Not all those who wander are lost...

Give me some sunshine

2010-01-10T23:19:00.014+05:30

Rewind back the calendar of life for about fours years. Can’t go to flashback so easily? Take a look at some corner of your roof and take help of the spider web there to rewind back. Still not working?? Doesn’t mater, continue readingJ

One of the reputed Indian company is conducting campus selections. The last round of the selection process is going on. It was tiring 2 day selection process, a written test on first day and then next day, one round of technical interview and an HR and then another HR. Our hero (:P) had cleared all the rounds and now in the final HR round. A part of interview conversation below:

Interviewer: Why did you choose computer science engineering?

Candidate: (Silence for about 10-15 seconds) It is not like I wanted to do computer science engineering only. After getting good score in PUC (12^th) and CET, like others even I decided to join engineering. I didn’t get electronics in this college so I took computer science as I was told this is second best course. Also, I had taken PCMC combination in 12^th …blah blah...etc etc…..(After a while realizes he is saying nonsense and stops!!!).

When the list of selected candidates was announced, this guys name was not there. Obvious isn’t it? Even I wouldn’t have taken this fellow, if I were the interviewer.

As many (probably everyone) would have already guessed by now, that guy was none other than me. Yes, I had answered something like that in the interview, don’t remember the words exactly, but it was something like that. The ‘most dumbest’ answer, right? It was a foolish answer but true answer!!! I am usually good at answering such interview questions, but the moment that question came, I was puzzled, didn’t know whether to give the truth or the answer what interviewer expected me to. It was my first time, so goofed it up completely.

(If you are still in flashback, then comeback)

You may ask me why this flashback story now, the answer is that I was made to go to this flashback by a recent movie. You are intelligent enough to figure out the movie name. The movie did inspire me to write few words in my blog after a long time.

Four years back, when I was almost at the end my engineering, I frankly didn’t know the answer for question why I was doing engineering. Even today I haven’t figured it out. For me the path was very simple and straight. Get good score in 10^th -> join a good college -> get good rank in entrance exam (CET) -> join some good engineering college -> get a good job. Who set this path? Not my parents, obviously not me. It’s proved and tested path to earn good money that is been there for quite some time now. I just followed the same path. You can say the reason why I was doing engineering is because I wanted to get a good job, which is absolutely correct. But, do you think that reason is sufficient?

Not everyone is as dumb as me. Incase of one of my friend, it seems he had fascination for computers since his high school days and wanted to learn more in that and so he took computer science engineering. How many will you find who can come up with reasons like that? According to me many people choose this course because it is one of the easiest and safest ways to earn good money (which I agree is an important factor). The question is, how many can come up with reasons other than that. How many of those are knowledgeable enough to find different career options apart from this. Just in Karnataka we have 170+ engineering colleges. If we assume an average of 70 students in common branches like EC, CS, Mech, we get around 12000 engineers per branch. Just in Karnataka, every year these many people join computer science engineering course (and also around same number graduate).

Coming back to my story, my foolishness doesn’t end with B.E. When most of my friends were planning for higher studies even while doing engineering, I just wanted to complete that course and take a break. Mainly because I didn’t want to make another mistake by deciding to go for higher studies just because every one is doing it. I decided that I will do it only if I get a proper reason for higher studies. Didn’t wanted to waste money by doing another BE (mean MS) nor was keen on taking management course. Every time I meet any friend, they keep asking me what my plan is? MS or MBA, I answer them that I don’t have any such plans for now. Kept asking myself if it so important to do either. For me, master’s degree is like an investment, you spend money to get another degree and later except to a get job with better salary. Anyways, last year I decided to do this investment. (It is a big story why I made that decision and what happened later, which won’t go with this article and needs a separate one. To say it in couple of lines,) I booked GRE exam, studied, gave exam as well, but by that time I had lost that interest. Decided not to apply: P. Wasted time and money, but the good thing is I learnt few new words ;). When will I realize what to do? For me the priorities keep changing, I give my full effort in what ever I do. But I haven’t still identified one specific field.

While I am writing this, I saw this article in today’s newspaper. It says - techie leaves mouse and grabs lathi (police stick). It is the story of a female software engineer who left her job and became an Sub Inspector. Different people get this realization at different times. You can find examples where engineers (people from other professions as well) leave their job to pursue career in different fields like journalism, media, photography, administrative services (IAS) etc...Many times it so happens that even if ones interest lies in a particular field he/she will hesitate to pursue career in that due to various reasons. The main reason is the fear of failure and also not being able to earn more money in the fields of their interest. How many would want to leave a well paid job in software field to join something like police force? Few like the one in the article manage to come out of this fear and try to succeed in the new field.

Irrespective of the filed you pursue your career in, remember one thing:- ‘kabil bano, kamiyabi khudu tumhare pheche aayegi’. Yes, choose a field of your interest and excel in it. One can make right choice only when he/she is aware of the facts about that field and also about others. It is the responsibility of parents and teachers to identify the talent of the child in early age and help him/her improve in it. Not try to impose the ones individual interest on their children. I am not saying one who is interested in say music need not learn Maths in school at all. According to me everyone should have common education until they finish high school i.e. 10^th. Educational institutions play important role in shaping child’s career. By the time they complete their schooling, they should be well educated enough to choose the filed in which they want to pursue their career.

Many movies which are thought provoking have come and gone, and I hope more such will come in future as well. How many of them have been able to actually provoke thoughts among people, and how many people have implemented those thoughts is something to think about. I consider movies as one of the powerful media that influence the audience to great extent. Let us learn something from such movies. The latest to list of such movies is ‘3 Idiots’. If you haven’t watched it still, go watch it. I don’t want to tell the story of that hereJ. I just want to say,

Give me some sunshine,

Give me some rain

Give me another chance,

I wanna grow up once again

Re-visiting Sharavati Valley

2009-03-31T23:45:00.040+05:30

ದೃಶ್ಯ: ಮನೆಯ ಪಡಸಾಲೆ, ಗಂಟೆ ಸುಮಾರು ೪, ಶನಿವಾರ ಸಂಜೆ. ಮಗ ತನ್ನ ಮೊಬೈಲಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಯಾರ್ ಹತ್ರನೋ ಆಗ ತಾನೆ ಮಾತಾಡಿ ಸೋಫಾ ಮೇಲೆ ಕೂತಿದ್ದಾನೆ. ಆ ಮಾತು ಅವನ ತಂದೆ ಕಿವಿಗೂ ಅಲ್ಪ-ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಬಿದ್ದಿದೆ. ಅವರು ಸಹ ಅಲ್ಲೇ ಸೋಫಾ ಮೇಲೆ ಕುಳಿತಿದ್ದಾರೆ.
(Please scroll down for the English translation)

ಅಪ್ಪ: ಎಲ್ಲೊ ಟ್ರಿಪ್-ಗಿಪ್ ಹೊರ್ಟಿದ್ಯೆನೊ ?
ಮಗ: ಹೌದು, ಟ್ರೆಕ್ಕಿಂಗ್ ಹೋಗ್ತಾ ಇದೀನಿ, ಇವತ್ ರಾತ್ರಿ ಹೋಗೋದು
ಅಪ್ಪ: ಎಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ?
ಮಗ: ಆ....ಇಲ್ಲೇ ಹೀಗೆ ಹತ್ರ (ಜಾಗ ಯಾವುದೆಂದು ಹೇಳಲು ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹಿಂಜರಿಕೆಇಂದ)
ಅಪ್ಪ: ಇಲ್ಲೇ ಅಂದ್ರೆ, ಎಲ್ಲಿ ??
ಮಗ: ಇಲ್ಲೇ ಶಿವಮೊಗ್ಗ ಹತ್ರ.....
ಅಪ್ಪ: ಶಿವಮೊಗ್ಗ!!, ಮತ್ತ್ ಅದೇ...ಎಷ್ಟ್ ಸಲಿ ಅಲ್ಲಿಗೇ ಹೋಗ್ತಿಯೋ...?
ಮಗ: ಇದು ಸಾಗರ ಹತ್ರ, ಕಾರ್ಗಲ್ ಅಂತ. ಅದ್ರ ಹತ್ರ.
ಅಪ್ಪ: ಎಲ್ಲ ಅದೇ, ಅಲ್ಲಿಗೂ ಹೋಗಿದ್ದೆ ಅನ್ಸುತ್ತೆ....
ಮಗ: ಅದೇ ಮುಂಚೆ ಹೋಗಿದ್ರ ಹತ್ರನೇ, ಆದ್ರೆ ಇದು ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಬೇರೆ, ಇದ್ರ ರೂಟ್ ಬೇರೆ.
ಅಪ್ಪ: ಸರಿ, ಇವತ್ ಹೋಗಿ...ಬರೋದು....?
ಮಗ: ಇವತ್ ರಾತ್ರಿ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಬಿಡೋದು, ನಾಳೆ.., ಮತ್ತೆ ಸೋಮವಾರ ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಟ್ರೆಕ್ಕಿಂಗ್...ಮಂಗಳವಾರ ಬೆಳ್ಳಿಗ್ಗೆ ವಾಪಸ್ ಬರೋದು. ಸೋಮವಾರ ಆಫೀಸ್ಗೆ ರಜ ಹಾಕಿದಿನಿ.
ಅಪ್ಪ: ರಜ ಯಾಕೆ? ಹೋಗೋದೇ ಇದ್ರೆ ನೆನ್ನೆನೆ ಹೋಗ್ಬೋದಿತ್ತಲ್ಲ...
ಮಗ: ಇಲ್ಲ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಪ್ರಾಬ್ಲಮ್ ಇತ್ತು...

ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹೊತ್ತಿನನಂತರ, ತನ್ನ ಅಮ್ಮ ಇದ್ದ ರೂಮಿಗೆ ಹೋಗಿ ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಅವ್ರಿಗೆ ಟ್ರೆಕ್ಕಿಂಗ್ ವಿಷ್ಯ ತಿಳಿಸ್ತಾನೆ. ಅಲ್ಲೂ ಸಹ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಕಮ್ಮಿ ಮೇಲಿನ ರೀತಿಯ ಮಾತು ನಡಿಯುತ್ತೆ. ಜೊತೆಗೆ,
ಅಮ್ಮ: ಬೆಳ್ಳಿಗೆ ಇಂದ ಸುಮ್ನೆ ಮನೆಲೇ ಇದ್ದೀಯ, ನೆನ್ನೆ ರಾತ್ರಿ ನೆ ಹೋಗಿದಿದ್ರೆ....
ಮಗ: ಇಲ್ಲಮ.., ಅದೇ...ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಪ್ರಾಬ್ಲಮ್ ಇತ್ತು...ಕೆಲಸ ಇತ್ತು ಇವತ್ತು...
ಅಮ್ಮ: ಅಲ್ಲ ಕಣೋ, ಮುಂದಿನವಾರ ಮೂರ್ ದಿನ ರಜ ಇದೆ....ಆಗ್ ಹೋಗಿ. ಇವತ್ ಹೋಗೋದಂತೆ..ಮತ್ತ್ ಪುಸ್ಸ್ಕನೆ ವಾಪುಸ್ ಬರೋದಂತೆ. ರಜ ಇದ್ದಾಗ ಮುಂಚೆನೆ ಪ್ಲಾನ್ ಮಾಡಿ ಅಲ್ಲೇ ಸುತ್ತ ಮುತ್ತ ಬೇರೆ ಜಾಗನು ನೋಡ್ಕೊಂಡ್ ಬಂನ್ರಿ. ಅಷ್ಟ್ ದೂರ ಸುಮ್ನೆ ಹೋಗೋದು ಬರೋದು. ಪ್ರತಿಸಲಿ ಹೀಗೆ....ಎಷ್ಟ್ ಸಲಿ ಹೇಳಿದ್ರು ಮತ್ತ್ ಅದೇ...

ಈ ಮಗ ಯಾರು ಅಂಥ ನಿಮಗೆ ಗೊತ್ತಾಗಿದೆ ಅನ್ಕೊತಿನಿ :) , ಈ ಕನ್ನಡ ನಾಟ್ಕನ ಇಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ನಿಲ್ಲಿಸಿ, ಟ್ರೆಕ್ಕಿಂಗ್ ಕಥಾನಕನ ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ ನಲ್ಲೆ ಮುಂದುವರಿಸೋಣ. (ಫಾರ್ ದಿ ಬೆನಿಫಿಟ್ ಆಫ್, ಕನ್ನಡ ಅರ್ಥ ಆಗದೆ ಇರೋ ಪೋಪ್ಯುಲೇಷನ್)

English translation of above conversation:
(ಕನ್ನಡ ಓದಿದವರು ಮತ್ತೆ ಓದಿ, ಪರವಾಗಿಲ್ಲ...ಓದಿ, ಅನುವಾದ ಸರಿ ಇದ್ಯೋ ಇಲ್ವೋ ಹೇಳಿ :D)

Scene: Its about 4'o clock on a Saturday evening, a guy is sitting on a sofa in the living room. He was speaking to a friend on mobile a while ago. His father who had heard his son's conversation in bits and pieces is also sitting there.

father: Going for any trips?
son: yes, going for trekking, will leave today night
father: which place ?
son: hmm, here only near by...(reluctant to say the place name)
father: near by, where ?
son: near shivamogga...
father: shivamogga ?? again ? how many times will you go that place
son: This time it is near sagar, called kargal. From there we trek
father: seems same to me.., I think you had gone there as well
son: yes, near to where we went last time but different route this time
father: ok ok, so when will you return ?
son: will go today night and come back tuesday morning. Have taken off on monday
father: why taking leave, you could have gone yesterday night itself right?
son: No, had some problem...

After a while he(son) goes to his mother and informs about the trek. A similar kind of conversation will take place even there...plus a little more advice -
"Next week you are having three days vacation. If you had planned for next week then you could have seen some other nearby places."

By now, you people would have figured out who that 'son' is...so I will stop this drama conversation here and start the story of my trek

Lately, I have been trekking to same places again and again. It started with tadiyandamol, then KP/KumaraParvatha and now its sharavathi valley. Well for Sharavathi valley I can't claim this is just the second time. As my parents said I have been trekking near Shivamogga/shimogga a lot now. The sharavathi region trekking spree started with Kodachadri. (Doesn't exactly come under sharavathi, but near that, had gone via shivamogga itself). Then it was Kanoor Fort trek, followed by monsoon trek in sharavati valley. Few days back I re-visted sharavathi valley again. Since I had visited this before and also written about it,I have decided not to narrate the whole story, but compare the previous trek with this one. By the way if you looking for trekking route/guide in this region you can read previous article or just click "Sharavathi Nature Trails..." to visit Sharavati valley. Yes, that page is all what you need to trek there.

Comparision of the previous trek in this region with the latest one:
-> One basic common factor both times is Sampath and his "Sharavathi Nature Trails...". He organizes trek in this region. Either you can follow trek announcements on his blog/google groups and join him, or find some interested people yourself, contact him so that he can organize (and probably find more people as well). We took the later option both the times. The difference was last time I had contacted Sampath, and this time Madhu did. Unlike last time, were not sure of going to trek till the last moment, so only five people could join.
-> The second common factor would be, of course 'Narayana' helpful guidence and 'Dharma's delicious food. As last time even this time Narayana did allow us to enjoy at the same time used to see that we are safe and Dharma prepared yummy food. Like last time, I did enjoy his bajji's and kashaya. But I have one complaint though, he prepares only sambar, no curd or buttermilk :). (May be they don't use it that side I am not sure, but I miss it :(.) I know it is difficult to manage and get the groceries/vegetables etc, and I should be grateful that we get proper food inside forest(unlike noodles,bread etc we usually carry for other treks), but I do feel it would be good if they get buttermilk at least during summer :).

