot into fame because of the taste of their Masala dosas they serve. A small hotel with a seating capacity of less than 15, we found more number of people waiting outside just to get inside!. And we were among those ones. Then we got to know that the Mylari family has another outlet managed by one of their brothers and this was just diagonally opposite to the one we were standing in the queue for sometime now. We tried getting into that and luck did not favour us there either, as the crowd was still the same. If one hotel has their signboards as "Mylari hotel (original and we dont have any branches)", the diagonally opposite hotel states in bold, "Original Mylari hotel". This seems to be working on the same lines of the 'Reliance Sons' model!. While the question on which is the Original Mylari hotel needs to be answered, we thought it would be better off to move to a different hotel. And so we did, after waiting for an hour, we moved into another Masala dosa speciality hotel, the Gayathri Tiffin Room (GTR). Though it was crowded too, we managed to sneak in and have a wonderfull breakfast here. And true to the name, the Masaladosa matched up to the expecations. The day being Prathyusha's first birthday, Pradeepa ordered a whole lot of sweets and were good too. With a solid breakfast, we left Mysore at about 11 AM. The drive back home was smooth and by 2.30 PM, we were back to our home in Bangalore.

That was the end of a wonderful trip or just the begining.

In retrospect, I realize that for trips which are almost risk free should never be planned in advance. Planning kills a whole lot of surprises and converts them into expectations. On such trips, the motive becomes to meet the milestone rather than enjoying them. The only expectation from our trip was to be with people of the same mentality and take timeout from Banagalore and I think that we exceeded that in all sense. All of these would not have been possible without the cooperation of our ladies. Special thanks Pradeepa for taking control of the wheel right from the momment we started till the time we reached Bangalore.

Wish the rest of the Pancham gang was a party to this trip. Missing Ande, Shashi and Hegde.

Very NICE Park indeed !

2008-10-02T11:13:00.004+05:30

On the Sunday afternoon (7th Sep, 2008), Lavanya, Sanjana and Harish took us to the NICE park which is about 20 mins drive from their house at Rajarajeshwarinagar.

NICE (Nandi Infrastructure Corridor) has it's office about 5 Kms from from the Mysore Road enterance (Toll booth). They have maintained a beautiful lawn and whole lot of open space and a kids play area. This park acts as a pitstop for high-speed travellers taking this road and during evening times, this place (open to public), looks magical!

I didn't expect that this park would be that good! Folks, if you haven't visited this place, I higly recommend that you visit atleast for your kids!. Do this before the crowd starts pouring in or before Bhelpuri Maamu sets up his shop. Check it out.

Click below for a few snaps that we took over there!

Visit to NICE Office Park

Pooaja's Gowri Habba Bhagina

2008-10-02T10:30:00.003+05:30

This Gowri Habba (9th Sep, 2008), Pooja gave Bhagina to Sreevali, Prathyusha and Anusha. Pooja enjoyed meeting all of her friends on this august occassion.

Here are some snaps that we took during the Bhagina exchange!

Gowri Habba Bhagina - 9th Sep, 2008

Yabba, bubbe bubbiyeah yeah!

2008-08-12T19:55:00.003+05:30

Here is a conversation that I like to Share. Pooja has this frequent "tele-conference" with Anna and Amma every now and then, so thought I will capture it to share it with the rest of the world.

This lengthy call with Amma and Anna was duly held on 27th July, 2008.

Let me know if you understand her language.

Pooja over the phone!

Weekend getaway to Coorg !

2008-03-25T12:00:00.016+05:30

This 'Good Friday', Soujanya, Pooja and myself packed our bags for a 3 day weekend getaway to the so called 'Kashmir of the South', 'Scotland of India', 'Gods own coffee shop' - Coorg!

21st Feb, Day 1: Friday
Our day started wonderfully well at 5:45AM in the morning and within the first 30 minutes of our journey, our car was greeted with a tyre puncture! Well, that was the last of the problems we had during the entire trip, thanks to the Tatas. The weather was just perfect with a mild drizzle (indications of a cyclonic effect) which brought a great deal of excitement to us as that was the best thing to keep the scorching sun out our our way. Also, hill stations and forest looks outstanding in rain rather than in sun.

