Shirdi Travel Diary

Shirdi Travel Diary (13/04/06 to 16/04/06)
Sunil, Anil annayya, Aunty (Sunil's mother), viji annayya
and myself had planned for a trip to Shirdi and finally we
made it.

13/04/06
I boarded the Manmad (Secunderabad to Manmad) express at Begumpet station, on
which Sunil and Aunty were also there. They came from vizag to hyderabad today
morning.

14/04/06
Got down at Nagersol (which is around 2 hrs from Shirdi) at 7.30 in the
morning. On-board the train we befriended another two telugu familiies who told
us all about what are the formal procedures to get the darshan, where to stay
and what all places to visit near by. From Nagersol we all took an omni (these
are quite popular here, most of them fitted with LPG cylinders, I guess it
makes them quite economical) and reached Shirdi. Went to Bhakt Nivas (the
trust-owned hostel for the piligrims) and found that it would be difficult to
get a room there, as this was a long weekend and so the no. of piligrims who had
come was large. So booked a room in one of the private lodges. Shirdi is
a small place (in the Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra), rather it's a village
in-transition. As it is evident that a period of transition is turbulent, same
is the case over here. Probably in another 3-5 years it will be as good as
Tirupati, but you cant beat the climate thing.
Refreshed ourselves and went to Baba's temple for the Darshan. Owing to the
big rush we had to wait for 2 and 1/2 hours to get the darshan. Returned to
our lodge-room, and Anil annayya and Viji annayya dropped dropped in. They
were coming from B'lore. They both went for the darshan and they were lucky
to get it in no time. All of us then took an Omni and went to Shani Shingnapur
(a place where the temple of Shani (god) is located, 75 km from Shirdi). Did
some drama there and came without doing the usual formalities as the people
there were trying to take us for a ride. Came back and collapsed on our beds
in the lodge room.

15/04/06
Today was an eventful day as we embarked on our trip to Aurangabad, which
is around 150 km from shirdi. Took an Omni at 8 in the morning from Shirdi.
On the way we visited the hanuman temple near Ellora and also another shiva
temple which had one of the 12 jyotirlingas. We then headed to Ellora Caves:
the best part of the entire trip. It was amazing how they carved out huge
mountains into caves and temples. There were 34 caves in total and we didnt
have enough time to see all of them. The caves were built between 5th and
11th century AD and it was evident as some of the carvings had withered out.
On the way had a cursory look of the state of the farming community in
Maharashtra and the general atmosphere. Farms were very big compared to the
same in my home place. Grapes,Sugarcane,Onion and cotton were the major crops.
The look of the houses indicated that the farmers were not really well-off
but then most of them ( I guess almost all the families) had bikes, (I could
spot lot of Rajdoots and could hardly find a scooter). Further there were
DTH antennas atop houses. Elder people had to wear Topis, dhoti and kurtas
all in whites. Marathi uses the same script as Hindi (Devanagari) and can
be quite easily understood if you know Hindi. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar is quite a
popular figure over here and all the parties exploit his image by having
the picture of this great Indian along with their party leaders on the
Billboards.
From there we went to Aurangabad, where the Bibi-ka-Makbara is located. It's
a look-alike of Taj Mahal. Aurangzeb used to shift his capital from
Delhi to Aurangabad. On the way saw the Daulatbad fort from the vehicle.
Would have been nice if we had explored it, but it was not part of the
itinerary. Also saw an 18th century engineering work called the "PanChakki" a
water mill which still works. The water is routed through canals to this place (
covering a distance of 6km) and it is siphoned up creating a waterfall at
this place and the same water rotates the turbine of the mill. Enroute we saw
big mountains which looked like those in Grand Canyon. I was wondering that
these would be ideal for rock-climbing.
It was 7 in the evening by the time we reached Shirdi. Strolled along the
temple and market and did some shopping and retired in our room.

