( Untitled Blog )

Yet another new year resolution!

2012-01-06T20:41:00.000-08:00

Happy new year guys! Wish you luck for yet another journey around the sun!

This is that time of the year when people start making resolution. The best part of it is that we never really resolve to change. Just a week into the resolution and your mind starts to shout - "Come on, You are what you are." Don't blame yourself, your mind knows exactly what inspires you.

It was 2010 new year's eve when I decided to eat less, exercise more, work hard and lot others which if i'd followed, world would have had a new Buddha by now. But one week into it, I realized I can't be anything but me! So I made a new resolution for 2011. Something that I could really follow. I resolved to not make a new resolution ever!

This was simple but damn you, MG Road.

Here's the story.

I wanted something different from this boolean life of Work and home! MG Road was one place which was always on TV for every new year. These kannada channels would show guys and chicks grooving to the music with booze and disco lights, the news reader would read in the background with her most stern tone, "...yuvakaru yuvathiyaru kunidu kuppalisidaru...". That was quite tempting, so I went along with my friends to check out the whole fuss.

From what they show on tv, I expected lot of lights, music, chicks, couples and a lot like it. As soon as I reached the place, I realized that it's so not going to be so fun. It was crowded. No wonder they complain about population explosion. I literally did not walk that day. I just stood and the crowd pulled me around. In between all the pulling and tug of wars, I noticed a few interesting or rather disgusting things!

I noticed that there was no music other than the whining of drunkards. There were people everywhere making raucous around. They were only trying to pose to these tv cameras.

Booze? Lot of it. On the road, lying all over with broken glass of beer bottles.

Chicks? as rare as water in deserts. Just when you think you found water, it disappears! Oasis. Just when you think you saw a chick, you see her in someone's mouth! Oasis!

After having seen so many weird things in one night and when I thought I'm done for the night, I started moving to my vehicle and that is when I realized that the eventful night was not yet done with me. I saw two guys walking behind me. I turned to see they were heavily drunk. So were their shirts and pants. They had arms over each other's shoulder. I said, "Crazy people" and walked my way. Two minutes later I turned around again to see if they're still behind me. They were still there. But now in each other's mouth. Yes. The same two guys.

No further comments on that.

And that's the story. I ended up making a new resolution that I will never go to MG Road for a new year's celebration whatsoever! I'm sure to keep this resolution forever!

Finally a software engineer!

2011-10-22T03:33:00.000-07:00

Finished engineering a few months ago but for all the time I was at home jobless and lazy, never once did I feel that I'm a software engineer. The reason is quite simple. Behind every successful engineer, there is always a neighbor aunty who at some point of time asks you, "computer haallagide anthe swalpa sari madtiya?"

The first time I was asked, I felt like a rocket scientist. But later that day I realized what people really think of a "Software Engineer". For all the four years we slog at the college studying how computers store bits in flipflops, how obsessed processes are to get into processor, we learn ALUs, memory, database, languages that are totally crap to normal people, we literally rip off a computer's brain and see what it does. But all aunties can think is - we are engineers. we repair computers.

Never mind. There is nothing much anyone can do about it. There used to be this message I forwarded once long back - "throw a stone out of your window in bangalore. it will hit a street dog or a software engineer." Quite insulting to a software engineer (ya, me) but it really annoys you when people ask, "what are you insulting? the dog?"

Coming back to the aunties of India, I've noticed how differently they behave when they get to know some (poor) guy gets into some company. Go tell a aunty that you got placed in "Google!". Assuming we're talking about some of the 'dumb' aunties, the first and the very worst question you get to answer is, "Infosys siglilva?". Tough to answer? Isn't it?

Last weekend was interesting. I was at my friend's sister's wedding. Lot of people introduced me to lot of people. I was with some of my friends. There came a point somewhere when we(me & my friends) were being introduced to one of the friend's dad. And that friend was telling where we're working. He pointed at the friend next to me and said, "ivn Infosys". Then he pointed out another friend standing with me and said, "ivn HCL". Then it was my turn. He pointed at me and said, "ivn webyog *antha*". I thought it is offending to add that extra word but without that, people will shoot me with questions like, you know, "Infosys siglilva?".

After a while I was talking to a old lecturer of mine. She asked me where I was working. All I could say was, "Webyog *antha*".

So this is the pitiful story of me as a software engineer.

But at the end of the day, I know what world would be without engineers like me. I see awesomeness in all I do. So what difference does anything else make!

PS: To those people who still did not get the joke, Webyog is my company and I love it!

We miss you, Steve Jobs

2011-10-06T00:08:00.000-07:00

Just got up from bed and happened to see that the Founder and former CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, is no more alive. It is deeply saddening to know that one of the greatest innovator, visionary and above all, a wonderful human being is no more.

Steve Jobs with his high school buddy, Steven Wozniak (later co founded apple) with their first creation.

Starting with a simple circuit built in a garage, Steve Jobs has given some of the most successful products including iMac, Mac OS X, iPod and iPhone. His passion & determination believed in a better world and here we have. The world would have been much less productive without him.

Steve Jobs inspirational speech to the Students of Stanford has inspired millions of people through its youtube video. This speech can inspire a stone to start swimming the pacific. The video brings me goosebumps every time I hear him saying -

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason no to follow your heart.

If you haven't already seen this video then here it is -

Steve Jobs may be dead but his impressions, ideas and ingenious creativity are here to stay forever. His brilliance is unmatched.

Salute you, Steve Jobs! We miss you.

Apple.com -

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.

President of America, Barrack Obama -

Steve was among the greatest of American innovators - brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.

Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg -

Steve, thank you for being a mentor and a friend. Thanks for showing that what you build can change the world. I will miss you.

Microsoft CEO, Bill Gates -

Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives. The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come. For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it's been an insanely great honor.

Bangalore Eat out - Maiya's

2011-09-07T09:52:00.000-07:00

Branded with MTR, covered with crowd - thats MTR's Maiya's. A restaurant doing best at what it does. One of the best places to eat out in Bangalore.

This ain't a review as such, but my experience, a personal opinion, something for me to read to make myself hungry. I remember the last two times I tried to eat here. Once the plan did not really materialize, and the next time I went to find a bad crowd flowing out of the small door of the building. Not to misunderstand, it ain't a small building, its a three storey building. South Indian on first floor while North Indian is served on second floor. A coffee bar and a bakery on the ground floor. On weekends this place is a total chaos, the waiting rooms fill up, the lobby, the stairs, the road, there are just people everywhere that you suddenly realize "1 billion is our population and they are all hungry". The last time I came here, I came on a weekend and I was way too hungry to hear their "please wait for one hour sir". I couldn't help but eat at a near by darshini. If you are planning a weekend, then book your place before you go.

So I went into this totally air conditioned South Indian section of Maiya's. Was well greeted by the waiters and staff. The waiter came and asked, "Regular or Special?". That is all the menu you get here, straight and simple. Well, from my past experience I know the pain it takes for one to get into Maiya's. It goes without saying what I ordered, "Special Meals!". The Unlimited!

(The menu, as simple as it is, the orders are still taken on iPod touch. They run their own application that syncs the table orders and probably manages billing too. Plus one to technology there!)

The serving began.

Starts with a sharbat (juice) served in silver tumbler. Just when you start feeling royal and you drink little at a time, the cleaner comes and takes away your silver not giving much thought on whether it is half empty or half full. Immediately follows a small cup of tomato soup. And then the real thing begins. The food is truly great, totally upholds the name and fame of MTR. BELE palya, Pooris with Aloogadde palya (potato curry), something made of Ladies fingers (I may be a foodie, and I eat. I don't care what they are named), Beetroot palya, and then comes some vegetable bath (may be palak rice) with Raitha. Rice, Rasam, Sambar, Curd makes the next course. Carrot halwa and Ice cream comes to end the saga!

All of it, UNLIMITED!

"I'm loving it!" or "Finger Lickin' Good" may not be the tag line but that is exactly what you end up doing here!

Politics | Media | Karnataka

2011-08-03T22:21:00.000-07:00

Karnataka Politics and the media has reached heights of filthiness. The propaganda seems to be on degrading the Yeddyurappa govt. rather than fighting for real justice. I am not justifying Yeddyurappa or his corruption, he earned whatever happened to him. But I somewhere feel that there hasn't been a fair call. The media on other side which is supposed to put facts on to the screen seems to be totally biased. Here's an interesting read, an article I found on facebook's Tejas Krishna's wall.

The article presents few facts, backs it up with proofs and poses questions to the leaders, the media and the people. Here it goes -

Yeddyurappa The Most Corrupt CM...! Ha Ha Ha.. LOL...! Spare time for reading this analysis...!

A huge hype was given about Santhosh Hegde's Report On Mining indicting Yeddyurappa...!
Everyone started talking that " Yeddyurappa is most corrupt..." ...!
Few supposrters of BJP also felt that " Yes Yeddyurappa maligned the image of The Party..!
Entire nation looked at Yeddyurappa as a looter of the nation...!
The Media highlighted on The Report more inorder to make it much popular than the ongoing
2G saga and CWG etc...!
The facts are here...! These facts are not highlighted by any Media House....!

B.S.Yeddyurappa, in short BSY, has built BJP and its earlier avatars, meticulously in Karnataka from ground up for nearly 4 decades. He achieved something impossible to even imagine just 25 years back.. a majority government headed by a 'north Indian' BJP, in a south Indian state! Kudos to him as well as the marvelous list of achievements his government has pulled off over the past three years.
You can listen to a very long list of achievements of Yedyurappa government, from the horse's mouth itself here: http://yeddyurappa.in/news-and-events/three-years-of-bountiful-development/

Since, I am not writing this to present Global Investor's meet, or 20-point implementation or the dozens of awards the state won on development efforts, lets get back to the mining part. If you followed Delhi based 'national' media, you might have only heard of 3 things: a) land scams. b) illegal mining. c) why isn't he resigning. :)
Here we go with some thought provoking questions, not in any particular order, while leaving the conclusion to you...