-> Even though we were trekking in the same region, the routes were different
Last time : Hogehundi --> Basavana baayi ---> Padubeedu(halt) ---> Belligundi view point ---> Goodanagundi falls top view --> return to Padubeedu --> kattinakaru
This time: Padubeedu --> Belligundi falls top view --> Belligundi falls front view/view point --> Padubeedu (halt) --> Goodagundi falls --> climbing down and getting into the falls --> aalemane --> kattinakaru

-> Coming to the major difference, the time of trek. As evident from the title of my previous trek report, last time we trekked during monsoon season. Well, this time.... Even though we were trekking in same region, it was new experience this time. But since Sharavathi valley is covered with thick forest, trekking is not tiresome in summer. You do find water streams inside forest even in summer.

Few snaps comparing the treks (click images for large view)


From SharavatiValleyTrekJuly2008	From SharavathiValleyMarch2009

Belligundi falls from the view point


Belligundi falls July2008	Belligundi falls March2009

If you can't see the water fall in the second snap :), I have even got a closeup for you. No, not zoomed picture, but we did go much nearer to the falls this time. This time we did trek to the point where the water falls. Actually we came to this view point after getting the top view of the falls. And ya, trek to the the bottom of the falls is still pending. Below, snap of top view of the Belligundi falls.

Top view - Belligundi falls March2009

From the view point, one side you can see water fall, on the other side you can water waves :), Yes, you can actually see waves of the Arabian sea on the other side

Can you see sea??


GoodanaGundi falls July2008	GoodanaGundi falls March2009

Yes!!! Both the above are snap of the same falls, taken from a different angles though! Its GoodanaGundi falls. Previous time there was no way we could have got inside the water. This time we could easily get down the falls. It was a good rock climbing experience this time. :)

Rock climbing near GoodanaGundi

From Goodanagundi falls we moved to aalemane (place where they extract juice from sugar cane and then make jaggery out of it). Ate sugarcane, also extracted juice from that machine ourselves. Drank the juice, had hot liquid jaggery. It was super :)

After spending some time there, walked for a while and took the van back to Kargal.
That's it. That's the end of the story. As always even this Sharavati valley trek was great and a unique experience. Yet to see few places in that range and will be back there soon.

Link to the other snaps of the trek below:

ಭಯನಾ....ನಿಂಗೆ ಭಯನಾ....

2009-01-13T23:46:00.018+05:30

ಭಯ?? ಯಾರಿಗೆ? ಯಾಕೆ? ಅಂತ ಕೇಳ್ತೀರಾ...ಯಾರಿಗಿಲ್ಲ ನೀವೇ ಹೇಳಿ...ಕಾರಣ, ಒಂದ ಎರಡ...ಆದರೆ ಇತ್ತೀಚಿಗೆ ಒಂದು ವಿಷಯಕ್ಕೆ ಜನರಲ್ಲಿ ಭಯ ತುಂಬನೆ ಜಾಸ್ತಿ ಆಗಿದೆ. ಉಗ್ರಗಾಮಿಗಳ ಭಯ ಅಂತಿರಾ..ಹೌದು ಅದು ಕೂಡ ಆದರೆ ನಾನು ಈಗ ಅದರಬಗ್ಗೆ ಹೇಳುತಿಲ್ಲ..ಮತ್ತೆ ಯಾವ್ದು ಅದು ?

ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಉತ್ತರನ ಒಂದು ಹಾಡಿನ ಮೂಲಕ ಹೇಳೋಣ ಅಂಥ...ಅದ್ಕೆ ಒಂದು ಹಾಡನ್ನು ಕೂಡ ಬರೆದೆ. ಅದ್ನ ನಿಮ್ಗೆ ನನ್ನ ಸ್ವೀಟ್ ಧ್ವನಿಲಿ ಕೆಳ್ಸೋಣ ಅಂಥ ಇದ್ದೆ. ಆದ್ರೆ ಹಾಡು ಬರೆದು ಒಂದು ತಿಂಗಳು ಆಗ್ತಾ ಬಂದ್ರು ಇನ್ನ ಹಾಡೋ ಧೈರ್ಯ ಮಾಡಿಲ್ಲ. ಅದ್ಕೆ ಹಾಡನ್ನ ಹಾಗೆ ಟೈಪ್ ಮಾಡಿ ಪ್ರಕಟಣೆ ಮಾಡೋ ನಿರ್ಧಾರ ಮಾಡ್ದೆ. ಈ ಹಾಡನ್ನು ನಾನು 'ರವಿಚಂದ್ರನ್' ಸಿನಿಮಾ 'ಯಾರೇ ನೀನು ಚೆಲುವೆ' ಯಲ್ಲಿ ಇರುವ 'ಡಯಾನಾ..ಭಯಾನಾ' ಹಾಡಿನ ಮ್ಯೂಸಿಕ್ ಇಗೆ ಬರೆದಿರೋದು. ಆ ಹಾಡು ನಿಮ್ಗೆ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಸಿಗುತ್ತೆ. ಆ ಲಿಂಕ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ 'ಡಯಾನ ನಾನೇ ಡಯಾನ' ಅಂಥ ಇರೋ ಹಾಡ್ನ ಪ್ಲೇ ಮಾಡಿ ಅದ್ರ ಮ್ಯೂಸಿಕ್ ಗೆ ನನ್ ಲಿರಿಕ್ಸ್ ಹಾಕಿ ಹಾಡಿ. ನನ್ನ ಹಾಡನ್ನ ಸುಮ್ನೆ ಓದೋಕಿಂತ ಒರಿಜಿನಲ್ ಮ್ಯೂಸಿಕ್ ಜೊತೆ ಹಾಡಿದರೆ ಬಹುಶ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಮೆಚ್ಚಬಹುದು ಅಂಥ ನನ್ ಅಭಿಪ್ರಾಯ. ಇನ್ನೊಂದ್ ವಿಷ್ಯ, ಈ ಹಾಡು ನಾನು ಅಲ್ಲಿ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಕೇಳಿರೋ ವಾಕ್ಯಗಳನ್ನ ಉಪಯೋಗಿಸಿ ಬರೆದಿರೋದು. ಸುತ್ತಮುತ್ತ ಇರೋ ಜನ ಭಯದಿಂದ ಅಡಿರೋ ಮಾತುಗಳೇ ನಿಮ್ಮ ಮುಂದೆ ಕಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ ಹಾಡಾಗಿ ಬಂದಿದೆ..ಹಾಡಿ ಆನಂದಿಸಿ...:)

ಭಯನಾ....ನಿಂಗೆ ಭಯನಾ....
ಮಾರ್ಕೆಟ್ ಮೆಲ್ಟ್ ಡೌನ್ ಆಗುತ್ತಿರುವ ರೀತಿ ನೋಡಿ....
ಭಯನಾ.... ಹೇ ಏ ಏ ಏ
ಭಯನಾ....ನಿನ್ನ ಸಹೋದ್ಯೋಗಿಗೆ ಪಿಂಕ್ ಸ್ಲಿಪ್ ಕೊಟ್ಟಿದ್ ನೋಡಿ....
ಭಯನಾ....ನಿಂಗೆ ಭಯನಾ....

ಕೇವಲ ಸಪೋರ್ಟ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ಅಲ್ಲ, ಡೆವಲಪ್ಮೆಂಟ್ ನಲ್ಲೂ ಕೂಡ
ಜನರನ್ನ sack ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದಾರೆ, ಮನೆಗೆ ಓಡಿಸ್ತಾ ಇದಾರೆ....
ಪ್ರಾಜೆಕ್ಟ್ ಗಳು dissolveಆಗ್ತ ಇವೆ, ಭವಿಷ್ಯ ಕತ್ತಲಾಗಿ ಹೋಗಿದೆ....ಭಯನಾ...ಹೇ ಏ ಏ ಏ...

ಭಯನಾ....ನಿಂಗೆ ಭಯನಾ....
ನಿನ್ನ bank balance ಶೀಟ್ ನೋಡಿದಾಗ....ಭಯನಾ...ಭಯನಾ...

ಪಿಂಕ್ ಸ್ಲಿಪ್ ಎಂಬ ಕತ್ತಿಯೊಂದು, ತಲೆ ಮೇಲೆ ನೇತಾಡುತ್ತಾ ಇರಲು
ತಪ್ಪಿ ಕೆಳಗೆ ಅದು ಬಿದ್ದರೆ, ಬೇರೆ ಕೆಲಸ ದೊರಕಬಹುದೇ...
ಹೊಸ ವರ್ಷದಲ್ಲಿ ಯಾದರು, stabilize ಆಗಲೆಂದು ಬೇಡುವೆ....ಭಯನಾ...ಹೇ ಏ ಏ ಏ...

ಭಯನಾ....ನಿನ್ನ ಸಹೋದ್ಯೋಗಿಗೆ ಪಿಂಕ್ ಸ್ಲಿಪ್ ಕೊಟ್ಟಿದ್ ನೋಡಿ....
ಭಯನಾ....ನಿಂಗೆ ಭಯನಾ....????

KP Konquered again!!!

2009-01-11T19:02:00.029+05:30

KP aka KumaraParvatha aka Pushpagiri aka Trekker's Paradise conquered again. I had been for a trek there a month back. During the trek I kept thinking once I return I will write about this incident, I will write about that, but once I came back I was not in mood to write anything. Kept postponing writing the article. you might say kind of lost interest in blogging. Few days back thought I need to keep it going so here it is.....writing about the last trek of the last year in this year.

This is the second time I am going to KP. The first time, I had been there during early monsoon around June with Vivek. Just two of us went for the trek last time. More about it here. You can find full details of that in that post. This time we climbed KP from different route. Yes ,KP can be conquered from two sides, either from Kukke or from Somawarapet. This time we chose the later one and also unlike last time there were 9 trekkers this time, but apart from me all of them were 'advocates'. I was the only so called IT guy in the gang.

Following one of my favorite site bigpicture, this time I will be telling the trek story in photographs. Yes more pictures and less words this time.

The trek happened on 13th and 14th of December 2008. We started from Bangalore on 12th night from Majestic and reached Somawarpet early morning next day. Had breakfast at around 7 and boarded a bus to "BeedHalli" / "Pushpagiri" at 7.20AM. Note that this is the only bus to that place in morning, so needless to say you shouldn't miss this. It will drop you at the below place.

That's the starting point of the trek. On left the display says: 'Hegde Mane' 3KMs, Mallikarjuna devastana(Shiva temple) 4, and Pushpagiri 8KMS.

That's Vivek relaixing on the way - Guy who co-originated and organized and the trek

Shiva temple, Tar road ends here and mud road begins

After walking for a while we get forest department office. Paid trekking fee at the office. Just behind the office there is stream, relaxed there for a while. Photo by: Vivek

Few minutes of walk brought us to this small water fall. Spent some time at the water fall and moved on

The deep jungle. After passing the forest office we trekked in thick forest.

'Gowdru' and 'Dev' preparing noodles. We did manage to boil some water and prepare noodles.

Vinu, Vivi and Ashish climbing a huge steep rock. We get totally 3 steep rocks like this before we reach the top. I had run and climb this so that I could take this snap. The snap also shows the thick forest that we just came out of

View from the top of KP. In the snap you can see clouds, their shadows and the rays that are forming that shadows. When we reached the top I guess it was around 3-3.30 PM

A small Shiva temple on top of the peak.

It's ME with a smile depicting a sense of accomplishment. I could see this smile on all the faces.

Beautiful cloud formation on top of the peak.

View from the top. You can see such hills on all directions. Those hills looked envious of the highest peak. People cribbing about the long stressful trek were speechless by the view.

Guys posing in front of 'Maari Gundi'. Shot while getting down from the peak. We spent more than an hour on top and started climbing down from the other side. There are directions painted on the rock. Take the route that says 'Girigadde' to go to Bhattra Mane. After walking for a while in this direction you get Maari Gundi. You can also camp on top, but we choose to get down and stay at Bhattra Mane.

Guys on top a cliff.

Spectacular sun set while getting down the hill. Since every one was tired of walking all day, the pace was slow even when getting down. The path was very narrow and skidding and few sparined their legs. The pace reduced even more after it got dark. We trekked in the dark for more than an hour before we could reached Bhattara Mane.

"Bhattra Mane" and his farm. Shot on the second day morning. Next day Morning I speant some time clicking snaps near Bhattra Mane.

Layers of hills as seen from the view point near Bhattra Mane

Dragon fly, seems like a stem with wings. Shot at farm near Bhattra Mane

By noon many more batches who had camped on top got down. There were nearly 100 people at Bhattara mane for lunch. I couldn't capture the big queue near the food as even I was in the queue with plate. Clicked this after my lunch.

The whole gang with Bhatt Bro's on either side. After lunch we took a group photo and then started getting down. It was grasslands for a while and then forest again. Walked walked and kept walking.

A borad welcoming the trekkers of KP and indicating that the peak is 1712 mts high and need to walk 13KMs to reach the peak. This display is at the base, in Kukke. We had to walk for another km before we could reach the temple and 2 more kms for river. Took bath in the river and came back to temple.

DeepagaLu/Diyas at the temple. Photo By: Vivek

Devotees in the move with the utsava of Subramanya Swamy. Took darshana of the deity and had prasadam.

Saying good bye to Kukke Subramanya Swamy and Kumara Parvatha.
More pictures of the trek can be seen here.

Skandagiri Night Trek

2008-11-25T23:31:00.015+05:30

ATLAST…………

Yes, atlast I went to Skandagiri. This trek was pending from a very long time. I was thinking of going here for past 6-8 months now. But whenever it was planned, it was getting canceled for various reasons. Couple of weeks back, I did manage to go for this trek. Credit to should to Vivek who managed to execute the plan.

KaLavaaraHalli betta(hill) more popularly called as Skandagiri is near ChikkabaLLapur. Since it is near to Bangalore, lot of people trek to this hill. It is famous spot for night trek. Ever since I saw the pictures of sunrise at this place I have been thinking of going here. Yes, just thinking of going, never went. So when vivi asked me if I would join him for the trek I couldn’t say no. I revisited the old bookmarked Skandagiri links, also got route information from an office friend who had been there recently and was all set for the trek.

Route for you: From Bangalore, take the Bellary road (new airport road). After Chikkaballapur, keep an eye on the left side. Take left turn near the small Vishweshwarayya statue. Just keep going in that direction taking some right and left turns in between based on your instinct. You can ask people/police, the way for Kalavarahalli, they will guide you. After traveling for about 2-3 kms you will get Kalavarahalli. You can look out for Papagni mutt, the base of the trek, where you can park vehicles.

We left Bangalore at 2AM early morning on 2^nd of November (I am writing this blog almost after a month). It was about 3.30 AM when we reached the base. There were 50 bikes and some 20 cars in the parking spot. I wasn’t that surprised as my friend had told me that there will be lot of people. Took a guide from there and started the trek. It is better to take a guide if going for a night trek as you might get lost.I personally enjoyed the trek very much. This was the first time I had been for a night trek. It was very dark as only few days had passed after the no moon day. I always wanted to go for moon light trek to Skandagiri, this turned out to be a torch light trek. But it was fun. The path was pretty easy except that it was skidding at some places. My cousin Shwetha and her husband Madan used to get tired very fast, and kept asking the guide every now and then how far more to climb. He always used to tell just 2 more kms sir, not far. We took rest often but did manage to climb the hill much before the sunrise.