We took the beautiful Mysore road, and after Srirangapatna, we took a right turn and went via Hunsur, Periyapatna and Kushalnagar. When we were close to Kushalnagar, our Driver (Kumar) suggested that we finish visiting the places around Kushalnagar as it was on the way to Madikeri. I bought his advice, called up our HomeStay contact person and told him the change of plans. We first visited the Harangi Dam. A reservoir against the Harangi River, the dam was closed for visitors but we could reach the water that comes out of the dam. The water was crystal clear with no filth anywhere and the place was absolutely clean and totally untouched. For the first time, Pooja was let free in the water (which she loves dipping into) and she had a ball of time. We spent about an hour there and Pooja had to be literally dragged out as she was not in any mood to compromise the piece of heaven. We had a quick grub by the river and set out to Bylukoppe.

Bylukoppe hosts the Tibetian Monastery, the very famous 'Namdroling Monastery' with the Golden temple. I was a bit apprehensive to visiting this place with the recent tensions with the stuff that is going on with Dalai Lama, Tibet, China and India. But those were a thing of the past when we entered the beautiful environs of the Golden Temple. I had seen this place earlier when a few of us college friends had visited this place about 10 years back. Nothing much has changed except that it has become dirtier. Even with the current state, the amazing wall paintings, the golden Buddha, gigantic dragons, colorful drums, the lawns and the huge prayer hall are worth a visit. Lots of visitors were seen in this place.

Next stop was at Nisargadhama, a beautiful piece of green Island formed when river Cauvery forks and rejoins later. A swinging and swaying bridge greets everybody to a dense bamboo forest with loads of things to see around. Pooja had a great time feeding the Rabbits. Then we went into the thicker sections of the land where we saw tiny tree houses built on tall bamboo shoots with Ladders dropping from the doors. The thick carpet of fallen bamboo leaves made the surface look so rich in color. Great place to let kids be themselves and the elders become kids again. Next was the elephant ride where Soujanya and Pooja perched on top of the Howdah and enjoyed the ride with the pachyderm. Next was the deer park where we saw about 10 spotted deers. A vendor was selling vegetables over there and I thought it was for human consumption but realized that it was being sold for the deers. And for the first time I witnessed a 'feed' the animals theme park in place! Good going.

It was about 5'ish in the evening and the dark clouds started getting darker and the rain god could not hold himself for long. So we said bye to the deers and started running like them to reach back our car! We reached Madikeri town by 5:30 and we met our homestay contact person (Sharath) on the way, who showed us the way to the 'home-away-from-home'. Home stays are everywhere in Madikeri and every other house is a home-stay. No shortages there. And this being the peak season, it was still hard to find them over the net. Somehow I was able to manage to get this accommodation.

We stayed with the 'Chuppi' homestay, and as of now there is no evidence of it's existance on the internet other than on a brief into on it on the orkut. It housed two bedrooms, one with an attached bathroom which had 24 hour running water (gas geyser!). The living room had a good TV, a Sofa set, a Diwan and a Showcase that was decorated with all the empty bottles of a hundred country made liquor brands ! Alas, it was not full. I would have sold it! (What were you thinking?). The accomodation was decent but the best part was the support that we got from the owners who reside on the otherside of the house. The living has a common wall with a tightly 'closed' wooden window. So any thing you need help from these people, just tap it twice and 'how-can-I-help-you?' genies would emerge by at your door! So cool. The illumniation was a bit dark inside which was a something that could have been better.

So we hit cleaned up the already cleaned rooms and hit the bed after a tiring day. We didn't even have to switch off the lights as Mother Nature did that for us as she snapped a tree somewhere and the whole Coorg grid got switched off. She also took care to cool us down with heavy showers overnight which were such a relief.

22nd Feb, Day 2: Saturday
We got up early morning at 9 AM and were ready by 10. After a quick breakfast we bought an additional umbrella from the town and hit towards Talacauvery. 50 Kms and an hour later, we reached Talacauvery. It was pouring cats and dogs but the sight of the landscape, aroma of the coffee flowers and the chill of the surroundings kept us excited all the way. Talacauvery the birth place of Cauvery, also referred as 'Nile of the South', 'Amazon of the east' (just kidding!). Finally, government has constructed some kind of temple around and it is now looking in great shape to attract the visitors. We looked past one of the view points to see the amazing greenery and landscape of Coorg. The chilling winds and the torrential rains gave a real perspective of the location we were at. A think blanket of clouds hovered around and made as feel heavenly. We climbed the Bramhagiri peak which was adjacent to Talacauvery. The view from over the top was just unbelievable. It was a 'Dejawoo' feeling with the same experince that I had when I visited 'Glendalaugh' in Dublin. I carried Pooja all the way up and down and I could hear my heart pumping real hard! Soujanya consoled me by saying "Moov hain na, so lets move on!” After our descent from Talacauvery, we visited temple at Bhagamandala where apparently 3 rivers confluence (Cauvery and other two I don’t know of). Due to heavy rains, I could only see muddy waters from two ends mixing into slurry here. But, I have seen this place earlier and it definitely is worth a place to visit. Nevertheless, we didn't spend too much time here and moved on.