• How many channels screaming Karnataka,Karnataka, told you that Sonia Gandhi won from the same mine district Ballary? Has anyone bothered to investigate who supported on the ground with manpower and finances?After all mining in Ballary didn't start yesterday.... even in 1999, Ballary had nearly 25% of India's iron ore deposit and all political parties had close mine connections.
• Did NDTV or Times Now inform that Karnataka Lokayukta might be indicting Anil Lad, based on leaked portions of the reports? Anil became a RS MP with Sonia's blessing. If never heard of Lad family, please check this out (Ref:http://www.congress4india.com/story/2008/6/17/14311/5295).
• Amazing NDTV,CNN IBN and all media talk about politicians mining bellary(http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/bellary-mined-over-and-over-by-karnataka-politicians-121063 - But Sonia Gandhi, who became an MP from the same Ballary, isn't even mentioned :) How 'Biased'!
• It's so funny that media channels talk about BJP's double standards on corruption, while they ignore Delhi Lokayukta's damning reports against a sitting CM and her government. We will cover that a bit later right here.
• What Times Now or NDTV wouldn't tell is that, Hegde's report might show Rs.20000 crores of loss (per leaked reports) since the year 2000. In that Yedyurappa government's tally during the past 14 months might be Rs.1827 crores. Simple maths tells me that Congress and Janata Dal Secular's portions might be as high as 90% in that case. Why aren't they being slammed on national channels? You guess..

• If Yeddyurappa resigned, don't you bet that he should take Deve Gowda family MPs, Congress MP Dharam Singh, UPA minister SM Krishna? By the way where is that Rameshwar Thakur who allowed plenty of mining licenses as a governor during president's rule? Hmn... I don't know if any other 'Presidents' rule ever allocated so many licenses, so 'urgently' :)

• Now you want some numbers? Here we are: Mining licenses recommend by CMs versus granted by Government of India: Dharam Singh (CON): 43/33; HD Kumaraswamy (JDS) 47/22; UPA government headed by Sonia Gandhi (during President's Rule) 22/14; and Yedyurappa (BJP) 22/2. What? So Yedyurappa, the big bad boy, only got two mining licenses in the entire decades of super busy mining industry of Karnataka?

• Numbers are making a bit more interesting now.Now to some very thorough & hard reading exercise:
• The same Karnataka Lokayukta, Santosh Hegde, had published his first report in Dec 2008(Ref:http://www.scribd.com/doc/46850946/Part-1-Report-of-Lokayukta-Santosh-Hegde-on-Karnataka-Mining?in_collection=3055282)See Page 161 from that very detailed original report copy, for which the link was just provided. Congress CM Dharam Singh was held responsible for causing a big loss of Rs.23,22,11,850 to the exchequer. Nice... I didn't see any 'national' TV channels going ballistic on Dharam Singh even today, while he is prettily sitting as a Lok Sabha MP in the parliament!

• Getting unnerved by numbers? Don't worry, here's is a short, but very factual summary of what Karnataka mining is all about..(Ref: http://vickynanjappa.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-is-karnataka-mining-row-all-about.html). Must read if you didn't get a full flow of what's happening till now - by a self professed 'vertebrate' journalist, Vicky Nanjappa.
• Are we missing a big fish over here, while focusing too much on the 'evil' BJP government? Let's see.. In May 2008, BJP came to power on its own. Right after 3 months, in August of 2008, Karnataka High Court quashes 36 mine licenses sanctioned by a “former CM from 2003..”(http://www.hindu.com/2008/08/12/stories/2008081250610100.htm). So who could that 'former' CM be? Even Mr. Hegde skipped the one and only one, Mr. S.M. Krishna :)
How could Hegde not have ONE mention of SM Krishna's name in 2008 or 2011 mining reports (per leaked info), when High Court quashed 36 Krishna sanctioned licenses? Aha.. now you are asking the questions..
• I wanted to ask at this point: Dear Mr. Hegde,128 out of 152 Karnataka Mining lease recommendations(http://m.timesofindia.com/PDATOI/articleshow/8209914.cms)were sent by SM Krishna, HD Kumaraswamy, Dharam Singh and Governor Thakur. Were they all 100% "pristine" & law-abiding in terms of execution? We know you might name one or two of them, but why not ALL?
• Are we forgetting someone else? Let's see.. Oh yeah, in fact, it was then mining minister V.Muniyappa under SM Krishna’s Govt in 2003(Ref:http://www.hindu.com/2003/10/15/stories/2003101507410400.htm), who allowed quarryingeven in forest areas! Jairam Ramesh would have tore his hair in the public if it was in 2010:)
• You thought that was extreme? You have more fun, just in Karnataka: It's not just in 2003, but much earlier in 2000, the same Muniyappa and SM Krishna combo had allowed private paties(Ref:http://www.thehindubusinessline.in/2000/07/31/stories/143160l1.htm)mine in forest areas! Hello Mr.Jairam Ramesh :)
• Now that you have heard about some 'partners in crime', how many told you that Yedyurappa was the first CM of India who banned iron ore exports? (Incidentally, it was the congress rajya sabha MP & Spokesperson ,Abhishek Manu Singhvi,(Ref:http://barandbench.com/brief/2/1237/karnataka-mining-matter-salve-singhvi-sorabjee-venugopal-argue-along-with-poovayya-parekh-amp-cos)
who was the lawyer for anti-ban teams!) Also, it was him, who ordered the Lokayukta investigation to go beyond the year 2008 duration? I guess not many.. Oh.. did you at least know, that when Karnataka banned ore export from 9 ports under its control, Manmohan Singh's UPA government didn't bother to ban the 10th port, under central control, even after repeated pleading?

• After 15 questions, your head might be spinning.. So we were told that Yedyurappa was the 'baddest' guy occupying a CM's seat in India by the English media. Let's see how does the same media treat others?

• First, our dearest Sheila Dikshit. The other side of Indian media immediately pops up. Four months after theShunglu Report, protests arrests (Ref:http://www.newsnetindia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=72846%3Asheila-dikshit-responsible-for-games-bungling-must-resign-vijender-gupta&catid=8%3Anational&Itemid=41)this Delhi Congress CM is 'Surf Excel' clean :)
• Not just that, do you know that even an ordinary minister of this Congress CM has guts to hit back at hapless Lokayukta?(Ref:http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_pwd-minister-attacks-lokayukta-on-sheila-dikshit-censure_1567436)You must be wondering by now, why is Karnataka Lokayukta is 'special' for media, while that hapless Delhi Lokayukta never comes to prime time TV shows to hit at his state's CM?
• Not just corruption, but do read Kanchan Gupta's blog on how the same Sheila Dikshit & her MP son, shamefully washed hands off 66 deaths
(Ref: http://kanchangupta.blogspot.com/2010/11/corrupt-system-corrupt-society.html)

• Aha.. is it dawning to you by now that if you are in the good book of 'some' dynasty, even thePresident of India will give you a clean chit herself, no matter what the Lokayukta screams!
• That's enough on Delhi's CM and that state's Lokayukta. How about a couple of other cases, specifically focusing on illegal mining? It has been one year since the late Congress CM YSR’s son-in-law&brother-in-law’s(Ref:http://www.indianexpress.com/news/andhra-oppn-demands-probe-into-illegal-mining-by-ysr-kin/645316/)huge illegal mining issue in AP came up in the state assembly. Has the 'national' media done even one prime time show on this?

• If I have to start writing on the *famous* Reddy brothers of Ballary, where they came from in Ananthapur district of Andhra Pradesh, what was their connection for a long number of years with the then Congress strongman YSR, I might need another blog for itself.. For this blog, its enough to mention that, Karnataka politics knew for long time who might have shielded brothers(Ref:http://www.hindu.com/2009/04/29/stories/2009042954140400.htm)from the other side of the border!
• Even as late as 2008 ,large scale illegal mining was happening in Haryana(Ref:http://www.indianexpress.com/news/illegal-mining-in-aravalis-continues-despite/367041/),despite the ban. Did the media bother to do any investigation by itself?
• Here's the most notable thing: While a big portion of Indian media's efforts were to lose sleep on why Yedyurappa hasn't resigned, Time magazine published a list of the worst abuse of power in the entire world, cutting across generations. Surprise.. surprise.. Sonia Gandhi's greatest achievement as the chairperson of UPA, just happened to be 'crowned' the all time 2nd WORST abuse of power in the world!- TIME: Top 10 Abuses of Power : India’s Telecom Scandal-By Ishaan Tharoor Tuesday ,May 17,2011 .(Ref:http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2071839_2071844_2071866,00.html)Ironically, that page was written by none other than Kerala Congress MP's Shashi Tharoor's son, Ishaan :)

Have you heard any of these things in ANY MEDIA..?
So now you still feel yeddyurappa should have resigned..?
So now you still feel He is the most corrupt..?
So now you still feel that he should be prosecuted..?
Lot more questions of yours might have got answers by now...!
If you feel like sharing it... Please do share it..

You can read the comments on facebook wall of his.

DOS turns 30! Happy birthday :)

2011-07-28T03:52:00.000-07:00

Was just browsing around when I happened to see that today is the 30th birthday of Microsoft DOS. Well, I am kind of nostalgic about this and it would be wrong if I don't thank this particular piece of crap that I hated for a very long time. But somewhere somehow I think this is where it all began. Maybe around 15 years ago, the first time I saw the computer, this is what I saw exactly in my school. A black screen with ugly white ciphered text and a cursor that blinked to say "give me what you have! I can take it".

The first DOS looked even bad!

But like I said, I owe this. I got to thank DOS for everything it has done and everything that's yet to come. No matter how primitive and old fashioned it is, I still have have to depend on DOS to learn my IP or the MAC address. DOS, you've remained evergreen...no...ever-black. You're just awesome.

Here's my thank you note to you on your birthday.

Hey DOS,

Thanks for having me introduced to the world of computers. Thanks for the childhood I enjoyed playing Wolfenstein and Dave and PinBall. And thanks for being the saviour and for all the cleaning of mess you've done when your counter part WINDOWS crashes and hangs and makes a mess of my computer. I mean it.

Microsoft may have dumped you, betrayed you. But you are the easiest thing in the world. You are an undying hero :)

Happy Birthday, DOS :)

I want to write!