I had seen lot of snaps of skandagiri before and they portray that you can see sun rising from bed of clouds at that place. I didn’t expect the place to be as good as in those snaps, but did hope there will be atleast a pillow of clouds if not a bed. But what we could see was just a large flock of people. When we reached top more than 200 people were there. They were getting them selves positioned at places where they could get good snaps of the sunrise. Even we choose a place and waited for sunrise. Few minutes past six we could see a reddish slice appearing and every one got delighted and started clicking snaps. Within no time the slice turned out to reddish yellow circle. Even though there were no clouds at all, the sunrise was beautiful.

I was seeing sunrise after a very long time, and felt glad by the sight. Took some snaps, roamed there for a while and then decided to get down.

As we were getting down, many were climbing the hill. I couldn’t think of any reason as to why they were going up after the sunrise. Among them were two old couples. I guess they were in there late 60’s. When I asked myself as to why they were climbing it? the answer I got was, probably it was there final wish. While I was getting down, I realized that we had not slept the whole night. Probably for the first time in my life I was awake the whole night. By the time we reached base, all of us were completely exhausted. Took rest for a while in the car, and returned back to Bangalore saying tata-bye bye to skandagiri.

The article will be incomplete without the next few lines. It was my first night trek and I completely enjoyed the trek. Climbing a hill in dark was very thrilling. Loved the early morning cool breeze that kept rejuvinating us. Even though there weren’t any clouds, the sunrise was not disappointing as I got a couple of good snaps. May be we weren’t lucky enough to see the clouds. Didn’t feel that bad about it. The disappointing aspect about the trek was the ‘people’ who were there. Not because they were in plenty. I don’t mind even if there were 500 people there if all of them were nature lovers and had come there to appreciate the beauty of nature. But I felt not even half of them belonged to that category. I was little surprised to see slaushed guys there. How they managed to get down, I still don’t know. Felt bad to see lot of plastic covers, bottles lying every where. I know, not all like "natural beauty" but that type of make up will surely not make her look good. While getting down, saw lot of such bottles and plastic covers thrown every where. Vivi said a very good dialouge "if some one is climbing this hill in the morning they surely don’t need a guide, they just need to follow the path where there is plastic on either side". There sure was a police notice painted on the rocks, saying people throwing plastics, drinking alcohol will be fined 500 rupees. But I couldn’t see any one supervising it. I feel its individual’s personal responsibility that they do keep the environment clean irrespective of somebody monitors or not.

The plus point for skandagiri is that it is very near to Bangalore, and climbing it is easy, but that has become the biggest disadvantage for it. Let’s not make the place worse.

An intelligent love story

2008-10-25T20:20:00.008+05:30

Disclaimer: This story is completely imaginary and any resemblance to a person living or dead is purely co-incidental. Also any resemblace to an existant story/drama/movie is co-incidental.

This is a simple college love story, like most of the stories you would have read or seen before. Unlike most stories where a college going guy spoils his life after falling in love, here love helps him to succeed in his career.

Rahul, an above average student is currently doing his engineering at one of the reputed institutions in the city. He is not a geek like some of his friends, but is an intelligent guy. Listens to professors lectures (as much as possibleJ) when in class, spends free time in playing sports, watching movies and roaming with friends. Like most of engineering students even he studies only during semester exams. First two semesters went like a rocket. Now he is entering his third semester expecting it to be more exciting and more fun filled.

During third semester few new students joined Rahul’s class. That is when beautiful ‘Aditi’ came to his class. She was truly lovely. She was an exception to the well-known saying ‘beauty and brains don’t go together’. She was as intelligent as good-looking. Rahul was knocked down by her beauty. He just couldn’t stop looking at her. A strange incident happened one day, he was sent out of the class by a professor for not answering his question. How will he answer? A guy who was listening to every professor’s lecture just couldn’t concentrate in the class from the day Aditi had joined. The same incident repeated next class, and also the next day. Rahul got disappointed by this incident a little, not because he was not able to listen to lectures, but because he was not able to see Aditi. He had to find a way to sit in the class.

That day he was watching a movie at home, there an actor was saying “love is something that is related to heart and not the mind or intellect.” An idea popped up to Rahul as he was watching this. He made a plan. Next day he was all set to try out the new plan. He sat at a place from where he could see Aditi as well as the board. He had realized that he just have to use his heart to love Aditi. The brain was not at all needed here. From that day, his heart was focused towards Aditi and brain towards professor’s lecture. He was never sent out of class from that day. The whole semester rolled like that, and exams came closer. During the study holidays Rahul was not getting opportunity to see Aditi frequently. But by now he had reached the stage where he could see her through his heart just by closing his eyes. He didn’t have to spend much time for exam preparation as he had listened to all the lectures properly. He secured very good marks in the exam. His friends who knew about his secret crush were totally surprised when they saw Rahul’s results.

Next semester was under way. One thing to note here is Rahul had never told about his feelings to Aditi. He was hardly talking to her, telling about his feelings was a far thing. Only his friends knew about his feelings towards her. One day, through a friend Rahul came to know that Aditi was in fact going out with some guy of another class. He had never expected that. Rahul was totally disheartened by that news.

That day, Rahul learnt a big lesson. He realized, to love a person one just needs heart, but to make that other person love you, you need your brain. He understood that if he has to get her he need to impress her and to impress her he has to make use of his brain.

Somehow he had to make her talk to him frequently. He made a plan. With the help of lab assistant he managed to sit beside her in every lab. She knew he was an intelligent guy and thus used to ask her doubts. This guy was always happy to help her. But she was always discussing only about her technical problems and asking his help on some issues. Never beyond that. Sometimes Rahul did manage to divert the topic a little through his funny answers and jokes. Gradually he started getting closer to her. After a while the doubts became just a pretext to start a conversation.

By the end of semester Rahul and Aditi had become very close friends. One thing to notice here is even though Rahul was using his brain to impress Aditi, it was only outside the classroom. Inside the class his brain was fully focused towards professor’s lectures. As with the previous semesters even this time preparation was not difficult for Rahul. Aditi and Rahul were meeting in college library almost every day during study holidays. When they are together learning used to be fun. As expected both secured good marks in the examination.

The next semester has started and all are back after enjoying vacation. They are happy to meet their friends again. Even Rahul and Aditi are very glad that hey can meet each other daily. They knew they liked each other, the whole class knew that they liked each other, but they had never taken the step forward to tell it to each other. One fine day, that happened!!! With no doubt they became the hottest and most happening couple of the college. They started spending more time together. Rahul used to pick her up from home daily and drop as well. They started bunking the classes and roam around the city, spent most time in parks, coffee shops, restaurants and movies. When they got bored of all those places they just used to hang out in college campus. They hardly attended any class. Never had to worry about the attendance though, their friends used to take care of that. Days rolled like that, and with in no time they had semester exams in front of them.

Rahul who rarely used to miss any classes had rarely attended classes this semester. Being in love made him forget every thing else in the life. Fact to recollect here is brain controls every human part and its functionality, but lot of statistics and researches has proven that it can’t completely control the heart. It was true even here. If it was just that, it wouldn’t have caused this big problem. In Rahul’s case the heart had started controlling the brain, which made him to forget the importance of attending classes. With exams nearing and brain still covered by heart and heart covered with Aditi’s love, he wasn’t able to study anything. It was similar case with Aditi, even she couldn’t prepare properly for exams. Both wrote the exam with fear of failing, just managed to secure passing marks in all the subjects.

Rahul had not even dreamt that he would ever secure this less marks anytime. Aditi’s parents were shocked to see her marks. They reiterated on how important it is to secure good marks. Rahul and Aditi knew the reason for their poor performance. But they couldn’t figure a way to solve this issue. They loved each other and they didn’t want to break up just because they can’t study properly. At the same time they knew how important the coming semesters were to get a good job. They had to find a way out of this. One day Aditi asked Rahul as to how he was able to secure good marks previous year even though he had huge crush on her. Rahul told her how he had focused brain towards studies and just heart towards her. He also told her, when not in class how he used his brain and got closer to her. An idea popped up in Aditi’s brain as she was listening to that flashback story.

Aditi to Rahul: Lets do the same thing now. We don’t need to bunk classes and go out to any coffee shop or a restaurant. We can as well sit in class and converse with each other. We can converse using our hearts and so both of us can concentrate on the lecture as well. Now that both of us like each other you don’t need to use your brains to make me love you. That is, even when outside of class you can focus your brain towards studies. We can go out on weekends. During that time we can use our heart to love but brains can still be utilized to memorize and recall what we have studied. Effectively we will be using our brain more than before. By this we will be able to devote more time for studies, and also more time for our love.

Rahul agreed with Aditi and they started the implementation from next day itself. Anyone can guess the result of this, there problem got solved. Both got good marks in the next semesters and also got placed at good companies. Now, they are enjoying the final year of their engineering life.

Falling in love doesn’t necessarily lead to falling in career.

Moral of the story: Make effective usage of the available resourcesJ.

If you didn’t get the moral, then make effective usage of your resource and then read the story again. If you still didn’t get it, probably I didn’t make effective usage of my resource while writing thisJ. Drop a comment saying so.

Keep blogging!!!

2008-10-13T23:12:00.006+05:30

Long time no blog....WHY?

No ideas to blog ? No No I have many stories to write about.

Got bored of blogging? Not at all..

Busy with work? hmm not actually..

Then why no blog? No specific reason ;)

Yes, don’t have any specific reason, but I haven’t written any article in my blog for quite some time now. Not even a single post in the month of September. Few days back I realized that not blogging is causing a serious problem.

I used to spend my free time in blogging. Since last month, I was trying to use my free time to read some stuff. Was trying to read a novel and also some technical stuff, but wasn’t able to read anything. Was always ending up watching FRIENDS. I just couldn't get the reason. As usual I asked my aatma(the inner soul)

Me: Why I haven't been able to read properly?

Aatma: When have you concentrated while reading technical stuff, tell me. That’s the reason.

Me: No, No, this time I am really putting effort to read it.

Aatma: Hmm, I don’t believe you.

Me: OK, that’s fine, but why have I not been able to read novel, its my new hobby and I like it. But still not able to read, why?

Aatma: Thaaaaaat…..I don’t know

Me: What?? You are supposed to know answer for my questions. Do some research and come back with proper answer

(Aatma collected some data, did some analysis and came back with the answer)

Aatma: See boss, the reason you are not able to read anything is, there is no memory left in your brain. When you read something it needs some space in the brain to go and sit, may be temporarily but it needs some space. But you are out of memory. Not even a single byte is free in primary or secondary memory. Empty some stuff and then try

Me: Oh really?? But, how to free?? Explain me point by point..

Aatma:

Firstly, you have been revising FRIENDS a lot. Remembering few dialogues is fine, but lot of metadata is also getting stored along with that. For example you remember really well the episode and in which context that dialogue ‘....point by point’ comes. As per the design of brain, if something is not used for a long time, it will be removed so that the space can be used for something else. But you have been revising each episode again and again, so the space where that is stored is never getting freed. First give a break for FRIENDS or at-least reduce the frequency of watching it.

Secondly, you haven’t blogged from long time. You have many ideas in your brain that you need to put on paper, rather put on blogger. By doing that you can free some space in your mind. I know you didn’t go for any major trips recently, but you could have written something about visit to DoDDamakale, and visit to forest near Ashoka’s farm. Apart from the trips, you have some other ideas to blog about. Not just ideas, for few you even have the whole script written in the brain. Don’t you know that occupies lot of space?

Me: I never thought about these. I thought I could make use of free time for reading, and give a break for blogging. Had forgotten that I have to balance all these. But I don’t feel like writing a whole article about those short trips. About other general articles you mentioned will publish those soon. Thanks dude, if you ever have any problems, you know I will help you out :D

Hope to publish few articles this month.

Even you guys, Keep blogging!!!

Moral of the story: Live a balanced life J

Every cloud has a golden lining!!

2008-08-29T23:02:00.023+05:30

About two months back I spent a lot of money(let me not quantify 'lot of money') to buy a camera. Some of my friends were asking me why was I spending so much for a camera? Well, even I was not really sure at that time if I will really make use of it. But I had decided to go for an SLR and this article tells how the camera reached me.

After I got the camera I have taken a lot of photos(again, let me not quantify this 'lot'). I won't say that I have clicked very nice snaps or made best use of it. But yes, I have clicked few good ones and that has made me happy. Had taken the camera to Sharavati valley trek, lalbagh flower show, and Ganesha Idol making workshop. Have managed to get pretty decent snaps. Apart from taking it to these places, I have been doing some experiments at home. Among all these, the shots that have made me very happy are the ones that I have taken from my home terrace. Many times you get nice scenic view from terrace itself, don't have to go anywhere. Every time I used to see a beautiful sky I was thinking I wish I had a camera, now that I have one...I just get it and start clicking.

Here are some snaps..
Rays of hope!! (My first terrace shot)

Flames in sky :-)

The snap that made me to come up with the poem
'ಬಾನಲ್ಲಿ ಓಡೋ ಮೇಘ'
ಬಾನಲ್ಲಿ ಓಡೋ ಮೇಘ,
ನೀ terraceಗೆ ಹೋಗೋ ಬೇಗ,
ಒಳ್ಳೆ ಫೋಟೋ ಸಿಗುತ್ತೆ ಆಗ!! :D

and the one that made me write this blog
Every cloud has a golden lining!!

Some might argue, even with a normal camera I could have got these kind of snaps. Probably they are right now, but on longer run I think I will learn how to take amazing snaps and will make BEST use of my camera :-)

ಯಾರು ಈ ಟಾಟಾ ಬಿರ್ಲಾ ??

