The ambiance was great and music was rocking, as the name suggests. Guys and Girls of all ages, shapes and sizes were drinking alcohol. I guess, Akash and I were the only two odd men out drinking non-alcoholic drink. Some of the images from the walkin. 28th August 2010. Thanks to Akash, Raj Lalwani and Devkishor for their company.

When DNA launched their Bangalore edition, Shiv was responsible as a photo editor to bring in five-days-a-week picture page under PicUp section. It was great meeting Shiv through Selvaprakash, his colleague at DNA earlier in 2009. And lucky me, I happened to have lot of mini conversations on photography with him, when he wanted to bring in a section under iPic, where citizen photographers can share their views through images.

I believe his weekly columns on photojournalism on DNA were priceless and i still keep a copy of one of his focal point writeups on “Citizen journalism way ahead for Media” where he started of with “Chatting with Perumal Venkatesan, fondly known as Pee-Vee”, which was published in Feb 2010. I was quipping something and all on the current trends, cloud computing, citizen contributions etc, and it was really a long chat, went on for at least 12 minutes on the topic for DNA. The last conversation i had with him was in May 2010, that’s after his move to Bangalore Mirror and now he permanently moved away from all of us.

One of his images, taken in January 2004 entitled, Before Bhopal, won 10th prize in the colour section of the WHO photo contest, “Images of Disability 2005″.

Let his soul Rest In Peace. I must say, we lost a real cool photojournalist. WE MISS YOU SHIV.

Read more of Shiv: Twitter: Flickr: FocalPointBlogs:

Some of the portrait images from the Sunday at Poothamedu, Tamil Nadu

M. G. Road is one of the busiest roads in the Bangalore city and is lined on one side with retail stores, food outlets and restaurants. It runs from Trinity Circle at one end to Anil Kumble Circle at the other. It used to house a lot of Heritage buildings and started loosing one after other in the recent past.Presently it is being improved and prepared for the long-awaited Metro Rail line that connects the eastern part of Bangalore with the west. The beautiful Boulevard of MG Road was lost by Bangaloreans for this metro development 2 years back.

Images from the 8th International Jawa Yezdi Bikers Day, Bangalore. 11 July 2010.

There are passages in the cave where we are compelled to crawl to pass by and there are some streams as well. There is a chamber inside the cave where a lot of stalactites and stalagmites (horn like formation of limestone) can be seen. The chamber is called Kotilingalu and the entrance to chamber is called Simhadwaram. There is a chamber inside the cave called Saptasvarala Guha or Musical chamber where the limestone formations make metallic sounds. The deepest point in the cave is called Pathalaganga where a perennial stream is found.

We were charged an amount of Rs.30.00 for entrance. Foreign Tourists are charged Rs.300.00 per person for entrance. APTDC has installed electronic gates at entrance. The entry section is called Gebauer Hall named after Speleologist Mr H. Daniel Gebauer, who had explored and mapped the caves in 1982-1983. The path to Gebauer Hall leads below the second opening, which lies next to the main entrance.

Some of the images from the caves.

APTDC runs Punnami Hotel in vicinity of Belum Caves. The only accommodation type offered is a 32 beds dormitory. The charges for dormitory accommodation is Rs.40.00 per person. This hotel is planned to be upgraded in future. APTDC also runs a restaurant and a small shop at the entrance to Belum Caves.

Nearest towns are Tadipatri (30 km) and Banganpalli (20 km) where one can find hotels to stay. There are no other place nearby where one can find a restaurant or any sort of eating joint. It is advisable to carry bottled drinking water when visiting the caves since it get very hot and humid at certain sections.

RiteBite was one of the sponsors of TFN 2009 (Tour of Nilgiris 2009). Here are some RiteBite Moments.