2011-07-23T23:55:00.000-07:00

This blog looks so haunted, doesn't it? I've been writing pathetic lately (like I wrote about Earth Hour) and was held up with so many things that I couldn't really write a post that materialized well( "and earth hour?" is what i ask myself). Sleeping Nomad probably slept for real. Apathy drove me apart, indolence shadowed me. But now I think I have all the time in the world, to concentrate, to apprehend and to articulate some thoughts and stuff I've missed out in the past few days and the urge for writing which I thought I 'd lost it seems to be still burning with the dying flame. Not that I didn't try writing anything all these days, because I did and I did pathetically (But Earth Hour?). Better late than never, I'm here now and I hope I just get back on track and write stuff, if not for others to read, then at least for the joy of writing. Dying flame will lit up, the nomad will wake up! Welcome, me!

Earth Hour 2011

2011-04-03T22:03:00.000-07:00

World observed The Earth Hour 2011 when 134 countries came together to switch off lights at 8:30 pm on 26th March 2011. The motive of Earth Hour 2011 was to raise awareness among people regarding the energy consumption which has been increasing rapidly in the past few years resulting in issues of global warming. The Boston Globe has some beautiful pictures of Earth Hour 2011 here.

While the whole idea of Earth hour looks noble, one may find it odd to follow it in a country like India where blackouts have existed for decades. Indian power consumption is 6289 kWh/capita while US has 87,216 kWh/capita where as China having the highest population has 18,608 kWh/capita. Indian population accounts for 17% of the global population and consumes 3.4% of the total energy produced. These figures only conclude that India is doing pretty good, so, why follow Earth hour?

India is doing very good in a global perspective but when it comes to India alone, India doesn't produce enough power to meet its consumption. 64% of the energy produced by India comes from thermal power plants, 23% comes from Hydro electric power generation which unfortunately fades in summer when rivers dry up and 2% comes from Nuclear power. India has a never-ending political issue regarding the Nuclear power generation. Looks like India has all the reasons to follow Earth hour.

Consider earth hour as a timed power cut and save yourself from untimely power cuts. Follow earth hour for a better future. World is moving to a darker side. An hour a year does matter a lot.

Once upon a time...

2010-10-10T23:13:00.000-07:00

Life not always turns out to be the way we were said that it would be. When I was a child, my parents used to tell me that one day I will be a big rich person. I only became big :P. There are so many things that we promise ourselves when we're kids. Being superman or wearing underpants over pants, nothing's practical anymore. Ambitions used to change everyday or with every new movie. Astronomer or a bus driver or a spider man? The three professions i was always confused to take. I was never short of fun. Always had one or the other thing to play. Role playing games were seriously fun. It wasn't just the game, it was the attire and imitating the role that we never cared about. "Log Kya Kahenge?" factor never bothered. School was always fun. Frog race and sack race was enjoyable. Mathematics or Science, they were never confusing. Fifty pages of textbook was only a picture book. I used to be adventurous. I tried rope climbing on my gate once and ended up in the gutter. I tried horse riding on a dog, but my horse barked. I tried super-biking on my cycle and ended up with a scratched face. Cycle used to be one ultimate gadget - race-machine or a mountain-bike. Bought so many things at the general stores, but all that meant to me was what comes free with it. The hardest chewing gum ever - 'Big Fun', was the best! Used to get cricket cards for that. Having a hand held video game device was like having a iphone 4. Stealing was called 'mischief'. I once in a while used to be Einstein. Used to dive into sack of old wires and broken clocks with a screw driver and open every thing that had a screw. The urge was sometimes so strong that I opened even the ones that weren't broken. A science experiment meant turning blue litmus to red and red to blue. Life was so simple. Wake up. Play. And at the end of the day, settle down in mom's cradle.

With all this fun, growing up was one of the biggest mistake. I miss my childhood and I'm sure everyone does. Its a different story now. I will soon be an engineer and neither a bus driver nor a superman(i wear things right). Cycles won't take my weight. Horses may really bark. Role playing games will straight away land me into

a mental hospital.

But finally its my maturity that's loving my childhood. So growing up wasn't that bad either.

Framed

2010-09-17T08:08:00.000-07:00

Framed down some of the interesting pics I captured from the camera that I've(painfully) lost now.


Murdeshwar Beach


Dahlia - Madikeri


Kadlekalu Ganesha - Hampi


Ibrahim Rauza - Bijapur

It isn't just the cricket!

2010-04-16T23:28:00.000-07:00

I just got lucky last Saturday when I received a call from my friend Arjun. It was my free chance to watch RCB play KKR at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. Here's a small note of it.

Watching a sport on TV was always what I thought was cleverer until this Saturday which proved me wrong. Completely wrong because its not just the game there, it is complete entertainment and unstoppable fun. Specially the IPL where both the playing teams are backed by filthy rich people. Game is only a part of the whole fun. What adds to the fun are the Cheer girls, the DJs, the music and the crazy support.

This was RCB playing in their home ground and the team I cheer for. While standing in the queue to get into my stand I noticed that it was only me who was in Blue. There were people in RC shirt and rest were in KKR jerseys. Felt a little awkward being the center of attention among the RC duplicate shirt sellers and the skin painters, but felt little better saying it to myself, "I'm united!".

Then I with my friends was in our stand. To the right was our DJ whom I thought I ll be bearing for the rest of the night and to the front was of course this circular bed of lawn separated from us by a tall fence. To a little left was one of the entertaining channel "KKR Cheer gals' stand". And around me were some hyper-active people shouting something I couldn't figure out. The nets were still standing on and players were still practicing. First-timers like me were trying to point out and recognise the players and the celebs. DJ called out the cheer gals of both the teams and they came along the boundary to their stands. They danced to the team music. People gathered around them like monkeys hogging on a single banana. But then there were police to shoo them away. They literally shooed them away.

Then it was cricket, finally. It was just the same game. DJ was on full swing supporting the RCB. People no longer seemed to be feeling hunger or sleep. The little children oblivious of what's happening around gaped at each other wondering what's wrong with the world. Cheer gals danced to some of the freakiest Kannada songs. I couldn't stop myself admiring, apart from their real beauty, the charm in their synchronization. I tried to concentrate on the game but then i was intrigued by one or the other thing. People who were hyper-active at the start of the game were now sitting on chairs lazily waving their flags for a four or six.

It was an easy win for RCB. So there wasn't much excitement in the game. Finally we roamed around the dressing room, the pavilion and the press room too to catch a close look at players but in vain. We still got to see Ayushman, Siddharth Mallya, Deepika and more. And overall, watching a match at the stadium was a great experience and loved every bit of it. Finally we roamed around the stadium.

If you want to see the game, watch it on TV. And if you want to enjoy the game, witness it.

Munnar – “The Bhaanuku Bhoomiku Trip”

2010-02-23T07:23:00.001-08:00

Ah! Back from another trip. I'm still not sure whether I ll be able to put it in words. Anyway, this is my best try. Try no. 23.

Ten people - Amar, Arjun, Krishna, Manu, Ambu, Jeevan, Shank, Hebbar, Datta and me on 19th Jan 2010 set out on a TataSumo with driver Umapathi on this beautiful journey to the God's very own Country. Yes, it was Kerala.

Things were little different this time. There was a synchronous 'yes' when we told everyone about the trip. This is little rare in our democratic Indiae. We decided to leave at 4 am in the morning. And we left at 5 as expected. There are things that never change.

It won't be fair to continue without a little introduction of our driver, Umapathi maharaj. He was a malayali with dimensions, short and fat and with his typical malayali kumkum and chandan on his forehead. He drove really well. No doubt with that. Funny was his way of taking vehicle along the curves. Stiffened eyebrows, straightened elbows, leaning to adjust to the curve, a slant posture and zoommmmmm!!!. Our 'want-to-be' F1 driver is done with one curve. Umapathi who looked very silent in the morning started speaking and by the end of the day it was incredible 20 words/sec coming out in Malayali accent - far too much for human understanding. One thing that he kept saying through out the tour was, "Sir-a, Idu yena illa sir-a. Munnar barali. Bhaanuku Bhoomiku Fullu greena Sir-a". This was our Umapathi.

Initial journey through Chamarajanagar and Satyamangala was fine. We stopped at Dhimbum Ghat. Dhimbum Ghat situated inside the Satyamangala forest gives a picturesque view of Satyamangala Forest. Forest, once haunted by Veerappan. This well maintained curvy ghat has 27 dangerous HP bends. But you may get a chance to see a deer or elephant hound on your way if you're lucky. Our journey, filled with stupid ideas we discussed; chips; biscuits; hungry people craving; sleeping people with mouths open; 'Ahs and Oohs' from the back seats; Datta securing his hidden 7up; our driver saying "bhaanuku-bhoomiku fullu greena" for the 23rd time and everything else was a lot of fun.

It was around 2 when we reached the Alampatti or Thoovanam falls. Two Forest guards accompanied us on a short hiking through the Eravikulam Sanctuary to catch the sight of waterfalls. Route to waterfalls goes along a stream of water. On our way we encountered a snake. Mostly looked like viper. Guard was skilled enough to catch it and throw it off our way. Rest of the hike was normal. Going through the woods. Wading across the stream. Slipping at slippery rocks. And finally, bath at the chilling Thoovanam Falls. It feels so good to take a break from annoying monotonous life at Bangalore. We occupied the place completely. The thought of no one in the vicinity of 3kms around us brings goosebumps. After a relishing bath we returned back to our Sumo where our Malayali Driver was waiting.

People here either spoke Malayalam or some Tamil. Thanks to Ambu and Jeevan for translating Tamil which was nearly impossible to understand. And also to the Malayali driver we had.

Marayoor, located around 20 kms from where we'd stopped earlier, was our next stop. Marayoor is famous for Sandal Wood. We had asked Umapathi to show us sandal wood plantations. Instead, he pointed out every single tree and told us that it is sandalwood. He showed us more than 100 trees on the way. We reached Marayoor at around 5pm. It was still misty. That was where we realized that we had no lunch in the afternoon. Something that we couldn't have controlled if it wasn't the waterfalls. We had lunch at Marayoor and we decided to stay there for the night.

Stay at Marayoor Tourist Lodge.

End of day 1.