2008-08-08T21:03:00.017+05:30

ಮಾದೇಶ ಮತ್ತು ಕೆಂಪ ತಮ್ಮ PUC ದಿನಗಳನ್ನು ನೆನೆಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಆ ದಿನಗಳು ಅವರು ಕಾಲೇಜ್ ಹೋಗುತಿದ್ದದೆ ಕಮ್ಮಿ. ಹವಾ ಸೇವಿಸುತ್ತ ಊರಿನ ಬೀದಿ, ಸರ್ಕಲ್ಗಳಲ್ಲೇ ಬಿದ್ದಿರುತಿದ್ದರು. ಹುಡುಗಾಟ ಆಡಿಕೊಂಡೆ ಬಿಂದಾಸ್ ಟೈಂಪಾಸ್ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಅವರನ್ನು, ಕೆಲವರು ಸರ್ಕಲ್ ರೌಡಿ ಗಳೆಂದು ಕರೆಯುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು. ಅದೇ ಊರಿನಲ್ಲಿ 73 ಶಾಂತಿನಿವಾಸ ದಲ್ಲಿ ವಾಸವಗಿದ್ದವರೇ ಕಾಮ್ಮಣ್ಣನ ಮಕ್ಕಳು, ಗಂಗಾ ಕಾವೇರಿ. ಹೆತ್ತರೆ ಹೆಣ್ಣನ್ನೇ ಹೆರಬೇಕು ಎನ್ನುವ ಮಾತಿಗೆ ತಕ್ಕಂತ ಮಕ್ಕಳು. ಕೆಂಪ ಮತ್ತು ಮಾದೇಶಗೆ 10th Class A Sec ನಲ್ಲಿ ಓದುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಇವರನ್ನು ಕಂಡರೆ ತಾಜ್ ಮಹಲ್ ಕಟ್ಟಿಸುವಷ್ಟು ಪ್ರೀತಿ. ಆದರೆ ಗಂಗಾ ಕಾವೇರಿಗೆ ಅವರನ್ನು ಕಂಡರೆ ಆಗುತ್ತಿರಲ್ಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಗಂಗಾ ಕಾವೇರಿ ಓದುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಶಾಲೆಯ ಗೋಡೆಯ ಮೇಲೆಲ್ಲಾ ನಂದ ಲವ್ಸ್ ನಂದಿತಾ, ಪಟ್ರೆ ಲವ್ಸ್ ಪದ್ಮ ಎಂದು ಗೀಚಿತ್ತು. ಅವುಗಳ ಜೊತೆ ಕೆಂಪ ತನ್ನ ಹಾಗು ಕಾವೇರಿ ಹೆಸರನ್ನು ಗೀಚುತ್ತಿದ, ಮಾದೇಶ ಸಹ ಅಲ್ಲೇ ಇದ್ದ. ಗಂಗಾ ಕಾವೇರಿ ಅದನ್ನ ನೋಡಿದರು.
ಗಂಗಾ: ನೀವು ಯಾಕೆ ನಮ್ಮನ ಹೀಗೆ ಗೋಳ್ಹೊಕೊತೀರ, ಹುಡುಗಾಟ ಬಿಟ್ಟು ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಓದಿ.
ಮಾದೇಶ: ನೋಡು, ಮೂರನೆ ಕ್ಲಾಸ್ ಮಂಜ B.com ಭಾಗ್ಯ ನ ಲವ್ ಮಾಡ್ತಾನೆ ಅಂದ್ಮೇಲೆ ನಾನು ನೀನು ಜೋಡಿ ಆದ್ರೆ ಏನ್ ತಪ್ಪು? ಪ್ರೀತ್ಸೋದ್ ತಪ್ಪಾ??
ಕಾವೇರಿ: ಅವ್ನ ಧಿಮಾಕು ನೋಡು..
ಅಷ್ಟರಲ್ಲಿ ಶಾಲೆಯ ಹೆಡ್ಮಾಸ್ಟರ್ ಗಣೇಶ ಆ ಕಡೆ ಬಂದಿದ್ದನು ಕಂಡ ಕೆಂಪ, ಮಗಾ ಆ ಗಣೇಶ ಮತ್ತೆ ಬಂದ ಓಡೊ, ಅಂದಾಕ್ಷಣ ಇಬ್ಬರು ಮಿಂಚಿನ ಓಟ ಓಡಿದ್ರು.

ಈ ಕಡೆ ಕಾಮಣ್ಣ ತನ್ನ ಮಕ್ಕಳನ್ನು ಆದಷ್ಟು ಬೇಗ ಗಂಡನ ಮನೆಗೆ ಕಳಿಸುವ ಯೋಚನೆಯಲ್ಲಿದ್ದ.ಶುಕ್ರ ನಡೆಸುತ್ತಿದ್ದ ಸಂಗಾತಿ ವಧು-ವರರ ಸಂಘ ದಲ್ಲಿ ಗಂಗಾ ಕಾವೇರಿ ಇಬ್ಬರ ಹೆಸರು ನೊಂದಾಯಿಸಿದ. ಶುಕ್ರನ ದೆಸೆ ಇಂದ ಕೆಲವೇ ದಿನಗಳ್ಳಲ್ಲಿ ಇಂದ್ರ ಮತ್ತು ಅರ್ಜುನ್ ಎನ್ನುವ ಬಹಳ ಗುಣವಂತ ಹಾಗು ಬುದ್ದಿವಂತ ಹುಡುಗರ ಜೊತೆ ಮದುವೆ ನಿಶ್ಚಯವಾಯಿತು. ಕೆಂಪ ಮತ್ತು ಮಾದೆಶಗೆ ಈ ವಿಷ್ಯ ಗೊತ್ತಾದರೂ ಏನು ಮಾಡಲುಆಗಲ್ಲಿಲ. ಕಾಮಣ್ಣನ ಬಂಧು ಬಳಗ ಎಲ್ಲ ಸೇರಿದ್ದರು ಆ ಮದುವೆಯ ದಿನ. ಕೆಂಪ ಮಾದೇಶ ಕಣ್ಮುಂದೆಯೇ ಮದುವೆ ಮೆರವಣಿಗೆ ಅರಮನೆ ಕಡೆಗೆ ಹೋಯ್ತು. ಆ ದೃಶ್ಯ ವನ್ನು ಕಂಡು ಇವರು ಸೈಕೊಗಳಾಗಿ ಹೋದರು.

ಬಹಳ ದಿನಗಳು ಕಳೆದುಹೋದವು, ಆದರೆ ಅವರು ಆ ಆಕ್ಸಿಡೆಂಟ್ ಇಂದ ಹೊರಬರಲೇ ಇಲ್ಲ. ಒಂದು ದಿನ ಇವರು ಜೋರು ಮಳೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ರಸ್ತೆಯಲ್ಲೇ ಬಿದ್ದಿದರು. ಇವರ ವ್ಯಥೆಯನ್ನು ನೋಡಲಾಗದೆ ಕೆಂಪನ ಗೆಳಯ ಈಶ್ವರ ಇವರಿಬ್ಬರನ್ನು ಬಾಬಾ ಮಹರ್ಷಿ ಬಳಿ ಕರೆದುಕೊಂಡು ಹೋದನು. ಮುಂಗಾರು ಮಳೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಬಾಬಾ ಆಡಿದ ಆ ಮುಸ್ಸಂಜೆ ಮಾತು, ಕೆಂಪ ಮತ್ತು ಮಾದೆಶರನ್ನು ಸಂಪೂರ್ಣ ಬದಲಾಯಿಸಿತು.

ಮಾದೇಶ ಮತ್ತು ಕೆಂಪ ತಮ್ಮ PUC ದಿನಗಳನ್ನು ನೆನೆಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಿದ್ದರು.

ಮಾದೇಶ: ಅಂದು ಬಾಬಾ ನಮಗೆ ವಾಸ್ತವ ಏನೆಂದು ಅರ್ಥಮಾಡಿಸಿ ನಮ್ಮ ಜಿಂದಗಿಯನ್ನೇ ಬದಲಾಯಿಸಿದರು
ಕೆಂಪ: ಹೌದು, ಇಲ್ಲದ್ದಿದರೆ ನಾವು ಹೀಗೆ ಬೊಂಬಾಟ್ ಜೀವನ ನೆಡೆಸಲು ಆಗುತ್ತಿತ್ತಾ? ನೀ ಟಾಟಾ ನಾ ಬಿರ್ಲಾ ಆಗಲು ಸಾಧ್ಯವಿತ್ತಾ??

ಇದು ನಾನು ಬರೆದ ಸಿನಿಮ ಕಥೆ. ಅಂದರೆ ಸಿನಿಮ ಹೆಸರುಗಳ್ಳನ್ನು ಬಳಸಿ ಬರೆದ ಕಥೆ. ಇತ್ತೀಚಿಗೆ ಕನ್ನಡದಲ್ಲಿ ಬಿಡುಗಡೆಯಾಗಿರುವ ಮತ್ತು ಬಿಡುಗಡೆಗೆ ಕಾದಿರುವ ಸಿನೆಮ ಹೆಸರುಗಳ್ಳನ್ನು ಬಳಸಿ ಬರೆದ್ದಿದ್ದೇನೆ. ಮೇಲಿನ ಕಥೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಈ ಬಣ್ಣದಲ್ಲಿ ಇರುವ ಹೆಸರುಗಳ್ಳೆಲ ಕನ್ನಡ ಸಿನಿಮ ಶೀರ್ಷಿಕೆಗಳು. ಹೌದ?? ಈ ತರ ಹೆಸರಿನ ಸಿನಿಮನೂ ಬರ್ತಾಇದ್ಯಾ ಅಂಥ ಡೌಟು ಇದ್ರೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ಆಡಿಯೋ ಮತ್ತು ರಾಗ ಸೈಟ್ ಗಳಿಗೆ ಒಮ್ಮೆ ವಿಸಿಟ್ ಕೊಡಿ. ಈ ಲೇಖನವನ್ನು ಬರೆಯಲು ನನಗೆ ಸ್ಪೂರ್ತಿಯಾದ ಇಂಥ ಸಿನಿಮ ಹೆಸರುಗಳಿಗೆ ಜೈ :P

The End!!!!!!

2008-08-08T20:43:00.000+05:30

Hi all, Thank you all for you comments and suggestions on the articles that I have posted here. I have decided to stop blogging here!!!!!

Few FAQs answered below :

Q: Does it mean you will stop blogging? Or will you start any other blog?
A: No, I will not stop blogging. Neither I will start a new one. I will continue blogging on my original first blog – santoshbs.blogspot.com

Q: But that is your travellog? Here you used to write other interesting (??!!?) general articles.
A: Yes, I started blogging on my trips and treks about a year back. When I felt I need to write something other my trips, I started this new blog for that. But now I feel that was not that a good idea. So I have decided to merge my blogs. So from on I will write other general interesting articles also in my first blog.

Q: Why this decision of merging??
A: I can avoid maintaining two blogs. Putting articles at single place will show more number of articles in blog archive tab :-)

Q: Why not continue this and end first one? Why not write about your trips here?
A: Because that was my first blog, and it has more number of articles. Don’t want to end it. The url of that blog is easy to remember for the readers.

Q: Are you going to move the articles that you have already published here?
A: Well, couldn’t find an option to move published articles along with its comments. The other option would be to copy paste the articles here to there. But I don’t want to do that. If I find a good way to move articles, will move them.

Q: Will you ever continue blogging here? Or are you going to delete this blog?
A: Will still keep the blog but won’t be updating it. Who knows some fine day I may appreciate having one more blog

I hope all my readers will accept my decision.(voice from inside: what readers?? You think people read you articles?) Bye bye, and see you on santoshbs.blogspot.com

Monsoon trekking in Sharavati valley

2008-07-24T23:01:00.090+05:30

Trekking and Photography have been two of my greatest passions. To feed hunger for photography bought a DSLR camera some time back. Had not got chance to make good use of it other than clicking few snaps at home. I wanted to learn using the features in it but had hardly tried the manual settings. Was just waiting for a weekend when I can go out for a trek and shoot some good pictures. About two weeks back, I decided, that I have to go for a trek the coming weekend even if the world becomes upside down. Thus the search began for a good trekking spot. Madhu suggested BasavanaBaayi-GoodanaGundi' track is a nice place for trekking and asked to collect more info on that. While I was looking for more details on that I came across Sampath's orkut profile. Sampath informed, that he organizes trek to this place and he can arrange this week as well if there are enough number of people. We did find quite a good number of interested guys. So Sampath was able to arrange for the trek.

Going for an organized trek with "The Sharavathi Adventure Trails...." is completely a different experience. No need to worry about searching web sites to find route maps, nor worry about getting tents, food items etc. Everything was looked after by them. The only responsibility I had was to book bus tickets, even that I screwed up :D. Friday evening after coming from office I relaxed for a while and then started packing. After a while I realized I need to take the tickets I had reserved. Started searching for ticket, Yes!! searching. Now a days we are having irregular power cuts in Bangalore. For my bad luck same thing happened that time as well. For a while managed not to tell my parents what I was looking, but couldn't hide for long. Then started the sahasranama. Sakkat aagi baidru, "you don't have resposnsibitlity,....etc etc.. antha". They did help in searching though :). But couldn't find it, so I decided to go to majestic and take duplicate tickets. I knew they would issue it taking some fine. Yes, got the duplicate tickets, but the fine was much more than what I expected it to be ;).
Hmm, I wasn't familiar with everyone who was coming for the trek. Arjun, Subhash and Krishna were new faces to me. After some hi hello etc, between ourselves hopped on to the bus.

At about 7AM next day that is 19th July we reached Sagara, where our guide/leader 'Narayana' was waiting for us. Got freshen up in nearby lodge and then had breakfast. Then headed towards 'Kattinakaaru' in a pre hired car. I guess Narayana had bought groceries and vegetables the previous day and had kept in a house near the starting point of the trek. Here we met our cook Dharma who carried some food items. We and Narayana also carried some food stuff along with us. As we were walking through the grasslands, we noticed that the the forest department people had planted lot of trees there for afforestation. Took lots of snaps on the way as usual. After walking for a while we came across more dense natural forest where we spotted a snake as well. :) But it was not snake which troubled us through the journey, it was 'leeches'. In monsoon season this is common. So we used to put some salt on the ones that got on us and just continued the journey. After walking for some time we reached 'BasavanaBaayi'. There is a Ganesha temple here, which is under renovation currently. Kept out luggage there, and went to falls that is very close to the temple. Took a relaxing bath and played in the falls for some time. By the time we returned back, hot lunch was ready. Had lunch, and continued the journey.

The journey just after lunch was little tiresome. But we didn't have a choice other than walking as it was wet all over the ground and there were lot of leeches. We also found a small tortoise on the way which we left in the nearby stream. While going through the forest, it was me who used to end up being the last person most of the times. At times it was because I was trying to remove leeches, or was taking some pictures or was getting tired, some or the other reason. After walking walking walking in the forest for long time we did find grasslands, that gave a sign of relief for of us. Took rest and continued walking. We crossed few houses on the way. The tasty jackfruits that Narayana managed to get from a home gave us more energy to walk. By about 6.30 we reached 'Yadamane' where we had to camp that night. Arrangements was made so that we can camp in a villagers home here. We were welcomed by hot kashaya prepared by Dharma who had reached there before us. The drink was accompanied by yummy bisi bisi menasinakaayi(chilli) bajji's. Was refreshed by having those. By walking all along the forest we had exercised our body. Probably Narayana thought he should give some exercise our brains as well. So he gave some witty puzzles to solve. Madhu did manage to crack it after putting in some effort :). After some time had dinner and logged off for the day. All of us slept dreaming about leeches ;-)

Koko ko ko.....all of us had to get up at 6 by this suprabhata next day. People who tried to sleep more were woken up by devotional songs from radio. Went for a walk in nature to do morning activities. Some also had a bath in the stream nearby. By the time we were back the breakfast was ready. Can you guess what was the breakfast......It was poori!!!!:-) Yes, he had prepared poori, aloo bhajji for it and then uppittu(upma). Well all of us had the awesome delicious breakfast. After breakfast we left all our luggage at that place and headed towards Belligundi falls. The route was pretty good, had both forest and grasslands. After some time we reached a beautiful valley. We could see hills and dense forests all around that place, and also could see Arabian sea from there. As we crossed few bushes and went other side of it we saw beautiful Belligundi falls midst of dense forest. Speant some time watching valley and the falls. From there headed towards Goodanagundi falls. As we were going in forest we spotted another snake. It was a very small rattle snake. Was lucky to get a good snap of that snake. As the falls approached, the path became more slippery. We did manage to get as close and safe as possible. We saw the falls from the front and then went to other side of it. Spent some time there taking snaps. From there returned back to the 'Yadamane' where we had kept our luggage.

It was around 2.30PM when we returned back to Yadamane. Had lunch and took rest for a while. Then headed back to Kattinakaru, the end point of the trek. Car was waiting for us by the time we reached Kattinakaru. On the way back to Sagara, had a quick visit to the famous 'Jog falls'. Had dinner at some hotel in Sagara and returned back to Bangalore that night.