16/04/06
Got up at 5.30 in the morning as we had to visit Nasik and from there to
Manmad and catch the train back to Secunderabad. Anil annayya and Viji Annayya
left at 6 to catch the bus to Pune as they had to be in Bangalore the next
day. After vacating the room, we boarded a bus to Nasik. Nasik is considerably
big city. Nasik is quite famous for its onions and we could see big onion
fields on the way. Sugarcane was another major crop for Marathi farmers. All
along the route there were grape farms and we could see plenty of grape clusters.
Bought and had enough seedless grapes as they were pretty cheap.
By 10 we were in the Nasik bus station. From there caught a Maharastra
RTC bus (red bus) to Triumbakeswar (30 km from Nasik). The temple of the three
gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva is quite a famous one and an important place to
visit in Nasik. There was a big queue at the temple and we had little time
so we did not venture in to stand in the queue and wait for the darshan of the
idols. Instead we just appreciated the beauty of the temple from outside. The
temple is very good, particularly the way the pillars were carved out, showed
the calibre of the artists and mostly it was still intact. Also Triumbakeswar
is the birth-place of Godavari, went there but didn't have much to see except
for a pool of water and people bathing in it.
We immediately caught the bus to Manmad at the new Nasik bus station at 1 PM.
By 3.30 PM were in Manmad. Manmad is a very old town: the pitiable state of
the bus station reflected this fact. Our train was to leave Manmad at 5.30.
After having lunch at one of the hotels went to the station and boarded the
Manmad express there.

17/04/06
It was 9 by the time we (Sunil, Aunty and myself) alighted at the Begumpet
railway station. There ended our 3-day trip to Shirdi. In all I had visited
the 3 districts : Ahmednagar, Nashik and Aurangabad. Except for the trip to
Nasik in which most of our time went into the journey everything else was
good. Elloras were amazing and surely the best part of the trip.

Ruthless Life

I knew that life could be as ruthless as this, but never saw it through my
eyes. Recently I met the mother of one of my friends and realized how tough
it could be. She had been on the bed for close to two years and for these
two years she could not move any of her body parts, except for opening the
mouth, slight movement of the neck and eyelids. It's a very difficult situation
where you can see, listen and probably understand what others are doing/saying,
you want to reply or do something but you cannot. With difficulty I could
control myself from shedding tears. I can only imagine how traumatic it would
be to go through such a hellish situation.

GMR Group

It gives me a sense of pride watching the television commercial of GMR
Group (which is into Energy and construction (airports and roads)).
This is the group which has roots in my own district Srikakulam and around
20 km from my village. It makes me think about the amount of oppurtunities
(in terms of employment) generated. I have great regard for industrialists,
because they are the one who generate wealth, employment, pay taxes
(directly and/or through their employees) to the government and this is what
the public servants/politicians feed on.
There's a sugar factory, because of which I guess sugar cultivation in the
region would have taken a big leap ( I dont have concrete proof of this, but
certainly it would have given a fillip) . This GMR group has also built a
state-of-the art engineering college in my home-town making higher-education
accessible to students residing in smaller towns and villages. (Ofcourse,
there are other socio-economic reasons why these educational institutions
are not able to create an impact).
I have all the reasons to hail these people whatever be the actual intent
behind doing all this be as long as significant no. of people are benefited
because of this.

Dravid and Tendulkar

One of the recent issues of Sportstar carried a cover feature on these two Goliaths
of Indian cricket of their time, on the occasion of each of them reaching a milestone of their career: Sachin becoming the most capped Indian Test cricketer (132) and Dravid playing his 100th Test, Mumbai Test against England, March 2006. It quotes Shakespeare :
"Some are born great and some achieve greatness..."
Talking about Dravid, S. Ram Mahesh writes:
"He was grudgingly awarded greatness. Even there it was not a greatness easily
bestowed - his was supposed to be a greatness good batsmen "could aspire too".
A greatness that was paradoxically both easier and more difficult to attain than
Tendulkar's. Easier because you didn't need genius hardwired in your DNA to take you there; more difficult for precisely the same reason.".

The suicides have crossed 300 but the sensex has reached the 10000 mark.

"The suicides have crossed 300 but the sensex has reached the 10000 mark too."