We reached Abbey falls about 9 Kms from Madikeri town and this time, due to the recent downpour, the waterfall looked majestic and magical. We could hear the roar from the entrance to the falls itself. Standing on the 'Swinging' bridge, we could feel the mist hit us and drench us to an extent that we were wet in a matter of seconds. The walk to the falls through the coffee plantation was very memorable.

On our way back, we stopped briefly over at the Raja Seat, the vantage point in Madikeri city where we can see the other hills of Coorg. I had seen this place in my earlier visits and it is an okay place to visit but nothing memorable. But this time, it was different. Due to the weather, heavy breeze, clouds and rain, the view from the point completely blocked. The wind was blowing so hard that we had to keep the umbrellas horizontal rather than vertical! It was as if we were being literally pushed aside by the blazing wind. It was very chill and the experience was just great. I am convinced, weather conditions make a place look great.

We were back in our homestay by 6 PM and rested the rest of the remaining day. We ordered traditional Coorgi food (minus the non-veg stuff) and had a taste of their 'Akki Rotti and Curry'.

23rd Feb, Day 3: Sunday
We packed our bags and said goodbye to Chuppi Homestay. The next visiting spots were the Dubbare Elephant Sanctuary on the way back to Bangalore. We did a quick stop-over at the Omkareshwara temple right in the middle of Madikeri. A beautiful 'Kalyani' overlooks the temple from the front. We then had a quick breakfast in a local hotel and left for Dubbare Elephant Sanctuary. The location is very nice with greenery all around. The scenery with the river and loads of trees in the backdrop makes it a perfect place to shoot a great deal of photos. A couple of motor boats take you across River Cauvery into the camp. Unfortunately, the elephant ride (similar to the ones we had in Nisargadhama) was just closed for the day as the elephants had to go out for lunch! So we just got a chance to watch the elephants in close quarters for a while. We spent taking a few more photographs and returned back on the same boat. Nevertheless, the scenery was really great. If anybody wants to take the elephant rides here, they need to be here before 11:30 AM. There is a slot in the evening too, but indefinitely.

Having seen the beauty of the hills, the chilling cold, the breezes and clouds, we left back with loads of memories and started towards Bangalore in the same route that got us to Coorg. We stopped briefly in Mandya for lunch and packed a few Maddur Vadas in Maddur. We were home by 6:30 PM. A great weekend getaway!

General info for others who would need some more details:

1. Coorg: A district of Karnataka, A.k.a 'Kodagu'. Madikeri (A.k.a Mercara) is the major city in Coorg.
2. Mode of Transport: Tata Indica car @ Rs.4.5 per KM.
3. Total travel distance of the trip (Bangalore-Madikeri-Bangalore): 711 KM, Driver Bata: Rs.150 per day.
4. HomeStay at Madikeri: Rs.1200 per day.
5. Total cost of the trip: Approx Rs.7000 for 3 days, for 2 adults and a kid, including food.

As always, I have uploaded more than a few photos and videos of our trip here: Click on the photograph and to view the slideshow.

Weekend getaway to Coorg!

Map of Coorg:

Anna's 70th Year Birthday Celebrations

2008-03-07T23:46:00.005+05:30

The 2nd of Feb, 2008, We celebrated Anna's 70th Birthday @ Shri Puttige Matha, opposite BMS College of Engineering.

Fortunately, that Saturday, we were able to get the booking of the Matha without any hassle. The day started off with a small pooja back at home and we left for the Matha by 10 AM. By 10:30 the Satyanarayana Pooja started which got completed in 2 hours. All of our folks came down from various parts of Bangalore and offered their best wishes.

Thanks a lot everybody for making this event a grand success.

Here are a few Photos and Videos that I captured during the event.

Anna's 70th Year Birthday Celebrations

Pooja's First Birthday !

2008-01-26T09:35:00.000+05:30

The 12th of January, 2008, We celebrated Pooja's First birthday (Pooja's actual birthday falls on 11th Jan).

The day started as a small get-together function at 'Chiguru' (our new house), where we had invited Soujanya's Parents, Uncles and Aunts and our parents.

In the evening, we organized a Birthday party @ 'Vinayadeep' and invited all the 15~20 friends of Pooja. We decorated our front yard with loads of buntings, baloons and colours.