Hmmm, in short it was a awesome trek. Got a chance to meet new people with common interests. Also got a very good chance to learn using my camera. Lot of expert advice from fellow trekkers. Going for trek with "Sharavathi Adventure Trails" was a completely wonderful experience. You get proper guide, hot and delicious food on time, everything well organized. At the same time you will get lot of opportunity to explore the forest and enjoy the trek. You can always visit the website of The Sharavathi Adventure Trails to get information on the treks they are conducting. Hope to go for more frequent adventures treks with them.

You can look at some of the trek snaps below

My Life Partner = My First Date

2008-07-07T22:24:00.000+05:30

Around two months back, I was just browsing through some websites casually. As I was looking around different sites, I happened to see her snap on a site. There were snaps taken from different angles. She was stunning. I fell for her on the first look. Went through her profile, her qualities were just too good to ignore. I soon realized she is not just an ordinary lady and it is not that easy to get her. So I convinced myself to look out for some one else and let go away this one. Went through other profiles to find some other companion. Found few attractive ones, but not as good as the one I found first. Did find few who were more attractive, but I felt they were not for first timers. They can be handled only by those who have been doing this for some time now. I am still an amateur and very new to this. So thought they are not good for me. Even as I was going through these profiles, the first one's lovely body kept striking me again and again. I just couldn't get her image out of my mind. Decided to go for her, but not before I contacted my friends to inquire about her and her characteristics. She was still new to the business, so there were not many who had actually gone out with her. But there were who had gone out with her family, took their advice. As I told before she is not that easily accessible, had to wait for more than a week to meet her. Finally the day came, last Saturday I met her. Yes she was in my arms. We had dinner together and then bought her to my home. I had never expected I will ever spend time with such a lovely person. We both had most amazing time together. The fact is, she didn’t come just for one date, but came to stay with me for the rest of my life. :-) Yes, I chose her as my life partner

I have been talking so long about the lady who came into my life few days back. She is none other than my brand new ‘Canon Digital Rebel XSi with 18-55mm IS Lens’:-D. Yes guys, it was all about my new camera. Through this article I would like to thank everyone who helped me getting this camera. Mainly Madhu and dpreview.com who helped to chose which one to buy. This camera would have not reached me if Ravish hadn’t taken some pain to get it from the stores. Also wouldn’t have reached this safe all the way from US if Kiran hadn’t got it so carefully. Thank you guys. Now, I need to wait and watch how efficiently I will use this. Hope to learn using the manual mode quickly and make most of the camera.

ಚೋಮನ ದುಡಿ - ನಾನು ಓದಿದ ಮೊದಲ ಕಾದಂಬರಿ

2008-06-30T23:51:00.000+05:30

ತುಂಬ ದಿನಗಳ ಮುಂಚೆ ಓದಿದ್ದರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಈಗ ಬರೆಯುತ್ತಿದ್ದೇನೆ ಅನ್ಕೋಬೇಡಿ, ಇದು ನಾನು ಇತ್ತೀಚಿಗೆ ಓದಿದ ಕಾದಂಬರಿ. ಹೌದು ನಾನು ಇಲ್ಲಿಯವರೆಗೂ ಯಾವ ಭಾಷೆ ಯಲ್ಲೂ ಒಂದು ಸಹ ಕಾದಂಬರಿ ಓದಿರಲ್ಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಅದೇನೋ, ಓದೋದು ಅಂದ್ರೆ ಅಷ್ಟು ಇಷ್ಟ ಇಲ್ಲ ನಂಗೆ. ಅದು ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ ಓದೋದು ಅಂದ್ರೆ ಕೇಳಲೇಬೇಡಿ. ಈಗ ಸುಮಾರು ದಿವಸಗಳಿಂದ atleast ಕನ್ನಡ ಪುಸ್ತಕಗಳ್ಳನಾದರು ಓದಬೇಕು ಅನ್ನಿಸುತ್ತಿತು. ಆದರೆ ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಕಾಲ ಕೂಡಿ ಬಂದಿರಲ್ಲಿಲ್ಲ :). ಕೆಲವು ವಾರಗಳ ಹಿಂದೆ ನನ್ನ office ನಲ್ಲಿ ಮಂಜುನಾಥ್ ಅನ್ನುವವರ ಹತ್ರ ಹೋಗಿ ಕೇಳ್ದೆ, ನಿಮ್ ಹತ್ರ ಯಾವ್ದಾದ್ರು ಒಳ್ಳೆ ಕನ್ನಡ ನಾವೆಲ್ ಇದ್ರೆ ಕೊಡಿ ಓದಿ ಕೊಡ್ತಿನಿ ಅಂಥ. ಅದ್ಕೆ ಮಂಜು, ನೋಡೋ ವಾಪಸ್ ಕೊಡೊ ಹಾಗಿದ್ದರೆ ಕೊಡ್ತಿನಿ, ಸುಮಾರು ಜನಕ್ಕೆ ಬುಕ್ ಕೊಟ್ಟು ಕೊಟ್ಟು ಕಳೆದುಹೋಗಿದೆ. ಅಯ್ಯೋ ಗುರು ಖಂಡಿತ ವಾಪಸ್ ಕೊಡ್ತಿನಿ ಅಂಥ ಹೇಳಿದ್ಮೇಲೆ, ತಗೋ ಇದು simple ಆಗಿ ಚೆನ್ನಾಗಿ ಇದೆ, ಓದು ಇಷ್ಟ ಆಗುತ್ತೆ ಅಂಥ ಶಿವರಾಮ ಕಾರಂತರ ಚೋಮನ ದುಡಿ ಕಾದಂಬರಿಯನ್ನು ಕೊಟ್ರು.

ಆ ಪುಸ್ತಕ ತುಂಬ ದಪ್ಪ ಏನ್ ಇರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ನಾನು ಓದುವುದಕ್ಕೆ ಅದು motivating factor ಆಯಿತು ಅನ್ನಬಹುದು. ಓದಿ ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಅಭ್ಯಾಸ ಇಲ್ಲದಿದ್ದ ಕಾರಣ, ಜಾಸ್ತಿ ಹೊತ್ತು ಓದುತಿರಲ್ಲ, ಆಗೊಮ್ಮೆ ಈಗೊಮ್ಮೆ ಓದುತಿದ್ದೆ, ದಿನಕ್ಕೆ ಒಂದು ಅಥವ ಎರಡು ಅಧ್ಯಾಯ. ಪದಗಳು ಹೆಚ್ಚ ಕ್ಲಿಷ್ಟ ಇರದ್ದಿದ ಕಾರಣ ಓದಲು ಸುಲಭ ಆಯಿತು. ಹಾಗೆ ಓದ್ತಾ ಓದ್ತಾ ಕಥೆ ಇಷ್ಟ ಆಗೋಕ್ಕೆ ಶುರುವಾಯ್ತು. ಇನ್ ಏನು ಆ chapter ಮುಗಿಬೇಕು, ಕಥೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹೆಚ್ಚು interesting ಆಗುತ್ತಿದೆ ಅನಿಸುತ್ತಿತ್ತು. ಅದು ಮುಂದಿನ chapter ಓದೋಹಾಗೆ ಮಾಡುತಿತ್ತು. ಚೋಮನ ದುಡಿ, ಒಬ್ಬ ಹೊಲೆಯ(ದಲಿತ/ಕೀಳು ಜಾತಿ) ಯವನಾದ ಚೋಮ ಎನ್ನುವವನ ಕಥೆ. ಅವನಿಗೆ ನಾಲ್ಕು ಗಂಡು ಮತ್ತು ಒಬ್ಬ ಹೆಣ್ಣು ಮಗಳು. ಚೋಮ ಮತ್ತು ಅವನ ಮನೆಯವರು ಸಾಹುಕಾರನ ಮನೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಜೀತ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಾ ತಮ್ಮ ಜೀವನ ವನ್ನು ಕಳೆದವರು. ಚೋಮನಿಗೆ ತಾನು ತನ್ನದೇ ಆದ ಹೊಲದಲ್ಲಿ ವ್ಯವಸಾಯ ಮಾಡಬೇಕೆಂಬ ಆಸೆ. ಅವನ ವರ್ಗದ ಜನನಕ್ಕೆ ಅದು ಎಟಕುವಂತಹುದಲ್ಲ ಎಂದು ಅವನಿಗೆ ಗೊತಿದ್ದರು, ಅದರ ಕನಸನ್ನು ಕಾಣುವುದು ಮಾತ್ರ ಅವನು ಬಿಡುತಿರಲ್ಲಿಲ. ಚೋಮನಿಗೆ ತನ್ನ ದುಡಿ(ಒಂದು ವಾದ್ಯ) ಬಾರಿಸುವುದು, ಮತ್ತು ಸಾರಾಯಿ ಕುಡಿಯುವುದು ಎಂದರ ಪ್ರಾಣ. ಅವನಿಗೆ ದುಃಖವಾಗಲಿ ಖುಷಿಯಾಗಲಿ ಈ ಎರಡು ಇರಲೇಬೇಕು. ಈ ಕುಡಿತದ ಅಭ್ಯಾಸವನ್ನು ಅವನು ಬಿಡುತ್ತಾನೋ ಇಲ್ಲವೊ, ಸ್ವಂತ ವ್ಯವಸಾಯ ಮಾಡುವ ಕನಸು ನನಸಾಗುವುದೋ ಇಲ್ಲವೊ ಎನ್ನುವುದೇ ಈ ಚೋಮನ ದುಡಿ. ಕಾರಂತರು ಅವನ ಮತ್ತು ಅವನ ಮಕ್ಕಳ ಜೀವನದಲ್ಲಿ ನಡೆಯುವ ಘಟನೆಗಳ್ಳನ್ನು ವರ್ಣಿಸಿರುವರಿವ ರೀತಿ ನನಗೆ ಇಷ್ಟ ವಾಯಿತು. ಅಂತು ಒಂದು ಕಾದಂಬರಿಯನ್ನು ಓದಿ ಮುಗಿಸಿದೆ!

ಇದನ್ನು ಓದಿ ಮುಗಿಸಿ ಈಗ ಸುಮಾರು ದಿನಗಳು ಆಯಿತು. ಓದಿ ಆದ ನಂತರ good boy ಹಾಗೆ ಮಂಜುಗೆ ಅದ್ನ ರಿಟರ್ನ್ ಮಾಡ್ದೆ. ಅದನ್ನ ಹಿಂತಿರಿಗಿಸಿ ಇನ್ನೊಂದು ಪುಸ್ತಕ ಇಸ್ಕೊಂಡು ಬಂದೆ :) ಪೂರ್ಣಚಂದ್ರತೇಜಸ್ವಿ ಯವರ 'ಅಬಚೂರಿನ ಪೋಸ್ಟಾಫೀಸು' . ಇದು ಒಂದು ಕಥಾ ಸಂಕಲನ (ಕೆಲವು ಕಥೆಗಳ ಸಂಗ್ರಹ). ಇದರಲ್ಲಿ ಆಗಲೇ ಕೆಲವು ಕಥೆಗಳನ್ನೂ ಓದಿ ಮುಗಿಸಿದ್ದೇನೆ, ಇನ್ನು ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಓದಬೇಕು. ಬಿಡುವಾದಗಲ್ಲೇಲ ಓದುತ್ತ ಇದ್ದೇನೆ. ಮುಂಚೆ ಓದಲು ಅಷ್ಟು ಆಸಕ್ತಿ ಇರಲ್ಲಿಲ ಈಗ ನಿಧಾನವಾಗಿ ಓದುವ ಹವಾಸ್ಯ ಬೆಳೆಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತಿದ್ದೇನೆ. ಯಾರಾದರು ಈಗ ನಿನ್ನ hobbies ಏನು ಅಂದ್ರೆ, ಬಹುಷಃ ರೀಡಿಂಗ್ ನೋವೆಲ್ಸ್ ಅನ್ನಬಹುದು. ಈ ಹವ್ಯಾಸವನ್ನು ಎಷ್ಟು ಉಳಿಸಿಕೊಳ್ಳುತ್ತೇನೆ ಎನ್ನುವುದನ್ನು ಕಾದು ನೋಡಬೇಕು :)

LOVE!!!???

2008-06-20T23:31:00.000+05:30

Wondering why this title?? Why so many '!' and '?' in front of Love? Well, I always had this 'doubt' , what actually love is and when do you know that you love someone? How do you know is it just crush or is she the one? Why do people say love is blind :P. How powerful is this love? I have been trying to find answer for all these for sometime now. But naaa couldn't find. Few days back my cousin got married, love marriage!!! First of its kind in our family, second manager level family(second manager means my grand father and family tree under him :D). Three cheers to her. Also in few days yet another movie based on love story 'Jaane tu ya jaane na' is about to release that has the tag line - So when do you know it's love? I thought its the right time to see if I find answers to atleast few of my questions about this 'LOVE'.

To find answers I started googling with the questions I had about love. I won't bore you by pointing to the sites which showed up. Just listing few interesting quotes I found :)
- "Love means giving something you don't have to someone who doesn't want it".
- "Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition"
- "Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction".
There are hazaar sites that claimed to answer my questions. But believe me I couldn't find proper answer any of my questions. The search made the problem more complex than helping me to solve it. Read somewhere - when you are in love, you just know that you are in love. aaah what an answer!! Some sites had given some checkpoints to find out if something love or not. As I was looking through these sites, then suddenly as usual an inner voice came - "Dude, read about latest technologies and learn them or else will be thrown out of your company. Instead of that you are trying to find out what love is, plans to file disclosure on that or what??" After a while I realized that its crazy to read articles and find out what love is :). I decided not to crack my head on this now, will watch the movie 'Jaane tu...', may be that movie will "enlighten" me on love and when do you know it's love?

OK, for now let me just accept that people who fall in love do know that is 'real' love. So as next step they might decide to get married. I remember some one telling not even 50% of people who love get married. Out of many reasons for love failure, one is opposition from either or both of their family. Few do get marry, either by convincing or opposing them. From where do they get that energy, that power to oppose/convince parents? If you ask a middle aged man this question ,he would probably say "In our days it was not like this. I married the girl whom my parents chose for me. Child, there is nothing called love, the younger generation is the just getting influenced by the kind of movies that are coming. The movies are motivating them to take such decisions." I do agree that these days a lot of movies are based on love stories but won't agree that it is the reason for the increase in the percentage of love marriage. Not just in recent times, even lot of old movies revolve around around love. 8o% of the movies that are made are purely love stories. Remaining 20% will be based on love stories, but sometimes revolve around few other issues. At this point I wanted to point you to few such movies, songs..but I am in hurry to finish this blog :), so moving ahead. Not just movies even the ancient literatures were based on love stories. For instance, the story of Shakuntala-Dushyanta. There's was love at first sight. I am still trying to understand just love, so lets not talk about this "love at first sight". I don't think they even asked their parents before getting married. So if not the movies where do they get that power to take such decision, Yes!! Love gives that power. That's what amazes me, from where does love get that power!!?

I guess I need to stop here, need to talk to directly to people in love and try to find answers for these. Don't think I am going to get proper answers, but let me give it a shot :)

Tadiyandamol Again!!!!

2008-06-02T23:55:00.053+05:30

Hi, I am back finishing another expedition. I had not been for a trek for sometime now as the weather wasn't favorable. Monsoon is just beginning and that makes the time good for trekking. As with every time even this time the problem was to come up with a place for trek. Madhu wanted to get his team mate Sharath, a first time trekker. So we had to go find a spot that is relatively easy. Some needed permission, some are far and has bad roads, some difficult for first timer ;) (Have to consider so many factors). Atlast we decided to go to tadiyandamol, a moderately easy(???) spot for trekking. My team mate Sumeet, another first timer also showed interest to come. That made the count four, a decent number for treking ;).