Those were the closing lines of an article in "The Hindu" about the pitiful state of
the cotton growers of Vidarbha. The no. of suicides have been increasing year after year.
The above lines give the true picture of India. On one side the country is advancing
at a rapid rate and on the other side it is degrading at an equal or probably even
more rapid rate.

Biking to Nizamsagar

Find the photos here

SBI Connected

The branch of State Bank of India near my village (SBI Vizianagaram Cantt. branch)
is now connected to the rest of the SBI network. That's where I had taken my
education loan from and to which I have been repaying all these years by taking a D.D and then sending it via Post or courier. As a result of this change I can now pay
the loan at any of the branches in Hyderabad and further I can get the information
about the same account from any of these branches. Hope I can electronically transfer
the money to this Account. How simple it has become.

Hi-Tech City Station

This happened some 2 years back. It was when MMTS (Multi-modal trasport
system was just introduced in Hyderabad). Three of us Sarath,Torture Srikanth
and myself had to go to IIIT. I suggested we board the MMTS train
at the Nature-Cure hospital (in Ameerpet, the place where we used to stay
immediately after we were out of college) station, and we can get down
at the Hi-Tech city station, and from there take an auto to our college.
Little was I aware that the station named Hi-Tech city was no close to
Hi-Tech city. When we alighted at the station, we could only see the Hi-Tech
city building at a long distance. That station was actually in KPHB IV phase.
Not knowing how to reach there, we asked a bus-driver. He too was surprised
by our question (or rather ignorance) replied pointing us towards the
Hi-Tech building :- "Just walk along the rocky stretch." It was some 3-4 kms
as the bird flies and there was no path. I was wondering why the heck did
they name the station as "Hi-Tech City".

But today there's a tar-road well illuminated exactly the way the driver
had suggested. (The road's not yet complete though.) Probably this was the
reason they called the station "Hi-Tech City". But it is sorry to find that
the MMTS hasn't really been a hit and so some of the trains during the
non-peak hours have been cancelled recently.

My Village is connected

I can now use my Airtel cellphone from my home in my native village (Tampatapalli Village, Palakonda Mandal, Srikakulam District). I noticed this while I went there to celebrate Pongal.
It was already connected by BSNL and Reliance.

Sheer Nonsense

I dont wanna stay here what the heck am I doing here when the
world around me is running like crazy folks under the sun with no hood to stand by the lane and cros
s the hell with little support with whatever heck can they do...by contributing to the immense press
ure of the societal obligations with the family and the rest going to surrender to the pressure of t
urmoil because of unrest, protesting to garner enough support to raise a hell on the issues confront
ing the nation with little respect for the peace of the masses actually obliged to hear from the wel
l known guys foreleading the charge of waging a war against the holy king under the faith unsurmount
able, epilepsy cornering everybody blue with despair.

Software Engineers or Labourers?

Nagarjuna Sagar

Couple of days back (Dec 10th?) it was the golden jubliee of Nagarjuna Sagar. I had been to this Dam two times. But never did it occur to me that such a massive construction would take how much labour/time/money.
There was an article in the newspaper which tells us how much of a feat was it to construct the Dam 50 years ago. It seems for 15 years at any point of time (day or night) there were 50,000 labourers working on the Dam. And it seems, it had costed around 9 crores at that time.

Money

I dont know when this meaningless greed for money will come to end.
Isn't what we get, enough for living? Why the heck do we need more,
when we get so much, when compared to other professions, when compared
to our previous generations? Dont tell me it's inflation. Actually it's
the other way. We are causing inflation.
I am seriously skeptic about some kinds of jobs in IT, whether they
are really worth getting paid so much for that kind of job. But it's
all economics. I was happy at that moment when I used to get just a
fraction of what I get now.
'Make hay while the Sun shines' shouldn't be applied here.
The whole idea of saving for the unpredictable future...stinks. Stinks
too bad when there's a major portion of the society which is still
struggling to make a living.
Are we so incompetent that we have to compare our capabilities/competency
on a scale of our paycheques.

Is this a negative side of the coin or is it an illusion?