We presented Whistles, Party Caps, Baloons, Pen and Pencils to all our chief guests of honour!.

At around 7 PM, Pooja cut her first birthday cake (Butterfly cake!) amidst loud cheers from all relatives and kids. The best part of the party was the happiness in the face of the kids who whistled the whole day with their piece of cryptonite well into the night.

Thanks to Sanjeev and Sarju, for making some time out of their baby-tight schedule to make it to the Party.

Overall, do not know if Pooja will ever be able to remember this, but We enjoyed 'her' birthday and will remain in our hearts for a long time to come.

Here are a few pictures that we took during the memorable occassion.

Pooja's First Birthday

"Chiguru" - Grihapravesha of our house !

2007-11-02T15:02:00.000+05:30

The 23rd and 24th of October, 2007, became a very special day for us as our "House" became a "Home". We performed the Grihapravesha of our Apartment house - "Chiguru".

For the benefit of Non-Kannada folks, "Chiguru" in Kannada means "A bud", signifying "A New beginning".

The evening of 23rd (Tuesday) we performed a lot of homas like 'Gana Homa', 'Vaastu Homa', 'Navagraha Homa' and others. The only homa we could not do was the 'Gende Thimma Homa' because of lack of time... Just kidding :-).

Early on the morning of 24th (Wednesday), we 'Grihapravesh'ed at '6:38 AM'. Satyanarayana Pooja followed, after a few other Homas, Hoo Veelya, Paadapooja and other programs.

For those of you who couldn't make it or haven't been to our house earlier, our apartment flat has a 2 BHK accomodation and is all of 12 squares. We are on the 1st floor of the Apartments, which translates into 2nd floor our 'non-apartmentiers'!.

It's about 5 Kms from our house ('Vinayadeep') in Hanumanthanagar and 2.5 Kms from Soujanya's parents house close to Kamakhya Theatre. The apartment has 20 houses layered in Ground+4 floors. Purely Residential Apartment with no fancy stuff like Gym, Swimming Pool or Club.

Here are some of the momments of this function that was captured on the camera. Many thanks to Harish(BIL) and Kiran(Nephew)of Soujanya.

Chiguru - Grihapravesha

Again, I thank everybody who blessed us in person / virtually / by long distance / by SMS / by Phone Call / by Emails, inspite of rain god's tantrums, Weekday event and Bangalore Traffic. The function couldn't have been a grand success without your Good wishes and Blessings.

We plan to move into our new house by Jan 2008. The address to reach is as follows.
D-204, "Chiguru"
#301/302, Vishnu Residency,
1st Cross, 7th Main,
Sarvabhoumanagar, Chikkakallasandra
Bangalore - 560061

Visiting Tirupathi Venkateshwara

2007-08-15T06:19:00.000+05:30

July the 28th 2007, a long standing due to visit Tirupathi got accomplished. It took about 4 Years and 1 Month since the charter got signed, to say Hi to the lord.

Click the photo at the bottom of the this post, to view the pictures that we took during our small 2 day package trip.

The dare-devils who made it all happen were my parents, Souji's parents, Souji's Sister Lavanya and BIL (Harish) along with niece, Sanjana. Include Pooja Vinay, all of 7 months old.

We booked the ITDC Package Tour which is about 1.5K per person. We boarded the Volvo bus in front of a totally unknown and unrepresented building called as 'Swiss Complex' which also houses the ITDC office, right in the middle of Race Course Road. We started at about 9 PM and that's the last we know. About 2 in the morning the guide asks us to get down and get 'Fingerprinted'! Well, thats a way you get authenticated and badged. Gone or the days where you were given a band. Its now Fingerprinting. Talk about Digitization.

From the cozy environs of the Volvo, We came out into Mother Nature who greeted us with torrential rains. There are about 3 counters and since we are from the 'Special' queue, We took Counter No.3. Lucky us !

The counter had a WebCam and a Fingerprinting device fitted onto a State-of-Art Intel 386-AT desktop with a dot matrix printer with Color Monitor!. A Dial-Up modem helped to ensure that information reaches the server (somewhere) and even comes back too!.

Fortunate as we were, and thanks to the rains, there was an interrupted-network breakdown every 2 minutes. And in the same time span, there were about 2 bus loads of people coming in to this terminal to get finger printed. Now you know the situation!. 2 AM in the morning, Torrential Rains, 3 Counters, Network Breakdown, Thousands of people ! By the time we got our fingerprinting done it was about 6:30 in the morning !.