I had been to tadiyandamol before. Interestingly that was my first trek. If you ask me wasn't it boring to go same place again, the answer would be no. Then, it was in early December this time its end of May. That time we had reached tip and had got down same day. This time had plans to camp on top. The weather forecast suggested thunder storms for next few days in that region!! The gang is also different this time. These make it a totally different trek altogether.

KSRTC ಲಿ ಎನ್ ನಮ್ ಮಾವ ಕೆಲ್ಸ ಮಾಡ್ತಾರ, ನಮ್ ಬೇಕೆಂದಾಗ ಟಿಕೆಟ್ ಸಿಗೋಕ್ಕೆ :D (Its not like we have some uncle working in KSRTC, who gets us tickets when ever we want!). No seats we available in deluxe(rajahamsa/airavata) buses either to MaDikeri or Vijarjpete. Managed to get few seats in normal bus to Virajpet. I think I don't even have to tell you how the journey was. Hardly slept on the way. One thing kept striking my mind through the journey. It was about my trek to this place the first time. Myself and Prakhar, just two of us had been that time, and that was a wonderful trek. Prakhar was a great company. If he was still in Bengaluru then I would have been for more treks by now for sure! Thats a different story, coming back to this, we reached Virajpet by 5.30. Then came to private bus stand and took a bus to kakabbe around 7AM. From this place we walked to Nalknad palace which is in the base of the peak tadiayandamol.

December 2006

May 2008

After taking few(??) snaps of the palace we moved ahead. From palace we need to walk for about 6kms to reach the top. I had taken the print out of the route map that was Mr Prasad(of Palace estate home stay) had sketched when I had come last time. That had come very handy that time. The path to reach the tip is pretty easy to find. You just have to go in the route that ascends :). It was around 9.30 AM when we started from here. First few kms has tar road, after covering that we had some food. Took rest when ever our first timers felt tired and moved on. Another thing that made us move slow is Sumeet's photgraphy. He was litterlly taking snap of every leaf, every tree, every stone on the way that too from different angles :D. As we had started early we had all the time in the world to go, so that was fine. By 11.30 we had reached the big rock, where we had plans to camp. The rock will be support for tent incase of wind. Also there is water source near by that, so it is good for camping. The tip is about 2Kms from this place.

Although the peak is near from here, the path is pretty steep. It doesnt make much sense carrying the baggage up as we had to camp here. We decided two will stay looking after the bags and other two will go up and come back. Then the other two will go. It started to drizzle, so laid the tent and put all the bags inside that. Myself and Sumeet decided to go first. As we moved mist started to cover. We could hardly see any hills that were around. The path became more and more steep and sumeet bhai started getting tired. Took lot of breaks in between. He had almost givenup but I think later he made up his mind to climb till the peak. Take my word, the sense of satisfaction you get once you reach the top is worth the extra effort you put. After walking for some more distance we reached the tip of tadiyandamol. we had conqured one of the highest peaks in Karnataka. It was about 2PM. As I told you the hill was completely covered with mist on all the sides. I was hoping it will get cleared soon and will get beautiful view of hills around and take some snaps. But it started to become more thicker. We decided to get down as there was no point in waiting and started to get down. At last we could see something around when it got cleared as we were getting down. Once we came back Madhu and Sharath went up, and they were back by 6PM.

Yeah! cooking time!!! Had not eaten anything proper since morning. We had to cook some thing good atleast then, but we didnt have vessel. We had a small box though, boiled water using that and prepared a side dish using mtr ready to eat mix. Had that with chapathis we had carried. But that was not at all sufficient. We borrowed vessel from this other gang who had camped there. Had cup noodels, it was more ಮೆಣಸಿನಕಾಯಿ ರಸ (chilly soup) than noodles. Reminded me of hmmm Noodle soup...!!! What next after eating?? sleept thats it!

Aaah....My long time desire of camping on hill was fulfilled at last. (Even though had camped last trek, had put tent in front of a house). Got up with a great feeling of joy. To add to that the surrounding was just too superub. I was thrilled to see the bed of clouds. Climbed a small hill near by to get good look of that. It was avarNaneeya. We were on top of clouds!! I was so eager to walk on them then suddenly a voice came out from inside - Don't get that exited maga...just take snaps and get down!! So, thats what I did.

We packed up and started to get down. A dog also came all along with us until it found some other gang who ever going up. It went with them. After we had mukthi from that dog had lite breakfast and moved on. After getting down had another photo session inside the palace. Had breakfast at kings cottage(Had requested them eariler to arrange breakfast for us) and came to kaikambha bus stand. From there came to Virajpete, and then mysore. From Mysore returned back to namma Bengaluru.

Tadiyandamol Trek info :
How to reach ->
Bangalore - Virajpete (You get lot of govt buses). From there take a private bus to Kaikambha/Kakabbe
I have posted the trek route map here - Tadiyandamol route map
Stay ->
Option 1 : Cotteges/Home stays. Need to book them beforehand. Go up the hill and get down same day.
Option 2: Carry tent and camp on top. We had opted this option.
Option 3 : There is a forest dept office on the way(at distance half the peak). Phone number : 9972899439 - Tammayya. Go up and get down a little and camp there. You can climb again early morning if needed. Safe and easy option, no need to carry tent

Those are the best days of my life!! :-)

2008-03-29T23:34:00.000+05:30

ಓಹೋ ಅಂತು ಸಂತು ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ songs fan ಆದ ಅನ್ಕೊಬೇಡಿಪ್ಪ. ಈಗಲೂ ಸಹ ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ ಹಾಡುಗಳು ನನಗೆ ಇಷ್ಟ ಇಲ್ಲ . But I couldn't think of a better title for this article. Also now a days it has become a trend of keeping a line from song as movie title, so I thought let me also follow that:-). ಅದ್ ಸರಿ ಗುರು ಅದ್ ಯಾವ್ದು ನಿನ್ best days ಅಂಥ ಕೇಳ್ತೀರಾ...ಅದು four years of my engineering. When Sachin(Kulkarni!) suggested me to write about engineering life I thought, that will become one very big article and except some 3+1 friends no one will read that. Do I need to waste my time for that ಅಂಥ ನನ್ ಮನಸಿಗೆ ಕೇಳ್ದೆ.... ಅದಕ್ಕೆ, ನನ್ ಮಗ್ನೆ this article atleast ಮೂರು ಮತ್ತೊಂದ್ ಜನ ಓದ್ತಾರೆ, if you write some thing else ಯಾವ್ ನನ್ ಮಗನು ಒದಲ್ಲ, ಮುಚ್ಕೊಂಡ್ ಬರಿ ಅಂತು :D. So decided to write!! Its been almost 2 years since I completed my engineering, and lot of things has happened after that. But still some incidents of those days are not yet kicked out of my memory. I will try to dereference all such incidents here:D. Hope I dereference all the unforgettable moments easily!!

Pre engineering: This is the time when I had completed my PUC(12th). CET results were out, counseling was yet to begin. 24/7 was thinking about..which college to choose? which branch to take? what if I don't this, what's next option? I have never thought so much in my life after that. Didn't even think so much while choosing job :). I wanted to choose either 'tronics' or 'compsci'. I think I don't have to mention why these two were my priorities. I knew I wouldn't get KREC (NITK) for my rank. As everyone even I got lot of advices from everywhere, one such advice - For electronics RV is the best and for CS, PESIT is the best. Another - Don't choose PESIT, its like a school, choose BMS instead. Taking all such advices into account I choose PESIT-CS on the D-day, and thus ended up at place where they give education for real world :-D

Semester 1: BE batch of 2002 kick-off day - Prof Doreswamy(Founder of PES) and others took everyone of us through the achievements of the college, quality of education etc etc for a whole day. At the end of the day they issued some Engineering drawing equipments and some books. Actual classes were scheduled for next week. I was put under 'F' section which was a mix of CS and telecommunication branch. For the first two semesters, everyone had same subjects irrespective of the branch. From our batch they had also introduced languages English and Kannada.

The college was about 5 Kms from my home at vijayanagar. But still there were no proper buses in that route. Two buses 410 and 203 used to go that way. But I had not seen 203 more than twenty times in whole four years. In the class I usually used to sit somewhere in 3-4 bench, and sometimes in last bench. There were students from different parts of the country. I had no clue that so many come to Bangalore from different places for their higher studies. Became friends with Sachin Prabhu as we had interest in Mathematics :D. Geeta Shankar who used to take Maths, kept the interest going. Later on became friends with many more. We also had 'C' programing language this semester among others. I thank Mr Shivshankar sir a lot who not only used to give internal questions beforehand but also give full marks.:-). In short it was a good start for my engineering.

Semester 2: Second semester was great fun with subjects like Engineering drawing and workshop lab. I liked the concepts associated with drawing a lot. Mech HOD used to take the subject and taught the concepts really well. Another interesting subject this sem was Physics theory and labs. But the most amazing lab was 'workshop'. Never got bored of cutting, filling, welding. Along with studies played a lot of carrom this semester. Also flicked some edurite CD cases which were lying around in sports room.

As in first semester even this sem I use to travel by bus. Almost everyday I used to travel standing on foot board of 410. One fine day as usual I was on foot board, had given my bag to some one sitting near the door. I got down in between at 'Attiguppe' stop to let people inside get down. With in no time so many people got in that I didn't have enough place to get even one of my leg inside it. The bus left and I had no clue what to do. It didn't flash that I can take an auto and follow it :D. Saw a pesitian on bike after a while and took lift from him. But we couldn't catch the bus, it had left by the time we reached college. Met Sachin Kulkarni near college gate, as this other guy had to go to college I took sachin's help to chase the bus. At last we caught the bus at DeveGowda perol bunk. I was wishing that the guy to whom I had given bag will still be there with it. Yes, he was there! but he didn't have the bag!! He told that he gave bag to a guy from my college who claimed to know me. There was a guy from E section who used to commute in the same bus, I thought may be him, so returned to college. I was really happy when I found it was actually with him. He was Balakrishna(didn't know his name then). Sachin always used to tell me to come college with him. I am not sure why I didn't go, probably because I had bus pass and I wanted to use it.:D After this incident I decided to come with him from next semester.

As the frequency of bus was very less, sometimes while returning back I used to take lift. If I dindn't get any lift I just used to walk from college till deepanjalinagar bus stop and then take a bus from there. Some times myself, Rohit MV(from telecom) used to take an auto till his home(near attiguppe). The semester was getting over and just like that one day we thought it would be good if we walked all the way till home. We did go, had a nice chit-chat on the way.

Semester 3 : The real engineering began, we had branch specific subjects from this semester. The telecom guys were moved to a different section. We were moved from A block to the newly constructed CS block. Some guys from 'A' section were moved to our section. After a while some diploma students joined college and even they were put into B section. This semester we had one of the best lecturers in whole engineering, HTK(Hareesh T K). He used to take 'Data structures with C'. Rarely bunked his classes. Few days back @ office, my teammate was looking into a code and found a variable named 'ss'. He couldn't figure why it was named like that and what it did, so he asked me. As soon as I saw the name ss I realized it is created by me and I explained the purpose of that!! You will see my a lot of variables, functions like that in my test code. When ever I can't figure out a name I will name it as 'ss'. Naming a variable 'ss' is the best thing Harish sir has taught us :D. Another lecturer worth mentioning here is Yogesh sir. One of the coolest lecturers we had. He used to tell nice stories in class :).Have enjoyed more in his class than learning! Some guys had also found password for his machine once, it was 'jai gurudev' :-)

Well, 3rd semester's story will be incomplete, if I miss mentioning about 'Logic design' theory and lab. Waw what a memorable lab was that, none of the electronic devices were proper. Faced problems every week whole of the semester, but managed to pass as I got a very easy experiment during exam. Rehka B was taking the theory. I remember one incident that happened in her class. One day she made us play a game called fish-pot. In this game, we could ask questions to others anonymously through a chit. I still remember three questions from that! First one - Why did chicken cross the road?(not sure whom it was addressed to). Second one was to Rekha maam, asking when was her marriage treat? Third one was to pratima - Why do you hate Shashank?!!:D. One day we had been to "Kal ho na ho". There we met some A section guys near the theater along with Raghu and Mallya(These two had come from A section to B). These were the ones who became bridge between our gang and A section gang. It was the birth of PESMagas gang!! From then on we have been to innumerable outings together.
During 3 sem vacation we did shell scripting as part of TSDP(Total Student Development Program) project. Myself, Sudhi, Viju and Sachin teamed up together to do the project as our homes were close by. Project nepadalli used to meet at Sachin's place and did timepass. Had a great time doing the project.

Semester 4: Hmm...three semesters over, just five more to go. You guys may be thinking this article is becoming like 'Ashutosh Gowrikar' movie. Well can't avoid it, I am his fan :-). Even though his movies are long he keeps interest among the viewers. I will also try to keep you interested ;). Coming back to my story, it was in this semester people started forming new groups, strengthening old groups in the section. There were several groups in the class. To start, first one is the group of girls who sit in first column and in first few benches and listen to the classes very seriously. i.e Sandhya, Radha(.C) etc etc...Next group was of few girls in back rows of the same column. I feel it would be OK to include sreeraj and some guys who used to sit in that column in this group. Next one consisted of Tabrez, Subendu, Sagar, Rama, Girisha etc etc who used to sit in first few benches of the center column. Again these were the guys who listened sincerely in class(at least pretended to listen). Next is our gang, middle bench of the second column. Next gang consisted of pratima, vandana, tt shwetha, scooty shwetha, sridhar, patni etc etc.....In third column I feel there was one gang consisting of vasanth, sharath, few diploma guys and others. These were the groups that were there in my opinion. I formed them based on where they used to sit and with whom they used to spend time. Also I have named only few in each, I hope others won't slap me on face for not mentioning them. Also hope the ones whom I have mentioned won't slap me :-).

........its incomplete guys:-)

ಮೊದಲ ಹೆಜ್ಜೆ

2008-03-13T23:31:00.000+05:30

ಮೊದಲ ಹೆಜ್ಜೆ ಅಂಥ ಟೈಟಲ್ ನೋಡಿ ಏನೋ ತುಂಬ ಸೀರಿಯಸ್ ವಿಷಯದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಬರೀತೀನಿ ಅಂಥ ದಯವಿಟ್ಟು ಅಪಾರ್ಥ ಮಾಡ್ಕೋಬೇಡಿ. ನನಗೋ ಮಾತಡೋಕ್ಕೆ ಇಷ್ಟ, ಅದು ತಲೆ ಬುಡ ಇಲ್ದೆಲೆ ಸುಮ್ನೆ ಏನಂದ್ರೆ ಅದೇ ಮಾತಾಡೋದ್ ಇಷ್ಟ. ಆದ್ರೆ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ಮಾತಾಡೋಕ್ಕೆ ಯಾರು ಸಿಗ್ಲವೇ..ಅದ್ಕೇ ಒಂದ್ ಒಂದ್ ಸಲಿ ಒಬೊಬ್ನೆ ಮಾತಾಡ್ತಾ ಇರ್ತೀನಿ. ಆ ತರ ಒಬೊಬ್ನೆ ಮಾತಾಡೋದ್ ಕಮ್ಮಿ ಮಾಡೋಣ ಅಂಥ ಈ ಐಡಿಯಾ ಮಾಡ್ದೆ. ನಂಗೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ ಪ್ರಾಬ್ಲಮ್(ಈ ಪದ 'ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ ಪ್ರಾಬ್ಲಮ್' ಡೆಡಿಕೇಟೆಡ್ ಟು ನಮ್ಮ ಬದ್ರಿ ಸರ್ :)). ಇಂಗ್ಲಿಷ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ತಲೆ ತಿನೋಕ್ಕೆ ಬರಲ್ಲ ಅದ್ಕೇ ಕನ್ನಡ ಆರಿಸಿಕೊಂಡೆ. ಇನ್ಮೇಲೆ ಬೇಜಾರ್ ಆದಾಗ್ ಹಾಗೆ ಟೈಂಪಾಸ್ ಮಾಡೊಕ್ಕೆ ಎನ್ ನೆನಪಿಗೆ ಬಂದ್ರೆ ಅದ್ನ ಗೀಚ್ತಾ ಹೋಗ್ತೀನಿ ಇಲ್ಲಿ.