My First Overseas Travel (Travel Diary)

Start Date : 23rd Nov 2005
Retunrn Date : 05 Dec 2005
I was supposed to be in our main office in Bedford, Boston for the so called
"Hell Week". This being my first overseas journey by flight I was naturally
very excited. Managed to take one day leave and go early so that I can be there
in US for the Thanks-Giving Day.

23rd Nov 2005 (Wednesday) (IST)
-------------------------------

Started from office at around 3.00 pm. My flight to Mumbai was scheduled for
5.20 PM. The previous night I was in the office itself as I had comitted myself
to complete my task. By the time I left my house in Yousufguda it was 4 PM and I
was worried that I would be late. Brother and his friend dropped me at the
airport and I was in time for check-in. It was a Jet Airways flight and was
decent enough. I landed in Mumbai at 6.30 PM. To my knowledge this was the first
time I was setting my feet in Mmbai. My connecting flight was scheduled for
1.30 AM the next day. I completed my immigration check and then went and rested
in the waiting lounge. The furniture was good in the sense that we could almost
relax to 120 degrees. The only way to kill time was by reading the book on
Sardar Patel that I had with me and that too was dry. Tried to sleep for some
time but couldn't.

24th Nov 2005 (Wednesday) (IST & Various other Timezones)
---------------------------------------------------------
Boarded my flight to Amsterdam at 1.30 AM. It was a KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
(famous for its ageing cabin crew, particularly the air-hostesses). Entering the
flight I realized how crammed up the seat for the economy class were. It was
2-5-2 arrangement and almost 9 rows had to satisfy themseleves with one big TV.
I got the middle column. Food was served 3-4 times during the flight. From here
started my tryst with tasteless and alien food. Had to eat only for getting
energy. It was around 9 and 1/2 hours of non-stop flight. One thing very
interesting was that the current position, altitude of the flight w.r.t the
world map was regularly show on the TV. Also the outside temperature, current
local time, current time at destination, speed of the flight and remaining
duration of the journey was also shown. It's quite difficult to sit in the same
seat for such a long time. It was around 6.00 AM in the morning by the time we
landed at the Schipol International Airport, Amsterdam. Itw as still dark and
cloudy there. A tremendously big airport with five terminals A,B,C,D,E and
almost every terminal having upto 50 slots. Its quite easy to get lost in the
airport if not for the direction-boards set up everywhere. I had 5 hours to kill
before I could catch my next flight. Quickly found out my departure terminal,
got myself freshened up and then set out for going around this huge airport.
Went around the airport sometime by walk and sometimes using the walkways (sort
of horizontal escalators). It was time to have breakfast. I had to convert my
dollars into Euros to have breakfast. Found a Mc'Donalds outlet there and had
burger there. It was difficult to walk any further and so went back to my
departure terminal and killed the rest of time there.
Boarded my fligth for Los Angeles at 11.30 AM. A Northwest flight. Came to
know that Northwest had bought KLM, but still they operated as independent