The ITDC tour guys then took us to a very nice hotel (PR Grand Deluxe). The eight of us got 4 rooms which overlooked the Beautiful face of the Tirumala Peaks. The accommodation was excellent.

Later we were taken for local sight seeing to KaalaHasti temple. By 5 PM, we were taken to Tirumala, the Hill abode of Lord Venkateshwara. The guide gave a good 1 hour break for people who wished to get their head tonsured. Our One-on-One with the lord was destined at 9 PM and we were told to be in the queue by 6:30 PM.

Soujanya and Pooja got the benefit of getting into the reservation category (Mother with an infant queue) and that queue was a breeze, was what was told to us. So Souji and Pooja made the best use of it.

Our morning exercise of standing in the queue for 5 hours in rain and at unearthly hours had made us strong enough to bear the next challenge.

So we stood. And we stood and We stood !. At 7.30 PM, I just looked back to see that We were one of the fortunate ones as the tail of our queue could be seen extending to the foothills!. We were elated looking at the positive side of things. The queue gates opened and we started moving. The winding queue took about an hour to reach the dreaded Jail complex. All the way till here, I was seeing myself in a Black and White striped shirt with a jersey number on it and with a Chaddi. Luckily in about 90 minutes, my apprehensions disappeared as we didn't get locked up as there was not "as many" people that day!. By about 10:30 PM, On the horizon, somewhere about 500 ft in front, I could see the Special queue started to merge with the "not so special queue" (Dharmadarshan). All that while, our travel in first class seemed going off the hook. Suddenly, All hell broke lose at exactly at the confluence of the meeting queues. The highly seasoned Security guards, the Scout Boys (or 'Cubs' as they are called), tried best to contain the crowd, but the absolute determination of the people not to be bound to any rules, just took over. '

For the next 15 odd minutes, every one of us lost control of our mobility. The sheer push and pull exerted by the crowd made me understand how small I was in the universe!. The scientific temper in me made me derive and deduce the relationship between Charles' laws, the Boyles' laws and its direct relationship with Newton's laws of motion. I revised the all the chapters on Stress, Strain, Bending Moment, Breaking Point etc. It also taught me humility even as I got bruised all over the body by a few tonsured kids who almost gore me to death in their endeavor to seek the darshan the lord.

In the last leg of the queue, the security guards took over the "push-pull job" from the crowd and the professionals that they were, ensured that we were on our toes. After a couple of minutes, We saw light! and Sound? "Govindaaah Gooooooovinda !!!". The bells started chiming and behold, Lord Venkateshwara in all his glory. I made sure not to close my eyes so that I could get the nanoseconds of darshan of the lord.

After this point, the queue system started to disperse and I could see a sea of people waiting outside the Sanctum Sanctorum, just to ensure if they had their body and soul in one piece.

The outward queue was a breeze compared to the latter and my only craving at this point was, the Ladoos. The Special ticket ensured that each person could get 2 laddoos!.

The ordeal was over in about 5 hours. We met Soujanya and Pooja outside the temple and had a quick grub and boarded the bus back to Tirupathi from Tirumala. On the way back, I was wondering what was this all worth for? Just for a few seconds of darshan, I had to endure a total of 1 day travel, 9 hours of horrendous queues, Torrential rains, Network Breakdowns, Bruises all over my body, Revisiting Physics Laws, Man ! Was it all worth? Just for 3 seconds of darshan? I realised that Probably, it's because of such things, that makes us better understand how complex the universe is and how small we are in comparison and if there was something called a 'god' then how difficult a job he is handling.

All said, we reached our hotel and hit the sack by 12 in the night. By 7 AM we were again ready as we boarded the bus to visit other temples. Darshan of Padmavathi, the wife of Lord Venkateshwara was quite comfortable. The laddoo was also good I must say! The guide stopped briefly for a good breakfast at the Bhimas. Hungry souls that we were, we left no dish untouched and devoured it as if there was no tomorrow.

Next, we visited the Kapilatheertha temple where a beautiful spring falls down the gorge and enters a Kalyani. It also acts as a natural shower for people wishing to take an exotic bath. A few photos were clicked as Pooja was merrily enjoying the scenic location.

Later we visited the Kalyana Venkata Ramana temple. As the name suggests, this is where Padmavathi received her Masters Degree and Venkateshwara lost his Bachelor's! Well, it got a bit monotonous to visit so many temples one after the other.

The return trip to Bangalore started in the noon and we were back in Bangalore by 7 PM.