It was early in the morning when I woke up. Was too cold. And little dark. The early sun rays came from the other side of a mountain. Mist and the clouds hid the demarcation between sky and the mountain giving us a mesmerizing view of the silhouetted mountain on clouds. Only part of the cliff that was visible was high in air and shining bright at its perimeter. A beautiful morning. Soon we were exposed to the tea estates of Marayoor. It was green and looked like beds arranged in a random pattern. Beauty in randomness.

Our next stop was at Rajamala. Eravikulam National Sanctuary. We were there at 7:30 in the morning. No one was there yet. We need to buy a ticket for Rs. 35 and they will take you a ride into the sanctuary. If you are late, then you will have to suffer long waiting queues. All 10 of us filled their bus. And the ride was beautiful with tea estates all around. Then we had to walk for a few kms. Was supposed to be a sanctuary. Only animals we saw were Nilgiri Tahrs and some more people searching in the bushes for some bird.

Next stop was Mattupetty Dam. Dam is beautiful and the architecture is quite different from what we see in Karnataka. There were only 3 gates and water was slowed down by series of steps. One can do boating or take an elephant ride here.

The next stop was supposed to be Tata Tea Museum Factory. But our driver stopped us at a TataTea Factory outlet. It was Kolukkumalai. Unfortunate and disappointed. But then came Raju for the rescue. He promised us to show some cool places around that Factory outlet and also a tea factory. We paid 900 to him and got on his jeep after having some hot vadas and tea. Now that's where the actual fun begins.

Jeep ride with Raju

This was the most amazing part of everything. We had no idea that our route was through heavens. The drive was completely through the estates of Kolukkumalai. And soon, we were engulfed with high green mountains from every side. It was 360degrees of green. The muddy road (if it can be called so) narrowed and we were soon on a track just enough for a jeep to pass. One side was the mountain we were climbing and other side was the tea plantations slanting downward. There were hairpin bends and places where he couldn't take a turn. Raju(driver) had to go in reverse to cover some bends. The weather that was so hot just an hour ago was damn cold now.

We stopped at places called Top Station and Echo Point. Top station is the top most point of Kerala and Echo Point is just near that where you can shout to listen your echoes. After around an hour we reached our destination place called "Kolukkumalai Tea Factory". We were welcomed with hot lemon tea and then a guide came with us to show us the working of tea factory. Tea factory was built in 1935. Was looked after by some british until 1970. And then it was sold to an Indian. It was good to see how tea is made. Tea, so easy to drink, goes through endless number of process to get to the finished product. Next time I say I prepared the tea, I will thank all the people involved in the making of tea powder. Ride back was in dark. Had dinner and lunch together ;) and we returned to Mysore the same night.

This was our trip. We call it "The Bhaanuku-Bhoomiku Trip".

Best part of traveling is to see the way things change around you in just a matter of 300 kms. People, culture, customs, language, lifestyle, dressing, and almost everything changed on our way to Kerala. That's what they probably call it as Diverse India. It looks simple, but it's remarkable that India still stands as one even with such a diversity.

Anyway, thank you for now. Comment your views.

DC!

2010-01-11T20:10:00.000-08:00

"was dc", "getting dc", "sorry, can you repeat what you said? i was dc.", "did you get my lines? i was dc".

Wonder what is dc? its a well designed acronym for the word "disconnected". And the above quoted phrases are seen at an average of 2 per chat if i go through my chat history. Disconnections are soon to have a different meaning in dictionaries.

dis·con·nect (dsk-nkt)
v. dis·con·nect·ed, dis·con·nect·ing, dis·con·nects
v.tr.
1. To make a person gape at some randomly flickering LEDs
2. Addressing non-living things like a box of flickering LEDs with abusive words.
discon·nection n.

I live in the city of Bangalore/Bengaluru - Capital of Karnataka - Silicon City of India - nation's leading IT exporter -the IT hub - and the city of disconnections. I had to add the last one for the fact that I was disconnected 4 times in writing the above few lines and once again when I was trying to make it bold.

I have some knowledge of communication networks which I studied in my engineering and the textbook always stressed the advantage of sharing bandwidth in a network. Ah! Who do I blame? Those american authors?

I thought, these customer care numbers are always for frustrated people like me who seek solutions to their problem. Believing my thoughts, I happened to call my ISP's customer care once. The automated call system took me quite long. They have a menu that has 10 options; 10th option being the one that connects me to any of their "technical expert", as they call it. And I was then put on hold. I heard some ads which, to me, seemed like coming from a gramophone stuck in infinite loop. What annoyed me the most is the Ad that was about their Internet connection which has frustrated me for the past few months. And finally when I get to speak to their so-called "technical-expert", he asks me to check whether I've switched ON the router. Technical experts. I don't know why I even answered such a question.

After discussing for some time, he asked me to click on start. (You ll get this impression that he knows everything. he is a genius.) Then asks you to click on 'run'. Then type 'c', 'm' and 'd'. He repeats it - "c...m...d". If you are a computer science student, then you ll understand how it feels and how i felt. Then some commands which he would have asked me to do irrespective of what my question is. After all those dandy commands and stupid steps, he said, "Sir, there is some problem in your area and we are working on that. It will be fine soon. Sorry for the inconvenience". I've heard this 5 times. I would suggest them to add this to their automatic call system.

Every time, I would say "Thank You." with a gentle voice and disconnect the call. "Man, you suck", follows right after it.

Now when I get disconnected, I act as per the new meaning of it and forgive every LED and dismiss the thought of calling the customer care. Disconnected connections(whatever that means) is a part of everyone's life now.

I should consider using pigeons, like in the olden days, to pass messages. Thats faster sometimes. Some one has said it right. History repeats. Era of pigeons will be back. Just exaggerating. :)

I need to hurry. I should click on "PUBLISH POST" before i get dc ;).

Good day. :)

UPDATE:

Do read what my friend has written about it on his blog.

Down... Down...

2009-10-29T00:14:00.000-07:00

Protest...

Bangalore is known as garden city. People around the World see it as an IT hub. They know it for IISc, ISRO, IIM and lot more. But these things hardly matter to those who are inside Bangalore. What is common to common people of bangalore? Two feet deep Pot-Holes, Traffic, Weird looking 3 wheeled motor and Protests? Yeah. These are things that are very common to people inside Bangalore. Pot-Holes and Traffic are primary topics of a Bangalore-related blog.

And i'll speak about protests here. People protest for everything here in Bangalore. Not that its wrong, but sometimes they are so pointless. There are organisations specialized in this. They know every kind of strikes. They are very good in making an issue 'protest-able'. Believe me, is your child crying because your neighbor's child snatched a toffee from him? call this organisation. They can make an issue out of it and you can be on papers tomorrow. ;)

A guy killed himself after being harassed by the hostel warden. Protest! Hostel Warden Down Down! Bla bla... Crowd and Chaos!

Its really interesting to see things around in a protest. Its like you're watching some movie like Sarkar or Yuva. I was there observing people (i mean, weird people) doing strange things.

Like always in a strike, there was one main person. Lead. He takes the lead shouting part. He shouts "HOSTEL WARDEN????". Thats his job. Then second group was the crowd. They shout "DOWN DOWN". Most of them might not know what is the matter but they think it doesn't matter.

The third group of people were the chief guests of the day. They visited. Spoke very carefully so that they shouldn't get caught anywhere in between. And they left on their vehicles just to be stopped by the people involved in strike. They don't make it easy, you see. They were the people who belong to the authority. They don't speak much.

Then there were some expert political organisations. I mean, Experts in protesting. They know, exactly, how it is to be done. They are good at speaking. Definitely! One lead of some 'famous' organisation was there telling " I will stay here in this strike until all the demands are fulfilled. I've come here for your help. We have helped people in other colleges. Last time there was a protest in @#$$ institution and it was our &@#*! organisation that was first to reach there for their help.....". It looked more like some advertisement to me. I guess thats how they make their organisation 'famous organisation'.

Fifth group of people is the innocent police. They stand here and there. Thats their job. But they do a good work in controlling the crowd.

Sixth group is the last and the funniest. Media reporters! There were reporters everywhere. They probably reached even before the strike had even started. They run around trying to get a snap of every single person. They keep shooting with some kind of 'hope' that something may go awry so that they get a good story to drag it whole day on TV. To say, a Reporter is like a spider-man. They are everywhere. There was this TV9 reporter standing right in front of some organisation's leader; shooting every single word of his speech. Speech ended and the leader moved just a little towards his car. This reporter was already near his vehicle's door waiting for the leader. Mysterious!

Anyway, protests just make things tough and nothing else. Institution will be closed for few days and students get a day off to write stupid posts like this. What else?

Lets just pray for peace restoration! :) Good bye!

Comedy in Co-incidence! Or a tragedy?

2009-06-08T11:24:00.001-07:00

This happened to me just yesterday and thought its worth sharing with all ya.

I was searching for a house. I called my broker and he asked me to meet him near Big Bazaar and he'd guide me to show some houses from there. As said, I was there on my car and waiting for the broker. Soon, there came a person on his bike and peered in to ask "Neeve na?". A straight-forward answer to this question would be "Hu! Naave!". But that literally takes us nowhere. So I hesitantly asked "Mane thorsakke bandovru neeve na?" being a little more clearer than him. He smiled gesturing to follow him. I followed him on the Ring Road and all the way till he took right. I kept pace with him. And then he took a left into the residential streets. My eyes were fixed at him. There was no chance of losing him. The roads narrowed and the city feel faded away to a small-town feel. Bumpy road. Pot holes way too big to be called just holes. Some more lefts and some more rights. Some more bridges and some more pot-holes. We finally entered a road which greeted us with this "Dead-End" sign board. Felt relieved to see that. Because, bikes don't fly over houses and the bike that I was following had to stop somewhere before the Dead-End. As expected he halted at the Dead End. I got down the car and looked around for my new house. The person who brought us looked a little worried. I wondered why.

Then the ultimate thing happened. My cousin's phone rang. Guess who?

The real Broker. :P

It was an act of co-incidence. Both of us were waiting for some unknown person at the same time at the same place. Person who brought us here was a little embarrassed with the whole thing but he can't be blamed. Even he had no idea of whom he had to bring in. To err, is human. Though I felt a little sheepish.