entities. This time it was the famous Boeing 740-400. I was amazed by its sheer
size. Further it had two levels of seating. The upper level was a smaller one
though (maybe some 15 rows). It could carry around 450 passengers and could
reach a speed of 980 kmph. Quite interesting. Was better than the KML in terms
of the seating and also the cabin crew. An Italian guy and an American lady were
my neighbouts this time. Did some chatting with them for some time. Chatting
with the Italians, I realized how bad the Italians were at English. Later in the
trip I had some more experiences supporting this statement and in fact I can
now generalize it to encompass the whole of Europe.
It was around 2 PM by the time I landed at the Los Angeles airport. Collected
my luggage, got through the customs and immigration check and was very happy
that I had completed my air travel and would soon meet Prakash and his brother.
I was totally unaware of the travails that were in the offing. At the airport I
thought I'll relax for sometime before I call up Prakash's brother. For the
first time I used dollars in their original form. Then when I opened up my bag
for the paper which had the contac noo.s of all the people I know in US, I was
surprised and later angry with myself for not able to find it. I had missed it
somewhere while I hurriedly packed my baggage in hyderabad. This mistake of mine
was to cost very dearly. I had no option other than calling my brother in India
and ask for Prakash's contact number. But to do that I had to buy the costly
20$ AT&T calling card. Only a little later did I realize that it would give me
only 6 minuste of talktime to India. I consumed 3 such calling cards and 3 hours
before I could get Prakash's contact number. But when I called him up he wasn't
lifting and I was disgusted. One good thing that I did was that I left a message
telling where I would be waiting. After some time, I thought I would use the
internet to get in contact with someone else in US. So I went to the
international airport. But at the kiosks I could only browse, but I wanted
Yahoo messenger. I saw somebody with a Laptop. I approached him for help but
naturally he declined. Thus dejected, I decided to go back to the Terminal where
I had landed. When U walked back, to my surprise the place seemed very
unfamiliar. Moved back and forth to find "my place", but was clueless. I thought
I was lost, then suddenly realized that I had taken an escalator and had come
to the upper level. So I descended to the lower level and bingo I found
"my place". While I was roaming back and forth, the security personnel grew
suspicious over me and started passing occasional stare at me. I started
pretending that I was normal. Luckily, then came my saviours: Prakash, his
brother and another friend of his. I took a deep sigh of relief as one of my
ordeals had come to an end. I narrated the whole of it to them and they told me
how stupid had I been by not keeping multiple copies of all the documents. I
also realized how much I had to pay ( 60$) for this stupid mistake of mine.
We headed for Prakash's Brother's (Vasu's) house in his car and I realized
the differences between India and US. The concept of freeways was amazing. Cars
were racing at around 80 miles per hour one after another with great discipline.
Temperatures are measured in Fahrenheit. so I had to recall the formula
C/5 = (F - 32)/9 quite frequently.