At the begining of the trip, we were a bit worried as to how Pooja would face the trip, but she was a gem. Never was momment that was dull. All the pains were washed away by her smiles. Amazing to see how Sanjana took such good care of Pooja and kept her and all of us entertained. The trip was really worth remembering.

One thing to note here (inspite of all other challenges we had), is that ITDC had made wonderful arrangements starting with Clean Bus, Good Driver, Super Guide who gave very clear directions on what to do and when to do. Hotel was excellent, gave decent time to have breakfast and lunch and more over, Courteous. All said, I would give about 4/5 for ITDC. A good package to visit Tirupathi. i.e if you dare to !!!

A few photos that we took are posted on the link below. Click and thou shal find.

Visting Tirupathi

My Birthday Gift

2007-05-21T14:33:00.000+05:30

On my birthday this time around, While we gorged on hot Samosas and Ice-Creams, Pooja had no option but to feel left out. She was so jealous that she literally screamed at us!

Check her Video here: Pooja Screaming!

Vinnie the Poo(ja)

2007-04-12T18:17:00.000+05:30

April the 5th, 2007, Our daughter finally got her basic identity ! With the blessing of all well wishers, henceforth, we will be calling her as "Pooja Vinay".

The other names that were a part of the ceremonial routine were "Sridevi - (Birth star name)", "Vaghdevi", "Seetha Bai" -- Elders Name (my paternal grand-mom), "SriLaxmi" -- gods name"

Her Naming Ceremony was held at the Ananthakrishna Hall, close to Soujanya's house at Kathriguppe. The event started at about 10:30 AM and concluded at 1:30 PM. Relatives and friends from Soujanya's end as well as my end had come down to bless the little one. The function went well in all regards.

It started off with a mouth-watering Idli-Chatni breakfast (one of the attractions to entice people into coming in early!!! ;-) ).The Poojar was the same person who got me and Soujanya married. The function took about about 3 hours but we thoroughly enjoyed the whole length. Our daughter was completely awake the whole length and infact plyaing all the while ! The best part was that she was actually sitting right from the begining not lying down on her mom's lap, which everybody considered a rare thing as babies that small do not do this stunt !.

A good lunch at the end concluded the event. Would like to thank everybody who was present on this occassion including people who wished us all virtually.

Here are a few photos from the occassion.

Daughters Naming Ceremony

Baby Pictures: 2 months completion.

2007-03-20T16:38:00.000+05:30

Adding more photos of our baby daughter. She completed 2 months on March 11th, 2007 and here are some photos taken during Ugadi (Mar 19, 2007) at Soujanya's parent's home.

The naming ceremony (namakarna) of our daughter will be on April 5th, 2007. I will send across the Venue and timing of the event. Please consider this as a personal invitation for everybody to attend this function.

2 Months !

Visiting Kanyakumari, Trivandrum, Madurai and Rameshwaram

2007-03-01T10:39:00.000+05:30

Anna, Amma, Dodappa, Dodamma and Putty Aunty embarked on a memorable tour of the south visiting Trivandrum, Kanyakumari, Madurai and Rameshwaram.

They started their journey on the night of 17th Feb, 2007 and returned on the morning of 23rd. Its really commendable that at this age (except amma, all are above 70 !), they were able to make it to these places and come back wanting for more!

I consider that this is a very special trip to the brothers and sisters as they got a good quality time to spend with themselves. The company was just great. Thanks also to the timing of their trip, the weather was cool enough to enjoy the trip to the fullest.

Here are some Super pictures, that Anna took during their trip. Incredible!

Visiting Kanyakumari, Trivandrum, Madurai and Rameshwaram

3 Canons and a Sony ! -- Visiting Dublin, Ireland

2007-02-23T11:11:00.000+05:30

A week long official training got me and my 4 collegues to Dublin, Ireland. Our trip lasted a week between 4th Feb to 12th Feb, 2007.

Dublin was exactly the same as it was last August, except that there was no leaves on the trees, the sun barely came out, Grafton Street had no hanging pots with those beautiful flowers and the temperature never rose above 5 deg C.

We visited a quite a large number of Bars this time and found out about the famous water holes in Dublin. Temple Bar, Market Bar, Portobello, Davy Byrnes and hic... what was tha ... hic..t !

The highlight of the visit was the unexpected Snowfall which was my first snowfall experience (though I have played in Snow many times earlier). Believe me, its a very nice experience to be there to recieve the first frozen droppings from the god above.

I am sure, the phirangs must be giggling around reading my description of the only activity they get to see in their entire life. DUDE ! It doesn't snow here in Bangalore - EVER.

Here are a few pics from the trip.