I thank the broker for calling at the right time. Or else, we might have gone in and had some biscuits and tea at this stranger's house. I wonder how that thing would have been. :P

Same lefts, same rights and same pot holes. Finally, we were back to where we were just an hour ago. Even the person who had taken us to his house was there. Now, Its a comedy or a tragedy. Its the way you see it. For me, it was comedic Tragedy!

That's it in this post. Have a good time :)

Don't follow anything just because you can. :P

Shouts! Screams! and Exams!

2009-05-18T07:54:00.000-07:00

Exams... Exams... Exams...

Oh god! Its driving me nuts!

Waking up from my bed I sit on my bench and start planning to start studying with something. Exams are back, third and the last internals are around the corner. Lot of assignments to write and thousand things to understand. VTU questions being the one on top in the list.

A new thing added up to my daily routine. Everyday I murmur to myself by looking at the syllabus list, Oh! I have so much in Maths to study. Hmmm... But what is this? 3 units pending in Graph theory? ok then! Let me do graph theory first. Oh no. I forgot C++. Hmmm.... Why not do Computer Organisation. But who'll do my assignments? I ll copy that in the night. And the lab records? I have lab internals, I guess. I guess? God! Its my exam. I should be at least knowing my exam dates. Wait! Let me get my exam time table first. hmmm...

Then I finally end up deciding to write a post on this. See my guts :P. Stupid, of course.

Now this is what that happens to me everyday. I curse myself later for all the stupid shows I attended. For all the stupid events that happened. Exams are just next month and I have almost all the things to study. Restless month ahead. Too much to study, but too little time. Education's really ruining me.

Anyway, I finally feel proud that I realized that I'm stupid. I finally get up and get one random book from my stash. Probability of the getting the least expected book is the around 0.9. And then I start with the page 3. Page 1 and 2 are content sheets. I have seen them hundred times. Anyway, I'm finally studying. I come to page 4. I hear my idiot TV shouting "What a game! Hyderabad have come from nowhere to reach 166/4 in 20 overs and beat Kolkata in an absolutely sensational finish." . I say to myself. "No! No! I have so little time to study. I can't go. I can't go."

I will be now sitting on the couch watching the award ceremony. I come back to my table and see my open book. Page 4. All alien scripts. I go back and start from Page 3. Anyway, match ended. I start it afresh. I finish some 10 pages. Then The most obvious happens. I get bored. I turn the pages to page1 and see how many pages are left in that particular chapter. If its a big number, I shut the book as apathy keeps me away. If its not, then now? i can do it anyday ;). Now I start again by selecting another random book from the shelf. I continue the same until my table gets messed up with lot of books. Lot of big big books which look so hungry to me. Hungry and craving for my brains. Now suppose we finish internals and complete assignments before time (its as true as cows can fly), then there will be no celebration or anything. What all we get is another month to study with hectic schedules( and IPL matches) for the exams. Anyway I'm almost ready for the exams. I have pencils, pens, erasers and everything. Just this studying thing is pending. I m happy saying that. I feel so complete, you see. :P

Anyway, there is always this VTU that I can blame on when my results are out. Oh god! I got to study maths. Hmmm... I guess I will study Graph theory first. Bye guys!

This post is to tell you all that I may not find time to post anything in next month. Exams, that and this! Busy time...But don't think I'm lost in African Jungles. I'll be alive. (if books don't really get wild on me and eat me up. I sometimes feel that they are really going to get me eater.)

I found this Comic quite funny. Have a look. Click if not visible. I wonder, if people like this really exist! My diet is independent of my exams :P

What kept me busy??? - a post to say "am still alive".

2009-05-17T02:58:00.000-07:00

Phew! Was quite busy in attending various shows and such stuff that i got no time to post on anything. But finally, i'm free and back here posting something on all the shows I attended. This post is also to tell all the people that "I'm still alive. and I'll be posting whenever I find time."

I had been to various college fests. As a pure spectator, of course. PESIT's AatmaTrisha(Go to aatmatrisha.pes.edu for any queries. Don't ask me what that name means, please). SJBIT's Varchasva (whatever that means and god knows how its spelled) and finally, our college fest, Samskruti.

First things first. PESIT's Aatmatrisha. Basically their theme this year was "Carnival". Nothing more to say about this fest. I was there for only one day. What all I saw there was People playing holi (they were actually people playing Treasure hunt :P, but their faces were marked with Holi colors to keep them identified), a guy who wanted me to pose in front of someone wearing a bindiya on ma forehead (He was playing for the event Roadies! Roadies making people wear bindiya? God!), then there were people in open air theatre breaking mike stands and mike holders. (The event Air Band. A mock band. just act crazy to the rock music as if you're performing. Craziest act wins). Smashing of mike holders were just some desperate efforts to sound crazy.

Then there were professional skilled artists to perform with Dhols. All these to make everything look as a Carnival. They were skilled, no doubt! Performing for around ten minutes isn't that easy job. Then i also saw a tiger which was quite overwhelmed with the cheering crowd. Don't worry. The tiger was held tight by two other people with ropes. Tiger gave a nice performance. It showed how to burst a lemon using forehead. No no no... Don't get confused.. Its the Show given by some Huli vesha team(Kannadigas will understand this term. A show performed by people wearing tiger like suits to make tiger like performances). That was all about Aatmatrisha.

SJBIT's varchasva. The only thing for which i had been there was to attend Raghu dixit show. It was awesome. Not just because I found my way in without any tickets, but for the show was real fun. Sitting with the lecturers of SJBIT was not actually a good idea... Just when I started feeling like a 80 year oldie, I moved fore to the standing area just in front of the stage. Rejuvenated with new enthusiasm. This place was a playground to all the talented "Dabbapucchi" dancers. There were people being tossed over. There were people running around in train formation. I stretched my leg and they pathetically fell to ground. (shh... don't tell :P) Before I can feel pity, they were back on their legs. And dancing. There were human pyramids and the guy on top was pulling the tent above. Totally it was fun. To see the collective stupidity! I saw one guy hanging on to the tent(yeh hai youngistan mere yaar ;) ). I was gaping at him. He was shouting with joy. I guess thats the Joy of being a proud son of a father who had once told him " Come up in life ! ".

Oh sorry! I guess, I was supposed to speak about Raghu Dixit. Raghu Dixit had an extreme energy level all through the show. His band's seamless music which is an amalgamation of Indian classical with modern touch suited very well with their ethnic outfits. Felt lucky to be there for that particular show. Its really rare that you see a person in Dhoti and Kurta head-banging with a guitar... Now tell. Am i not lucky? ;)

Raghu Dixit kept the whole crowd entertained all the time. Crowd sang. Danced. Jumped. Enjoyed. Mobile phones crushed. And some spectacles broke under the senseless steps of thousand very talented Dabbapucchi dancers :P! That is it about the Raghu Dixit show.

Then lastly, we had our college fest. "Samskruti 09". So its obvious from the fest name to see Rangoli competition and Mehendi competition. but Rock shows? And Fashion shows? Ewww! That's quite contrasting with the name. Ain't it? Anyway, there were various shows by so many people. most were western dances. Then there was a stupid RJ doing some stupid PJs. DJ kept everyone entertained with some weird sounds and music to keep the crowd entertained. :) All in all, it was a good fest.

Thats it in the post. Will be back when I have something to write.

Omkar Hills / Omkar Betta - Tower clock and religious harmony

2009-04-24T07:22:00.000-07:00

The omkara betta as it is known is a place in the center of the city of Bangalore and around 5kms off the Mysore road. One can never doubt such a place in Bangalore. Not that its very good or anything, but a place calm and isolated from the city.

We got a let-off for the day and we just decided to go to this place Omkar hills. Day was quite sunny and humid. But we had so much of time to kill. We reached Kengeri from where we have to take one right turn near the petrol bunk to the Uttarhalli Road. After walking for around 3kms we reached the college of JSS. Just behind this college is this Omkar Hills. To be honest, there was nothing worth seeing there. And it is nowhere near to be called a 'HILL'. The first glimpses make you feel as if the whole place is tied with ropes. But you will soon realize that they are electric lines. The first funny thing that you see when you reach the hills is the Big Clock tower. Was impressive until we read the first line written in the description. That was like this 'World's Largest Clock and Biggest in Bangalore'. Now God knows if there is any Bangalore on Mars. Then there was a temple which was unfortunately closed at that time. To say, God was locked :P. The Clock tower was constructed by the HMT-Hindustan Machine Tools in 2002. Don't know who wrote that line, though! The other side of the hill gives a picturesque view of South Bangalore. Lot of buildings and Towers. The Giant clock strikes every hour with one Shankanadha followed by five 'Aums' (Oms - Omkara). It doesn't work on solar or anything. Runs solely on Electricity.

Jesus and Mahaveer(left pic). Temple under construction (right pic)

Something that impressed me the most here is the Religious harmony emphasized by the 'Dhodda Aalada Mara'(Big Banyan Tree) and the shrines around it. Dhodda Aalada mara is another thing people would not miss here. It encovers the top like an umbrella. Tree seemed really old. The Sri Shivpuri Mahaswamiji made this his abode only because of that tree. He got 8 shrines constructed around the tree facing tree. All eight belong to eight different religions. They together proclaims "Ekam sat, vipra bahudha vadanthi – truth is one; sages proclaim it differently". The eight shrines are Ramanujacharya's, Shankaracharya's, Madhwacharya's, Jesus Christ, Prophet Mohommed(No Idol), Gurugranth Sahib's (A book in the shrine) and Lord Mahaveera. Pardon my memory power, I forgot the eighth one. :P .The apex of the shrines are built just as they are built in their religions. You can see the difference in their architecture. The whole ideology of this 'Vishwa Bhratutva'- Universal brotherhood appealed to me.

Dhodda Aalada mara and Tower Clock

I didn't like anything else here. It was a mere waste going there. But the religious harmony thing is something to think of. I rate this place 1 of 5. Learn the fact of living your religion with respect to other religions. Sarva dharma Samanvaya.

Elections are back. Where are our leaders? :(

2009-04-16T05:33:00.001-07:00

Elections Elections and elections! Its the month of elections around here... Elections are everywhere. On my phone. In my Orkut account. On the doors. On my building. Then why not on my blog?