Stay in LA (Thanksgiving Shopping) (24th-25th Nov 2005)
--------------------------------------------------
I refreshed myself at Vasu's house. As the next day was the Thanksgiving day,
I wanted to purchase some electronic goods as they would be very cheap during
this sale. But little did I expect that there would be so much crows for these
deals. The amount of preparation by the people was totally unexpected. As there
were different stored (You have these chains of shopping stores), people would
meet the previous night and decide as to who would go to which store and buy
what items. this is what Vasu and his friends in US did too. As there would be
a huge demand for these goods, it was decided that we should start early in the
morning (4 AM) then next day and stand in the queue and grab the items that we
need. The next morning I went to one of the stores (SEARS probably). It was very
cold. Luckily I had brought enough clothing from India to protect myself from
the cold. When I went there near the store, to my astonishment the queue was
very long. Inicidentally all these people had come the previous night itself and
hadn been waiting in the beitter cold the whole night. This reminded me of Chiru
fans over here in Andhra Pradesh queuing up before the theatres for watching
their beloved star's movie on the day of the release.
Prakash bough me a Panasonice Lumix digital camera for 200$. Was a good deal.
There were many good deals but we could grab only a few.

Adventures in Sin City
----------------------
After relaxing for sometime we started for Las Vegas in Vasu's car at around
5 PM. Sudhir, Teja & Dhol had already taken a room in Excaliber (one of the
hotels) and were waiting for us. It was 10 PM by the time we reached Vegas. Las
Vegas is located in the deserty state Nevada. After some communication found the
group and went into our toom in Excaliber. The room was supposed to be occupied
by only 2 people but we all managed to take shelte in the same room (we were
six of us in total). So everytime we had to go out or come in we had to go in
pairs so as to avoid the suspicion of the security guards. There were so many
hotels like Excaliber and the ground floor of all these hotels had casinos and
there were so many people testing their luck there.
After relaxing for some time in the hotel room we set out along the strip to
catch some of the shows. (Each hotel had some special show like the Bellagio
musical fountain, cirus-circus etc.)
We went to the tallest building in Vegas. (While in the lift we could feel the
gravity through our ears). On top of these building were some fun rides. As it
is the case with fun rides, only the first time is fun. Heard that there's an
amusement park chain named "Six Flags" in US which is very famous. But as the
winter had begun I didn't get a chance to visit. After this we dropped Prakash's
brother at the hotel room and went in search for the thing I had come to Vegas.
It was 3 AM in the night by the time we settled in our beds in the hotel room.
The next morning or rather noon (It was 1 PM by the team we were out of the
hotel) , we set out to quell our hunger. Amazing buffet lunch at an Indian
restaurant. Had been quite some days that I had Indian food. I will take the
taste of this restaurant to my grave. Roamed along the strip for some time.
Couldn't do much for the rest of the day. I did try my luck at the casinos.
Played the roulette and you know won 5$. I am a lucky guy. I had to leave to LA
as my flight was scheduled for 10 PM that night. Sudhir and Vasu dropped me at
the airport. I was just in time. There wasn't enough time so had to take the
baggage along with me into the cabin. So I removed the shaving blades and tongue
cleaner. I would soon realize how much this would cost me.
I landed at 8 PM in the LA airport to catch my flight to Boston which was
scheduled for 10 PM that night. I presented my ticket at the Northwest counter
and to my disappointment I was told that my flight was a US Airways one and
that it was scheduled for 12.30 PM the next afternoon. I checked up the ticket
and found that what she said was true. It was my mistake to not to have checked
up the ticket and blindly go by the itinerary sent by Gowri two days before I
left hyderabad. How I cursed myself for this mistake of mine. Had I been careful
I would have spent that night in Las Vegas with my friends. I had to do something
for the next 14 hours. I decided to go to the waiting place at the international
airport and sleep there. So I went there had dinner, and spent time till 12 AM
by reading the book I had with me. I could no longer stay awake, so tried
sleeping on the chair, but that was not possible. So had to sleep on the carpet
on the floor. Unfortunately the cold wouldn't let me sleep. Somehow managed till
5 AM and I no longer could stay laid down. So washed my face, had coffe and
breakfast and went to my departure terminal and waited there for my flight to
Boston.
Boarded the flight to Boston, a US Airways one, supposed to be the cheapest
domestic airways. Had to even buy earphones and snacks/drinks on board. After
flying for 6 hours with a stopping at Pittsburgh I landed at Boston at around
10 PM. This completed my onward journey. Collected my luggage and took a cab
and landed at the Renaissance Bedford, a luxurious hotel in Bedford. This is
where I was to stay for the next 6 days.

My First Flight

yet to come.

Kabini Trip

Trekking into the jungles of Nagerhole (Kabini Trip)