ನೀವ್ ಮುಂದೆ ಓದೋಕ್ಕೆ ಮುಂಚೆ ನೆ ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ವಿಷ್ಯ ಗಳ್ಳನ್ನ ಕ್ಲಿಯರ್ ಮಾಡಿಬಿಡ್ತೀನಿ....ಫುಲ್ ಕನ್ನಡ ದಲ್ಲೇ ಅದು ಒಂದು ತಪಿಲ್ದಲೇ ಟೈಪ್ ಮಾಡ್ತೀನಿ ಅಂಥ ದಯವಿಟ್ಟು ಭಾವಿಸಬೇಡಿ. ಎಲ್ಲ ಲಾಂಗ್ವೇಜ್ ಮಿಕ್ಸ್ ಮಾಡಿ ಎನ್ ಬರತ್ತೋ ಅದ್ನ ಬರೀತೀನಿ. ಅಡ್ಜಸ್ಟ್ ಮಾಡ್ಕೊಳಿ. ಮತ್ತೆ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ವ್ಯಕ್ತ ಪಡಿಸುವ ಯಾವುದೇ ಅಭಿಪ್ರಾಯದ ಹಿಂದೆ ಯಾವ ದುರುದ್ದೇಷ ಆಗ್ಲಿ ಅಥವ ಸದುದ್ದೇಷ ಆಗ್ಲಿ ಇಲ್ಲ. ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಬರೆದಿರೋದನ್ನ ಓದಿ ಯಾರಗಾರೂ ಅಥವಾ ಏನಕಾದ್ರು ತೊಂದ್ರೆ ಆದ್ರೆ ನಾನು ಜವಾಬ್ದಾರಿ ಅಲ್ಲ :D . ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಬರಿಯೋ ವಿಷ್ಯನ ಅಷ್ಟೊಂದು ಸೀರಿಯಸ್ ಆಗಿ ತೊಗೋ ಬೇಡಿ. ಯಾಕಂದ್ರೆ ಆಮೇಲೆ ಯಾರೋ ಇದ್ನ ಓದಿ, ಅದ್ನ tv9 ಅವ್ರ್ಗೆ ಹೇಳಿ ಸಂಜೆ ನ್ಯೂಸ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ, " ಯಾರೋ ಓಬ್ಬ ಐಟಿ ಉದ್ಯೋಗಿ ತನ್ನ ಬ್ಲಾಗ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ತಪ್ಪು ಕನ್ನಡ ಬರೆದಿದ್ದಾನೆ. ಮತ್ತೆ ಅದರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಇದರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಅಭಿಮಾನ ಇಲ್ದಲೇ ಏನೇನೋ ಬರೆದಿದ್ದಾನೆ " ಅಂಥ ನೋಡೋಕ್ಕೆ ನಂಗಂತೂ ಇಷ್ಟ ಇಲ್ಲ. :P. ಅವ್ರು ದಿನ ಇಡಿ ಅದೇ ನ್ಯೂಸ್ ಹಾಕ್ತಿರ್ತಾರೆ, ಆಮೇಲೆ ಅದ್ನ ನೋಡೋಕ್ಕೆ ನಿಮಗೂ ಬೋರ್ ಆಗುತ್ತೆ. ಅದ್ಕೇ ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಓದಿದನ್ನ ಇಲ್ಲೇ ಮರೆತ್ಬಿಡಿ :)

ಇಲ್ಲಿ ಹೆಚ್ಚಾಗಿ ಉಪಯೋಗ ಇಲ್ದಿರೊ ವಿಷ್ಯದ ಬಗ್ಗೆನೆ ಬರೀತೀನಿ. ಅವಗ್ ಅವಾಗ ಒಳ್ಳೆ ಟಾಪಿಕ್ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ನು ಬರಿಬಹುದು ಯಾರಿಗೊತ್ತು. ಏನರ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಬರಿ ಬೇಕು ಅನ್ಸತ್ತೋ ಅದ್ನ ಬರಿತಾ ಹೋಗ್ತಿನಿ. ನಿಮ್ಗೆ ಬೇಜಾರ್ ಆದಾಗ ಅಯ್ಯೋ ಯಾರು ತಲೆ ತಿನ್ನೋರು ಇಲ್ವಲಾ ಅಂಥ ಅನ್ಸಿದ್ರೆ ಆಗ ಒಂದ್ ಸಲಿ ಇಲ್ಲಿಗೆ ವಿಸಿಟ್ ಕೊಡಿ. ನಿಮಗೂ ಟೈಂಪಾಸ್ ಆಗತ್ತೆ, ನಾನ್ ಕಷ್ಟ ಪಟ್ಟು ಕನ್ನಡ ದಲ್ಲಿ ಟೈಪ್ ಮಾಡಿದಕ್ಕೆ ಸಾರ್ಥಕ ಆಗುತ್ತೆ. ಟೈಮ್ ವೇಸ್ಟ್ ಮಾಡಿ ಓದೆ ಇರ್ಥಿರಂತೆ, ಹಾಗೆ ಎನ್ ಅನ್ಸಿತು ಅಂಥ ಒಂದ್ ಕಮೆಂಟ್ ಹಾಕಿ ಹೋಗಿ. ಅಟ್ಳೀಸ್ಟ ನೀವ್ ಓದಿದಿರ ಅಂಥ ನಾದ್ರು ಗೊತ್ತಾಗುತ್ತೆ ಜೊತೆಗೆ ನಂಗೆ ತಲೆ ತಿನ್ನೋ ಸ್ಟೈಲ್ ಇಂಪ್ರು ಮಾಡ್ಕೊಳಕ್ಕೆ ಸಹ ಹೆಲ್ಪ್ ಆಗುತ್ತೆ.

ಎನ್ ಮಾಡ್ತಿದ್ಯ ಮಲ್ಕೊಳೊ ಅಂಥ ಅಮ್ಮ ಕೂಗ್ತಿದಾರೆ, ನಂಗು ನಿದ್ದೆ ಬರ್ತಾ ಇದೆ..ಇವತ್ತಿಗೆ ಬ್ಲೇಡ ಹಾಕಿದ್ ಸಾಕು ಅನ್ಸುತ್ತೆ. ಸರಿ ಮತೆ, ವಿಷ್ಯ ಅಲ್ದೇ ಇರೋ ವಿಷ್ಯದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಯೋಚನೆ ಮಾಡೋತಂಕ ಬೈ. ನನ್ನ ಮೊದಲ ಹೆಜ್ಜೆ ಹೇಗಂಸ್ತು, ನಿವ್ ಹೇಳಿ ನಿಮ್ಮ ಪರ್ತಿಕ್ರಿಯೆ ನೋಡಿ ನನ್ನ ಮುಂದಿನ ಹೆಜ್ಜೆಗಳನ್ನ ಇಡ್ತೀನಿ :) ಬೈ.

Kanoor Fort Trek

2008-02-24T23:50:00.001+05:30

Oh!! Its mid Feb, I have started to feel the heat of summer already. Once summer starts no trek :(. No trek for another 4-5 months. Oh! ಏನಪ್ಪಾ ಮಾಡೋದು ಅಂಥ ಯೋಚನೆ ಮಾಡೋವಾಗ ಮಧು ಟಿಂಗ್ ಅಂಥ ಪಿಂಗ್ ಮಾಡಿದರು , ಈ ವೀಕೆಂಡ್ ಟ್ರೆಕ್ ಬರ್ತಿಯ?? ನನಗೋ ತುಂಬ ದಿನದಿಂದ ಟ್ರೆಕ್ ಹೋಗ್ದೆಲೆ ಕಾಲ್ ಕಡಿತಾಇತ್ತು , ಸಿಕ್ಕಿದ್ದೇ ಚಾನ್ಸ್ ಅಂಥ ಹ್ಞೂ ಬರ್ತಿನಿ ಅಂದೇ. After some destinations got rejected, we decided to go to "Kanoor Fort". Madhu and Prashanth had been to Kanoor some months back. They couldn't complete the trek due to heavy rain that time. I had seen the snaps from their previous trek and I just couldn't say no to that place. (Madhu's blog on their trek to Kanoor - Kanoor trek by Madhu)

Hmmm, next part is getting ready for the trek. As usual get food, book bus tickets, hire sleeping bags etc etc. My job was to get tents and sleeping bags. But sleeping bags weren't available. Madhu and prashanth suggested its worth buying one as we will be going for trek often. Even I thought its good idea and so along with them bought a new sleeping bag :-). I had never carried a tent before to any of my previous treks. So I had no clue how much a tent weighs.Carrying it home on bike was a mast experience :P I started thinking, I couldn't get it on bike how am I going to walk carrying it?? But had left with no other option, had to take it. So I decided, take this to bus stand but then will give it to others.

ಹೇಗೋ ಕಷ್ಟ ಪಟ್ಟು tent bag ಮತ್ತೆ ನನ್ನ back pack bag ನ majestic ಗೆ ತಂದೆ. The bus left at around 11.15 pm, we were in 'Sagara' by 7'o clock next day. Then took a bus from sagara to biligaaru. The bus stopped for breakfast on the way at kargal. Had some buns and some idlis and hopped back into the bus. Kanoor village is 10Kms from biligaaru. After walking for a while took a carriage auto to kanoor. ಮುಖ-ಗಿಕ ತೊಳ್ಕೊಂಡು , started the trek.

Kanoor Kote(Fort) is an old fort in middle of dense forest. Also known as Keldai fort is in ruins now. The trek to the fort is beautiful with many streams, falls, temporary log bridges, lonely houses here and there. You can either start the trek from kanoor or hosagadde. The trek route Hosagadde-Dabbe Falls-Shaale Mane-Kanoor Fort-Doctor Mane-Gerusoppa is of three days. Madhu and Prashanth had been to dabbe falls already, and since we had only 2 days we chose to start the trek from kanoor. Since we choose this route I missed dabbe falls :( . Our plan was to reach Kanoor fort the first day, camp there and trek to gerusoppa the next day.

I think it was around 11AM when we started the trek from kanoor. Within no time entered the forest. Walk, walk, and just kept walking..Some places it was uphill, some times down hill and some times just horizontal paths. Took some snaps on the way. The big task was to carry the tent bag. We were 3 but had 4 bags. Had to make lot of circus to carry that heavy tent. Two of us used to carry the tent bag holding strap on either side. Decided to do that on a rotating basis :-). But there were paths which were not wide, so had to carry both bags sometimes. Even after walking for 2-3 hrs we didnot find any source of water. The streams were dried out as summer had started. Had buns that we had got packed from kargal hotel for lunch and continued the journey. I think it was around 3.30 when we came out of dense forest. As we walked for a while we reached one home. Took rest there for a while, filled water bottles in a nearby water source and continued.

After walking for about an hour the path divided. It took a while for us to make up our mind to choose one. Even though we had the trek guide book which had the trek details we got confused for a while. It was mentioned in the guide that from this place fort is about 100 mts. We thought it would be better if one of us went and checked if there are any signs of fort and others lets just stay with luggage. Prashant went and came back in a while saying that the fort was very near from there. We took that route and reached the fort by around 5'0 clock. There are temples and some other constructions. Now most of them are in ruins. Explored the fort for sometime. Searched for some good plane area where we can put our tent and camp. We didn't find any good place to put tent. Since it was dense forest that was covering the fort and there was signs of snakes nearby, we decided to go to the doctor's home and stay there.

To got to Doctor's home we had come back to the place where the path divided and take the other way. According to the book doctor's home is about 1-1.5 kms from there.But even after walking for a long time we didn't find any home. We were still in midst of forest. Started thinking if got lost, but had no other option, had go in same way. So just kept walking and there was a sign of relief when we saw some coconut trees. The doctor's home is pretty near as in the guide but since we were tired even that short distance seemed to be long. The doctor is not there now, his son stays there. We decided to camp outside their home. Found a good place and put tent. There was another gang who had come to doctor's place already, but they had taken some other route to reach there. Interesting thing this they get cook along with them for the trek. He is cook cum guide for them.

Not only he helped us to cook our noodles, but also gave us ಹೆಸರುಬೇಳೆ ಪಾಯಸ that he cooked. Had the delicious food and slept.

The second days trek started with uppittu-kesaribathu. We had breakfast with the other gang. To go to Gerusoppa we have to go in the route which goes fort itself. We need to go near the fort and then take a deviation from there. Since we had good breakfast with in very less time we reached the fort. Madhu and Prashanth wanted to go inside the fort and explore more. I was not that interested. We had seen it previous day and I thought there was nothing much there. So I decided look after the luggage and they two left. Spent boring 1hr listening to some songs thinking it would have been good if even had gone with them. Did feel bad when they came back and told that they found some under ground paths, spotted a snake, etc etc (I thought they were bluffing until I saw the snaps). As with the previous day the journey continued with the extra heavy tent. After walking for about 2hrs the path lead out of the forest and divided into three. We took the center path(as it was given in the book), and after walking for a while got some houses on the way. Walking little further we got a stream. Relaxed near the stream for some time, prepared lunch. Continued the journey after having food, we got a jeep track after walking for some time. Even though the path was wide the path was surrounded by thick forest with tall trees. At some places the track was at an angle of about 70 degrees. We got tired walking for a while as we got many such uphills. Since we didn't get any vehicles on the way we had to continue walking. After a while the path became flat and journey became little pleasant. The path finally ended on banks of river Sharavathi. Crossed the river to reach Gerusoppa.

After taking some rest there, we went to place called Mavinagundi. We were told that from there we will get direct buses to Bangalore. So went there had dinner and then took a bus back to Bangalore. Hmm, thus the beautiful trek came to end. What I missed out of this trek is Dabbe falls. So I have to go for the trek one more time :). Kanoor is still not off the list completely. Until I visit it again I ll just watch the below snaps.

Kodachadri Trek!!

2008-02-24T23:31:00.000+05:30

Aaahh......Here comes another trek after a very long time. This time it was with office friends. The trek was way back in November 2007, But I didn't want to blog about my latest trek skipping this. So thought let me scribble something :-)

I really don't remember much about the trek. I have to see the trek snaps, recollect and come back. So you just enjoy the trek snaps :D

Trip to kodaikanal

2007-07-09T23:57:00.000+05:30

Yes that's right! Even before I complete writing previous treks blog here comes another trip. These days I am going for trip/trek every 15 days . What else I want?? This time its with my collage gang to Kodaikanal. As usual its a relaxing and total timepass trip. Only 7 of us could make to trip this time as others had some important work(kallange ond pille neva!!)