High posters invading the road, banners coating the buildings, loudspeakers' annoying noise and the party workers' 'knock-knock' on the door. This was what we used to see when there were elections around. But the common man evolved and no more opened doors for such campaigns. Corneas evolved to see only good things and not the banners and posters. Loudspeakers no more vibrated the bones of ears and their promises were no more believed.

But, I guess, they've taken oath that they will not let people sleep in peace. I was busy sleeping when I got a call. Just chucked it. And the phone went off. But in a minute... it was again there... Tring tring... Lazing around for a while I got up to receive it. And there was one lady asking me to vote for BJP. Now what can I say? No I wil not? I just said yes to save myself and to go sleep back :). Then I got the call again. I received and before I could scold them, she said it was by mistake and sound went off. I didn't sleep back again.

The other thing is by SMS. SmS was never a bane before today. I was subscribed to some Messaging services like Google SMS Channels. Now the admins of some of those channels have gone mad and are sending such stupid Voting Campaign slogans. In the sports channel, i get messages like 'VOTE FOR ME' and stuff.

And now, its on Internet too. God! I can see LK Advani or Rahul Gandhi with thumbs up and a grin of satisfaction on their face. Satisfaction for having people disturbed :P. They are spending millions on such campaigns. Its somewhat around 300 million all together that they are spending. We have lot of poverty in India. And these politicians who are supposed to be the next leaders are spending money for just advertising. Just to get their seats. I agree that campaigning is necessary but people praise the good work done rather than the false promises they make. I guess it all started with the US presidential election campaign. Barrack Obama had started this. But following the same in India is an extreme stupid job.

Now lets keep the election Campaign apart. Just have a look at the way they are acting right now. Passing comments from one party to the other and other to another. Varun Gandhi went to Jail for his irresponsible statements. Prime Ministerial candidate Advani found Manmohan Singh an ineffective PM. Sonia Gandhi, to reply back to this, started off with all the old things like the Kandahar attack and all. And she later said that Advani will be an ineffective PM. God! Whats exactly going on here? Child's play with the 100 crore population??? Politicians are bribing people for votes. Nanga naach and alcohol supply is a not a raw fact anymore. All these used to happen with secrecy. Now its a matter of pride, I guess. Totally.. what's happening? Elections are back and where are the real Leaders? Chuck it! India has a long way to go.

But the most happiest thing is that people are getting aware. People now know that its necessary to vote. I have seen the election offices here flooded with people to get their voting cards. I hope they are not doing it just for the purpose of getting an Address proof to replace their gas bills.

Whatever it is. People are so aware that they are even making others aware. Various campaigns are being conducted. Of all, there are websites now to make those lazy goons get application forms online and submit it. jaagore.com is one to name. Don't try now. The last date's over.

We are in a democratic country and its our choice. Democracy is power. Its the 'Of the people, by the people and for the people' nation. We made some wrong decisions in the past. But elections are back and our voting is required. So do vote for this election. Election this time will be conducted in 5 phases starting in April. Its expected to be the biggest voting ever in India. Every vote counts. Vote and elect the right leader. Not just for you, for the whole. Be a responsible Indian.

Cycle Trip with Public's Creative Imagination

2009-04-06T02:08:00.000-07:00

This post is about three crazy stupid guys who happen to be very good friends of mine and its about their trip to Bangalore. What makes me so inspired for this post is the mode of transport they chose to reach Bangalore from Mysore. Bicycle! Yes, it was a bicycle trip. Ain't that interesting? And another thing that amazed me is the way people think, the way they imagine and the way they behave when they see something very rare. Like, three people on bicycle on a highway.

The whole post is a collection of comicality which they saw in course of a Cycle trip. It is also a collection of some conversations that show how imaginative people are in concluding things. People unknowingly make situations funny either with their funny questions or with the conclusions. I got to understand the public better after the whole narration by my friend. Let me first introduce you people to these three crazy people who started with this insane Cycle Trip. Manu, Amar and Krishna. All three live in the city of Mysore(Mysuru) where they started with their cycles at 5 in the morning. Not sure of the accomplishment, they paddled their way towards Bangalore.

All three of them gained lot of public attention on their way. Thats so obvious! After all, How many people get to see three people on cycle with backpacks and wearing shorts and sleeveless stuff on a National Highway? Their outfit was more than enough for people to know that they are moving from cities to cities.

They were questioned by people in almost every city or village. There was one old woman who came to Krishna and asked, "Yenrappa? Bus-su Train-u strike-a?". That wasn't sarcastic but, indeed, an innocent one. Funniest thing was when they met this guy on scooter. The conversation went somewhat like this,

Scooter guy : Yellinda? (where are you coming from?)

Krishna : Mysuru

Scooter guy (With this OMG expression) : How Many days? (Supposed to mean "how many days has it been since U started?")

Krishna : *Dumb-struck!*

Firstly, they were still in Maddur. Thats some 55 kms from Mysore. Secondly, OMG what was he imagining? three people with their cycles on a national highway, in scorching sun, paddling for days and nights and sleeping in the road-sides ??? Wow! Creative Imagination!

And I still wonder what made him speak in English all of a sudden!

People are really good at assuming things. Conversation with yet another guy with interesting questions.

Yet another guy : Yenu? Race-aa? (what? playing race? )

Krishna : il.. (interrupted)

Yet another guy : Hindgade inda car bartidiya? (Is there any car coming from behind? )

Ha ha... That was funny. People leave no opportunities in showing their knowledge of whatever it is. He probably meant that car as the car which is seen in Racing Sports for the sake of first-aid and safety. People are so imaginative. :)

It was Ramanavami. Panaka was available near every temple. They had lunch in some temple. And they were given a esteemed service at the temple. They served everything possible with one new question every time.

There were so many more people like this. Asking questions to kill their curiosity. Some people praised their venturing spirit and some people thought it as unnecessary stupid act. But the sense of thrill in such trips is known only by the people who experience. Apart from the strenuousness and tiresomeness, there was much more that they learnt from this trip. I think there is no better way than this to study people's reaction.

People assume lot of things. What we wear and how we act matters so much, and enough for people to conclude things. And people who come from Villages think that Bangaloreans are all English speaking goons and know no Kannada.

I was once standing near my house when two people suddenly came from nowhere... and...

First guy: Abhaya naidu studio yelli baratthe gottha? (Where's Abhaya Naidu Studio?)

( i didn't hear properly)

Me: Yenu? (What?)

First guy: Abhaya Naidu Studio?

Me: Address heli nodana... (tell me the address. let me see)

First guy (to the second guy) : Le address thagiyo bag inda... (hey take out the address from the bag)

Second guy: Aiyyo! avrige kannada yella odak baralla banni hogana... (they can't read kannada. Come lets go.)

I stood gaping at that person. Is this what people think of a Bangalore person only because he's wearing jeans??? :-P

Anyway, Congratulations to Amar, Krishna and Manu for their successful accomplishment of cycle trip. 140kms of paddling in scorching sun was a great deal of work. And thanks for narrating me the most of what happened on their way.

Comment your views.

Its a funny, funny Bollywood

2009-03-24T04:22:00.001-07:00

Its a funny funny Bollywood.

Being in a country like India, how can I not post something on our movies?

I thought of writing reviews on every individual movie but later realized that it would be too much of a copy-paste work. Not that I will copy from IMDB or something but, all the movies are just one and the same. If I happen to end up being nothing, I'll definitely look at being a director. Its really easy. Permutations and combinations is my favorite topic, after all. Yeah, Applying Permutation on precisely selected parts from other movies make a new movie.

There are things that happen in most of the movies. Like the rich dad offers his daughter's lover to forget love and everything. He offers a cheque and the hero, being the hero will say and must say "mere pyaar ka koi keemat nahi hai". Then the thugs sent to kill the hero are always the same. One will be bald. Other will be muscular and gigantic. One will have thick mustaches curled up to the cheeks. They either come topless or in sleeveless shirts. They just forget that Heroes have supernatural powers in movies. Then the doctors telling " ab dhava ki nahi, dhuva ki zaroorat hai" is another common dialogue. Outdated now, though. Heroes need not have to wear bullet-proof jackets. They are protected by some unusual power that makes the bullets curve and hit just an inch away from hero's legs. And the Villains are cursed ones. I feel pity for the bad guys. Its a funny Bollywood, guys!

One thing I cannot miss to mention about are the fights. God! No matter how good they are in Mathematics, they suck when its physics. I say, Physics should be one subject in movie-making course. If newton had seen a movie rather than an apple, then he would have killed himself trying to jump from 8-storied building. Apart from the zero-gravity mode fights and superman-iac stunts, there will be some slow-motioned romantic scenes too. Nothing much. Hero and heroine just running from opposite directions. Thats love.There are some movies which tried to make a difference. I mean, they did try some rare permutation.
There was this Billu Barber released last month. Its a remake of the remake. The original story that depicted love for the friendship between Kuchelan and Sri Krishna was made Kushelan in Tamil with Rajinikanth that in turn was made Billu Barber. The original beauty was molded to fit the new-age brains that just turned out to be a stupid act. The tag of SRK and his over-acted emotional scenes doesn't work all the time.
There was this Ghajini movie. Another remake of a Tamil movie which was originally an english movie momento. The storyline, though, was good but I seriously didn't understand why Aamir khan was trying to show his new 6-pack abs and the biceps even where he was supposed to wear completely formal. That is 'Height of lost-mindedness'. Small mistake ruins everything.
Then I saw this Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi... God! I don't understand where people's common sense has gone to be watching this movie? SRK just takes away his mustaches. And his wife doesn't recognize him??? The question is... how did Aditya Chopra even think of doing such a story? I mean, is he seriously not bothered about things like common sense?
Subhash Ghai's Yuvraaj went in vain. Other than the beautiful locations and Katrina Kaif (;-)) there was nothing that was worth watching. It was nothing more than just a street play for me.
Love Story 2050 was one Indian try for a sci-fi movie. Harman Baweja did really well in imitating Hrithik. Well, is it not a compliment for Harman?. Movie could have been better. But no matter how much these Bollywood people try, there are things that have come from instincts. No matter how sci-fi the movie is, they can't just make it without some zero-gravity fights and slow-motioned love and Mindless dances.
How can I miss Tashan. Wow! Superman went back to planet Krypton by watching this movie. You can see Akshay Kumar using a tall pillar as a baseball bat to slam on to the enemy crowd. That was funny.
There are some movies that are beyond my words. Like Karzzzzz...(zzz for sleeping), CC2C, Drona (help me!), Krazzy4 and etc... etc... etc...
And there were some good releases too. Like The Wednesday, Dasvidaniya, TZP and some more.
But looking at the present Bollywood situation, I can hope for movies with SRK as a kid in school and Akshay as a Kangaroo ( sorry, there can be no better comparison for him). Movies are movies. I know. But there is some threshold height of stupidity that the directors should consider.
Though I don't like most of the movies, I still watch them. Because movies are meant to be watched and commented on. This whole post was just my opinion. Comment your views.
Have a nice day! :)

Savanadurga Trek - Heights are good!