Date: 14/05/05 - 15/05/05

This is about my expedition into the jungles of Nagerhole. The journey
itself to this place called Kabini Jungle Resorts was an experience. We hired
a Qualis and an Indica for this. Started at around 7.30 am from hotel Kanishka,
Bangalore. (The previous day we all had descended to Bangalore from Hyderabad
for Kiran's wedding). The older people were sitting in the smaller vehicle
and the rest eight of us were in the bigger one. Our driver Prakash was taking
us at 90-100 kmph and at times beyond that. We were just horrified at this. Uma
was regularly entertaining us with his vast knowledge of Hindi.
After travelling for about an hour we halted at Kamat hotel to have
breakfast. Eased ourself and then continued our journey. Went through Seriranga-
-patnam, passed by Mysore. All along this journey we were on the highway, but
as we went past Mysore the roads deteriorated, reducing our speed. The whole
of Mysore and infact the whole land that we saw was very fertile. This was
summer and we could see lush-green paddy fields on both sides of till the points
our sight could reach.
There weren't any signboards or milestones indicating where this place was
located and this made our journey very difficult. We had to stop at every other
junction and depend on local people to lead us. As our driver was a Kannadighan,
we didn't have to interact with the local people. Once I changed my seat with
Swathy to occupy the seat besides the driver, I put the cassette: 'Gilli' (tamil
movie in which Vijay & Trisha played the lead roles) and played it. I had heard
one of the songs earlier when I had been to Chennai and I liked it very much at
that time. The music was awesome and I enjoyed listening to it all the time.
Along the journey we played Antakshari. Neha's got a sweet and melodious
voice and Swati's was also good. The trio: Neha, Swati and Snigdha had a good
repertoire of songs and they were leading the game. Due to this all the time just
passed by and it was 3.30 in the afternoon, by the time we reached the resort.
The resort was built on the bank of Kabini River (or rather the man-made lake).
There were nets tied to the trees and I had seen things like these only in the
movies. We climbed the nets and danced and jumped like monkeys. I forgot that
I was no longer a child, but that's ok at times it gives you so much pleasure to
go back to childhood even for a few moments.
We were all hungry and so immediately had our lunch, got ourselves freshened
up and were ready for the Safari. We boarded the open top Jeep and embarked on
the journey through the jungles. Afsar was our guide. Initially for half an
hour we couldn't spot any creature other than birds, but soon we were all on our
feet looking at all the wild animals. There were plenty of deers and they were all
in big herds. Soon we spotted jungle fowls, bisons, Sambars, peacocks, wild dogs,
wild pigs and elephants. I missed my camera very much. There were many elephants
grazing the grass on the bank of the lake. Because the lake was man-made, we could
see dead trees amidst water (which had died of sumersion).
It was 8 pm by the time we were back to our tents. Had dinner and then roamed
for some time around the resorts and I could feel the mild breeze flowing. Later
we watched a documentary shot in the Nagerhole forest. Watching it sitting inside
the forest was an experience by itself.
Next day early in the morning at 7 am we started for another safari through
the jungles. The jungles were dense at some places but really not as dense as I
had expected. Perhaps visiting the place sometime during the monsoon would turn
beauty into it's superlative form. This was the first time I got an oppurtunity
to ride an elephant. It was good. Mary & Sundari were the elephants that carried
us on their backs. We got the chance of boating in those small-circular boats.
On this boat we entered the jungles in the water (the dead trees emerging out of
water). Some of use even rowed the boat. I too wanted to. Again I missed my camera.
We then returned to our tents, vacated them and started on our journey home.
Overall it was a beautiful experience in the company of my colleagues and nature.
I was enjoying every moment of it. How I felt I should leave everything and stay
in these jungles with these animals. There was this person called Wakefield, who
supposedly started the resorts and has been staying there all alone (without family)
for 25 years. He had followed his inner calling.
Some images here

What a Family can do

Recently I came across two instances where the to and fro side of having a family was visible from close quarters.

1) In the movie "Cindrella Man", Jim Braddock, the protagonist resurrects like a Phoenix to come back into the boxing ring and win the world heavyweight championship, and the major reason being the need to feed his family. If he hadn't had a family probably he wouldn't have felt the impulse to come back.

2) This is about my school teacher, who was very close to me and had philanthropic thoughts at the time when I was in school. He was the one who had encouraged me during my higher secondary education through monetary support. (I wouldn't call it support, but the action did encourage me). After a long time I met him and I was surprised to see the changes in his perspective. Seems like marriage & family have taken its toll. The moment you have wife and kids you have to look after them and plan for your kids future and so you need money/property for your family. Only if you are blessed with enough money can you take some part of it and spend on the community.

Che Guevara

Che Guevara...Only thing I know about him is that he is a revolutionary of the 60s who had the Latin American masses behind him, trying to spread communism across the entire South America.
Dont even remember his actual name.
Some good books on him would be appreciated.

Wonderful Photo Sharing site

In the last week I had send our new office photos to a lot of my friends which I did thru email. This is when I realized the need to share my photos online. Looked at "Hello Picasa" but it wasn't possible to share the photos publicly to everybody. Sometime back one of my friends (I guess it was vakiba) who had introduced Flickr (www.flickr.com) to me. I checked it now and I liked it very much. There are offline Desktop tools using which I can post my photos (haven't checked it though) and it's even possible to upload the photos by e-mail. I like it.
Here is where you can find my photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/dhiraj

Travelogue: Ride to Nagarjuna Sagar

Who : Hari, Prasad, Sudhan (Colleague @Progress) and myself
Distance : 320 km in total
Started : 7.30 a.m, 2-July-2005
Back in Hyd : 8.00 p.m same day
Places to visit: Dam, Boating to Nagarjuna Konda and Ettipotala.