Sudhi had booked 10 tickets to kodai road well in advance like a very good boy. We had to cancel 3 at the last moment. Viju had taken the initiative of booking the cottage. The train journey started at 9.30 pm on tuesday 3rd july. Morning 6.30 a dabba vehicle was already waiting for us in kodai road station. Kodaikanal in about 80kms from this station. Sari, reached cottage, had breakfast,bath and got ready to go for sight seeing.

Lake alli waste tara ond gante boat ride maadi we took bicycles to do some time pass. Then we went for skating. Skating was new to all, every one fell lot of time while skating. It was 5pm and between all these activities we had corn, cup noodles, 2 ice creams, halasina hannu(jack friut) etc..thats all i remember. Also we had cakes, dosa etc. oota dasthe upahaara maadidvi. Then went back to cottage. The main attraction of the day was not yet over. It was Shivaji-The Boss. Yes, we went for shivaji night show that day. I want to say movie was awesome but I couldn't understand much :)

Next day it was some other sight seeing spots in kodai. Then third day we went to Madhurai meenaakshi temple. The temple was a delight to watch. Then returned back in train friday night
(Not in mood to put more blade, so stopping! Probably will come back with details later)
See the album below

Kumara Parvatha - Trekkers paradise

2007-06-22T23:42:00.000+05:30

Y'know what? Some of my friends are preparing for CAT, some getting geared up to do MS, some getting good onsite opportunities from their company.... Everybody is doing stuff!! And I am just sitting on a chair and watching TV. I mean if I die the only way people would even know I was here, would be by the ass print on that chair. I had to do something, something huge!! and yes!, I did.! I thought it would be nice to leave an ass print on Kumara Parvatha!!. And now people can also recognize me by my ass print on KP :D (p.s : The sentences are inspired from TV show FRIENDS :) )

Vivek badly wanted to go for a trek after his exams. But all his plans failed during compile time itself ;). He decided to execute some plan without any failures, so he convinced his friends for KP trek. He asked me to join him. For a change, I was little busy with my work during that time. Told him, will join if possible. But after his friends ditched him one day before the trek, he caught hold of me. He didn't wanted to cancel the trek at that last moment. Rainy season had already started and postponing to coming weeks was not possible either. Naanu hogli paapa antha opkonde. (I showed pity on him and agreed) as even I wanted to go to kumara parvatha some time.

Kumara Parvatha is one of the highest peaks in southern India. KP belongs to the Western ghats mountain range and is near Kukke Subramanya in Karnataka. Kumara parvatha is surely one the most beautiful and hardest treks I have been till now. Learnt many lessons during this trek, one of them is that the path to heaven is not at all simple :)

The weather report had signs of heavy rainfall in the coming two days. Didn't get much chance to go through some blogs and get more info on the trek. Also had not booked for the bus in advance. But still we decided to go for the trek. Finished some work at office on satruday itself, sent a mail that i will be on leave monday and headed towards viv's place. We bought some food items, got sleeping and back-pack bags for rent and came to Majestic by 10pm. As I was expecting no seats available to subramnya, we waited for next bus. Again even in that bus all seats are full. I guess every bangalorean want Subramnya swamy's blessings these days. That was the last bus to subramnya and we had go in that. Conductor tells no way he can arrange for seats nor he will allow us to stand and come in the bus. Kaadi bedi request maadi anthu we got inside. He allowed us to sit near the drivers seat. See this is what happens if you dont book tickets in advance and I blame vivi for not booking (You see I was too busy with my work to book tickets)

The journey started at around 11.30 PM. You can imagine easily how much we could have slept sitting in that place. To add to that the road was pathetic. Hardly I would have slept for two hours in the entire journey. At first I was trying to sleep and was getting woken up every time the driver puts break or the bus goes in pot hole. Then I decided its better to be awake and enjoy the journey than cribbing the road and trying to sleep. The bus journey came to an end at 7AM. Yes we reached Kukke and it was drizzling at kukke proving the weather report right!! I had decided 'bisilaadarenu maLeyaadarenu' will go for trek. We had to equip ourselves with some stuff to be safe in the hands of nature. So bought big plastic covers. Two to cover bags and two to cover ourselves in case rain gets heavier. After having breakfast at kumara krupa we headed towards kumara parvatha.

Leaches ide yechaarike!! Beware of leaches!! was searching for this board. Well could not find it. Vivi told prevention is better than cure le, so we will rub lime stone (sunna) on our shoes before entering the forest. Leaches wont get on if we put sunna. We made our shoes white and started the journey. The display board suggested that Kumara Parvatha is about 10Kms. 10kms? and that too there is bhattra mane on the way to take rest and have food..but people say its hard trek. It should not be that difficult for me, thinking this I moved on in to the forest. It was 8.30 by then. Waw what a jungle it is, A small narrow path in midst of very long trees. Very dense forest and barely you can see any thing other than trees. Yes other than trees you can lot of animals on the way. Naa.. not simha, tiger or elephant guru, you can see lots and lots of leaches :-). Those leaches failed to get on our white shoes. They tried a lot but didn't succeed. As we moved on we spotted a small snake crossing us! Well it was very small one and just passed. Walk walk and walk but no signs of forest ending. Oh man the journey got sweat out of us like anything. For the first time we were sweating so much. It had rained heavily the previous night, so the path was little wet. We could not even sit and relax for long time at one place as our enemies will get on us. With very small breaks in between we moved on . I wanted to go out of that forest in to grass lands sooner but no, no signs of that. hmmm At last after walking for some more time we came out of the forest into grass lands. By then full bevaru(sweat) as though we got drenched in rain.

The snap you see shows top view of subbramnya and the thick forest around it. That's the forest we just came out of. Even now vivi gets scary and horror dreams when ever he sees this dense forest snap ;-). From here we didn't have to worry about leaches. It was beautiful grassland all around. The cool breeze gave us energy to continue the trek. On the way we met a guy who carried groceries to bhaatara mane (bhatt's place). He had left the foot of the hill after us but joined us on the way. That guy travels once every day to bhattra mane. hmmm still wondering from where the guy gets so much energy to carry such weight and climb up hill everyday. After about an hour we got bhattara mane. It was 11.30 when we reached bhatts place. Bhatts place is situated in midst of beautiful hills all around. They also have a small farm beside their home. We told them as to how we have plans to stay in mantap. They suggested its not safe to stay there. It would have been feasible if there was big group, for two people its not safe to stay on the hill. Also since it was raining heavily every night it would be very difficult to stay in mantap. We had not even carried tents. After getting this feedback from bhat we decided lets reach top and return to bhatts place by evening. Had lunch at their place, reduced luggage a little and then moved from there at 12.45.

Our first goal was to reach Shesha Parvatha. The Shesha parvatha looks like a serpent with seven hoods, hence the name . We can see KP only after crossing this hill. See the cool video taken on the way...

The weather was so pleasent that we didnt have to take much time to reach Kallu mantap a which is very close to the tip of Shesha Parvatha. We reached there with just 3 breaks in between. Our lakshya was still far away from this place. We had move still faster but more carefully from here.
"Roke hamhe leaches, ya hawa ya bhaarish, paayenge jo lakshya hamara....KP ko har haal mein chadna hai"
Lesser the weight we carry, more easier to walk. So we left our bags in kallu mantapa and moved ahead carrying water bottles and some chocolates. The journey from there cannot be described in words that I know, but will try.
"Yellelli nodali mist anne kaanuve..." the whole area started to cover with mist. As we moved ahead more mist in the surrondings. Then we reached a steep rock covered with mist and wind blowing all around with speed of sound ;) . I couldn't have asked for more after coming till there. That was the best view in the whole trek. If this not heaven what is??

We moved taking some rest there. Tip of KP was not far from that place. We reached KP in a short while. It was 5pm when we started to get down. We had conquered one of the higehes peaks. Getting down is not that easy as many people think. But for us its not as difficult as many think ;). We reached kallu mantapa, took our bags and moved on. I was applying 'moov' when ever I got chance as I had sprained my legs. We reached bhattra mane, had food and sleapt. We had won aganist leaches first day. Not even a single bite to either of us.

Next day morning we went for a walk near there place. The small walk was very beautiful. We left bhattra mane at around 1PM. Again we had to go through dense forest. By the time we came out of forest leach had bit me. So atlast it was leaches which won the battel. How much ever we treid to avoid them, one had managed to bite me. Reached kukke, had food. Kumara dhara nadi yalli mindu, devara darshana maadi, returned back that night to Bangalore in Raja himsa, oops sorry raja hamsa sitting in the last seat.

It was awesome way to speand weekend. I had satisfaction of completing one of the most beautiful and difficult trek successfully. Truly trekkers and photographers paradise. Never miss a chance to visit this place!
(More snaps of the trek : KumaraParvatha Snaps)

A walk to remember!!

2007-06-04T00:01:00.000+05:30

Truly a walk that I will remember for the rest of my life. This walk was in the midst of evergreen forest on a railway track between donigal and yedakumari. Myself and my friends decided to go for a trek on this very popular track. After some plus and minuses to the number of people coming for the trek remaining were four - myself(santu), anantha, v b reddy and bond raghavendra. Our plan was to start trek from donigal on 2nd june Saturday morning , reach yedakumari(also misspelled as yedakumeri/edakumeri) station by evening, camp there that night and then go to subramanya next day and then return back to Bangalore. But God had a different plan for us :D. Read on to find out more about our experience.

Let me tell you the whole story with a simple screenplay. First we did research on the current situation at yedakumari. What we found out is that the goods train has started and have to avoid those trains(if we want to save your life :P). Also in a recent blog I had read the rules are getting strict and they have lot of restrictions now. So we decided its better to go this place before the completely ban trekking there. After getting some food items, sleeping bags etc we came to KSRTC bus stand on friday the 1st June. Had booked 11.45 rajahamsa to sakaleshpura previous day itself. The bus journey came to end next day 4 AM in the morning when we got down at donigal. Donigal is about 8kms from sakaleshpur and had to give some extra money (lancha) to conductor to stop the bus at donigal. Had some kallu idli and cold chutney at hotel 'picnik' in donigal. Donigal railway station is about 2-2.5kms from this hotel. Since it was just around 4.30 , we thought we will walk till the railway station. Avoiding some 100 trucks atlast we reached donigal railway station by 6.30AM. You can as well get down from the bus at railway station directly, but there are no hotels at this place. So I would suggest you to get down near hotel and then take lift in a truck to railway station to save your energy for the real trek :-)

The journey from donigal station started at 7.30. Light drizzle made weather even more pleasant. The total journey from donigal to yedakumari is about 18kms, and there are around 15-20 bridges and tunnels. The track goes in midst of evergreen forests. So as we went along we expected thrilling bridges, scary tunnels, and greenery every where. We kept walking in midst of nature for a quite long time but we neither got tunnel nor bridge. Did some time pass in banana and coffee plantations in some estate on the way. As we walked and walked eating biscuts, we got one bridge. It was quite a long one. Enjoying the scenic beauty around we kept moving and found water source. We had already covered about 5Kms by then. We decided to take rest and prepare some food. None of us experience of cooking in forest before. Anantha had little experience in his previous trek. So based on his suggestion we had taken diesel in a bottle from bangalore itself. Started gathering some small wooden chops. Had taken some newspapers, matchbox, lighter along. After struggling a lot we managed to get constant fire, to boil water. Diesel helped to keep the flame constant. Relished MTR ready to eat rasam rice and tomato rice :-). The journey continued after that. Within short while got our first tunnel, which was about 100mts long. As we crossed that and went along, heard sound of horn. First I thought its the horn of a truck, but soon realized a train was coming from the opposite direction. Suddenly we came away from the track, and gave way to train. Train went inside the tunnel as we looked along. We had just crossed the tunnel and were few metres away from next bridge. Our timing could not be better. I feel it would have been more fun if the train had come when we were inside the tunnel or on that bridge. Had to run for life. Expecting to see some more goods train we moved along.

Here s a video of crossing scary bridge - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=984821373886101414&hl=en
and this one depicts the greenery around - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7937964702591134713&hl=en

More tunnels, more bridges as we moved..The longest tunnel is about 572 mts. Had already walked for more than 15 kms and we were exhausted but we just kept walk walk and walking as we had no other option. Short breaks in between and again continue the journey as we had to reach the yedakumari station before dark. We reached the destination much before it was dark. We saw the yedakumari display board and sign of relaxation on all our faces. It was just 5'0 clock. The scenic view from the railway station was as beautiful as it was till now. We were relaxing and the station master calls us and takes a class!!. Who gave you permission to come here..?? You are not supposed to come here...go from here as soon as possible. These were his words. After all convincing tactics failed we decided to go from there. Actually the rules are getting strict day by day as the trains have started. As per the station master there, we cannot go for trek. If you are going for trek see that you don't reach the station early or else you will be kicked out from the station. If you reach after dark, you probably will have chance to stay there that night. Our plan was to stay in the station that night and move to road next day. Since that didn't work out we had to move from station the same day evening at 6'o clock.

The next 2 hours of journey was most thrilling in the entire trek. Road is about 5kms from the railway station. We had already walked more than 20 kms and we were completely exhausted. I had some energy left but had never thought I had to spend it like this. Some lady near station had warned to us that there are elephants on the way and suggested to reach road before dark. We kept walking and after some time saw a small canal. We stopped there for a while and were relaxing. I noticed a leach on my friends leg, but realized in a while not only on his but there were leaches on all our shoes!! Put salt removed them and moved on. There were some hazar leaches on the way and many of them succeeded to get on to us even though running. I barley had energy to walk but had to run to avoid them. Then we heard the sound of bamboo trees breaking, yup it was elephants which was doing that. There were two elephants which ran away in to the forest at not so far distance. We had no other choice other than running even more faster towards road. After walking, sorry running for about 45 minutes we started hearing horn sound of trucks. Oh no the its just the sound, we had run for half an hour more to find the river. After an hour of running we got river. Road is other side of river. The river was flowing with full force. Not even in my dreams I had thought we had cross such river. Again we had no option, had to cross. Fell more than twenty times skidding but crossed at last. At one point seeing the force of the water I thought its better to walk back to station in dark than crossing that. Yes at last all of us made it to the other side safely.

During this journey from the station we could not avoid leaches biting us. Got on to a bus back to sakaleshpur. Took a room in sakaleshpur and returned bangalore next day. I had walked more than 25kms that day. Had never walked so long in a day before, probably will not in future also :) . Even though we had to walk so long the trek path made that made that simple and beautiful. Truly a walk that I ll remember for a long time

For those who have still not done this trek, this is a must trek for a trekker and those who have already seen i guess its time for you people to go again and see the current situation. Sooner the better as you will not have permission to there after more trains start.

Tadiyandamol trek

2007-04-21T13:39:00.000+05:30

One friday evening two friends decided to go for trek. They choose the tadiyandaol as their destination. Those tow guys were myself and prakhar. We didnt have much time to convice others, hired sleeping bags and headed towards majestic at around 10.30 pm. Got Airavata(volvo) bus at 11 and before we fell asleep we were in madikeri. It was 5.30 and hardly any shops were opened. After answering some calls in bus stand public restroom we had light breakfast in nearby hotel.

Tadiyandamol is second highest peak in karnataka and the highest in coorg. Best way to reach there is to take govt bus to either Virajpet or Madikeri. From there take a private bus to place called kakkabbe. We choose madikeri route. By the time we got bus to kakkabbe we could see sunshine at madikeri.

Will complete the blog some free time with some more details..have a look at the album

And heres prakhar s blog on the trek, read until I put mine :-)
http://prakharsharma.blogspot.com/2007/06/trek-info-tadiyandamool.html