2009-03-22T11:51:00.001-07:00

Trek: 21st March 2009

It was friday and our internals had just finished. We had to go somewhere for the weekend as it had been so long. It was time for the much awaited trip - Savanadurga(savandurga).
Savanadurga being so close to Bangalore ( bengaluru) wasn't seen by many ppl in our group. Savanadurga is a tall granite monolith hill at an height of 1226 from sea level. It is a place formed by the union of two hills, Bili gudda and Kari gudda. Its the color of the hills that make local people give such names to it. The earliest record of the name of the hill is from 1340 AD by Hoysala Ballala III from Madabalu where it was called Savandi. Another school of thought is that the name is originated from Samantadurga attributed to a Samantharaya, a governor under Ahchutaraya at Magadi. This was the secondary capital of the Magadi ruler Kempegowda. Mysore took over this place and Dalavayi Devaraja occupied this place along with the palace at Nelapattana. In 1792 Lord Cornwallis captured it from Tippu Sultan. There are some people who say that it is called 'savina durga' meaning 'fort of death'. Ain't that too scary???

Vivek, Shamith, Sujith, Shashank, Raviraj, Srikanth, Nischith, Naveen, Mayur, Deene, Sourabh, Mayur, Asif and me. A group of 13 were set ready for this trip.

Though I knew that there is no one in the world who is ideally punctual to time, I made this mistake of telling them the exact time of leaving. I told them 6. And we were ready by 6:30. I should have said 5:30. We got on the bus to Magadi and got down at hospet gate stop that comes just before Magadi. Now you should take a left turn to reach Nayakanpalya. Again another left turn takes you to Savanadurga. Buses from Nayakanpalya are scarce and we had to walk this distance. It was 4kms.(You can hire an auto, instead)

This route goes through the Mango farms that are fenced. Fences are not meant for humans. That is how I define fencing. And there was no man who could have stopped us from stealing it. Soon there was a villager who came howling at us. We had no other way than to run. But you know, stealing is no fun unless you are caught stealing ;). We took a left turn somewhere between the houses and that took us closer to the mountain. It was a rocky terrain and sun was getting over us. We were not sure whether we are on the right way. But after exploring around, we found a temple and a fort wall that looked like miniature 'great wall of china' from distance. We were lost in the midst of an anonymous fort. All we had around was a monolith hill and lot of silence. Silence is always golden, I thought. No matter how many instruments and tunes are used to compose music, the music of silence is the only thing that I will never get bored of. It refreshed me. Then there were visitors who showed us the way and we went that way to reach a garden. It was the forest garden well maintained by the RFO. There were water tanks with no water. Water pipes with no tap. Toilets with no door. Cages with no animals in it. Benches with a kilo dust. Boats with dozen holes. Ponds with some chemical in it. (it was green water, one dip in it and you would succumb to death. And there are no 'Dont try this' boards too).

There were toys for kids which we of course enjoyed! Merry-go round, swings, slides other toys which you will find in any of the parks here. Merry-go round was the best of it. We realised that inertia can throw us away. We were falling, rising and playing again. There was nothing that could have stopped us from fun.
Soon after that, we reached the temple from where the actual trek starts. It is literally, a rock climbing. We were already tired and first timers were already flat on the floor. Tender coconuts refreshed and inspirited so much of energy in us. With lot of new energy and strength we started moving for the peak. Peak was so close and visible to our eyes. But the way is a bit lengthy that takes you from the other side of the hill. The beginning of the trek was not tedious. It was a brisk walk over the slopes. But the slopes got steeper and steeper as we moved on. There are clear white arrows that mark the way. We took some shortcuts that we shouldn't have taken. And that was so much a risk. These shorcuts were elevated by almost 70degrees and one slip would have meant us a broken leg or hand. Turning back down to see how high we are is another stupid thing that we did. It scared hell out of us. We slowly crawled back to the right track to guarantee our life. Rest of the trek went easy and with humour, along.

Peak

People have expressed their love on every place with their names. I hate it! Love is divine. Not something that people stamp on. Vegetation on the hill is only some cactus trees! We reached the peak at around 1:45 which wasn't that bad as we had taken lot of breaks in between for photo sessions and all. The final 15 mins of walk was nice with stones on one another making an aisle walk-through between them. They reminded me of dungeons and also the sholay movie location. Totally the trek was an easy one with no pain. The peak is defined by the Nandi statue inside an obelisk like structure that has a broken apex. View from the top was good and it was a suicide point too. A look vertically down to the ground is breath taking and scary too. We had our time in silence and then a photo session to kill time. For our luck, sun hid behing the clouds making the weather cool and it was quite windy. There were few drops of rain. After staying there for some time, we got started again for the downhill walk.

Down hill walk was fun. Just get your momentum work along your direction. It took us just 45 mins for the down hill climb. Tender coconuts again and lunch with the ringa ringa thing on merry-go round. Film actors Pooja gandhi and Sunil were there for some shooting. Didn't wait for autographs and all. Crazy eh? Thats their living! All in all, it was a fun trip. It was our first time together. An end of one more adventurous trips.

For the trekkers,
1. Magadi is 50kms from Bangalore. Left turn to Nayakanpalya. Thats 8kms. Then left turn again to Savanadurga for 4kms.
2. Do wear shoes that grips on rocks.
3. Follow the electric lines to reach the top in case you are lost.
4. Directions are well marked on the rocks. Don't take shortcuts.
5. Take loads of water. Nothing is available on the peak. You can find some people selling Frooti on your way up.
6. Happy trekking :)

Some more pics:

God! Its VTU website!

2009-03-10T02:04:00.001-07:00

There was a time when I used to feel life to be very good and easy with internet. But then... I was in VTU.

There are things we have to love only because we have to. Like sometimes you study something that you really don't like. But you got to love that subject only because you have to. This 'only b'coz i have to' thing worked fine for everything but except the VTU site.

VTU website not just offers you year old announcements and age old timetables but it, also, is a e-treasure hunt game. There is nothing in the site thats easy to get. Click something. Sleep. Wake up. You'll get something else. Another good thing about this site is that it takes leave from work and goes on vacations. You type in the address but you get things like "Link seems to be broken", "Site doesn't exist" and such stuff. But when it loads, my browser shows this message "Resolving host...", as if we are trying to access some classified top secret from a CIA network which is highly encrypted.

The best part is when your friend calls you saying the results are out. You bump in front of your computer. You enter http://www.vtu.ac.in. You don't sleep as you can't (its ur results u see). You see. You see. You see. And you get it. Page cannot be displayed. After refreshing this page (Use functional F5 button, saves lot of energy, comes in handy) for several times, you realise that its no use. You then type results.vtu.ac.in to go directly to the result page. F5. F5. F5. And when you get it, you type in your USN no. with shaky shaky hands. then you click submit. Now this is the toughest time period. F5 doesn't work. You go back. And submit again. After hundreds of trials and when apathy gets you, you get your results. Phew! It took just 3 hours. Just about what it'd have taken you to watch some movie. (Movie would be a better choice)

Thats the pathetic condition in which the site is in.

But there are some VTU ppl lazy enough to innovate and live free. One guy got it done. Its www.vturesults.co.cc ( It is actually a redirection to some other site hosted on 110mb.com). My friend told me about this just when i was in the F5ing process.

I went into that site. It asked for my USN no.. There was this 'No. of requests' box that I had to chose. 2, 4 6 and 12 were my options. It was by default 4. Oblivious of what it was, i just kept it that way and clicked submit. Guess what happened? The browser window screen (its like 4 browsers in one browser) divided into 4 partitions and each partition individually requested for my results. All turned out to be page cannot be displayed. Then i made the number of requests 12 and clicked submit. Of the 12 partitions now, my results popped in one partition! hurray! :P Isn't this cool?

VTU has to consider all what is happening with its site. And they should improve it in someway to support the traffic.

Sleep and dream! Nomad wonders!

2009-01-02T00:09:00.000-08:00

Hey, after being intrigued by some really weird dreams, i thought of researching and writing something over this topic. I'm not sure where to start with. But considering the fact that we dream only when we sleep, lets start with sleep. But wait a minute. I think I should start with our brains first. Hmmm... I told you, I'm not sure. Anyway, lets begin with what is necessary.

Brain.
Everyone hopefully know what brain is and where it is located. (I heard someone saying "thick Skull" there :P).

Anyway, let me tell you how brain works. Brain has got a lot of cells called brain cells. They are neurons. The term Brain cell is actually a general term. Its actually the neurons and glial cells that Brain cells actually refer to. Neurons help in processing various stimuli and transmitting information through the Nervous system. Neurons are also called nerve cells. Glial cells provide nutrition to the Neurons. Neurons are of various types and every type responds to certain stimuli to which it is designed to. Some respond to light. Some respond to touch. And in that way neurons processes the information and send the signals by electrochemical signalling. To be short, neurons interact using electricity and electrical activities are represented and called by the term Brain waves. If you are not a biology student, you'll be astonished to know that brains work on very low voltages. Its a fact.