Had been very busy with work for the past one month. So really needed some
means of relaxation. Initially Sudhan suggested we go to Belum Caves (Kurnool),
but keeping in mind the distance (~ 320 km each side), declined it and instead
decided to go to Nagarjuna Sagar. Our ever-enthusiastic guys Hari and Prasad too
jumped in. I wasn't expecting much from this trip...but it turned out to be a
worthy ride.
Started at 7.30 a.m from our flat at Somajiguda. Hari piggybacking on Prasad's
bike and myself on Sudhan's. It was cloudy and wind was blowing at good speed.
The climate ideally suits a ride. With little difficulty we were out of the
city. Stopped at one of the irani cafe's to quell our hunger. Couldn't expect
for better eateries along the route. But he served us stale food...probably
remnants of previous night's stuff.
We were going at tremendous speed as the road was good and it being early hours
of the day there weren't many vehicles. 100 kmph was a norm and occasionally
touched 120 kmph. Pulsar seems to be wonderful for long distance journeys. I was
sitting at the back and hadn't put a helmet. The thrust of the wind was enormous
and it was difficult to keep my eyes open. It changed my haistyle completely.
Whenever we were going past a heavy vehicle (coming in the opposite direction),
the bike would gently oscillate because of the force. We stopped every 40-50 km
by a road-side tea-stall for a sip. Close to Sagar, we saw a board saying
"Crocodiles here. It is not safe to swim here"...We looked all around and
could only find rocks but no water :-). By 10.30 we were at the Dam. There was
plenty of water in the valley and it was blackish...but still it wasn't reaching
the crest-gates. I was surprised to find considerably big waves reaching the
banks of the river.
Just at the left bank of the dam there was a fleet of steps running down to the
river bed...constructed during the Krishna puskaraalu time. We went down there,
drenched our feet in the water for some time and took some snaps. People were
bathing there. We too should have taken a bath :-(. Prasad had thought of it
earlier and came prepared for taking bath...but donno why didn't get into water.
We had to catch the launch which would start from the other bank of the dam so..
we rode on the dam and went to the other bank. Took some pics on the dam...and
here our Prasad suggested we take photos in different angles. He had a nice
digital camera.
FYI, the dam is constructed on Krishna river and was built in the late 50s and
supposed to be one of the earlier dams built during Nehru's reign. There's
a statue of Nehru and the plaque besides it showcased the belief of Nehru that
dams are the temples of modern India. The road on the dam was quite a long one.
One bank of the dam lies in Nalgonda and the other in Guntur. There are a total
of 26 canals, 13 each in the two districts. It seems that the crest-gates of
the dam weren't opened since 1999. So those of whom are waiting to visit the
place during the time when the gates will be opened, can drop that idea.
It was 11.30, We rushed to the launch (boat) and boarded it. It took us to an
island called Nagarjuna Konda which is about 1/2 an hour from the Dam. Nagarjuna
Konda is quite a good place, the main attraction being the Museum which hosts
ancient monuments (mainly related to Buddism) from 3rd-4th century A.D. Actually
the site was found in the valley in around 1930s and the initial excavation was
done then. The site would have been submerged because of the dam if they had
not moved it onto the island. There were stupas and other buddist structures on
the island which we couldn't see as we were running short of time. 1 hour to see
the complete island wasn't enough. The boating experience is nice. As an aside,
we were the last set of people to both board and alight the launch. We kept the
other people waiting for us.
By 1.30 p.m we were back at the dam. It had become sunny by then. Had food at
some hotel. The food was great (part of the reason being we were too hungry).
From there we went to the much hyped "Ettipotala Falls", which is around 17 km
from the Dam. We had good expectations on this...but it disappointed. There
wasn't much water. But I guess it's good enough for Andhra Pradesh.
Started on our return journey from there. Didn't have enough enthu and
energy to drive at high speed. Stopped every ~50 km for a tea. By 8.00 p.m we
were back in the city.

Find the pics here:-
1. http://www.medhas.org/gallery/index.php?list=events/NagarjunaSagar
(Courtesy Prasad)
2. Sagar with gates open