Photos from Dublin

Now, you must be wondering whats the deal with title of this blog. All these pictures were shot on 4 Cameras: 3 Canons and a Sony !

Here is the bloglink for my earlier trip to Dublin:
http://dublinvisit.blogspot.com/

Our Daughter Is born

2007-01-20T14:58:00.000+05:30

Soujanya and I became proud parents with the birth of our daughter(yet to be named!) on the 11th of Jan, 2007, Thursday. Our bundle of joy arrived at 5:24 PM. She weighs 3 Kgs and measures 1 foot 6.5 inches !

It was a normal delivery at the Gunasheela Maternity and Surgical Hospital. We were out of the hospital in less than 3 days of stay there.

Both Soujanya and our baby are doing good. Thanks to all of you for the good wishes before and after our baby's arrival.

Here are a few photos of our baby.

Our Bundle Of Joy

Cousins Association Meeting - 2006

2006-12-29T21:55:00.000+05:30

http://cousinsassociation2006.blogspot.com

The 24th Dec, 2006, the annual Cousin's Association meeting was held at the H.B. Samaja hall and all the member families met and enjoyed a realy wonderful day.

A lot of picutres and videos were taken during this one day fest and here is a small set of photos that I have pushed up on this blog. Last year's photos are uploaded here

Shravya, also has posted her versions here

Hey!, I have updated the contact information of all the members who responded to me here. Please let me know if there are any corrections required.

Amma's 60th year Birthday Celebrations

2006-11-21T14:57:00.000+05:30

Amma turned 60 on Sunday, October 27th, 2006. We organized a small function and invited a few relatives and friends. For the first time, we got a Strawberry Cake with a Photo of Amma on it!. Yes it was printed on Edible Paper.

After the cake cutting function, we all left to Hotel Athithya where we had a choice of North Indian, South Indian and North Karnataka (Jowar Roti) meals on the menu.

Thanks a lot Everybody, for making this function such a grand success !

Here are a few snaps taken during that time.

Amma's 60th Year Birthday Celebration

Satyanarayana Pooja and Soujanya's Arathi.

2006-10-31T20:24:00.000+05:30

Sunday the 29th of October, we had arranged a SatyaNarayana Pooja / Arathi for Soujanya at the Shri Puttige Matt, Basavanagudi, Bangalore.

Thanks a lot everybody for giving your blessings, good wishes and making this function a grand success.

Here are a few (a lot actually!) snaps taken during that ocassion.

Soujanya's Arathi

Ramya weds Gopinath

2006-10-31T17:51:00.000+05:30

October the 13th, 2006, My sister Ramya, got married to Gopinath. Here are some snaps taken during the function.

Ramya's Wedding Snaps

Visit to Dublin, Ireland

2006-09-15T14:42:00.000+05:30

http://dublinvisit.blogspot.com/

I visited Dublin, Ireland between 30th July and 13th Aug, 2006 on an official visit from our company. During my brief stay over there, I got to learn a lot about thier culture, their way of life and the city iteslf.

All in all, Dublin is a fantastic city, about 2/3rds the size of Bangalore with a population of 3 million and about the size of Mysore. It has a unique blend of the olden European Architecture cris-crossed with the modern 'open' architecture. Follow the link for some more details.

Ramya's Engagement - 29th May, 2006

2006-06-07T19:56:00.000+05:30

http://ramya-engagement.blogspot.com/

Ramya, my cousin sister, got engaged to Gopinath on the 29th May, 2006 (Friday), here in Bangalore. The engagement took place at the 'Sri Krishna Mini Hall' close to my house in Hanumanthanagar.

Gopinath works at SASKEN, Bangalore as a Design Engineer and holds a MS degree.

Here are some pictures that I took during this wonderful occasion.

Touring Manali, Chandigarh, Amritsar and New Delhi

2006-04-03T11:58:00.000+05:30

http://tour-de-manali-jan-2006.blogspot.com/

Finaly, after making 6 month long plans, we made it to the best places on the Indian soil for one of the best trips ever made.

Manali, the ultimate location for enjoying the snow-clad beauty of the Himalayas, Chandigarh, which hosts those wonderful, traffic free roads, Amritsar, with the beauty of the Golden Temple and history of Jallianwallah Bagh and New Delhi with it's amazing Beating-the-retreat ceremony.

The following blog(s) will explain in more detail about our experiences.
Would like to thank Ramaneesh and Vermeen, for making this trip such comfortable. Without them, this trip would not seen the light of the day. Also would like to thank Darshan for helping us out with our Chandigarh and Amritsar trips.