Brain waves are of different types; Beta, Alpha, theta and Delta. They are classified on the basis of their frequencies. Since its not my topic, i'm not going to bore you with that. Brain is most active when its in Beta stage. A person debating or speaking or performing some work, should have his brain working in Beta. Then when a person relaxes or meditates, his brain works with alpha brain waves. Brain works in Theta when you are onset to sleep. When a person sleeps, his brain waves' frequency will be as low as 1.5 cycles per second. When brain waves' frequency goes 0, it means he's Brain dead. So what all we need to know is that we sleep when our brainwaves are in delta stage.
(for a better life, read about brain waves. They help you understand life better)

Now, lets see what sleeping is.
What is sleeping? Its the rest given to our body? yes it is. But why do we sleep??? This question is almost a mystery and its constantly under intense research. No one ever has been able to explain the purpose of sleeping completely. We only have some hypothesis that partially define sleeping.

Study of sleep:
Sleeping can also be broadly classified into two types. REM and NREM. Random Eye Movement sleep. And Non Random Eye Movement Sleep.
NREM sleep has 3 stages. Stage 1, Stage 2 and Stage 3.
During Stage 1, alpha waves transform to theta waves. This is called the "drowsy sleep" in common language. Then in Stage 2, the person loses his awareness towards external environment and also loses muscular activities. In stage 3, person sleeps and his brain waves goes into delta range. This sleep is called Slow-wave Sleep(SWS). This is the stage in which bed-wetting, night terrors, sleep talking and sleep-walking occurs. After this stage, a person sleeps in peace. In REM Stage. But during one complete sleep, our brains keep changing from alpha waves to delta, delta to alpha and like wise. We keep switching between the different stages stage 1, stage 2, stage 3 and REM stage during a sleep.

All I was set was to study dreams. And for that, I backtracked to study brain and sleep. But Dream isn't just that! We need to know a lot of chemistry and biology for complete understanding.
Anyway, I don't give up! Though I don't have any knowledge in human physiology of psychology, I am curious enough to study whatever it takes.

Dreams are real mystery. No one knows why we really dream. Researches are going on. But a universally agreeable definition for Dream was never stated. Every dream-researcher has his own hypothesis and definition for Dreaming.

Now we know that dreams are most certainly in REM Sleep. And its a fact everyone knows is that, every part of the brain is specialised in some work. There are separate sections in brain to interpret stimuli of various kinds. But its unknown where we dream from. I mean no one has ever understood which part of our brain works to make us dream. It can even happen that, dreams are formed by the collective working of different parts of the brain. But researches haven't proved anything yet. There are thousands of hypothesis. But none of them are completely agreeable. They all have some flaws.

But the most acceptable hypothesis is that dreaming could be because of dimethyltryptamine (DMT) present in brain. This was proposed by JC Callaway after his study in 1988. DMT levels are periodically elevated in brain which might have been a reason for visual dream phenomena.
During REM Sleep, neurotransmitters are not transmitted. Hence a condition called REM atonio is attained that prevents the stimulation of motor neurons. Motor neurons are responsible for the body movements. Hence our body movements are suppressed during REM Sleep and that is why we don't see any muscular movement in a dreaming person.

There is another school of thought that explains the concept of dreaming in a psychological way. This say that our incomplete work in the day course is reflected in the night in our dreams. Our dreams reflect the emotions and feelings that we were not capable of handling in the day course. They deal with some of the most embarrassed situations that you faced when you were awake.

These are some of the theories that explain most of it. These theories are not completely agreeable. But as long as no one comes out with a more convincing hypothesis, we have to define dreams in this way.

EEG map pattern of a person while dreaming is same as that of the person when he is wide awake. Now this is what makes dreaming an enigma.

So far we learned that we dream only in REM sleep. But recent studies have said and showed that we dream even in the stage 2 of NREM sleep.

I've heard of people who interpret dreams. I'd like to see what that is. since i had had weirdest of the weirdest dreams. So I will be back soon with an article on Interpretation of dreams. Till then, Sweet dreams :)

Kodachadri - Shankara-peetha

2009-01-01T20:22:00.000-08:00

Kodachadri Trek

It was all set. I was picked up by the driver and at around 4:45 in the morning. We had to leave early. But somehow managed to leave Shimoga by 6 or around. Kodachadri is around 100 kms from Shimoga and its the highest peak of Shimoga at a height of 1343ft from sea level.
We were a gang of 12. Krishna, Manu, Amara(Anni), Bharath(Ambu) Abhijith, Shashank, Chandan, Jeevan, Arjun, Sandeep, Chethan and Sudarshan which is me. We reached the foot of Kodachadri at around 8 in the morning. Was a beautiful route. Especially the narrow metal bridge that we came across when we were around 4 kms from where we were right now. The early morning breeze and the mystic fog made it just marvellous. We had spent some time here clicking photos.
Anyway, all of us got ready with our shoes and it was everyone's first time. Believe me, I didn't even know that it was a trek spot. :P

Since we were least prepared for this thing, we had no food. And we were starving. First, we thought we'd make it to the peak, and then eat something there. But that definitely would have turned out disastrous (I wasn't ready to die starving). There was this house near our car who offered to prepare Upma for money. It costed around 10rs per plate. Wasn't worth. But no big deal for a starving man! Ate it. And then we all started. It was a jeep track. And jeeps were just passing by every now and then. We were told by one group that it'd take around 3 and half to 4 and half hours up way. So we started with quite a pace. We kept walking on the jeep track for a while until we realised that we are here to trek and not to simulate any jeep. So we bypassed all the curves and the hairpin bends by walking into the forest and through the woods. This was sometimes pathetic. Dungs of almost all the types welcomed us with its utmost possible ghostly savor. And sometimes it was adventurous when we reach a road and we didn't know which way goes up!

As we kept moving, our troup seperated into two. I being most responsible among them had to come in the last taking care no one was left behind (its just a decent and respectable way of saying that I was last :P). Jeevan and Chandan gave me company, anyway. As I said, we were now divided into two. And it wasn't a decided division. The pace divided it. Worst part was when we realised that the group I was in had no water bottles in their bags. Infact, we had no food at all. I was shocked when I heard this. Having heard this, my legs started pulling behind. My mind yet wanted to reach to the top. Sun soon got on our heads and I felt like its eating my skin. We managed to move with no food and water hoping to see someone to whom we can yell at. All we had was faith! But as we ascended, the beauty of valley came into sight. We were just halfway through and yet we had one of the first glimpses of heaven. That killed all my hunger and thirst. Boosted my energy. We sat for a while to enjoy the panoramic view. Had a brief photo session with our mobile cameras. Since we only had mobile to click pics, photo qualities in this post are not so promising. Bear with it this time.

We started again. So did the Hunger and thirst. People who stayed on the peak the previous day were moving down. We managed somehow to get water from them. But wasn't so satisfying. The guilt of emptying others Water Bottle shied away and we emptied almost everyone's bottle who offered us. Yet it didn't satisfy. We were some 5 and their half filled half litre bottle was so much to count on. We kept moving step by step. Some even insisted to go back. But backing off was so cowardly and wouldn't have been worth as we knew we were already more than half way. One serious advice is "Don't ask the down movers how far the peak would be". I don't know why all the trekkers are poor in math. They neither tell us the exact distance nor the exact time. They just scare us. Like when we first asked a guy, he said "Its around 2kms only". Then after moving for an hour we asked another guy. And he was like "Still 3 more kms". God! Where on the earth are we? No math-land? Thats what happens. People have different scales of measuring here

As the going got tough, we started using sticks to support ourselves. Funniest part was when Krishna lost his shirt. :P He had taken off his shirt as it was so hot and the sun was getting intense. And he had laid somewhere on the hill where he left it while leaving. :P it was his new shirt i believe :P. Its Krishna in the pic at the right.
Then all of a sudden, we were done with it and we collapsed to the ground. It became impossible to even keep a step without water. So we just sat around and waited for some jeep and thank god! We got one. Our Saviour! The people in that jeep happened to be from our place Shimoga. They felt so pity at our faces that they gave away one whole fully filled 2 litre bottle. The rest of the journey went easy and well. :) All smiles. then we reached this place. It was some Bhatru mane. A middle-aged lady manages things here. She made us Butter milk as soon as we entered. She later served us lunch. All at a quite decent price. It is a resting place for people. Jeeps wind up here and go back downtrack. People inevitably have no other way than walking for 3kms upward from here. Shopkeepers there for some reason think that their shops are in airport and they abide to their high-rates and buy-or-die policy!

The 3km walk from here was fairly crowded. Again counting on the sticks, we made it and at last we reached our ultimate destiny. Shankarapeetham. The peak. Shankarapeetham or Shankara-peetha is the place where Shankaracharya once meditated. One can see a small temple built of stone around the sculpture of Shankaracharya. This defines the peak. After resting here for a while, we started out way back. The way back was the same way up. But there were some diversions that we had ignored while climbing up. These diversions take us to some other temples. Since we had enough time to climb down and as curiosity was burning in, we took the chance of checking them. In one way, we got a ganapathi temple. And in the other, Guess what? A small waterfalls. He he! It was kinda cute i'd call. We refreshed here. Felt like a desktop which when refreshed flickers for a minute. Then the same way took us down and joined the original path. The downward journey was not so exciting. Met some other groups climbing up. We missed to see both sunrise and sunset. Don't know why sun rises so early and sets when it starts getting dark and late :P. We reached the bottom and there was a stream of water. Had a refreshing time again here. Enjoyed Pelting stones at the bottle set afloat in the stream, and making stones pitch on water.

Some tips for people who are looking forward to trek here:

Upward journey takes 2 and half to 3 journey with breaks at regular intervals.
Downward journey takes hardly an hour.
Don't back off in between just because some one said that its too tough. Its an easy trek.
Carry enough water. Take shortcuts only if you are sure that its gonna take you to the right place. You can end up stray. Don't forget that roads are meant for jeeps. And may also be for people with wheel chairs.
Total trek length : Around 9km to Bhatru mane. You can cover this stretch by hiring a jeep. Jeeps may cost around 800 and they accomodate around 8 people in one jeep. ( Rates are subject to change as per the drivers' moods and how rich you look).

Hope you enjoyed reading. Do comment on what you felt. Doesn't matter if you didn't like it. I can in any time delete the bad comments after all ;) :P