Pradeepa's Engagement

2006-04-03T11:57:00.000+05:30

http://pradeepaengagement.blogspot.com/

Hi Friends, Here are a few snaps that I shot during Pradeepa and Usha's engagement on July 1st. Congratulations to Pradeepa and Usha on this wonderfull occasion. Do post your feedback on the sidelines ! Regards, Vinay.

Srinivas Kalyana @ Ramakrupa

2006-04-03T11:56:00.001+05:30

http://srinivaskalyana.blogspot.com/

'Srinivasa Kalyana' @ Pranava, Ramakrupa - Conducted by Anu Maama - Jaggu Maama on 28th Aug, 2005

AOLSearch@GreenValleyResorts

2006-04-03T11:56:00.000+05:30

http://aolsearch-greenvalleyresorts.blogspot.com/

All the members of AOL Search, had a gala time on 3rd September, 2005 (Saturday), when we visited the Green Valley Resorts about 22 kms from Doddaballapur towards Gowribidanur. The resort has a Swimming pool, Basketball court, TT room, Tennis court, a Dance floor and a small deer park. Though all these offerings were not the best, it gave us some break from our regular routines and we all had a great day. Here are some snaps from the same event.

Happy New Year 2006

2006-04-03T11:55:00.001+05:30

http://newyear2006hungama.blogspot.com/

BMS-Elec India Inc. unanimously elected (forced) Tarun's house to be the ideal location for spending time together on New Year's eve. Thanks to Tarun, Rekha and Tarun's folks patience, the house was still in one piece when we dispersed the next day. Here are a few snaps that was taken during the event

Anna Amma 35th Wedding Anniversary

2006-04-03T11:55:00.000+05:30

http://mpvinaypictures.blogspot.com/

We all celebrated Anna and Amma's 35th year Wedding anniversary on the 21st of June. We had some good Chocolate Cake on this wonderfull occasion. Here are a few snaps taken on that day.

Trip to Chennai

2006-04-03T11:54:00.000+05:30

http://chennaitrip.blogspot.com/

I and Souji took advantage of the 3 day looong weekend and visited Paddu Aunty and Balaji Uncle in Chennai. As always, Balaji uncle made all the possilbe arrangements for us to visit the best places in and out of Chennai. The first day we visited the 'Marina Beach', Spencers Plaza Mall(3 times as big as Forum in Bangalore). The second day, we visited Pondicherry, Mahabalipuram and on the third day we shopped for sometime in Mamballam.

Cousins Association Meeting - 2005

2006-04-03T11:53:00.001+05:30

http://cousinsassociation2005.blogspot.com/

The one day gala meeting of all the members of the cousins' association.

BMS Friends Day Out @ Silver Oak Resorts

2006-04-03T11:53:00.000+05:30

http://bmselecatsilveroakresorts.blogspot.com/

The 5th of November, 2005, All our BMS friends had a blast of a time @ the wonderfull Silver Oak Resorts, Doddaballabpur Road. Attendees were Tarun & Rekha, Naveen & Madhuri, Sanjeev & Sarju, Sudhir and us (Vinay and Soujanya). We spent the whole day relaxing, playing and eating and relived those wonderfull days at BMS. The highlight of the day was the news that Sanjeev broke out on his new venture into becoming one of the board directors of InfoValley Corporation, Malaysia.

Home Grown Mango !

2006-04-03T11:52:00.000+05:30

http://namma-mane-maavina-hannu.blogspot.com/

Hey ! Here's a mango that could have gone into the guinness book of records ! Home grown @ Vinayadeep, it weighed a whooping 1Kg and 350 Grams. Not to mention the sweet fragrance of a Raspuri with the sweetness of a Malagoa and the paper thin seed of a Tothapuri.

Mangala Gowri Vratha by Soujanya

2006-04-03T11:50:00.000+05:30

http://soujimangalagowri.blogspot.com/

Souji performed her 3rd year (30th Aug, 2005, Tuesday) of this Vratha with full of pomp and festivity as always. The photos captured here were on the final day of this Vratha. She started the pooja at 6 AM and completed it in an hours time. I must admire the way she prepared and conducted the pooja. Dressed in a Green Sari, my best half was looking resplendent and I couldn't stop taking snaps one after the other.

Bannerghatta Picnic

2006-04-03T11:20:00.000+05:30

http://bannerghattapicnic.blogspot.com/

I and Souji visited a few of our relatives in the jungle. Infact it was a paid visit! Here are some snaps. Do let me know if you happen to see a common relative. Don't forget to leave your comments behind.